A Pharmacist Speaks About the Dangers of Benzodiazepines

Examples of benzodiazepines include: alprazolam (Xanax), clonazepam (Klonopin), chlordiazepoxide (Librium), diazepam (Valium, Diastat) and lorazepam (Ativan).

Note: This video does not constitute medical advice. Stopping psychiatric drugs, especially abruptly, can be dangerous, as withdrawal effects may be severe, disabling or even life-threatening.

[gemmaballini]

This guy's voice is so relaxing, I don't need benzodiazepines anymore

[BillClay]

If they don't prescribe these pills, psych drs will be out of business and they know it, not to mention pharmaceutical companies.

[twistedinnocence]

He said psychiatrists are seeing more and more patients and yes this is true. Go to your average psychiatrist office and you'll probably see them taking a patient back every 5-10 minutes. They only talk to you maybe 2-5 minutes. How can you really treat someone with mental illness in that amount of time? You can't.

[elizabethcohen]

I watched this and I have been studying this for a long time after having been through it. There are no words to describe what the withdrawal feels like. No other terror in life can come close to it.

[Blessedup]

It took me a year of withdrawal to get off 6mg of klonopin.

It was a hell I wouldn't wish on my worse enemy

[zaynumar]

I pray to God I never get into a situation where I need to take any meds

I pray I stay natural forever

[-]

I took valium everyday for 15 years and never took more than I should and it worked great. My doctor stopped it one day, said it was bad for me, and then eventually I started drinking alcohol for anxiety and now alcoholic. Worst thing that ever happened. BTW antidepressants don't work for anxiety. None of them!

[jeffgalaska]

Doc's gotta see more patients to get rich. The quality of care goes down.

[general_zizi]

Mushrooms containing psilocybin saved my life. The aided my benzodiazepine withdrawal allowing me to quit illicit pill addiction after three years of heavy daily use before it would had became medically dangerous to quit. It has also helped me survive depression.

[supertiger]

The most difficult drug by far to ever get off of...and I've been on everything! No other drug holds a candle to the hell that benzo withdrawal will bestow upon a poor soul! Blessings! 🙏

[olafmason]

2:40 yeah but a return customer is the best kind, it's a conscious decision to put you on medications that get you hooked, to ensure you'll be coming back.

[elizabethabbott]

So very glad this is being addressed by professionals. I have witnessed the troubles of a man who had been on since 1985. A new doc took him off, saying You have been on too long. A lot of symptoms went away; symptoms which had been wrongly attributed to a mental condition but were actually caused by the medication.

[sandywhat]

I was on them for 40 years. Withdrawal almost killed me many times.

[michaelbrownlee]

Revelation 12:9
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Revelation 18:23
And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

[jonathanbecker]

It's criminal that doctors are STILL prescribing benzos long term.
Every patient eventually becomes tolerant and developesi interdose withdrawals.
Three and a half months is NOTHING!
It takes most people on long term benzos YEARS to get off of them and feel normal again. Doctors will often deny that the benzos they prescribe are causing severe harm to patients. Every patient is different, and the withdrawal syndrome takes varying amounts of time with different patients.
The withdrawals from benzodiazepines are the most EXCRUCIATINGLY BRUTALLY PAINFUL withdrawals which LAST FOR MONTHS ON END in their worst forms. Inpatient treatment centers are not equipped to properly treat benzo patients unless the stay is extended to at least three months before the patient is sent home. Most private treatment centers try to apply the same treatment model to every patient regardless of what chemical they use. Most patients addicted to alcohol, cocaine, meth, or heroin are able to finish their ACUTE detox in 2-5 days. Benzo patients stay in the ACUTE stage of withdrawals for many WEEKS. It is a brutally long process. There should be comfort meds prescribed to treat severe muscle spasms, and sleeplessness. Patients coming off of water soluable benzos like Xanax should be monitored very closely for seizures. In fact, no one should be tapered off of Xanax. They should be switched to Valium (a much longer acting benzo) first so that a safe titration can be accomplished.
Most benzo addicted patients were only taking their medication as prescribed.
Yet doctors unwilling to take responsibility for their negligence will often blame their patients, even though no evidence exists that they abused their medication. That's the whole rub. Benzos make patients extremely sick when they are taken as prescribed. Some patients don't show signs until they've been taking them for three years, some in three months. A well respected cardiologist developed benzo sickness after just several months of taking them.
The single biggest problem is that no patient is safe taking them for more than six to eight weeks. Yet doctors commonly prescribe them for long term use all the time. In fact, the original prescriber is rarely at the scene of the crime when the sickness starts occurring. I was on Klonopin for almost twenty years before switching to Valium and beginning my taper. I knew something was wrong but no doctor though to blame the benzo because they all prescribed them long term. To admit that it was the Klonopin, the doctors would have to come to terms with how many patients they're hurting. The ones who are STILL prescribing them long term always use the excuse that no other drug class works for these patients. But they refuse to see that these very same patients are getting worse BECAUSE of the benzo. It happens over and over again. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of videos on YouTube with people documenting how sick benzos made them and how brutally long and impossibly severe the withdrawals were.
These drugs cause such severe emotional anxiety and turmoil that ramps up exponentially during withdrawals.
And even when carefully tapered, the symptoms of anxiety, depression, hallucinations, muscle tremors, long term gastrointestinal upset, headaches, vision disturbances, thyroid dysfunction, pseudo-tumors, and a host of others prevent the person from functioning normally in society. It's almost impossible to hold down a job when withdrawling from benzos. You can't think straight. You can't remember anything. It takes months to years to recover most function. And so far, some appear to be permanent.
Lives are ruined. Marriages are destroyed. My family tossed me to the wolves, and my wife hung in there for a long time. But she's resentful and angry about the time lost and the lasting dysfunction. It should be a crime to get people hooked on long term benzos.
It is SOOO hard to get off of them. It's almost impossible to get competent help getting off of them. Big pharma plays a huge role in preventing the word from getting out about the dangers. The govt agencies which are supposed to protect consumers and patients are run by former pharma execs. Others frequently BECOME pharma execs. Dark money keeps doctors in the dark about the damage this class of drugs causes.
It's shameful!

[thehoop]

I was on them for 29 years! It took me 4 and a half years to taper off of 6mg of Klonopin and I STILL had withdrawals for 2

[beautyneytiri]

psychiatrists aswell as psychologists have become very angry at me even when i told them they should take more time listening to me instead of giving me these...
they INSISTED that i took them... it's the only thing they wanted to do for me.
they NEVER informed me of any side effects and never said anything about how long i should take them

[jennym]

Thank you for producing this film. I just watched it and will be recommending it to everyone I know.

[crapbag]

My 9 year old was prescribed lorazepam after being diagnosed with catatonia. He went through hell with disturbing behaviours including suicidal thoughts. I tried to get him off them 3 times but but the withdrawals were immensely painful. The doc wanted him to stay on them but I was determined to taper him off bit by bit with the help of cbd. After the 4th attempt, he was off it within 4 months. It was the best decision I ever made but now that he’s off them, the doctors don’t want to know about why he ended up catatonic, but he is much better now.

[lorlooney]

Dude I have some type of OCD where my brain doesn't filter random thoughts and obsesses over whatever until it's like the most random thing to make me have anxiety. I took plenty street stuff and Klonopins were absolutely the thing that worked. I understood it was like a two week thing and then the solution makes the problem worse...wish I could find them...maybe not after hearing some stories just for emergencies...I thought my mind was wild, really appreciate some of you all being so honest and kind in your truths. You're in my prayers and good vibes