Recovering Calmly: Medically Supervised Detox Can Help You Break Free From Benzodiazepine Addiction

Benzodiazepines are among the most commonly prescribed medications in the United States today, with 1 in 20 adults receiving a prescription in 2008. The tranquilizing effects of benzodiazepines such as Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan, and Valium provide relief from anxiety, panic, and sleeplessness, and they can play a vital role in the management of a range of mental health disorders, including social phobia, PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder, and depression with anxious features. They may also be prescribed to help you cope with specific anxiety-producing stressors, such as flying or public speaking. While these medications can have great therapeutic benefits, they can also be habit-forming, sometimes resulting in severe addiction even when taken as prescribed. Due to the pleasurable effects of benzodiazepines, some people take them recreationally, only to find that they become physically and psychologically dependent and require higher and higher doses to prevent withdrawal.

Benzodiazepines work by enhancing the gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) neurotransmitter activity in the brain, inhibiting other neurotransmitters, slowing the function of the brain and “nerve impulses throughout the body”. This is what causes the decrease in anxiety and feelings of sedation when you take benzodiazepines and what makes them so effective. Sudden discontinuation of these drugs decreases GABA activity, abruptly igniting the excitatory system in the brain, leading to volatile levels of dopamine, serotonin, and noradrenalin. This can cause a wide range of emotional and physical symptoms, including:

• Irritability
• Anxiety
• Panic attacks
• Sweating
• Disturbed sleep
• Poor concentration
• Headache
• Sore muscles
• Depression

In the weeks following discontinuation, your memory may be affected and you can have trouble retaining new information. You may also find that you are more emotionally reactive and experience increased impulsivity, leaving you vulnerable to making bad decisions and engaging in self-destructive behaviors.

For some people, withdrawal consists of fleeting discomforts that may go on for a few weeks and then stop. However, for others, the withdrawal symptoms are severe and result in serious, sustained mood disturbances, hallucinations, nightmares, physical pain, tics, and seizures that may cause death. Strokes and heart attacks are also possible following abrupt discontinuation. For some, the psychological toll of withdrawal is so profound that they stop being able to function normally, attempt suicide, or lose their sense of reality. ABCNews interviewed a woman named Cindy who was prescribed Valium by her gynecologist to help her menopause-induced insomnia. She took the medication for eight months, then stopped on the advice of her doctor when she began experiencing depressive symptoms:

Three weeks later, Cindy said she couldn’t stand or walk without holding on to a wall, and she had inexplicable feelings of physical fear. Eventually, her two college-aged children found her unresponsive on the floor. They wrapped her up in a blanket and took her back to the gynecologist.

“I said, ‘I need to go to the hospital,’” said Cindy. “She told me to go home.”

Cindy said she has recovered slightly but is still so disoriented that she has trouble reading and writing. Eventually, she had to quit her job as a social worker.

“It took four months. I literally lost my mind,” she said.

In addition to the fear, Cindy said she went through a “depersonalization,” where people and objects appeared unreal and untrustworthy to her, as if she was in a dream world.

“Nothing was right,” she said.

Cindy’s experience is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident; severe psychological disturbances following sudden discontinuation are common and can have disastrous effects on your well-being as your brain chemistry struggles to regain equilibrium. Benzodiazepine addiction casts a wide net and can strike all users, including those like Cindy who take the medication for legitimate medical reasons and closely follow their doctor’s instructions. While long-term users of short-acting benzodiazepines such as Xanax are more likely to experience complicated withdrawal, sudden discontinuation can be dangerous even for short-term users and those who take longer-acting drugs like Klonopin. People who use the drug recreationally may be particularly vulnerable to damaging and protracted withdrawal if they rely on black-market procurement of benzodiazepines, and do not have reliable access to the medication to allow them to taper off. Regardless of the original reason for taking benzodiazepines, withdrawal can be a dangerous ordeal that puts you at risk for serious emotional and physical distress, exacerbating pre-existing mental health issues, and creating new psychological problems.