Over Medication: Sleeping ourselves to Death.

Research this week has shown us once more that we can do lots of things with medication. We can calm shaky nerves, make the sleepless slumber, and banish chronic pain. We do these with medications such as Ativan, Ambien, and Hydrocodone and they do work. Unfortunately, we are finding that this does not come without cost.

In a study that looked at 100,000 patients in the United Kingdom who took diazepam derivatives (Valium) related to lorazepam (Ativan), and sedative hypnotic sleeping pills like Ambien (zolpidem) a startling result was found. [i]The risk of death from all causes was doubled!  The researchers were careful to explain that the study was a correlative study. They could not say that taking a sleeping pill or a nerve pill was the direct cause of the increased death rate. But, the correlation between the doubling of the death rate and taking these medications was real and substantial.

This research is important because our society has become fixated on the idea that if we have problems that are emotional or medical, there must be a medicine that can fix them. This viewpoint has had an impressive effect on the medical habits of our people.

In 2011 our five percent of the world’s population consumed 66% of all the psychiatric medications sold in the world. In addition we consumed 80% of all the worlds opiate derivative narcotic pain medicines.[ii] Since their introduction in 1988, the use of antidepressant medications in the United States has increased 400%.[iii] It is hard to believe that our 5% should be so troubled. But, our medicine cabinets would seem to say we are.

The most significant cost of this rising tide of prescription drug use is death by overdose.[iv] More people in the US today die of prescription drug overdoses than deaths due to overdoses of heroin and cocaine combined. Most all of these prescription overdose deaths will be due to the Opioid pain killers. Half the time the death will be due to a combination of Narcotic pain killer and the anti anxiety Valium type drugs and sleeping pills. IN 2008 more people died from these prescription drug overdoses than from car wrecks.

By now you must wonder where I am headed with all of this bad news. Well, it stands as a warning to all of us. As patients we should not expect to have every sleepless night, anxious moment or aching joint fixed with medicine. And, we should be carefully asking our prescriber what it is we are going to take and what the side effects and benefits are. As doctors we must take the greatest care when we prescribe medication that we know can alone or in combination with others kill the patient who takes them.

And, maybe it is time that we started looking for answers to more of our problems someplace besides a doctor’s office. This is very true for things like anxiety and sadness over loss. Talking with someone who is trained and skilled in counseling can achieve the same or better results than medication without the risk of medication side effects. It is also true for insomnia. Studies have shown that Cognitive Behavioral talk therapy helps those who struggle with sleep.[v]

Biblical counseling deals with these kinds of problems and does so without side effects. Counseling from the scriptures offers hope to those who are sad. It offers answers to those who worry. It gives encouragement for those who struggle with sleep and those who must deal with chronic pain.  A couple of good sources for finding counselors trained in Biblical counseling are the websites for the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (http://www.biblicalcounseling.com/ ) and the Biblical Counseling Coalition ( http://biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/ ).  

Children who are lied to by adults are more likely to lie than children who are not lied to by adults. Once again science tells us something that we should have already known. Researchers at the University of California at San Diego[i] conducted an interesting project that involved 186 children divided into two groups.[ii] Both groups were asked to identify the cartoon characters only hearing their voices and without peaking at the dolls that represented them. One half of the group was told that there was a bowl of candy in the next room. Then in short order they were told by the researcher that they had been lied to and that there was no candy. The other group was not lied to by the researcher.

Both groups were then asked to identify the characters by listening to the song associated with the doll without looking. Just after the child heard the tune, the observer excused himself and left the room. This gave the child a 90 second opportunity to cheat. Then when the observer returned the children were asked if they had cheated.

The results are interesting for those aged 5 to 7.  Around 60% of those who had not been lied to cheated. And, 60% of those who cheated lied about it. For those in the group who had been lied to by the researcher 80% cheated and 90% of those cheated lied about it. There was a difference between the 5 to 7 year olds and the 3 to 4 year olds. The 3 to 4 years olds were not affected by the lie the researcher told and cheated and lied at the same rate.

I suppose you wouldn’t need a doctorate in psychology to predict that children who are lied to by adults will learn from them. I suppose when parents or important adult figures lie to children we should expect that children might think we were telling them that it is ok. As a parent of four children and a grandparent of twelve, I have always thought that the young ones who watch me pick up my bad habits quicker than any good ones I might have.

I guess this means that if I smoke my children will. If I cuss, my children probably will too. If my children see that I smoke pot, they may decide that it is ok for them as well. There are all kinds of things that we can choose to do as adults that our children may choose to imitate because that is how they learn.

If we want our children to become honest, hard working, upright citizens who become good parents, we will have to set the example. We are already setting an example for them, the only question is will it be a good one? 

Proverbs 22:6 is quoted often in reference to raising children. “Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” There are lots of conclusions that we can arrive at from that verse, but the one that is unavoidable is that parents do the training. And, how we choose to live by God’s grace will profoundly affect the little ones who watch us.

When we adults are deciding what our habits, words, or actions will be, we need to remember that there are always little eyes watching and learning. “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edification, that it may minister grace to the hearer.” Ephesians 4:29

David Murray has written a blog that mentions me and asks the question can anyone be a Biblical Counselor without being part of the Biblical Counseling Movement. You can his blog “When Friends Disagree” at http://headhearthand.org/blog/2014/02/13/when-friends-disagree/#comment-45128 .

David poses an interesting question and here is my answer.

David,

Friends? Yes! Brothers for certain! Can anyone be a Biblical Counselor without being a part of the Biblical Counseling Movement? I suppose that it just as likely as someone being a Christian without being a Baptist or a Methodist or a Presbyterian. J

When I started this counseling journey I suspect that I was probably right in the middle of the road. I was certainly not in the Biblical Counseling movement, but I was not happy with the outcomes that I was seeing with a counseling format that attempted to merge the “best of” secular psychology, medical treatment and my view of Christian counseling. It is interesting to me that you say that the results you have seen with CBT have in part led you to the position that you hold.

My experience was in the opposite direction. After about 10 years of doing my best to integrate medicine, secular counseling, and the Bible, I was introduced to better outcomes with Biblical counseling. My brother had taken training and came back pastoring and counseling in a remarkably different way. That led me to go for the same training.

When I teach Biblical counseling, I tell students that good people do disagree about where to draw the line between medical and spiritual issues. And, I tell them that when we do disagree, we need to be gracious when we speak about things that fall in the Romans 14 arena. But, there are some things that fall outside of that arena for anyone who would identify him or herself as a Biblical counselor. I am glad that you say that having read the BCC documents that you agree with them 100%. That is a good place to start.

I do not want to turn this comment into a comprehensive statement about what I believe makes a Biblical counselor biblical. So I will note one thing and quit. It is a quote that I read from R.C. Sproul. “"It is your duty to believe and to teach what the Bible teaches, not what you want it to teach."

 For me that means that I am not at liberty to agree with a secular concept that is identified as scientific when it disagrees with scripture. As I tell students, I will never call anything a disease that the Bible calls a sin. At the same time, I also tell them that I will never call anything sin unless the Bible specifically does. I will not attempt to enforce my personal preferences on people with the weight of scripture.

I think that is a good place to start for anyone who wants to identify themselves as a Biblical counselor.

David Murray and Bob Kellemen have been having a conversation about Biblical counseling and medication. Bob writes at http://biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/

I was mentioned in the last article that David Murray wrote and I decided to blog about it. You can find David’s blog from today at www.HeadHeartHand.org

Hello Pastor Murray,

I don’t know you as we have never met. I suppose that must change now since you have mentioned me in print. I am Charles Hodges the author of Good Mood Bad Mood. I have practiced medicine for 38 years now as a family physician and I write the prescriptions for the anti depressants that your friend was going to discuss with his doctor. I have been teaching and counseling from a Biblical viewpoint for a couple of decades. I am not Ken Ham. Ken Ham is far better suited for that than I am. J

I do think we should get to know each other. I think there are many people like me in the Biblical Counseling movement and if you knew me better you would know them better too.  So, let’s take a run at it.

Yes, there is controversy (You used the word war) going on in the field of depression. Frankly, the argument is not yours. It is happening in my field of medicine. And, researchers are currently airing their disagreements about the effectiveness of antidepressants as they are being used today. There is also a considerable argument going on about the diagnosis of depression and DSM criteria whereby it is made. This is not an argument in Biblical counseling. This is an argument among psychologists and psychiatrists without regard to religion! I outline that research in my book. I did so because current research would indicate that the diagnosis of depression is ambiguous and applied far too often to people who are grieving loses.

We in the medical profession have caused this by consenting to a process of making a diagnosis of a disease (depression) with no means to validate it. The chemical imbalance theory of depression is fading because after 50 years of looking there is no objective scientific evidence that it exists.  This is not an opinion arrived at from examining the scriptures or biblical counseling folklore. It is the current statement of the scientific literature and I wrote about it in my book with abundant footnotes.

Perhaps it is true that many of us in Biblical counseling view the “observations of secular psychiatry” with skepticism.  It is not because we are afraid of encountering scientific fact. It is as Ronald Reagan once said of his political opposition. It wasn’t so much that they were uniformed. Reagan said, “It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.” So it has been in the psychiatric part of medicine. We have been operating for 50 years with “facts” that are proving not to be true!  And, that it is good because, now we can start looking for a better answer. And that is what medicine needs today; a better definition of the changes at the cell level that cause depression.  If we get that we can make a better diagnosis and we can find better ways to treat.

If you are looking for evidence that someone in the Biblical counseling movement is reading current research and writing about it, I invite you to read my blog at goodmoodbadmood.com.  I write there every week about the science of medicine that applies to Biblical counseling.  A couple of weeks back I wrote about a fascinating study that showed that taking religion seriously made a huge (90%) difference in the risk a person faces for depression if he came from a family that had a history of it. This morning I posted about the connection between sleeping less than 6 hours a night and depression. This is current published research that I write about.

I note that you mention Ed Welch’s book, “Blame it on the Brain.” There is a good quote in that book that applies to this chronic recurring controversy over taking antidepressants. I remember that he said something to the effect that taking medicine for psychiatric disorders was not a matter of right or wrong. Instead it was a question of whether it was “wise or unwise.” In that sense I have been trying to tell people for 20 years that taking medicine for psychiatric diagnoses is a Romans 14 issue of Christian Liberty. I have also said that the idea that taking antidepressants is a right or wrong issue has been the wrong question. What we should have been asking was, “do these medicines work and are the side effects worth the benefit!” The research today does not clearly tell us that these medicines work very well for most of those who take them.

I have little use for debates. It is not that I fear the controversy, but I do not like arguing with my brothers and sisters. I have a family of pastors whose denomination enjoys inviting pastors of other denominations in for a good round of debating their theological differences. They asked me once if I would come and do it. I told them no!  When they asked me why, I said it was because I liked them.

So, I know that you are a brother and that we likely disagree about some things. But I suspect that if you knew me better, you would criticize me and those like me less. We should get together and talk about this. 




Charles Hodges M.D.













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