"She goes running for the shelter/ Of a mother's little helper/ And it helps her on her way..."
The Rolling Stones, "Mother's Little Helper," (1967)
At its peak in 1978, Valium was the most widely prescribed drug for tension and anxiety. Valium was discovered in 1963 by Leo H. Sternbach (1908-2005), a Polish chemist working in the United States for Hoffmann-La Roche. He wanted to create a better "chill" pill, after barbiturates were found to cause dependence and toxicity in overdose.
Sternbach started by fiddling with compounds he had cast aside twenty years earlier and found that one, Ro-5-0690, had hypnotic and sedative effects in mice. Hoffmann-La Roche named the drug Librium, which was the first of the new benzodiazepine class of drugs. Benziodiazepines work by depressing activity of the reticular activating system (RAS) that controls mental activity in the brain. In 1963 Sternbach synthesized a simplified version of the Librium molecule. Five to ten times stronger than its predecessor, the drug was called Valium and used for treating insomnia and panic and phobia disorders.
Valium was alluded to in "Mother's Little Helper," a Rolling Stones' song about a housewife using Valium to help cope with a demanding family. Barbara Gordon's 1979 memoir, I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can, led to recognition of the risk of physical dependence in regular users, and of the withdrawal symptoms caused if Valium is withdrawn suddenly. For this reason Valium is now prescribed for only two weeks or less.
