The following discussion is taken from a web discussion forum and shows the current state of P/R paradigm addictions and the attitudes of its victims. They are as unaware of their neurobiological issues and responses to current drug propaganda as are all hypoics. They believe their feelings, search for happiness, fall for addictors, and display the same denial as the rest of us, and moreover, aren't interested in learning about their disease or other aspects of why they do what they do and feel what they feel. They believe the P/R paradigm deeply. The originator of the discussion is an expert in pharmacology and is as uninterested in his brain as any other addict. The P/R paradigm is keeping hypoics ignorant and enchained. Well, we must keep trying to inform nonetheless. The discussion is begun by the originator.

La:
I have been taking Zoloft now for about three weeks. My life has been amazing. I no longer think about sex or masturbation. I could sit in traffic for hours and not give a damn. Someone could do their best to screw me over, and I just wouldn't get very worked up about it. I don't want to kill people I don't like anymore. I no longer think Boston sucks (that much) anymore. I am not easily irritate and am no longer very aggressive. I don't constantly clean my fingernails. I don't take really long showers and scrub myself too much anymore. I don't even want to drink alcohol much anymore! I don't worry about anything now. The best part? I have had no side-effects whatsoever! Some people would say that sexual dysfunction is a side-effect, but I would have to disagree as this was something I was aiming to remedy. I use to want sex daily, jerk off three to four times a day, and I would be late to work and class because of it! NO MORE! Hah. My question is: I have determined that I no longer need friends, attention, or women. They are all accessory and unimportant. Do you think that this a problem? I mean, I still have friends, but I just don't feel the need to constantly hang out, like I use to. In terms of women, though, I mean girlfriends and dating and whatever, I really don't care about it anymore! I have become pretty much non-sexual. Would you think that this a problem given that I am in my early 20's? I am pretty sure it's not a problem, looking at all the free time I now have to devote to my studies, finding a perfect job, and making my music.

Responses:
La, you're not "cured". You're just experiencing the first effects of Zoloft and maybe your doctor gave you some other medicine combined. The point is that during the first times the effects are astonishing,then you'll slow down. Don't ever think of leaving the therapy without your doctor's permit. It can be dangeruos. It takes time to be cured,so be patient and enjoy your new state of happiness. Stick to it.

La, all of your described symptoms are the side/effects of the medication. You are now a grade A "Zombie"...Watch out for the alcohol, the dosage, and drug interactions...You know what to watch out for...Be careful and check out the literature on the med.

Congratulations la! You're free! And it was a lot easier than spending your life in a Buddhist monastary devoted to reflective contemplation, which is what people used to have to do to get to where you're at.

la:
yeeeee haaaaaaw! cured cured cured! i love Zoloft. maybe i'll up my dosage to 100 mg and see what happens? i really don't think i've become a zombie. i definitely think that i've lost that lava-edge i use to have. but you take the good with the bad!

dumanoff (me):
So, you're a hypoic and don't know it. You're now a full fledged addict and a legal one at that. Yes, the drug has changed your feelings, and given you a delusion of happiness, but you have traded feeling crappy for an addiction like the rest of us did without realizing it. You're not cured, your chemically deluded. You may "love" this feeling, but all addicts do in the beginning. Then reality sets in. To find out about your underlying neurobiology and what you can really do about it, including real self acceptance and love without having to change your feelings chemically or any other way, see www.hypoism.com. Real acceptance is healthier and safer than addiction. Of course, you will reject this message out of hand, but try to remember it down the road. Happiness is not our goal. It is the unattainable goal pushed by drug dealers, legal and illegal, to keep hypoics sick, passive, and dependent.
dan

jean:
lava,congrats,good to hear from you again.I'm on Effexor XR,I have no libido,never feel "lonely".These are side-effects,wish that I had some libido and sometimes felt lonely,but all the meds that have been effective are either SSRI's or SNRI's.

la:
dan, I know you mean well, but you make me sound like some junkie. i know a lot of neurobiology, psychopharmacology, psychobiology, medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutical organic chemistry, etc etc as this is what my degrees are in. I also know the definition of addiction and Zoloft does not fit it. I would never lose my friends, my job, my family over Zoloft much like someone would over cocaine and heroin. So I have to say that you are completely and utterly WRONG when you say I'm addicted to Zoloft. Zoloft is NOT addictive despite what your preaching may say. You completely ignore the very meaning of what an addiction is. And as for your acceptance, I hardly accept that anyone is like how I use to be. I have found my salvation!

ell:
Zoloft can be a dangerous drug, if it isn't properly prescriped. But, chances are, if you really are feeling better, that you are okay. You just have to establish a good relationship with your doctor so that he/she really knows what is going on with you so that your dosage can be changed, or a new drug can be prescribed if it's effects start to wear off. You just have to be careful. I wouldn't say that it is a problem that you don't want to hang out with your friends or get drunk all the time. As long as there are things that you still like to do, it's good. But if you get to the point where all you want to do is sit in bed, then you should really talk to your doctor about maybe changing your meds. Zoloft can do good things for peope. It worked for my mother. She is still a lunatic, but she stopped being a lunatic who cried all the time and learned how to smile. It didn't work for me however. Now, what I would like to know is this, am I the only person who had severe weight loss as a side effect from taking these drugs? Everyone else I ever talked to said they gained weight.

jean:
la, Zoloft is not at all addicting.I know this because,one day I suddenly stopped after taking it for quite a while.It gave me suicidal ideations,and what's more unusual,by violent means.I live near open RR tracks and I thought of walking into a train or lying down on the tracks.Zoloft is not the drug for me.However,Effexor is a drug "hard to get off of".Effexor must be carefully reduced under a doctor's supervision.I have been on various kinds of anti-depresants for 45 years straight and I keep looking for a new one.So glad you've finally found a drug that works for you.

kurm:
Medications are being improved a lot and more is being done to use them appropriately to fit specific individual cases. They can be abused, and if they aren't working, it must not be the right one, as others have noted. I'm glad contributors have stressed keeping in close contact with your dr.
Medicines address the immediate symptoms, but changes happen at the thought, ideation, motivation level, don't they? It seems that combining something to help with the immediate distracting situation with choosing a long term solution is the best. By long term, I mean examining thoughts behind behavioral patterns, and substituing causal thoughts of the type associated with where you want to be with what you decide is not effective now. Good fortune!

dumanoff:
la - illegal and legal mood altering chemicals all work in the same part of the brain. It makes no difference to your brain whether it is cocaine, speed, heroin or SSRI's. You use the word "junkie" with prejudice, as if it were bad to be addicted to illegal drugs and OK to be addicted to legal drugs. We've been through this same nonsense with all addicting legal drugs for many years. The issue is not what drug you're addicted to but what it is about you that necessitates using a drug to change you into someone who is "happy." The necessity is your neurobiology. All hypoics rationalize addictor use by their resultant feeling changes. This is what allows for all addictions. Happiness pushed by shrinks and drug companies is the hook. Happiness is not the goal for hypoics, it's the hook and you're the fish. Don't use the biased word "junkie," use the phrase addicted hypoic self-treating his feelings. It makes no difference what drug it is. Your brain knows not and cares not whether the drug comes from a drug store or a drug cartel. Face reality. A drug is a drug. The fact that you need a drug to feel OK means you're a hypoic. Don't judge it. Just find out about it. Only the truth will actually free you, not a drug. Find out what you are and what you really need. You don't need to change your feelings, you need to accept them, whatever they are. You won't do this via drugs, only through hypoism recovery which will improve all areas of your life, not just your affect. By using a drug instead of recovery from your diseased neurobiology you lose yourself. That's the loss from addiction, not the label, junkie. The current drug paradigm doesn't understand this and doesn't care about you. It only cares about itself and maintaining itself no different from drug cartels. In this current paradigm, the hypoics lose and lose and lose. Your choice. I'm just giving you an opportunity to learn something about your particular brain. Hey - take it or leave it. It's your brain and your life. Why be smart when you can more easily be addicted and spiritually dead and deluded? There's a revolution going on for people like us. You can join it and get real or be a victim of the shrinks and drug companies.

La:
until you study molecular neurobiochemistry for four years, i don't believe you can say much about "shrinks" and "drug companies". Have you ever wanted to kill someone? Have you ever had an uncontrollable urge to do something wrong? Have you ever tried a drug that made all that go away so your mind can be free to think about other things? THEN YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO TALK! Until you can step in my shoes and realize what a difference Zoloft has made in your life, you have no right to talk. I haven't judged your hypoism whatever it is in the slightest. You are the one who is judge. How dare you think you can understand the human mind and put it into the terms of your little cult? How dare you come in here and insult me with your nonsensical "why be smart when you can be a junkie" crap! I'll have you know that I was educated and continue to be educated at one of the most prestigious and one of the greatest universities of the world. I'm smart enough to keep my preachings to myself and stay out of other people's threads with my philosophy. I think that whatever works for you is what you should persue, be it antidepressants or religion. Why feel like crap and feel inadequate for the rest of your life if you don't have to? Why sacrifice your job, your Why sacrifice your job, your friends, your family for what you call "acceptance" if you don't have to? Knowing that your different and that you act differently without drugs isn't enough to make the problems go away. Some people really benefit from drugs, whether you like it or not.

dumanoff:
la, you're sounding more like an addict all the time. geez! i have no cult nor a religion, just a paradigm. why not read it and see if i haven't transcended the little neurobiology you think you know? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and besides, knowledge never helped an addict nor have drugs. My paradigm should be interesting to you if you truly are a scientist. It's based on science and removes cults, superstition, useless therapy, and drugs from the recovery process. It frees people like you and me from the delusions caused by drugs that never have relieved our symptoms for long. All drugs have the effect you're extolling initially. When they stop working the way they are now, many people like us go to worse addictions, like the ones you mentioned in your story, hate, violence, sex, alcohol, obsessions, etc. I just ask you to check it out, as a scientist and fellow hypoic. Your closed-mindedness and rage is quite surprising and worrisome. I am on your side. I have been through what you are experiencing many times. It's a delusion that will land you on your butt along with the rest of the "medication" suckers.

jean:
Anti-depressants won't make you HAPPY,they make you NORMAL.This is an important distinction,one that people who aren't taking anti-depressants often "don't get".

dumanoff:
jean - lava's diagnosis is not depression. did you read his story? His symptoms are addictions and compulsions, typical hypoic symptoms. there's no depression there at all. these addictions are driving him crazy. so, zoloft is relieving some of them temporarily, but when it stops, he will be even more desperate than before, having nothing available. this is a horrible place for a hypoic to be. Kak's and your encouragement are typical enabling, "feel better at any cost." Kak, by the way is an addict-hater and i wouldn't trust his comments. he is happy when addicts suffer. we all want to feel better, but for hypoics this just leads to more and more damaging addictions. feeling better is not the goal. acceptance of how one feels is the goal. addiction is all about changing one's feelings for hypoics. in recovery, acceptance relieves the severe urgency he presently feels. the urgency disappears in hypoism recovery and acceptance leads to self-love, with no need to further change his feelings. it also takes care of the rest of his nonsense. all people desire this kind of acceptance, but hypoics don't get it through addictors, only through surrender. people don't understand surrender under the current psychiatric paradigm, only change. change prevents surrender and recovery so his symptoms will soon get worse, leading to stronger ways to change his feelings, etc., etc. did you notice he's already looking to up his dose of zoloft? hypoism is about more, more, more. this is not depression or NORMAL. nothing is enough for a nonrecovering hypoic. ask him how he's doing in a few years. then you'll know what i mean, if he's still alive. just because you haven't heard of Hypoism doesn't mean it's nor valid. it's new, and the reason you haven't heard of it is because it is being ignored by the current addiction "experts" who want to be in control instead of wanting to help addicts. ignore hypoism and they remain in control - and you lose.

jean:
dumanoff, I know lava's diagnosis is not depression. His problem is hypersexuality and irritability.

dumanoff:
jean - what i mean is that calling these drugs antidepressants is a misnomer. these drugs, like all mood-altering drugs, effect systems in the brain. sometimes these systems involve certain feelings and syndromes, and thus the drugs may have certain indications and contrindications. to name them after their presumptive indications mislables them. they have many effects, most of which aren't even known and more than occasionally they may have opposite and contradictory effects. the brain is quite complicated. remember, freud used cocaine as a wonder drug for many of his patients as well as himself. present day psychiatrists are no smarter or wiser than he was. the fact is, there are diseases (neurological pathophysiological mechanisms) of the brain that are not understood whatsoever. the cause of addiction is one of them. treating addiction with mood altering drugs is as nonsensical as putting out a fire with gasoline. SSRI's are not the treatment of choice for addictions, they just cause a switch of addictions to a different addiction. lava is an addict and needs recovery, not another mood-altering drug to get addicted to. my intial statement was to let him know he's an addict and that there is a scientific explanation for addictions. what he does with this information is up to him. but encouraging him to stay addicted, even if he feels happy about it, is hurtful, and mislabeling his most recent addiction an anti-depressant compounds this. valium was once called an anxietolytic drug, but now it's known to be an addictor no different from alcohol and bariturates and working at the same brain cite. valium makes a lot of hypoics happy, but today, giving them valium would be malpractice. someday, SSRI's will be malpractice for addicts too. new and "nonaddicting" mood-altering drugs are always popping up that eventually are seen for what they are, drugs, just like valium, cocaine, morphine, etc. addicts need recovery, not new "non-addicting" drugs to get addicted to. prozac was initially "thought" not to be addicting. now it is known to be. the brain is set up in such a way as to make certain no one can have a free lunch. it's called neurophysiological adaptation. thus, all mood altering drugs lose their initial effects and must be increased in dosage to maintain their effects. eventually, the dose gets so high as to cause bad side effects. all addicting drugs do this. zoloft is exactly the same. let's cut the sh_t and help hypoics deal with their disease without drugs for their sake.

jean:
I found I could easily discontinue Zoloft and Prozac.I was on a high dose for a long time.There is no withdrawal from SSRI's.I did not have any symptoms at all,save eventally recuring major depression.According to all medical authorities,there is NO withdrawal from SSRI's.There is from SNRI's,however.I think I proved that by suddenly stopping the drugs withoit even knowing about any withdrawal.

mm:
Zoloft is not addictive. [Sorry, just had to throw that in.]

dumanoff:
jean - this discussion is about lava. he's the hypoic, i don't know what you are. if you're not a hypoic it doesn't matter what drugs you take or why. Hypoism occurs in about 20% of the population is genetic and only hypoics get addicted in the true sense of the word. withdrawal is not a sine qua non of addictions. addiction is defined on my web page. you don't know about hypoism, so why not find out about it and then you will be able to comment more intelligently about this particular discussion. it's not on SSRI's even though lava thought it was.

jean:
dumanoff,I have Major Depression. Without anti-depressants,even for one day,I think of suicide.I don't know why I think of suicide,I simply do.We are biological.What makes you think the brain is not biological? It's every bit as biological as the liver or pancreas.

dumanoff:
jean - of course the brain is biological. hypoism is all neurobiological. try reading my book. but this person, lava, is a hypoic, not a depressive. you have depression, he has hypoism and addictions. these are two different biological issues. you're advise to him is irrelevent because of this. i'm not minimizing your depression. your experience is just not relevent to la as much as you might like SSRI's.

jean:
dumanoff,I didn't see where he mentioned addiction.Where is it? It seems to have helped his OCD,too, although he didn't complain of having OCD.

dumanoff:
jean - read la's story. that's what addiction sounds like. that's hypoism.

la: you are a fool! i am not addicted to anything! as many times as i've tried addictive drugs, I never became addicted. i smoked cigarettes for 5 months, and then stopped. no withdrawal symptoms, no urge to smoke anymore. i've been on a few different drugs, even amphetamines, never had any problems coming off any of those. i could care less if i ever had them again. i was diagnosed with low-level depression and anxiety, i think they called it dysthymia, as well as slight OCD and moderate attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. had this stuff all my life, just started taking medication a couple years ago.
dumanoff:
la - those diagnoses mean something to you? what exactly do they mean? read my book and see if it doesn't ring a bell. your neurobiology is hypoic, and your symptoms are classical. nothing lost. maybe much gained. your diagnoses are exactly how psychiatrists misdiagnose Hypoism of which they are unaware anyway. hypoism is about neurobiological deficiencies which lead to substance, behavioral, and belief addictions. you manifest many of these symptoms. like i said - your choice. good luck.

And so it goes. hypoics go to shrinks and end up on drugs. recovery is the last thing they want and the shrinks agree.

END OF STORY FOR NOW