lol my friend from high school listened to his doctor and he was on 2 mg Xanax 3x a day as well as a Barbituate at night. Combined with like 2 anti depressants
Wow. I have a good friend that unfortunately I don't see much anymore since he lives in the middle of nowhere and sobered up big time to take care of his daughter, he's a #1 father for sure, anyway, who was in prison for 6 months, just because of a lot of accumulated road tickets, he chose to go prison instead than pay. He was sold for not much a "joint", it was a rolling paper with 10x 5mg valiums in there. He never had benzos before and he was in his early 30's, but he basically slept his time away with 50mg valium a day he'd drop in his coffee.
When getting out of prison, he suddenly felt benzo withdrawal without knowing what the hell it was, saw a doctor, and he apparently was the person with the largest script in that region of his which is all little villages and 2 towns of 20k people around a lake, wood industry everywhere, really up north. Anyway, he wasn't stabilized until he was on 4x2mg xanax 4 times a day.
When I met him, he was slowly since years dropping, he was at 4 times a day 2mg, and a year later he was taking 6mg bromazepam 4 times a day.
So to anyone in despair, it's possible, just need doctors who understand how to taper someone and is interested in saving lives, which at a point they are, people dying because of their scripts is not good for them..
In my case, until Health Canada removed all barbs except 2 in 2004 (they kept phenobarbital which is used for epilepsy and benzo tapering) and butalbital which is in Fiorinal (aspirin, butalbital, caffeine). We don't have Fioricet here but it's basically the same but with aspirin instead and there's C 1/2 and C 1/4 Fiorinal, with 30mg codeine or 15mg codeine respectively, which makes me think there used to be C 3/4 and C 1 in the past when doctors weren't afraid of scripting opiates. Well, some aren't, some are. The easiest way to be given opiates is being really ill with bronchitis+flu or pneumonia+flu where the codeine pills or syrup or hydrocodone syrup or pills will show up as fast as the antibiotic and maybe some prednisone or prednisolone pills.
Woops, forgot. Yeah, from 2000 to 2004 my then GP who's retired now, he was already old when he accepted me in, scripted me 15 Seconals when I explained to him I need something to kill my anxiety and make me sleep for at least 10 hours when I had exams at 8 am or 10 am, the anxiety they would provoke would make me have white nights and fail often, brought him proofs of exams done in the afternoon and those in the morning. And I completely respected the plan, back then I was only a pothead and dropped L or shrooms or snorted a line or two of pcp in weekends, meds still scared me like most people here. It fixed my problem. So in september 2004 he told me, it's the last time I can script you seconals, they're banning them next month, I said, is there some other med like this? and he said "No all barbiturates for sleep are removed, but there is still Placidyl". Placidyl was awesome, makes most sleeping aids a joke, but Canada banned it in 2006, so I only had 3 scripts of 15 800mg of those huge green horse pills. It's funny when you look at the molecule, it's close to alcohol, I'd get the generic and it's name ethchlorvynol. I wouldn't wake up wasted with these, even less than the Seconals which made me need a coffee and then I'd see straight. Never took 2 Seconals at once or same with Placidyl. So to anyone who's in a country where barbs are still there, don't fuck around with. Take a single dose, always.
But the banning of Barbs and then Placidyl is what brought me to benzos, which I found much difficult not to take every night. (He went with Temazepam 30mg to replace the Placidyl). And he gave me a script of 30 a month for 12 months, I bet he knew it was weaker yet more addictive and he didn't want me to come back saying I'm suffering of benzo wd.