Comment by fapjacks | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fapjacks | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I was prescribed benzos without any warning from my doctor (granted, this was the VA). I was on a fairly high dose and had completely forgotten my supply when I went to Sweden for the summer. Cold turkey.

Let me tell you something. I've come off a lot of things. I've been addicted to a lot of things. Nothing, and I mean nothing compares to coming cold turkey off a benzo addiction. You truly have no idea how awful it is. It was at least several times worse than anything else I'd ever experienced coming cold turkey off of. And I'm including opiates, cocaine, tobacco, and alcohol in my list of things. All of those things were a hayride compared to benzo withdrawals. I was sobbing and laughing hysterically at the same time that I had diarrhea and vomiting, it was sweaty and awful and my joints hurt beyond belief, and I couldn't sleep while this lasted for two days. It scared the shit out of my wife. It scared the shit out of me. Later on, another doctor told me that going cold turkey off the dose I was on is deadly, and kills people. If you are taking them recreationally, please please be careful to avoid cold turkey withdrawals.

I think some people will doubt me, but if you have never come off of benzos abruptly, even if you're taking them now, you really have no idea what it's like. It is worse than any negative physiological experience I've ever had. Benzos are poison.

I can confirm the withdrawal symptoms, mine weren't as severe as yours sound, but I was probably on a lesser dose.

There are two things that doctors have prescribed me that I regret taking. Ambien and Chantix. Ambien for the withdrawal symptoms, and Chantix for the side effects...

I carefully review and research information about anything a doctor prescribe now other than an antibiotic.

Yeah what's weird is that normally I never would put something in my body if I didn't at least know something about it. But at the time I was going through so many different chemicals, I just didn't even think about it, trusting that they wouldn't intentionally poison me to death. Ironically, a good friend of mine was killed by the VA specifically in this manner (stupid doctors and fatal drug interaction). 100% lesson learned.

Yes, in fact benzo addiction is effectively the same thing as alcohol addiction, since they're both primarily acting on your GABA receptors. The side effects, at least, are the same. Alcohol and benzo withdrawal can be fatal. Thankfully, you were probably not on high enough of a dose for that to occur, but yeah benzo withdrawal can definitely be fatal if the addiction was deep enough.

You know, I understand they both act on GABA receptors. I learned a lot in hindsight. But looking back on the experience, and having drank for about twenty years nearly every day, and then abruptly stopped... And here I don't mean sort of having a beer or two. I mean drinking until I pass out. Every day. Anyways, one day I got an ultimatum, and I stopped. And I had some symptoms of withdrawal. It wasn't pleasant. But the benzo withdrawal was so much worse. It was absolute hell.

I've casually abused all kinds of drugs, including alcohol, pot, MDMA, LSD, etc and never had issues walking away at all. After going through one (prescribed) bottle of Xanax at the lowest dose I had personality changes, addictive drug seeking behavior and about 24 hours of agonizing withdrawal with my skin feeling like it was on fire.

Medically I think they have a place for very short term acute emergency treatment and long-term palliative care, but otherwise healthy people really need to stay away from them.

And they're nothing like Alcohol, even though they both act on GABA, from experience I can tell you that its a huge mistake to put them in the same class and think that you can treat them the same way.

Maybe useful for truly suicidal anxiety disorders as well -- however benzos here are going to be a solution in much the same way as regular expressions -- now you have two problems.

I'm basically in the same boat. I've done mountains of everything I can get my hands on for years and years. The benzo withdrawals were physically and psychologically crippling. I genuinely thought I was going to die. You are absolutely right that they are so much worse than alcohol (or really anything else that I've ever experienced).

The doctor who prescribed it to you, without any warning, was very irresponsible and did you an extreme disservice. When I was prescribed benzos by my doctor, it came with no shortage of warnings, and she cut me off before I could get addicted. Even coming off the small dose I was taking was unpleasant.

Benzos have their place, but they need to be handled responsibly.

I'm surprised the didn't warn you about going cold turkey. I've never been prescribed something from that class without being warned about the effects of sudden withdrawal.

Sure they should have told him but that said the package insert does detail dependence and withdrawl and it's pretty obvious that it's a good idea to always review that (I do for any medicine that I take):

http://labeling.pfizer.com/ShowLabeling.aspx?id=547

When you're at the VA, you come away with a mountain of paperwork. Literally a stack of paperwork half an inch thick. If you are going weekly, and cycling through a couple handfuls of chemicals, it's unreasonable to expect people to read all that shit. It's not just a simple package insert like you get at Walgreens. For benzos there should most definitely be some instruction by the psychiatrist. This dude didn't say anything to me, and didn't even tell me what it was. I only found out it was Clonazepam at the pharmacy counter, and they don't discuss your prescription at the counter in front of all those people. The VA is a nightmare.

The package insert isn't enough. Those things contain so much BS most people have stopped reading them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com