In her memoir, “Blood Orange Night,” Utah author Melissa Bond shares her experience of a prescription drug dependency by “stitching it into a new kind of story.”
Melissa Bond, a Utah journalist and poet photographed in her home on Wednesday, May 31, 2022, recounts her multi-year struggle with accidental benzodiazepine addiction in her book Blood Orange Night to be released in July 2022.Melissa Bond laughs when she says something that’s odd to hear from an author doing publicity for her new book: “This is not the book I ever wanted to write.”
The DEA says the street names for this class of drugs are “benzos” or “downers.” Some of the brand names may be more familiar: Valium, Xanax, Librium, Halcion, Ativan and Klonopin, among others. The problems persisted, she said, and her doctor — whom she calls Dr. Amazing in the book — prescribed her Ativan. “We need to get you to sleep,” Bond quoted Dr. Amazing as saying. “That will repair your hormones. I’m going to give you a sedative, it’s totally safe.”In hindsight, Bond said, she calls it something else: Her own personal Fukushima, a reference to the Japanese nuclear reactor damaged in a natural disaster in 2011.
Melissa Bond, a Utah journalist and poet photographed in her home on Wednesday, May 31, 2022, recounts her multi-year struggle with benzodiazepine dependence in her book "Blood Orange Night," to be released June 14, 2022.“The decline was so rapid, [but] it took me a while to [realize it],” Bond said. “Benzodiazepines cause what’s called anterograde amnesia, which means that it impairs the formation of your memories.
“That’s when I discovered all the symptoms that I was having were considered active withdrawal,” Bond said. “This drug is metabolized so rapidly, you can be on a high dose and still be having active drug withdrawals as if you’re trying to get off it.” Bond said she worked with another doctor — not Dr. Amazing — for five months trying to get off the drugs, and that doctor told her, “I’m terrified we’re going to kill you.” Eventually, she said, she found an addiction specialist, and worked with him for a year.
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