UK Woman Speaks Out About 22 Year Addiction With Prescribed Ativan

3
ITV features and article and video today about the widespread problem of addiction and withdrawal from benzodiazepine drugs used to treat anxiety, including Ativan, Librium, Diazepam and Temazepam. Mother of three Sandra Minshull shares her story and discusses how Ativan ā€œrobbed her of her life.ā€

Benzodiazepine Use and Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease

20
If a person in mid-life is feeling anxious, or depressed, or can't sleep? No problem. No need to figure out the source of these concerns. No need to work towards solutions in the old time-honored way of our ancestors. Today, psychiatrists have pills. Pop a benzo! And by the way, you'll have a 40% increased risk of Alzheimer's Disease in your late sixties.

The Poison We Pick

2
In this piece forĀ New York Magazine, Andrew Sullivan traces the history of the use of opiates in the U.S. and explores the social, economic,...

Nevada Legislation Aims to Curb Psychotropics in Foster Children

1
A touching article in the Las Vegas Sun follows one child from abandonment through foster placements, polypharmacy, suicidality, delinquency and homelessness to stability off...

ā€œAre Anxiety Drugs Making Us Less Eager To Lend A Helping Hand?ā€

0
For the Huffington Post, David Freeman asks ā€œBy tamping down anxious feelings, could it be that these so-called ā€œanxiolyticā€ drugs areĀ blunting our empathy and...

Call to Action: Massachusetts Benzodiazepine Bill is Going to Committee

4
The Massachusetts Benzo Bill H4062: Informed consent for benzodiazepines and non-benzodiazepine hypnotics was just scheduled to be heard by the Joint Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse on Monday, April 4th. Less than a week away! The committee will decide whether the bill moves forward to the house and senate, goes to study, or is denied.

Call to Action: Support a Bill for Informed Benzodiazepine Use

11
Massachusetts Bill HD 4554 needs to gain sufficient state representative support by Tuesday, March 1, 2016. This bill will put restrictions on the prescribing of benzodiazepines and non-benzodiazepine sleep aids, and will require that all patients be informed of the potential dangers of these drugs, specifically the dangers of long-term use.

Spiritual Bypass and the Chill Pill

10
Iā€™ve wondered for a long time how I managed to get caught in the razor wire of benzodiazepines. I didnā€™t sleep for long enough to have me hovering around psychosis ā€” true. My doctor had a dizzy insistence that benzos would resolve the problem ā€” also true. The benzo wire was so low and sharp that I was caught before I realized Iā€™d fallen. How could I have known? But still, the question lingers.

Can Education Level Predict Prescription Drug Misuse in Young Adults?

0
A new study examines the extent to which patterns in prescription drug misuse and substance use disorder symptoms can be predicted by education level

World Benzo Awareness Day Launch

0
Today, organizers have released a statement announcingĀ a "World Benzo Awareness Day" to take place on Monday, 11th July 2016. "This day has been made...

1 in 6 Adults in the US Takes a Psychiatric Drug

9
Overall, 16.7% of 242 million US adults reported filling 1 or more prescriptions for psychiatric drugs in 2013.

Nonclinical Factors are Associated with Long-Term Benzodiazepine Use in Older Adults

2
White race and size of initial prescription, along with poor sleep quality, are associated with long-term benzodiazepine use in older adults.

Falling Through the Cracks

36
I am an award-winning singer/songwriter with a number one record to my credit. I also owned several small businesses and founded a 501c3 non-profit for women's health. I ate healthy, swam and cycled every day and had a very active lifestyle. This was before benzos came into my life.

The Female Subject in Psychiatry From Pathology to Prozac

0
In this piece forĀ The New Inquiry, Sophie Putka chronicles the mental health profession's long history of pathologizing, diagnosing, and medicating women's emotions. "With Freudā€™s claims...

Benzodiazepines Associated With 3.5x Greater Dementia Risk

2
Researchers in the U.K. find in a 22-year prospective study of 1134 men, 103 of whom took benzodiazepines regularly for one or more period...

Long-term Painkiller Use on Rise, 1/3rd Dangerously Mix with Anti-anxiety Meds

11
About 9% fewer Americans are using prescription opioids than were five years ago, but those people are taking more of the drugs for longer periods of time, according to a study by pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts reported in FiercePharma. And nearly one-third are being put in serious risk of overdose death by taking the opioids alongside prescriptions for benzodiazepine sedatives, stated the New York Times.

Lawyers Starting to Blame Military’s Psychotropic Drugs For Aberrant Behavior

6
Military psychiatrists and judges are beginning to see the effects of an eightfold increase of SSRI use in the military since 2005, according to...

What Happens to Your Brain When you Take Xanax

1
In this video from Business Insider, psychopharmacologist and psychiatrist Dr. Samoon Ahmad explains the impact of Xanax on the brain and discusses some of...

Deafening Silence: What Happens When the Whistle Blows and Nobody Hears?

64
September 11th 2015 was my last day working as a counselor/therapist in the U.S. community mental health system. After 22 years working within that system I resigned out of protest havingĀ waged a concerted effort (2Ā½ years) to challenge potentially dangerous psychiatric drug prescribing patterns at my workplace. In late April of this year these challenges led to the filing of a major complaint with the Massachusetts Dept. of Mental Health and eventually the Dept. of Public Health. I never expected to discover just HOW unprepared, dysfunctional, and totally oblivious the entire state bureaucracy is when it involves any serious complaints detailing possible abuses and harm being done to its citizens by a branch of medicine called Psychiatry. Just how broken is "Broken"?

Bereaved Parents Prescribed Meds Quickly, Stay on Meds Long-Term

0
MiA blogger Jeffrey Lacasse's study of psychiatric prescribing in response to perinatal/neonatal death (co-authored with Joanne Cacciatore) finds that 37% of participants in an...

How Many Pills are too Many?

0
FromĀ The New York Times: Overprescription is becoming an increasingly prevalent public health issue, especially for older adults with multiple chronic conditions. "Though studies have found...

5,012 Englishwomen Poisoned Last Year by Benzos, 8,501 by SSRIs

2
Addiction Today reports "Attention on illicit drugs has deflected focus from the gigantic scale of harms by legal, prescribed drugs. We give you the...

New Video For World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day

4
In a new video for World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day (W-BAD) peopleĀ from all over the world share about the iatrogenic harm they sustained from taking...

Benzos Raise Dementia Risk 50%

1
A 15-year prospective study, in the British Medical Journal this week, of 1063 subjects by researchers from the University of Bordeaux and Harvard University...

Some Common Psychiatric Medications Associated With Pneumonia

3
Pneumonia cases in the elderly are strongly associated with use of anticholinergic medications, including benzodiazepines and tricyclic antidepressants.