
Recently, the Benzo Information Coalition (BIC) put out a video where a prominent voice in the community cynically declared that CBT and therapy are utterly useless. She laughed at these things and suggested that only diet can be helpful during benzo withdrawal. I found this dangerously absurd and potentially harmful to so many people listening to that poor advice. It baffles me that many people in the Benzo community can report being helped by therapeutic interventions, skill set building, and neuroplasticity. Yet, the prevailing message continues to ignore this and preach rhetoric.
It's true. CBT, therapy, exposure therapy, exercise, neuroplasticity building, etc., are not magical cures for benzo withdrawal. They do not simply turn off withdrawal symptoms. Nothing truly touches acute withdrawal and puts out the fire, but no one said they did or would. Still, many, if not most, people would still benefit from these things with the right approach. The problem isn’t that these things can’t be helpful. The problem is that most people do not know how to utilize them in benzo withdrawal and recovery effectively.
I’d argue we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater regarding holistic therapies.
This reminds me of how silly things got with vaccines during the pandemic. Politics aside, as there were a lot of confusing and even manipulative politics at play, vaccines are helpful, assuming they're safe and tested. But a vaccine shouldn't be presented as some shield that protects us from getting sick. Vaccines may add an extra layer of protection.
Some vaccines may help prevent infection, but that's ultimately a tall order. People get the flu vaccine yearly, and many still get the flu. However, their flu symptoms are usually relatively minor compared to how bad they could have been had they not been vaccinated.
Similarly, CBT, therapy, exercise, exposure, etc., help us manage symptoms. They don't simply remove benzo withdrawal. In my own journey with benzo withdrawal, coming off 40-50mg of valium after a 10-year dependence, and after dropping 20-30mg at once, I can sincerely tell you all that those holistic psychological interventions collectively saved my life!

There's no question. I tried what the BIC, benzo buddies, and all the others advised. I tried a micro taper while eating vegan, laying and resting, praying, avoiding stimuli, and avoiding anything that agitated me. I ruminated like a mental patient, not sleeping for days at a time, glued to my phone and monitor, reading horrible things about people who were struggling.
My health anxiety quickly developed into health OCD, and I would have panic attacks daily, sometimes three or four times a day. I don't know how my adrenal glands held up. I suspect there were some issues, as I can now see in a few of the photos taken during my withdrawal. I could see it in my face. I was clearly unwell.
I woke up one day and tried to check my mailbox. I got about four steps out of my front door and had a panic attack. I ran back to my house and jumped back in bed. The withdrawal had made me completely agoraphobic. I was devasted. All I could think of was that I had brain damage and how likely my life was as I knew it was over. I’d never become a therapist because I couldn’t leave my house or entertain a coherent thought for very long. Also, who would want a therapist who was so damaged and plagued with neurosis?
It didn't take long before I was so weak and deconditioned that just walking around the house seemed almost impossible. There's so much more I could say but won’t because I don't want to trigger anyone, but I suffered tremendously. That's the point, and I got worse listening to the advice I was receiving.
It wasn't until I started learning how to lull my limbic system and push back against the debilitating symptoms that everything changed for me. CBT, exposure therapy, exercise, DBT, ACT, developing coping skills, limbic system retraining and lulling, neuroplasticity building, art therapy, dietary changes, mindfulness, and more turned me around!
I threw everything but the kitchen sink at benzo withdrawal.
In the last decade of being in the benzo community, especially the last several years, I have worked with countless people worldwide, and I've tested my methods to remarkable success.
No. I don't proclaim to have some miracle cure for withdrawal, but I am here to tell you that we CAN and SHOULD be working on our recovery. I don't care what other coaches tell you, the BIC, your doctors, or anyone else. Benzo withdrawal is more destructive on levels you might not even be aware of. Benzo withdrawal is more than a biological problem involving receptors. If you’re still using this as your model for benzo withdrawal, then you’re using an outdated model and limiting understanding.
Benzo withdrawal negatively impacts multiple systems and organs of the body, from receptors to micronutrients, limbic system activation, and complex trauma. Prolonged acute withdrawal can create harmful conditioned pathways in the brain and lead to the development of a host of related neuroses.
Not to mention, we all got on the drugs for a reason. There was something already there beneath the surface! For many, it was one or more things, such as depression, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, insomnia, health anxiety, OCD, or personality disorders, such as borderline or histrionic.

While we cannot simply turn off benzo withdrawal with CBT and therapeutical modalities, we can help prevent things from escalating and becoming worse. That alone should be enough to invest in it!
But CBT and these other modalities can really help reduce withdrawal symptoms with proper practice and a little dedicated time. I can promise you that much. I’ve worked with people who saw massive changes in their symptoms in a way that they couldn’t believe. It’s a joy watching them have that “ah-hah” moment!
Moreover, what are we going to do once we are off the drug?
Do you know how many people I see regularly who have come off their drugs and are in a state of panic because they think they have brain damage when, in reality, they have no coping skills? It's countless.
My friends, the truth is that most of us never had to develop coping skills. Most of us never had to address our trauma, maladaptive coping mechanisms, defenses, or a host of other things that might have contributed negatively to our dispositions.
Whenever I felt anxious or worried, whenever life challenged me, I could pop a pill.
That little blue pill made it all fade away.
How could I build skills or make challenging or scary changes to critical areas of my life when I had that magical blue pill? That pill did all the heavy lifting. Whenever I smelled smoke or saw fire, I grabbed my magical little blue pill fire extinguisher.
Then, one day, I cut my Benzo in half, and all hell broke loose!
Suddenly, I’m crawling in despair and battling unimaginable panic with no healthy coping skills, only old maladaptive defenses. I had no therapy or support to lean on. Nothing. So, I fell deeper and deeper down that benzo hole. Like countless others I’ve worked with, I was faced with the arduous task of learning how to climb Mount Everest WHILE climbing Mount Everest! I had the incredible burden of learning how to cope and retrain my brain, which was already incredibly challenging for people not in withdrawal, while I was tapering off the world’s nastiest drug.
But it worked. And it saved my life. Without question, it saved my life.
The reason I’m here today, alive, and indeed the reason I’m a Benzo coach and Benzo reform advocate, rest up that critical moment when I was able to turn things around using the same tools that the BIC and other dogmatic individuals in the benzo community now spout as not being effective.
Are CBT and other psychological interventions some miracle cures or fire extinguishers? No. But can they, with the proper education and practice, be game changers in withdrawal and life after benzos? Absolutely! Can we help lull the limbic system out of its locked state of fight-or-flight, which can keep us stuck in BIND and acute withdrawal? Yes!
We are all not that different. Our stories might differ, our medications might vary, and our doses might differ, but we are not that different.
Something happened to us. Eventually, we ended up on the magic pills, which were magical when they worked. However, this was like putting a Band-Aid over a bullet wound, and then we went about our day until, eventually, the benzo curveball got thrown at us. For some of us, that curveball came early into our benzo journey. For others, it came many years later.

Don’t let the non-believers, the lost, scare you away from helping yourself.
Don’t allow that chemical withdrawal-induced fear to chase you away or remove your hope. That’s my message to you all. History will write this differently, you’ll see. Be on the right side of history.
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.
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