Jordan Peterson Rehab | Dangers of Benzodiazepine Withdrawal

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel Louis is dr. Grande today's question asks if I could talk about the situation with Jordan Peterson going to rehab and specifically about the drug at the center of this situation called clonazepam so some important disclaimers here for this video I'm not diagnosing anyone only speculating about what could be happening a situation like this and my speculations are only based on the evidence that's available which as far as I can tell is in the form here of a video that his daughter posted on YouTube the Jordan Peterson's daughter posted on YouTube also I'm a counselor educator a licensed counselor and a licensed chemical dependency professional I'm not a psychiatrist or physician of any kind and I'm not a prescriber of any kind so a summary of what's going on here we see that Jordan Peterson is a famous mental health professional he's popular on YouTube he's popular in general and he's technically a psychologist who's authorized to practice in Canada so he's either licensed or he's the equivalent of licensed in Canada I think it's based on the province and they have certification registration and licensure so again the equivalent of being licensed if he's not licensed now again all this is based on a video posted by his daughter on YouTube we see that dr. Peterson's wife Tammy became very ill her life was in danger and she was treated for quite some time by a number of physicians from what I understand now she's doing much better which is very good to hear but at the time when everything was uncertain before there was much in the way of good news we see that dr. Peterson was prescribed medication specifically a medication called clonazepam and he took this medication to help with the symptoms that he was experiencing dealing with his wife being ill which of course is completely understandable given the circumstances then we see that some of the concerns here with his wife were alleviated like I mentioned she seems to be doing better now so he attempted to stop look Massa Pam had withdrawal symptoms and checked himself into rehab so this brings up a lot of questions and many of these questions are not really specific to jordan peterson but rather they're around the idea that amount of health professional could use clonazepam and then go to rehab so how can this happen to a mental health professional while some important things to keep in mind in this situation jordan peterson was lawfully prescribed the medication for a valid reason so we're not talking about illegal drugs here he attempted to stop cold turkey now we don't know if he was advised to do this or not but i would be surprised if a physician told him to do this because stopping beza DA subpoena squigly can lead to death under some circumstances it can be very dangerous we see he experienced unpleasant symptoms we really don't know exactly what those symptoms were and he voluntarily checked himself into rehab and I think the operative word here of course is voluntarily he was not forced to go so back to that question how can this happen to a mental health professional well in my experience I have not seen the fact that somebody is a mental health professional of some type as highly protective against this type of situation especially when the medication is being taken legally for a valid reason and somebody attempts to stop suddenly some people have said that Jordan Peterson should have known better he should have known the dangers of clonazepam its potential to become habit-forming and the dangers of trying to stop quickly maybe somebody with Jordan Peterson's background would have a better probability of knowing the dangers but again in my experience I'm not surprised at all that this happened to a mental health professional during my career as a mental health counselor I've seen or heard of this happening dozens of times to other mental health professionals I think there are a few important factors to keep in mind in this situation first believing that you'll lose your spouse is extremely stressful it's an extremely stressful set of circumstances not just a little stressful not just moderately stressful but extremely stressful second sometimes individuals take medications like clonazepam because they had been told by a physician or they otherwise believe the the benefits outweigh the risks and in many situations the benefits do outweigh the risks I don't see anything unusual about this if somebody had a bad outcome from a surgery that had a low risk of bad outcomes nobody would say why do they have the surgery in the first place when people receive treatment they take risks there is a risk associated with not receiving treatment and a risk associated with receiving treatment so this addresses why somebody would take clonazepam in the first place well of course the other question here is why did he attempt to stop cold turkey and just for the sake of argument I'll run under the assumption that he was not advised to do that so I think this really speaks more to the dangers of clonazepam than to the idea that somehow he was missing something obvious again mental health professionals don't necessarily get a lot of training in psychopharmacology for most mo health professionals there's an emphasis on psychopathology talk therapy treatment appraisal personality not prescription medication even when mental health professionals are trained about addiction there's a lot of emphasis on illegal drugs and alcohol but not on prescription drugs now clonazepam is an interesting medication it's also marketed under the name klonopin clonazepam is a benzodiazepine benzodiazepines reduce the activity of the nerves in the brain and spinal cord by enhancing the effects of a neurotransmitter called gaba other well-known benzodiazepines include a Praslin also known as xanax diazepam also known as valium and lorazepam also known as ativan now clonazepam has a fairly long half-life that's the amount of time it takes for half of the drug to leave somebody's system I'm kind of simplifying that a bit but that's generally what it means a half-life is dependent on a number of variables including individual differences but in general the half-life of clonazepam is thought to be between 18 and 50 hours xanax has a half-life of 6 to 12 hours a devant has a half-life of 10 and Valium actually has a longer half-life than all of them 20 to 50 hours class a Pam and all of the benzodiazepines are habit-forming meaning they tend to lead to physical and psychological dependence and the withdrawal symptoms are really horrible in many cases a number of people who attempt to stop using clonazepam are shocked by how painful that what's wrong is now I don't know exactly what symptoms motivated jordan peterson to go to rehab but many people in the situation are motivated by the rebound anxiety and the rebound panic so a common reason for taking clonazepam would be extreme anxiety and the presence of panic attacks even though the drug can be used and often is used for other symptoms what happens during the withdrawal for many people is that they have these rebound symptoms the rebound anxiety and the rebound panic feel like the original anxiety and panic but the rebound symptoms are much worse they're more intense and have a longer duration than the original symptoms also the triggers for the rebound symptoms may be different than the triggers for the original symptoms or they may come on randomly whereas the original symptoms may have been more predictable so consider the order of vents here we see these symptoms which are really distressing anxiety and panic we see somebody taking cañazo Pam or another benzodiazepine and usually feeling somewhat better and then when they try to stop they have the rebound symptoms which are worse than ever the worst anxiety and panic they ever experienced so it's easy to see why people are so upset and surprised by this pattern it has a really horrible ending to it now we see with benzodiazepines that we tend to see what all symptoms come on fairly quickly and they tend to build up for about two weeks so at that two-week mark the withdrawal symptoms are usually as bad as they're going to get but the symptoms subside very slowly over the course of months and sometimes even years not all the symptoms are related to rebound anxiety or rebound panic of course those symptoms just usually stand out for people they're noticeable right away there are a lot of other symptoms associated with benzodiazepine withdrawal including confusion fatigue seizures nausea dizziness headaches depression loss of memory and SAAM Nia loosen ations and many other potential symptoms so some of these symptoms may dissipate early on in though its raw and others again may hang on for a long time what's confusing here for people is that it's not always clear on how to distinguish the original symptoms from the withdrawal symptoms so when somebody stops using clonazepam are they experiencing the original symptoms coming back are they experiencing withdrawal symptoms or are they experiencing symptoms coming from both sources so it's somebody in Jordan Pearson's situation have other options was there something else that could be done in the situation usually somebody can get off of benzodiazepines by tapering under medical supervision the tapering schedule may involve gradually reducing the quantity of the same benzodiazepine so if somebody's on clonazepam they would reduce the amount of clonazepam they took for several weeks like they reduced to one level and take that for several weeks then over the course of the next several weeks they would boost again but there's also another way that tapering can take place rather than reducing the amount of the benzodiazepine that somebody is on sometimes physicians switch them to another benzodiazepine so for example if somebody's dependent on xanax they would take a lower dosage of xanax for several weeks and again just like I was talking about with the clonazepam that dosage would go down for the next period of several weeks and so on but with xanax another way would be to switch to a drug like clonazepam that has a longer half-life so interestingly clonazepam is sometimes given to people who are having withdrawal symptoms from other benzodiazepines I mentioned xanax we also see it's fairly common for ativan withdrawal both of those xanax and ativan have a short half-life and of course as I mentioned clonazepam has a long half-life for the same reason valium is sometimes used to help people withdrawal from an ativan again valium has a long half-life so to kind of sum this up I think essentially what happens a lot of time is that people underestimate the difficulties associated with benzodiazepine withdrawal they may not know that you can become dependent on it they may not know that there are withdrawal symptoms associated with the drug or they may think that based on the quantity they've taken or how long they've taken it that they'll have no problem coming off of it this situation can affect anybody again mental health professionals are not immune from dependence on clonazepam or any other drug and they're not immune from withdrawal symptoms I mentioned many times in my videos previously that even though I'm a counselor and I believe in the effectiveness of counseling for many mental health symptoms I recognize that for certain disorders and under certain circumstances medications can be indispensable which is why it's important for counselors and psychiatrists to work together cañazo pam has been associated with risks as I've talked about here in this video but that doesn't mean it's not suitable under every circumstance there are circumstances where benzodiazepines would make sense for some people event as a pain like clonazepam may be the only medication that has ever been effective and treating their symptoms my point here is that it's important to work with a psychiatrist or other qualified prescriber to identify which medications if any are indicated to treat specific mental health symptoms and as always work with a counselor as well psychotropic medications can be very effective at masking symptoms which is valuable a lot of times people say that like it's a bad thing but masking symptoms can be very valuable but the medications usually don't change the underlying cognitive behavioral and affective characteristics that can also maintain the symptoms so I know whenever I talk about topics like cañazo Pam and withdrawal there'll be a variety of opinions please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate early interesting dialogue I hope you found this description of clonazepam withdrawal to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 309,596

Keywords: Jordan Peterson, Mikhaila Peterson, Benzodiazepines, clonazepam, Klonopin, lorazepam, Ativan, alprazolam, Xanax, diazepam, Valium, prescription medication, half-life, sedative hypnotic withdrawal, benzodiazepine withdrawal, clonazepam withdrawal, withdrawal symptoms, rebound anxiety, rebound panic, mental health counseling, psychiatry, prescriber

Id: z6uj2FiBXVY

Length: 13min 7sec (787 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 28 2019