{"id":251874,"date":"2025-07-09T22:24:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T22:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251874\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T22:24:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T22:24:13","slug":"i-made-it-through-the-horrors-of-psychiatric-drug-withdrawal-a-conversation-with-comedian-dex-carrington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251874\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI Made it Through the Horrors of Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal\u201d A Conversation with Comedian Dex Carrington"},"content":{"rendered":"

J\u00f8rgen Kj\u00f8n\u00f8, whose stage name is Dex Carrington, is a Norwegian-American stand-up comedian based in Oslo, Norway. He is also an actor, host of the Truth Train<\/a> podcast, and former travel show host who gained international recognition as the host of Dexpedition<\/a>, which aired on MTV in over 30 countries.<\/p>\n

Today, he joins us on the Mad In America podcast to talk about his experience with Lyrica and Zyprexa, including a five-and-a-half-year taper after 10 years on the drugs.<\/p>\n

The transcript below has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to the audio of the interview here.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Brooke Siem: Thanks for being here. Who is Dex Carrington, as opposed to J\u00f8rgen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dex Carrington: I was born in Norway but I grew up in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Canada, going to American schools my whole life, so English became my first language. When I started doing stand-up, I needed a stage name. I couldn\u2019t go on stage with a name that sounded like a tongue-twister in English.<\/p>\n

Around that time, I got sponsored by the clothing brand DC \u2014 they do skateboarding, snowboarding, that kind of stuff. They wanted a lifestyle representative, and I had to pick a name that began with \u201cD\u201d and ended with \u201cC.\u201d So I became Dex Carrington.<\/p>\n

Siem: And all your comedy is under Dex Carrington?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: That\u2019s it, yeah.<\/p>\n

Siem: While this isn\u2019t a comedy podcast \u2014 let\u2019s find a little humor in the tragedy here. You and I connected over Instagram through the psychiatric drug withdrawal world. Can you walk us through your psychiatric drug history?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: Throughout college and high school, I drank a little, and smoked a little pot. Nothing major. I was focused on getting good grades and I was just a really upstanding citizen if you will. Then after university, I moved into adult life and the transition was too much for me. I got benzos from my doctor and thought, this is brilliant. But I noticed very quickly how intense the consequences were \u2014 they\u2019re narcotics, and they mess with your ability to calculate risk.<\/p>\n

Things started unraveling pretty fast, so I went to a psychiatrist and said, \u201cListen, I don\u2019t want to become a drug addict but I have so much anxiety and depression. Please help me.\u201d And the way he framed it was basically: If you\u2019re a good person, you take psychiatric medication. If you\u2019re a bad person, you take narcotics. What do you want to be?
It\u2019s funny, right? Because every mood-altering substance affects your brain \u2014 but somehow, these pills are magical! They\u2019re beyond the laws of physics!<\/p>\n

Siem: Benevolent!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: Oh my goodness \u2014 divine, even! Homeostasis doesn\u2019t apply, logic doesn\u2019t apply, nothing applies. It\u2019s just fairy tales all around.<\/p>\n

So I started taking these pills and I went through the whole list \u2014 Zoloft, Cymbalta, Prozac. Every one of them made me sick. Each one was a nightmare. But there\u2019s a doctor there with a diploma and the outfit and the credibility, and you\u2019re trained your whole life to trust these people. You think, Why would this person be destroying my life? That\u2019s not possible, right? How can this person\u2019s ignorance be ruining my psyche even more?<\/p>\n

Eventually, I ended up on two drugs that did something \u2014 Zyprexa, which makes you extremely groggy, and Lyrica, which at the time was still considered low-risk with the same addiction profile as Tylenol. Those were the two drugs I was on by 2011, after having tried something like 30 or 40 different ones.<\/p>\n

Siem: What country were you in when all of this was happening?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: I was in Norway. I stayed on [Zyprexa and Lyrica] for a year or two, but the drug use kept escalating. By 2013, I needed to get clean. I got off the narcotics first. Then I went to my psychiatrist and said, \u201cI want to get off these, too.\u201d He said, \u201cNo problem \u2014 taper both at the same time over two weeks.\u201d So I did. And I went insane.<\/p>\n

It was like being rigged with a kill switch. I couldn\u2019t talk, I couldn\u2019t walk, I couldn\u2019t think and couldn\u2019t function. It felt like I had every neurological disorder known to man at once. The suffering was unbearable so I reinstated, and the pain went away. Subconsciously, I decided that the most important thing in my life is to never get off these drugs \u2014 and never question their efficacy because that was the scariest thing I\u2019ve ever experienced.<\/p>\n

Siem: What was your mindset during the time when you were being shuffled around the initial 30 to 40 drugs, in terms of how you viewed yourself and your mental state?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: I thought I was at max suffering\u2014because I didn\u2019t have enough life experience to know how bad things could get. I didn\u2019t have any resilience, either. But there was a doctor telling me, \u201cThis is totally safe and harmless.\u201d<\/p>\n

Siem: You bought into that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: Yes, 100%.<\/p>\n

Siem: Did you think you had a mental illness?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: That wasn\u2019t so important to me. I had symptoms, and if I had to admit to being bipolar or whatever just to get some help, fine. I thought, People way smarter than me have figured this out. I imagined geniuses in Geneva with beakers and all this experimental stuff, wearing lab coats. I figured they were very smart, and we could trust them. I believed in modern science\u2014blah blah blah.<\/p>\n

I think I ended up with nine diagnoses or something like that. Today I have none\u2014because I just decided not to have them. Looking back, it\u2019s just madness. And it\u2019s all so simple.<\/p>\n

I think what gets me the most is remembering how certain that psychiatrist was. The kind of certainty he had\u2014you can only have that if you have very little information. But even if someone had tried to tell me the truth back then, I wouldn\u2019t have been able to grasp it. There\u2019s just no reference point for how much suffering these pills can cause.<\/p>\n

Once I gave up on getting off Lyrica and Zyprexa, there was no point in trying to stay clean. I mean, how can you call yourself \u201cclean\u201d when you\u2019re taking Lyrica every morning and night, plus Zyprexa? If you don\u2019t take them, you die.<\/p>\n

Eventually, my life just spun out of control. I was on cocaine and OxyContin, on Adderall, tons and tons of benzos, powders\u2014everything. Testosterone injections, you name it. Then there was an intervention, and I went to rehab in Thailand in 2019.<\/p>\n

The first thing that happened in rehab was they took me off all the narcotics\u2014either stopped them or tapered me on methadone for 10 days. But then I saw the psychiatrist there, and he said, \u201cOh, you\u2019ve been on those meds for eight years? Just quit them. Cold turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh man\u2014the fear. At that point, the only thing that mattered to me was staying on those drugs. Never tamper with them. I was terrified of what would happen if I did. I\u2019ve always said: that it\u2019s hard to get off narcotics because you love them so much\u2014but it\u2019s hard to get off psychiatric drugs because you fear them so much. If you\u2019ve ever tried to reduce the dose and really felt that impact\u2026 oh my God.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had death threats. I had to live at a secret address for four years. I\u2019ve lost people I\u2019ve loved. The love of my life left me. My dog was stolen. I\u2019ve been suicidal\u2014over and over again. But all of that? It\u2019s nothing. I\u2019d rather live through all that every day for the rest of my life than experience one minute of psychiatric drug withdrawal.<\/p>\n

Siem: Where are you at now, just from a symptom standpoint?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: I\u2019ve been off Lyrica for over four years. I took a six-month break, then did the Zyprexa taper. And this part is really important for me to communicate\u2014because I would\u2019ve given everything I owned in the world to hear this when I was in Lyrica withdrawal: The fear disappears.<\/p>\n

That overwhelming, body-wide terror\u2014when your amygdala\u2019s on fire, when fear isn\u2019t even the right word because it\u2019s not fear, it\u2019s horror, terror. There are no human words to describe how bad it feels. But it fades. It dissipates. Everything gets better. The fear from Lyrica withdrawal goes away. That might be the most important message on planet Earth.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, I had 10,000 symptoms. Now I have about 10. But your brain doesn\u2019t spend time thinking about the symptoms that are gone\u2014it fixates on the ones that are still there. There\u2019s always one that steps into the spotlight. Right now it\u2019s some digestive stuff but the big difference is that I can talk again. For two years coming off Lyrica, I couldn\u2019t even talk.<\/p>\n

What really matters is looking back six months, a year, and noticing the changes. You need people around you who\u2019ve witnessed the journey and say things like, \u201cWhoa, you\u2019ve got a spark in your eye again,\u201d or \u201cYour skin is glowing,\u201d or \u201cYour hair looks thicker.\u201d Whatever it is\u2014those markers show you\u2019re coming back to life.<\/p>\n

Siem: How did you weigh the math of being in that place of unbelievable pain and suffering versus just going back on the Lyrica and Zyprexa?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: When I got clean and sober\u2014funny enough\u2014everyone at rehab was saying, \u201cIf you can get off Oxy, you can do anything.\u201d And for most people who are just on Oxy, that might be true.<\/p>\n

But in my case, the Oxy, cocaine, amphetamines\u2014all that stuff was counteracting the side effects of the psych meds. So once I got off the narcotics, I was sicker than I\u2019d ever been in my entire life. If I didn\u2019t find a way to get off those pills, I would\u2019ve ended up handicapped\u2014on government benefits, probably needing someone to take care of me full-time.<\/p>\n

My back pain was so debilitating I couldn\u2019t get in or out of a car at age 36. And I\u2019ve said this on stage many times: nothing can make you more mentally ill than a psychiatric drug. Because once you\u2019re messing with the nervous system, the amount of pain you can generate is incredible.<\/p>\n

I remember giving a talk about a year ago and a nurse came up to me afterward. She said, \u201cHow can you say Lyrica causes pain? We give it to patients every day for pain.\u201d So I asked, \u201cDo you have a single patient who is only on Lyrica\u2014and not also on Codeine, Oxy, Ketarax, or Benzos?\u201d And she said, \u201cNo.\u201d That had never even occurred to her.<\/p>\n

But for me, Lyrica caused anxiety, pain, and dysfunction. If I hadn\u2019t gotten off of it, I would have been permanently disabled. So I started the taper and thought, Hey, I went off Oxy, I can do anything.<\/p>\n

Siem: What kept you going?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: There are two kinds of people in this world, Brooke: those who are humble, and those who are about to be humbled.<\/p>\n

What got me through it was that once you get down to a certain dose, and for me that was around 100 milligrams, it stops feeling like withdrawal and starts feeling like a bad acid trip beyond your worst nightmare. And it feels like it\u2019s never going to end.<\/p>\n

But then I started noticing that people in the Lyrica support group were saying they\u2019d reinstated\u2014and it didn\u2019t help. Some said they actually felt worse. And that\u2019s when I realized: once you commit to the withdrawal\u2014especially with Lyrica\u2014you can\u2019t mess with it. You can destroy yourself if you don\u2019t follow through.<\/p>\n

Fear kept me going. Say what you will about fear\u2014it\u2019s maybe not the most inspiring motivator, but it worked. It kept me alive.<\/p>\n

Siem: Fear kept me going too\u2014and anger. Once I realized what was happening, I was so pissed off. I got into this headspace where I was like, I will not give the pharmaceutical industry one more dollar after what they did to me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: I can relate to that completely\u2014just not having to go to the pharmacy and take something I didn\u2019t want to take. That kind of anger\u2014it was just unhinged. And then on top of that, all the doctors would do was deny my experience.<\/p>\n

Siem: What was your support system like during this time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: I had the best support system in the world. I had my parents, and it was COVID. Everything was shut down and I had a girlfriend at the time who was just obsessed with getting me off these drugs. She was basically like my personal nurse.<\/p>\n

Siem: You said something before we got on this call that stuck with me\u2014that there\u2019s just an unacceptable amount of doom and gloom in this space. That\u2019s something I\u2019ve struggled with too.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s tricky. On one hand, I think one reason I was able to make it through withdrawal\u2014even though it was horrible and lasted a few years\u2014was because I didn\u2019t know what was going on. I didn\u2019t have anyone in my ear from social media listing off all the symptoms I might get. I wasn\u2019t constantly being bombarded with worst-case scenarios. I think that ignorance helped me.<\/strong>
\nOn the other hand, I feel a real obligation to share what I\u2019ve learned and to contribute to advocacy, to help make this whole process safer and less destructive for other people. But I\u2019ve seen how sharing too many specific symptoms can backfire. They might hear about a symptom they didn\u2019t even have\u2014and suddenly, they develop it.<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019re doing so much important work to raise awareness, but at the same time, I worry that we\u2019re also making people more scared. What are your thoughts on that? How do we steer this in the direction of recovery, while still making sure people are fully informed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: In April of last year, I was volunteering with an organization called We Shall Overcome<\/a>, an anti-psychiatry NGO here in Norway. With a little funding from them, I went down to Copenhagen and sat down with Anders S\u00f8rensen<\/a>, and I asked him all the questions I had been terrified to face\u2014like, \u201cIs this permanent?\u201d<\/p>\n

Anders turned out to be the best support I ever had\u2014not just for protracted Lyrica withdrawal, but also for actually tapering Zyprexa. He walked me through everything: how to use the diamond scale, what kind of dosages to use, when to drop to zero, what percentage of the original dose you reduce to. All of it.<\/p>\n

What I needed at the time was to be treated like a terrified five-year-old going on a roller coaster for the first time. You can\u2019t look that kid in the eyes and say, \u201cWe could die, you know.\u201d That\u2019s trauma for life. You have to stroke their head and say, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be fine. It\u2019s only two more minutes. You\u2019re safe.\u201d That\u2019s what I needed. I needed someone to say, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean, I had weeks where I had uninterrupted heart attack symptoms\u2014like a full-blown heart attack\u2014for two weeks. So you sit there wondering, Do I go to the hospital? But then you remember, Wait\u2014they did this to me. So what the hell do you do? All I needed was for someone to tell me, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s so crazy is that when you go to a doctor and say, \u201cI feel broken. I\u2019m in pain. I have these symptoms,\u201d not only do they deny your entire experience\u2014they make you the enemy. You become the enemy of the establishment. And people need to feel understood. We need someone to say, \u201cThat sounds horrible. I believe you.\u201d So when doctors won\u2019t do that, people go online. That\u2019s where they go to be seen, acknowledged and heard.<\/p>\n

But in this misguided effort to help or raise awareness, what we end up doing is presenting horror stories. And a lot of those stories haven\u2019t even run their course yet. I remember reading one on Surviving Antidepressants\u2014a so-called \u201csuccess story\u201d from someone who had been on Zyprexa for 20 years at 30mg, tapered it in six weeks, and started five new drugs. They were four weeks off that six-week taper and called it a success. That\u2019s not a success story.<\/p>\n

As you said\u2014the last thing someone needs to hear in that state are words like permanent, damaged, or irreversible. This is already a nightmare. You have to be so careful with who you listen to and where you get your information from.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re coming off a psychiatric drug, every single mental faculty that allows you to do hard things is gone. Your brain is stripped of those tools. You don\u2019t have access to discipline or resilience. You\u2019re like a newborn, plunged into one of the hardest human experiences imaginable. It\u2019s like being halfway up Everest and suddenly losing the ability to walk or think\u2014and then someone says, \u201cGood luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Siem: What have you taken from this, from a more spiritual perspective?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: I remember talking to my sponsor in recovery and asking, \u201cWhat do you think prolonged suffering actually does to people?\u201d Because let\u2019s be honest\u2014it doesn\u2019t always improve people. Sometimes they just double down on their delusions. And he said, \u201cHumility.\u201d That stuck with me. All the other stuff\u2014curiosity, openness, flexibility\u2014it\u2019s all rooted in humility. And I think the opposite of humility is certainty. That mindset of, I know for sure this is how it is.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t know anything for sure anymore. Everything\u2019s fluid now. If someone has an opinion I don\u2019t agree with, my first instinct is to ask them to tell me more. Sell me on it. Convince me. That combativeness I used to have? It\u2019s gone. I\u2019m not interested in fighting for ideas. I\u2019m not even that interested in talking about myself anymore. I just want to know what other people think. That curiosity\u2014that\u2019s what stayed with me.<\/p>\n

Siem: It\u2019ll keep changing, too. It\u2019s been nine years since I got off my meds, and about seven since I felt like I was truly healed\u2014or out of withdrawal, whatever that means. And the further I get from it, the less I feel like I know.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s this lovely inverse relationship\u2014where I\u2019m becoming more childlike and more enamored with the basics of existence, while simultaneously becoming less and less sure of anything. And then I find myself sitting there, shocked at how deeply this experience shaped me\u2014how much it continues to influence my life in ways I still can\u2019t put into words.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: When my girlfriend of seven years\u2014my best friend, the person I spent every single day with\u2014left, took the dog, packed up the apartment, and I never heard from her again\u2026 the only thought I had was, At least it\u2019s not psychiatric drug withdrawal.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s happened again and again. I\u2019ll go through something hard, and my brain just immediately compares it: Yeah, but it\u2019s not withdrawal. It\u2019s like I\u2019ve got this internal reference point that\u2019s so extreme, nothing else really registers the same way. Other people talk about wanting to go to Thailand or Dubai, check off their bucket lists, get married, go to cool parties\u2014and I just think, I don\u2019t care about any of that.<\/p>\n

All I want is serenity. I want the opposite of psychiatric drug withdrawal. I want to be able to sit in a quiet room and stare at a wall. I take a walk and it\u2019s like, Wow. I go to the grocery store and I\u2019m like, Imagine that we can just buy this. That we can just walk in here, and other people are doing it too. And it works. That\u2019s wild.<\/p>\n

Siem: I think it goes hand-in-hand with spirituality\u2014or maybe whatever\u2019s left when all the constructs fall away. I like the word spirituality, but I don\u2019t love religion, and I especially don\u2019t love God because that word brings so much baggage with it.<\/strong>
\nSometimes I wonder if \u2018wonder\u2019 is a better word. It captures the weirdness. Being human is weird. Everything we\u2019re doing is so strange when you stop to think about it. And over the past year or so, that sense of weirdness has just intensified.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: Do you think it was the withdrawal experience itself that changed you\u2014or was it returning to your natural baseline that brought that childlike wonder back?<\/p>\n

Siem: I think it\u2019s a little of both. I\u2019ve always been an extremely sensitive person. As a kid, I was emotional, reactive, constantly moving, and sensitive to everything\u2014foods, fabrics, and smells. But the drugs totally dampened that. They flattened everything. I became stoic and \u201ctough,\u201d and you get rewarded for that in society. So I leaned into it.<\/strong>
\nThe drugs made it possible to go deeper into the pain cave and act like nothing bothered me. And then, when I came off them\u2014especially since I did it cold turkey from Effexor\u2014it was like I got dropped into a scalding hot tub straight out of the snow. There was no time to adjust. No buffer. Just overwhelming sensation.<\/strong>
\nAnd I think that kind of sudden, intense contrast encodes itself into your body. And after that, your baseline sensitivity changes. It expands. Like you\u2019ve been cracked open, and now your container is just bigger. So yes, part of me thinks I returned to my original sensitivity\u2014but I also think withdrawal blew the edges off what I thought was possible to feel. And now, I live with more range than I ever did before.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: It\u2019s lonely. To be in this space where you see it\u2014that the world isn\u2019t what you thought it was\u2014but most people are still asleep. Still stuck in that loop of trusting the system to the bitter end. That has to be worse, honestly. At least I\u2019m not there anymore.<\/p>\n

So I try to find gratitude in everything. And I think the biggest lesson of this whole experience is to question authority. To question anything presented as an \u201cestablished fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

A friend of mine went through this\u2014his kid is seven. His ex-wife is a psychiatric nurse, and she insisted the kid had ADHD. So they took him to a psychiatrist. I gave my friend all the literature he needed\u2014counter-arguments to the ADHD\/amphetamine model. And he was relentless. Every time the psychiatrist said something, he had data and he kept saying, \u201cNo, no, no\u201d. Eventually, the psychiatrist said, \u201cYou know what we\u2019ll do? We\u2019ll put the ADHD diagnosis on hold and come back to it in six months.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean\u2014imagine if an oncologist said that. \u201cYou have stage four cancer, but hey, we\u2019ll just put that diagnosis on hold for a year and circle back.\u201d It\u2019s absurd, Brooke. It\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n

Now, I question everything. And I don\u2019t mean I\u2019m naive or falling for every conspiracy theory\u2014I just stay open. If someone says the earth is flat, I\u2019m not jumping on board, but I\u2019ll say, \u201cOkay, sell me on it. I\u2019m listening.\u201d No one has convinced me yet, but that openness? That wasn\u2019t there before.<\/p>\n

The truth is that most people I meet have done an excellent job avoiding pain for most of their lives. And I get it\u2014that\u2019s the most human instinct. But people can only meet you as deeply as they\u2019ve met themselves. Pain and suffering rip your illusions away.<\/p>\n

When I was younger, I had all these luxury beliefs. Like, \u201cIf I ever had to amputate my arm, I\u2019d kill myself.\u201d That kind of thing. But when you get into actual hardship, real survival-mode suffering, all that talk disappears. You realize how much of life is just noise. You discover the real you.<\/p>\n

On one hand, it\u2019s incredibly lonely trying to talk to people who\u2019ve never been through something like this. But at the same time, I\u2019m so grateful I\u2019m not where I used to be. Does that make sense?<\/p>\n

Siem: Oh yeah. In my experience, psych drug withdrawal forced me to figure out the difference between what money could fix, what it couldn\u2019t fix, what I could fix, and what I couldn\u2019t. When I started to get really deep into the realization that doing what was best for me\u2014not in a selfish, way, but truly what my soul needed\u2014that\u2019s when I started to turn the corner in recovery.<\/strong>
\nIt wasn\u2019t fun. There was a lot of crying. A lot of vulnerability. A lot of saying things out loud to a counselor that I was terrified to admit\u2014because of the shame I felt. Shame about a bad experience, about how far I\u2019d fallen, about what I\u2019d done. But I walked into that fire. And the more I did it, the easier it became to turn away from the garbage. I stopped clinging to the things that weren\u2019t serving me.<\/strong>
\nNow\u2014seven years later\u2014it\u2019s so easy to see the garbage. I just say, \u201cNope. Not that.\u201d And I turn the other way. As a result, when I talk to most people here in the U.S.\u2014they say things like, \u201cThe world is on fire,\u201d or \u201cEverything\u2019s going to hell,\u201d or they\u2019re deep in political panic. But that\u2019s not my experience. Not at all.<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m having a great time. My life is beautiful. And it\u2019s not because I\u2019m making millions of dollars. It\u2019s because I\u2019m being intentional about what I consume. I choose the information I let in. I choose the people and the energy and the environments I surround myself with.<\/strong>
I follow that tiny internal compass\u2014just that little flicker of curiosity or peace. And if I start veering off and I feel myself turning toward the garbage, I notice it early and course-correct. The more I do that, the better things get.<\/strong>
\nAnd I couldn\u2019t have learned that without psych drug withdrawal. I wouldn\u2019t have been forced to face it. The spotlight was on everything\u2014my thoughts, my values, my relationships. And the only way through was to give up all the old ideas of who I thought I was supposed to be and keep turning toward whatever felt like relief, curiosity, or expansion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: What you\u2019re saying is so spot-on\u2014especially the stages involved. First, there\u2019s the technical part: tapering the doses, doing the math, and navigating the mechanics. But then you have to go way back to the beginning\u2014as you said\u2014and realize the drugs are even the problem in the first place. That stage alone can take years.<\/p>\n

And then, eventually, you get to where I\u2019m at now\u2014where the withdrawals start to subside\u2014and that\u2019s when the real stuff begins. That\u2019s the part you\u2019re talking about: the reinvention.<\/p>\n

For over a decade, I was living as someone I wasn\u2019t. I was going through the motions of a life that didn\u2019t have my soul in it. Now I\u2019m almost three years off\u2014two drugs, cold turkey, June 19th will be my anniversary\u2014and I still have some symptoms, but I\u2019m here. It\u2019s inspiring to hear you talk about what comes next because people who make it through to the other side really do have a responsibility, I think, to go back into the mess\u2014just long enough\u2014to say, It gets better. It really does.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s wild\u2014because these drugs have withdrawal timelines that are inhumane. There\u2019s nothing else in medicine like it.<\/p>\n

The fact that you\u2019re nine years off? That\u2019s way more inspiring to me than someone in my recovery group saying they\u2019re 30 years clean from alcohol. Because this\u2014what we went through\u2014is the real stuff. I don\u2019t even think of myself as an addict. I think of myself as a psychiatric drug survivor. And for me, it\u2019s just a given that I\u2019ll never take anything again that alters my central nervous system.<\/p>\n

Siem: One last question. Based on everything we\u2019ve talked about\u2026who is J\u00f8rgen Kj\u00f8n\u00f8?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: I just remember being a kid and being so\u2026 responsible. Rigid. I was the one who did everything right. Straight A\u2019s. Perfectly organized. Hyper-disciplined. And I remember being around 15 or 16 when I had my first beer\u2014and suddenly, I felt relief. Relief from myself. From the constant mental noise and pressure.<\/p>\n

But that moment\u2014that search for relief\u2014was the beginning of a long, slow spiral. Drugs, alcohol, psych meds\u2026 it all just snowballed. Eventually, I lost myself completely.
Now, having come through all that, I feel like I\u2019m in a place where I can finally integrate everything\u2014the wildness of that chaotic chapter with the best parts of my original neuroses. I don\u2019t have to erase anything. I\u2019ve learned to use it. I\u2019ve figured out how to squeeze the juice out of it.<\/p>\n

I used to be such a perfectionist and I was unbearable to be around. Take cooking, for example\u2014I love it, but no one could be in the kitchen with me. I had to control everything. But now? I\u2019m more balanced. Well-rounded. I\u2019ve let go of the illusion that anything is as important as we make it out to be.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like that old saying: the average person has 10,000 dreams\u2014but a sick person only has one. I was sick for so long. That one dream\u2014just to not be in psychiatric drug withdrawal\u2014still resonates. It keeps me grounded. As long as I\u2019m not in that place again, I\u2019m the most grateful, humble person in the room.<\/p>\n

What a humble thing to say, right? \u201cI\u2019m so humble, Brooke.\u201d But you get what I mean.<\/p>\n

Siem: I do. Where can people find you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: I think @badassdex<\/a> on Instagram is probably best. But honestly, I urge people to check out the YouTube videos with Anders S\u00f8rensen<\/a>. Just search his name\u2014there are 26 videos covering the most commonly asked questions about tapering.<\/p>\n

Siem: Well, thank you so much, Dex. I have a feeling this won\u2019t be the last time we talk.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carrington: Absolute pleasure, Brooke.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n