They countered their frustrations with heavy doses of alcohol, prescription sedatives, tranquillizers, and stimulants — sodium amytal, phenobarbital, Benzedrine, Allonal, Nembutal, Soneryl.
Perhaps, as she looked around for the sodium amytal, a decade of frustration caught up with her.
He then offered a speculation: Lowry would not have noticed if what she fed him that night were not vitamins but sodium amytal, the barbiturate that helped kill him.
(Both she and Lowry were heavy users of sleeping pills; Lowry called them his "pink things". They both had prescriptions for sodium amytal.
The main tool was a truth drug, sodium amytal, administered daily.
(Both she and Lowry were heavy users of sleeping pills; Lowry called them his "pink things". They both had prescriptions for sodium amytal. In October, 1956, Lowry wrote Margerie of Dr. Raymond's appearing at his door in Ripe, "bearing, in hand like a malt-shovel, a half-dozen sodium amytals to tide me over").
For example, psychopaths, who are expert liars, will falsely maintain their innocence right up to the point of unconsciousness during an interrogation under sodium amytal.
In a now classic study, normal controls who had revealed an embarrassing secret before the start of the experiment were able to stick to a made-up cover story and avoid confessing when given sodium amytal.
He said, however, that sodium amytal, a drug like sodium pentothal, is used frequently in therapy to help patients recall traumatic experiences that they are otherwise unable to remember.
Even when psychiatrists use sedative drugs like sodium amytal during an interview, in much lower doses than are used for anesthesia, it is unclear whether patients are telling the truth or spinning tales.
