Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction

by Judith Grisel

The drug historian Nicolas Rasmussen points out that “the history of tranquilizers is an endless cycle of ‘product innovation,’ to put it neutrally, with each one pretending to have no side effects and be non-addictive. Then, when these properties are discovered, the drug companies just [promote a] new one.”9 From a neuroscience perspective, the robust and unavoidable b process universally elicited by any GABAA agonist makes these drugs unsuitable for regular use. It might be a good time to ask, given our long and ardent relationship with this class of drugs despite their substantial liabilities, whether there is a better way to help those suffering with insomnia or anxiety. Or even to wonder how these conditions are so common as to be statistically normal—indeed they afflict at least one in three adults in the United States—yet still are considered abnormal behaviors. One possibility is that some people are more sensitive, or more exposed, than others to environmental factors that contribute to these conditions. For example, a growing scientific consensus suggests that overexposure to light such as that emanating from our beloved screens disrupts circadian rhythms to adversely affect a range of health outcomes including mood and sleep.10 Twenty years into a second century of abuse of this class of mainly prescription drugs, it might be time to look for alternative ways of coping—especially ones that don’t make the problem worse.