Sarah Hiscox

Sarah Hiscox

Sarah Hiscox was eight when a doctor first prescribed her sleeping pills

Content note — this story covers a subject some people would rather choose when to read.

Sarah Hiscox was eight years old, and not sleeping. Her mother took her to the local doctor, and the doctor prescribed Mogadon — a benzodiazepine sleeping tablet strong enough, as she puts it, to knock out a horse. She was a small child. Speaking to Davina McCall, she was clear that she did not go looking for it and her mother did not question it. A doctor had sanctioned it, so it must be all right. In her house, she says, pills were simply everywhere and helping yourself to them was normal, which is part of why none of this struck her as remarkable until she sat down to write a book about her life and started remembering. She was prescribed them for about a fortnight. She notes that current guidance measures courses of sleeping tablets in days rather than weeks, and that two weeks is a long time. When the course finished the nightmares came back. By twelve or thirteen she was taking pills she found in the family bathroom cabinet after school — sitting there, as she describes it, alongside the ordinary contents of any bathroom. She says she was addicted to them by thirteen, and that when they ran out she became physically ill and had no idea why. Nobody had told her that stopping could do that. It did not end there, and she has written about where it went. What she returns to is how early it started, how ordinary it looked from the inside, and how long it took her to see it — which is most of the reason she decided to write any of it down. Nothing here is medical advice. If any of this is familiar, support is listed at the end of this page and none of it will ask you to explain yourself first.

• Drug addiction