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Nicole Lamberson - Tapering Consultant

Nicole Lamberson is a Tapering Consultant based in Virginia with over a decade of dedicated service to the psychiatric drug withdrawal community. At TaperClinic, she leads group sessions focused on tapering education, peer support, and navigating complex psychiatric drug tapers. She also provides one-on-one support and personalized taper planning, drawing from her clinical background as a physician assistant and her own lived experience with protracted withdrawal. Nicole is known for bridging the gap between medical knowledge and survivor insight—offering practical, empathetic guidance grounded in real-world experience.

Nicole’s journey into this work began after earning a BS from James Madison University (2000) and completing her Master of Physician Assistant degree at Eastern Virginia Medical School (2004). Not long after entering clinical practice, she was prescribed Xanax. Tolerance and interdose withdrawal were misdiagnosed, leading to a cascade of psychiatric polypharmacy—including two benzodiazepines, a Z-drug, antidepressants, a stimulant, and an antipsychotic. In 2010, she was subjected to a rapid withdrawal in a detox facility, resulting in a severe and protracted withdrawal syndrome.

Committed to Helping the Withdrawal Community

When the conventional medical system failed to offer help, Nicole immersed herself in the growing online withdrawal community. In 2013, she founded and ran a Facebook group that supported thousands of individuals tapering off psychiatric drugs and, in some cases, opioids. She later co-founded The Withdrawal Project, a widely respected online resource providing education and risk-reducing strategies for those seeking to taper and heal.
 
Nicole is a prominent advocate and educator in the field. She serves on the Medical Advisory Board of the Benzodiazepine Information Coalition, is a founding member of the Benzodiazepine Action Work Group of the Colorado Consortium, and is an associate with the International Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal. She contributed to The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines, a comprehensive clinical resource on reducing or stopping psychiatric medications.
She also plays a central role in the award-winning documentary Medicating Normal, where she serves as head of outreach and host of its Facebook Live series, having interviewed dozens of experts and survivors. Nicole currently sits on the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s patient panel, helping to shape forthcoming FDA-supported guidelines on safe benzodiazepine tapering.
 
Alongside her clinical and advocacy work, Nicole continues to participate in research and public education to improve awareness of drug-induced harm and to promote safer, patient-centered approaches to psychiatric care. She also has a personal interest in primal living and integrative healing.
 
 

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