"Seeds in the Ashes"
May 28th., 2026
Long ago when I was very sick from benzos and started to do research, I came across Geraldine Burns' podcast: "Benzodiazepine Awareness". To my personal healing journey it ment the world and I am forever grateful. In the midst of my suffering I listened to every episode religously and I was always looking forward to a new episode. However one day, the episodes just stopped without notice. I was craving so much more and I wasn't able to find information on the internet whether I could expect new episodes. Another player is D E Foster and his podcast: "The Benzofree Podcast". From that podcast I also couldn't find if it had stopped. It's very important that I mention there is no judgement and I am grateful for all their work. However I swore to myself if I would decide to quit or take a very long break I would mention it somehow and so here we are... Originally I planned to record a personal episode, but I've learned in life things often turn out different than we planned (especially with benzo harm!).
In case you didn't know: I created Benzotired late 2022, which originally was a Dutch podcast with a lot of personal episodes, sharing my educational journey on benzos. The personal episodes would have titles. This statement has a title too: "Seeds in the Ashes", which (in Dutch) is planned to be the name of the last chapter of my book.
In 2024 when I stabilized, I realised I wanted to transform the show. It was a lot of work and I renumbered the episodes. The last episode which was published THEN was episode 60, now 36, which features dr. Mark Horowitz. After searching for information about benzos for so long, specifically for my situation for so long I had finally gotten answers.
My life… It's been crazy due to benzos. It still feels crazy sometimes. After episode 36 I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue Benzotired. I genuinely didn’t know if there was more to add after learning about The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines. Also I was still battling BIND and I had gone back to work after years. I took a long break. I started writing my book. My partner missed me. I missed him. Together we missed so much of life.
After a while, I wanted to come back and advocate and educate. I came back in a different fashion, more spontaneous: a slower pace, discussing topics and perhaps I would learn even more than I had already had, which I did. I enjoyed making all the episodes, but as life went on I noticed I would have less time for the show and on occasion I feel like it affected an interview.
To get to the point where I made the decision to take an indefinite hiatus, I need to share some things about my benzo journey. If you’ve listened to every episode, you’ll be aware of certain things. To start I may need to remind you that I almost died due to a cold turkey late 2021. For real. Dead. It’s rare, but it can happen. Just let that sink in. Dead because of a heart attack, a stroke or seizures. I’ve been severely traumatized by my near-death experience and the following 2 years of being extremely sick physically and mentally, barely sleeping and countless epileptic fits.
Being in this community for a long time I know a lot of you don’t want to hear horror stories. You might be scared my story might be your story. Let me guarantee you it’s not. We all have our own paths and our own DNA. One of the reasons I created Benzotired was to share a range of experiences and severity. Still I know that I barely even scratched the surface.
When I created Benzotired I was very sick and didn’t know what to do to stop my suffering. I just wanted off the drug in a safe manner. I wish I knew all I know now. In my case, I should have reinstate late 2021 or updosed in 2022. I did updose once in the beginning of 2023, but I should have updosed to a (way) higher dose. However, by that time, reinstating and updosing were things unspoken of. If they were, it was highly controversial. It’s another one of the list of reasons I wanted to create Benzotired: present multiple options, seeing I never got the luxury of having them at the start of my journey.
As I mentioned I stabilized in 2024. We can have a whole debate on what it means, but I think it’s a point where you are able to function well enough in the quote: normal world. My derealisation ended, but most importantly, I was sleeping again. Although grateful for being stable, it was the beginning of a very long recovery time, which was complicated by many external factors. The main one was financial worries and going back to work, albeit part-time.
Despite many challenges, I wanted to taper. Get off. Become free. Get 100% restorative sleep. By then I had reconciled that I had a journey of years ahead of me and I didn’t care how much time I would need to get off. I have had many serious attempts to get off since I stabilized, complicated by many things: among them not having access to the things I need to microtaper. With every attempt, I would stop sleeping, get epileptic fits and so many other symptoms. It would be so severe, I would go back to the dose that I am currently still on: 5 milligrams of Diazepam, also known as Valium. I came to the realization that it can still be a life or death situation for me. Next to that: I had to make money so I could pursue the one who had poisoned me, even when working was slowing my healing process.
Why I can’t taper like so many other people in the community became a question I never really got a clear answer to, pondering how I could be so functional whilst holding and so sick if I even looked at the pill funny. Beyond Benzotired I looked for answers. I spoke with former guests with lots of experience and education. I also looked and read whatever I could find. What I’ve found are theories. The most sensible one is that for some people it takes a very long time for their receptors to recover. I had spoken with a guest who had seen a case of someone tapering over the course of 15 years. I had Melissa Bond on the show who held for 10 years. Perhaps, rare cases. Perhaps, just not many documented cases. All I could deduce that I was one of those many-year-recovery people.
Benzos may have a place in this world for short-term use, but in my opinion not as long as everyone is educated on the potential harms of these drugs. Informed consent must be standard, but then still how can one be informed and agree to the abstract horrors and destruction of these drugs.
After many taper attempts, I decided to indefinitely hold my dose late 2025. I’m going to give my nervous system time to recover. I’m going to rebuild my life the best I can from the ashes. I’ve been so incredibly grateful for my partner Frank supporting me through all of this, even getting divorced due to the result of benzos and how it made me a confused, unhinged, mean and sometimes cruel person.
With my book aiming to reach a close, holding my dose and rebuilding my life, I want to enjoy it the best I can. Instead of picking up this microphone, I want to spend more time with Frank, my friends, my dogs and well… everything good life has to offer.
Perhaps the moment you have all been waiting for: to know how I’m doing and if I still have symptoms. My book will have most of the answers to that, but I do want to share a summary of how things are right now. I’ll start with saying I have Benzodiazepine-Induced Neurological Dysfunction, known as BIND. I have been harmed by benzodiazepines. Harmed by long-term use, high dosages, kindling, a cold-turkey event and rapid withdrawal. Overall I have really good periods where I am sleeping really well and am almost able to function as I was able to before I was poisoned. The main symptoms I have would be insomnia and vivid dreaming. Sleep was and is the main thing. If I don’t sleep enough in a few days, I will have more symptoms, like G.I. issues, muscle twitches and in the worst case: epileptic fits.
Waves still come, typically not as bad as they were. I believe I am still stabilizing after 5 years since my withdrawal started. Waves don’t happen a lot, but they can randomly happen. Typically though, I would say I can have induced waves due to stress or insomnia caused by external factors. I am mostly very functional and I’m able to enjoy life: this may matter the most.
Even though it’s shitty, everyday I am grateful for the book of symptoms I no longer have like pathological insomnia, depression, acathisia and crying spells. It may not be mentioned enough on Benzotired, but damn what I am grateful to be able to walk again. Every night where I sleep enough I am thankful.
Perhaps the biggest lesson I've learned is that it’s not just the benzo injury that causes the difficulties we face. When you’re presented with an affliction that takes years to possibly resolve in which you can have unpredictable waves and windows, it’s hard to plan a life. Dilemmas come into play. Choosing between being functional or dysfunctional, providing you can get to a level of stability. We unfortunately are often forced to choose things that do not help our recovery.
There is so much injustice when it comes to this drug. My wish for the world would be that BIND becomes an internationally recognized affliction and victims will be compensated.
Even though true change may lie far ahead, maybe not even in our lifetimes, there are things that have occurred in my journey which I am so grateful for. I started out having the Ashton Manual as my main guide to help, but now we have the Maudsley Deprecribing Guidelines. We have so many more other sources now than when I first went online early 2022 to seek information.
I hope we as a community keep working on language. We’ve all come to agree addiction isn’t the same as physical dependence. I see room for improvement when it comes to words like: “tolerance withdrawal” and “side-effects”. I know language is hard: I mean I’m Dutch and I struggle with English from time to time. Interestingly we Dutchies have so little when it comes to benzo language. For example we don’t have the words: “adverse effects”; we would be forced to say “negative side effects”.
As I am closing I want to share a few more things. First of all, I’m not saying goodbye. I might come back one day. Who knows, when I’m old and retired. I might still be on the internet if you look for me. I hope I’ve helped a little by creating Benzotired. I know I can’t heal you, but at the very least I hope I made you feel less alone. As I was inspired by Geraldine Burns, maybe I can inspire someone else to create a platform. So many people helped me on my journey. People who chose to take action like writing a book, which I’m doing now. The last chapter of my book is called seeds in the ashes. I want to plant seeds in the ashes, just like some who came before me. I usually ask all my guests what advice they have. Here are mine: get educated, find a doctor willing to work with you, try to get stable and functional if you can and mostly: protect your peace at all times.
I want to thank every guest that I’ve had on, who are so brave. I bow to them as I know how hard it is to tell your story in such a short time of a recording, being nervous and possibly having memory loss due to benzos. I want to thank the audience and every one of you who sent me sweet messages about the show. It wouldn’t be the success it is without you. I want to wish you all the best of luck in this insane journey. There are no words to describe the anguish you might experience right now and I wish I could take your suffering away, but I can’t. The only encouragement I can give you is to tell you I should be dead, I suffered unimaginably for so long that for days on end all I wanted was to not exist anymore. But look how far I’ve come and my eagerness to live life once again. If I have made it this far, you can too. Remember life before benzos and remember the joy you once experienced… it is not lost forever: that’s a promise.
A big virtual hug, from me, your host,
Naftal Benisty from the Netherlands.
