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  • I had a friend who got hooked on these and it really messed up his life. He had issues before but one he was hooked to those he became unbearable to even be around.
    by mulderc
  • Site seems down. Here's archive: https://archive.ph/Tb1SZ
    by lxe
  • I was on low-dose Ativan for a few weeks casually prescribed for anxiety. What followed is an absolute year of hell. The most unimaginably difficult time in my life. Usually they tell you that short-term low dose poses lower risk or protracted withdrawal, but it's not a purely statistical risk. There are potentially pharmacological, physiological, and other factors that govern how these drugs affect each individual and those are largely unknowable.
    by lxe
  • doesn't seem like great advice to take someone who is "feeling unstable" off a decade plus of benzodiazepine therapy to make them more stable. also, that was probably too aggressive of a taper for that long of use.
    by someothherguyy
  • Yeah, after witnessing a friend's troubles getting off theirs I wouldnt wish it upon anyone. It convinced me to get me off my own Clonazepam PRN prescription, which thankfully was rather infrequent and had minimal issues weaning off of. The psych had told me nothing of the nightmare that dependence on those meds can create, a situation somehow far worse than that which they're often prescribed to resolve.

    More recently another friend mentioned getting prescribed a rather hefty dose for his anxiety. I convinced him otherwise with science backed evidence and accounts like what OP linked, given his personality type I'm certain it would have ended him.

    by miladyincontrol
  • To give a different point of view: I've been taking Bromazepam for 25 years, but very occasionally when I'm very anxious or can't sleep, a few times a year, never more than 1-2 days in a row. It's been helpful, especially when I was younger as sometimes I was paralyzed by anxiety. I never had the slightest sign of addiction but was also careful not to rely on that too much (and never had any addiction problem).

    I've also seen friends or family members who used and stop these drugs without much difficulty.

    This isn't medical advice obviously, but I wouldn't rely on anecdotal experience to form an opinion on this. These drugs can certainly be helpful to some people.

    by yodsanklai
  • I helped my mother go through this after her psych decided it was time for her to cold turkey a 4x a day xanax prescription she'd been taking for 20+ years. 5 total ER trips, 3 separate hospitalizations, and a full year of absolute misery before she started getting some relief. A YEAR.

    I have watched family members die of AIDS, cancer, and Alzheimers. I have myself recovered from alcoholism (5 years next month!). Nothing in all my life has ever held a candle to how hellish Benzo withdrawal is. These drugs need to be banned. Period.

    by soniczentropy

  •   > Having kicked opiates cold turkey in the past, I felt nostalgic for three simple days of traditional nausea, sweatiness, and bone-deep ache.
    I am one of few people stupid enough to have, at one point, been addicted to and subsequently withdrawn from, almost everything but alcohol.

    There is no way to explain the hell on earth that is benzo/GABA-ergic drug withdrawal, and I would not wish it on my worst enemy. It is an order of magnitude more intense than opiate withdrawals, and the timeline is weeks/months rather than days.

    Like the author, I managed to quit via a year-long Ashton protocol taper.

    The irony is that benzos were the one class of drugs I wasn't abusing for recreation. I was using mega-doses of Etizolam to cope with PTSD flashbacks, and only discovered I had become physically addicted after flushing it all and winding up in the ER.

    by gavinray

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