don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

I recommend an article by columnist Maureen Dowd of the NY Times, published in most local newspapers on June 12, 2001. She writes about women and drugs, and it’s a good background piece for appreciating the tendency of many doctors (and their patients) to look for a quick fix to complicated lifestyle problems.

One of the objectives of a wellness lifestyle, which I discussed in a recent series of “Dons’ Reports,” is to learn how to beat the system. This is more easily done on a personal level than making the changes necessary for the entire country to beat the system. One way to personally beat the system is to recognize the myriad ways that the system is NOT designed and run to make your life better, or to save you money. More often, the system is organized and managed for the express purpose of advancing the interests of big business, not consumers. The system works best for large organizations when you are persuaded to buy stuff you don’t need and which may, in fact, be hazardous to your health--even if the products (drugs, especially) are used as designed.

Basically, the way to beat the system is to go around it, to make personal changes in your approaches, bit by bit and little by little, by taking responsibility where you don’t really have to. This could mean, among other things, rejecting the lure of the quick fix. For instance, a deliberate, methodical approach to understanding and modifying prescription and over the counter drug-taking norms that damage your health is part of optimal functioning for everyone, particularly women. This is how a goal like beating the system must be approached, rather than attempting to strike one mighty and satisfying blow and being done with it.

Maureen Dowd’s column contains this inflammatory statement, “A lot of women I know are wacko-bango.” Besides the fact that no man on Earth save perhaps Saddam Hussein could utter such a line and keep his job, not to mention important body parts involved in the reproductive process, this was news to many guy readers. We thought “The Stepford Wives” was just a movie, that the Miltown and Valium-fixes employed to calm, sooth, placate and affect the behavior of the fairer sex depicted in that flick were amusing fiction. Dowd’s column suggests otherwise. Could it be true that this situation is a common feature of what has become a medication lifestyle for many if not most American women today?

Dowd suggests as much. She describes the prevalence of women of all ages, nation-wide, on little red, yellow and blue feel-good pills, multiple mood-smoothing meds, and specifically mentions high school seniors on spring break. Young women commonly receive meds from doctors to enable them to deal with life’s stressors; some are given anti-anxiety and anti-depression drugs by doctors to provide an “extra edge” in their quests for admittance to Ivy League and other desirable colleges. This is in addition to what might be useful medications for dealing with hormonal changes, such as meds with testosterone for jump-starting libidos. Dowd makes mention of what she termed “sensurround cocktails” containing estrogen, progesterone, DHEA, pregnenelone and tryptophan for these purposes.

Of course, there are lots of women who are not happy with such a thesis from Ms. Dowd. One wrote a letter-to-the-editor as follows, “Antidepressants don't alter mood like speed or Ecstasy. They are medications to balance brain chemistry. Antidepressants are not "dolls" or "feel good" pills. In many instances they allow people to go back to work or to live life without the crushing pain that all too often makes suicide seem the only option.”

Dowd claims that studies show women in most cultures have twice the rates of depression that men; some doctors believe that women are "hormonally more complicated and biologically more vulnerable” than men, therefore> they must be medicated if they are to cope. Maybe, maybe not. Not all doctors agree with this kind of thinking or the medical practices that follow from it.

Depression is a mysterious thing, not fully understood as yet, though many experts have strong opinions on many aspects of the phenomenon. Did you know that there is an “antidepressant for women who compulsively shop?” I’m not making this up, as Dave Barry might insist. It’s called Celexa. Another manufacturer offers something called Sarafem, in a pink and lavender capsule no less, to enable women to deal with a newer malady, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, a version of PMS, I suppose. One doctor called this creative product of the drug company that made it “Prozac in drag," which Dowd suggests was supposed to help career women assert themselves. As with the other drugs targeted to women, such as Ritalen, Paxil, and Serzone, this one comes with a multimillion-dollar ad campaign.

How did the system come to be like this? Again, it’s not a plot—it’s just the way things evolved. It’s part of the free enterprise system—the big drug manufacturers profit from selling the feel good meds, and doctors can see more people by writing prescriptions than teaching lifestyle skills for effective self-management. Doctors are not taught or supported to perform the latter role, but they get lots of rewards for going along with drug-dispensing customs.

This might be a topic for another essay, but it seems to me that this nation is fighting the wrong war! Instead of a war against drugs, meaning marijuana and other illegal concoctions used for entertainment, the health of the population might be better served by restraining the quite legal drug and advertising industry. These two sectors of our economy reap extraordinary profits selling coping drugs at the cost of ill health and diminished life quality for millions of women, who become addicted to feel good medicated lifestyles.

What to do? Well, there are no easy solutions but, on a broad level, I strongly recommend you choose wellness over drugs and adopt a wide range of strategies for pursuing excellence in a drug free manner. Such a course is more difficult but I believe it is safer and will prove a lot less expensive. In addition, a self-management lifestyle that incorporates natural stress management techniques has fewer side effect dangers and, in my opinion, will prove more effective and fulfilling than pill popping .

Finally, it seems to me that a wellness lifestyle will give you more reasons to look on the bright side of life than will efforts to medicate away life's daily challenges, problems and uncertainties. At least that's been my experience and observation over the years--and I do hope it works for you. First invest your creative energies over time in a healthy lifestyle addressing all domains and skill areas of self-management. If, after all that, you still feel stressed or in need of symptom relief, well, it's good to have a fall back position of effective medications. Use drug taking as a fallback position, though, not a first option. First choose the wellness approach, and save the pills as a last resort.

Good wishes. All the best.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MENTAL DOMAIN under the skill area of stress management. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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