Navy SEAL on Ambien prior to Bin Laden raid

Former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonette is top of the best seller list now with his book "No Easy Day". He's one of the seals who killed Osama bin Laden.

In the book, there was a revelation that the SEALs team used Ambien to function.

"I popped two Ambien. No one was getting any rest without sleeping pills, " says Bissonette.

In his account, Bissonnette took at least six Ambiens between the time he left the U.S for the raid and the return flight from Pakistan less than a week later, always two at a time.

Military Psychiatrist Dr. Elspeth Ritchie is OutFront tonight.SEAL's Osama bin Laden book sheds light on Ambien use in military

The new book "No Easy Day" by former U.S. Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette has attracted a great deal of attention for his first hand account of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Bissonnette chronicles the drama of the daring operation and the al Qaeda leader's final moments at his compound in Pakistan. But it also details quieter revelations, including one in which Bissonnette talks about the use by SEALS of the powerful sleep drug Ambien.

Available by prescription, Ambien is known to cause some potentially troubling side effects including sleep walking, hallucinations and amnesia, according to Dr. Thomas LoRusso, the medical director of the Northern Virginia Sleep Diagnostic Center.

According to Bissonnette's account, between the time the SEALs left the United States for the bin Laden raid in Pakistan and their return flight less than a week later, he took at least six Ambien pills, always two at a time.

"I popped two Ambien. No one was getting any rest without sleeping pills," Bissonnette wrote in the book, using the pseudonym Mark Owen.

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