About this item
Death Grip chronicles a top climber's near-fatal struggle with anxiety and depression, and his nightmarish journey through the dangerous world of prescription drugs. Matt Samet lived to climb, and craved the challenge, risk, and exhilaration of conquering sheer rock faces around the United States and internationally. But Samet's depression, compounded by the extreme diet and fitness practices of climbers, led him to seek professional help. He entered the murky, inescapable world of psychiatric medicine, where he developed a dangerous addiction to prescribed medications -- primarily "benzos," or benzodiazepines -- that landed him in institutions and nearly killed him.With dramatic storytelling, persuasive research data, and searing honesty, Matt Samet reveals the hidden epidemic of benzo addiction, which some have suggested can be harder to quit than heroin.
About the Author
Matt Samet is an avid rock climber and a freelance journalist, writer, and editor in Boulder, Colorado. The former editor in chief of Climbing Magazine, he has been climbing for a quarter century. Samet is the author of the Climbing Dictionary (The Mountaineers Books, 2011) as well as the upcoming memoir Death Grip (St. Martin's Press, 2/13) , about his escape from benzodiazepine addiction and psychiatric misdiagnosis and overmedication.
