I'm Guy Rotenberg - A peer support taper coach.
I help people safely come off benzodiazepines, antidepressants, Z-drugs and other psychiatric medications — And support them before, during and after tapering.
I'm not a doctor. I am a lived experience survivor - a peer support worker. I have dedicated my life to research and help to those who are harmed by doctor's lack of knowledge on how to taper off their patients from psychiatric drugs. . I'm writing as someone who was made physically dependent on clonazepam in about a month by a careless prescription, spent a year and a half clawing my way off it, and came out the other side better than I'd ever been in my life. (The whole story is in My Story). Along the way I earned a Certificate IV in Mental Health Peer Work, and I put my old career as a senior programmer and data analyst to work building tools that make tapering safer and more precise. I know this from the inside *and* from the evidence — and I'll always tell you which is which.
What working with me actually gets you:
* A proper intake — not a rushed ten-minute appointment
When we start, I give you the time almost no one else in the system does. In your first session I take a full history: your drug, dose and formulation; how long you've been on it; every taper you've already tried and what happened; your symptoms, your sleep, your supports, your supply situation, and everything else in your life that affects how a taper goes. Nothing rushed, nothing dismissed. It is normally a friendly, compassionate video chat that lasts 2 hours.
From that, you walk away with:
- A clear, personalised protocol for how to taper — the exact method, the pace, the holds, step by step, built around your specific drug and your body, not a generic table.
- Guy's Tapering Tool (GTT), free — my software that turns your plan into the exact dose and the exact weight to measure for every single step, so you're never doing frightening maths on a foggy brain at 3 a.m.
- The things that can genuinely help during the taper — the supplements, sleep protocol, nervous-system and lifestyle supports I learned the hard way and then cross-checked against the research, always with an honest "this is evidence / this is my experience" label.
Help wherever you are in the journey
- About to start? I'll help you prepare properly and begin safely — before anything goes wrong.
- Already tapering and struggling? I'll help you steady things, read your symptoms, and adjust the plan to your body.
- Cold-turkeyed, crashed, or stuck? This is exactly where one-on-one help matters most, and where I can do the most good.
- Off the drug but still not right? Recovery continues for months after the last dose — I'll hold your hand through that period too.
Someone in your corner with the system
I work hand-in-hand with your doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists — not against them. Most of them were simply never taught how to take people *off* these drugs. My job is to help you be heard, respected and understood, and to speak both languages: the language of someone who is suffering, and the language of the medical world. I'll help you prepare for appointments and advocate for the slow, safe taper you deserve.
You won't be doing this alone
Support for the hard moments — WhatsApp chat packages
Sometimes you don't need a whole session. Sometimes you just need someone who *gets it* for ten or fifteen minutes when things are rough — to calm down, to get a quick piece of advice, to be talked through a wave. That's exactly what my WhatsApp chat packages are for: real, human support when you need it, without waiting for the next appointment.
Let's talk
Whatever stage you're at, you do not have to figure this out alone. Book a FREE discovery video chat to see if I'll be the right person to help you on this journey. Have a look at the services in my booking section, or just reach out — I'd love to meet you.
