Although buprenorphine was working for Chris, the evidence for psychotropic medications more generally is not robust, especially when taken long term.

A minority of patients (about 20 percent) don’t feel better after the dopamine fast. That’s important data too, because it tells me that the drug wasn’t the main driver of the psychiatric symptom and that the patient likely has a co-occurring psychiatric disorder that will require its own treatment.

The paradigm shift around pain has translated into massive prescribing of feel-good pills. Today, more than one in four American adults—and more than one in twenty American children—takes a psychiatric drug on a daily basis. The use of antidepressants like Paxil, Prozac, and Celexa is rising in countries all over the world, with the United States t