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Self-Medication vs. Self-Soothing

© Irene J. Sleight

While medication can serve as an interim or adjunctive solution for alleviating anxiety, pain, depression, often times we fail to see other ways out of physical and emotional pain. We rely solely on medication, and ignore an abundant inner resource of healing power.

It's not always the medication itself that cures us, but rather the faith we place in these pills. This is called the placebo effect, where one's belief is so strong that is creates the same soothing physiological response in the body as real medication.

Patients have overcome life-threatening illnesses because of their beliefs, or rather a knowing, that they would triumph regardless of what their physicians may have predicted. Clinical studies have shown up to 56% efficacy in patients receiving what they believed to be morphine. Subjects participating in a research study drank non-alcoholic beer, which they believed to be the real thing, and surprisingly got drunk. Other research studies suggest that people, who were given pills with inert ingredients that they believed were powerful drugs, had the same curative effect because of this very belief. These are perfect illustrations that attest to the healing power of faith, and how one's beliefs can provide the same desired outcome.

Anxiety sufferers often rely heavily on their belief in their need for medication, and sometimes find immediate relief upon swallowing a pill, even though it hasn’t dissolved in the body to provide a real biochemical change. Headache sufferers continue to self-medicate even when it no longer works because they believe their symptoms will worsen. Then there’s the old, but often true, adage about the patient who sets an alarm clock to take a sleeping pill.

The fear of living without mood-modifying medication can be terrifying, and can develop regardless of its true addictive qualities. During my days of severe panic attacks, I remember how comforting it was to carry a vial of tranquilizers in my purse even though I seldom took any. My faith in these pills provided me with comfort that actually warded off the anxiety symptoms.

The difficulty of changing drug use behavior is in direct proportion to a person’s level of belief in their power. It often seems that self-medication and self-soothing are opposing forces. When I worked with chronic pain patients, who were addicted to medication and other addictive substances, my role was to teach them alternative ways to manage their pain, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. As receptive as they were to utilizing stress management tools that proved to be effective, when given the opportunity, their focus immediately shifted to the possibility of a cure in a new medication.

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