Print & Online

In 2020, the FDA began requiring benzodiazepines to be labeled with a warning that physical dependence can occur within days or weeks and that stopping them abruptly can lead to life-threatening seizures. Celebrities such as Chance the Rapper and Justin Bieber have spoken openly about their addiction to another benzo, Xanax. Benzo-related deaths have increased 10-fold in the US in the past 20 years and medical professionals still overprescribe these kinds of drugs.

Writing her book, “Blood Orange Night: My Journey to the Edge of Madness,, was a way, she said, of informing a larger audience of people about the side effects of benzodiazepines — which Bond called the next big drug epidemic of which people are not aware.

[Bond] works so hard to right the leaning tower of her life that we cannot help but think of her as a heroic figure. It is her distinctive honesty and candor that will make her a heroine you will not soon forget.

In her propulsive, poetic memoir, Blood Orange Night, Bond narrates her experience in harrowing detail, determined to speak for "others like me slipping into the dark" of addiction to prescribed drugs.
Radio
.png)
The poet and journalist Melissa Bond had terrible insomnia. Her doctor prescribed Ativan, a benzodiazepine. Then her life fell apart.
Television
.png)
Jim Ludes and G. Wayne Miller sit down with Melissa Bond, author of "Blood Orange Night." Bond describes finding the courage to write her account of her addiction to benzodiazepines and how she hopes to make a difference for the thousands of people struggling with the same infliction.
Podcasts

The Feminine Warrior Podcast
Through this honest and vulnerable conversation, Melissa shares her journey of how she was raising her infant daughter and a special-needs one-year-old son while she was suffering from unbearable insomnia.

.
Lauren Christensen and Joumana Khatib talk about what they’ve been reading. John Williams is the host.