Mother’s Little Helper –

July 8, 2019 – Often, women don’t know what they’re getting into. “Most people taking psychiatric drugs these days do not get an adequate explanation about the nature of the medication,” says George Dawson, M.D., a Minnesota-based addiction psychiatrist. That was the case for Summer Schley, a 26-year-old waitress in Valley View, Pennsylvania, who was prescribed Klonopin to help her sleep when she was 18. “I didn’t know what the term tolerance meant,” she says. “I never did pills or even drank alcohol, so I was completely unaware of what I was given.” Drug packaging states physiological dependence can occur even when they’re taken as prescribed, but it doesn’t explain dependence is widespread among users who take the drugs for longer than two to four weeks, according to a 2018 article in the Journal of Clinical Medicine. And many do: Between 2005 and 2015, the number of people using benzos for six or more months increased by 50 percent, according to the JAMA report. “Anyone who uses these medications long-term is going to experience tolerance and withdrawal,”…

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