Supplement-Antibiotics Anonymous Redux*

By Stan Deresinski, MD, FACP, Editor, Infectious Disease Alert

Are You Antibiotic Dependent?

-Do you prescribe antibiotics to relieve tension?

-Do you prescribe antibiotics more than other physicians but are able to hide it?

-Do you sometimes feel guilty about the way you prescribe antibiotics?

-Do you have a strong urge to prescribe antibiotics at a particular time of day?

-Have you lost ambition since you began prescribing antibiotics in this way?

-Has another physician advised you to stop or cut down your prescribing?

-Are you harder to get along with when you are heavily prescribing?

-Have you ever tried to cut back?

-Do you have difficulty sleeping a full night?

-Have you ever been in trouble with the antibiotic police?

-Have you ever done anything while prescribing that you don’t remember (have a blackout)?

-Have you ever promised yourself you would cut back on your prescribing and then broken that promise?

-Have you ever tried to convince people that you were not prescribing antibiotics when you were?

-Do you wish people would mind their own business about your antibiotic prescribing-that they stop telling you what to do?

-Have you ever switched from one kind of antibiotic to another in the hope that this would keep you from going over the edge?

-Have you had to have an eye-opener (ie, prescribed an antibiotic immediately upon awakening, in the last year)?

-Do you envy people who can prescribe antibiotics without getting into trouble?

-For those who have answered yes to one or more of these questions, I have begun the
development of a 12-step program. Unfortunately, I have only been able to develop half of a 12-step program

-You must admit that you are powerless over your antibiotic prescribing.

-You must believe that a power (an antibiotic guru) greater than yourself can restore you to sanity.

-You must make a decision to turn your will and life over to the care of that power.

-You must make a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself.

-You must admit to the power and to yourself the exact nature of your misprescribing.

-You must humbly ask the power to remove your antibiotic shortcomings.

* Lockwood WR. Letter: Antibiotics anonymous. N Engl J Med 1974;290:465-466.