To Sleep or Not to Sleep

I had this lovely blog halfway finished when my dial-up connection decided to fail, therefore causing the loss of all my work. Damn phone calls!! Here is my feeble attempt at replicating what I had before.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have turned to sleeping pills to solve their sleeping problems. Being one of these, I felt the need to offer my perspective.

As a mere fifteen year old, I suffered from insomnia. I was sent to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with a sleep disorder. Instead of trying to work through the problem, I was prescribed 5 mg of Ambien which I was to take every night. Now, understand that I am one of the most paranoid pill poppers you will ever find. Ibuprofen doesn't even see the depths of my body, I despise taking pills of any sort. Maybe it was the Matrix that scared me off from pills, but either way, pills are something that I'd like to avoid at all costs.

Eventually, there was a need for me to take the Ambien. Trying to make it through a loaded schedule in high school and basketball conditioning on about two hours of sleep had gotten to be too much for me, I conceeded defeat at two a.m. on a Tuesday morning, the day of a basketball game. Right away, I fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning, I was stunned. Immediately falling asleep? Umm...can we say unheard of? From then on, I was hooked, imbibing a pill every night before bed. Not only would the Ambien put me out, I could fall asleep watching television and towards the end, right before I was to meet Morpheus, the colors on the television would swirl, the words the characters said would be funny. Yes, that's right, it gave you this lovely feeling of being high. An added bonus!

Every 90 or so days, I would venture over to the psychiatrist to have my prescription refilled, as time went on, I slowly saw the dosage increase, until it went as high as I would ever see it go. 10 mgs. This continued for over two years. These visits to the psychiatrist would consist of: "Hello, how you doing? Need your prescription refilled?" Because of good insurance, we didn't really have to worry about the price of Ambien, so there was nothing that seemed to threaten by ability to continue having the drug. Or so I thought.

It was a warm day this last summer, just like any other I figured. I drove over to the doctor's, handed my Kaiser card to the registrar and then she said, "I'm sorry, you didn't receive or message? Your doctor isn't in today." To which I responded, "Umm...I have exactly one pill left and I really need those in order to sleep, is there anyone else I can see?" So, she scheduled me with another doctor and I took my seat.

I went into his office and to my utter despair he comments that children my age should never, under any circumstance be on sleeping medication. He refused to give me any Ambien and sent me on my merry way.

Now, let me tell you this, I was a druggie. A medicinal druggie, but a druggie none the less. As I exited his office, it hit me. There would be no more Ambien, my eyes watered and tears flowed. I'm not the watery eye type, but those damn tears just wouldn't go away. As I drove, they continued. They stopped for awhile, but the next morning when the clock hit 6am and I hadn't had a minute of sleep, they started up again. I had scheduled a follow-up appointment with him for the next day; I figured he would at least give me a  30 day supply. You know, for the nights when I really needed the sleep. I walked out of his office that day with the suggestion that I needed to speak with someone about my sleeping problems and that pills would do nothing for me.

Three months later I still harbor a severe dislike for the older Asian psychiatrist. I played in basketball tournaments on an hour's sleep, took the SAT's exhausted and I now have these perpetual bags under my eyes, yet...he is right. Sleeping pills are not the way to go. Those pills that say "Non-addictive." Well...that just means they don't work, because any sleeping pill that works, is addictive. It's so easy to just rely on that pill, to know that no matter how much caffeine you've imbibed, how much sugar has gone through your system, you'll still go to sleep that night.

I learned the hard way. I had my weeks with little to no sleep, the withdrawal period from the sleeping aid, but now I know, I will never go back. I still have that one Ambien I had left, it sits on my bathroom counter waiting. Waiting for the night that I take up my addiction again.