From Ozempic to Adderall, are we solving the crisis—or just medicating the culture that caused it?
The TikTok Glow-Up That Started a Conversation
In the not-so-distant past, Ozempic was just another prescription for type 2 diabetes. Then came the TikTok glow-up. Suddenly, it was the celebrity-endorsed, off-label miracle for weight loss, with hashtags like #OzempicChallenge racking up hundreds of millions of views. The drug’s ability to suppress appetite made it a go-to for those seeking quick fixes, leading to global shortages and a surge in demand that even left diabetes patients scrambling.
But Ozempic is just one piece in a much larger medicine cabinet. Take a step back, and you’ll notice a curious pattern in modern health culture: we build lifestyles that push us into extremes—burnout, overconsumption, disconnection—and then engineer the remedies to pull us back from the edge.
It’s almost like we’re designing our own problems, just so we can invent the cure.
Meds That Mirror the Systems That Made Us Sick
Antidepressants are a powerful tool for millions navigating mental health challenges. But part of their rise also reflects a culture that glorifies overwork, constant connectivity, and comparison—pressures we helped create and now find ourselves treating.
Take Adderall. Originally intended for ADHD, it’s now widely used to sharpen focus in high-stakes environments that demand uninterrupted attention. But when distraction becomes a side effect of modern life—notifications, endless tabs, digital noise—is the fix really pharmaceutical? Or is it architectural?
The same goes for medications like Xanax or Ambien. We reach for one to dial down anxiety on a high-stress Tuesday, and the other to quiet the racing thoughts that kick in around 1:37 a.m.—usually about work, deadlines, or whatever life admin we forgot to do.
They’re meant to help us manage the spikes: panic attacks, sleepless nights, the emotional whiplash of modern life. But when those highs and lows are baked into our routines—constant stimulation, unrealistic expectations, the pressure to always be “on”—we’re not just treating a condition. We’re medicating the noise.
And sometimes, the fix turns on us—tolerance builds, usage creeps, and the thing that soothed us becomes something we need to recover from, eventually sending us to rehab in search of a cure for the cure of a condition we helped create.
“We’re building a world that breaks us,
then medicating the crash—and calling it progress.”
When the Fix Becomes the Standard
This raises a deeper question: what happens when treatment becomes the baseline?
When the “normal” we aim to restore is actually part of the problem?
At that point, medicine isn’t just helping us recover—it’s quietly reshaping what we expect from ourselves and others. Stable moods, optimized focus, regulated appetites, socially approved body sizes. We begin to define health not as wholeness, but as compliance.
The result? A version of well-being that’s smoothed-out and standardized. Fewer spikes, fewer crashes—and maybe fewer surprises.
A culture that once celebrated uniqueness now leans into predictability, where optimal starts to feel indistinguishable from average.
Medicine Matters—But So Do Our Habits
This isn’t a rant against medicine. Far from it. These treatments save lives, offer dignity, and give people a path forward when the road gets hard.
But we owe it to ourselves to also ask: could we build lives that need less fixing?
What if, alongside the prescriptions, we also reprogram the culture that got us here—by embracing rest, connection, boundaries, and a life that makes sense from the inside out? Free yourself, and your mind will follow.
Medication may steady the ship, but only new habits can change the course.
