Featured Image Credit: HBO
Topics: The White Lotus, Mental Health
Stefania Sarrubba
The White Lotus season 3 has jetted off a new group of wealthy vacationers to Thailand, with the wild bunch including Lorazepam-loving character Victoria Ratliff.
Played by Parker Posey, Victoria is the wife of North Carolina financier Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs). Spending a week with her husband and their three children, Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook), and Lochlan (Sam Nivola), proves too stressful for Victoria, who keeps her orange prescription bottle handy.
She pops pills like candy throughout the holiday, mixing her benzodiazepines with wine, which causes her to doze off at the table, slur her speech, and just seem out of it.
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Victoria's Lorazepam becomes a key element of the plot when Timothy, who's hiding fraud and embezzlement charges from his family, starts sliding a few pills from his wife's purse.
She thinks it's her children who are stealing from her, unaware it's actually Timothy who's in need of a quick fix to calm his nerves.
In The White Lotus, misus of Lorazepam — a common benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety, panic attacks and sleep disorders — is close to becoming meme-ifiable courtesy of Posey's hilarious one-liners and iconic southern drawl.
Doctors, however, have warned viewers that the show isn't exaggerating reality. Victoria and Timothy's addiction to Lorazepam is a case of art imitating life, as misuse of the drug and other downers like diazepam (Valium), clonazepam (Klonopin), and alprazolam (Xanax) is extremely common.
What makes benzos so addictive is that, unlike antidepressants which take several weeks to kick in, Lorazepam & co have an immediate effect, providing a fast relief for anxiety.
Usually prescribed for short periods of time, they can become dangerous when taken for longer strides, as people may develop a tolerance for them and start upping their dose.
Dr Ludmila De Faria, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s council on women’s mental health, said that 'that’s where people get into trouble'.
"The same dose will no longer get rid of the symptoms," she told The New York Times.
Dr De Faria added that people don't realise that drugs like clonazepam and diazepam last longer in the body than short-acting drugs such as alprazolam.
"So they take multiple doses and it accumulates,", she explained which can result in people 'walking around like they have a couple of drinks in them' — much like Victoria.
Benzodiazepines come with a risk of physical dependence and addiction, as well as intense withdrawal symptoms.
It's best not to combine benzos with alcohol, cannabis, or other drugs that have a depressant effects, like sleep meds, as the cocktail can interfere with one's breathing.
Health risks increase for the older population, as drugs like Lorazepam are metabolised differently as we age and can linger in the body for longer, leaving people prone to falls or accidents.
Doctors recommend this collection of drugs be tapered off gently and under medical supervision. Withdrawal symptoms, which can be heavy and therefore make it harder to come off benzos, include sleep problems, irritability, sweating, heart palpitations, elevated blood pressure, and stomach problems.