The late Eddie Van Halen, like Stevie Nicks, was prescribed Klonopin by a doctor when seeking treatment for an addiction. The prescription ended up harming him. A 2012 Esquire interview covers the story:
But this time he went to stop drinking once and for all. The doctors put him on a horrible drug called Klonopin. Then while onstage, he took a nosedive and had to go to rehab to get off the Klonopin, and they put him on antidepressants. Ed’s system was in such shock that he became catatonic for about a year and spent most of 2008 watching television.
Eddie recounts this part of his life:
All I wanted to do was stop drinking. But instead I literally could not communicate. Yeah, I was gone. I don’t know what dimension I went to, but I was not here.
It was such a long process to come out of this. Just to be able to communicate, to talk, was a feat in itself. You know when you see homeless people and they’re literally not here, you know? I laid on the couch for a year. Just watching Law & Order. I was always in the studio making music, and now, nothing.
And slowly I came out of it, and the first thing I remember, really, was picking up a guitar, and my whole hand was locked into a fist. And I thought, “Okay, I guess I won’t be playing anymore.
I was on a 6mg daily dose of klonopin for 23 years after a brutal divorce. I never heard anything about the drug and trusted my psychiatrist. After his departure, a new psychiatrist pulled me off in two weeks that threw me into a major withdrawal having to be hospitalized for having seizures, found unresponsive, and severe psychosis. I was restarted at 3mg and have been on a slow taper ever since thanks to Dr. Josef Witt-Doering. It has been 28 months and now on a liquid taper at .1mg. I have to say the protracted withdrawal hit its hardest at 1 mg. I have severe burning in my upper arm into my neck and shoulder that is totally debilitating. I have constant loud hissing in both ears. I am struggling hard to be normal. I am 72 years old and don’t want to die being dependent on a medication. I hate the stigma this has caused having to explain this to all my other specialists. I am embarrassed and humiliated. I hate what this drug has done to destroy my final years but I hate more the psychiatrist that prescribed this without my full knowledge of what the drug is. He was also irresponsible keeping me on the drug for so long. There needs to be laws regulating the use and length of use of all benzos. Don’t lose your life to this.
I , just seven months ago lost my daughter at 53 yrs. old to this dreadful disease. Badly hurt on the job she favored the pills two doctors prescribed to her . One being the injected pain killer. ;))7(;)Printing no names.
She did have Klonopin as well..
She had a nine year significant
relationship with some one who was also a drinker. He didn’t reach out to any family to try and intervene to save this mother , sister , daughter . She was left daily to “HANDLE IT”
like it was as simple as making breakfast. Can anyone explain what cancers are associated with this disease. Thank you.