My Benzo Addiction And Rehab Diary: A Drug Dealer Doctor Overprescribed Me Klonopin And I Became Unable To Function With Or Without It
The initial journal entry of many documenting Aubree's rehab from benzos as she goes through it.
I got to know Aubree when she submitted a piece to me right after AJPT launched. She didn’t end up writing it, but we kept in touch, and she simultaneously became one of those REALLY supportive commenters who was so generous with her praise and insights into other writers’ work here. She is lovely, and we became virtual friends. I have been around enough people addicted to different things (starting with my dad) and while I am not always good at figuring out what the addictive substance or behavior is, and I am particularly BAD at listening to my instincts and trusting that my perceptions are correct about it (especially when addicts lie, as they do), but I can always sense something.
There are certain common denominators, like someone being really excited about a work or travel or other major life change and spending a lot of time and energy in the process of talking about it, and then never following through.
So I did sense that something wasn’t quite right, and I adored Aubree (anyone would) and wanted to help in any way I could. When she very quickly and openly told me that she was addicted to prescription medications and wanted to stop, I encouraged her to get the help she was considering, and we talked about her writing about the process throughout, maybe for publication and maybe not.
But before we get into her story of getting clean, which is starting right now today in this journal entry from the rehab place she will start to tell you about and which she plans to update here biweekly throughout the weeks and months that she is there - before that I want to tell you my own benzo story.
I was pregnant with twins conceived through in vitro and about four months into the pregnancy, I started having sudden extreme bouts of anxiety and panic attacks of a different type than I had ever had before. I remember one night in particular when I got up from bed after a few hours of sleep and felt such a surge of panic that I walked as fast as I could move toward my window (thinking maybe going out of it would help this) and banged hard right into the radiator in front of it. Really hard. Which shocked me enough that I didn’t do anything more destructive.
These went on. I went to a psychologist recommended by my OB/GYN. She gave me something to help ease the panic a little bit while I was pregnant but I honestly can’t remember what the medication or supplement was. I don’t think she could have given me prescription anxiety medicine at that point in my pregnancy (second trimester), but part of me thinks it was Ativan and that I was supposed to take it only when needed.
In any case, I miscarried those beautiful twins later into the second trimester when I developed pancreatitis (the doctors thought as a complication of the double pregnancy and the in vitro - I will go more into their theory when I write this Whole Other Story).
I delivered them in the same room at Mt Sinai Hospital where I had given birth to my incredible 22-year-old-now daughter Charlotte two years before, after which I had to be hospitalized for a few weeks to recover - and then eventually they took out my gall bladder in case that had contributed to the pancreatitis. Oh, by the way, for anyone who has not experienced acute pancreatitis, I am here to tell you that in my very strong opinion, and I had it twice, it is at its easiest 15 times more painful than childbirth. Granted Charlotte weighed under 6 pounds, but still. (When I delivered the twins - who could not have survived at that point - I made the mistake of looking down and seeing one of them, the girl’s head I am pretty sure, and I really - for me - wish I hadn’t. But that was a long tangent, and I will tell you that entire story whenever you want to hear it or ask me about it.)
After I got out of the hospital, the same psychiatrist prescribed long-acting Xanax for me to take in the morning and night, like clockwork. So I did.
Please take out a monthly or annual subscription to keep reading the rest of Jane’s story, along with Aubree’s first diary entry. And if you’re on the fence, just know we deliver highly-personal, deeply engaging stories like this one just about every day. Thank you for considering it and see you in the comments section.
After a long time of taking it (years), she had no intention of taking me off, but I noticed increasing side effects I couldn’t stand, especially when a dose was wearing off (I don’t really believe in long-acting medications or at least not in the precision of them - that coating just wears off however and whenever and wherever it wants, not exactly precisely releasing the same dose of the medication over a period of eight hours or whatever, right?). I also was having a lot of trouble remembering words, which sucked because I hosted a live radio show that required me to talk, just me with callers, for two hours straight. I loved doing that so much - but the loss of words while doing it was not fun. (Judith Regan, who hosted a show at Sirius XM then too, told me it was because I was going into peri-menopause. Which it turns out wasn’t right - but what WAS right was when Judith told me that as my hormones shifted toward menopause, I would get these testosterone spikes that would make me want sex like I imagine a teenage boy wants sex. All the time. That was fun.)
Also, it pains me to look at the TV interviews and videos I did when I was launching xoJane, because I couldn’t remember some of the most basic words. Like newsstand, for example. And that felt horrible. I also around that same time tore out of a late-afternoon Rodarte show, that I went to with Tavi, without congratulating the designers, because the morning Xanax must have been wearing off (I didn’t make the correlation at that point) and I was in such a panic that I just left the venue and ran straight home. I talked to this same Dr. (Karen Miller, Upper East Side practice) about wanting to stop taking them. She was not on board with that and said that the smallish amount I was taking and the fact that they were long-acting made them so harmless, so why stop? So I quit seeing her and stopped taking the Xanax and went to acupuncture from this wonderful guy Peter most every day and that helped me quit them. It wasn’t easy, but I did stick to it and have never taken anything like that since.
I have kind of glossed over the part of it not being easy here but that’s because that’s a story better for Aubree to tell you. So let’s all send her so much love and support while she goes through this process. I am so proud of her and so grateful that she will share this experience with you as she experiences it in a way that we think will help encourage other people struggling with this to do the same. Plus she is an incredibly insightful, accomplished and beautiful writer.
So now onto Aubree. I love you all very much and don’t know what I’d do without you.
Take care,
Jane
I got to know Aubree when she submitted a piece to me right after AJPT launched. She didn’t end up writing it, but we kept in touch, and she simultaneously became one of those REALLY supportive commenters who was so generous with her praise and insights into other writers’ work here. She is lovely, and we became virtual friends. I have been around enough people addicted to different things (starting with my dad) and while I am not always good at figuring out what the addictive substance or behavior is, and I am particularly BAD at listening to my instincts and trusting that my perceptions are correct about it (especially when addicts lie, as they do), but I can always sense something.
There are certain common denominators, like someone being really excited about a work or travel or other major life change and spending a lot of time and energy in the process of talking about it, and then never following through.
So I did sense that something wasn’t quite right, and I adored Aubree (anyone would) and wanted to help in any way I could. When she very quickly and openly told me that she was addicted to prescription medications and wanted to stop, I encouraged her to get the help she was considering, and we talked about her writing about the process throughout, maybe for publication and maybe not.
But before we get into her story of getting clean, which is starting right now today in this journal entry from the rehab place she will start to tell you about and which she plans to update here biweekly throughout the weeks and months that she is there - before that I want to tell you my own benzo story.
I was pregnant with twins conceived through in vitro and about four months into the pregnancy, I started having sudden extreme bouts of anxiety and panic attacks of a different type than I had ever had before. I remember one night in particular when I got up from bed after a few hours of sleep and felt such a surge of panic that I walked as fast as I could move toward my window (thinking maybe going out of it would help this) and banged hard right into the radiator in front of it. Really hard. Which shocked me enough that I didn’t do anything more destructive.
These went on. I went to a psychologist recommended by my OB/GYN. She gave me something to help ease the panic a little bit while I was pregnant but I honestly can’t remember what the medication or supplement was. I don’t think she could have given me prescription anxiety medicine at that point in my pregnancy (second trimester), but part of me thinks it was Ativan and that I was supposed to take it only when needed.
In any case, I miscarried those beautiful twins later into the second trimester when I developed pancreatitis (the doctors thought as a complication of the double pregnancy and the in vitro - I will go more into their theory when I write this Whole Other Story).
I delivered them in the same room at Mt Sinai Hospital where I had given birth to my incredible 22-year-old-now daughter Charlotte two years before, after which I had to be hospitalized for a few weeks to recover - and then eventually they took out my gall bladder in case that had contributed to the pancreatitis. Oh, by the way, for anyone who has not experienced acute pancreatitis, I am here to tell you that in my very strong opinion, and I had it twice, it is at its easiest 15 times more painful than childbirth. Granted Charlotte weighed under 6 pounds, but still. (When I delivered the twins - who could not have survived at that point - I made the mistake of looking down and seeing one of them, the girl’s head I am pretty sure, and I really - for me - wish I hadn’t. But that was a long tangent, and I will tell you that entire story whenever you want to hear it or ask me about it.)
After I got out of the hospital, the same psychiatrist prescribed long-acting Xanax for me to take in the morning and night, like clockwork. So I did.
By Aubree Nichols
Background
It all started in January 2022, the same day I lost my cycle and received my second COVID-19 vaccine. Not long after, insomnia took over — rude 3 a.m. wake-ups and early-morning cortisol surges made my body feel like it was screaming. I even took myself to the ER, begging them to sedate me.
Thinking sleep was the issue, I cycled through one sedating sleep med after another — each more dysregulating than the last. But after a visit to my gynecologist, I realized my body had suffered a full-blown hormonal crash, which shook my nervous system from the inside out. The only thing that helped was Xanax — my knight in shining armor.
Eventually, I transitioned from short-acting Xanax to Klonopin, a longer-acting benzo considered better for interdose withdrawal. I was prescribed 0.25 mg for those nagging early-morning wake-ups. It worked at first, but I felt foggy the next day — I was essentially starting my mornings sedated. Within weeks, 0.25 mg stopped working, so my doctor (who I now refer to as a drug dealer) upped the dose to 1 mg, which only deepened the fog. I was comfortably numb.
Over the past three years, I’ve tried tapering off, but the pull of sleep — the benzo’s promise — kept luring me back. And it never fails to disappoint… until it does.
As a result, I became disconnected — from myself, my family, my creativity, my sense of God, and community. The drug dulled all my senses. I never knew depression could get that dark. Sure, I managed to make it to the grocery store or go on long walks, but I often spent my days curled into a corner of the couch, thinking of nothing — because that’s what benzos do. In my case, Klonopin numbed me out completely by depressing my central nervous system.
On White Lotus, the dad pops lorazepam like candy when he’s stressed — but this pill is no joke. It has ruined my life.