Oh boy, Belgium is the number one per-capita consumer of sleeping pills in the WORLD! And not by a little bit (see p.8 (271) of the report here). 76.5 statistical DDDs per thousand inhabitants means nearly 8% of the population is taking these each day. That may well also hide a difference between Flanders and Wallonia: the figure for France is 66 pro mil whilst for Holland it is only 23 (I say “only”, but that still places them at 15th place in the world). This figure is, or should be, completely shocking.
There are, admittedly, two factors that may contribute to this, but neither of them is reassuring. The first is the underlying state of mental health. This is turn says a lot about how Belgians treat their children 🙁 The second is the facility with which chemical substances are used to repress anxiety, rather than humanistic therapeutic methods which actually help to resolve neurosis and trauma. Such therapy is very hard to find here, much more so than in Germany or Holland. Admittedly it might be that in some other countries, prescription of these substances is more tightly controlled (on either public health or economic grounds) and that some people procure them on the black market, I have no idea. But the figure of 76.5 pro mil is in any case shockingly high.
On top of this, Belgium occupies the 6th place in the rankings for consumption of anxiolytics, with 84 pro mil. The main class of anxiolytic drugs are also benzodiazepines, it is only the molecule and dosage that vary according to the use. So these numbers are to add together. That’s 16% of the population, which must be well over 20% of the adult population (though for all I know they may well also be prescribed to children, especially as of the onset of puberty).
Moreover, exogenous sources of stress in this country are extremely low by the standards of developed countries. Many workplaces are positively soporific, job security (for those who have one) is very high, reported violent crime is rather low – it’s not exactly London, New York or even Paris. It’s a laid-back provincial backwater where living standards are high.
So that’s a hell of a lot of dark family secrets. It’s time to wake up and start admitting it.