Lucy, a courier in Derbyshire, said many Hermes couriers "live in constant fear of WYW – withdrawal of your work".
The company maintains that physical dependence is different from addiction, but Jane Ballantyne, the president of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, said that, for patients, this can be a meaningless distinction: if they find themselves unable to stop taking a drug, for fear of crippling withdrawal, "at a certain point that might as well be addiction".
"It's one of the worst feelings I've ever felt, and the reason many people don't come off of those drugs most of the time is the fear of the withdrawal," she said.
However, one small qualitative study [ 30], reported that participants' disillusionment with public sector and government, a lack of trust in the latter and fear of benefit withdrawal inhibited claimants' commitment to the programme, particularly when delivered within the public sector.
That is partly blackmail: they want America to fear the consequences of withdrawal.
On a recent day, a group of female inmates at the jail, all of them recovering heroin addicts, talked about the benefits of methadone, and the deep fear they had of withdrawal if it were taken away.
5.15pm BST Markets close down European markets have closed down, as US markets continue to slide on fears of stimulus withdrawal.
In one previous study, 71% of middle-aged psychotropic drug users wanted to stop consuming these medications, but half of them feared stopping because of withdrawal symptoms [ 47].
53 Mental burden increases with disease progression, decrease in vision, fear of blindness, social withdrawal and depression.
