10 Things that have Changed My Life: #4- Xanax

The summer before my junior year in high school I developed a crippling, mysterious illness that would change my life forever.  It started out with recurring panic attacks which soon led to a full blown panic disorder accompanied by agoraphobia.  I thought I was going crazy (I guess I kinda did, actually).

While the medical search was on to figure out what was causing this, my family physician prescribed the anti-anxiety drug Xanax to help me get through the debilitating fear that had captured my life.  Xanax became my lifeline.  My key to a normal life again.  I could not be awake without being on it and I most definitely couldn’t leave the house without being on it.  I was a “clock watcher”- always watching the clock to make sure I was still under the influ... err, protection of my miracle drug.  As I developed a tolerance of the drug, I was forced to take more and more, many times to the ignorance of my parents or doctors.  The depression followed soon after.

I shy away from the term “drug addict” for a few different reasons.  For one, I was a blue-collar participant.  All my drugs were legal and out of a prescription bottle.  Also, while I do believe I was addicted to it, and had to take other drugs, have counseling, and work at getting off of it- I never went through many of the lifelong struggles that drug addicts often face.  Christ’s grace found me before that, praise Him.

So how did Xanax change my life?  Well, it led me to the cross.  It buckled my prideful knees until I was forced to die to myself and find a glorious life in Christ.  To this day, when I am frustrated, depressed, or anxious, the temptation of finding some Xanax to fix everything pops up in my mind; but I fight the temptations with prayer and remembrance of the depression and afflictions of the drug and also the long hard work I undertook to be free of it.  These little temptations help me always stay focused on the cross and to never let my pride swell up to what it once was before life, and God, shattered it that summer and the following year.