prozakistan

I vaguely remember the highs and the lows:
those sometimes troublesome peaks and valleys.

I'm different now. If not exactly centered, almost always in the middle.
A bit edgy from time to time, drowsy perhaps. Lurid dreams.
The occasional very strange thought.
But, at least I'm not operating any dangerous machinery.

"WASHINGTON - U.S. jet fighter pilots, responsible for at least 10 deadly 'friendly fire' accidents in the Afghanistan war, have regularly been given amphetamines to fly longer hours. Then when they return to base, the pilots are given sedatives by air force doctors to help them sleep, before beginning the whole cycle again on the next mission, often less than 12 hours later. [...] A spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force Surgeon-General's Office in Washington confirmed pilots are given the stimulant Dexedrine, generically known as dextroamphetamine, to stay alert during combat missions in Afghanistan. Pilots refer to Dexedrine as 'go-pills.' The sleeping pills they are given, called Ambien (zolpidem) and Restoril (temazepam), are referred to as 'no-go pills.' [...] 'Better bombing through chemistry,' remarked John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a Washington-area defense policy think-tank. 'This was certainly one of my first thoughts after the Canadian friendly fire accident,' he said in an interview. 'The initial depiction made it seem as if the pilot was behaving in an unusually aggressive fashion.' [...] The U.S. military appears to view pilots as machines. Under the heading 'Basic Principles' in the Top Gun document, it says: 'We manage maintenance, we manage fuel and weapons; we can also manage fatigue.' Pilots are allowed to 'self-regulate' the amounts of Dexedrine they take. They carry the pills in the single-person cockpit of their F-16s and take them as they wish. As one unidentified Desert Storm squadron commander said of his pilots in the document: 'You must give them guidelines and then let them self-regulate. If you can't trust them with the medication then you can't trust them with a 50 million dollar airplane to try and go kill someone.' " (Toronto Star, 1 August 2002)


I'll be back...

Trust me.