Anxiety, Alcohol, Pills, and the Illusion of Easy Solutions Fear of Pills I do not believe that tranquilizers and anti-anxiety medication can truly solve anxiety in the long run. Maybe they can help for a while. Maybe they can calm a person down during the worst moments, when panic, insomnia, or inner chaos become unbearable. But deep inside, I have always felt that chemistry alone cannot fix something that slowly grows out of life itself, out of fear, habits, stress, unresolved thoughts, and the way a person learns to survive. Perhaps I think this way because I already had my own experience with addiction long before anxiety became a problem. I was barely eighteen when alcohol started becoming more than just occasional drinking. Looking back now, I can honestly say I was already seriously drinking myself into the ground in those years. By twenty-two, I stopped drinking completely. At least for a while - for 30 years. At that age, I sometimes wondered whether some other substance...