Our guide through the murkiness of understanding the possibilities of addiction is Plain Dealer health reporter Evelyn Theiss.
She was working on this before the Whitney Houston occurrence, and while there is no confirmed toxicology report yet... it raises attention to th problem again. Another celebrity occurrence brought this topic top of mind - the re-release of the Barbara Gordon book "I'm dancing as fast as I can". For those too young to remember, this came out at the end of the 70's, and was a successful movie in 1982... and until then, really people didn't think much about pill addictions...
Valium, Xanax, Ativan and Klonopin are among the drugs discussed. many of the unfamiliar though, aren't even sure what this class of drugs, Benzodiazepines, are supposed to do? She discusses their purposes?
Leaving the drugs cold turkey doesn't work, and in fact that is a reason that contributed to the death of singer Sean Levert while he was in the Cuyahoga County jail....
