MENTAL HEALTH  Effects of minor tranquillisers |
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Mother's little helper
At this moment well over 100 million people have one
of the minor tranquillisers coursing around in their bloodstream. Most of us realise that
these drugs won’t make our problems disappear. We just pray they’ll make us
worry less about them. But, as Ron Lacey explains, drugs like Valium can bring far more
worries than they ever take away.
LAST YEAR Hoffmann-La Roche sued the authors of a J,ook called Stopping
Valium. The book brought together much of the bad news about the benzodiazepine group
of drugs - of which Valium
is the Big Daddy. But that was not what Hoffmann-La Roche were objecting to. No, their
action was against the authors’ use of the Valium trade mark in the book. In the end
Roche lost their case because the authors were able to prove that Valium has become to
minor tranquillisers what Hoover has become to vacuum cleaners.
Valium is the most profitable drug in history and enjoys an entry in
the Guinness Book of Records as the most widely prescribed drug in the world. Along with
its less famous cousins in the benzodiazepine family, it is prescribed principally to
alleviate anxiety. In 1980 nearly 40 million prescriptions for these drugs were written by
family doctors alone in the UK, at a cost to the National Health Service of almost $45 million.
Every year 14 per cent of the adult population in the UK take a benzodiazepine, either as
a sleeping pill or a tranquilliser.
According to one study, 1.5 per cent of adults in the UK have
been taking one of the benzodiazepines for a year or longer. A quarter of a million people
have been on them for five years or more. And there are thousands of people who have been
on these drugs continually for periods of up to 15 years.
The figures are even worse in the US, where at least one third of
adults have had at least one prescription for one of the minor tranquilisers and where the
National Council for Drug Abuse dubbed Valium the ‘most abused drug in the US’.
A report in the British Medical Journal in November last year showed
that people taking this group of drugs were between five and nine times more likely to be
involved in accidents at work. National statistics for traffic accidents have yet to be
obtained, but someone well within the breathalyser limit for alcohol can be dangerously
incapable if they have also taken a dose of Valium. And in the US, the Drug Enforcement
Administration has reported that Valium is more often involved in drug-related deaths and
emergencies than heroin, marijuana or alcohol put together.
Apart from the danger of overdose and accident, many other
‘side’ effects are commonly associated with taking minor tranquillisers. These
include apathy, low blood pressure, lack of co-ordination, impaired intellectual
functioning, giddiness, loss of weight and impaired skills. More rarely these drugs have
been linked with violent outbursts. One study suggested a link between baby battering and
consumption of minor tranquillisers. And another suggested the long term use may cause
atrophy of the brain. A further study of 19,000 live births in the US found that birth
defects were five times higher in babies whose mothers had been taking these drugs during
pregnancy.
Elderly people are particularly vulnerable to the effects of these
drugs. According to the British Medical Journal elderly people are more likely to be
prescribed these drugs and much more prone to serious and distressing side effects. Even
more worrying is evidence that elderly people on drugs like Valium are likely to be
labelled senile when their ‘senility’ could easily be reversed by stopping the
drug. One Scandinavian study found that one-third of old people admitted to
psycho-geriatric units suffering from confusion were simply exhibiting the side effects of
their psychoactive medication.
So are the side effects worth it? Unfortunately the evidence is that
the benzodiazepans only work in the very short term. Those products marketed as
tranquillisers - like Valium,
Ativan, Tensium - only
relieve anxiety for up to about four months. And those marketed as sleeping pills - like Mogadon, Dalmane, Nitrados - are only effective for between three
and 12 days.
The effects on the mind may be relatively short-lived. But the effects
on the body linger on and on - only to be banished
by further doses of the same drug. So, in a very short time the only point in taking the
drug is to keep withdrawal symptoms at bay. (See box) And there is now an extensive
literature proving that people become addicted to these drugs even when taking them in
accordance with their doctors’ instructions.
There is something particularly tragic about addiction to a drug which
appears to have no long-term benefit. When I ran a telephone advice service on the
BBC’s Radio London a distressingly large number of calls I received were from people - usually women - who had been taking one of a variety of
benzodiazepine drugs for many years without, it seemed, any pleasant long-term effects
whatsoever.
Today there is a growing awareness amongst doctors and the general
public that drugs like Valium have been over prescribed. Whether that awareness will
ultimately lead ‘us towards non-chemical means to deal with the apparent epidemic of
unhappiness, anxiety and stress which seems to be engulfing the Western World is open to
considerable doubt. The consumption of alcohol rises all the time as does alcohol
addiction. Glue sniffing appears to be reaching epidemic proportions. The use of heroin is
rising. The sales of psychoactive drugs, both legal and illegal, continue to generate
enormous profits for those who sell them.
Perhaps the hopeful sign in the West is that tobacco consumption is
falling. But good news in the developed world is bad news for the Third World. The tobacco
industry has increasingly switched its marketing towards the Third World where cigarette
smoking is increasing. If we in the West do begin to consume less mood-altering drugs,
there seems little doubt that our prosperous and vigorous pharmaceutical industry will
direct its sales efforts toward the Third World.
But if these matters make us in the developed world too anxious there
is always Evacalm, Valium, Atensine, Diazepam, Valrelease, Diaxemuls and Solis to name but
one. And if we have too many sleepless nights we can try Mogodon, Remnos, Nitrados,
Somnite or Somnased to name but one again. To paraphrase Henry Ford, we can have any minor
tranquilliser or sleeping pill we like as long as it is a benzodiazepine. And if that
doesn’t do the trick there are always the antidepressants. So there’s really no
cause to worry, is there?
Ron Lacey is Social Work Advisor for MIND.
He is at present also involved in the BBC series
That’s Life! which will concentrate on abuse of
minor tranquillisers in Britain.
The tranquility trap
Linda Raugh Peregal used to take Valium when she felt anxious. Seven
years
later she
was a Valium junkie. Here she talks about breaking the habit.
I began experiencing severe anxiety attacks when I was 21. I went to a
psychiatrist who prescribed Valium, saying I needed it to ‘take the edge off the
panic. He said it was absolutely harmless - about
as potent and dangerous as aspirin. He kept my prescription -
four pills daily - going for seven years.
Taking a Valium was like getting a fix. About fifteen minutes after
taking a pill I would feel calm, relieved and secure, not afraid of anything. But after
one-and-a-half hours the effects wore off. Between doses I became
fidgety. My head would feel tight and I felt panic-stricken.
I wasn’t aware that anything was wrong for a long time. The idea
of addiction never entered my head. I didn’t realise that my bad memory had anything
to do with Valium. But by the seventh year I was always yawning, bumping into things
and forgetting what I was saying mid-sentence. It got to the point when even crossing the
street became horrifying.
What got me to the withdrawal centre were two friends. Their constant
harping that my taking Valium was a serious issue finally aggravated me to give it a try.
After about two days of not taking Valium I began to feel strange. Then
the real symptoms began.
My entire nervous system went berserk! I felt like an exposed nerve. My
senses were painfully and abnormally acute. My muscles twitched frantically, my body went
haywire, my mind went through varying degrees of paranoia, terror, complete vacancy - to the point of not being able to think
at all.
Then my stomach bloated up, way out of proportion and I had very bad
diarrhoea. My head felt like a hundred tons. I had to move it very slowly or else it would
hurt like hell and the floor, ceiling, the walls and myself would spin wildly around.
Electric shocks pierced through my body; I jerked about involuntarily
and bad the shakes like somebody having severe withdrawal from alcohol. Then there were
the hallucinations.
The plant in my room took on the appearance of my mother. Everywhere I looked I saw
faces. A lot of people began to look like babies -
that was frightening. Their faces looked one-dimensional, as if the
eyes were made of cardboard and would just fall out if they bent over.
The psychiatrist who first prescribed Valium to me told me I would get off it when I
was ready! What a dangerous and irresponsible statement. One cannot become
‘ready’ to go off Valium. When your feelings are repressed and ignored, as they
arc when taking Valium, they are not worked through and you are never ready for anything.
After I left the withdrawal centre, I went to the local hospital where I was seen by an
intern (male, thirtyish), who, after listening to my story, told me there was no such
thing as Valium withdrawal and proceeded to write out a prescription - for Valium! I threw the prescription
back at him and left. But that kind of thing can really make you feel crazy.
During my seven years of taking Valium I did not grow emotionally at all. I dealt only
with manifestations of my real problems and ended up with compounded and unrecognizable
problems. My fears grew and I became trapped. Now I understand that it is impossible to
hide from myself without becoming sick.
From an interview first published in Health-sharing,
a Canadian magazine about
women’s health.
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