Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Inadvertent comment on our society

A sign outside the pharmacy at a local grocery store announced (Hooray! Hooray?) the arrival of generic Ambien. For the uninitiated, it's a prescription sleeping pill, evidently very expensive, and the arrival of the generic version appears to have granted significant relief to the budgets of many workaholics--at least according to the pharmacist I talked to.

Yet another case of passing a dollar around and calling yourself rich, I guess. You work your rear end off to climb the corporate ladder, but need the help of "better living through chemistry" to get a good night's sleep. My step-brother had a situation like that; the psychiatrist told him he could write a prescription for Prozac, or he could quit his job. Thankfully, he didn't help out his brother-in-law's stock options (my stepbrother-in-law works for Eli Lilly), and found a better job.

8 comments:

Shawn said...

...is that really the primary use of it? I'm nowhere NEAR a workaholic (in fact, I tend toward sloth), and I can't sleep well at all lately.

Bike Bubba said...

I have no clear reason to believe one way or the other except for the opinion of the pharmacist. I would tend to guess that workaholics are "more likely" to suffer sleeplessness than the slothful, but can't point to a "peer reviewed study" or such thing to prove it.

One thing I can point to, though, is that the store selling the stuff is in something of a "go getter" community.

Bike Bubba said...

Put another way, Shawn, over-stress at work is a known cause of sleeplessness, but not THE only one.

Shawn said...

true.

MainiacJoe said...

My causes are one and three years old.

Bike Bubba said...

...and mine 1 month, 2, 5, 7, and 8--isn't it astounding that people can lose a lot of sleep even without kids? :^)

(don't let us scare you & Angel, Shawn!)

Brent said...

I have a stressful job, travel to Asia about every 8 weeks, and have a 1 year old and a 4 year old at home...but none of THOSE are the reason why I take Ambian...I take it because I have a mild case of RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome) and when I am over tired, or fly, it gets a LOT worse...so Johnny Walker and an Ambian take me away to la-la land for about 7-8 hours and it's all better!!! ;)

Bike Bubba said...

But isn't that part of the stress of your job, SB? If the requirements of your job worsen RLS, then I would tend to accept the pharmacist's hypothesis in your case.

And granted, this is a fairly wide hypothesis; everything from lots of hours to travel to ethical lapses could result in this. Still...