UnTouchableSarah Hiscox was eight when a doctor first prescribed her sleeping pills
Sarah Hiscox shared this about their own health, publicly. Everything below is written in our own words, from the sources listed at the end.
Before you read this
This story is about addiction that began in childhood, with medicine a doctor prescribed. Support is listed at the end of the page, and it is there any time. This talks about Nitrazepam (Mogadon), and about becoming dependent on a prescribed medicine. If you are taking something like it, you may not want to read this now. Where to get support is at the end of the page.
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.
In their own words
One of the sources for this story is an interview with Sarah Hiscox. You can watch it here.
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What this story is about
Medicines and treatments in this story
What the person said they were given or took, and where each of those came from. It is not a record of their treatment, and it is not advice about yours.
Nitrazepam (Mogadon)
Prescription medicinePeople can become dependent on this
Prescribed by a GP, aged eight, for about a fortnight
Source: We Saved Each Other From Addiction | Sarah Hiscox: 'I Wouldn't Be Alive Without You' — Begin Again with Davina McCall
Where this came from
Every story here is built only from what the person said publicly themselves. These are the sources we used.
We Saved Each Other From Addiction | Sarah Hiscox: 'I Wouldn't Be Alive Without You'
Begin Again with Davina McCall · Podcast
Sarah Hiscox is not affiliated with and has not endorsed UnTouchable.
Published 20 September 2026. Something wrong here? Ask us to correct or remove this story.
If this brings something up for you
You do not have to be in crisis to talk to someone. These are free, and they are there day and night.
If you are trying to come off something
Stopping something you have become dependent on is not a thing to do on your own, and it is not a failure of will. These are free, and none of them is trying to sell you anything.
FRANK — 0300 123 6600
Confidential, non-judgemental advice about drugs, including a medicine someone was prescribed and cannot stop taking. Free, and open at any hour.
FRANK — find support near you — talktofrank.com (opens in a new tab)
Their own search for local services. You can look without telling anyone who you are, and nothing about it comes back to us.
NHS — getting help — nhs.uk (opens in a new tab)
The NHS says a GP is a good place to start, and that you can also go to a local treatment service yourself if you would rather not.
If you are trying to come off something
Stopping a medicine you have become dependent on is not something to do on your own, and it is not a failure of will. These are free, and none of them are trying to sell you anything.
FRANK — 0300 123 6600
Confidential, non-judgemental advice about drugs, including a medicine someone was prescribed and cannot stop taking. Free, and open at any hour.
FRANK — find support near you — talktofrank.com (opens in a new tab)
Their own search for local services. You can look without telling anyone who you are, and nothing about it comes back to us.
NHS — getting help — nhs.uk (opens in a new tab)
The NHS says a GP is a good place to start, and that you can also go to a local treatment service yourself if you would rather not.
Speak to your GP or your clinical team before you change anything about a medicine you are taking. Nothing on this page is medical advice.
You are not the only one
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DJ Fat Tony
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Content note — this story covers a subject some people would rather choose when to read.
DJ Fat Tony had been in denial for a long time when his mother came to his house on a Tuesday and found him unconscious on the kitchen floor. She got him to hospital. He tested positive for HIV there and then, and they kept him in. He says he wanted to go home, and did not have the strength to go anywhere. He was in hospital about four months. By the time he was diagnosed the infection was very far along — he was told he had probably been living with it for around a decade, his viral load was enormous and his T-cell count had fallen below a hundred. He was put in isolation, in a room where staff came in wearing masks. He was also coming off drugs at the same time, which he thinks made the deterioration worse. The infection reached his brain. After repeated lumbar punctures he became ill enough that doctors put him into an induced coma to bring the swelling down. He was in it for months. He remembers coming round with his mother holding his hand and not understanding what had happened, and being told over time that he had pneumonia and had nearly died. What he says next is the part that matters most. It did not stop him. He came out of hospital and went straight back to his old life, thinking that since he had not died that time, he would die the next. He says he never dealt with any of it and carried on using because of the shame attached to it — and that he used the word HIV rather than AIDS because it sounded nicer. Asked how the shame gets smaller, his answer was simply: by talking about it, and making it open. He says he had not discussed it with anyone before he put it in his book. Nothing here is medical advice. HIV treatment today is very effective, and someone on treatment with an undetectable viral load cannot pass the virus on. Support for anything in this story is listed at the end of the page.