46. Learning about Addiction to Benzodiazepines from an Integrative Doctor

Welcome to my podcast. I'm Dr. Nicole Cain, a naturopathic doctor with a master's in clinical psychology and a former anxiety sufferer turned anxiety freedom Rebel darlings. Benzodiazepines. Today we're going to talk about this as a question that one of our anxiety warriors sent me is they were asking about how quickly can somebody get addicted to benzodiazepines. And the question surrounding, like, what benzos are most addictive, what benzos are less addictive? How do you taper off of benzos? And so today I want to talk about how long does it take to become addicted to benzodiazepines? And so there's. There's a short answer and a long answer to that question. The short answer is that the research shows that after three days, you can become addicted to benzodiazepines. And so what we're looking at are two things. One is tolerance, and then the other is dependence. And so tolerance refers to when your body is no longer responding in the same way to a prescription. And so when it's no longer responding in the same way, typically, either you'll feel like it's not working as well and you need to take more, or that when you are taking less, that you start to experience symptoms. The second is withdrawal. And so withdrawal happens more with tolerance and dependence. And so withdraw is after you've been taking something, your body will start to equilibriate to it. Your body will try to create homeostasis. And so it's kind of like if you are outside and it's a really hot day and your body is used to it being hot and you sweat a lot, you get used to drinking more and more water, right? So. So your body gets used to all of that heat, all of that sun, drinking more water. And then suddenly, if overnight, this big storm comes in and it's cold, you're going to notice the cold more, and your body is going to notice that you're not able to drink as much water. Okay, so we're talking about benzodiazepines. And so the research has shown that within three days, a person can start to develop tolerance to benzodiazepine. And then we also see dependence. And dependence is when you actually start to experience withdrawal when you're not using it. And so that can happen after approximately two weeks. And so when we're thinking about benzodiazepine addiction, a lot of people are either more sensitive to becoming addicted to a benzodiazepine, whereas others aren't and so we want to talk about what is a person's risk factors for becoming addicted to a benzo. And so a couple of things. One is if you're taking a short acting benzo, your risk of developing a habit or an addiction to that benzo are much higher. So a short acting benzo would be something like Xanax or Addison. And the reason for that is because when you take the medication, it acts really quickly and so people will experience a pretty quick reduction in their symptoms. And then when the medication stops working, it's pretty abrupt. And so then the person will experience a really pretty intense or quick withdrawal. And so we see that people when they're using these medications, these shorter acting benzodiazepines, that they develop addiction to that much more quickly. So there's a doctor, his name is Dr. Ashton and he creates, created something called the Ashton Method. And so this is my favorite way of helping educate people on how to get down and taper off of benzos. And one of the things that he teaches is when you're taking a benzodiazepine and you want to taper off is that you want to switch from a fast acting like a Xanax or an Ativan to more of a long acting benzodiazepine like Diazepam. And so we know that fast acting benzos tend to be more habit forming. People can become addicted to them within three days of taking them. And so anytime that you're taking a benzodiazepine, you want to do a few things to reduce the likelihood that you're going to develop a habit. And one is to take as low a dose as possible and to try to take it for as short of amount of time as possible. And in my story, when my anxiety was at its worst, I, I'm a naturopathic physician whose expertise is anxiety and I had to take benzos. And so sometimes, sometimes using a medication can be game changing and life saving. Right. And I've been there. And so I cast no judgment on if that's a part of your story. And if you have extreme anxiety, sometimes using smart pharmacology can help us create this base to do the deeper work. And so one of the ways to help reduce the likelihood that you're going to become addicted and then experience withdrawal from a benzodiazepine is to use as low of a dose as you can, use it for as short of amount of time as possible that you can, and then at the same time is try to do the deeper work to identify why you're needing the benzo to begin with. This is a good segue into talking about, well, why do people get prescribed benzodiazepines? So benzodiazepines are a category of medications that increase something in your brain called gaba. Gaba is a neurotransmitter that's calming, it's sedating, it slows down your nervous system. And so it's often prescribed if somebody is having a problem with anxiety or insomnia or if they're having seizures. And so when we take these for a long time, again, it could be over three days. And we take these for a long time, three days to. Sometimes people are taking these medications for years. A lot of doctors don't describe how habit forming they are. Right. And so if you're taking a benzodiazepine, we want to work on what is the root cause of why you were put in on the benzodiazepine to begin with. Right. And so a lot of doctors, they'll use these medications to help you get your life to a place where you can work through it. But at the same time, your doctor should be educating you on how to get to the root cause of the anxiety. And so my story, my doctor gave them to me, I took them as I was prescribed, and at the same time, I started going to counseling and I started doing bodywork, and I started looking at my stress. We call these the cast of characters in the anxiety course. And so doing the work at the same time on why you're going to take the benzodiazepines are getting to the root cause of that. We talked about a couple of variables that will increase the likelihood of being addicted to a benzo. And that's the longer you take it, the shorter acting benzos, the higher the dose. And then if you're not dealing with the root cause variable that was necessitating the benzo to begin with. And so I also want to touch on something called pause. It's called post acute benzo withdrawal syndrome. Has anyone here ever heard of that? Has anyone here experienced that? If you have, you're not alone. And it's something that is a really big, important conversation that needs to happen where our body and our nervous system and our mind and our emotions can develop an addiction to the benzos. Right? And so then we start the process of tapering down. And the process of tapering down a benzo can be really long and really slow, but it's possible if somebody does the taper too quickly or they don't get the right supports, that then they may develop something called pause. And so Dr. Ashton talks about how there are two phases of pause. There's the acute withdrawal and then there's the protracted withdrawal. And so pause is referring to the protracted. So acute withdrawal from benzos is if you're tapering it too quickly, if you don't have the right supports to create a GABA bridge, then you're going to have acute withdrawal symptoms. And those can be anything that is related to anxiety or insomnia. So we know anxiety symptoms. Feeling nervous, your heart racing, you're restless, you feel insomnia, like you can't fall asleep, your brain is racing. All of those typical anxiety symptoms, but then also some benzo specific symptoms which could be confusion. Some people experience depersonalization where they feel like they're not quite attached to their body, or maybe derealization where they feel like they're not quite in their environment. And then we may also see some people may have more serious symptoms with the acute withdrawal, whether it's hallucinations or psychosis. And so those are indicators that you're going through benzo withdrawal. And that's also an indicator that the benzo withdrawal may be too fast. And so working with your doctor to make sure that you're getting the support that you need and really personalizing that for you will help reduce that. If the acute is not addressed, then after typically two weeks will go into more of the long or the protracted symptoms. And so the protracted symptoms can be anything from anxiety, cognitive issues, depression again, digestive upset, muscle issues, sensory issues, motor issues. And this can go on indefinitely unless the person gets the repair of their nervous system, repair of their brain, repair of their gut. And there's great things that we can do for that. And so, and I'll teach you all of that. Actually, I have a whole course that teaches you all about that. It's called the Medication tapering course. You can take that course and it will teach you when to taper, how to taper. The Ashton is a really good companion to that course. But I also want to give you some tips just for today. And so I have them written down for you. There's going to be a blog with this where everything I'm saying is going to be in writing. But if you're thinking about taking a benzo, here's some things to think about before you take a benzo. One is to try to avoid the shorter acting benzos. Try to avoid things like Xanax and ativan if you do take them, keep the dosage as low as possible and take them as infrequently as possible. Make sure you're doing the work to identify why you're having the anxiety or the stress or the insomnia to begin with, so that you're not using the benzos as an end of your sentence, but rather something to hold you over while you do the work. And then also talk to your doctor and make sure that there aren't any medications that you're taking that could be causing the symptoms because otherwise the benzos are just palliative. Right. And so we want to remove the obstacle to cure. So what is it that is going on medically that could be causing your symptoms? So talk to your doctor about root cause testing. If you have a history of addiction or if you have a family history of addiction, especially, especially to benzos or alcohol, then it might not be the right category for you. You might find that your nervous system much more quickly gets addicted to these drugs and then that creates a lot of issues down the road. And then really rally your supports, your doctors, your friends, your family, clinicians that can be on your team to help you get through whatever it is that is causing you to contemplate benzos. If you're taking benzos, if that's something that you're currently dealing with, or if you're dealing with pause. I want to give you a few tips that for that. So One is, so Dr. Ashton recommends going from a short acting benzo to a long acting benzo. And again, the reason is those short acting, they're going to cause spikes and drops and spikes and drops in your symptoms. And so then you're going to constantly feel like you're getting whiplash and then you're constantly going through withdrawal or you're being sedated or you're going through withdrawal. And then the doses get higher and higher, Right? So if you're taking benzodiazepines, the first step is to start slowly, follow the Ashton method to transition over. I'll give you the link to that. Give that to your doctor because that doctor is going to need to prescribe you two benzos at once. One will be the short acting that you're going to be reducing and one will be the longer acting that you're going to be adding up so that you can do a lateral shift and then reduce. And again, I explained this all in the med tapering course. The second though is to use trophorestoratives. So if you're taking a benzodiazepine. We know that benzodiazepines in the clinical literature can be problematic for the brain, and so we want to start restoring the brain. Trophorestoratives are a category of botanicals that have been shown in the clinical research to actually be helpful for healing brain tissue. So you'll learn all about how to pick the right trophorestorative from you in the course. But my favorite, if you don't have the bandwidth to take the course or if you just need something right now, my favorite is Avena Sativa. And you can ask your doctor if that might be appropriate for you. I work with a lot of benzo warriors and I find that Avena Sativa is the least likely to cause side effects and it's really well tolerated. She's gentle and she's wonderful for healing the brain. She's also an anti anxiety plant. So it's kind of nice. You can get her at most health food stores. Also, we want to keep inflammation down. And so one of the ways that benzos work is not only do they help you increase that relaxing gaba, but they decrease inflammation. So one of the things that happens as you're working on tapering your benzo is as your benzo goes down, your inflammation goes up. And so you want to start thinking about how can you get your inflammation down. So some people do really well with an antihistamine diet, other people do well with anti inflammatory supplements. And so examples of anti inflammatory supplements would be like enzymes, turmeric, lots of different things like that. Right. So get your inflammation down. Think about anti inflammatories, low histamine diet. If you're allergic to certain foods, then making sure that you limit those will help to compensate for that inflammation that's going to go up as your benzo goes down. And then the last thing is you want to create a GABA bridge. A GABA bridge is something that will connect the deficiency in the amount of GABA that you're producing and the amount of GABA that you are getting from your medication. And so as that medication, that external source of GABA is going down, you can start to create a bridge to help to fill in that gap, to help with the withdrawal and the side effects. And so Happy Sleepy powder is by far the most useful GABA bridge that I have ever seen. I have Happy Sleepy on my website. It's all comprised of things that you can get at local health food stores and online. And so if you don't want to buy it from my website. Go get it from your local health food store shop. Local, right. We have a video on my website on how to use Happy Sleepy Powder and so go and watch the video. I give you so much free information on there. Go and check it out again. To find that you just simply go to my website, drnicolecane.com and then you can type in the search bar Happy Sleepy Powder and you're going to get a ton of information for free on there. It's also in the shop, so if you just want a shortcut straight there, go to my website and then click on the shop and then you'll see Happy Sleepy Powder and it'll teach you how to use it. But that is by far. I've used this with hundreds of my clients. Our anxiety course, people have used it. The medication tapering course, people have used it and it's one of the best ways to help you get down on your benzos. I also used Happy Sleepy Powder in my journey to help me keep my benzos low. So when I was on a benzo and I was trying to not take more and more and more benzos, I was using Happy Sleepy and it was really helpful and really life saving. So if you're an anxiety warrior, you should have Happy Sleepy in your cabinet and it's comprised of five different bottles and I haven't put it together in one bottle because we need to individualize it. Right. Some people do really well on inositol. Other people, they get stomach upset. Some people, they have more racing thoughts and theanine is like the game changer. Other people, they feel like completely foggy and they can't think. And so then the phosphatidylserine is a. I haven't formulated it into one bottle because I want you to be able to customize it with your doctor to your needs. So the instructions are on the website. I also take on a few patients here and there. If you're located in the state of Arizona, I have a medical license in Arizona. If you're outside of Arizona, we're happy to provide education that you can take back to your doctor. And so if that's something you're interested in, you can learn more about getting started at my website. You've got this. We're in it together. I've been there. I've got your back. And you can get your life back.

The recording you just listened to consists of the personal opinions of Dr. Nicole Kane, a naturopathic doctor with a master's in clinical psychology. While These opinions are based upon literature, her counseling education, medical training, and clinical experience. This content should not be viewed as the definitive opinion on these subjects. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for any sort of medical, psychological, or other form of treatment. If you are in a Crisis, please call 911-OR call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. If you're in need of counseling, don't hesitate to make an appointment with a counselor in your area. Dr. Nicole Cain is so passionate about people getting their life back. If this resonates with you and you think this podcast would help someone you love, please share it with them. Stay in the conversation with Dr. Nicole Cain about writing the next chapter of your life so that it plays out just the way you want it. Explore your options for working with her at www. Dr. Nicolecane.com that's Dr. Dr. Nicole N I C O L E Cain C-A-I n.com when you're there, be sure to take advantage of the Free Anxiety Freedom One week challenge. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the GET your life Back podcast. Here's to your next chapter. Sam.