All language subtitles for Take.Your.Pills.Xanax.2022.1080p.NF.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H

What do you do to deal with stress?

We got a pill that's gonna
take care of it in five minutes.

What exactly does it do?
How does it make you feel?

It takes the edge off for millions.

I keep my Xanax with me all the time.
It's in my bag right now, actually.

I knew I always had that magic bullet.
I have figured out a system that works.

The fastest thing to do
when somebody says,

"I'm stressed out. I'm not sleeping well,"

it's "Take this pill.
It'll help you sleep."

"This'll keep you calm. Goodbye."

There has been a Xanax explosion.

Prescriptions have
skyrocketed in the last two decades.

Roughly one in eight
American adults use them.

That's a lot of prescriptions.

It's kind of always been around,
to be honest.

You can always ask a friend,

"Do you have Xanax
or do know somebody who has Xanax?"

Is it because we are more anxious
as a nation?

Are we more aware?

Or is it because there are
more drugs available?

Anxiety is an alarm
saying something is wrong.

Something's very wrong right now.

To our brains and bodies,
we're not ever taking a break.

We're basically working all the time.

A half a Xanax is kind of
where I would like to live.

That's the mellow that I perceive

that everybody else is
operating at.

Wait. Hang on. It's Xanax o'clock.

A pill is a really simple solution

that we have created
this whole infrastructure to promote.

But now doctors are warning
they're more addictive and dangerous

than people think.

The first time I took it,

I said, "Oh, I understand
why people get addicted to this."

I need to be careful
with this one, definitely.

Knowing what I know now,

I would never have taken
that first prescription.

Never.

You go to a doctor,
and you expect to be helped,

what you don't realize is that
if your problems didn't scare you,

wait till you see our solutions.

We're stuck in this old story,

fixing something that's broken

instead of building resilience against it
in the first place.

One of the things that's unique
about modern life

is how much we spend our lives
in our heads.

I mean, our lives really are
now conducted largely,

you know, in this space between our ears.

We're not running away from tigers.
In some ways, that'd be much simpler.

And 2,000 years ago,
what was the main means of transportation?

- Fear.
- Fear?

An animal would growl
and give your leg a bite.

You'd run a mile in a minute.

- So fear transported...
- Fear kept you moving.

- I see.
- Fear kept you going.

When we're anxious, what's happening
in our body is very similar

to what's happening when we're fearful.

Most every brain of humans
and primates and mammals,

and even reptiles, has a fear center,
and it's called the amygdala.

In humans, there's two of them.
They're symmetrical,

they're kind of in the middle,
they're shaped a little like almonds.

The amygdala fires if there's anything
to be nervous about or fearful about.

It's that fight-flight response.

So that's our sympathetic nervous system
preparing us for action.

Our blood is pumping, our heart is racing,
our muscles are activated.

Anxiety is actually a form of energy.

And energy, if appropriately channeled,
is... can be a really positive thing.

It actually energizes us
to achieve, to accomplish.

We become smarter, more focused,
more driven, more ambitious, more hopeful,

if we have that right amount of anxiety

that we can accept
and engage with in our lives.

When I think about anxiety disorders,

I think that these are people
who have a tendency

to have this adrenaline surge,

and it's paralyzing for them.

So either it's cognitively paralyzing,
or physically paralyzing, or both.

When I'm having an anxiety attack,

the first thing I do is
I feel hot and pressure.

I feel almost like the air is thick
and sort of pushing down on me

like a really hot, really heavy blanket.

The heart is racing and thumping.

The breathing was getting faster

and felt like there was a tight band
around my chest.

It feels like I need
to breathe more frequently

to get enough oxygen
to just, like, survive.

And I just could not catch my breath.

Your pupils dilate. You start to sweat.

Blood runs away
from your stomach to your limbs.

And, you know, for me, often it's,
"Oh my God. My stomach hurts."

"What's gonna happen?
Am I gonna get sick?"

My muscles are so seized up
that I'm just clinching everything.

Rationally, you're like,
"This is... This is ridiculous."

"There's nothing there."
But we can't think with logic, um, at all.

There's a whole host
of changes that... that happen,

measurable down to the molecular level.

So that's the... the physical level.

Then there's a psychological level.
What are you feeling? Dread.

- This apprehension.
- Fear.

And then I would take a Xanax,

and... three or four minutes later...

...it was like I was normal again.

And for me...

...you can almost feel it
kick in with a click,

which is why it felt like
such a magic elixir to me.

First of all,
it gave me the physical relaxation

that I needed
to be able to relax the muscles,

relax the hands, relax the breathing,

and took the intense pressure off,

while I was trying to regain my balance.

It was really nothing like
I'd ever felt before.

It gives you the ability to just let go.

Just let go of all the stresses of the day
and all the worries of the day,

and all that weight
that's on you is... is gone.

I don't know if anyone here
has ever tried Xanax,

but it's fantastic.

Very muted claps for Xanax.

You don't really get "Whoo's,"
it's more like, "Yeah."

Benzodiazepines.

- Yes.
- This is the class of drugs.

What are the names people recognize?

Valium. Xanax.

Klonopin. Ativan.
One of the first ones is called Librium.

Really, they pharmacologically share
the same mechanism.

Benzodiazepines enhance a neurotransmitter
in the brain called GABA.

You could think of it
as being a depressant.

That is, it reduces the communication
from one brain cell to another.

So it calms the brain down.
It's like, "Shh." You know?

It calms all of these
fight-flight responses that we have.

It slows our breathing.
It slows our heart rate.

So it's depressing
all of those activations.

And as a result,

when we're biologically calmed,
we feel emotionally more calmed.

I could think clearly.
Um, my thoughts would flow smoothly.

It made me feel like
a better version of myself,

and I think in some ways, I was.

By the time I was in second grade,
I knew I was a nervous kid.

Um, I knew that I had a nervous stomach,
um, and I didn't like it.

Very early in life,
I developed an acute phobia

that my mom had, of throwing up,

um, which is a peculiar...

phobia, but not that uncommon,
we now know.

From the time I was like six years old,

um, you know,
I lived in mortal terror of that,

which led to phobia
about germs and food, and food poisoning.

And sort of the amount of time
that I spend surveying my environment

for that particular threat
over... over my life is... is kind of insane.

As I got older, um,
I would start to get panic attacks.

Hello and welcome aboard.

Flying still provokes
overwhelming physical anxiety.

Take a moment
to locate the exit nearest to you.

If I have to do public speaking,
overwhelming physical anxiety.

As I, you know, went through my career
in journalism and writing and editing,

I was having to do more flying,
more public speaking.

Over my thirties and into my forties,

I published two books
for which I had to do public speaking,

and I, kind of, through that,
learned how to kind of titrate my dosages.

And I still felt anxious

but it wasn't like Cindy Brady
in that episode of The Brady Bunch.

When this red light goes on,

we're on the air
and will be in everybody's living room.

When the red light
on the camera goes on,

and, you know, she freezes.

And then, in 2014,
I published the book My Age of Anxiety...

which talks about my issues with anxiety,
and I thought maybe it will help me

'cause that'd be the best
breakthrough ending arc for the book.

A, I'd be cured,
which would be the main thing,

B, maybe I would've had
an even bigger bestseller

'cause it's, "Here's how you do it."
Instead, it's like, "I'm still anxious."

Not as satisfying or useful,
um, an ending.

Imagine having
all your everyday activities crippled

by fears and anxiety.

Scott Stossel has fought anxiety
his whole life.

Its author, Scott Stossel, is the editor
of The Atlantic and a Harvard graduate.

He's also a married father of two.

I think in the short term,
it had a paradoxical effect

in that it made my anxiety worse.

Like, my levels of, you know,
benzodiazepine consumption went up.

How do you and 40 million other people
treat this kind of anxiety?

So I have tried lots of things,

but I'm medicated, and again,

this is something I never admitted
'cause I was ashamed.

But I take antidepressants,
benzodiazepines, which are...

- Like Xanax?
- Xanax, an antianxiety medication...

- Did you bring enough for the whole class?
- Um...

I have some.
Do you want me share?

One of the things I was trying
to figure out in writing the book is,

"Is the source of that anxiety
some hard-wiring that is genetic?"

"Is it some psychic wound
from when I was a small child?"

A large proportion
of your baseline temperament,

how you react to the world,

a lot of that you are born with.

And they've done all kinds of,
you know, twin studies.

And they can show
that has a profound effect.

As profound effect as that is,
however, it is not complete

because if it were,
paired sets of identical twins

would always have the same level
of anxiety,

and that is not at all the case.

The experiences you have
have a huge impact.

Mm-hmm.

Quick hip-hop drive. Drive.
I want those feet to drive.

My first experiences with anxiety
were definitely during my schooling years.

Because I was bullied
for most of my schooling years.

There were three Black people
in my entire elementary school.

So I was always the only Black person
in the class,

and there was a lot
of race-based bullying.

I had this fear of recess

because that was when
the worst things would happen.

I grew up in South Florida,
and I came from a humble background.

My parents, uh, didn't have a lot.

I joined the military
right out of high school

because I knew I wanted to go to college.

I needed to find a way
to pay for it myself.

I spent about fifteen months in Iraq.

I'm very fortunate to be able to say
that my deployment was mostly uneventful.

On the other hand, though,
I did experience sexual assault

while I was in the military,
and that was the one thing that caused

a lot of the issues
that I experienced after I left.

Deep breath in.
Feel that tension?

Mm-hmm.

Seventy-five?

- Close. Close.
- No.

After I came back,

I decided to move to New York City
to go to college.

I wanted to study fashion.

I felt so distant from the students
that I was studying with

because I was older than them

and had gone through things
that they hadn't gone through.

I just couldn't relate at all.

And for me, sitting in that classroom

was the most important thing
I was gonna do that day

because I gambled with my life
for a chance to sit in that seat.

Also, my brain was sort of forcing me
to start confronting

what had happened to me
while I was deployed.

So all of that was coming up
at the same time.

And that's when I was
first prescribed medication,

and they were extremely helpful
at that time

when I was basically at a crisis point,

and I was, like, hanging onto life
by my fingernails.

I was thinking last night,
before I went to bed,

"What will I need to calm down?"

I need, like, certainty.

It always attacks this, like, medium.

I need to know.

I need to know the future.
I'm like, "Is it gonna be okay?" Like...

"No, no. No, doc."
I need to speak to a doctor or a psychic.

I need to know.

So, uh, two weeks into the pandemic,
I lost my job.

I mean, I remember thinking,
"What am I gonna do about rent?"

"What am I going to do about my bills?
Like... Like, what's gonna happen?"

I made an arrangement
to live with my boyfriend.

And then, I actually found out
that he had been cheating on me,

so I had to move back home to my mom's.

So I had to stay home.

I wasn't working.

Um, I didn't have a car,

and my parents were working,
and I was alone.

And so, I had to,
like, hide this immense pain,

especially, um,
because I didn't want to hurt my parents.

They were very hurt and very upset.

And that's what I was like,
"This is anxiety."

I remember thinking,
"I don't want night to come."

Like, every single night.

And then I had a friend
who had Xanax, and I was like,

"I need to numb myself
to be able to sleep."

I asked my old therapist about it,

and I was surprised
that she told me it was up to me.

I was like, "What the hell?"

I thought that
it was going to be like...

like again, like that reassurance
of a therapist who said,

"Oh, you're not... you're not there.
You're not... You're not Xanax anxiety."

But then, she was like,

"Yeah, if you want to,
we could explore that option."

So I was like, "Ugh, wow,
ball really is in your court."

Kind of like a glass thing that you,
like, break in case of emergency,

but you have to choose
your emergency, like, so carefully.

Benzodiazepine prescriptions
have essentially been rising

over the past two to three decades.

When you even just look at the numbers
of people who struggle with anxiety.

It's a third of us in our lifetime.
A third. One in three.

And that... that means
that you are debilitated by anxiety

to a degree that you could be diagnosed
with anxiety disorder.

So it's a pretty big stat.

So what I think is happening here is
you're having a panic attack.

Oh no, those... those aren't real.

Those are a PR spin
for celebrity publicists.

Trust me, I've known
enough celebrities.

No, it's absolutely a real thing.

I think we're fed a myth
that everybody else has it together.

"I'm the only one struggling.
I'm the only one who has trouble."

Everybody else just manages it flawlessly.

What's wrong with me that I can't do that?

It's a cycle that keeps...
that spirals up at different times.

Part of that equation is expectations.

There's this expectation
that you'll be able to create something.

Not only create it
but then curate it on social media

and have a million followers.

Social media will make you anxious.
There's really no way around it.

You're comparing
your internal true experience

with their sort of external,
curated, airbrushed experience.

You'll always come up short.

There are a lot
of really brand new social problems.

You don't have boundaries
between work and home.

iPhones over eye contact
has now become status quo.

If we're in our heads, on our phones,

on our laptops, we're not in our bodies.

You know, we're elsewhere.

Teens are not hanging out as much
with friends.

We're separated from our bodies.
We're separated from each other.

We're separated from nature.

We're all just looking into our phones,
and we're by ourselves.

- Then suddenly the day's over.
- That's a huge part of it.

Maybe psychotropics are a way
to adapt to a world that we,

in some ways, are not built for.

Oh my...

We're constantly being stimulated
with these horrific events

that occur all over the world.

Are we witnessing the start
of World War III?

I grew up in a time where the news was on
only about three times a day.

- Nuclear weapons...
- This unit...

Now you can get
the news cycle going 24/7.

It's the sort of background hum

that you don't think about every day,
but it's there.

"Eco-anxiety."

The epidemic of loneliness.

Election stress disorder.

Many Americans say they feel it,
the anxiety and stress.

I'm gonna grab a Xanax from the bedroom.

Okay. Will you grab me six?

- I'm just gonna bring the whole bottle.
- Okay.

We were already not in great shape
before COVID-19 came.

Anxiety had already overtaken depression
as sort of the diagnosis du jour.

The pandemic's obviously made it worse.

It's one in a series
of stunning meltdowns.

Child Care is one of the greatest sources
of stress.

The only, uh, solution I had
was to go into a closet,

kneel, get down on my knees, kneel,

start crying and praying.
Like, "Please get me through this."

A group of mothers has found
an unusual way to cope

with the stresses and strains.

Primal scream therapy.

Scientists really cannot believe...

There's such a perfect storm of factors

that we would be more anxious today
than ever before.

If you can get in a time machine
and go back to the past,

I'd love to do it with you.

Americans drank. Oh, we drank.

Whether someone gets relief
from the bottle of alcohol

or a bottle of medicine,

people are... are doing therapy,
self-medicating themselves.

The human equipment
for what we today call anxiety

has presumably been the same
for tens of thousands of years.

We have called it melancholia,

the vapors, the English Malady,

neuroses, nervous temperament,
nervous breakdown, neurasthenia.

And neurasthenia was kind of the disease
of Gilded Age capitalism.

It was rampant.

People were being diagnosed
with it left and right.

They saw neurasthenia
as this new type of illness,

the product of modern life.

People moving into cities,
factories came online,

women moving into the workforce
and sort of achieving independence.

The steam engine,
the daily press,

and the flow of information.

Crazy pace of news.

People would read
in their newspaper in the morning

about a volcano that explodes
on the other side of the world,

and then they would dwell on it all day

about how a volcano can destroy,
um, an entire city.

Technology-induced anxiety

is not something unique to us.
We're not the first to experience it.

A typical symptom would be
an inability to turn off your thoughts.

Morbid thoughts, insomnia,

digestive issues,

different pains.

Back pain was very popular.

Sexual dysfunction, tooth decay.

Tooth decay.

A very lucrative market developed,

and that's through advertising,
advertising, advertising.

"You feel this way,

well, you might have this illness,
and here is the cure."

For many upstanding,
middle-class families,

alcohol was considered sinful.

On the other hand, medicine was medicine.

And we still get that today.

You know, you'll talk to a friend,
and the friend says things like,

"I don't take drugs."
But they take medicine.

Uh, and... Yeah.

I feel like
I always knew I had anxiety,

but I didn't wanna identify myself
as having anxiety.

It's like, "I don't want to go down
that road that makes me weaker."

"I'm fine." Like,

"Yes, I have my like little quirks
and things like that, but I'm not that."

I was watching, um, the show Girlfriends,
and they have an amazing episode

about just how Black people
and people of color sort of react

to therapy and mental health.

Y-You're going to therapy?

Joan, girl, Black people don't go
to therapy, girl, they go to church.

And I think for a lot of us,
it was like they'd pray it away.

Pray away illness,
pray away this, pray away that,

and you can't always pray away everything,
as evidenced by much.

When I was a kid,
I was loud, a bit nervous,

I had to be the boss of everything,
but I was just happy though.

I was just like,
"Yeah, this is fun. This is who I am."

These are my tantrums.
I need everything to be particular.

Um...

But I think I was funny.
I was always a pretty funny kid.

My parents put me in figure skating,
and I was like, "I'll be an Olympian."

"This is the perfect sport for me.
It's about precision, and I'm good at it,"

well up into adolescence.

And I gained some weight,
which freaked me out, and then I was like,

"Oh God, am I gay too?
Jesus, I really got dealt a hand here."

I was like, "Okay, well,
this is everything that's wrong,

so I'll just become everything
that's right."

So I became a very good student.
Became very type A.

In college, I found a lot of relief
in the party scene.

It was really sophomore year
where I just couldn't keep it all

in balance anymore, and that's when...

In my head, I was like,
"Yeah, it's because I can't focus."

"Everyone else is taking Adderall,
so that's why I'll go see a doctor."

"I'll go take Adderall,
and everything will be fine

because I'll be able to do it all."
But very quickly after...

...anxiety reared its head
because that was really the problem.

It was the anxiety
and trying to keep the anxiety at bay,

and sort of destroying everything else
in the process

because it took so much mental energy
to keep it in check.

I like, went in and I was like,
"I can't sleep anymore." I was like...

And that's really wrecking with things.

He's like, "Oh, okay, so do you feel
anxious or anything like that?"

I was like,
"I don't know if I'd call it anxiety,

but I definitely feel restless."

And he was like,
"All right. Let's try Xanax."

I mean, had some of the best sleep
of my life... taking Xanax.

No dreams, just hardcore, blackout sleep,
um, which was great.

But I was never addressing my anxiety,
and I never thought I had anxiety.

So it was, "Oh no, I have anxiety
from my Adderall."

So it was never a root cause.

It was always the result
of something else for a long time.

And then, as I met other people,

especially people I met
from New York City,

or cities, or more affluent areas,
they were all very much like,

"Yeah. We all see therapists.
We all take pills."

Like, "Life sucks. We're not well,
so that's how you manage it."

The introduction
of medical treatments

and pills that could treat
these things very effectively

did change the... the notion of stigma.

If you have glaucoma in your eye
and have trouble seeing,

you take, you know, a glaucoma medication
that makes you able to see.

If you have diabetes
and have insulin dysregulation,

you regulate your insulin.

That is not a moral failure
that my pancreas doesn't work right.

It's not a moral failing
that my eyes aren't working right.

So why is it a moral failing
that, um, I am susceptible to panic?

There's a biological problem,
and you fix it.

Benzodiazepines were invented
in the 1950s, early '60s.

There was a great deal of excitement
because they were to replace barbiturates.

There's a strong possibility that
at this moment, in your medicine cabinet,

you have a drug
that can hook you just as completely,

injure you just as terribly
as heroin or morphine.

I'm speaking of barbiturates.

The number one cause of death
by poisoning in the United States.

You wake up a few hours later,
and you forgot how much you've taken.

Better make it three.

Benzodiazepines are much safer than that.

So by the 1970s,
benzodiazepines topped the charts

of the most
frequently prescribed medications

in the United States and across the world.

There is something to the idea

that this is the way
of medicating the masses.

It is the literal opium of the masses.
It's the benzodiazepines of the masses.

Does anyone have a Valium?

On an individual level,
the unhappy housewife,

or the unhappy lawyer
who might wanna be in a different career,

instead of figuring out
that better life choice,

they are simply smoothing away
those feelings of discomfort

with that... medication.

I can't believe the two of you are eating
in the middle of a crisis like this.

- We're nervous. What do you want?
- Then take a Valium like a normal person.

But lo and behold, as time went on,

we realized that you can actually take
too much of these medications.

And there are a number
of problematic side effects

that came
with long-term benzodiazepine use.

Today a senate health subcommittee
heard a series of terrible stories

told by people addicted to Valium.

A doctor from California said
withdrawing from it felt

as though someone poured kerosene
under his skin and set it a fire.

Valium is America's
most widely prescribed drug.

The FDA is warning doctors
not to prescribe for everyday stress.

And then came Xanax.

Upjohn scientists succeeded
in creating a molecule

that helps control anxiety disorders.

Acting on nerve cells
in the area of the brain,

which controls emotion and anxiety.

The drug is more selective in its action,

resulting in fewer side effects
than older drugs.

Xanax. Prescriptions number
in the millions.

I'm very much afraid that the same kind
of over-prescribing,

the same kind of promiscuous... availability

is occurring with that drug.

And then, 9/11 was really
when the floodgates were opened.

People's nerves were very jangly.
People were on edge.

The anguish of the attack on America
is taking its toll in many ways,

including mental health.

How do we ever heal?

This disaster was also
a mental health catastrophe

of massive proportions.

Prescriptions
for antianxiety medications

are up 23% in New York and 8% nationally.

And there was an uptake in advertising.

Ads saying, you know,

"Are you feeling more nervous?
Our medicines can make you feel better."

They showed pictures of women

with worry bubbles
of all the things they were worried about.

And women responded.

And the numbers of women
who started taking antidepressants,

antianxiety meds, sleeping pills,
after 9/11, went up and up and up.

Don't wanna stereotype,
but I think a lot of women do get that

where we don't take care of ourselves
and don't carve out time for ourselves,

and that really led into...
my anxiety boiling over.

I'm of the generation where they told us
that we could have it all.

They just didn't tell us how.

My mother was home with us.

And I think I did have the mental picture
that I would be... mostly home,

just 'cause that's what I knew growing up.

But then,

I was 34 when my son came along,
so I was already in the workplace,

and already had a mortgage,
and had balanced out the life

to where I have to work,
then trying to balance,

well, "Who's going to be able
to take my son to this lesson,

or try to get off work in time to do it?"

Now I have to come home and cook dinner.

And I felt like I was operating

on a high vibrating tension level
at all times.

You think, "Okay, great. I'll finish work,
and I'll just have a glass of wine,"

and overall,
that's physically and mentally

a very unhealthy thing for me, personally.

I think for some people, it works great,

but that was actually
ratcheting up my stress.

About two years ago,

everything really kind of
ramped up at once.

My husband's mother has some dementia

and is in a nursing home out of state
from us.

My son entered a new stage of adolescence.

So it was just re-navigating
our relationship

and me learning to back up.

Work got incredibly stressful,

and then menopause can
just throw everything out the window.

It's like, you're going along
on an even keel,

and your life has been fine up
until your '50s or whatever.

And that throws your hormones
and your life completely out of balance.

I think it's fair to say

that the female body and the male body
are not exactly identical.

That there are very different hormones
that work in one or in the other.

But probably more important than that,

women have a lot of role models
of other women

who show them how to be anxious,
let's say, in an acceptable way.

We socialize girls
to be more expressive of their emotions.

We support the little girl who is crying

and... and, um...
and needs that extra attention.

Whereas with boys,
we tell them to go out there and play,

to... to fight it out,
to be tough and stop crying.

Now, let's blow our nose and dry our eyes.

Wouldn't want Mike and his mother
to see us this way.

I've been a therapist
for about 16, 17 years.

I've worked in the schools.
I've gone and done in-home therapy.

Finally, about five years ago,
I started a private practice.

And in my practice, I just felt like
not enough men were coming into therapy.

So in my process
of really just trying to understand,

"Why? Why aren't men coming to therapy?"

I did some research on that,
and cost, for one, like, you know,

they might be underinsured,
uninsured, or not be able to afford it.

That's a huge reason why a lot of people
I imagine might not go to therapy.

But specifically with Black men,
also the issue of,

"Going into a system
that is not built for me."

Which it is not.

It's not a system that is built
for people of color.

I've been in session
with a person of color,

and I'm like,
"That's just not gonna work."

Like, "I can't say it that way."

The very best example is

one of my questions
on my intake paperwork is,

"Have you ever experienced any traumas?"

This client has said no
to that... that question, two, three times.

Then one day,
as he was answering a question,

he was like, "Hmm, let me see...
Was that before or after I got shot?"

And I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Did you say, 'Got shot'?"

"You never told me you got shot."

And you know what he said?
"You never asked."

And I'm like,
"I can't put on my intake paperwork,

'Have you ever been shot, '
because that's a unique experience."

And he said,
"It's not that unique of an experience."

"I know a lot of people who've been shot."

That was the moment that told me
that I needed to shift in the way in which

I am even asking questions
or taking an assessment.

Perhaps, if you live in an environment

that your personal humanity,

your safety, security,
well-being is constantly under threat,

you know, you have to show toughness.

So to then acknowledge

that you're having
a mental health struggle or challenge...

No, that's... that's not the case.

I have a semester and a half at college.
So, I understand Freud.

I understand therapy as a concept.
But in my world, that does not go down.

Could I be happier?
Yeah. Yeah. Who couldn't?

But I will tell you as a psychiatrist
who treats men...

...uh, lots of men get anxious.

Um, I think that many men
are getting more comfortable admitting

that they're anxious,
talking about social anxiety,

or generalized anxiety,

or something like fear of contagion,
for instance.

It's changing.
I think there's a huge shift.

Everybody's talking about mental health.
Now you have Charlamagne tha God.

Everything is mental.
Everything starts with a thought.

So if you don't have this right,
nothing else will be right.

You have Jay-Z.

Well, if you grow,
you realize the... the ridiculousness

of the stigma attached to it. It's like,

"Why don't you just talk to someone
about your problems," you know.

That is helping to normalize it
for... for men.

That typical profile of a patient

who might be prescribed benzodiazepine
is widening.

So, um,
whereas it might have been, typically,

you know, 30 years ago,
um, a middle-aged woman,

now we're seeing younger
and younger age groups.

We're seeing very old people are not
only being prescribed benzodiazepines,

but being kept on them
for much longer periods of time.

The training about using these medications

is not always as robust as one would hope.

These are drugs that were really meant
to be taken short-term,

no longer than, let's say, a month or so,

which is really stunning
when you think about the fact

that many, many people
who are initiated on a benzodiazepine

will be... will continue to take that
for years or even decades.

When I first had
my... my very first panic attack,

I really thought I was going crazy.

I was like, "You need to lock me away
'cause I don't know what is going on."

So I was probably 14 or 15.

I had traveled a ton as a kid
and enjoyed flying.

But for some reason,
this day we were about ready to take off,

and all of a sudden, I'm like...
Feel like I'm melting from the inside out.

I can't breathe.
I thought I was dying. Uh, really.

And, after that,
was a couple really smooth years.

When I was about to be a senior,

it was my summer going into
my senior year in high school,

I worked at Panera at the time,
and I was at the cash register,

and so I was interacting with people,
and I started bawling

in front of this couple that had come in,
and I was, I mean... mortified.

It was extremely embarrassing.

But I was like, "I don't know
what was going on." Like...

"I've been here hundreds of times."

"Why am I..." Like, "What is wrong with me?"

It was getting to the point
where I couldn't complete daily tasks

without, um, like, having a meltdown.

I couldn't go to the grocery store,
I couldn't drive down the street,

like simple things that you normally do
every single day.

You feel trapped and that's...
Who wants to feel like that?

I mean, you'd do anything
to not feel like that.

Me and my dad
have always been incredibly similar.

Just kind of an unspoken language
that we have,

and he had experienced anxiety
in his early adulthood.

Um, so he kind of
recognized the signs right away.

He just wasn't qualified
to deal with what I needed.

I honestly didn't know a whole lot
about psychiatric medication at all

when I started therapy.

But she had mentioned
a certain drug called Zoloft,

which I ended up taking and still take.

We didn't start talking
about Xanax, um, until...

I had to fly again.

I had told my psychiatrist, I was like,
"Look, there is no way in hell

that I am ever going to fly again." Like...

"I'll drive for three days in a row
if I have to. I'm just not doing it."

And she was kinda like,
"Have you ever thought about Xanax?"

I landed, and I, like,
really wanted to go on top of a mountain

and just scream to the world
that I did it.

I didn't cry. I didn't hyperventilate.

I didn't have a panic attack.
I was completely fine.

It originally started off
with using Xanax for certain situations,

and then I made the choice
to take it daily

because it did work for me.

I need that release
in order to go to sleep.

I was like, you know...

...at this point, I'm...

so far below my peers

and their, um, ability to just live.

Uh, and... and why would I do that
when there is something that could help?

Any medicine, any drug,

there's always
a risk-benefit analysis, right?

So with the benzos,

the risk and the risk-benefit analysis
is quite a few things.

The very common side effect

is just simply being fatigued,
being sedated.

That is why they are commonly prescribed
to help people fall asleep.

You're disinhibited,
you're a little loopy, a little sleepy,

maybe you make bad decisions.

Like, nobody really wants to share, like,

all the nitty-gritty stuff
when you take medication.

For me, everything was just hilarious
when I took it, um...

so that really would not be good

if I was going to an interview
or something important like that,

and I'm just laughing the whole time.

For some people, that inhibitory effect
actually is a dis-inhibition effect,

and they become more loose,
and light, and goofy, and silly.

I just feel like I'm excited,
and I feel relaxed, and I'm...

♪ Ready to party ♪

Benzodiazepines are basically alcohol
in pill form.

You know, one of the problems
with the benzos

is that they can really interfere
with short-term memory,

with laying down new memories,
with retrieving memories,

you know, everything gets a little fuzzy.

Don't really remember anything
after taking it, um...

and yeah, that obviously can be really bad
if you're, like, driving.

Some of the long-term risks
of benzodiazepines are well-known.

The data about Alzheimer's disease
and dementia, though, is relatively new

in just the last several years.

And it's a significant risk.

If you think about it,
you're taking a depressant,

so with less use of your brain,

it could be that some of those brain cells
began to, like die off,

decreasing overall brain activity.

There is also
a much more ordinary side effect,

which we call tolerance.

And tolerance means needing more and more
of the drug to get the same effect.

It was an essential part of my toolkit.
I carried benzos with me all the time.

In fact, I had done that basically
for 30 years.

It changed my overall level of anxiety

because I knew
I always had that magic bullet.

I was like,
"I have figured out a system that works."

"I can get through plane flights.
I can get through public speaking things

with my Xanax and Klonopin."

Before that point, I would spend weeks,
if not months dreading these things,

nightmares about them, cold sweats.
That went away.

If I would go through
a particularly anxious period

where... where I would
intentionally take a lot more,

I would go up on a higher level
and taper back down afterwards.

And I would feel it.
Afterwards, I would get physical symptoms.

Um, sometimes I'd just feel
like elevated anxiety,

and my GABA receptor is basically going,
"Hey, where's that... where's that Xanax?"

The nightmares I started to have
became different. What I would dream was,

"Oh my God, I have to do a post speaking,
and I lost my Xanax."

Or, you know, I'm on an airplane,
and I... I'm out of it.

I was clearly psychologically dependent
from that point forward on,

on the benzos.

Not all benzodiazepines are created equal.

Xanax, for example, works more quickly
than most other benzodiazepines

and wears off more quickly
than most other benzodiazepines.

Agents that had that kind
of immediate reinforcing quality,

but then wear off quickly
so you get into that kind of dysphoric,

wanting, craving state,
tend to be more addictive.

I do have addiction in my family,

and so I have really resisted
in having substances in my life at all.

I don't really drink at all,
I've never smoked,

I've never been high because I was afraid

that maybe there was something
about my family

that made it that people got addicted
to things.

Yeah.

Great job.

But, you know, we talked about starting
on a really low dosage.

We talked about, like,
what sort of things to look for

and the fear that I had in the beginning,

of having to go up and up and up and up,
didn't actually happen.

I was able to get a lot of relief
with a pretty low dosage.

And I think having
that very healthy fear of addiction

made it so that I really focused on, like,

"Medication is a tool for me to make space

for non-medication things to work
in my life."

If you're
using them judiciously,

every once in a while for acute anxiety,
it may not be too much of a problem.

If you take them every day,
multiple times a day,

you know, abruptly discontinuing
these medicines is very uncomfortable.

The consequences can be severe.

People can become psychotic.
They can have seizures.

They can have severe anxiety,
terrible insomnia.

I've even seen the distress
of benzodiazepine withdrawal

result in suicidal thoughts
and even suicide attempts.

Knowing what I know now,

I would never have taken
that first prescription.

N-Never.

It was the biggest...
...it was the biggest mistake of my life.

I moved to Colorado
because I love the outdoors.

And I love... I love skiing.

I love rock climbing.
I love mountaineering.

I love white-water rafting and kayaking.

In fact, I love so many high-risk,
adrenaline-type sports,

that I kind of wonder,

"How did I ever get diagnosed
with anxiety to begin with?"

Hi, sweetie. Let me see what you did.

- So, Dada...
- Yeah?

...this is the Christmas tree.

Yeah. Ooh, it's a tall one.

This is the snowman.

I love it, sweetie.

I think I was maybe on one milligram
of Xanax in college, or half a milligram.

And then over the years,
it creeped up to one milligram,

to two milligrams,
to finally three milligrams,

which is where I landed for,

you know, a good 12 years, 15 years.

And I never took any more
than my exact daily dose.

So in about 2013,

I remember telling my psychiatrist that,
"You know, life is going good right now."

Kelly was pregnant with our first child,
and I couldn't wait to be a dad.

He reduced my Xanax from three milligrams
to two-and-a-half milligrams.

And then, out of the blue,

I just started having some kind
of mysterious physical symptoms.

Things like sounds
and smells being overwhelming.

I would sort of have
some heart palpitations.

The skin on my arms would feel
like it was burning.

Random muscles would just twitch.
I had this horrible, um, brain fog.

And the physical fatigue
is one of the worst symptoms.

My wife and I started getting
more and more concerned. I...

This is something serious going on.

I went to see rheumatologists

and cardiologists and neurologists...

...and all sorts of specialists.

Finally, uh, a doctor said,

"You know what,
you've really been through the gamut."

He said, "I'm gonna write you a referral
to the Mayo Clinic

because they're the best of the best."

Packed up the whole family
and flew to Minnesota.

The Mayo neurologist said, "I think
you have autoimmune encephalitis."

"It's an inflammation of the brain,
and it's easily treatable."

"It is a little uncomfortable.
You have to get IV infusions."

I did the eight weeks of infusions,
and I didn't feel any better whatsoever.

I... If anything, I felt worse.

And along this journey,
I started asking the doctors

once in a while, I'd say, "Could it be
anything to do with my medications?"

"Could my medications be causing
any of this?"

And the answer was always, "Oh no.
It's definitely not the medications."

"It's for sure not the medications."

By this time, my psychiatrist had
crossed me over

from Xanax over to Valium.

I mean, call it just my intuition or...

"I don't know where else to go with this,

so please, I want to
taper off of the medication."

February of 2018,

I woke up in the morning,

and something was very wrong.

I could hear the kids downstairs,

but the... the noise
of the kids playing was... was piercing.

My skin was burning.
My... My chest was burning.

I just couldn't take it anymore.

I stormed out of the house,

and I started driving really fast
and really erratic.

A voice in my head just said,
"I've got to escape. I've got to escape."

And I saw this hill off to the side,

with probably 300 feet high
with a cliff on one side.

And I just said,

"I'm gonna climb up that hill,
and I'm gonna jump."

And as I was hiking up...

...I had visions
of my kids in my head.

And I... dropped on my knees,

and I said,
"John, this is not who you are."

"This is not who you are."

And my wife heard me pull in
and greeted me at the door.

And I looked at her, and I said,
"It's got to be the Valium."

"It's got to be the Valium."

And my wife started Googling
"Valium and suicide,"

"Valium withdrawal," "Xanax withdrawal."

Unfortunately,
it was patients themselves

and not the medical profession

that first recognized the problems
associated with benzodiazepines,

including dependence,
tolerance, and withdrawal.

That data really came from the 1970s
and was characterized

by Dr. Heather Ashton,
who was a psychiatrist

who ran a benzodiazepine taper clinic
out of the UK.

There's been a lack of training
in clinical pharmacology

and in the management of drug withdrawal.

Listening to patients
has become a lost art,

and doctors have also been seduced
by the idea

that drugs are the cure
for mental illness.

And she wrote this whole treaty
called The Ashton Manual,

which you can find online,
which is really a great, great document.

All of a sudden,
we came across The Ashton Manual.

There was every symptom I had reported
to every doctor,

one right after another.

My wife and I
kind of looked at each other like,

"How in the world?"

We went to 32 different doctors,
and none of them

connected the dots
that I was reducing my benzodiazepine,

and I was in benzo withdrawal.

Some patients have no problems,
and some patients are sensitive

to even the most small dose adjustment,
dose reduction.

This is particularly true in older people.

You know, as we age,
our brains are less plastic.

So, you know, once people get above 50

and they've been on benzodiazepines
for decades...

very, very hard to get off.

Too few people are aware
of the potential dangers.

Too few doctors are aware
of... of those dangers.

And probably somewhat surprisingly
to me at this point.

These are useful tools.
I'm very happy to have them.

You know, I'm grateful to the people
who invented them.

The problem is
that we're using them way too often,

and we're using them way too long.

When you look
at all the different risk factors

for addiction,

one of the most important is simple access
to the drug.

And we live in this age of incredible
overprescribing and oversupply,

which means you're more likely to try it
and more likely to get addicted to it.

I've been a psychiatrist
since the mid '90s,

and back then, if somebody came to me

and they had symptoms
of anxiety or depression,

I had to sort of explain, you know,
"Oh, you have depression."

Or "These are..."
"You know, this is a panic attack,"

and I had to spend some time
in the first visit or the second visit

where I would sort of destigmatize
the fact that they had to take medicines.

Ever since 1997, when the FDA decided

that drug companies could advertise
directly to people.

You can't just snap out
of clinical depression.

No one can, because it's a real illness.

You may feel anxious.
Can't even sleep.

We know
what social anxiety can feel like.

The chemical imbalance could be to blame.

You can get your life back.
Life can feel like life again.

I don't have to do any kind of educating
or destigmatizing or hand-holding

because I have people coming
to me saying, you know,

"Should I take Wellbutrin or Effexor,"

you know, or like, um,
"My Pilates instructor is on Paxil,

but my dental hygienist said that Zoloft
is better, and what's the difference?"

There was really no maintenance about it.
There's really no checking in on.

"How are you feeling?"

"What's going on up here?"

"What's your emotional state?"
Like, it was just very transactional.

Medicine has become industrialized
to the point

where doctors kind of function
like workers on an assembly line.

And after him, all of my psychiatrists,
I guess, were very transactional.

And I found people who were transactional,
because I was like,

"I don't wanna get into what I'm feeling.
I don't wanna talk about that."

There's enormous pressure on doctors
to see patients quickly,

to get them in and out,
to prescribe pills,

because that's
what third-party payers will reimburse.

One doctor was like, "Could you tell me
about your childhood in Texas?"

And I was like, "I don't wanna."
Like, "Let's just get to the script part."

We're now asking patients
were they satisfied with their service.

Doctors very eager to be rated highly

because their professional advancement
is tied to how they do on those surveys.

So, naturally, with all of those kinds
of invisible incentives,

you know, doctors will write
for what patients want.

The other issue is that in the short term,
these agents really work.

I went to a therapist
when I was thirteen in New Hampshire.

Uh...

Who, the day I...

First day, I went there, he said...
And this is in '84 or something,

and he said,
"I'm going to write you a prescription."

"Every time you feel sad,
you take one of these."

It was Xanax.

I do want to be careful. I don't wanna
demonize all benzodiazepines, all drugs.

What I do know is that they're
overprescribed, like opioids.

And they're both painkillers.

One is of emotional pain,
and the other of physical pain.

There's this huge Xanax crisis
in so many communities.

We're in the midst
of a prescription drug epidemic.

So a lot of times people think
that was just about opioids,

but it wasn't just about opioids.

Rapper Lil Xan,
that's short for Xanax,

is one of the more than 50 artists

we found who reference Xanax
in their music.

I was probably taking...

...12 two milligrams
to 14 two milligrams a day.

Wow.

It was... It was really bad.

That double-edged sword of...

of acknowledging pain, or anxiety,

or whatever it is, and not glamorizing it.

It's a very sharp double-edged sword.
It's just so easy to...

to not walk... walk that line.

And we don't give young people
many tools for doing that.

It wasn't long
before Bobby mimicked his idols

and swallowed his first pill
in tenth grade.

I got hooked the first pill I took.

One phone call,
one text away from getting it. Yeah.

Any type of pill, basically.

Social media,
now an essential tool

to buy these pills online.

Essentially, this is now...
This can now be your dealer.

By tapping a few things in,
you can get Xanax easily.

Those pills are all over the place.

I found this account
which is the 104 dealers

that are using Snapchat,

that you can contact
if you just type in their name.

So it's basically
a drug dealers directory.

Now we've got a lot of people
in illicit laboratories,

illegal laboratories,

who are making these super potent versions
of benzodiazepines.

New information
about a deadly drug.

It's a small, white pill designed
to look like the antianxiety drug, Xanax.

But it is mixed
with an extremely strong opioid

called fentanyl.

People can go online,
and they can buy a pill press.

They can buy the pill dye.

This is going to be the fentanyl
with any other cutting agent,

and then as I spin the wheel...

and then up comes the tablet.

You can have two pills
that you bought from your drug dealer,

and one has a little bit more fentanyl
than the other.

And that one will be the one
that ends your life.

The pills that are coming up from Mexico
are professionally, uh, done.

You can't tell the difference.

The color's perfect,
the markings are... are fine,

and the texture of the... of the pill...

They just look exactly like
the real thing. Scary.

Celebrity TV therapist, Laura Berman,
has revealed that her teenage son died

of a deadly drug overdose on Sunday.

You said you think it was fentanyl
laced with something.

Was he in any kind of pain that he'd be
taking these drugs to begin with?

- Do you think he knew what he was taking?
- No. He...

No.

In the last ten years,
what we have often seen

is that most overdoses
are not just one substance.

It's usually a combination
of different medications.

A benzodiazepine is not very dangerous
when taken in high amounts alone,

but when you combine it with opioids,

that's essentially anesthesia
and is very dangerous.

Because then you have
a double-depressant effect.

So you can actually
have a cardiac emergency.

You can die. You can stop breathing.

He was only twenty-one.

A popular YouTube star
and emerging rapper,

Lil Peep, died last night.

There's just
so many deaths in the news,

um, that have to do
with painkillers or benzodiazepines.

They're struggling so much
with that perfect storm

of pain and anxiety, and needing
to dull it and get through somehow.

I looked in the mirror
and I'm like...

it was just that moment, you know, like,

"If I keep doing this,
I'm gonna die soon."

So I just quit, cold turkey,

and I actually ended up having
a few seizures,

and I landed in the hospital.

After numerous attempts,
Xan told us he got clean.

So I wanted to make a movement, Xanarchy,

about just nothing but anti-Xan use,

and that's really
what I'm trying to promote.

I think that we need to start holding
each other and ourselves accountable

for our glorification of the drug culture,
one hundred percent.

♪ Don't give me the Xannie now, or ever... ♪

I did not like growing up
with people I really loved

and then them turning
into people they weren't.

It's just weird to watch,
and I don't wanna have people die anymore.

I don't want people to die, due.

Kids are the canaries
in the coal mine now.

They are definitely the signs
that things are not okay... in our world.

My clinic has become
about 50% a "de-prescribing" clinic,

meaning I'm having more
and more patients coming in

or being referred
for help getting off of opioids

or benzodiazepines or both.

It's confusing for the patients too,

because patients who are dependent
upon the medications,

who take them long-term,
they can't imagine a life without it.

And it may not even be
they're without anxiety

or that they're doing well,

but they just can't function
without the medicines.

The idea of it
is terribly frightening to them.

And that's really the withdrawal symptoms.

That's the nature
of tolerance and withdrawal.

It's a good thing I took chemistry
in college.

This isn't anything that any doctor
is gonna teach you how to do.

That's called a liquid micro taper.

And what it allows you to do is to...

reduce your dose by a tiny,
tiny fraction...

every day.

If you go too fast,

you can go into a state
of complete terror.

These chemicals are so powerful,

even tapering slowly like this
takes... years.

So from center line
to top of rail?

- Five foot one.
- Five-one.

Tell me when you're ready
for number one.

Go for it.

All right, over here we're looking
at... two foot six.

Two-six.

So I work with the state of Michigan,

and the program that I work in
is to become a civil engineer.

I've had it for three years now,
this job, and it's, um,

you know, it's a big-girl job.
I got it right when I turned 18.

And it was nice to have people rely on me
for, uh, certain things.

Stressful, no doubt,

but it was the right amount of stress
to push me to get it done.

Wasn't so much that I was overwhelmed.

Most of the people
who are very anti-Xanax,

get that idea
from the recreational use of it.

For people like me,
when you kind of see people using it

in the wrong way, it's like,

"If you only knew what it could do
to someone who really needs it."

I take one milligram daily,

and that was my starting dose,

and it's been my dose
this whole entire time.

It can be addictive.
Um, it's not in my case,

but psychologically, yes.

I mean, it's always gonna be,
"If I don't have that, what do I do?"

I mean, it is easy to... to become...

totally, 100% dependent on a drug,

and I don't...

Even if it's a helpful drug,
that's, um, a scary thought.

"What if you run out of it?"
Or "What if someone takes it?"

Or "What if you forget it?"
Then what do you do?

And that thought terrifies me.

Medication is...
it can be really important for people,

and I do not want to underplay
the importance that it can serve

to help people manage
really overwhelming anxiety.

What it does
is it brings us back to a baseline,

it brings us back to being more ourselves,

but the minute you go off them,
unless you've gotten other treatments,

the anxiety goes up again.

When my mom got sick,
we found out it was advanced colon cancer.

Ran to the airport.

We basically lived in Boston,
myself, my Dad, and my sister.

Every single time I went away,
I was like, "Is this it?"

And those thoughts kept going
and going and going,

which was really
where I had my first panic attack.

It was
because I had to come down for work.

And I was supposed to give a presentation,
and I just had a full breakdown

and found myself
in our company's bathroom,

hyperventilating, thinking I was having
a heart attack.

I was like, "This is... Oh my God."

Um, like the kind that you just
can't pull yourself out of.

Before my mom passed away,
she wrote this letter.

She wrote a letter to all,
my brother, my sister, and I and my dad.

Um, and in my letter, she said,
"I'm sorry for putting you in a box,

and I'm sorry for making you feel
like you had to be something

that you were never going to be." And...

reading it, I was just... I broke down.

I was just like, "Yeah."

And that's what made me feel so tense
and so anxious for so long too,

because you're expected
to be a certain way. For me, it was like,

"Okay, you're not expected to be
as flamboyant as you want to be."

"You're a person of color.
Why do you talk that way?"

"You're expected to talk like this.
I expected this."

My mom passed in, like, August,
and then that's really where...

everything bubbled up to the top.

There's just this feeling of,

"I have myself,
and I need to figure this out."

Um...

And that's when I was like,
"I need therapy."

If you know there are things
that make you anxious,

and they're not going away,

it becomes really important
to just remember the very basics.

I mean, first of all, breathe.

Getting appropriate hours of sleep.

I really encourage people to sleep a ton.

There's exercise.

And getting outside
as much as possible.

Getting exercise
and getting sunshine.

Doing things like yoga or meditation.

Meditation has been
really helpful for me.

We know that actually
creating a biological state of relaxation,

it actually disrupts
an anxious experience.

So you cannot be relaxed, um,
and anxious at the same time.

There are other medications

that are not habit-forming
in the same way.

The Selective Serotonin
Reuptake Inhibitors,

they don't cure anxiety in the moment,

but they lower
the overall anxiety quotient

to make people less likely
to have panic attacks.

You know,
I'm a psychiatrist in New York City,

and of course,
I write prescriptions for antidepressants,

and for antianxiety meds.

But I also like to talk to my patients
about cannabis-based medicines

because it can be very helpful
for anxiety.

You're not disinhibited.
You're not cloudy.

You still very much have your wits
about you,

but you can sort of handle stress
a little bit better.

We know a lot
about the treatment of these disorders,

and the most successful treatments
with the best evidence base

tend to be
the cognitive behavioral therapies.

So the techniques tend to focus
on these systematic habits of thinking,

of behaving, the choices we make.

And they also create a new mindset,
I think,

about how we think about our distress.

Having that additional layer,
that sort of little voice

that therapy grows for you that says,
"Hey, it's okay."

"You're feeling your feelings right now.
And it's okay to feel feelings."

"Feelings are not facts.
Thoughts are not facts."

"All you have to do
is keep going through today,

and then tomorrow will happen,

and eventually,
there'll be enough tomorrows

that you won't be feeling this anymore."

And it's just enough to keep going.

Because, ultimately,
when you're experiencing

those really difficult times,
you just have to keep going.

It's become
so apparent during the pandemic,

but social connection is one
of the most powerful ways

to disrupt anxiety.

Loneliness is one
of the biggest, um, detriments,

not only to mental health,
but to physical health.

I experienced a divorce
this year,

and between the revelations
that ended my marriage

and being faced
with starting my life all over again,

I ended up again
in a depression-anxiety cycle.

I hadn't told my mom.

I hadn't told my best friends
about what had happened in my marriage.

I was just trying to focus
on meditation and journaling,

and "I'll go to therapy,

and do all the things I can do
to try to deal with this,"

when really the thing I needed to do
was lean on the women in my life

who loved me enough to help me through it.

In whatever way
we can find connection that's authentic...

I mean,
forget everything else I said,

that's probably the best thing we can do.

But the truth is, normal responses
to abnormal environments,

uh, that... that you don't have
to say is a disease.

In some ways,

instead of fixing our world
and the real problems in it,

we're using psychotropics

to have people just sort of accept

the broken world that we're offering them.

The Great Resignation.

That's what experts are calling
the growing trend of workers quitting

or just changing careers.

Americans are retiring
in greater numbers too.

The push to shorten the work week
from five days to four,

gaining momentum around the globe.

Clearly, this pandemic has transformed

the way that Americans are wanting to work
and the work that they're willing to do.

We are building a movement
to address mental health in America.

We want to build a society
where no person has to feel isolated

and shamed because of their struggles.

We want to build a world
where anyone who needs help can get it.

We don't want to be just reactive
to mental illness.

We want to be proactive
about mental well-being.

New generations of athletes,

including Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka,
are speaking out about mental health.

We go through our own things,
and it's hard.

You don't even realize
how many people you're helping,

even though you're sitting
in this really tough moment.

Mental health has everything to do

with everything that we live and breathe

and... and realize in our lives, you know,

whether, you know, we're in circumstances
that are favorable for us

or unfavorable, right?

Like, mental health is everything.

Oh my God. I can't.
Stay still, heart. He says,

"Thanks for providing a safe space
for people like me." I can't.

He's so sweet.

It started with an Instagram post
that said, "Free Therapy For Black Men."

I thought it'd be hard
to get Black men to come to therapy

because that's what all the media
and everything would have you believe,

and that was not the case.

Um, actually, we started kind of backwards

because when we put out
Free Therapy For Black Men,

initially, within that first two days,

we had 50 men who are like,
"I want the free therapy."

And we were like, "Wait a minute.
We didn't think this all the way through."

We give them
eight free individual sessions.

Right now, 75% of them continue on
with the therapy,

after it's no longer free.

And it's like, we're giving them
that drink of water,

and that drink of water
should be teaching them,

"Damn, I didn't even realize
I was so thirsty." Right?

And so now,
even when we go take the water away,

it's like, "Oh. But you know what?"
Yeah, that might be the next shirt.

One thing I've been talking
to my patients about for a while

is this idea of flow.

That you can lose yourself
in doing something,

and it can be anything.
But whatever it is you're doing,

you've totally put yourself in the doing,
and you lose yourself in the doing,

and there's something else
bigger than you.

Twelve years ago,
we had gone to this horse ranch,

and they had a mission of rescue horses.

I think they're up to 60 rescue horses,

where most of them have been
in bad situations of one type or another.

Then we found out
they were looking for volunteers.

I thought, "Okay,
in the middle of a pandemic,

when the gyms are shut down,
and we can't go out to eat,

and we can't do anything.
We can't socialize."

"Maybe this outdoor volunteer work
could be a good thing to do."

The volunteers come out
and clean up the paddocks,

and groom the horses,
and take them for walks.

Being able to be outside,
doing physical work for a good cause,

getting to bond with animals again,

just everything about it
completely has gelled

to get out of my house, get out of myself,

and go do some hard work
and get some fresh air.

Having a bad day and hugging a horse

is really a wonderful thing.

I need more of a stimulus
outside of myself to focus in on,

so I took up flower arranging.

There's just something so peaceful
about that process for me,

from going
and sorting through the flowers,

and looking at the flowers
and the colors, and it's all very tactile.

And realize I need those tactile things

to sort of cope and to calm myself.

So much of my anxiety is rooted in

feeling like you're
not gonna accomplish something

or... that what you're doing is wrong.

The things that bring me peace
are these things where I'm like,

"I'm making for myself."

So there's no one that's gonna look at it
and judge it or critique it.

Expectations.

There's so much weight to them,

and when you can sort of let 'em go
a little bit,

there's a freeing feeling to it.

That doesn't look good.
Yeah, it's all trial and error.

Anxiety is holistic,

and what it tells you is
that your mind and body are one.

That is really the insight
that anxiety gives us,

that our body and our mind
are in service of each other,

and they're reciprocal.

The problem with you taking a Xanax
every time you get anxious

is that you're not building up
the mental calluses

that you need to tolerate more anxiety.

Because if you're squelching
that experience of anxiety,

you miss the opportunity to learn
how to cope with it on your own.

So there's an opportunity cost
of benzodiazepines.

I'd say I probably take them
as needed. Um...

Probably a couple times a month.

I really think it's more at this point,
"I know I have it if I need it."

If the diet
and the exercise and the volunteering,

and if my resources fail,

or if life ramps up
to an out-of-control level,

then I've got another tool.

For me, with Xanax,
it never really addressed

the lingering anxiety
that's just sort of always there.

And the first time I tried Klonopin,
it was a different feeling.

Say it's a smoother type
of anxiety relief,

versus Xanax, which is really like a hit
to the face. It happens fast.

That's the reason people don't party
on Klonopin.

Klonopin is not a party drug.

I still take, um, Lexapro,
which is an SSRI antidepressant,

um, kind of a... a moderate dosage of that.

And then I have cut
way, way back on benzos,

um, to the point
where I try not to take them.

If you're not confronting
your anxiety head-on, if you're doing it

mediated through a Xanax that you took,
you're not really confronting it.

The only way out is through. Really.

What's gonna get you
on the other side of the anxiety

is to actually go through it
and experience it and understand it

and make some sort of peace with it.

On the other hand,

there is something awfully stigmatizing
and shaming for someone to say,

"Pull yourself up by your bootstraps,
just do it," if you can't.

You wouldn't tell someone with diabetes,
"Make your pancreas work better. Come on!"

You know... Xanax is obviously

one of those drugs that

kind of raise people's eyebrows a bit.

And there is a part of me, um,
you know, that really resents the fact

that I need... something
other than myself to help.

And it's...

I think the stubborn part
of me really doesn't want to be on it, um,

for an incredibly long time.

I'd love to be able to figure out
how to do it without... without Xanax,

but for now, um...

it has done its job,
and I'm very thankful for it.

What is insidious about benzodiazepines
is how well they work.

Our society may not be very forgiving
of people who have anxiety or depression,

but we've all got that inside of us.

And when people get exposed
to that benzodiazepine for the first time,

boy, ever does it make it go away.

And then it sets them up to think,

"I don't have to feel that way
all the time, so I shouldn't,

and now I want more benzodiazepines."

I believe that benzodiazepines erode,

the resilience that we must rely upon
at some point in our lives

to manage distress,
anxiety, difficult situations,

and just the painful aspects
of being a human being.

Resilience is kind of the key
to everything

in terms of not just anxiety,

but mental health generally,
surviving in the world,

tolerating the existential reality
of the way things are.

Whether you're talking about living
through Covid, or our own mortality,

or the fact
that I have an anxiety disorder.

Acceptance is key.
And the closer you can come to that,

the closer you will be
to mental health and contentment.

Looking back on it,
I don't know that I had any anxiety

that was really any different
than what the average person goes through.

Just the transition
from high school to college,

I just felt a little, um, lost.

One of the first things I did was go
into student health.

I just vividly remember, you know,
having, a prescription in hand

and thinking, "I'm an adult now."

"This is what student health
has recommended that I take,"

and that's what I did.

Yeah, life is hard,

and somehow we've sort of forgotten that,

and if we're not happy,
then something's wrong,

and we need to change it or take a pill.

Our job is not to take away
all of our patients' pain and suffering,

but to make that suffering tolerable

so that they can still find
a life worth living.

There's a phenomenon
in withdrawal called windows.

This is when your symptoms melt away.

And I was at the playground with my son,

just out of nowhere,

the ringing in my ears went quiet,

the pressure in my head just vanished.

And I just had this incredible sense
of calm come over me.

It was like
something I'd never experienced

my entire adult life.

And I've been
on a benzodiazepine my entire adult life.

So if that's what life is like
after benzos,

I... I can't wait.

I... I can't wait.

Let's go.

Yes! Easy. Yes.

- Yes!
- Good job.

- Yes!
- It was awesome.

I worked really hard
to change a lot of aspects of my life

so that I wasn't experiencing anxiety
as intensely.

Learning how to cope
with the world is a journey.

It's not something where you take a pill,
and then it's fine.

It's something
that you learn to do over time,

and the messy work is what allows me
to show up here looking all cute,

like I have everything, uh, handled.

Um, there will be times
when I have to go back

and do more messy work,
and I'm okay with that.

And... yeah.