Matt Samet’s book Death Grip, his tale of benzo withdrawal, arrived on my doorstep yesterday in a casual brown box, the cardboard denying the roller coaster, gut wrenching ride inside. I. Can’t. Put. The. Book. Down.

Matt’s gift of wordsmithing is apparent in the opening paragraph. Not only is his writing style edgy, and fishhook seductive, his stark honesty reaches up and grabs you by the throat. More than once, I have had to stop reading and lay the book across my chest and breathe deep. Slow. Again. Again. I feel Matt’s anxiety. His pain. Confusion. Anger. Helplessness. Hopelessness. Matt takes me inside his fucked up world of withdrawal all the while shining a spot light on my own.

Death Grip is a must read for anyone wishing to better understand benzo withdawal, psych med withdrawal. Death Grip is a must read for anyone who is willing to see the underbelly of psychiatry for what it is: (I will leave the sentence undone, allowing you dear reader to come to your own conclusions.)
If you are considering benzo withdrawal, or are early on in the game, the book may be a bit, well, should I say, stimulating? I am knocking on the door of 20 months off and found it ripped open some raw spots I still carry. But it also fueled an anger in me I need to continue this journey of healing. A healthy anger, lest anyone misconstrue the emotion for pathology.

Kudos to Matt Samet for his biting tale of recovery. I pray someone scoops up the movie rights ASAP. This is a story that needs to be told to the world. The largest audience possible. We, who have suffered ungodly horrors at the hands of benzos, need to educate others. The drug manufacturers and doctors are not going to say the emperor has on no clothes and give up fattened wallets benzos afford them. 

If anything is going to change, it has to start down here, with us. With enough voices, perhaps will be loud enough to stop our friends and families from swallowing the pills that provide a pleasant dulling of anxiety, all the while destroying the very brain it is supposedly helping.

I will be 20 months out from my eight month failed taper ( mostly bedridden as my doc told me I could be off the 1 mg I was on for 19 years, in one month) and then a cold turkey at a detox center.

I’m Grateful for Matt for telling his tale. Angry that these types of stories can exist in a world of “modern medicine.”

Buy the book. For yourself. For your friends. Write to every morning, talk, news show you can, and encourage Matt’s book to be a noteworthy topic.

Who should play Matt in the movie? What’s your best bet?