He pushes the DS Ukraine narrative all day on twitter while simultaneously screaming at Justin Trudeau about being a tyrant with mandates.
Then he sets up shows where mandates are required. The guy is fucked.
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He didn't really have an addiction, as far as I've read. He had a dependence. Addiction implies craving and behavior focusing on solving the craving. Dependence just means that your body has over-adjusted to the medication and now requires it to function properly, which can happen with normal prescription use and have absolutely no addiction craving involved at all.
Benzodiazepine dependence, even without true addiction, is a goddamn nightmare, and is absolutely one of the hardest drugs to terminate. Even after the initial major withdrawal, significant symptoms can last for months or even years after the last pill.
Dr. Peterson dealt with "benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome," which basically happens when you're on a short-acting benzo for longer than you should be. You end up dealing with perpetual, debilitating withdrawal symptoms even though you're actively taking the drug. It would make him feel anxious and crazy, which would cause him to take a relaxation pill, which would then make the problem worse, which then requires another pill.
It's hard for patients and inexperienced clinicians to see when it's happening, because people on benzos usually already have anxiety, so patients acting like a crazy anxious basket case isn't considered weird. It just warrants more benzos.
Psychiatric medications can be prescribed by literally any doctor, and I truly don't think that most of them understand the problems with many psychiatric medications well enough to be prescribing, especially short-term benzos like Clonazepam (which is what caused Dr. Peterson's issues).
They're a fantastic medication when used and managed properly, but most of the time, they're handed out as a quick fix and then forgotten, rather than used as a crisis response med. Some people don't even survive withdrawing from benzodiazepines, especially if they try to do it without professional help (which, again, isn't often available, because, again, most doctors aren't educated enough on these meds).
He and I are 100% on the same page when it comes to talking about the problems associated with these types of medications and how the medical industry fails to manage them properly.
I haven't delved into that too much and I'm winding down for the night, but off the top of my head, marijuana typically shows good effect for some anxiety users (although not for all). Since benzodiazepines are typically prescribed to anxious people, I'd assume that yes, marijuana would be a viable option to try in states/countries where it's legally accessible.
That being said, marijuana has other effects that can make life challenging to navigate (obviously), and someone might need too high a dose of marijuana to effectively calm their anxiety for it to be a manageable long-term solution. My personal theory is that anxiety makes it too hard to hold a train of thought for anxiety to easily be justified by rumination, but being unable to hold a train of thought would be challenging in most occupations (except perhaps politics... badum-tiss).
I could see a surface-level justification for using small amounts of alcohol to combat benzo withdrawal, but I can't find much research on it, and while they are chemically similar, don't necessarily have the same kinetics or other such chemical factors that would make them a ready substitution.
Especially since, from a psychological point of view, you need to consider that someone who was prescribed benzodiazepines might actually have a valid anxiety issue that still needs sedation. Benzo withdrawal causes anxiety, and if even microdosing alcohol causes a calming relief, then there's a high risk that it'll pair as a classically-condition association.
"Now instead of benzos calming me down, I associate the taste of alcohol with calming down." And for an anxious person already vulnerable to dependence on sedatives, that's a bigger risk than I'd probably wager.
Oh, for immediate seizure relief? Sure, again, that seems to have some sort of superficial logic to it. But again, I honestly don't have any idea. And since most providers will taper you down the benzo doses once you establish a plan to terminate, I'd hope nobody would even have to experiment with it on their own. As I mentioned, I'd be very concerned about the psychological tethering of the alcohol to the feelings of relief.