The data were obtained from written statements (n=56) given on open-ended questions from a survey of users and from taped interviews with 10 respondents. Men's accounts expressed a notion of men as experiencing external pressures that created "masculinized stress." On the one hand, this stress could be handled with alcohol, while on the other hand, the use of psychotropic drugs indicated a loss of men's assumed self-regulatory power and autonomy. Women related the reasons for their psychotropic drug use to their experience of emotional labor; nevertheless, they did not tend to identify the psychological consequences of their experience as related to work. Rather, they labeled these as health consequences, with women being more "emotional" than men and suffering from "nerves." These lay accounts of long-term use of psychotropic drugs reflect the representations of gender-specific psychological distinctions and the effort to construct gender-specific etiologies. 1 table and 72 references