Anxiety

I read an article recently in New York Magazine called Listening to Xanax by Lisa Miller. In it she says we are no longer a Prozac Nation—to borrow the title of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s book—we are now a Xanax Nation. According to Miller’s article, over 46 million prescriptions for this anti-anxiety drug were administered in 2010. That’s a 23 percent increase since 2006. And prescriptions for all the benzodiazepines, or benzos for short, including Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin and Valium have risen 17% since 2006 to nearly 94 million each year. These are highly addictive drugs. What does this increase say about our culture and our anxiety levels?

To find out more, take a listen to Mother’s Little Helper. I produced this show for “Word of Mouth” on New Hampshire Public Radio.