The Real Deal vs. Generics

I like real drugs. Of course I'm talking about prescription drugs. As a clean and sober person for 23 years, any other kinds are irrelevant to me. But I do take a couple or three prescription drugs as my body dictates. I could probably eliminate them altogether if I'd eat fruits and veggies, fish (broiled or baked), and organic lotsa things, but I'm too hooked on the stuff that, as far as I'm concerned, make life worth living. But I digress. Let's not get into that right now.

My doctors prescribe whatever they have ascertained will work to get rid of whatever we're trying to get rid of. Sometimes there's a generic available. They call it the generic "equivalent." I'm no expert, but from what more than one doctor over the years have told me, generics are not equivalent to the real thing. At least not all of them. So I choose to stick with the real deal even if it costs me more. And oh boy, does it cost me more!

One of my prescriptions erroneously got filled with a generic, and it was dirt cheap. I can't remember how much ir cost but it wasn't worth budgeting for. The brand name, the original, the real deal cost me $75 for one month's worth. Whew! And that's with insurance that includes prescription coverage!

Worse, when doctors do prescribe brand name drugs, often those busy doctors get called back or faxed back with the question, "Do you REALLY want to prescribe this and not the generic?" It's a pain in the ass for the prescriber, and somebody has to pay the pharmacy staff person who has to follow up to confirm that the idiot prescriber really, really, really means to pass up the wonderful generic. One of my doctors speculated that somebody's gotta be paying somebody something (graft, premiums, bonuses) for that to happen as a matter of course.

So what's my objection? I'm a lay person; I don't know squat about drugs. But enough of my doctors have said that generics aren't the equivalent of the original forumla that I believe them. Generics (some, most, whatever) often have different (usually more) fillers; they don't have the exact same active ingredients; they don't work with everybody's body. So give me the one that we know works, I say.

Even with OTC, as they affectionately call "over the counter" drugs, I buy the brand names. Anacin (hard to find nowadays) over aspirin. Robitussin over just tussin. Etc.

Same with other types of products -- food, bottles and jars of creams and lotions, cleaning products, etc., ad infinitum. I like brands. I trust them more and I like their appearance better. (Typical of a Libra)

I looked just now and out of several hundred products I probably have at home, I have exactly two generics: Duane Reade Alcohol Prep Swabs (sexy name, eh?) and America's Choice Tall Kitchen Bags (since Glad changed theirs to a thinner bag, and Hefty's always been Flimsy, Flimsy, Flimsy, not Hefty, Hefty, Hefty). That's about all there will ever be in my household.

So that's what 15 years in the advertising business did for me. Although...a friend of mine who's been in that biz far longer than I recently bought something generic, which I gave her a ration of shit for. (But she's not a Libra)

Anyway, I'm paying more for my real-deal drugs and, at least for me, it's worth it.

Divorce - The gift that keeps on giving

I just got back from dinner with one of my neighbors and a friend of hers who's visiting from a nearby state. I'll change the names to protect the innocent as well as the guilty.

Jane, my neighbor (and friend), I knew had been married for 38 years when her husband one day pretty much out of the blue said he was leaving. And he did. Jennifer, Jane's friend, had been married for 34 years when her husband totally out of the blue said he was leaving. And he did. This happened to both of them about the same time, about two years ago.

Neither Jane nor Jennifer have remarried. Both of their exes have, both to women they were seeing before they left. Both ex-spouses denied that there was anyone else when they left. In both cases, the grown kids dislike their dad's new wife. Jane's kids go with gritted teeth to events that include their dad's new wife (whom they wouldn't ever even consider calling their stepmother). Jennifer's kids aren't too receptive to going much of anywhere with their dad and his -- until today -- fiance.

Yes, Jennifer's ex got remarried today. Jennifer has a boyfriend of over a year so it wasn't as tough as it could have been. But her daughter -- we'll call her Jill -- had a rough day. Jill refused to go to dinner with them awhile ago -- I don't know the details -- and apparently the new wife-to-be (who is only a few years older than Jill) didn't take it very well. Jill didn't get an invitation to the wedding. Her brother did. Not cool.

It gets worse.

Daddy asked Jill if she was coming to the wedding. Jill said not if she didn't get an invitation, though privately she had already decided she wasn't going. Thursday, two days before the wedding, Jill's invitation came in the mail -- torn in two inside the envelope. That prompted Jill to decide to go -- wearing black. So she did. Must've been a fun day for all.

One of my male friends years ago got divorced and married the love of his life whom he'd met years before when he and his wife had been separated for a time. They never got over each other and finally he got out of his unhappy marriage and was free to marry her. I remember him telling me that he felt like he was in the corner in his living room watching the rest of the family live their lives. I said to him, "How sad for everyone," and he told me later that my comment had gotten him thinking and helped him to realize that he wasn't doing his family any favors by staying when he was so unhappy. His high-school-and-college-age kids had a problem with that. It got pretty bad. His daughter stepped in front of his car in the street to stop him one afternoon when he was on the way to her soccer game and screamed at him not to ever come to another of her games again. The good news is that a year later, she chose to go live with them. And, the jilted wife found someone she loved and also remarried.

I think the worst story I know of first hand came from a woman with an unusual name -- let's call her LaDonna. Her brothers also had fairly unusual names -- let's say Damian and Oscar. All were over 35. When it came out that their dad had been having an affair with a woman for some 20 years, it also came out that he had had three kids with her, one girl and two boys. Guess what their names were. Yep, LaDonna, Damian and Oscar. Can you imagine?!? All six kids were at that wedding. I lost touch with LaDonna so I don't know if that story had a happy ending or not, but I vividly remember the look of grim resolve covering up a soul-deep sorrow the day before the wedding.

I thought my divorce was bad, and it was, in its own way. Aren't they all? But it was 26 years ago so I'm long over it. People who get divorced from people with whom they have children have an especially challenging road. Like my friend Jennifer said tonight, "Divorce -- the gift that keeps on giving."