Have you ever had one of those dreams where you know a terrible disaster is imminent, but you either can't tell anyone or they just won't listen? Well, this has been my life for the past twenty years or so. Yes, it's bizarre and no doubt, it sounds like I'm being overly dramatic. I probably wouldn't have believed me either.
Despite being marketed as a "safer" option than benzodiazepines for the treatment of insomnia, none of these medicines are intended for long term use. Prescribing medical practitioners are advised to limit their patient's use of the drug to a maximum of 14-28 days. All these medicines prevent the patient from obtaining complete sleep cycles, with their rhythm oscillating between slow-wave and REM phases of sleep. Such a deficit impedes regeneration of the immune system and the cognitive abilities of the brain to retain thoughts and memories, among other vital functions. Consequently, sleep obtained by taking such medicines, is little better than none at all.
Irrespective of prescribing guidelines advising doctors, countless patients take these drugs on a daily basis for years on end, having become hopelessly addicted after years of use. It's impossible that they can be getting anything but relief from withdrawal symptoms (which admittedly does feel good) and a psychosomatic effect , given the tolerance they must have acquired. Ironically, withdrawal symptoms can be so severe that benzodiazepines are needed to assist with tapering, reduction and the management of potential seizures. Incidences of over prescribing have continued increasing in frequency alongside a staggering popularity for recreational use.
Although the number of people addicted to Z drugs is significant, it's not the biggest concern users should be aware of. Pharmacies are legally obliged to clarify the many side effects that can befall patients. Warnings in the UK mainly consist of verbal advise from doctors and pharmacists, whilst in the US, black box warnings and many times the size of the packaging itself. They describe all the usual unpleasantness associated with hypnotics, but one specific peculiarity has been intentionally suppressed since its inception. One that everyone, whether they take the drug or not, needs to be keenly aware of.
It's impossible to suggest that I misused this drug in any way. I used it no more than two nights out of seven. Upon those occasions, I took a single 7.5mg pill, as prescribed, without any alcohol or any other possibly contra-indicated substance. To the best of my knowledge, I had experienced a fairly good night's sleep, waking feeling normal with nothing out of the ordinary to report. Then, one morning a friend of my then partner, knocked on my door. Thinking nothing of it, I opened the door and invited him inside. Before I could close the door behind him..BAM! He punched me square in the face. Now, I can take a punch, so my response was a combination of shock and confusion. I'm a very agreeable person. Definitely not the kind of person who has angered a queue avengers waiting for their turn to hit me.
Raised voices, accusations and denials ensued. Apparently, I had called his GF numerous times during the night, making increasingly severe threats. Calls made to someone I had never met, but yet even more baffling - how did I even know her phone number? I simply couldn't believe this was a behaviour I was capable of and still struggle to believe it to this day.
When he played me a recording of the calls, hearing my voice like that I was forced to admit my guilt. There was absolutely no denying it was my voice, but why or how it occurred was and still is, inconceivable.
Before too long I discovered from talking to friends, that these sort of bizarre incidents in conjunction with the memory loss, while under the influence of Zopiclone, were more common than we could have imagined. The common characteristics in all occasions were:
đThe use of a single 7.5mg dose of Zopiclone.
đBehaviour out of character to the individual.
đAbsolutely no recollection whatsoever of the events.
During the ensuing years, obscure reports of violent and embarrassing stories involving both celebrities and everyday people, began to hit the headlines. Oprah Winfrey was mocked, when she blamed the drug for racist remarks she had made on Twitter. Also alleging to be affected by the medicine, was Chris Pratt who challenged WWE star Dave Bautista to a fight.
An airplane was forced to make an emergency landing, when one passenger who had used the drug to alleviate their fear of flying, physically attacked the cabin crew. Further accounts portrayed hotel rooms being destroyed, patients facing domestic violence charges and all manner of peculiarities.
Until you've personally experienced such an episode, I can understand how hard it would be to accept the deniability that is warranted in what has been dubbed "The Ambien defence". This is unlike other instances of amnesia such as that caused by alcohol, where it's possible that remnants of events can return in drips and drabs with time. It's not like the effects felt from benzodiazepines, barbiturates, anaesthetics, opiates, Ketamine or just getting messed up, or overindulging.
The truly terrifying business effectively steals your body for a period of time, to do absolutely anything with and you can never know. "Body snatching".
Manufacturers Merck were making obscene profits from their product, maintaining that it was a "very rare side effect". In truth, many people were either too embarrassed to report anything, or were simply unaware that anything had befallen them, besides a full night's sleep.
Initial reports that did become public, were considered funny due to how bizarre it sounded. As time progressed, the more problematic nature of sleep eating, having (potentially involuntary or forceful) sex whilst unconscious, sleep cooking and even sleep driving, offered an indication of where this was heading.
Then one day when I searched the internet for the latest news concerning the matter (which usually led with a selection of rehab and detox facilities), everything had changed. Suddenly, the first results the search engine churned out were for lawyers. Finally after nearly 2 decades, the other foot had fallen... a terrible disaster I had foreseen all those years before had come to pass. It was truly like some kind of horror movie. Patients using the drug had awoken to discover the person they loved and that loved and trusted them most in the world -their soul mate - was dead. Butchered by them in utterly heinous ways. Scientists had investigated this "very rare side effect" and discovered that everything that we had been saying was true. Thus it's now become an accepted alibi in defence of crimes, where it could be proven the phenomenon was in effect.
However, the important thing to keep in mind is that whether a court of law accepts this alibi or not, that person still has to live each day for the remainder of their life, imagining that terror and suffering they inflicted upon their trusting partner. To my mind, such a sentence is a fate worse than death.
Whether you take Zopiclone, Zolpidem or another nonbenzodiazepine, consider whether it's really a gamble you're prepared to take. This pill could lead you into a nightmare world from which there could be no waking up.
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In the UK we are fortunate enough to have an important piece of legislation, that is based on one crucial principle. Access to safe, drinkable water is critical to sustaining life. This might not sound like much. If you think it doesnât apply to you, YOUâRE WRONG! Those without access to clean, safe water are no longer third world nations. Take a closer look at that basic necessity, you assumed was, and always would be safe⊠itâs not quite as certain as it might have seemed.
All Brits pay water charges. But even if those go unpaid, no home can be deprived of the water supply while itâs inhabitants draw breath. Itâs not like thereâs another option and you can pop down to the canal and take a bath, fill up a jerry can and not end up sick.
With an extensive network of purification plants, sewerage system and delivery pipes, every home can be reached. Recently, all the lead pipes got an upgrade. They canât be replaced without our streets collapsing. After so long, they are just a part of the land we live on. How is the problem resolved? Every lead pipe has been threaded with safe plastic piping, providing a public health solution for the ages.
Yet there are people who still complain about âundrinkableâ water. Theyâre terrified by the fears theyâve acquired, largely from social media, initiated by places with legitimate cause for concern. A small amount of chlorine added at the source, soon becomes nothing more than a residual quantity. And fluoride hysteria forgets the far larger presence naturally occuring in the earth. That which actually reaches them is nothing in comparison. Regulatory bodies inspect records, but more importantly, tested repeatedly at the source, as it leaves the supplier and at the tap, those results are there for everyone to see by right.
Variations in taste are either due to changes in equipment, distance from the source. Chilling and allowing a jug of this water to stand is usually sufficient although at no point is it ever a risk to health. The biggest causes of noticeable variations in taste, are due to consumers moving between places supplied by different sources, often unknowingly. But also, the effect of other factors, such as smoking, diet, health, dehydration, other drinks such as tea, coffee and carbonated beverages, on the function of the taste buds. The impact of which, I could never have comprehended a couple of years before.
The biggest complaint is about so-called âhard" water. Nothing more than magnesium and calcium from the rocks in the land, a crucial feature that has contributed to natural filtration for centuries. Something, endangering only the life of the kettle, required to eliminate the issue completely. What petty and entitled whingers such privilege has made of us.
Instead the mythical belief in the quality and health benefits of bottled water has persisted. There simply is no such thing as clean bottled water. Whether itâs the impurities in the contents, the unfathomable mark up on something being stolen from a finite source intended to support the life within the vicinity, the environmental impact or the knock on effect to those less fortunate, if you could see the dirty tricks and human cost, nobody would touch it.
Having some health issues, I made a resolution to give it a try and stick to the best possible water and nothing else. Being as I was paying for it anyway, I was going to drink what is lovingly known to us as âcouncil pop". The results were astonishing. Almost every aspect of my health improved rapidly. Suddenly people would comment on the clarity of my eyes and I was spending less time in the consulting room. As time went on, I reacquired the use of my taste buds to the point where I could no longer use metal cutlery as thatâs all I could taste. Even my thinking became clearer.
As a child, I recall my father telling me âitâs the things you CANâT see in water, you need to worry about. Try taking a bottle of water and evaporating it in a regular saucepan. Do the same thing with the same quantity of tap water and thereâs a visible result. So, that canât bode well.
I would see outraged comments about the developing world and the need for untainted water on social media. Scrolling to the bottom, itâs the work of the bottled water industry. Something just doesnât add up. Being familiar with the value of investment in infrastructure, the industry is nothing but a thief, sneaking in, draining the reserve intended for the local inhabitants, making a horrible mess, selling it back to them with a lot of empty promises and escaping before the damage can be assessed.
But donât imagine choosing another brand eliminates this factor. For example big players DanonĂȘ buying up Evian was no accident. People have such a vast exposure to branded products, their trust is easily abused in the knowledge, the majority either donât care, donât want to know, donât have the time or energy to find out or have no option. Companies donât spend billions on advertising because it doesnât work. The very fact that someone maintains theyâre not influenced by it indicates itâs done the intended job. Youâre supposed to want it without knowing why. Selling a product for exorbitant profit depends on nobody finding out the true cost.
Fertilizers, pesticides and nitrates, even arsenic leeches into the water table. Their ridiculous claims of technologies that have no value at this scale, such as reverse osmosis and distillation are laughable. But even if they could (or would) use large scale purification processes, thereâs the other effects on the environment too. Itâs impossible to miss the great chimneys that release the very gases we have worked so hard to eliminate in a bid for our very survival. And when the argument of chemicals from the plastic bottles leeching into the bottles arises, notice how âscientistsâ (have a guess whoâs paying for this study), say that theyâre stable unless temperatures fluctuate. Anyone who has ever worked in a warehouse will be familiar with the searing heat during the day and freezing nights. Thatâs without accounting for seasonal and regional variations.
While our waterways yield the results of the industrial waste spilling out. Killing fish, creating mutations like spinal curvatures and even sex changes. If itâs doing that to fish, how long before it reaches us? Remember the old canary in the coal mine? When it keels over and drops to the floor, you donât have long.
The pandemic has caused panic and chaos on a global scale, but 3,575,000 die annually due to lack of access to untainted water. If we had to choose between giving our children poisoned water or nothing, would it be allowed to continue?
A whole range of diseases are found in untreated water around the world, from Malaria, Cholera, Hepatitis A and Amoebic dysentery to parasitic infections, Trachoma, the majority of which affect children. In countries battling epidemic levels of HIV/AIDS, itâs the last thing you need with a weak immune system.
With the market for export bottled water growing, the question of finding an uncontaminated source is getting closer to home everyday. Isnât it time we stopped kidding ourselves and allowing what is ours to be taken out of greed?
Bottled water is no solution for this problem. Itâs just a band aid at best. But, where it detracts pressure from those responsible for provision and upkeep of crucial infrastructure, the only humane resolution, itâs actively worsening matters. Thereâs nothing that could convince me that replacing the linguistics for a basic element required for life, can be acceptable.
This is a much more pressing public health issue than recent events. Legislation, planning and the development for the essential works required, doesnât happen overnight.
The notion of bottles of water being âconvenientâ is nonsensical, when it can be as simple as the touch of a button. And flavoured waters are nothing more than a tool to add to the blood money on the hands of big water.
I only know this because we have very tight restrictions on tap water in the UK. Tests are mandatory at multiple points and times- publically available with suppliers being accountable. I literally weep, when I look to the United States, a nation admired for the virtues of justice and public health. The ease with which this vital resource, for the wellbeing of themselves and future generations, is dismissed as a priority. Simply because there is an all prevailing culture of entrusting corporations in matters that cannot ethically be a question of profitability. Until itâs too late and everything goes horribly wrong. Revealing no protections for the citizens. Only a series of corrupt decisions and shady deals by those responsible for âguard dutyâ
When they turn up pumping your water supply, maybe the shine of bottled water wonât seem so attractive. If the money spent on bottled water was in the right hands, everyone could have access to the highest standards of clean, life saving water. What has the world come to, that the most basic needs are sold to corporate predators?
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2nd October 2024.
Update.
Last week this was published in SciTechDaily. What the heck is wrong with people? Can nobody think beyond their own immediate needs? No wonder this planet is purging itself of the parasitic disease that's steadily but surely killing it as if they had planned it all.
This is stuff you learn before the age of 10 as a rule-evaporation tests etc. In the UK -now this could have a lot to do with it- there's a tendency to look at social media and assume anything that's said applies to you, forgetting it's a global affair. Just as Britain has NEVER had vaccine mandates, we have some of the most rigid controls and regulations regarding the distribution storage, treatment of water and processing of water, whereas bottled water, (frequently precisely the same stuff) has none at all. All the road works and temporary traffic lights causing mayhem nationwide? That's your waterboard.
Our water supplies and sewerage systems are so ancient that they're part of the landscape. To remove them could lead to subsidence, pot holes,crevices and chasms appearing.. so instead of replacing lead piping, every water pipe has had durable plastic piping threaded through it manually. If you're unhappy with the water you've paid for, , just get onto the computer via their website or the old fashioned way.. give them a call! Then again, I suppose they would need to find something else to moan about đ
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