
The Ambien Diaries - gpresot
https://popula.com/2018/07/22/the-ambien-diaries/
======
bxtt
I've been taking Ambien on and off for the past 8 years. Stretches where I've
taken Ambien for a consecutive year.

I've done exactly what the author talks about: write long incoherent but
beautifully written poetry, dive deep into studies and journals about the most
random subjects, and have auditory hallucinations. But, what she doesn't talk
about is the horror stories that come with it.

I've destroyed countless relationships. I've had friends that refuse to pick
up any of my calls after 12am. I've crashed my car into a tree because of
sleep eating. I've withdrawn from the medication, and don't sleep for 3-4
days. I've taken Ambien, then drank an entire bottle of wine, and the next
morning to find out that I took 6 more Ambiens. I should be dead.

If you haven't taken Ambien in the past, and are interested, I would just
avoid it at all costs.

~~~
endorphone
I took Ambien for four months (the sort of period it should normally be used
for...even that pushes the upper limit) after a very loud and public event
kicked off by severe sleep deprivation and stress.

It worked wonderfully. I'd take it and lie down and quickly fade off to a sort
of sleep. I say sort of because apparently it isn't really a sleep, and
doesn't have all of the benefits of sleep, but it was far better than the
narcolepsy I was experiencing.

I _looked forward_ to taking Ambien because it made the sleep process so
effortless and nice. I renewed prescriptions and would actually think ahead to
the moment when I got to enjoy an Ambien.

Then my insurance stopped covering it. The price is quite low, but it was a
flag to me that I should probably stop: The system had said that I'd hit the
limit of what I should take.

So I stopped. That was it.

Never had sleep walking. No weird phone calls. No "Walrus". When I took one I
always did it with the intention of sleep, and immediately preparing for
sleep.

So that is my counterpoint, I suppose. Real sleep is far better, but as an
actual sleep aid, especially in high stress, it...works. Should anyone abuse
it for other purposes? Absolutely not. Should they try to use it for a high?
No, of course not.

~~~
gameswithgo
If the drug has a non trivial chance of making you lose your mind, and no way
to identify that it will do that without losing your mind, it might not be
appropriate to ever use it, even if it works well for some people.

~~~
reverend_gonzo
Alcohol has a non-trivial chance of making someone completely addicted to it,
along with side effects that can ruin the lives of bystanders.

Does that mean no one should ever take alcohol as well?

The world is not black and white.

~~~
codewithcheese
Doctors should not prescribe alcohol. From a health and safety point of view,
yes one should not consumer alcohol.

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Ethanol is the safest, cheapest, and best-studied intervention for acute
methanol poisoning though

~~~
yebyen
I don't think this is relevant to the reason why most people are using
ethanol, though... or most of the people using Ambien for that matter, at
least is the impression I get from reading the discussion thread on this post!

------
Jtsummers
I took ambien for a few weeks in grad school. I had to stop.

1) They say it's not habit forming. That may be true. But I intended to take
it during the week, when I needed it most. On the weekends I wanted to stay up
a bit later (not crazy, midnight versus 10pm. However, if I didn't take the
ambien by 10:30pm I'd start to get a vicious migraine, that first weekend
without it was miserable. I took it for a couple more weeks but the same thing
happened each weekend.

2) About half the time it had no impact on me. I was wide awake and concious
the entire night. Not able to focus well (entirely unproductive), but awake.
I'd even eliminated caffeine by this point in an earlier (and ongoing) effort
to counter my insomnia. But if I took it at 10 and hadn't fallen asleep by 11,
I knew I'd be up until the next night.

3) When I did "sleep", there was a 50/50 chance I'd wake up with abs that felt
like I'd been doing crunches all night long. I don't know what I was doing. I
felt rested, but man was I sore.

I continued therapy and quit grad school in efforts to deal with my anxiety,
and only after that was my insomnia properly dealt with. Which is a reminder,
treat the condition not the symptoms.

~~~
tc7
> 3) When I did "sleep", there was a 50/50 chance I'd wake up with abs that
> felt like I'd been doing crunches all night long. I don't know what I was
> doing. I felt rested, but man was I sore.

...So you're saying there's a way to get 6-pack abs _in your sleep_?

~~~
Jtsummers
For me at least. Who knows what I was doing though or if my form was correct.
Given my mental state at the time when I was awake (my insomnia and anxiety
had gotten bad), I'm glad that's all I was doing.

------
justinator
I've had good friends commit suicide while there was Ambien in their system.

Not a drug I would take recreationaly, or with a prescription.

In fact, if they would like to remove it from the market, I would be in
support.

~~~
AznHisoka
Ambien is really a scary drug. I once had panic attacks while on it, where I
really thought I was on the verge of a heart attack.

When Roseanne tweeted that racist twist, and blamed Ambien, a lot of people
ridiculed her. The company who made Ambien even stepped up to claim Ambien
doesn't make you racist. But I thought if the worst Ambien can do is make you
spew out racist tweets, you're lucky.

~~~
VectorLock
Assuming she actually was on Ambien and not using it as a convenient
scapegoat.

~~~
bduerst
Considering she's still retweeting QAnon BS, I'm not surprised everyone is
leaning toward the latter.

------
jlmorton
> It was in 2005, my freshman year of college, that I took my first Ambien.

> These were the frontier days of the internet

I'm not sure 2005 qualifies as the frontier days of the Internet.

~~~
macintux
Yeah, about 25 years too late for that. 10 years too late to be frontier days
for the web.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I'm not arguing that 2005 was in any way the beginning of the internet, but it
was definitely the beginning of another epoch - Facebook, World of Warcraft,
and YouTube were all brand new, and we were just two years away from the
smartphone. Did online games, social media, and video sites exist before then?
Oh yeah, absolutely, but things were becoming supercharged and life eating.

~~~
macintux
There's little doubt that we could use some standardized terms for different
eras of the Internet, but I would characterize Facebook and YouTube as
harbingers of the end of the frontier days.

~~~
ska
I don't think "harbinger" is the right word here, I would reserve that for
dot-bomb companies and services like myspace. That time (2000ish) had some
pretty clear signals where things were going, while also being clear that it
wasn't worked out yet.

By the time Facebook/YouTube/etc. showed up, the frontier was already a
memory, and it was more a question of see who the big winners were going to
be.

------
Zimahl
Ambien is serious stuff. It works and people take it because some sleep is
better than no sleep but a large subset of them have serious side effects. I'm
not talking about the litany of 'standard' side effects you hear in RX
commericals, I'm talking about weird shit. Black outs, sleep sex, voices,
hallucinations, etc, it's not something to be trifled with. I'm terribly
surprised it isn't more regulated than it is.

------
ljw1001
I was on ambien for several years. Over time I developed sleep walking,
cooking etc. I once needed stitches after walking into a book case. Another
time I mistakingly took my ambien I the morning instead of a different
medicine. Passed out behind the wheel on a major highway.

My sleeping was never good even on it. I switched to neurontin for RLS and
some CBTI for getting to sleep. The combination has been far more helpful for
me than ambien, and without side effects.

------
jdpigeon
I wrote an assignment in my undergrad neuropsychopharmacology course that the
hallucinations and abnormal behaviour ambien causes might be due to a similar
mechanism of action as ketamine. I was almost entirely going off my own
recreational experiences, but I think I managed to find some paper linking
GABA-A antagonism to NMDAR glycine binding.

Also, because someone hasn't shared it yet, the Ambien Walrus:
[http://ambien.blogspot.com/2010/12/ambien-walrus-
collection....](http://ambien.blogspot.com/2010/12/ambien-walrus-
collection.html)

~~~
camtarn
The cartoons are great, but the comments thread below is pure gold,
intermingled with some scary.

"Most people probably think handcuffs in the bedroom are sexy, but you and I
both know mine are just to keep me from driving my car at night."

~~~
camtarn
...and, further down, some really tragic.

"Ambien destroyed my life and I remember nothing of what happened. It has now
been over five years since your lovely Ambien walrus convinced me to try to
end my life and well as the lives of my children. We didn't go on any shopping
spread or driving excursions, not that I remember, apparently he wanted more
from me than my money, he wanted my life and the reasons I lived for.

My children are fine, thank God, even though now I will never see them again.
Its been five years and a month since the last time I remember seeing them. I
have been stuck in the legal system since then and it seems never ending. I
will never again have the life I once had. I won't get to see my children
graduate, I will never get another hug or snuggle from them. I did get my life
from them. My nine year old son ran for help and saved all of us and I am
thankful for that.

Before any of you take ambien, think of what can go wrong. I am the poster
child of what can go wrong on ambien and I was crucified in the media for it
and I will spend the rest of my life paying for it.

My name is Rebecca Koehler and I am from Oklahoma. Google it. It happened
March 2, 2011. Never let it happen to you."

------
mawburn
I kind of knew that people took Ambien for recreational use, but for the life
of me I can't see why. The thing I hated the most about it was that I acted
completely blackout drunk, but I felt perfectly normal and in control. Only to
wake up the next day embarrassed about what kind of rediculous things I did or
said online.

I can't see why anyone would want to do that intentionally. After it stops
being able to put you to sleep, it is just a burden.

------
pseingatl
Ambien is an incredibly dangerous drug. Look up "Ambien Zombies." The stories
are incredible: the criminal justice system can't handle sleep walking, sleep
driving and sleep murder. In its more benign form, the zombification can lead
to binge eating. If you wake up and the family pet is missing and there's a
bloody mess in the kitchen, you know what happened. Look up the case of Tom
Tuduj, though he is but one of many. Tom killed Gary Poter, who was a
developer linked to Barack Obama through Tony Rezko, a Chicago-area
fundraiser. There are many other, horrible cases. Stay away from Ambien.

------
bitexploder
Sleep is a fickle thing. I think some sleep habits are programmed into us when
we are young (theory based on anecdotal observation with my kids and talking
with others over the years). That said, having a shut down process and
consistent schedule is really important. Getting rid of blue light, not eating
several hours before bed, relaxing with less stimulatong activity, taking some
Melatonin. Melatonin is not habit forming really works well for most people
based on sleep studies. You still need the shutdown process, and then
Melatonin boosts you into a sleep state. Excercising is also important for
setting up good sleep. I think this is all most people need to do if they just
have minor trouble falling asleep. Moderate to severe sleep issues can be
symptoms of something else.

------
dreamcompiler
All this talk about how horrible Ambien is and how it should be banned, and
yet no discussion of dosage? Ambien effects are _extremely_ dose-sensitive.
I've taken it for years to help me sleep and have never had an unpleasant
experience or amnesia. That's probably because I've never taken more than 5
mg; usually 3 mg is enough.

10 mg for an average-sized adult is edging into the danger zone, and at 20 mg
you'd better have somebody sober in the house to take away your car keys.

I suspect that in many cases doctors are simply prescribing doses that are too
large.

------
howard941
My physician won't prescribe these to me; I've asked a number of times. In
lieu of the Z drug [1] I was given a prescription for temazepam [0]. At first
temazepam was great but lost effectiveness after a few weeks and made me feel
anxious the morning after.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temazepam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temazepam)
[1] [https://www.tuck.com/z-drugs-
nonbenzodiazepines/](https://www.tuck.com/z-drugs-nonbenzodiazepines/)

~~~
alex_hitchins
Sorry, did you say you were prescribed temazepam as a sleep aid? I only
thought this was used for chronic pain suffers to aid sleep. I know my
grandfather was on it as without it the pain kept him awake indefinitely.

~~~
howard941
Yes, just as a sleep aid only.

------
limeblack
I really like sleep and I have been on Ambien and Seroquel(off label) for
sleep. At first it helped but if you really really like sleep I say the
withdrawal is not worth the benefit of the extra sleep. Coming off them I
didn't sleep for several days and my sleep schedule became really screwed up.
I am still on something for sleep for this reason. Some studies show you go
insane after 3-4 days of no sleep. I can confirm it definitely feels like
that. If you plan to take it for life I guess but withdrawals can be
miserable.

~~~
GW150914
Seroquel off label... for sleep?! Seroquel is a pretty hefty neuroleptic, with
all of many adverse effects implied. Does your doctor discuss the possible
long term impact of its use?

~~~
limeblack
No the doctor didn't give the long term consequences. I am not encouraging
this. This is way more common then people think[1].

[1] [https://nationalpost.com/health/seroquel-for-
insomnia](https://nationalpost.com/health/seroquel-for-insomnia)

~~~
GW150914
Whoa... thanks for the article. I’m shocked, but I guess shouldn’t be
surprised.

------
mgkimsal
My wife takes it... not regularly, but perhaps 5-6 times per year, to deal
with sleep issues. From what I can tell, there's no real side effects for her
- she gets a decent sleep, and is refreshed. I took it 2x about 10 years ago -
first time was... a bit spaced out after I woke up. Second time a few nights
later I had probably the most horrific nightmare I'd ever had. Never touched
it again.

------
thanatropism
Long-term user of benzos who never took Ambien here: the way people describe
it, Ambien is _dangerous_. Long half-life benzos like Klonopin and Valium are
_not_.

I only had a mild hazy kick the first two times I took Klonopin (and I was
starting on two or three other meds at once); since then, I've used anything
from 4mg to .25mg and never had trouble titrating either up or down. I don't
have much of an anxiety problem if I skip my Klonopin altogether (it
destabilizes my manic-depression, for which I'm stuffed with medications but
titrate Klonopin for marginal effect; but nothing _the day_ I stop Klonopin,
only if I'm at ~2mg and skip it for a day.

The literature is slowly catching up too. A while ago there was a full moral
panic about benzodiazepines, but I feel like this is part of the full moral
panic about psych drugs (some of which is justified, because people (and
sometimes unethical docs) are looking for answers in drugs that often aren't
there.)

------
yawaramin
I've never taken Ambien, but I have heard the voices the author describes. I
think they're fairly normal while falling asleep–they're called hypnagogic
auditory hallucinations: [https://patient.info/doctor/hypnagogic-
hallucinations](https://patient.info/doctor/hypnagogic-hallucinations)

> Auditory hallucinations are common but other senses are seldom involved.
> Auditory hallucinations can range from a few sounds to an elaborate melody.
> Threats or criticism are also reported.

In my case, sometimes it's music (usually quite beautiful, and forgotten the
next morning) and sometimes like a news broadcaster conveying quite a lot of
information (again, quite forgotten the next day).

------
googlemike
I watched one of my (former) best friends, after Rowing practice at a top
notch Ivy League school, take Ambien recreationally. It was terrifying to
witness. He was someone else entirely, rambling, yelling, looking through me.
I got the hell out of there.

------
cik2e
It just made me sleep, which is what I had it for to begin with. Tried to use
it recreationally once and ended up falling asleep at a concert. I'll stick
with the intended usage.

------
sizzle
Question to the insomniacs in this thread:

Have you tried meditation/ mindfulness? Curious if clearing your mind and
relaxation techniques would allow you to combat the anxiety of being worried
of not falling asleep that causes you to not sleep properly? If not, why
haven't you tried it?

------
librarianscott
It just helps me fall asleep and stay asleep. Never had any issues unlike with
melatonin, Benadryl, etc.

------
pdfernhout
Matthew Walker, a sleep expert, says sleep aids like Ambien are counter-
productive. [https://www.drugrehab.com/addiction/prescription-
drugs/ambie...](https://www.drugrehab.com/addiction/prescription-
drugs/ambien/sleeping-without-ambien/) "Dangers aside, Ambien and other
hypnotics don’t necessarily provide you the kind of sleep your body actually
needs. In his book, “Why We Sleep,” Matthew Walker, director of the Center for
Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, argues that the
sleep people get from taking hypnotics doesn’t have the same restorative
quality as natural sleep. In an interview with New York Magazine, Walker
explains that drugs like Ambien simply “switch off the top of your cortex, the
top of your brain, and put you into a state of unconsciousness.” The drugs
actually sedate you, he says, and “sedation is not sleep.” The good news for
those who desperately crave sleep is that a variety of techniques and methods
can help you achieve a blissful state of slumber without prescription
medications. Here’s a look at some good ways to reboot your sleep cycle. ..."

Discussed at length in his book:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-
sleep](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep)

Also mentioned in this review:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/10/better-
th...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/10/better-than-
ambien/543771/) "At last comes an explanation: According to the new book Why
We Sleep, by Matthew Walker, the director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at
the University of California, Berkeley, the sleep people get on sleeping pills
like Ambien is not true sleep. Drugs like these simply “switch off the top of
your cortex, the top of your brain,” he explained to New York Magazine, “and
put you into a state of unconsciousness.” That’s not sleep; that’s cryogenics.
According to Walker, sleeping-pill sleep doesn’t have the same restorative
powers—and there are lots, from an immune boost to emotional resilience—as
good, old-fashioned zzzzs. Sleeping pills don’t even seem to work all that
well. It’s true that some people say they fall asleep faster and sleep better
on pills. But, as Walker writes, there’s little difference between the amount
of time it takes someone to fall asleep with the help of a pill, compared to a
placebo. Even a newer drug, suvorexant, only helps people fall asleep four to
eight minutes faster, according to one study he describes. In addition to
causing daytime grogginess, Walker argues, Ambien impairs memory and increases
the risk of cancer and death. “Do you feel differently about using or
continuing to use sleeping pills having learned about this evidence?” he asks
the reader. This reporter does. Luckily, there is a better way. Walker
recommends something known as CBT-I, or cognitive behavioral therapy for
insomnia. A major part of it is proper “sleep hygiene”—well-known advice like
keeping the bedroom dark and cold, using your frigid cave-bed only for sleep
and sex, and turning off anything that emits light a few hours before bed.
..."

Note that, as Walker explains in this interview with Joe Rogan, if you are not
dreaming at night due to alcohol or drugs, your brain may start making you
dream when you are awake, leading to hallucinations.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig&feature=youtu.be&t=402)

------
notadoc
Abusing sleeping pills is a great way to make it very difficult for people who
actually need sleeping pills to not be able to get sleeping pills. This
applies equally to many other medications too, including the freshly
politically demonized effective pain relievers at the heart of the latest
media driven moral panic. It only takes a few fools to ruin something for the
responsible majority.

~~~
djohnston
i don't think this is true. healthcare has a litany of issues in america but i
don't think it's common to pull controlled substances from the market because
of black market abuse. am i wrong here?

~~~
lazyasciiart
Isn't that what happened to pseudoephedrine? Went from being OTC to very hard
to get because of recreational use.

~~~
selectodude
"hard to get" is overselling it a little. Maybe hard to get in very large
quantities. Where I am, I can get up to 7.5 grams per month with zero issues.
Not enough to make meth, enough for the maximum dose every day of every month.

