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
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The poet and journalist Melissa Bond had terrible insomnia. Her doctor prescribed Ativan, a benzodiazepine. Then her life fell apart.
Television
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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.
Melissa Bond is a poet, journalist, & author of the book, “Blood Orange Night: My Journey to the Edge of Madness”. Melissa discusses her recovery journey from an addiction to benzodiazepines.
Melissa Bond shares her amazing new Book Blood Orange Night, My journey to the edge of madness. Brain on Fire meets High Achiever in this visceral, propulsive memoir detailing a woman’s accidental descent into prescription benzodiazepine dependence and the life-threatening impacts of the drugs’ long-term use.
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.
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Lauren Christensen and Joumana Khatib talk about what they’ve been reading. John Williams is the host.
Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books
Poet, journalist, and artist Melissa Bond joins Zibby to talk about her debut memoir, Blood Orange Night. The two talk about Melissa's pathological insomnia which spiraled into a dangerous addiction to her sleeping pills, how this experience affected her as a creator, a wife, and a mother, and what she wishes more people would know about the side effects of certain prescription drugs.
Endeavours Radio
Melissa Bond is a narrative journalist and poet. She has blogged her journey of dependence on benzodiazepines and was a regular contributor for Mad in America.
Benzodiazepine Awareness with Geraldine Burns
Melissa Bond is a narrative journalist and poet. In the years of her dependence on benzodiazepines, Melissa blogged and became a regular contributor for Mad in America. ABC World News Tonight interviewed her for a piece in January 2014. Melissa is a respected writer on the perils of over-prescribing benzodiazepines and has been featured on PBS Story in the Public Square, Radio West, the podcasts Risk!, IGNTD, and Psychology Unplugged.
Courageously.u
Coming soon...