About The Rehab Podcast
I am Mark Leeds, D.O., an osteopathic physician in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the host of The Rehab Podcast on the Mental Health News Radio Network. This show is about coming off benzodiazepines and other psychiatric medications safely: benzodiazepine tapering, benzodiazepine-induced neurological dysfunction (BIND), protracted withdrawal, and the wider practice of deprescribing.
Why the show changed
The Rehab Podcast began as a show about addiction treatment. For years my guests and I talked about opioids, alcohol, medication assisted treatment, and the many roads people take to recovery. Those episodes remain in the archive, and I am proud of them.
Over time, more of the people who reached out to me were not describing addiction at all. They had taken a benzodiazepine exactly as prescribed, often for years, and found that they could not stop without becoming very ill. Many had been told to quit quickly, or had been sent to programs built for a different problem. That is the subject this show now takes on.
What I believe
Physical dependence is not addiction. A person who takes a medication as prescribed and cannot stop without becoming ill is not addicted, and a program built for addiction is the wrong tool for that problem. A nervous system that has adapted to a medication needs time to adapt back, and the person living in that body should set the pace. Stopping abruptly is the error, whatever the medication. A slow, individualized taper is the remedy.
None of this is a judgment of people who do live with addiction. Addiction is a medical condition, not a moral failing and not a defect of character. People who have it deserve respect and real medical treatment, and no one should be told that a single path is the only way to recover. I held that view through all the years this show covered addiction, and I hold it now.
I have great respect for the Ashton Manual, and you will hear a lot about it here. I am also open to other careful methods, including the hyperbolic tapering described in the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines. The 2020 update to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) label for benzodiazepines, which warns about dependence and withdrawal, is part of the story too. What matters is that a method is safe, that it is slow enough for the person doing it, and that it leaves the person in control.
Who you will hear
My guests have included physicians, researchers, best-selling authors, filmmakers, and people who have lived through protracted withdrawal and now help others. When a guest shares an opinion, it is their own, and I would rather you hear a range of views than only mine.
About me
I graduated from Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1996 and completed my residency in family medicine at Westchester General Hospital in 1999. I have spent over 26 years in family medicine and over two decades working with medication and drug dependence. I serve on the medical advisory board of the Benzodiazepine Information Coalition.
Get in touch
If you have a story to tell, or you know someone who would make a good guest, I would like to hear from you. Please use the contact page.
This website and podcast are for education. They are not medical advice, and they do not create a doctor-patient relationship. Never stop or reduce a benzodiazepine or any other prescribed medication suddenly or on your own. Talk with a physician who knows your history.