TORONTO -- Controversial Canadian professor and self-help guru Jordan Peterson says he’s back in Toronto and “in much better health” after more than a year treating complications related to drug dependency.
In a new video on his YouTube channel, the University of Toronto psychology professor said he started taking benzodiazepines, a class of drugs used to treat anxiety and other disorders, on a doctor’s recommendation in 2017 and “never gave it a second thought.”
“That was a mistake to say the least,” he says in the video. In 2019, his dose was upped as Peterson dealt with his wife’s cancer diagnosis and later that year he disappeared from public life.
He was treated in Toronto, the U.S., Russia and Serbia for what he called “severe post-use withdrawal and neurological damage-related consequences” of the drug dependency and its cessation, he said in the new video, adding that while his health has improved, it is still “severely impaired.”
Family, friends and his writing kept him going, he added.
“I could sustain myself by producing and then culling through thoughts that were helpful despite my anguish, I suppose, and my lack of hope for the future,” he said. “Hopefully much of that is behind me and I can return to something resembling a normal life.”
