>>On the other hand I know a couple of people who were not obviously "ill" who could have been helped a lot by the right drugs:

I'll chime in on this one, too. My husband now takes a brain-altering medication, which is the difference between his being able to live 95% normally and being unable to work or go much of anywhere due to a malfunction in his autonomic nervous system. With the drug, most people have no idea he has a medical condition; without it, he'd likely be an invalid.

As for ADD, I've never your son and have no idea whether he has a real problem or not and I will agree with you that it's overdiagnosed. However, I also have known some people who were unable to focus long enough to accomplish anything where treatment for ADD made them productive members of society. Overdiagnosis of a condition doesn't mean the condition doesn't exist.

Tamar