Remember Ambien? I don’t, which is to say I do since I used to take up to 10 a night—pills that my psychiatrist had urged me to cut into quarters. I think I followed his instructions for the first week but when those quarters barely made a dent in my insomnia, it was easy enough to abandon the knife I’d been using to cut them up altogether and just swallow a whole pill. The drug was ruthless with my tolerance; it seemed like I could sleep for only a few nights before I’d have to bump up another pill. And when coke addiction came along? Well, 10 didn’t seem like so many at all, even when I would find myself driving somewhere the day afterwards and suddenly realize I had no idea where I was going or why. This was before anyone talked about Ambien, let alone the stories about Ambien eating and crimes had surfaced. So I was interested to read that Olympian swimmer Grant Hackett is now in treatment for his addiction to it, after apparently running through a hotel lobby in his underwear. And to see it come up in the Kerry Kennedy trial (turns out that she’d popped an Ambien along with her breakfast of carrots and cappucino the morning she was busted for driving while impaired).
Less Insane Sleep Aids
Interestingly, despite the fact that many drugs are metabolized differently by men and women, Ambien is apparently the only one for which the FDA has different suggested doses based on gender. One interesting aspect of Ambien addiction, at least for me, was that I didn’t think of it as a problem because I didn’t do it for “fun.” I’d always had trouble sleeping and so I justified my taking it as actually healthy—despite the fact that I had to keep telling my doctor I was leaving my prescription bottles in Houston or Des Moines or wherever else I claimed to be traveling when I wasn’t in fact leaving my home much at all. I hope by now most people out there are far more aware than I was then and understand that there are many, many ways for insomniacs to sleep—from Melatonin to antidepressants like Trazodone to all sorts of non-pill solutions, none of which cause you to wake up with your face in a cake.
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