When The Rolling Stones sang “Mother’s Little Helper” back in 1966, they weren’t talking about drugs. They were talking about a specific drug that was prescribed for everything from severely ill mental patients to recovering alcoholics to comfortable middle class people who sometimes felt anxious. It was called “Miltown.”
Source: This Is The Drug In The Rolling Stones’ Song “Mother’s Little Helper”
There’s some thought that the article isn’t correct, that the song is about Valium/Diazapam because the song lyrics mention a yellow pill. Valium comes in a yellow pill, while Miltown was only ever white.
Either way, in those days the alternative treatment was a lobotomy. We wince about historical treatments, but consider that this snippet is about 50 years old.
The withdrawal symptoms describes most anti-depressants on the market today. To the point that there’s a name for the condition: Antidepressant Discontinuation Syndrome. If a doctor tries to prescribe you any of these drugs: citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), fluoxetine (Prozac and others), fluvoxamine (Luvox), paroxetine (Paxil), and sertraline (Zoloft) or chlompramine (Anafranil), venlafaxine (Effexor) and desvenlafaxine (Pristiq), be very wary and quiz him/her on a discontinuation plan before you ever start taking them. I’m not saying you should not take the medication, just that you have a strategy for discontinuation of the medication.