Boston Anchor Shares Her Story of Her Drug Overdose
Longtime Boston Anchor JC Monahan shared a story of her battle with depression and how it almost killed her.
Monahan spent years anchoring the news at WCVB and then moved over to NBC Boston. That move, along with many other things happening in her life, but her in a deep depression.
In a piece for Boston Magazine, Monahan talks about how her Doctor first prescribed Xanax for my anxiety, she says she was unsure how it would affect her.
“Turns out, it made me sleepy, and that was the greatest gift I could have received. Taking Xanax soon became the only way I could rest.
Over time, I naturally built up a tolerance. At first, it was just one or two pills more than prescribed. Eventually, I just stopped counting. A few more? A handful? Whatever it took to silence the negativity in my head so I could sleep long enough to have the strength to get through the next day.
It never occurred to me that this could become a problem. I was in survival mode and nothing is obvious when you’re in survival mode, even when you’re clearly walking a dangerous path. I was using any shortcut necessary to prove to myself I could handle everything on my own.
One night, I left the Xanax bottle by my bed. Apparently, I took more pills during the night—I don’t remember doing it. By morning, though, my friend called, heard me failing to sound coherent, and knew something was wrong. She alerted another friend, who rushed to my house and tried to wake me up, with little success. That was when he called the paramedics. I wasn’t trying to hurt myself—I only wanted to sleep—but I could have died.”
She shares the entire story of battling depression and how she was able to make it out the other side.
Monahan writes, “I’d like to say I’ll be happy if my story reaches one person, but I’d be lying. I want this to reach someone, who will then reach out to someone else, who will in turn reach out to someone else. It took me far too long to understand that life depends on connections. It took far too long for this communicator to learn how vital good communication really is.”