My candid story of a mental health breakdown, depression and Zopiclone (benzodiazepine) addiction

9 – 15 May 2022 is Mental Health Awareness Week. I've been privately jotting down my journey with prescription drug addiction and my mental health breakdown repercussions for months; it seems fitting to finally try and write it down and make it public this week. If just one person reads this and takes some sort of hope from it then I will be happy. Steven Bartlett prefaces his podcasts with the tagline 'I hope no one's listening, but if you are, keep this to yourself', which conveys the depth of its confessional nature. That sentiment seems fitting here, so, I hope no one's reading this, but if you are, keep this to yourself:

I speak about addiction a lot, but this is because it was the primary cause of the deterioration in my mental health (although the addiction was likely triggered by something underlying, which I'm yet to discover). I hope it still broadly speaks to anyone experiencing any sort of mental health issue.

I've discovered one of the hardest things is explaining to someone who has never had an addiction exactly what it's like to have an addiction... 'you need to stop taking it... it's harming you... just stop taking it...'. Yes, I f*****g know! But it's an addiction, how else do you explain it? It has taken over my life, but I don't know it's taken over my life, I don't think about the harm it's causing, my mind only tells me the reason I love it, the euphoric effects that follow just a few minutes after swallowing that meaningless little pill.

In early 2021, I was running my own business, which was crazy busy, I was tired, we'd had a year of on-and-off lockdowns, my relationship was rocky, my grandad had died. Years prior a doctor prescribed me a drug called Zopiclone for jetlag. I was desperate to stop my mind racing at night, just one good night's sleep per week is what I wanted. I thought back to those Zopiclone I had before, remembering how they just knocked me out. I went on a search; I knew I couldn't buy the drug legally, so I turned to the dark web. A week later a blister pack of Zopiclone arrived in the post, cleverly hidden inside a tube of incense. That night I took some, just a small 5mg dose, and I had the best sleep I'd had in a long time. Eureka!

Little did I know, over the proceeding weeks and months that meaningless little pill would alter my brain, destroy my mental health, it would take over me, and put me on a path to thinking about ending my life. Taking it once a week turned into taking it twice a week, which turned into to taking it every other night... you can see where this is going. My body adjusted, 5mg wasn't enough anymore, slowly the dosage creeped up. Looking back, I can't comprehend how I was taking 40 – 50 mg every night (for some context, NICE – the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence dictates Zopiclone should be for short-term use, with a dose of 7.5 mg once daily for up to 4 weeks).

Over the course of a few months that meaningless little pill quite literally changed my brain chemistry. Every evening, around 8pm hit, I went into Zopiclone mode. At the time I thought nothing of swallowing several, it had just become normal. The worst part was, after a month or so, I learnt to get past the initial dopiness stage and after an hour had passed I could stay awake, in a sort of warm, trance-like state. I would work, I'd do the admin that I was too tired to do earlier in the day, I would write perfect e-mails to clients. In the morning I'd receive a reply or look in my sent box and have absolutely no recollection of sending it, I'd have no memory of the evening at all. The best one has probably got to be waking up one morning to discover I had fallen asleep with my head on top of an open Galaxy Ripple!

The drug had got me, I was no longer in control of my life, it controlled my life now. It decided my mood, if it made me moody, it was my work colleagues, or friends that took the brunt, or got ignored, because I had a new best friend.

I didn't consciously know it had taken over my life until 9 months later, halfway through a particularly busy workday. The events that followed still make me shiver now. To the best of my memory, I think that morning I popped a few pills into my pocket before leaving for work, towards the end of the day I took those pills out of my pocket and I swallowed them. Now, if you've never taken Zopiclone, you won't realise just how powerful it is; you don't take Zopiclone during the day and you certainly don't drive after taking it. Looking back the only reason I can fathom for taking it that day was that part of my brain knew I had a problem, and this was my cry for help. What followed was a 24-hour blackout. It was dark, and I was driving, following a Sainsburys lorry, that's my only memory. I don't know where I was, where I was going. I later found one transaction on my bank card from that night; a service station in Oxford, at 2am, over 150 miles from where I lived.

The next day, as my head began to clear, I was in a state I had never experienced in my life, and I wouldn't wish that feeling on my worst enemy. I found myself walking around Reading (a good 3-hours' drive from where I lived and a further hours' drive from Oxford, where I was in the early hours of that morning). I was thinking about how I could end my life. I sat at a small train station in Reading for hours, I wasn't thinking about catching a train. Something made me get up and start walking again, I exited the train station, took my phone out of my pocket, which was turned off. I turned it on and messages started flooding through from friends and family asking where I was, asking me to get in contact with someone. I panicked, what had I done? My heart was racing, I couldn't shift the suicidal thoughts and now I realised I had really f****d up!

Suicidal thoughts put you in a very dark place. Again, it's something that you cannot understand if you haven't experienced it. When they're on your mind you can't just shut them off, they take over, it's like tunnel vision. I realised I could not distract myself, no matter what. There are some apps which can help, but they didn't work for me. The one thing that ended up helping me was something a mental health practitioner told me on the phone, he said, "Suicidal thoughts are a normal response to a mental health problem, they are our bodies way of coping when it doesn't know what to do and wants you to seek support." As soon as I heard this I found comfort anytime I experienced these thoughts. Samh.org.uk explains it: suicidal thoughts don't necessarily mean you want to die, it can be about not wanting to live, which is not the same thing. It can be a feeling that you can't keep going, that life is too painful, too difficult or you can't see another solution to the pain or the problems.

I called the one person I knew I could tell anything to; I was lucky to have them, I didn't want anyone else to know how I was feeling or how I had let everyone down. A lot of people don't have that person, I was lucky because just a few minutes earlier things could have gone in a very different direction. I broke down on the phone to them, but that phone call finally brought me back to a rational state and I could admit I had an addiction, and I was not in a good mental state, I had severe depression – everyone knew now, causing a mix of regret and relief at the same time. I didn't need to fight this on my own anymore – my mind completely shifted to getting myself home.

My lesson to anyone here now is, no matter how you are feeling, speak, speak, speak. To anyone; someone you can trust, your best friend, you mum, your dad, anyone in your family. If you don't feel like you can talk to anyone, or you've alienated people, which is extremely easy to do when you're experiencing any mental illness – call your GP, MIND, any other mental health charity. There's a great service called SHOUT which I used; you can text them on 85258, 24/7 for free.

The next day I was home with my family. I called my GP as soon as possible and broke down trying to tell them everything that had happened in the past few months. My doctor was amazing, she immediately texted me crisis line phone numbers in case I found myself in a bad place and details of local drop-in mental health clinics. The one thing that they weren't so aware of was the prescription drug addiction, the very drugs they themselves had prescribed! This sent me on another journey: they gave me details of my local NHS Drug and Alcohol service, one call to them and I discovered there was a 3-month waiting list. What was I going to do for 3 months? Keep on taking this drug that had driven me to consider suicide? That's when I found a small charity called PostScript360, I called them (broke down again), but after that phone call I could finally see a path, their knowledge of prescription drug addiction was exceptional. If you've landed here for specifically Zopiclone or benzodiazepine addiction please check them out.

By September 2021 I was taking antidepressants, specifically Mirtazapine, and under the guidance of PostScript360 I was planning a move from Zopiclone to Diazepam, so I could taper the dosage and fight the addiction. I feel like the details/effects of Mirtazapine and tapering off a prescription drug addiction warrant their own posts, so I won't go into detail now. This post is more of a story, a way to show others that mental health issues can effect anyone: I never in a million years expected myself to get to the stage I did and it's a very lonely place, when you are going through it you don't think about others that might be feeling the same, someone you pass in the street or even a friend who is battling it on their own without your knowledge. I want to be open in the hope someone reading this who is suffering can also pluck up the courage to open up, speak to someone and find some relief.

I'm not a medical expert – please don't take anything I've written as medical advice, leave that to the professionals. I just want to share in case you ever find yourself suffering with your mental health you will find the courage to speak to someone. Don't suffer alone, because you're not hopeless, you matter to someone.

My story isn't over yet, at the time of writing this I'm over ¾ of the way through my taper plan. My mental health is far from perfect yet, but it's a lot better. I've learnt to take care of myself, I started exercising, running (in 2 weeks I am running a half marathon to raise money for PostScript360). I learnt to be more open; when you've had a bad couple days and not spoken to anyone, call someone, be open, tell them why you haven't answered their texts or calls. If they're your friend or family, they will understand and simply having someone listen to you will make you feel so much better.

Do you want to share your thoughts? Resources that have helped you? It might just help someone else reading this. Please scroll to the bottom of this page to leave a comment.