I wouldn’t call it addiction, but if I don’t get Geodon and Seroquel I get pretty strange. I think most of us can relate to that.
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I’ve not had a problem with addiction to them in over 25 years. I’m a clean and sober alkie and druggie, so, believe me when I say I’d know. I’ve felt real withdrawal.
I had a med switch and mixing quietiapine and paliperidone is dangerous to do, so I had to come off cold turkey as directed and monitored by the hospital, so it wasn’t a choice. Being sanctimonious about your “knowing better” than to discontinue isn’t relevant in this case.
The thing is with alcohol and heroin addiction and withdrawal is that you simply can’t just stop without dire consequences. It is the same for antipsychotic ‘addiction’, because like it or not the aps are a powerful body and mind altering drugs, with serious consequences if you suddenly stop taking them.
The notion that just because people don’t necessarily want to take aps, unlike recreational drugs doesn’t alter the fact that people are dependent on them.
Why does every single ap have directions to not just stop taking the medication? Because of physical effects caused by sudden withdrawal. Sounds like physical addiction to me.
I understand there are pros and cons to aps, but to pretend and lie to oneself that aps aren’t physically addictive simply because you can’t get high off them, as even with 10% reporting addictive qualities cannot be ignored.
People even use seroquel as a street drug these days, so they use it to get high, further suggesting psychological and physical addiction probability.
It is in the eyes of a medic that aps aren’t addictive, but rather necessary which tops any further analysis of whether they are addictive or not.
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Ouch. Or maybe you’ve never been on antipsychotic that’s side effects were so terrible you reached a level of desperation for them to stop bad enough to want to take the risk of dropping cold turkey, or been on an antipsychotic that didn’t really control your symptoms well at all but gave you bad side effects so you weren’t in your right mind to think “hey quitting this cold turkey could be a bad idea”. Or had no choice about getting to taper or not because the side effects were an immediate danger to your health and you were required by your provider to quit cold turkey.
Good for you…
I became addicted to bezodiazapines in one month and took them every day and in higher and higher doses for 14 years. I quit them 19 years ago. I find antipsychotics unpleasant and never take a higher dose than I need to. I have taken them consistently since I was 19, because I remember how awful my sza symptoms were.
Fair enough and my apologies if I leapt to erroneous conclusions prematurely.
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