Addiction by Prescription: One Woman's Triumph and Fight for Change

Robert B. MacIntyre, a former professor of psychology at the Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education, is head of the Centre for
Relationship Therapy and Education in Orangeville, Ontario.

From the 1960s to the present, drug policy has focused on the use of
“street drugs” by children, teens, and young adults. Equally
damaging, and perhaps more prevalent, has been the use of mood-altering
drugs by their parents. Part autobiography and part political manifesto,
this book is the story of a successful businesswoman and mother who
became addicted to benzodiazepines. As she habituated to the drugs and
required increasing doses, Gadsby began to manifest disturbing changes
in personality and mood. Her family relationships deteriorated to the
point of divorce from her husband and alienation from her children. In
the recovery period, she discovered that she had suffered a degree of
permanent cognitive impairment from the long-term administration of a
drug that had been tested only for short-term use. Today she is a
prominent advocate for the control of prescribed drugs and an authority
on benzodiazepines.

The use of benzodiazepines has decreased with the introduction of
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac. Unfortunately,
the social structure that supports the overuse of such medications
persists, as does the lack of understanding about their long-term and
“paradoxical” side effects. Addiction by Prescription is a strong
social document that should be read by patients who take mood-altering
drugs and by doctors who prescribe them.