See, I think that few drinks of Friday night can help to unwind and aren't that harmful. Of course.... I am Eastern European, so take it with grain of salt (and tequilla shot and lemon lol).

I think that main problem with MI and stress is not MI itself creating stress, but that we are "allergic to stress". So as much as meds can help reduce the stress response, one still needs to avoid the unnecesary stress (let go of shoud-haves and shoulds) and learn to deal with the stress of daily life that you cannot avoid.

I do think humans aren't suited for the current society. It's just... too much. I read somewhere that the amount of stimuli we encounter in a day is simmilar to the levels people in past encountered in few years.

Imho, another oft quoted statistics about 25% of Americans dealing with MI in course of their lifetimes is telling too. Unless you wanna believe humans are degenerating... it's a sign that something is wrong with the way we live. I guess from perspective of individual with bills to pay, turning to chemistry makes sense and is often the least difficult way to deal with it... in the larger scale... it sounds like something from dystopic novel. And I don't fault individuals or their choices.

What I am saying that alleviating stress response imho doesn't help beyond feeling better (which is a good trade off for some people, but it's by no means perfect). Lately I cannot get good night of sleep without really strong brews of my herbs and while it's better than tossing and turning... it's not a solution, imho. I have no idea what I will do.
Not that I have solution for anybody.

Funnily, I am not against mind altering subtances at all.... imho, that's all they are. What bothers me is when they are presented as something that corrects imbalances and all that. Is it because we distinguish bad drugs and good drugs not by it's effects but by "pharma made" and "not approved by government"? It's funny how people in the bipolar forum freaked out when I mentioned salvia. I laughed when I once was in the chat here and people were discussing heavy duty prescription drugs, but when weed was mentioned, the person gotten "no drug talk here" warning. It's funny how some people flip about weed....

I kinda wonder why don't they try to work more on psychdrugs that would act fastish and could be used only when needed. Sure, it would have abuse potential, but wouldn't it be nice to have a pick me up when feeling bad, without having to wait WEEKS for it to start working and without having to take it for long time? (not sure it's really possible and that it would be risk free, but c'mon....).

there was an example about how somebody loses it's job, feels bad, goes to doctors for pills, feels better, gets a new job... that is why I reacted to it.