Tranquilliser addiction

TRANQUILLISER
ADDICTION
By STANLEY WILKIN

Catastrophe
• This PowerPoint looks at the effects of tranquillisers and how and why GPs
caused this catastrophe and continue prescribing dangerous drugs. What
does this say about GPs? Are they the right people to go to for bereavement,
stress, melancholy?

• AN UNUSUAL POWER: THE RISE AND
INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL DOCTORS.
• An Unusual Power: the dangerous roots of
psychiatry
• https://www.academia.edu/27509253/An_Un
usual_Power_Dangerous_Roots_of_Psychiatry.
docx
• Not perhaps so much a science, more social status.

Cultural
Construction
of Madness
• An Unusual Power: The cultural construction
of Madness
• History of madness and how it was perceived.
• https://www.academia.edu/7211698/AN_UN
USUAL_POWER_THE_CULTURAL_CONS
TRUCTION_OF_MADNESS

SlideShare
• The paedophiles and the psychiatrists
• (A realistic critique of psychiatry. Is it actually
a science?)
• https://www.slideshare.net/catalhuyuk/the-
paedophiles-and-the-
psychiatrists?qid=29dccad6-ee48-4984-a823-
5f0b2108e233&v=&b=&from_search=1

PILLS
• Pills
• Pills
• What do they really do?

• Strict guidelines were issued to GPs in 1988 and have since been consistently
ignored.
• Still, doctors rarely tell patients that addiction will occur after 4 weeks.

Appalling Consequences!
• These drugs used to suppress/depress brain activity create appalling
neurological and psychological symptoms.

/
• Tranquilizer dependence can be both physical and psychological.
Tranquilizers work by affecting your brain’s neurotransmitters, which are the
chemicals inside the brain that help individual brain cells communicate. In
particular, tranquilizing drugs act on the GABA neurotransmitter, making it
stronger. Because GABA’s natural function is to reduce the brain’s activity,
this causes a great decrease in brain activity.
• In fact cognitive ability and memory can be seriously curtailed.

• The roots of personal anxiety can never be tackled. An individual makes no
maturation progress-experiences mean nothing. They are caught up in a time
warp.

ANDREW
• In the 20 years I was on tranquillisers I did nothing. I made little money. My
life completely failed to progress. Coming off tranquillisers, I acquired
several degrees in a few years, wrote numerous articles and became a modest
success.
• In the 20 years I was on drugs, I never realised I was doing nothing. I was in
a dream.

WAKE UP!!!
• THE DRUGS DO EXACTLY THE
REVERSE OF WHAT DOCTORS CLAIM!!!!

• "This wasn't just, it makes you feel slightly nauseous, this was, these
symptoms are wrecking my life, making me feel as if I'm going out of my
mind, making my family think that I'm going out of my mind."

• Not only are you unlikely to receive genuine help and
support beating this addiction from your GP, the GP is
just as likely to wrongly diagnose you. They might decide
you are suffering from psychosis!

• Governments have consistently failed to fund support systems for patients.
Governments have consistently failed to recognise the problem and deal with
GPs appropriately.

• Obviously, a person abusing these tranquilizers will appear less anxious, but
they might also look drowsy. They may have a euphoric sense of well-being,
even when not warranted by their life circumstances. Like a person using
alcohol, speech may be slurred. They may be unable to focus or concentrate
well and be dizzy at times. Particularly with the benzodiazepines, there may
be lapses of memory and a lowering of inhibitions.

LIVES ARE RUINED BUT DOCTORS CONTINUE
PRESCRIBING AND PRESCRIBING
If you are feeling anxious, depressed and upset in modern societies you turn to
doctors-
There is no other choice
What doctors offer is drugs, drugs and more drugs!!!!!!!

ARE DOCTORS SIMPLY QUACKS?
• Doctors have offered these drugs for 50 years and at no point recognised the
harm they were doing!

• Many sites offering advice on tranquilliser addiction
employ terms such as ‘tranquilliser abuser’ indicating that
patients are somehow to blame for the irresponsible
conduct of the medical profession.

WARNING!!!!
http://www.dependency.net/learn/tranquilizer/#Effects/Sid
e Effects
• Long-term effects of tranquilizers can include irritability, inability to sleep well, and
even aggressiveness. This happens as your tolerance, as well as your dependency,
grows. Tranquilizer side effects also include respiratory distress, respiratory arrest,
cardiac arrest, and death, particularly if tranquilizer is combined with other drugs,
such as cold medicine, other depressants, or alcohol. Tranquilizers can also cause
rashes, dizziness, and nausea. During pregnancy, tranquilizers can result in birth
defects, such as cleft lip. Babies born to a mother addicted to tranquilizers may be
born with drug buildup in their systems, making it hard for them to eat and sleep
normally and putting them at risk for respiratory problems.

PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS
FOCUSSING ON DRUG AFFECTS?
• Are psychiatrists merely diagnosing the effects of psychiatric drugs, using
labels such as personality disorder?
• Is this the real reason psychiatric illness has increased in modern societies?

WARNING!!!!!
•Are psychiatric drugs
harming us all?

LIVING WITHOUT FEELING!
• Four times a day, Keith Andrew dutifully swallows the tranquillisers prescribed by his GP.
• It's a ritual the 74-year- old has repeated for the past 45 years. 'My wife Joan says these drugs
turned me into a zombie, but the truth is I wouldn't know, as I have hardly any memory of
the past 40 odd years,' says Keith, a retired electrical engineer.
•
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1259892/Thousands-60s-hooked-
tranquillisers-turned-virtual-zombies.html#ixzz4hUPyRNi3
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

EFFECTS
ON LIFE
AND
FAMILY
• 'We'd bought a new house to renovate and it had a big garden.
• 'I became stressed about finding the time to do the work on it as well as
my full-time job. It was a change in me, as I wasn't the anxious type.
• 'The tablets calmed me down at first, but within a few months I began to
feel nothing at all - they dulled all my emotions and I withdrew into a
shell.
• 'I lost interest in all my hobbies like watching rugby and gardening.'
• His family suffered, too - Keith felt unable to express any feeling
towards his two children, David and Catherine.
• 'Joan did everything for them, I just went to work and fell asleep in a chair
when I came home. I then started to have regular panic attacks and
insomnia, too, and didn't want to socialise.
• 'My weight also dropped dramatically within a year, from more than 11st
to just 7st 10lbs at my lowest. I was in a terrible state.
•
more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1259892/Thousands-
60s-hooked-tranquillisers-turned-virtual-zombies.html#ixzz4hUQR6JJI

LOST GENERATION
• Many of today's addicts are the elderly, a lost generation who were prescribed the drugs
decades ago. Some continue to suffer debilitating-side effects as a result of taking the
tablets, including feelings of paranoia, lethargy, fatigue, dizziness, and memory and balance
problems. Many won't realise the drugs are the problem.
• For those who try to give up the withdrawal effects are severe, but unlike addictions to
heroin and cocaine, there is virtually no specialist assistance to help them quit.
•
tranquillisers-turned-virtual-zombies.html#ixzz4hURAMh3T

• From their peak of 31 million a year in 1979, there were still 10.7 million
prescription for the drugs written in 2008.
• 'There is still work to be done in getting the message across to GPs that
benzodiazepines are not the most appropriate treatment for anxiety and
sleep problems in many cases,' admits Dr David Baldwin, chairman of the
Royal College of Psychiatrist's psychopharmacology group.
•
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1259892/Thousands-60s-hooked-tranquillisers-turned-virtual-
zombies.html#ixzz4hUS8S4BA

MEDICAL NOT PATIENT ABUSE
• 'There are better alternatives for treating anxiety such as psychological therapies such as
cognitive behavioural therapy.'
• 'It was the first time anyone offered him help to come off his prescription in 42
years'
• 'Undoubtedly, some GPs prescribe benzodiazepines too readily and inappropriate
prescribing does happen.'
•
tranquillisers-turned-virtual-zombies.html#ixzz4hUSRfp2R

Get answers from your doctor. Does your
doctor really know the effects these have?

• YOU ARE LIKELY TO BE DIAGNOSED AS MENTALLY ILL NOT
AS THE VICTIM OF MEDICAL ABUSE!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/pan
orama/tranquillisers/1330247.stm
• I believe I am one of the longest addicts of Lorazepam, I started taking them in
1974 following a car accident and finished taking them in 2000 (26 years). I was 18
when I was first prescribed them and the effect upon my life has been devastating,
like others I thought I was going out of my mind, a fact my doctor was only too
willing to agree with. At one point I was prescribed 10mg a day and even as late as
1980 I was told to take more when I felt anxious. I tried various methods to end my
addiction including my doctor making me go through cold turkey which nearly
killed me, when this failed I was told that it had nothing to do with the tablets and
that I had a personality disorder.

• In 1979, Joan persuaded her husband to switch GP's practice, where she hoped he'd be weaned off his tablets.
• She says: 'Although the practice were sympathetic, they referred him to a psychiatric clinic who switched him to another
benzodiazepine called Xanax.
• 'If anything the side effects - anxiety, restlessness, agitation and agoraphobia were even worse, and an hour after taking his
pills he was pacing the room waiting for his next dose.
• 'We had no idea though, at the time, that his new drugs could be causing these symptoms.'
• The couple put up with these problems for years - indeed it wasn't until his symptoms lead to a breakdown in 2007 that
Keith was finally told the drugs were the cause of his problems.
•
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1259892/Thousands-60s-hooked-tranquillisers-turned-virtual-zombies.html#ixzz4hUSr0i7d

NO HELP FROM DOCTORS!
• Even then help came not from medical staff but a support worker from the
Oldham Drug and Alcohol Service.
• Joan says: 'She was the first person to mention that the drugs that might be causing
his problem - it was also the first time anyone offered him help to come off his
prescription in 42 years.'
•
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1259892/Thousands-60s-
hooked-tranquillisers-turned-virtual-zombies.html#ixzz4hUTNMxNP

CAUSE VIOLENT BEHAVIOUR!
• Benzodiazepines turned me into an angry man. I had felt calmer initially but those effects quickly wore off.
• 'One Christmas I nearly hit my wife and put my fist in the wall instead.
• 'In that split second, I realised that my behaviour was so out of character it must be the drugs that were responsible and decided to quit.
• 'My GP offered me no help, so I slowly reduced my dosage on my own.
• 'The withdrawal side effects were horrendous. I was violently sick every day and over 15 months I lost 7st - half my body weight.
• 'I suffered night sweats that were so severe that I had to change the sheets every day and had hallucinations and horrendous nightmares. My
skin felt like it was crawling with maggots and I became terrified of going out.
•
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1259892/Thousands-60s-hooked-tranquillisers-turned-virtual-
zombies.html#ixzz4hUTxU4XJ

HEALTH
MINISTER
BLAMES
GPS
(Her
complaint
ignored)
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/new
s/9969861/Middle-aged-people-addicted-to-
sleeping-pills-and-tranquilizers-because-of-
GPs-over-prescribe-them-health-minister-
says.html
• GPS are a law unto themselves and
consequently patients continually suffer abuse.

There are a
lack of
alternatives
• Many people completely trust their GPs
• But GPs are unaccountable and often simply
incompetent.
• The medical profession, although causing
limitless disaster, look down on and block
alternatives.

LEGALISED DRUG ABUSE!
• I was on diazepam/Valium for 22yrs from 1968. During the eighties I had it
confirmed by That's Life that I was addicted to these drugs, which I had suspected
for a long time. I was on 40mg/day. Having come off them (which wasn't easy) I
tried to sue the Roche company but was told that because I was no longer on these
drugs and had come off them with no help, I'd have a difficult time proving drug
addiction. It saddens me that so many people are being let down by the medical
profession.
Michael McKenzie
Malvern
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/tranquillisers/1330247
.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/pan
orama/tranquillisers/1330247.stm
• Is there no one at the BBC with enough perception to do a proper in depth programme on
BDZ addiction, the devastation it is causing to lives, marriages and families, the amazing
difficulty of withdrawing completely, and the hidden cost to the NHS and to Society. BDZ
addicts are scared to relate mental problems to their GP for fear of being locked away! BDZ
addicts are scared to "cut down" because they know they can't function without tablets and
think they won't get them! BDZ addicts are scared to ask their GP if their tablets are doing
them harm for fear of them being stopped! The whole truth is yet to come and if anyone at
the BBC still thinks that they have public service duty and is prepared to investigate the
scope of BDZ damage and the real cost to the community properly, good and well,
alternatively, my husband and I will be happy to make a more definitive programme for you
for nothing.
Janet Kerr

BBC
• My doctor prescribed Librium continuously for 10 years in the 70-80s after a
minor bout of anxiety. My memory is permanently impaired over that
period.
Gill Dunn

BBC
• I have been on this medication for 34 years, yes 34 years, and all because I
had a small concern in 1967. All doctors told me was to keep taking the
meds. One year ago I started to find out that I didn't need it. BUT to get off
it is a serious job, people need help and advice. I nearly died of going into
convulsions as I didn't know enough about how to withdraw, I'm still in a
very serious condition called derealization , the Dr. said it was like stopping
smoking, I nearly killed my self
John

JACQUELINE
• I did everything I could to get off the drugs. Everything. I had no help from
GPs in my area. Although well-publicised advice said not to come off
straight away but to do it gradually, GPs refused causing me additional
problems.
• I rarely go to my GP now. Once when I did, I found all sorts of diagnosis-
personality disorder, etc. GPs refuse to admit what they’ve done. These
people, over paid, far too respected, are dangerous!

BBC
• Peoples' lives have been ruined as a result of taking benzodiazepines. They've
caused untold misery to the victim and their families. God knows what permanent
damage these drugs may have caused. To add insult to injury, resources are not
being made available, and its time plans were implemented as a major priority in
order to give these people the help and support they so desperately need to come
off these drugs safely. Doctors today are nothing short of drug lords, and I'm
disgusted that they haven't heeded the warnings given out about tranquillisers years
ago. Doctors and the pharmaceutical companies have a lot to answer for.
Geraldine Lyons
Birmingham

Graham
• I came off the drugs after 20 years and all my old memories of childhood
abuse came back in a rush. A rush? It was more like a storm-a hurricane. The
drug had suppressed my feelings and memories. I found it hard to cope. It
took a year before I regained any control.
• For 20 years I’d lived in a dream.

POWER IMBALANCE
• Millions of lives have been lost, potential wasted.
• I suggest because of our unbridled, uncritical trust in the medical profession-
• The dominance of the psychiatric medical model, which often is little more
than fantasy-
• The power of the medical profession

MEDICAL ABUSE
• Our love-affair with doctors-usually portrayed as highly intelligent,
sympathetic, knowledgeable on TV, in magazines, in books-must end or
more generations are doomed by medical abuse.
• We must take a more critical stance, not be quite so naïve!

GOVERNMENT BLINDNESS!
• This problem has been consistently ignored by
governments because of the possible costs involved, the
desire to placate the medical profession (people after all
parliamentary members may have known at university),
the modern obsession with medical doctors, and desire
not to annoy drug companies.

• Is it possible that John le Carre’s ‘The Constant Gardener’, a story of
vindictive controlling drug companies, has a smidgeon of truth or is this
more to do with the power of medical doctors?

• Tony Blair, in his second term, gave GPs the
responsibility for overseeing drug use-in effect of
being drug Tsars. Of course, everyone knows by
now Blair is mad!

PSYCHIATRY
• Are psychiatrists constantly misdiagnosing and putting away people addicted
by their own drugs?
• Are psychiatric drugs causing mental illness, not helping it?

https://www.britannica.com/topic/drug-use
•Psychotropic drugs have the same or similar
properties as illegal drugs that too are
employed to change moods.

SO, WHAT DO TRANQUILLISERS
DO?
1
1) Affect memory
2
2) Cause endless symptoms such
as anxiety, sleeplessness, and
mood swings.
3
3) Create violent behaviour
4
4) Eradicate feelings-creating
zombie-like attributes.

AND-
5) Create violent
behaviour
1
6) Create blackouts
2
7) Lower inhibitions-
leading to criminal
behaviour.
3

FINALLY-
• Create behaviour that leads to sectioning, and
diagnosis as psychotic/personality disorder/and
other fantasies.

FIN
• THE LACK OF ALTERNATIVES TO GPS, AND MEDICAL
INTERVENTION AS A WHOLE, PREVENTS PROPER EVALUATION
OF DRUGS AND MENTAL HEALTH.
• GPS, FOR EXAMPLE, KNOW NOTHING OF MENTAL HEALTH-
• ALTERNATIVES SHOULD BE AVAILABLE!

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