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Posted by: D.C. on Dec 05, 2006 - 12:15 AM
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Conventional wisdom generally associates barbiturates with a bygone era. Barbiturate addiction, the popular thinking goes, is the stuff of hippies and disco queens; it’s not an issue today, not when the there are so many other drugs out there to worry about.
Unfortunately, that popular thinking is dead wrong.
Barbiturate abuse, no matter what anyone tells you, is still a problem in twenty-first century America. A real problem. A pressing problem. Pretending otherwise—believing otherwise—is an exercise in self-delusion at best, and self-destruction at worst.
In the year 2000, 10 percent of American high school students told researchers that they had tried barbiturates at least once in their lives. In that same year, barbiturate abuse led to almost 1500 emergency room visits around the country. Even more troubling, the drug was linked to almost 400 deaths.
Ignorance and misinformation are formidable obstacles in the nation’s ongoing fight against drugs. People who don’t know about the country’s barbiturate problem—people who think barbiturates are a thing of the past, or that barbiturate use is a harmless pastime—are ill-equipped to spot warning signs in friends and loved ones. More to the point, people who don’t appreciate the dangers of barbiturates are more likely to experiment with them—and more likely to unwittingly find themselves in cycles of habitual and compulsive abuse. Not knowing the truth, in other words, doesn’t make you immune to it.
The flipside, of course, is that knowing the truth is the first step towards doing something about it—the first step towards prevention, or the first step towards recovery. Given the still-noxious presence of barbiturates in American society, awareness is more important than ever—both for barbiturate users and the people who care about them. To that end, we address four questions here, with the hope that healing might follow in the wake of knowledge:
What are barbiturates? How do they work? What are the implications of long-term barbiturate abuse? And, most importantly of all, what forms of treatment are known to combat barbiturate addiction?
First, a definition. Barbiturates—often known colloquially as goof balls, Christmas trees, or yellow jackets—are a kind of sedative-hypnotic. Historically, they have been prescribed to treat anxiety and insomnia; their popularity peaked in the 1960s and 1970s—years that also (not coincidentally) marked the high point of barbiturate abuse in the United States. In the medical field, barbiturates have been largely supplanted by a safer group of sedative-hypnotics called benzodiazepines, so that barbiturates now account for only ten percent of sedative-hypnotic prescriptions in the United States. Still, barbiturate abuse remains an issue—largely because of the drug’s relatively low cost. The most common types of barbiturates include amobarbital, pentobarbital, and secobarbital.
But how do they work? What impact do barbiturates have on body chemistry, and what are their short-term effects? Like all sedatives, barbiturates act to suppress activity in the central nervous system, eliciting a feeling of intense relaxation that can sometimes be accompanied by euphoria. Specifically, barbiturates are GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) agonists; they bind to GABA-A receptors in the brain, thus mimicking the actions of the inhibitory neurotransmitter. The short-term effects are marked: Barbiturate use causes sluggishness, lack of coordination, slurred speech, shallow breathing, and disorientation. Generally, barbiturate intoxication bears a close resemblance to that induced by alcohol.
Those short-term impacts, however, tell only the beginning of the story; prolonged barbiturate abuse is associated with a number of more pernicious effects. Foremost among them is an increasing tolerance to the drug, which compels habitual users to ingest larger and larger doses and thus dramatically heightens the risk of overdose and death. Other effects of long-term use include slowed reflexes, chronic fatigue, sexual dysfunction, vision problems, and respiratory disorders. Put simply, barbiturate use isn’t a thing to be trifled with.
But that isn’t—doesn’t have to be—the final word. Yes, barbiturate abuse is a problem in the United States—and yes, unchecked barbiturate addiction will ultimately destroy everyone and everything it touches. Facts are facts; the truth is the truth. The good news, though, is that barbiturate treatment has proven effective for those individuals who find the strength to seek it.
Much of that treatment involves managing the symptoms of barbiturate withdrawal, which can include tremors, elevated blood pressure, and seizures. Successful barbiturate treatment also incorporates psychological counseling; addiction always entails a substantial degree of mental dependence on a drug, and one of the primary aims of any recovery program is to help patients develop the emotional skills required for sustained sober living.
Barbiturate treatment is hardly an easy process, and patients face no small number of obstacles on the road to total wellness. But the point—the only point that matters, anyway—is that recovery is possible, real—that barbiturate addicts can get better, if they resolve to seek assistance.
Determination, after all, is one virute that never goes out of style.
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