Posted by Alan on October 20, 2002, at 20:15:55
In reply to Re: My Klonopin (Clonazepam) isnt working » Alan, posted by Squiggles on October 20, 2002, at 19:53:02
> You may be right about some aspects of
> the benzo group. There are many people
> who have experienced severe withdrawal symptoms
> and as I have told you before, just about every
> medical text i have read on addiction, puts
> the benzos along side (though not as severe)
> the barbituates, for withdrawal severity.
> Seizures after long use is not uncommon and
> can be fatal.
==============================================Well, withdrawal severity is not the same as withdrawal commonality. And that's the distinction that needs to be made vis-a-vis the inflammitory rhetoric surrounding the lumping of narcotics and bzds when concerning withdrawal....especially viewed through the prism of texts on "addiction".
I certainly wouldn't want to be prescribed to and managed by an addictionologist where the whole world would seem to be a stage for case after case of "addiction". There are few addictionologists that even make the distinction between "addiction" and appropriate sustained levels of "medical dependence". And that's where the problem lies. Docs looking for problems where they do not lie.
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of those "addicts" that are using bzds are not using them alone but to get from high ot high from one illegal substance (or alcohol) to another as sort of a buffer. Of course there are going to be narcotic-type withdrawals for those that are poly-drug abusers or have such high dosages to begin with or most importantly have a predisposition for drug-seeking behaivor.
Unfortunately addictionologists will look first at the drug and not at the patient's attitude towards a drug as the genesis of the problem.
Most don't go out seeking highs - at least the type of hard core addicts that I'm speaking of - and that's what makes them different from you and me. Same with opioids for pain. Why do we discriminate between physical and psychic pain? It's so deeply rooted culturally speaking that grandma or mum aren't given enough pain medication for fear of being addicted just for the sake of being addicted! Where does that rationale come from? How is that compassionate?
We treat them more humanely these days I hope but why is the use of bzds to treat psychic pain so demonised and such a moral issue for folks? Because people may become medically dependant on them. To withold them as anything other than an eqivalent for treating the anxiety disorders borders on Calvinism.
No, it is Calvinism.
Alan
poster:Alan
thread:124171
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021019/msgs/124433.html