About the Benzo Recovery School
The Benzo Recovery School is a positive, education-based online recovery school and support community, created to offer a calmer, clearer alternative to fear-based psych-med recovery spaces. Founded by Coach Powers in 2023, the school was designed to protect people from pseudoscience, alarmist narratives, and practices that often worsen anxiety rather than support healing. The school serves people recovering from benzodiazepines, SSRIs, and other psychiatric medications who want clear guidance and a structured recovery program that actually shows results.
Our school isn't merely another doom-n-gloom psych med forum. It's a structured learning environment and trauma-informed neuroplasticity program built in stages, steps, and phases, to very gently help align the student back to healing. There's no rush, no grades, and no need to show up perfect. It's a go-at-your-own-pace curriculum with an amazingly positive support community.
The North Star: Stage-Based Animated Program
The North Star is our new stage-based animated video series. For now, it's only Stage I: Restoring Hope, with Stage II currently in development. All new students should begin with Stage I and progress accordingly. Please note: these four stages are developmental, not dependent on where you are currently in your withdrawal journey. Please take your time reviewing the content and course materials, paying special attention to the Key Learning Goals, Key Roadblocks, and Daily Checklists.
Think of the North Star as your guiding light, a recovery roadmap.
Video Courses
You can view the full 24-video module recovery series under the Video Courses space via the Recovery Program collection. You can also view other important content there, such as Course Materials, Quizzes, and Suggested Reading. The videos here will offer information on everything from tapering to neuroplasticity building and more. Go slow, and pick away at these at your own pace.
Four-Stage Recovery Program 🟡 🟢 🔴 🔵
Our model incorporates a Four-Stage Recovery Program. This is designed to meet your injured nervous system where it currently is and gently lay the foundation for it to begin stabilizing, recalibrating, and healing. Many students make the mistake of rushing through the stages or content, and not seeing the importance and value of journeying stage by stage, beginning with Stage I: Restoring Hope.
If you rush through or skip content, especially core learning goals or roadblocks, you risk not using the program correctly and therefore not truly getting the value you're here for.
One of the most helpful and important guides in this program is the Recovery Templates (or Handbooks), which you can see below. These colorful templates beautifully break down each stage, giving you information on what each stage entails, your learning goals, daily checklists to build neuroplasticity, and where many students often get stuck.
Weekly Zoom Meetings ▶️
If you're looking to regularly connect with Coach Powers and others navigating withdrawal and recovery, then you'll likely love our weekly Zoom Meetings. This is a great way to get fresh information on recovery, ask Coach Powers questions about withdrawal, co-regulate with others, and maybe even make some new friends.
Additionally, we have over 200+ hours of Recorded Meetings available for those who can't make the meetings or prefer to watch past meetings. You will find countless hours of lessons and instruction on all things withdrawal and recovery. Below are some of our past lessons. These meetings are totally optional.
Community Clubs 🤝
You'll also find more community-driven spaces under the menu tab. This is designed to bring us together in unique ways. There are spaces, such as Furry Friends, where we can share our pets, which are like our extended family. There is a Faith Support space for people who want to share their faith with others, including prayer requests with Pastor Tim. The Photography Club is a space where we can share our favorite photos, which also helps inspire us to get out of the house, move more, and engage in some art therapy. There is a growing list of other spaces you can explore as well!
Worried you might not fit in?
One interesting thing we've noticed is a small trend of new students who sometimes enter the school, see how everyone else is doing, all their positivity and healthy coping, and then think to themselves, the school might not be a good fit because they feel they're much more damaged than others. To that, I can only say, "Don't judge a book by its cover!"
Everyone here has fought and is fighting their own battles! But what is unique is that many of them have really made improvements by doing the good work, leaning healthily on support, and by creating a positive, insulated bubble of recovery. Give it some time. You, too, will eventually get there!
However, not everyone may wish to engage the community. They may prefer to be a bit more reserved and focus solely on the recovery modules and video lessons. Or, perhaps they really prefer the live Zoom meetings so they can ask Coach Powers questions about their recovery. This is perfectly fine as well. You do you. There's no wrong way.