I'm a psychiatric patient, & I've counseled people under a licensed clinical counselor. I have a Bachelor's in Psychology. I'm not a psychiatrist or a doctor. I can't give medical advice as a medical professional, as I'm not one. However, this is my experience & opinion.
The war on drugs- the war on the opiate & benzo epidemics, as they call them- isn't helping any addicts that I know. Every addict that I know- & I know a LOT of them- are getting the drugs they want. They might have to kill, steal, prostitute, etc. for them, but buddy, they get them. Meanwhile, people I know who genuinely need treated with medications are often unable to legally do so. They are denied effective treatment. They are subjected to disrespect & verbal abuse. The only people this stops from getting these medications are the people who genuinely need them, & are trying to get them legally.
I use benzodiazepines as part of my treatment. They are legal, & doctors & psychiatrists in my area need to treat them as such. Where I live, these treatments are often treated as though they are illegal. The medical providers are taking it upon themselves to outlaw these treatments. So many places where I live have signs up literally stating that they will not under any circumstances or for any reason prescribe controlled substances. If something is proven to work, is legal, & you take an oath to provide care to people, how are you going to deny people proven effective care without even seeing them if nothing else works for that person? Yet, I've seen it done. Those signs tell you that it IS done. And this is, from what I've read, a standard treatment for Panic Disorder.
Benzodiazepines aren't a common OCD treatment, but they are a normal part of treating Panic Disorder, which is what I have. I also have OCD, but that's not why I take a benzodiazepine. Yet, many people are denied the standard treatment. I'm not saying everyone with Panic Disorder should be on benzodiazepines, but I needed them before I ever took them.
Sadly, Benzodiazepine abuse- including by some folk who only do them for "fun"- is giving them a bad name. People who genuinely need them & take them responsibly, such as myself, are having difficulty getting them prescribed. Benzodiazepines are literally the reason I'm functional. They're the reason I've not killed myself. They're the reason I'm able to leave my house or even my bed.
To be fair, I fully believe that some people who end up addicted did have a good reason to take them, & were simply addiction prone, or were prescribed too much, or needed them so often that tolerance was built, etc., which is tragic. However, some of us need these medicines, & not everyone ends up abusing them. You have to weigh risk, reward, alternatives, etc.
Where I live, people face a lot of prejudice for using them. If you go to a doctor for anxiety, panic, pain, etc., they automatically start acting like you're drug seeking. The opiod & benzo epidemics, as they're called, aren't just hurting addicts. The reaction to the epidemic is hurting people who need these medications. For some of us, they are very much a necessity. Just as there is actually a need for opiates, there is actually a need for benzodiazepines. I've even seen people mistreated because it was wrongly assumed that those people wanted controlled substances or were using them when they were not.
But you don't prescribe hardcore opiates to someone who has mild pain. Contrastingly, you don't give someone dying of bone cancer an OTC Tylenol. Similarly, you shouldn't prescribe benzodiazepines to someone whose issues are controlled by other medications. However, nothing else helps me sufficiently. It's a strong medication, & it's meant for cases, such as mine.
If you're blessed to get the medication you need, you live in fear everyday of losing the one medication that made you functional & not suicidal. My psychiatrist acted like I was a drug seeker when I accepted the medication from a hospital while I was having an honest to God psychiatric & physical breakdown. I knew that medication was the only thing saving me, & I didn't know that I wasn't allowed to accept it at a hospital during an emergency. I had made an appointment with him, & told him about the prescription as soon as possible. However, he acted like I was only telling him for fear of being found out. I didn't know I'd done something "Wrong" or against his policy, & he never drug tested me, so I was telling him because I thought he should know as my provider. I didn't expect him to prescribe them to me, but the way he treated me felt disrespectful & invalidating. And he said other things that showed me he had no idea what I was going through. The Xanax helped me. He didn't. So, I left. I found a different provider who continued my medication regimen. She said she could see I needed it, I wasn't abusing it, & she had PTSD, so she understood.
My cousin also has Panic Disorder. It runs in our family. She was recently told that she tested negative for her benzodiazepines & that she was missing a large number of pills from her bottle- more than should be gone.
Providers often test us to make sure that we're 1. Not taking illegal substances with our benzodiazepine, 2. That we're not taking more than we're prescribed, & 3. That we are taking the benzo. However, if you're not taking benzos daily, this can be problematic since you won't necessarily test positive even if you're taking them & not selling them.
But anyway...they thought she was selling them since they couldn't detect them in her system, but her bottle & pill count suggested (supposedly) that she was missing more than allowed. I knew for a fact that she wasn't not taking her medication. I also knew she wasn't selling it. There's no way. She needs those.
But they gave her a month's supply & told her to wean off a medication she'd been on for 14 yrs due to panic disorder. I don't even think that's safe. They weren't even going to help her wean off. She was a nervous wreck thinking that she was going to lose her needed medication, & she also began to question her sanity due to the gas lighting medical professional who also refused to give her any additional drug tests to let her prove she was taking her medication. She began to think that maybe she was crazy. She told me that she counted the medication in her bottle & the right number of pills were in the bottle. She said she thought she was losing her mind.
It turned out that the professional who had looked at her bottle THREE times, & who had counted the pills two or three times, had misread the label somehow- apparently not really reading it- & thought she was supposed to have twice as many pills in her bottle. Therefore, she thought the pills were missing because she'd sold them. Yet, the number she counted was, in fact, the number of pills my cousin was supposed to have left in the bottle. She has never been prescribed that many Xanax at once. After practically calling her a liar, refusing to let her speak to the doctor, & refusing to re-test her, this woman began arguing with her that she was prescribed twice the pills that she had. My cousin told her she had never been prescribed that number, & that the bottle said otherwise; she asked how she didn't know when she'd seen it three times that day. So, the woman finally checked the records, & had to admit she was wrong, BUT she didn't apologize. And she told her she still wasn't getting her medication, talking to the doctor, etc.
She told her the test was still negative. Anyway, she apparently had tested her blood & urine, & the urine came back after that & was positive. There's also reason to believe the blood was NEVER even tested for Xanax. This woman NEVER apologized to my cousin. However, someone else called from the facility to say that they'd made a mistake. My cousin had the right number of medication in her bottle, & was clearly taking the medication herself. They said they'd give her the medication.
This is the fear I live with everyday. That somebody is going to make a mistake, & I will go right back to the way I was before or worse when they take my medication. I will be suicidal, nonfunctional & having a breakdown. Why? This is a legal medication, & people need to stop treating the people who take it as if we are outlaws. They take an oath