<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>jnovek</author><text>Same here.  Occasional clonazepam use for panic attacks which are secondary to post-traumatic stress disorder.&lt;p&gt;Never even the tiniest sign of dependence.  Sometimes I go months between uses.&lt;p&gt;I am also a chronic pain patient and I worry that benzos are going to get the opioid treatment.&lt;p&gt;There was a period in the mid to late 2010s where patients who depended on opioids for any sort of quality of life were taken off of their medication without any sort of alternative.  It’s something that people love to gloss over when they talk about the opioid crisis, but if you knew someone personally who went through that, you know that we collectively subjected those people to torture.</text><parent_chain><item><author>yodsanklai</author><text>&amp;gt; I tell everyone to never take benzos for any reasons&lt;p&gt;You can&amp;#x27;t generalise your experience. Everybody is different and that&amp;#x27;s the doctor&amp;#x27;s job to assess whether the benefits outweigh the cost, considering the patient and their problems.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I&amp;#x27;ve been taking benzos very occasionally for 20 years (never more than a few days at a time) and they helped me overcome difficult times. Never had the slightest addiction or side effects.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Treat the cause, not the symptoms.&lt;p&gt;Easier said than done</text></item><item><author>shepardrtc</author><text>I was prescribed benzos because of sleeping issues, but I was also taking phenibut at the same time.  After about 3 weeks of using large doses of the benzos every night, I stopped taking them, but a year later I still feel pangs of withdrawal sometimes when I get stressed.  It took me another 4 months to get off the phenibut and a month or so after that before my sleep returned to normal.  There were months where I maybe got an hour or two of sleep a night.  If I got stressed, I simply wouldn&amp;#x27;t sleep at all.  I once went three days without sleep.  The torment of that combined with the withdrawal from the drugs showed me what hell was like.  I tell everyone to never take benzos for any reasons.  I don&amp;#x27;t care how safe the doctors say they are; they aren&amp;#x27;t.  Period.  There are repercussions - as this study shows - and they will not help the underlying cause of your issues.  Treat the cause, not the symptoms.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice</title><url>https://scitechdaily.com/long-term-benzodiazepine-xanax-klonopin-ativan-use-destroys-neural-connections-in-the-brain/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>pirate787</author><text>My family was addicted to benzos by a quack doctor who hands them out like candy.  He has many seniors on it long term for &amp;quot;anxiety&amp;quot; and though seniors are at particular risk and are not supposed to use more than 6 months.</text><parent_chain><item><author>yodsanklai</author><text>&amp;gt; I tell everyone to never take benzos for any reasons&lt;p&gt;You can&amp;#x27;t generalise your experience. Everybody is different and that&amp;#x27;s the doctor&amp;#x27;s job to assess whether the benefits outweigh the cost, considering the patient and their problems.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I&amp;#x27;ve been taking benzos very occasionally for 20 years (never more than a few days at a time) and they helped me overcome difficult times. Never had the slightest addiction or side effects.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Treat the cause, not the symptoms.&lt;p&gt;Easier said than done</text></item><item><author>shepardrtc</author><text>I was prescribed benzos because of sleeping issues, but I was also taking phenibut at the same time.  After about 3 weeks of using large doses of the benzos every night, I stopped taking them, but a year later I still feel pangs of withdrawal sometimes when I get stressed.  It took me another 4 months to get off the phenibut and a month or so after that before my sleep returned to normal.  There were months where I maybe got an hour or two of sleep a night.  If I got stressed, I simply wouldn&amp;#x27;t sleep at all.  I once went three days without sleep.  The torment of that combined with the withdrawal from the drugs showed me what hell was like.  I tell everyone to never take benzos for any reasons.  I don&amp;#x27;t care how safe the doctors say they are; they aren&amp;#x27;t.  Period.  There are repercussions - as this study shows - and they will not help the underlying cause of your issues.  Treat the cause, not the symptoms.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Long-term benzodiazepine use causes synapse loss and cognitive deficits in mice</title><url>https://scitechdaily.com/long-term-benzodiazepine-xanax-klonopin-ativan-use-destroys-neural-connections-in-the-brain/</url></story>