What Are The Green Pills At The Orphanage?
The staff calls them “vitamins” and gives one to every child daily. When Beth first takes one, it causes her to stumble around. The problem of her dependency is only exacerbated when it becomes illegal for orphanages to just dole out these pills, and all the kids are cut off without warning.
However, the medication reappears later when Beth’s adoptive mother has her own prescription, and Beth finds herself again relying on the green pills. At this point, you learn the green pills come in a bottle labeled “Xanzolam,” which isn’t a real drug name—as of yet, anyway—but its look and effects are similar to an actual medication that was popular in the 1960s. This content is imported from {embed-name}.
You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
Read More
Es, fellow orphan-turned-older sister figure Jolene (Moses Ingram) slyly advises Beth to wait and take the green ones right before bed, “otherwise they turn off right when you need them to turn on.” For Beth, that means that they put her in an altered state; once she is introduced to a chessboard, the pills allow her to hallucinate the pieces on her bedroom ceiling, mapping out moves late into the night. While Beth’s reactions to the sedatives initially seem quaint, it soon becomes clear that the child has gotten hooked.
Soon after her arrival, the orphanage stops administering the green “vitamins” after they are banned for their habit-forming tendencies—but by then Beth is experiencing withdrawal symptoms. After that stunt, the pills leave Beth’s life for years; she may never have encountered them again if it weren’t for her stepmother, Alma Wheatley (Marielle Heller), and her need for “tranquility medicine” to ease the pain of her unfulfilled artist dreams: She has Beth refill a prescription for none other than familiar green Xanzolam, which helps “even out” both mother and daughter in different ways. While the name Xanzolam is fictional, the pill is clearly intended to be a stand-in for real-life benzodiazepines, tranquilizer drugs that act on the brain and central nervous system in order to reduce anxiety, soothe insomnia, and (ironically) treat withdrawal symptoms.
Intended as a safer alternative to barbiturates, “benzos” were often abused by being taken far beyond the recommended short-term period of treatment. Specifically, Newsweek draws a connection between Xanzolam and the sedative Librium (chlordiazepoxide). Patented in 1958 and approved for medical use in 1960, it was the first benzo to be synthesized.
Are The Green “Tranquility” Pills Real?
After being patented in 1958 and approved for medical use in 1960, Librium was prescribed liberally as a cure for anxiety, insomnia, and withdrawal symptoms. This widespread usage came to a head in the mid-1970s, when the DEA instated stricter regulations for Librium due to its overprescription and high potential for misuse. These early tranquilizers were reportedly heavily marketed to young women and housewives who were physically healthy but, likely due to a sense of dissatisfaction with their positions in mid-20th century America, were struggling to cope mentally.
Rather than supporting them in, oh, I don’t know, securing financial independence or pursuing high-status careers outside of the home, physicians at the time instead offered them bottle after bottle of sedatives. (Image credit: KEN WORONER / NETFLIX).
Where Did The Idea For Beth’S Addiction Come From?
Walter Tevis, who wrote the 1983 novel on which the Netflix series is based, drew on many of his own experiences and relationships to build Beth’s world, from his time as an amateur chess player to the many “brainy women” in his life.
Beth’s addiction to Xanzolam was no different. In an interview with The New York Times in 1983, Tevis described how writing about Beth’s substance abuse helped him address his own experiences with drug use. That’s where Beth’s drug dependency comes from in the novel,” Tevis said.
But artistically, I didn’t allow myself to be self-indulgent.”. Per the American Addiction Centers, “As with many drugs that have psychoactive effects, people quickly began to note the euphoria that resulted from taking these common medicines.