Fear and Loathing Through Benzos

As active addicts, one of the worst things we do to harm ourselves is we take benzos without regard to long-term effects. The garden variety benzo comes in many forms. While Xanax has become the street benzo Du Jour, Ativan, Valium and old school Restoril are all equally harmful. Most addicts don’t directly seek benzos for getting high but rather use it to “come down” from other drugs. It is also used as a “in-between-er” since the anti-anxiety effects curb withdrawal. That said, long term use will create an overwhelming addiction problem unto itself.

Combine a benzo with even just a nominal amount of alcohol and you have a world class recipe for blackouts. Of course, this is clear on prescription bottles but since all medications tell us not to combine with alcohol no one takes them seriously. I was prescribed benzos for 15 years and at no point did a doctor ever tell me these dangerous consequences. The revelation comes when we enter treatment and find out the straight forward opiate addiction is by far easier to overcome and recover. Who would have thunk it!