BLOOD ORANGE NIGHT

A harrowing memoir about a class of drugs as dangerous as opioids.

Making her book debut, journalist and poet Bond, a blogger for Mad in America, recounts her unintended overuse of popularly prescribed benzodiazepine drugs, which led to addiction and a long, painful process of withdrawal. In 2009, pregnant with her second child and caring for an infant son with Down syndrome, Bond experienced weeks of insomnia that left her physically and emotionally exhausted. “After nine weeks,” she writes, “my hands begin to shake. There’s the feeling of being broken, of the head and body not being connected. Some puppeteer jangles my legs, my head.” After the first trimester, her doctor finally prescribed Ambien, assuring her that it would be safe for her nursing infant and growing fetus. At first, Bond was relieved: Ambien worked. Soon, however, the effects sharply diminished. The author learned only later that the medical literature advised taking benzos only occasionally, for a few weeks; she kept swallowing Ambien for months. After her daughter’s birth, her doctor substituted Ativan, another benzodiazepine. Each time its effects stopped, the doctor increased the dose and then added Xanax. Still suffering from insomnia, Bond experienced other symptoms as well: memory loss, olfactory hallucinations, fainting, nausea, digestive problems, and depression, which became exacerbated when she tried to taper the dose. A frantic internet search revealed information that startled her: She was undergoing active drug withdrawal, much more severe with benzos than with opioids. “While the physical withdrawal of opioids is safely done in seven to ten days,” she writes, “benzo withdrawal can be ten times that long.” Furthermore, sudden withdrawal can be fatal. Bond’s anguish affected her relationships with friends and family (her mother had been an addict) and especially with her husband. Marital stress added to her despair, as did her frustration in finding medical help. Bond’s sharp critique of big pharma and the broken American health care system sounds an urgent alarm.

A vivid chronicle of suffering.