Matt Samet, the author of Death Grip, the gripping book that recounts his experience in benzo withdrawal wrote an intense piece about his recent setback 7 years post benzos.
Matt points to bad self-care, as the cause of the setback, something we can all avoid.
I appreciate Matt’s honesty in coming forward about his decline back into withdrawal symptoms.
We all need to take good care of ourselves. Our CNS may always be a bit fragile having been so harmed by benzos.
If you are early in withdrawal, you may want to think twice before reading if you think it might upset you.
Matt’s thesis seems to be that he has some underlying permanent neurological damage from drugs that explains his relapse. However, people who work in recovery such as Baylissa Fredericks, and expert physicians such as Stuart Shipko, are adamant that this is not the case. I wonder if there is some other explanation for Matt’s relapse, such as an innate sensitive nervous system being aggravated by extreme lifestyle choices. Or perhaps at some more abstract level that the brain and body have memories of a certain state that can be triggered (much as one can reexperience trauma), beyond a purely neuronal damage theory. At least speaking for myself, I had very serious anxiety issues with many associated physical symptoms before I even knew what a benzo was that match up well with some of Matt’s descriptions, and while I know it’s anathema ever to suggest that people may be experiencing a relapse in their anxiety rather than benzo withdrawal, I do wonder if that isn’t at least sometimes the case?
I do feel that we can have set backs. Reggie Peart was over a decade out and wrote that he was not fully healed. He was put on Valium for vertigo.
I somehow doubt that Matt went from good health to crippling exhaustion, along with the other symptoms, as a sudden return of anxiety that had left him for years.
I’m reading about new research into CfS. Looks like its being attributed to brain inflammation. We in withdrawal sure have that.
My money is on Matt did have a flare in withdrawal induced symptoms. Not a return of anxiety.
You may well be right, I have no idea, just speculating. It’s just that in all the extensive reading and research I have done, I don’t think I have ever encountered a story where someone was completely well for many years and then had a dramatic relapse attributed to a reinstatement of BZ withdrawal symptoms. And, logically it seems to me that an activation or reinstatment of some other long-dormant state is just as plausible; after all, yes he was over anxiety for many years but he was also over BZ withdrawal for many years, implying to me anyhow that any GABA receptor downregulation was long since healed. Certainly I have seen the odd story where someone has symptoms that have persisted for years, but this seems in a different category altogether. IThe main thing is that I do hope he is better, he does not seem to have posted on Mad in America since this story.
Also perhaps worth mentioning, reading more of Matt’s postings, he also says he had a history of substance abuse, opioid addiction, and “countless” other psych meds. So these complications may differentiate this from a simple case of benzo withdrawal. Indeed I recall Dr. Shipko telling me that to his knowledge many of Prof. Ashton’s patients were on antidepressants as well as BZs and that this was a confounding factor (in his opinion). He also said, and I hope I am quoting this accurately, that in his experience SSRIs tend to be even more difficult to get off than benzos, and I have read where Dr. David Healy has said that SSRI’s are “by far the darker drug.” None of this is meant to downplay benzo withdrawal, I have done it myself, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But perhaps to provide some broader context.