#58: Catching up with Emma Hames 🇬🇧

#58: Catching up with Emma Hames 🇬🇧

From Benzotired by Naftal Benisty

January 28, 2026 · 1h 12m · Season 1 · Episode 58

About this episode

Naftal Benisty catches up with benzo survivor Emma Hames to discuss her recovery journey and the impact of COVID on her health.

January 28th, 2026 In this episode: I catch up with benzo survivor, artist and filmmaker Emma Hames from the United Kingdom. Emma is featured on episode 12 where she shared her brief story about being severely harmed by benzodiazepines. She also featured in episode 37 as we talked about working whilst being harmed. As I relistened to episode 12 I felt the importance to go more in depth into her journey concerning her symptoms and recovery and I reached out. In episode 12 she speaks about the journey, which includes contracting a virus affecting her lung capacity, leading to a benzodiazepine prescription. In this episode, we pick up where Emma had abruptly stopped her benzodiazepine. Additionally we talk about her recovery process from the last recording almost three years ago until now, the effect of COVID on the benzoinjury, her documentary in the making: TOXSICK and more. Find TOXSICK @: https://www.toxsick.org/ (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:07) Cold turkey and symptoms (00:10:45) Year 3 and 4 after (00:15:50) Slowly getting better and diagnosis (00:17:55) Sleep and COVID (00:24:00) "The Oasis" (00:31:02) Rebuilding a life, processing trauma and creativity (00:44:17) Developments…

People in this episode

Host: Naftal Benisty

Guest: Emma Hames

Topics covered

  • benzodiazepine recovery
  • mental health
  • documentary filmmaking
  • trauma processing
  • COVID impact
  • artistic expression

Keywords

  • benzodiazepines
  • recovery
  • mental health
  • documentary
  • COVID
  • trauma
  • art

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: TOXSICK

Books & works: TOXSICK

Places: United Kingdom

More episodes of Benzotired

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Benzotired podcast page.