No I do not have a pharm degree. i just read a lot. i also want to make clear i was not giving medical advice here, just pointing out factual inacuraccies in this guys statements.
its actually true that benzos can cause very severe physical addiction. but in order to become physically addicted you would have to take them regularly over an exented period of time. but that is not how these drugs are prescribed and the way this guy described it would leave one to believe that if you take a valium, you will have a desire to keep taking them, which certainly is not the case for the vast majority of people.
anyway, its just a pet peeve of mine when i see people giving unqualified medical/legal advice.
Green, I am not going to say you are wrong, but you can't generalize that benzo's are not prescribed on a regualr basis. It depends on the indication. I have been on benzo's everyday of my life since I was 20, and have never become physically addicted to them. This is not saying that some don't. Normally, according to my shrink, if you have been taking them for a long time the chemicals are no longer physically affecting you. This is very common especially when after several years on a daily dose, a patient never asks for an increase in dosage. That would be a sure sign of tolerance and addiction if they asked for a higher dose. From what my doctor says, "most' people who use benzo's on a daily basis become psychologically addicted to it", meaning if the benzo was substituted with a placebo, the patient wouldn't notice any difference. I hated when he said that, because now I always wonder if I am being experimented on with benzo's whenever I get a refill. Just knowing that i take that little green pill makes me feel better, even though it really is doing anything chemically to reduce anxiety. My next door neighbor is exactly like me. She takes her benzo once in the morning, and unless she remembers she forgot to take it, she is fine.
If she knows she forgot, she will take a bus home just to take that pill, and bus back to work. A psychological addiction is much easier to stop because you can just try another form of benzo, if it comes to that.