Librium - The Drug

Hey thanks for that info. Maybe we should do a "fan article" about it.

Greetings, I'm the aforementioned brother doctor.

I can confirm what's been said about Librium. Scarier still is that it's not the worst offender. There are other benzodiazepines that are more habit-forming, more heavily abused, and more frequently prescribed. I'm sure most of you have heard of Valium; it was popular in the eighties and remains in heavy use today. But, the number one worst drug as far as a real-life equivalent to Prosium would have to be alprazolam, otherwise known as Xanax.

Xanax comes in several strengths, but is most popular on the street as a two milligram "bar," an elongated rectangular tablet designed to be broken into up to four 0.5 mg doses. Its shape is so characteristic that any physician who hears the phrase "bar" knows exactly what the patient is describing.

Based on my clinical experiences, I feel it should only be used for treating very difficult psychiatric disorders, but there are other physicians who prescribe it like candy, treating situational anxiety that ultimately does not appear to stem from any real disorder so much as lack of coping skills. These physicians are in effect drug dealers, and I consider the practice highly unethical. It is difficult to call them to task on it, though I have become increasingly aggressive about it when I find their patients arriving in the ER, overdosed on the stuff. I see drug overdoses fairly often, typically about once a month. And, only twice have I seen anyone overdosed without Xanax being involved. (Both of the times, they had taken Soma, a muscle relaxant. Readers of Aldus Huxley's Brave New World might recognize the name. In the novel, Soma was used much as Prosium was in Equilibrium. Soma actually hit the market AFTER Huxley wrote his novel, too.)

The name "Prosium" would also seem to be a reference to Prozac, a "selective seritonin reuptake inhibitor." These drugs, thankfully, do not appear to be habit-forming, though they've gained a reputation among the public for being overprescribed as well--a reputation that really belongs more to drugs like Xanax and Valium.

There are legitimate uses for psychiatric drugs, and depression as a disorder is more common than most people give credit. But, the use of medication to suppress feelings and motivation only destroys the patient. People without motivation do not fix the problems causing their stress or depression, and thus only get worse. And, long-term benzodiazepine use is known to cause dementia. I'm convinced that a lot of "Alzheimer's disease" has nothing to do with amyloid plaques or genetic flaws, but is instead the result of social deconditioning paired with legalized drug abuse.