A report from DrugScope today says that Valium – or Diazepam as it’s now know is fast replacing heroin as the drug of choice in the inner cities. Of course Valium, unlike Heroin has respectable middle class credentials – the Rolling Stones sang about ‘Mother’s Little Helper’ - but then it’s never been about the chemistry of the substance, it’s the social class of the user that matters.
Take two hypothetical case studies:
Annabel from Hampstead is a 30-something stay at home mum. With the kids now at school and having given up her promising career in PR she feels lonely and down. Her friends have moved on and her husband is too wrapped up in his career to understand.
She sees the family doctor and he tells her that she’s depressed and prescribes Valium. This takes the edge off and keeps her on an even keel emotionally. This continues for years. It’s possible that her family and friends don’t even know. But if they did there would be sympathetic. Poor Annabel.
Charleene from Hackney is a young single mum. She had her kids in her teens - their dad isn’t around anymore and she’s has never had a real job. Living hand to mouth on benefits on a run down estate, life is a struggle. Some days she just can’t seem to get going and it’s all too much. So seeks something to take the edge off – she knows someone who can help her out. She doesn’t know it but she has depression and she’s self-medicating.
The ‘something’ might have been smack but now, just like Annabel, it might be ‘blues’. But the similarity ends there. Charleene will be taking an illegal substance whose origins she will never know. She's now entirely in the hands of her dealer. If she's lucky she will avoid arrest, imprisonment, losing her kids to social services, a possible spiral to petty crime or prostitution, and illness or death from impure or contaminated substances. But even if none of this happened, everyone knows that bad mothers like Charleene are junkies with only themselves to blame.
Take two hypothetical case studies:
Annabel from Hampstead is a 30-something stay at home mum. With the kids now at school and having given up her promising career in PR she feels lonely and down. Her friends have moved on and her husband is too wrapped up in his career to understand.
She sees the family doctor and he tells her that she’s depressed and prescribes Valium. This takes the edge off and keeps her on an even keel emotionally. This continues for years. It’s possible that her family and friends don’t even know. But if they did there would be sympathetic. Poor Annabel.
Charleene from Hackney is a young single mum. She had her kids in her teens - their dad isn’t around anymore and she’s has never had a real job. Living hand to mouth on benefits on a run down estate, life is a struggle. Some days she just can’t seem to get going and it’s all too much. So seeks something to take the edge off – she knows someone who can help her out. She doesn’t know it but she has depression and she’s self-medicating.
The ‘something’ might have been smack but now, just like Annabel, it might be ‘blues’. But the similarity ends there. Charleene will be taking an illegal substance whose origins she will never know. She's now entirely in the hands of her dealer. If she's lucky she will avoid arrest, imprisonment, losing her kids to social services, a possible spiral to petty crime or prostitution, and illness or death from impure or contaminated substances. But even if none of this happened, everyone knows that bad mothers like Charleene are junkies with only themselves to blame.
1 comment:
My name is Paul Harris and i would like to show you my personal experience with Valium.
I am 55 years old. Have been on Valium for 20 days now. I decided to get off of all benzos after much reading and having a friend who was abusing Xanax kill himself (may have been other issues, too). I was taking about 4 mg of Klonopin daily. I read a lot of the reseach on benzos by Dr. Heather Ashton, one of the world's leading authorities on benzos. I was shocked to see her equivalency table for Klonopin and Xanax. 1 mg of Klonopin or Xanax is equel to 20 mg of Valium. That's right, 20!! Plus, Klonopin and Xanax have nasty side effects. That did it for me. No more benzos!! Because Valium has the longest half-life of any benzo and the least side effects, I'm using it and water-titration to get off Klonopin, a method widly used in Europe. 10% reduction every 10-14 days. So far so good.
I have experienced some of these side effects -
Headache, drowsiness in the morning. Hard time getting my Dr. to prescribe and go along with treatment program. Valium supposedly is far less addicting than some other benzos, with far fewer side effects. I hope that turns-out to be true.
I hope this information will be useful to others,
Paul Harris
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