News or Not?

This from the People magazine interview with Howard Dean:

Q: And later, when you were having anxiety attacks in Vermont, what were those like?
Howard: It was not a big deal. I was just anxious and I didn't know why.

Q: So it wasn't a paralyzing —
Howard: No. Not a bit. I didn't miss a day of work. I didn't worry about what was going to happen. I just wasn't sure what was going on and then I traced it to my brother.

Q: Through counseling?
Howard: Yeah.

Q: Was that hard, for someone —
Howard: No, it actually was great. It was really helpful. I mean, I like that kind of stuff. I had done a lot of it — I learned a lot about it in medical school. I had done some during my psychiatry rotations, so it was actually a terrific experience. It wasn't easy. You've got to work and you've got to uncover things that matter to you. And of course, we talked a lot about my father and all that other stuff.

Q: Was it just talking it through or were you ever medicated?
Howard: No. It was just anxiety.

Q: Well, today, you say the word "anxiety" and there are eight or nine different anti-anxiety drugs —
Howard: I'm not a big fan of most anti-anxiety drugs, just because they have addiction potential and things like that. You know, once in a while, I take stuff for sleep. That makes sense. But, listen, I don't want to dispense medical advice in PEOPLE magazine. The anti-anxiety drugs are very good for people who —
Judy: And a lot of them are NOT addictive these days.
Howard: Right. And you know anti-anxiety drugs and sleep drugs were essentially the same thing when I was practicing. And my experience was whenever I took a sleeping pill, there would be rebound insomnia and so I didn't like to take them.

Q: And since then, it was as if you went in, you took care of the problem and that has never been a problem since?
Howard: No. That was in the early eighties.

Q: It sounds as if you had a little bit of an anxiety attack when you got the word that you were now governor.
Howard: I did. I hyperventilated and I started hyperventilating and I thought, You better stop that or you won't be much good to anybody.

Q: Has that happened since, or before?
Howard: No.

Q: Why was that such a —
Howard: To suddenly get told that you have responsibility for 600,000 people — it provokes a little anxiety.

Q: But now you're asking for responsibility for 250 million and then, the global reach of the U.S. presidency. That doesn't provoke a little anxiety?
Howard: No. I mean, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't — first of all, I think everybody has a little anxiety when they approach a job like that. But I think that over my life, I've made hard decisions about people who could die if I made the wrong decision. I've made decisions that have helped people to live who were about to die. I've seen a lot of people die, which nobody could do much about and for 11 years, I made decisions about all the things that presidents have to make decisions about — who gets what in the budget, things like security issues after 9/11, like my own security. So when you're used to making tough decisions, you know you have to make the tough decisions. The key to making tough decisions is to make it, not sit around and agonize about it.