This article is not meant to diagnose or provide medical advice—that responsibility lies with physicians. The author is not a licensed medical professional.
When you think about drug addicts, you probably get a certain image in your head, a junkie shuffling zombie-like down a street; a drunk, swaying on a park bench drinking cheap wine from a brown paper bag; a meth addict picking scabs, rotting teeth, a little scary.
You know who you probably don’t think of? The suburban, middle-class mom with the minivan; the 30-something woman stalking the aisles at Target, stair-step children in tow; the woman in your yoga class or your mom group or book club; your child’s friend’s mom who always seems like she’s got her shit together. But there she is. She’s strung out on Xanax or snorts her kid’s Adderall or pours whiskey in her coffee every morning.
She was the inspiration for The Rolling Stones’ “Mother Little Helper”:
“What a drag it is getting old
‘Kids are different today,;
I hear ev’ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she’s not really ill
There’s a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day”
In a country with only 5 percent of the world’s population, Americans consume more than 80 percent of the world’s opiates, and with so many drug consumers, it shouldn’t be surprising that many of them don’t fit the stereotypes.
Mothers who are not a part of the workforce, who stay home with small children, are uniquely positioned among all demographics to have secret pill addictions. It starts off innocently enough; a mom seeking treatment for anxiety or depression, both of which are extremely prevalent in SAHMs (stay-at-home moms), is prescribed an anti-anxiety drug, something like Xanax, a benzodiazepine.
She. Feels. Amazing.
Top of the world. Best mom ever. She’s more patient with her children, she’s nicer to her partner, and she can go to play dates without feeling awkward and uncomfortable. So, she takes one every day. Just to take off the edge. Then she takes another that same day because she has that PTA thing she forgot about. Oh, and then that evening, dinner with her husband’s boss. Definitely need one for that, right?
A year later, she’s going to see six different doctors to get prescriptions so she can keep up with her five or six pill a day habit.
On the flipside, with the high number of children being prescribed medications for ADHD, stimulant drugs like Ritalin and Adderall are everywhere and especially easy for moms to get. It’s not hard to imagine, when you’re looking at a mountain of laundry, a sink full of dishes and a to-do list eight miles long, how tempting it might be to take a pill that makes it easy to focus on the work you need to do. You can bulldoze through your chores and come out on the other side of the day not exhausted and devoid of energy. That’s the kind of drug that calls to SAHMs.
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