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Pushkin.

A warning before we start.

This episode mentions death by suicide.

If you're suffering emotional distress or you're

having suicidal thoughts, support is available. For example, from the 988 suicide and crisis

lifeline in the US, or from the Samaritans in the UK. Taking a look at world events,

anxiety is a fairly reasonable position to take, but when does anxiety

cross over from a rational evolutionary response to a devastating medical condition? And what happens

when the treatments work a little bit too well? This episode comes to you from the new podcast, Drug Story,

which looks at some of our most common conditions,

how they affect people, then examines the drugs that are supposed to help,

that come with their own list of side effects,

and of course, cautionary tales.

In this episode, on Xanax and anxiety, host Thomas Getz asks why the

decade of anxiety has lasted 40 years, steps back to ancient Greece, and explores how a drug

meant to help has become one of the most abused, most counterfeited drugs in the world.

Enjoy the episode, and if you want to hear more, you can find Drug Story wherever you get your podcasts.

I was in my apartment, and it was morning. My husband had left for work, I was waiting for the babysitter and I live in New York City and I thought I was dying. I thought I was having a heart attack. I started racing like I needed to get out of my skin and run away and the babysitter was late, so I put the kids in the stroller because I had

to get outside. I was afraid of dying in front of them. And once I was on the street, I ran into

the babysitter. I gave her the kids. And I ran into a friend who seemed to know what was going on

...