Use of antidepressant drugs in America doubled between 1996 and 2005, two medical researchers reported Monday in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

In 1996, roughly 13 million people—about 6 percent of the population—were prescribed antidepressant medication, noted Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University and Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania. By 2005, 27 million Americans—more than 10 percent of the population—were found to be using antidepressants.

“Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans,” wrote Olfson and Marcus. The men conducted the survey by analyzing data from Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys performed by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, involving more than 50,000 people in 1996 and 2005.

“Not only are more U.S. residents being treated with antidepressants, but also those who are being treated are receiving more antidepressant prescriptions,” they reported.

“During this period, individuals treated with antidepressants became more likely to also receive treatment with antipsychotic medications and less likely to undergo psychotherapy,” they wrote.

Although the survey did not investigate why antidepressant usage has increased, the researchers made some educated guesses. Most obvious: Depression may have become more common in the United States. New drugs also provide sufferers with increased options. Another contributing factor, noted the authors, is that it “may be more socially acceptable to be diagnosed with and treated for depression.”

What does it say about America’s mental health that society accepts depression as a routine mental ailment—a psychological flu, easily treatable by popping a pill from among the slew of antidepressants now available.

What does it say that antidepressants are now the most commonly prescribed class of medications in the United States?

Millions of Americans are taking pills to treat their mental infirmities, and tens of millions of others consider depression a routine part of life. Despite this proclivity to turn to medication, these drugs—though they may temporarily alleviate some physical, biochemical effects—are not addressing the source of the problem. In fact, drugs may be making the problem worse. Reuters reports that a series of public health warnings on the use of antidepressant drugs began in 2003 “after clinical trials showed they increased the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children and teens.”

Addressing the use of drugs to treat depression some years ago, Theodore Dalrymple, a physician and psychiatrist practicing in England at the time, said (National Post, Canada, Aug. 13, 2003):

By actively discouraging other, more constructive approaches to life’s problems, without producing any benefit other than the avoidance of painful choices, it is very possible that ssris [Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors—the class of antidepressants to which Prozac belongs] actually add to, rather than reduce, the sum of human misery. I very rarely see a patient who is in a dreadful personal situation, in which it is inconceivable that he or she should be happy, who has not been prescribed these drugs. …By the very fact of having been given a prescription, they are encouraged to believe that help is at hand, and that all they need to do is swallow it daily, when what they need, in fact, is character, resolve and a sense of purpose in life.

In some instances, depression and mental illness are a result of chemical imbalances, hereditary proclivities or some physiological factor. Often, however, as Dalrymple implies, depression is an issue of “character, resolve and a sense of purpose in life”—for which no miracle pills or drugs exist. In these cases, the solution to depression revolves around education—learning what it is that leads a person to living a happy, fulfilled life—and self-discipline, which means possessing the power and determination to put into practice the keys to good mental health.

To learn what it means to live a happy, successful and productive life, read The Seven Laws of Success.