Cocaine or Prayer? How Best to Feel Better

Sixteen years ago, when I first started my private practice, the complaints of some of my patients confused me. Despite normal exams and lab results, a number of women told me they just weren’t feeling well. They didn’t have energy and felt overwhelmed by life. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. The visiting pharmaceutical salesmen, however, came to the rescue. The diagnosis, I learned, was depression. The solution to my patients’ complaints was the pharmaceutical company’s product, taken once a day, every day — forever.

In my first year of practice, I selectively began prescribing antidepressants. I was pleased to see that many patients experienced a lifting of their sadness. I continued prescribing depression medication judiciously. Still, the diagnosis and treatment troubled me.

Early in my medical training, I had anticipated that psychiatry would be my specialty. The word “psychiatry,” literally translated from the Greek, means “treatment of the soul.” I had entertained the idea of a joint degree at Emory in both medicine and the ministry, so the idea of practicing in the field of medicine that handles the human soul called to me. But I soon learned that the reality of the practice of psychiatry was not what I had imagined. Psychiatric patients were placed on powerful medications with little real understanding of the diagnoses or the mechanism and side effects of the drugs.

Now, twenty years later, my work hours and job duties can be demanding and emotionally draining. There are desperate moments in the dead of night when a life is at stake and I am rushing into the operating room. But no matter the hour, I find the cries of a healthy newborn baby a joyful reminder that God is always present in our lives. Obstetrics and Gynecology has proven to be the spiritual field of medicine I was seeking as a young man.

I stopped prescribing antidepressants years ago, after a patient who had been on Zoloft came to my office in a desperate state. I found her curled up on the floor of the exam room. Having quit her medication three days earlier, she said she felt like she was going out of her mind. She quickly felt better after resuming the medication. But her withdrawal symptoms were too similar to those I’d seen experienced by addicts. People abuse drugs to be happier, to alleviate their suffering. Antidepressants affect the neurotransmitters in the brain with a mechanism similar to that of cocaine.

We all experience sadness in our lives, a sense of confusion about what we are doing, and, at times, an overwhelming feeling of despair. These are normal human emotions that all too often have a spiritual purpose. Drugs supply relief; but are they the solution? Health is not just about vital signs, laboratory findings and medical diagnoses. Part of health is understanding our purpose in life and following that path in our daily actions. When we stray, we are designed to experience unhappiness.

After all these years in practice, seeing thousands of patients, it’s been my observation that depression is not a true diagnosis of the body like cancer or pregnancy. It’s a spiritual discomfort to remind us to look deeper at our lives — and to make a change.

-Dr. Mike Litrel