Originally Posted by
BCR
I really don’t get the whole paradoxical reaction angle and it feels like nonsense, but I’d like to see the shrink comment.
You can get addicted rather quickly to benzodiazepines, but not THAT quickly. Obviously I’ve talked a lot about them through the years. I was prescribed them initially because I had a series of episodes that they concluded were panic attacks after extensive medical testing.
When the situation seemed to pass and I remained unconvinced they were ever panic attacks in the first place, I was certainly addicted by that point, and went through an 18 day medical detox with barbiturates. A year later, they diagnosed my cancer and said there is only one thing that helps with the serotonin my cancer was flooding my system with, and that was benzodiazepines. So despite it feeling nonsensical to go back on something that had taken me 18 days to medically detox off of, I had no choice. Went back on and have been on ever since.
The detox is hell. I didn’t sleep a moment for 6 days, had a seizure, and would never go though it again . I’ve been on a slow wean off now for years and I’m down to about the last step before completely quitting. I’m prepared to do that soon and will basically set aside weeks where I expect to struggle to sleep and will be somewhat miserable.
So I’m not doubting the hellish nature of the detox. Twenty years ago when they first started me, I’d take them for a brief time. Go off for times. It wasn’t until I had taken them for a prolonged amount of time on a regular schedule that I felt physically dependent on them. Everyone is different, but I can’t imagine someone getting addicted so quickly that they were addicted before side effects would manifest. I once knew a girl who had taken 1mg of Ativan 3x a day for seven years and decided she was gov to quit. I told her she was going to have a seizure and be miserable and she just went off and was completely fine, so everyone is different, but his getting addicted that quickly feels wrong.
I’ve never heard of someone having a paradoxical reaction, which essentially sounds like a side effect that’s opposite a mediations I tended effect, that didn’t occur very rapidly. You need to be taking these for a long time to be addicted. It doesn’t make sense. And as horrible as detox off of them is, it’s a rather routine protocol. Barbiturates and medical supervision. I assume almost any doctor could oversee it, and it’s not some cutting edge science. Going to Russia? That feels weird and like something else is at play. I find it hard to believe it’s as simple as he’s addicted fo benzos and has adverse reactions and there isn’t anyone in the US who can deal with that. That feels absurd.
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