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Benzodiazepines are group of drugs that have been used within the medical profession for a very long period of time and the primary indications are those of treatment of Anxiety disorders and as Hypnotics (drugs aiding sleep). The debate regarding their long term use and their effects still continues. A dependence syndrome or addiction is a recognised complication of long term use.
In my clinical practice, I see a variety of people who have been using Benzodiazepines and largely fall into groups- ones using them for their anxiety, ones who are using to get a head out of them or to enhance the effects of other substances that are using and the ones who are dependent on them. The people who use them for anxiety need a much different approach to manage than the other two groups. I often use Anxiety management techniques and recently have been using ‘Target Relaxation’ with benefit whilst optimising the anxiety disorder. (Will be soon putting up a podcast for ‘Target Relaxation’).
People who are dependent are either buying legitimate prescriptions or are using street benzodiazepines which are being sold by various street names- the most popular ones being MSJs (which is allegedly a Sri Lankan Pharmacy Supply), Blues, Yellows, Dog Valiums, Dodgies to name a few. The challenge with these is that, it is likely that their is no standardisation in the active compound in two consecutive tablets and we are currently trying to get some of these tested. The lack of standardisation means that the effects of the tablets may be unpredictable and from the people whom I see, I have been informed that the Blue ones are particularly unpredictable.
To manage the dependence, detox options are available and need to be incorporated with supportive interventions. A controlled and monitored reduction regime, tailored to clinical needs of the patients has been successful in my experience- what some have termed as ‘Bespoke’ detox. I hope and wish that I don’t have to see you with this problem and so that I don’t see you with this problem, here’s a video by Wobbly Stan on the effects of Benzodiazepines that might be helpful to avoid getting into Benzos in the first place.
