During 2009, in the U.S.A., the drug escitalopram was prescribed 27,698,000 times (figures from International Marketing Services). This made it the second most popular of all the 'psychiatric' pharmaceuticals, outgunning such well-known drugs as Prozac and Diazepam (Valium).
I have my own experience of this commonly-taken, apparently very useful, psychoactive substance. It was, I think, in 2002, during my final years of living in London. I had, in truth, outstayed my welcome in the Big City, and it showed. With 25 years of Buddhist meditation and practice behind me, I had nevertheless transmuted into a walking dictionary of modern stress-related disorders. I was sort-of able to manage it all, but eventually decided to pay a visit to my G.P.: not with any particular wish for him to do anything about it, but more because, as the cliche goes, it's good to talk - to someone, even the local G.P.
He welcomed me into his surgery. I took a seat, and began to regale him with details of my various discomforts. To my surprise, he became animated as I continued to talk: I had no idea that migraines and intestinal irregularities could cause such interest. By the time I had concluded my tales of urban malaise, he was positively bouncing up and down on his chair. He reached over and plucked a scrappy little piece of paper from beside his computer. On it were written several questions, so vague and general as to be meaningless. I answered them as best I could, after which the doctor turned to me and pronounced triumphantly:'G.A.D.!' Noticing the puzzled expression on my face, he expanded. 'Yes, G.A.D. Generalised Anxiety Disorder. By chance, we have just the thing for you here. We are trialling a new drug to deal with this very disorder. Would you like to join?' Now, taking prescription tablets for psychological difficulties was completely out of character, against all my ideas and theories about life,and the last thing I would imagine to be effective. So I said 'Yes.'
Within a few days, the escitalopram was doing its thing. Now, at last, I'd really got something to feel worried about! It seemed to have triggered a genuine generalised anxiety. I sensed that large areas of my consciousness were being closed off, and that what remained consisted of large, empty holes. Worst of all was the fact that I seemed unable to access my memory banks, which was particularly tricky since I was supposed to be teaching English language to people from abroad. Even the most basic piece of vocabulary was almost impossible to recall. One particular class was a fairly advanced one, studying for an examination that included aspects of physical geography. A student popped a question: 'What do you call it when rocks come down a mountain, for example after heavy rain or an earthquake?' I stood in front of the class, searching desperately down the empty corridors in my mind for an answer. At last something came to me. 'Avalanche' I declared proudly. Two French-speaking students in the class looked at each other doubtfully. 'Isn't that for snow?' one of them eventually piped up. 'No' I answered, looking him straight in the eye. 'In English it's different. We use "avalanche" for rocks as well.'
Soon I was back at the doctor's surgery. 'Please take me off the trial' I begged deep from within my state of babbling wreckhood. The doctor called in a senior colleague and, solemn-faced, they witnessed me signing off the escitalopram wonder drug trial. The fact that they looked so pissed off made me suspicious: did it mean that my experience wouldn't count in the final analysis of the drug? Surely 'reduced the subject to a total nervous mess' was a significant finding in evaluating the effects of escitalopram. Did my experience count in the final statistics? If not, the figures are warped.
I walked through the park on my way home. Being free of the escitalopram curse, I felt like singing to the tress in my state of semi-satori. What's wrong with a touch of anxiety, anyway? It's the natural response of any non-enlightened mind to the dualistic world it appears to inhabit. And I remembered a word: landslide.
During the course of this particular incarnation, I have had occasion to encounter a variety of psychoactive substances, ranging from sugar, coffee, and alcohol, to a number about which the U.K. Home Secretary is less enthusiastic. Sometimes this has been for fun or relaxation, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes for reasons of gnosis, and sometimes for a mixture of all three. In the case of quite a few of these psychoactives, I have felt that too large a dose, or frequent consumption, would be unwise from the point of view of either mental or physical health. However, besides escitalopram, which seriously challenged my ability to function mentally at all, there is only one substance which I sensed could have truly blown me apart .......
It was probably 1975. Having graduated from Oxford University, I was now engaged in something far more meaningful, and living in a commune that I had helped to found. Carlos Castaneda was all the rage. Like many people around me, I was reading his books about the Mexican shaman sorcerors Don Juan and Don Genaro; unlike a lot of others, however, reading was not enough for me. Maybe supplies of acid had temporarily dried up, I do not remember. Anyhow, I turned to Castaneda's books for psychedelic shamanic wisdom. Three main plant teachers appear in his tomes. Peyote cactus was nowhere to be found, not even on a reconnaissance to Kew Gardens, and I was unfamiliar with the magic psilocybe mushrooms native to British pasturelands. The third, clearly weirdest and least predictable, plant was readily available, however. Datura stramonium, aka jimson weed, could be purchased from the local chemist as a remedy for asthma. I bought a green tin of powdered leaf over the counter, and knocked back a couple of spoons of the vile-tasting stuff.
Some time later I was sitting with my fellow commune members having dinner. Unfortunately, I was unable to swallow anything, since my mouth was so dry that all the moisture in the food was immediately sucked out. People and objects around me dissolved into a blurry mess; rather than the sense of ego-softening and connectedness that can come with classic psychedelics, there was just sensory confusion. It all became too much. I decided to give up for the day, and staggered to my bed.
As I lay down, it seemed that everything was closing down except for the basic automatic processes of the body, such as breathing. My friends were justifiably concerned about me, and came to check up on my state. Apparently, I was standing stock still on the landing near the bathroom, completely oblivious to their presence. They returned thirty minutes later, to find me still there, motionless. Then something changed, and I momentarily regained awareness of the world around me. 'I'm going to the toilet' I announced boldly, then dashed into the bathroom.
Two days later, a friend called in for a chat. He was still a blur in front of me, and I feared that I had suffered permanent damage to my eyes. My trepidation proved unfounded, but the episode was a great teacher to me. I learnt the need for respect for psychoactives, and for life in general. That this life, so precious (as Buddhist texts teach us), is fragile; approach with love and reverence.
Nowadays, there is no excuse for the jimson weed misadventure: excellent sources of education and information are out there. Read about datura stramonium on Erowid, and you will know not to mess with this particular plant, unless you are a highly experienced shaman. Meanwhile, western society is sufficiently lacking in soul and vital life force so that millions of people resort to escitalopram and the like to stumble their mind-numbed way through the day. At the same time, huge numbers of folk languish in jail for selling or taking substances that are statistically less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. Hats off to Angus Mcqueen for his recent excellent three-part documentary 'Our War on Drugs' on Channel Four. As predicted on this blog, it takes Channel Four, rather than the biased BBC, to come up with a hard-hitting series that effectively tears global drug policies to shreds. Watch it if you can, it's a rarity, a highly recommendable and in places poignant piece of education on mainstream television.
I have my own experience of this commonly-taken, apparently very useful, psychoactive substance. It was, I think, in 2002, during my final years of living in London. I had, in truth, outstayed my welcome in the Big City, and it showed. With 25 years of Buddhist meditation and practice behind me, I had nevertheless transmuted into a walking dictionary of modern stress-related disorders. I was sort-of able to manage it all, but eventually decided to pay a visit to my G.P.: not with any particular wish for him to do anything about it, but more because, as the cliche goes, it's good to talk - to someone, even the local G.P.
He welcomed me into his surgery. I took a seat, and began to regale him with details of my various discomforts. To my surprise, he became animated as I continued to talk: I had no idea that migraines and intestinal irregularities could cause such interest. By the time I had concluded my tales of urban malaise, he was positively bouncing up and down on his chair. He reached over and plucked a scrappy little piece of paper from beside his computer. On it were written several questions, so vague and general as to be meaningless. I answered them as best I could, after which the doctor turned to me and pronounced triumphantly:'G.A.D.!' Noticing the puzzled expression on my face, he expanded. 'Yes, G.A.D. Generalised Anxiety Disorder. By chance, we have just the thing for you here. We are trialling a new drug to deal with this very disorder. Would you like to join?' Now, taking prescription tablets for psychological difficulties was completely out of character, against all my ideas and theories about life,and the last thing I would imagine to be effective. So I said 'Yes.'
Within a few days, the escitalopram was doing its thing. Now, at last, I'd really got something to feel worried about! It seemed to have triggered a genuine generalised anxiety. I sensed that large areas of my consciousness were being closed off, and that what remained consisted of large, empty holes. Worst of all was the fact that I seemed unable to access my memory banks, which was particularly tricky since I was supposed to be teaching English language to people from abroad. Even the most basic piece of vocabulary was almost impossible to recall. One particular class was a fairly advanced one, studying for an examination that included aspects of physical geography. A student popped a question: 'What do you call it when rocks come down a mountain, for example after heavy rain or an earthquake?' I stood in front of the class, searching desperately down the empty corridors in my mind for an answer. At last something came to me. 'Avalanche' I declared proudly. Two French-speaking students in the class looked at each other doubtfully. 'Isn't that for snow?' one of them eventually piped up. 'No' I answered, looking him straight in the eye. 'In English it's different. We use "avalanche" for rocks as well.'
Soon I was back at the doctor's surgery. 'Please take me off the trial' I begged deep from within my state of babbling wreckhood. The doctor called in a senior colleague and, solemn-faced, they witnessed me signing off the escitalopram wonder drug trial. The fact that they looked so pissed off made me suspicious: did it mean that my experience wouldn't count in the final analysis of the drug? Surely 'reduced the subject to a total nervous mess' was a significant finding in evaluating the effects of escitalopram. Did my experience count in the final statistics? If not, the figures are warped.
I walked through the park on my way home. Being free of the escitalopram curse, I felt like singing to the tress in my state of semi-satori. What's wrong with a touch of anxiety, anyway? It's the natural response of any non-enlightened mind to the dualistic world it appears to inhabit. And I remembered a word: landslide.
During the course of this particular incarnation, I have had occasion to encounter a variety of psychoactive substances, ranging from sugar, coffee, and alcohol, to a number about which the U.K. Home Secretary is less enthusiastic. Sometimes this has been for fun or relaxation, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes for reasons of gnosis, and sometimes for a mixture of all three. In the case of quite a few of these psychoactives, I have felt that too large a dose, or frequent consumption, would be unwise from the point of view of either mental or physical health. However, besides escitalopram, which seriously challenged my ability to function mentally at all, there is only one substance which I sensed could have truly blown me apart .......
It was probably 1975. Having graduated from Oxford University, I was now engaged in something far more meaningful, and living in a commune that I had helped to found. Carlos Castaneda was all the rage. Like many people around me, I was reading his books about the Mexican shaman sorcerors Don Juan and Don Genaro; unlike a lot of others, however, reading was not enough for me. Maybe supplies of acid had temporarily dried up, I do not remember. Anyhow, I turned to Castaneda's books for psychedelic shamanic wisdom. Three main plant teachers appear in his tomes. Peyote cactus was nowhere to be found, not even on a reconnaissance to Kew Gardens, and I was unfamiliar with the magic psilocybe mushrooms native to British pasturelands. The third, clearly weirdest and least predictable, plant was readily available, however. Datura stramonium, aka jimson weed, could be purchased from the local chemist as a remedy for asthma. I bought a green tin of powdered leaf over the counter, and knocked back a couple of spoons of the vile-tasting stuff.
Some time later I was sitting with my fellow commune members having dinner. Unfortunately, I was unable to swallow anything, since my mouth was so dry that all the moisture in the food was immediately sucked out. People and objects around me dissolved into a blurry mess; rather than the sense of ego-softening and connectedness that can come with classic psychedelics, there was just sensory confusion. It all became too much. I decided to give up for the day, and staggered to my bed.
As I lay down, it seemed that everything was closing down except for the basic automatic processes of the body, such as breathing. My friends were justifiably concerned about me, and came to check up on my state. Apparently, I was standing stock still on the landing near the bathroom, completely oblivious to their presence. They returned thirty minutes later, to find me still there, motionless. Then something changed, and I momentarily regained awareness of the world around me. 'I'm going to the toilet' I announced boldly, then dashed into the bathroom.
Two days later, a friend called in for a chat. He was still a blur in front of me, and I feared that I had suffered permanent damage to my eyes. My trepidation proved unfounded, but the episode was a great teacher to me. I learnt the need for respect for psychoactives, and for life in general. That this life, so precious (as Buddhist texts teach us), is fragile; approach with love and reverence.
Nowadays, there is no excuse for the jimson weed misadventure: excellent sources of education and information are out there. Read about datura stramonium on Erowid, and you will know not to mess with this particular plant, unless you are a highly experienced shaman. Meanwhile, western society is sufficiently lacking in soul and vital life force so that millions of people resort to escitalopram and the like to stumble their mind-numbed way through the day. At the same time, huge numbers of folk languish in jail for selling or taking substances that are statistically less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. Hats off to Angus Mcqueen for his recent excellent three-part documentary 'Our War on Drugs' on Channel Four. As predicted on this blog, it takes Channel Four, rather than the biased BBC, to come up with a hard-hitting series that effectively tears global drug policies to shreds. Watch it if you can, it's a rarity, a highly recommendable and in places poignant piece of education on mainstream television.
