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I have tried all the sleeping medications; my insomnia yields to few effective treatments. My physician pulled me off of Ambien immediately after I told her I'd stayed up late talking with my boyfriend and had no memory of it the next day. No abuse, no mixing, just plain old black outs. This is not an uncommon action of taking the drug. Neither is its addictive powers, which were originally denied when it first hit the market. (The commercials on TV now stress that ALL sleeping medications can be habit forming, but originally they explicitly claimed that Ambien wasn't. My physician told me it produced some of the most immediate and severe cravings she'd seen -- she pulled ALL of her patients off of it.) It's a lovely drug, subjectively -- the sleep is terrific, it has no hangover, and it produces a sweet euphoria before dropping off. Too bad that it's really dangerous, objectively. How did it get through to the market without these effects being noticed? How is it that physicians keep pushing it? Oh wait, we know the answers to these questions, don't we?
