Outdoor Magazine Article on BZ

[[Buddie]]

http://outside.away.com/outside/culture/201006/matt-samet-climber-addiction.html   

[[Buddie]]

Wow, what a story!

[[Buddie]]

he survived the madness - taking all those other meds do not help...gives me hope.

Even [...] Hopkins Hospital does not know how to taper someone off these pills... terrible.

[[Buddie]]

Awful for how much he suffered, unreal : (

[[Buddie]]

Thank you for sharing. I put it up on my facebook.

[[Buddie]]

I read/found the magazine in the waiting room of an acupuncturist's office, but it is a popular doctor's office magazine too. I don't know why but this gave me hope that this issue was becoming more mainstream.

I also thought it was an incredibly powerful story.

[[Buddie]]

It would be so nice to hear benzos talked about more by the media. However, benzos bring in lots of money and they say that money talks. As long as benzos are bringing in the money, they will be glamorized.

[[Buddie]]

Hi [...],

Great story!

JohnE

[[Buddie]]

I read every word (he really can write!) and was struck by how much he hurt himself by his admitted illegal drug use through the years.  He even talks about "wrangling" xanax prescriptions from the very doctor he then vilifies.  Anyway,  I wanted to find out how he's doing now, and found some fairly recent interviews that certainly infer he's doing very well now.  Here's a link to one of them:

http://www.mountainsandwater.com/2010/02/matt-samet-interview-part-1-for-next.html

[[Buddie]]

TY for the link Beeps! I agree he writes very well! I found much of his story interesting. One thing I have always wondered about is if I had been on a short acting benzo....would I have realized my symptoms as w/d or as medication related earlier???...or would I have attributed them to "addiction" or "dependence" ?


 For me I wouldn't get what we call w/d symptoms for about 4 weeks after I'd stopped taking the pills. Therefore none of my "symptoms" were ever attributed to the pills but rather to an organic cause, namely the countless neuro-muscular  diseases I was misdiagnosed with. His story of never-ending psychiatric misdiagnosis reminded me so much of my own experience of neurologic misdiagnosis!