Today, many people are taking psychotropic drugs and have a problem tapering off of them. Mike Cleveland of Setting Captives Free runs into this problem with his parishioners on a regular basis. In an effort to help bring awareness of the alternatives to psychiatric drugs he wrote this wonderful article. Please pass it along to spread the awareness.
by Mike Cleveland
Team Member, Setting Captives Free
Today’s society presents numerous problems and challenges for people to face: the global economic meltdown of 2008 wiped out the savings and took the jobs of numerous people, the ever-present threat of terrorism is at an all-time high, earthquakes, tsunamis, and the threat of nuclear disaster all seem to be increasing, and numerous other problems face our society today.
Many people find it increasingly difficult to deal with all of the issues that we are all faced with; they feel depressed and overwhelmingly discouraged and hopeless, and so they turn to their local medical care provider. Here is where the real problems can start, as many people in today’s world will be prescribed dangerous, mind-altering drugs to deal with their difficulties in life. And these drugs, much like illegal street drugs will at first provide some form of relief, and then begin to create a chemical dependence within the body. Now, in addition to all the previous symptoms, people become trapped in drug usage, which only adds to the problem.
In our ministry we use such words as trapped, captive, ensnared, enslaved, imprisoned to describe the condition that we enter into when placed on psychotropic drugs to deal with our problems in life. And with those words to describe the problem comes an overwhelming sense that “there has to be a better way.” There must be a better solution to deal with life’s problems and challenges than chemically altering our minds which leads to drug addiction.
Indeed there is! By our personal work with individuals and the work of medical professionals who can help people taper off of drugs, we are seeing hundreds of people getting free from psychotropic drugs.
Amanda is an example of this freedom. This is an outtake of her story: “I am a poster child for horror stories of psychiatric drugs. I was first put on anti-depressants when I was 12 years old. This began a series of in and out-patient hospital stays, and countless diagnoses. Over the course of over 10 years I dealt with eating disorders, cutting, suicidal thoughts and so much more. I was diagnosed with severe depression, Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), multiple personalities, Borderline Personality Disorder, Bi-Polar Disorder, and so much more.
I took so much medication over the years I lost count. The drugs that I remember being on at one time or another include Effexor, Seroquel, Risperdal, Paxil, Valium, Lithium, Zoloft, Lexapro, Prozac, Wellbutrin, and Trazodone. There are more I’m sure, but these are the ones I remember for the most part. I also had medications to help “contain” the side effects of these drugs. It was sort of crazy. They used to say the drugs worked better “alongside” one another. What foolishness! One of my last doctors said there might not be much more for me to try. It was suggested at one time that I try electric shock therapy.
Thanks to the Setting Captives Free program,  I have been “drug free” for over two years now.”
Mike Cleveland can be contacted at mikec@settingcaptivesfree.com