My husband of 34 years took his life after being on Ambien for sleep problems. He suffered from neuropathy from diebetes and the pain was so terrible he couldn’t sleep. He became depressed after being on the Ambien and at times if he didn’t go straight to bed he became as if he was drunk and didn’t know what was going on. The afternoon before he died he took 2 pills to help him sleep. He slept through the alarm to awaken him to get ready for work on Sunday night. I woke him up and asked him to please never take 2 pills again at a time. He said he didn’t realize he had done that. I told him I loved him and wnet to bed that night going to sleep holding his hand. The next morning I awoke to find him gone and some things in the house in dissaray. Sometime during the night he had gotten up and taken everything out of our storage shed in the back yard. He then took his car and was gone. After all the family searching and with the hellp of friends and even the police my husbands car was finally found later that afternoon on a bridge, still running. My husbands body was found a few hours later having washed up on the beach of the lake. My husband didn’t knowingly do this. He was looking forward to the birth of our granddaughter the next week, and the wedding of our daughter 3 months later. Because of this drug, I spent our 34th wedding anniversary at the funeral home receiving visitors the night before his funeral. Our grandchildren will grow up without knowing their Godly grandfather. Instead of having her father excort her down the isle at her wedding, my daughter was excorted by her two brothers. I lost the love of my life. My husband referred to us as the King and Queen of happiness. We had planned to grow old together. Now all of that is gone because of Ambien. Something needs to b done to get this drug off the market. What can we do?
-Rhonda
At least he didn’t get arrested in Arizona. They have some of the most severe penalties in the US. Read about the penalties enforced under Arizona DUI law, not too pretty.
sad
Rhonda…my heart goes out to you. I found myself in a similar situation in August of 2009. My husband had been going through some stress and had trouble sleeping leading to depression. The physician put him on an RX for the depression and also prescribed him Ambien against my wishes as I had heard some of the weird side-effects, sleep-eating, sleep-driving ect. He only took the ambein a few times and everytime, the next day after taking it, his behavior was somewhat bizzare. I really did not put two and two together for awhile, it contributed it to his depression. After a month or so, he was actually coming around to his old self again. One Saturday night he had trouble going to sleep so he took one ambien. We went to bed as usual ….the last thing we said to each other was I Love You as we had done every night for 16 years. The next morning I woke up and he was already up which was normal. I got out of bed, walked downstairs to our family room and found him with a gunshot wound to the head. My life was destroyed at that moment. The love of my life was gone along with all of my hopes and dreams. I will always contribute his death to taking ambeim and can only beleive that what he did he had no knowledge of and did while he was in the hypnotic state he was in because of the drug. I wish I would have known more about this drug. I know if it was never prescribed to my husband, he would still be with us. My husband was a happy-go-lucky person. He brought joy to my life. He was liked by everyone who got to know him. The world was a much brighter place when he was here.