Knackered Takes Steps with Benzos

   Hey there.  Knackered here.  The first moon walk on July 20, 1969 was huge worldwide.  Freshly graduated from high school, I was hiking and fishing at a chain of lakes in the mountains and almost missed the whole thing.  There was no cell service as personal cell phones were at least another 20 years down the line.  We were miles from the trail head and hadn’t heard news of any kind for almost a week.  Out of food, we hiked out and drove to a small shop to stock up.  As I walked through the door, a group of people were gathered around a loud but tiny TV in the back.  I was just in time to hear Neil Armstrong state, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

   First steps of any kind create mile stones for all of us.  They’re permanently stamped in our ‘memory banks’.  First car ride with our new license, first date in a new relationship, first apartment or residence of our own, all are stored up there.  On site here, we all celebrate the first day of a “success story” when a member has taken their last pill.  I’ll always remember the first steps each of our kids made as they learned to walk.

   Both men and women have gone down in history for being a ‘famous first’.  Marie Curie was a physicist and the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. Joan Benoit won the first women’s marathon in the Olympic Games of 1984.  Barrington Irving was the first and youngest African American to fly solo around the world.  And Ann Franklin was the first published American woman writer as early as early as 1650.

   As a wounded Benzo tapering person, I’ve had a number of personal firsts:  My own first handicapped parking permit, my first cane and my first wheel chair ride through an airline terminal.  I’ve endured my first brain fog events, and I was the first in our family to become non functional and in need of extended bed rest.  I’ve had the worst physical symptoms in my life, strongly eclipsing my cancer experience nearly twenty years ago.

   And speaking of first steps, I hazarded a look at my phone health app a couple of weeks ago. It was dismal.  I classed out in the geriatric group, right between the dead and dying.  Alas it is true, I’ve been horizontal from last August through the early months of ’24.  Chopping my pills down to the minimum, I sought to end it.  All that was accomplished was more suffering and debilitation.  Currently I can be seen hobbling around the neighborhood, held up by sturdy trekking poles.

   I never did stabilize during that time and was advised here on site to up dose, and did. It means a bit more time on the path, but I hardly care at this point.  What is getting off worth if I’m left with endless suffering and a good shot at joining folks who continue to that end long after the last pill has been swallowed.

   Now it’s the slow route via the scale, micro dosing, and cutting @ a rate of 5% every four weeks.  Genetic testing by my now provider showed that I barely metabolize this stuff at all.  So there’s that to deal with too.  But quality of life is what’s it’s all about for me these days.

   As we work through our own ‘Benzo experience’, we would do well to remember a quote by Martin Luther King:  “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”