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Comment by bxtt | Hacker News Reader

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 I've withdrawn from the medication, and don't sleep for 3-4 days.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.

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I’d been on Ambien (Stilnox locally) uninterruptedly from 2002 until a few months ago, April 2018. My main aim was to just shut down after days of work at a family business job that I loathed and most of my side-effects were binge eating and little else (to the point that I always ensured my home was entirely devoid of food). I was capable of taking ten, 12 doses a night.

In April I quit cold turkey and sought psychiatric help. I also had major depression going. Fifteen days of rehab on Italy’s national health service served wonders. I still have trouble falling asleep, but fuck it.

It turns out I have a genetic mutation that makes me fairly immune to withdrawal effects from benzodiazepines and pseudonenzodiazepines such as zolpidem but seriously people don’t go down this route.

Out of curiosity, have to tried vigorous exercise? Any time I've had issues sleeping in the past, as soon as I got into a workout regiment, it got me right back to a normal sleep schedule.

Not OP, but for me while working out helps being unable to sleep is tightly coupled with anxiety and my mind spinning on something. For some people the anxiety is directly related to being worried about being unable to fall asleep.

One thing that helped was to recognize that it's okay if you don't fall asleep - taking the pressure off made it less stressful. Another thing was recognizing I've never failed to eventually fall asleep.

Sleep is a weird thing though - and the lack of conscious continuity, I think people would be more afraid of it if it wasn't something we were already used to.

Me personally, I used to spend a lot of sleepless nights stressing out over something or another. Now I give myself an hour. I get up and work on the problem. I’m miserable the next day. But often my brain decides it wants sleep more than laying in bed worrying.

I’d recommend it to anyone, but for sure talk to a doctor.

What are you worried about?

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

I found CBT to be most helpful for me, I did try the mindfulness meditation but think I didn't do it consistently enough to get a lot of value out of it.

I do 45 minutes of intense cardio at the gym four or five days a week. It doesn't work for me. Which is to say, it does all sorts of wonderful things to my general sense of well-being, but does not cure my insomnia.

The correct "out of curiosity" would be "what were you taking it for".

The rhetoric about exercise is sound and great advice for 80% of people. But it's annoying for people with mental health issues (particularly those that have (a) objectively valid ICD-10/DSM-5 diagnoses and (b) live a normal life with medications) to be told to walk it off.

It's almost like advising cancer patients to eat some fruit once in a while. (A sudden switch to eating a wide variety of fruits truly seems to have improved my immunity, but I'm not on chemo...)

People with mental health issues like those described don't need to hear about exercise, but not for the reasons you mention. They (should) already hear it from their doctors every visit (and they will have a professional they visit regularly to monitor their health situation, the drugs in question are very bad for you).

Yeah, the stuff is not fun -- I was prescribed it about a decade ago to deal with neuralgia-related sleep disturbance -- took it once, felt like I was being dragged under water by some unseen hand and couldn't come up -- the fear set in -- discarded remainder + never took again.

When I had a bad experience with Ambien (check my comment above) I thought what a fitting great name Ambien is. It totally recks your understanding of surrounding. I can't forget that when I went under my bed sheets it felt like I was in a different house. A very subtle but scary feeling. Like sleep paralysis except it's much more visual and confusing.

I've heard the slightly terrifying proposal that Ambien actually doesn't help you sleep at all, it just gives you sleep paralysis and fucks you up enough that you're unable to remember having spent the entire night awake and delirious.

As crazy as it sounds, I believe this; but seems like a very hard-to-prove hypothesis.

This is true. Ambien doesn't help you sleep.

I'm ambien right now. I was clean for 1 1/2 month but i cant anymore.

Do you happen to know the genetic mutation? I've gotten a 23andMe and Promethease report so wondering if I could check.

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.

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.

That's why we have doctors, to weigh the risks versus benefits and prescribe treatment in the patient's best interest.

I suspect that some of the worst side effects might have genetic risk factors. Hopefully researchers will determine whether people with particular genes are at greater risk of suffering mental problems from Ambien.

I think doctors as a group of individuals have proven they can't be trusted to weigh the risks. Consider the opiods epidemic as an example

There must be better alternatives to get a good nights sleep.

OP description of " I renewed prescriptions and would actually think ahead to the moment when I got to enjoy an Ambien." sound a lot like early stage addiction.

I am hella addicted to amazon then. Holy shit.

If we can't trust doctors then we have a much bigger problem that can't be solved by banning medicines which the FDA has determined to be safe and effective for treating certain conditions. While there's room for improvement in medical care standards, issues with a handful of drugs aren't sufficient evidence to provoke distrust. Most doctors get it right more often than wrong.

>Consider the opiods epidemic as an example

The one where drug companies actively lied about both how addictive their drugs were and the best way that they should be prescribed? Doctors aren't perfect, and there are some that are truly terrible, but in general their opinion is trustworthy.

Doctors did fine prescribing opioids in the 70s and 80s. They're not the cause of this epidemic.

Yea--I'm not blaming doctors, nor drug companies.

Americans are misserable on so many levels. I believe most people who really liked opiates, are also very depressed.

Life in America, since the 80'-90's has been not great for many of us.

I'm not suprised people liked a drug that lifted the depression, and completely took away the anxiety.

So who should you trust to weigh risks? Every group that needs to weigh risks sometimes gets it wrong, that is what makes something a risk (uncertainty)

Fairly sure the opioid epidemic isn't caused doctors sometimes getting it wrong.

The one which the majority of addicts started from street users? Doctors seem to be the convenient scapegoat especially considering that ironically cracking down on pill mills has proven to be a 'we need bigger morgues' disaster with the iron law of prohibition resulting in fentanyl taking its place.

While pill mills aren't ideal clearly they were a form of harm reduction of sorts by ensuring very regularly measured doses - still possible to overdose of course but that is from upping it or taking it again too soon as opposed to having 'one dose' which is more like ten of the normal.

The absolute sickest part of it all is that despite this addicts can get more than enough painkillers yet the quixotic knee-jerk 'Do something! This is something lets do it!' crackdowns are hurting the actual chronic pain patients.

I am sure some doctors share the opinion that maybe we shouldn't ever use ambien.

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.

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

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

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!

From what I have read about Ambien I feel like the descent is much more sudden and unpredictable with the sleeping pills.

Ambien descent for me was absolutely momentary. One moment you feel normal, one moment later you feel absolutely different. For me it's even debatable if it ever makes you asleep. It feels more like it paralyzes you. I guess, I never had a "black out" from Ambien (like sleep walking etc) and the portions I remember were what I can describe as hell on earth.

Ambien is a prescription medication; alcohol is a recreational drug.

Shouldn't that depend on how bad the disease is that you are trying to cure with the drug?

I looked forward to it — yes! Mine was abuse (see my other post further down in the thread if you’re interested) but it was so damned convenient to just flip a figurative switch and have the lights go out.

> I took Ambien for four months

Every night for four months? Yeah that is stretching it from everything I've read. I started using it off/on when I went through a period of insomnia almost a decade ago. The doctor was very strict that it was for not more than two-four weeks and that I should try to only use it every second night.

That insomnia passed, but I since used a half dose (5 mg) on average once every 7 days (that's the average but it's more like 2 or 3 nights every 2 or three weeks). I need it when traveling or during anything stressful going on at work. Nothing else works. In a new hotel room I can just lay there all night long unable to sleep because it's an unfamiliar environment. Or if I know I have to be up by a certain hour and give a presentation or have a possibly conflicting meeting the next day - no sleep.

I do wonder what the long term impacts of even this low intermittent usage is though. But the alternative is not working or traveling.

You seem to have anxiety, that might be a better treatment target.

I’ve tried it, I find in general regular exercise and relaxing yoga routines with some meditation before bed works in some situations. But doesn’t work for the new hotel or “big meeting next day” scenarios. I end up just meditating all night forcing the rehearsing thoughts out of my head and still not falling asleep until around 4am. It then becomes a performance thing, I know I want to have slept so I can perform so I go for what I know will 100% work.

For the sibling comment: I’ve also tried other general anxiety treatments - but they are all be pretty serious stuff you don’t want to use too much if you don’t have too. Since my anxiety seems limited to certain situations I find it best to use the minimum targeted just at those directly.

I take a half an Ambien to sleep on overnight flights, no side effects that I can discern. It's all about managing risks relative to benefits, and not always in an evenhanded way. 2 grams of Tylenol/paracetamol with a bottle of wine and it's bye bye, liver, yet you can buy it in a vending machine.

Ok but that's a very odd comparison. It's well known and studied that _normal_ doses of Ambien can induce unpredictable behavior on humans including sleep walking and/or confusion. But 2 grams of paracetamol is 4 times the normal dose, and paired with a drug it should never ever be taken with.

You might want to be careful with Ambien and airplanes.

A U.S. intelligence worker on a flight back to the U.S. from an assignment overseas tried to dynamite a plane while on Ambien.

Look up "Derek Stansberry": http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/04/28/disruptive.passenge...

Thanks for sharing your experience and articulating this so well.

I have been on the same dose of Ambien for nearly 2 years. I'm fortunate that it does its job with zero side effects. The negative experiences and feedback in this thread are overwhelming - if I were unfamiliar with it, I would be freaked out!

It's generally accepted that Ambien's benefits outweigh the costs. I don't mean to downplay the negative experiences, but it's not as bad as this article/thread infer. Ultimately, it's something to discuss with a GP or Psychiatrist.

It's absurd how easy it is to take ambien then forget that you took it 15 minutes later and redose. Fortunately, I think most Americans manage to stay in their houses when they do it.

I wonder how many people are carrying around deeply weird fucked up memories of their family members high on ambien.

I took Ambien 3 times, started after not being able to sleep for ~3 days (not directly after (I was able to naturally sleep after that day)). First 2 times were ok, didn't seem like I had any side-effects like sleep walking etc. The 3rd time I took, it gave me what I would describe as a psychotic breakdown. From an outer observer, I was sleeping (this was college and all my roomies were in the room, studying, I was "sleeping") but it felt very much like I was awake and there. I was completely dissociated from my own self and felt as if I was a "shoe seller in Venice". Never been in Venice in my life. When I was finally able to control my body after 2 hours of silently screaming, I started muttering about stuff and asked for help. I had no recollection of who I was. When my roomies brought me some water/food everything slowly became normal. I just felt what I would describe very drunk. I didn't feel intoxicated -- as in I could walk etc just fine -- but my mind was very "drunk". Not like a weed "high". After about half an hour, I was feeling alright and went back to sleep because I had an 8am the next day. Never touched Ambien again. The rest of my prescription was used by my roomie who was very into drugs. He never had any problems with it.

It sounds to me like it's a hyper-real dream in a way.

Meh, maybe, but I don't think so because all that 2 hours I never lost consciousness. There was no point in which my memory was "black". I was talking to my roommates, told them I'm going to bed, took Ambien, lied on my bed and suddenly started to feel very confused, forgetful and it "felt" like I'm somewhere else. It wasn't a very visual experience (like psychedelics) but it felt like I was so confused that I wasn't able to comprehend where I am.

I'm surprised it's even legal honestly. I see so many horror stories. Worse yet, they're so unpredictable. Not just "it hurt my liver", they're what you described. Zombies in real life. Crazy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/health/14sleep.html

I binge eat when I'm on Ambien, and have intense food cravings. That night I didn't have food, and there was a McDonalds about 5 minutes away from where I lived. I crashed into a stop sign three blocks into it.

Even as an anonymous poster, there are stories that I am too ashamed to even post about. If anyone sees this, and had some inclination to try Ambien recreationally, don't even try it. What's worse is that even after destroying every relationship I've ever had because of Ambien, I still can't quit it.

It is a controlled substance. Further note that the horror stories are seldom, if ever, by people actually using it as intended and as directed.

How to benefit from Ambien if having sleep problems: Take Ambien and immediately go lie comfortably in bed. Have no responsibilities and have the ability to sleep for 8 hours uninterrupted.

How not to benefit from Ambien: Use it to escape life. Use it recreationally. Take it when you have no intention to go to sleep, or even to try. Use it for chronic issues rather than temporary sleep issues.

I certainly don't want to take up the gauntlet of defending Ambien, but in any discussion about it the narrative gets dominated by abusers. And that's an important narrative -- it gets prescribed way more often than it should, and for far longer than it should ever be used -- but there are benefits as well.

I disagree with you. I think what you call “abusers” , are just people that react differently than you to the same chemicals in the drug.

What I refer to as abusers in this context are those who intentionally use it for an altered state, and intentionally avoid falling asleep. That is, without question, abusing the drug.

Ambien is a hypnotic. If you don't fall asleep (it will push you close to the edge and you have to take the leap yourself) it absolutely puts you in a dangerous state of mind where you can be "awake" but not all of your controls are there. This is called the Walrus among abusers, and many seek out this state of mind. And when you read about people driving, streaking, doing crazy things, etc, it is usually in this condition.

I was prescribed Ambien after being a routine Tylenol PM user when I was in my upper teens. I had incredible trouble sleeping that affected my school life. I expected Ambien to behave similarly; at some point I'd start to FEEL like I was going to fall asleep where I was sitting. Sort of that drunk Tylenol PM feeling where your eyes start to close and you're drifting off so you head to bed. Hell I'm pretty sure my doc even told me to take it instead of TPM because it wasn't as harmful to my body.

That didn't happen at all, instead I started to see the room and objects in my peripheral floating, heard voices, etc. Thankfully I just had the urge to wander around my back yard and stare at the faces I was seeing in trees.

I never took it again after that. I don't think the risks of Ambien can even remotely be understated. I have friends that take it, not abusively, but every once and awhile they have some crazy event happen like being found naked on the beach or in someones house (thinking it was their own). Maybe it's a chemical reaction like the article describes but I don't see any harm in more people being aware of what CAN happen on it.

There are people sleep walking, sleep driving, etc on it. Seems like it has a huge affect on inhibitions/repression like the article mentions. The guy I know who went streaking on the beach would never do that in his wildest dreams if he were sober.

My mother was prescribed it to deal with transient insomnia, and very much used as directed. For two nights she had fine sleep, and on the third day called me mid-day. She was sitting in a chair crying, and said totally calmly that she didn’t feel sad, and had no idea why she was crying. She stopped Ambien immediately and that was that.

I’d stay the fuck away from Ambien, period.

> I've crashed my car into a tree because of sleep eating.

I'm not very familiar with Ambien, but this seems like a non-sequitur. Do you mean sleep driving?

I would guess he means he took ambien, passed out/blacked out, and at that point decided he needed to go get something to eat while he was effectively "sleep-walking" and crashed

Sleep eating and sleep driving are two common behaviors exhibited while using Ambien. In that case, these two were likely combined.

Given what I have heard about Ambien I half-wonder why they don't include an option to tether yourself to your bed with a timer - perhaps with an emergency release to trigger some sort of alarm in case - since either you are sleep wandering and possibly going to do something dangerous or there was a real emergency and you need to get out.

Maybe something combined with Life-Alert or On-Star to be sure that they are coherent if it is released to cancel an alert?

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

IIRC, correct me if I'm wrong, Ambien is prescribed as sleep aid and also used in the USAF to nap on demand. I've never had narcolepsy AFAIK, with or without Ambien.

It is. You’re right. I never take Ambien recreationally.

Here’s the path I went down:

It quickly becomes this cyclical pattern where if you don’t take it, then you don’t sleep for days, so you’re forced to use it. And when I mean forced, I can’t go to work sleep deprived, especially in my line of work. You’ll build a tolerance quickly, then you begin ramping up your dosage, and this helps for awhile. But like a lot of long term ambien users know, you don’t fall asleep as easily anymore. Then the side effects really begin hitting you because you’re awake with a 30-60 mg of Ambien in you.

And if you have a history of drug abuse like I do, you do the dumbest thing possible and drink wine with ambien. This will knock you out for sure, but before that happens, you’ll begin doing extremely destructive things.

I’ve taken a considerable amount of drugs in my life, but Ambien is something else. It’s not a black and white drug as people say to just take and fall asleep. That’s how my first 6 months were like, but after 7 1/2 more years, it becomes something entirely different.

As a counterpoint, I've taken Ambien for like four years now, have never taken more than 20mg, and have never done anything destructive or hallucinated.

It's possible there is some genetic factor.

The USAF also gives amphetamines to its pilots to help them fly missions for over 24 hours without sleep.

I don't think that it's recommended for the general population though.

Do other sleep aids not work for you? Trazodone has helped me a lot.

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