`Stay awake' pill promises more free time, but for what?
By Beth Teitell
Tuesday, October 7, 2003
As if being awake for 16 or 17 hours a day
isn't already taxing enough, societal expectations for wakefulness are threatening
to become even more exhausting.
In late September, an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration endorsed new uses for a drug that can keep people awake with fewer side effects than caffeine or amphetamines.
I guess the panel's recommendation is good news for those who work night shifts or who suffer from sleep apnea - the two casesit may soon be approved to treat - but it's a nightmare for the rest of us. Well, at least the rest of us slouches.
After the FDA panel made its recommendation, The New York Times reported ``there has been concern in the medical community that Provigil could become a lifestyle drug, used as a substitute for sleep by those who want to work or play longer.''
The doctors are worried that we don't know enough about sleep deprivation to understand the long-term effects of a drug that helps patients stay awake and alert for up to 40 hours straight.
As usual, the MDs have their concerns, and I have mine. The drug's growing popularity in our culture - sorry docs, but anecdotal evidence shows it's already being used as a lifestyle drug - means that I'm faced with a no-win situation. If I don't take the drug, but everyone else does, I'll fall behind. ``What did you do last night, Beth?'' someone on a Provigil binge will ask. ``Uh, I slept,'' I'll say sheepishly, and then to be polite, I'll force myself to inquire as to her nocturnal doings.
``Oh, not much,'' she'll begin, ``I worked out, caught up with some back issues of the New York Review of Books, watched Martin Scorsese's seven-part series on the blues, finished gluing my daughter's diorama, filed all my receipts for tax time, hung out with a couple of friends, put away my summer clothes, made my husband's favorite chicken soup.''
``So why not just pop a pill or two?'' you may be thinking.
Yeah, right. Instead of getting a seven- or eight-hour break from grooming and making clever conversation (or, more accurately, trying to make clever conversation), I'd be forced to be on duty 24/7.
For starters, my wardrobe is not up to the job. I don't have enough decent clothes to wear as it is. And what would staying up that long do to my skin? And, more frightening, my snacking? I can barely keep myself from the cookies when I'm up for only 16 hours; what's going to happen when I don't have an eight-hour period when I'm in sleep-induced lockdown?
And then there's the fear of what the pill will reveal. ``There are so many things I don't do now because I'm `too busy,' '' one of my friends confessed. ``Volunteer, write thank you notes, cook, read anything but Entertainment Weekly. What will happen when I do have enough time, but I'm still not doing anything selfless or admirable?''
It's the kind of thought that can keep a person
up nights.
