s Melissa Bond raises her infant daughter and a special-needs one-year-old son, she suffers from unbearable insomnia, sleeping an hour or less each night. She loses her job as a journalist (a casualty of the 2008 recession), and her relationship with her husband grows distant. Her doctor casually prescribes benzodiazepines—a family of drugs that includes Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan—and increases her dosage on a regular basis. Following her doctor's orders, Melissa takes the pills night after night; her body begins to shut down and she collapses while holding her infant daughter. Only then does Melissa learn that her doctor—like many doctors—has over-prescribed the medication and quitting cold turkey could lead to psychosis or fatal seizures. Benzodiazepine addiction is not well studied, and few experts know how to help Melissa as she begins the months-long process of tapering off the pills without suffering debilitating, potentially deadly consequences. Each page thrums with the heartbeat of Melissa's struggle.
... propulsive, poetic ... Bond narrates her experience in harrowing detail, determined to speak for 'others like me slipping into the dark' of addiction to prescribed drugs ... It is a comfort to realize from the memoir's opening that Bond has survived. This doesn't ameliorate the horror of her story, told with a journalist's commitment to fact and a poet's touch.
This is an engaging testament to the powers of self-advocacy and resilience written with lyrical clarity and heart ... This cautionary tale will help many understand how prescription drug dependency can happen and the strength and courage required to overcome it. Highly recommended.
