To give a different point of view: I've been taking Bromazepam for 25 years, but very occasionally when I'm very anxious or can't sleep, a few times a year, never more than 1-2 days in a row. It's been helpful, especially when I was younger as sometimes I was paralyzed by anxiety. I never had the slightest sign of addiction but was also careful not to rely on that too much (and never had any addiction problem).

I've also seen friends or family members who used and stop these drugs without much difficulty.

This isn't medical advice obviously, but I wouldn't rely on anecdotal experience to form an opinion on this. These drugs can certainly be helpful to some people.

Seconding your experience. Used on an occasional basis, benzos can be helpful without resulting in the horror stories related here. Of course, everyone is different and YMMV, but confirming that your positive experience is not unique.

No one questions if they're helpful. But the danger and the severity needs to be more commonly known.

I certainly wouldn't want them removed -particularly after spending 4 months going through different surgical procedures where benzos were medically indicated. But awareness of the down-side is thin on the ground (from my perspective) and it's good to get out there.

My involvement in inpatient drug abuse clinics has been benzo addiction is one of the hardest to treat and accounted for nearly half the patients, the rest split between alcohol and opioids, even during the height of the oxy crisis. It’s much less reported on because it’s widely prescribed and it’s nearly impossible to OD on. The effects aren’t as dramatic as alcohol, but are no less debilitating. Furthermore because benzos and alcohol have similar pathways they are often abused together and they amplify each others effect. You can satisfy the addiction with either - so people withdrawing from alcohol are often given benzos and people addicted to benzos often drink to relieve their addiction. People describe klonopin and similar long lasting benzos as a six pack that lasts 18 hours - which is a long time to have than level of declined inhibition. This further leads to more drinking, but also to other out of character behavior like overspending - some patients have bankrupted their families through excessive and bizarre spending.

Many people receive opioid treatment and do not become addicted. In fact most do. Most people can drink alcohol without becoming an alcoholic. This isn’t a proof that “anecdotal experience” that opioid addiction and alcoholism aren’t serious problems. In fact it is a demonstration that they are insidious for that exact reason - it’s fairly easy to slip through the cracks in the system into a serious problem that is life altering and extraordinarily difficult to emerge from.

Finally, the hardest withdrawals I’ve seen are benzo withdrawals. Relapse is also extremely high because the profound anxiety that led to the addiction is amplified in the years of subsequent withdrawal with very little as effective as a benzo to mitigate it. Paralyzing irrational fear is in many ways worse than pain, and pain is often a symptom to boot.

I feel that perhaps saying “well not everyone, take my anecdotal experience” isn’t the most empathetic response, and the statistics bear this out. The prevalence of benzodiazepine dependency is roughly on par with alcoholism in the US and several times that of opioids. The distinction is that crisis level addiction is roughly the same as opioid, while alcohol is roughly 7x worse. This likely because acute alcoholic behavior is rapid and very readily observable, while opioid and benzo dependency can be masked behind an otherwise normalish appearing life. The decline is fairly slow often unless you trip over into fentanyl. Further the prevalence of common use of both opioids and alcohol is much higher because surgery and recreational alcohol use is fairly prevalent while anxiety disorders less so.

Stevie Nicks is a popular icon who has been very public about how hard her withdrawal from Klonopin was, including how her skin sloughed off among other horrible effects. She lost a large part of her life span to it. But otherwise it’s also a relatively under reported dependency given its prevalence.

https://time.com/3482462/rolling-stone-stevie-nicks-drugs-mu...

I’d also note in many countries benzodiazepines are highly controlled with much higher bars than US, including the UK, where they’re only allowed in crisis, not general anxiety disorders less.

> a few times a year, never more than 1-2 days in a row

It takes at least a few weeks to a few months of daily use to develop dependence.

Some people are wired for addiction and some aren't. I knew a guy who did heroin or cocaine a few times a year when he felt like it and never got addicted. I also quickly lose interest in alcohol or marijuana but I can't stop eating sweets no matter how hard I try...