I listened to this book in 2 sittings. It was both fascinating and terrifying. We have this idea of addicts, but it can literally happen to anyone and this is what's terrifying. I admire the author's strength for going through this and getting through it. It's a story of such courage and resilience. I really enjoyed this memoir.

Candid look into prescription medicine, in this case benzos, addiction and the struggles to overcome it. This book should be a necessary read for med students. Over prescribing meds has become a huge pandemic and this book is a story of one mom.

Being in the healthcare field, I’m always interested in someone’s personal experience of navigating the system. The story here focuses on the problems with benzodiazepines as a class of drugs. They are useful in the right patients, but as is discovered by the author, potentially risky with other patients. One of the big themes expressed here is society’s attention to the opioid epidemic, while neglecting other addictive medications. Interestingly, both opiates and benzos can look similar if someone ODs, with decreased consciousness and decreased respirations. And both have a reversal agent. The main points discussed by the author are that the withdrawal from benzos is life-threatening, the physical dependence and escalating need for higher dosages is real, and therefore the tapering off is slow. A person can be withdrawn quickly from many substances, but benzos is painstakingly slow due to the adverse effects and risk of seizures.
I thought the author did a good job of conveying how easily she was hooked on benzodiazepines and the toll it took on her relationship with her husband. I found his reaction to probably be accurate to most but frustrating too, because it didn’t feel like he ever tried to understand why this happened and what it would take to undo it.
I’m not sure how realistic this approach, while keeping the daily lifestyle of a mother and spouse really is for most, but I appreciated the author’s perspective.
There are likely trigger warnings for this story but it is a well done memoir.
#BloodOrangeNight #NetGalley #GalleryBooks

This book really grabbed me in the beginning. I havent read a memoir about someone struggling with benzo addition and this was a great one to read. It was informative about benzos. However, I felt like this memoir villainized almost everyone in it. Although the husband didnt seem to be as warm as he could have, I also understand that the author was addicted to a substance when she was experiencing these interactions with him. I did not think it was fair to make him a villain. When he called her an egomaniac about this addiction- that was EXACTLY how this book seemed. Like it was all that was happening in the world was her addiction. It seemed like she mentioned other things to try to not make it solely about her trying to convince us that what she was going through was the worst thing ever. She even mentioned a tornado in Oklahoma and I was almost nervous she was going to compare her withdrawal to it.

I do think this was an important story and has helped call attention to this issue. Thank you for the advanced copy!

DNF. Something always rubs me the wrong way about memoirs of drug addiction in which the narrator is ~not like the other addicts.~ It came across as over-indulgent. I think the book was aware of its privilege, but it still felt icky to me. I couldn't get through it.

Being a new mom I couldn’t finish this it was too triggering I’m sorry.

I really liked the authentic style of writing and the author was genuine. However, the topics discussed were too much for me to handle and I had to put it down for lengths of time.

A chilling memoir that reminds us that we need to be our own patient advocate. Melissa Bond trusted her doctors to provide the best quality of care to help her deal with the insomnia that came with back-to-back pregnancies. What unfold was years of dependency, weaning, spiraling, and devastating health and family consequences. The heroin and opioid crisis make headlines but Xanax and benzos, originally hailed as the end-all be-all drug, had a crippling effect that was/is know by few. The honesty and candor expressed by Bond was harrowing and insightful.

Melissa Bond gives a scary look into the world of addiction to prescription drugs in her memoir. When she can't sleep, physicians start her down a dark path filled with benzodiazepines, a family of drugs that includes common names like Xanax, Valium and Ativan. As they keep loading her failing body with drugs, she struggles to hold onto her family and a feeble semblance of normalcy. When she decides to quit, Bond sadly discovers that withdrawal can be deadly and tapering can take years. Her story is frightening, eye-opening and a wake-up call that doctors don't always know best.

This memoir was decent. I little over-indulgent, but an interesting read. I thought this was a well written book about the struggle of a pill addiction. The author can be a little self-involved sometimes, but I think her story is an important story to tell. So many people suffer from drug abuse every year. A shocking read.

Wow, this one is heavy. I've heard of the Opioid epidemic and the harrowing issues and deaths that it has caused. To realize that this benzodiazepine is just as bad and could be the next epidemic from the Pharmaceutical industry is gut-wrenching. In this memoir, Bond digs even further to the problem of the physicians prescribing these medications despite it having such addictive and detrimental impact on a person. The fact that these physicians are not held accountable was eye opening for me and utterly disgusting.

A challenge to read multiple times throughout the story, Melissa Bond managed to do something so few could....she survived. Not only that, but she became an advocate and voice for others suffering from the benzo addiction. Despite having two small children, one with special needs, she's a force to be reckoned with.

This issue NEEDS to be discussed more - it is just as much of a problem as opioids....and is also being prescribed by medical physicians!

A story on the struggles of scary combination of motherhood, navigating a new world with a child with Downs Syndrome, insomnia, anxiety and a drug that can easily be abused and still not understood enough… Benzodiazepines. Benzo addiction and dependence isn’t talked about nearly enough.

I immediately knew I would be interested in what this author had to say. As a mother, someone who struggles with insomnia and anxiety since a teen and has a active prescription for a benzodiazepine…. I needed to know more.

I found myself floored and then equally not all that surprised at the lack of responsible and educated support she got. Unfortunately, our culture is quick to use medications to fix symptoms without fully understanding what might happen afterwards or really exploring root causes. Her story of trying to manage her sleep, finding herself highly addicted and facing absolutely terrifying side effects was gutting. Her story is so valuable so that others can heal. I think it’s also important to note the significant toll it took on her family and her marriage, I’m grateful she got support… but also want to be mindful of how many this really effects and hoping they were able to heal too.

That said: These medications work well, and can be immensely helpful if used correctly (and prescribed thoughtfully). I do feel as though providers are improving now, I see less high doses in my own work, safer medications being used first and more education around expectations for this medicine.

A thought provoking and insightful read, one that I’ll be keeping on my shelves and highly recommend if this is an area of interest! If you read brain on fire or this is not a pity memoir, this is another medical memoir that was well done!

While pregnant with her second child, Melissa Bond found herself suddenly unable to sleep more than an hour or so a night. Ambien helped for a while, but when her daughter finally arrived and the prescription found out and she found herself once again chronically sleepless, she went to a doctor for help and came out with an Ativan prescription which the doctor would go on to increase multiple times in a short period. Soon enough, Melissa is addicted and experiencing severe side effects, but quitting the drug after becoming dependent is a slow, painstaking process, and withdrawal can be lethal.

Melissa is an amazing writer, lyrical and oftentimes haunting, which means the descriptions of moments of everyday beauty with her children tug at your heartstrings, and the descriptions of things like her difficult childbirth and her withdrawal symptoms are raw and visceral. What’s frightening about her story is that it feels like it could literally happen to anyone. This didn’t happen to her because she did anything wrong – she literally just followed her doctor’s orders and had the bad luck of choosing an irresponsible doctor. I think that aspect of just HOW people got hooked on prescription drugs in the first place gets lost sometimes. Furthermore, it’s absolutely terrifying that Ativan, which reputable doctors recommend you don’t take for more than a few weeks, is MARKETED for treating long-term conditions, and that detoxing improperly can kill you just as quickly and easily as addiction. I was horrified by that little tidbit of information. If you needed evidence that pharmaceutical marketing is a bad idea, this book makes an excellent case for it.

Overall, a gripping memoir of addiction and recovery, and an important warning about benzo addiction, suffused throughout with the strength of a mother’s love. Five stars.

CW: drug addiction, suicidal ideation, description of withdrawal symptoms, pregnancy complications, marriage problems, unsupportive family (her husband is infuriating), use of the r-slur (used in ignorance, not malice, if it matters)

Melissa Bond's book, Blood Orange Night , will haunt me for a while. This true account of one woman's addiction to prescription benzodiazepines is a harrowing tale of how she unwittingly became hooked on a drug that was supposed to help her sleep but nearly destroyed her life. She tells readers that getting off benzos is unlike going off any other drug. It takes a long time, there are virtually no rehab places to help you and few doctors who understand the problem. Her story is raw and brutal and frightening. The pills, Bond writes, steal everything you have, one piece at a time. They left her with long-term physical and neurological problems. She showed courage in fighting through.

I first heard about benzodiazepines from my dad who worked at a pharmacy in the 50’s and 60’s as a delivery boy. He described the women hooked on the drugs in the suburbs, their desperation for their refills. Later he did some photography work for some Hell’s Angels bikers who offered to pay him in “bennies.” He’d seen enough to refuse a bag of those pills.

Recently, a nurse friend of mine cautioned me not to be tempted by any Ativan prescription for my anxiety. It’s scary addictive, she told me. This is the same friend who spotted a girl on the streets of San Francisco struggling to walk or make her limbs work. We intervened as she about to be dropped on her head by a young man who was trying to carry her. In the course of making sure she got home, we learned she was on Xanax, another “benzo.”

So, yeah, I’ve been startled by the casual references I hear in everyday conversation and pop culture to these drugs. And I was definitely interested to hear a first-hand account from Melissa Bond who became unwittingly addicted and has spent years trying to wean herself off benzodiazepines.

It helps that this book is extremely well written. Bless poets, like Bond, for writing prose. Expect viscera et al. in this memoir. At one point while reading a graphic emergency medical scene, I felt physically ill. The Beauty shines through the Terror though.

It pains me to read about the ableism Bond encountered. She probably attempted to be fair in her portrayals of people in her life, but gosh, was it hard to read about how she was shamed by others and even herself. While she writes extensively about the network of support she was grateful to have, I found some of the attempts at stoic individualism a little too close to “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” nonsense.

“The great humility of this dependency has brought me to my knees. And it's on my knees that I've learned that mothering is about holding my own hand and wiping my own tears.”

As a mother, Bond writes about the challenges of having two infants close together and raising a child with Down’s Syndrome. Bond attempts to refute what she sees as problematic narratives around her child with Down’s Syndrome. I don’t know enough to offer any praise or criticism. but the experience of a parent should not stand in for the experience of the individual child or the wider community of people with Down’s Syndrome. Whenever possible, I prefer to read own voices writing.

All that to say, I tore through this book after finally getting through my NetGalley TBR. I received an advance digital copy of this book from NetGalley and Gallery Books in exchange for an honest review.

This was pretty good - it’s like if Dopesick was about benzodiazepines instead of opiates. Benzo addiction isn’t talked about very much in our society, but I know so many people - myself included - who are prescribed them. In fact, if someone doesn’t have a random prescription for Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, Valium, etc., I usually wonder if they are one of those people who won’t even take Advil for a headache.

Our author was prescribed Ativan to sleep, after Ambien stopped working for her. (Oddly, the doctor who prescribes my benzo won’t prescribe Ambien because it only puts your body to sleep, not your brain.) Soon, very soon, she developed a tolerance to the drug and the dosage kept rising and rising. Little did she know her brain was being completely rewired, and soon no dose would help the withdrawal she was feeling.

After long searches for doctors, rehabs, detox centers - any place she could think of - she realizes nobody has really dealt with benzodiazepine addiction, and the months-to-years it can take to wean yourself off of them. Her children, one with special needs, and her husband need her. How can she get off this medication without dying or losing her sanity? How can she help others? Can she completely stop taking them?

You’ll get your answers, but the ending was so abrupt that I had to double-check and make sure I didn’t miss a chapter. This book was relatively long-winded, then it just … ended. It lost a star for that, but this is still a strong four-star book that I will recommend.

(Thank you to Gallery Books, Melissa Bond, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review.)

This was a very good book! The author definitely made you feel what she felt and was very relatable. She informed you about addiction to benzos and the statics without boring you are using difficult to understand terminology and wording. She is an inspiration to others in her situation and as a mother.

Powerful and frightening, Blood Orange Night is a memoir that reads like a nightmare. Insomnia plagues Melissa Bond through pregnancy, after the birth of a son with Down syndrome, through the traumatic birth of er daughter barely a year later. Her sleep is reduced to a few hours a night, sometimes none at all. She struggles through days with her babies while her husband works extra hours and spends weekends skiing and hiking for personal time. Enter “Dr. Amazing” and a prescription for Ativan to help her sleep. At first, it works. Then it doesn’t. Within months, she’s taking a massive dose, not sleeping well and having some very disturbing side effects. Without realizing it, she had become an addict.

Blood Orange Night pulls you in to Melissa Bond’s dark world. It’s full of facts about benzodiazepine addiction. Did you know you can be fully addicted in two weeks? Or that it is easier to quit heroin? Or that it can take up to two years to taper off the drug? I had no idea. This is an informative, well written story of a hard fought return to normal life. And, by the way, Melissa’s Dr. Amazing is still practicing medicine. 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley, Gallery Books and Melissa Bond for this ARC.

Melissa Bond's experience is truly terrifying, and I feel more common than we even know. My heart broke for her as a new mother just wanting to sleep. Then, I got angry with her because it seemed like many didn't take her seriously. Eventually, she found the right care.

Her writing makes you feel like you experienced some of the symptoms with her. Absolutely worth the read! Thank you @Netgalley and @gallerybooks for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, this book was amazing. The author writes about her experience with benzodiazepines, which she was prescribed for insomnia, and her subsequent addiction and detox journey all while raising her kids and growing distant from her husband. This was an incredible read that hit me to my core.

Thank you netgalley, the author and the publisher for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

WOW. ‘Blood Orange Night’ is an incredibly powerful memoir. Melissa Bond began to suffer debilitating insomnia for which there seemed no relief. With two babies, she turned to a physician who prescribed benzodiazepines which unbeknownst to Melissa, are highly addictive and come with a whole array of horrible side effects.

Ativan seemed like the answer to her prayers. Until it wasn’t. What followed was a gradual dependence on the powerful drug which affected every aspect of her life. She did not know that Ativan was indicated for short use only, not the years that her doctor prescribed.

The author, incredibly, never seemed to lose her perspective or her innate humor and warmth. She remained a loving and devoted mother to her two young children, and a supportive wife. Her marriage at time was stretched to the brink by her horrible insomnia and then, by her physical addiction.

”I have no tumor to point to, no lab results over which we can cry together and show friends and family, no known story of what is happening to me. There is only the fire that I tell him is in my head.”

I applaud Ms. Bond for sharing her her very personal story in all its intimate detail. I have been on a memoir/non-fiction kick lately, and to say this story is a page-turner is an understatement. I related to many of the author’s issues and loved her writing style. This book is not preachy, but is told in a very straightforward, relatable way. Highly recommend!

”This is the story of millions of people just like me. I just happen to have survived. I just happen to be upright.”

(Thanks to the publisher for providing an advance copy in return for an honest review.)