Benzos Am I experiencing Benzo withdrawal?

[fattymagee1]

Hello everyone,

I'm new here, so I apologize if this post isn't in the right place or not in the correct format. Anyhow, first of all I'd like to say that I'm an idiot with poor self-control in the past so please it's not necessary for you to remind me of that. Believe me I know.

My story is rather unusual and I can't find anything online that can directly confirm my suspicions. Anyway... I've had some pretty bad chronic anxiety/depression for a long time, however in the spring I discovered what seemed like a wonder drug called Phenibut. It basically caused my anxiety and problems to go away while I was on it whilst still retaining the ability to function well. I had heard (which later turned out to be bad advice) that one could take relatively small doses every other day and not worry about tolerance/addiction so that's what I did.

That was great for about three months... when I started to have bad migraines. I then figured Phenibut was more trouble then it was worth so I quit cold turkey. Big mistake. The withdrawal from Phenibut is pretty terrible. It probably lasted for a couple months over the summer. In desperation to feel better, I had heard that using benzos could help temporarily relieve Phenibut withdrawal if used sparingly. So long story short I was so messed up at this point I obtained a reliable source of Klonopin (clonazepam) and a Z-drug called Ambien (zolpidem) which I know is very similar to benzos as it acts on the GABA system in the brain. Over the course of I'd say roughly July to September I would get messed up on these drugs in order to escape my woes. I knew that these drugs were also very addictive so I had some sense as to not use them too often, however when I did use them (probably a couple times a week on average) I would take excessive doses at a time (several milligrams) which often resulted in a brownout/blackout. I figured that was better than sobriety during this time as at least it made the time go by faster.

Anyway after a couple months of this I began to notice an assortment of new symptoms start to appear (while some of my phenibut withdrawal symptoms also disappeared). These symptoms include absolutely excessive tiredness/fatigue, a sharp decline in memory/cognitive abilities (the way in which I think has definitely changed and not in a good way), an almost stoned-like sensation with slight vision distortion (it's difficult to describe, but my eyes and skin feel a bit strange and my brain feels very foggy), a mildly but chronically stuffy nose, and a general state of anhedonia with excessive anxiety/depression. The weirdest and just about the only consistent thing about this is that the more I sleep, especially if I oversleep, the symptoms seem to feel worse. I've never experienced anything remotely like this, and it's absolute hell.

Once this became apparent that it was chronic in September, I ceased my drug use altogether. Since then in the last three months I've been experiencing these symptoms constantly and are showing no signs of improvement. I know benzo withdrawal can last a very long time, and the symptoms seem to fit somewhat. However I'm simply not 100% that this is the case as I didn't use them THAT much of or for THAT long... but I did use excessive doses when I did. Would that be enough to induce withdrawal symptoms over the course of the time I described? It seemed that towards the end of that two month period I needed higher doses to achieve an effect.

My past drug use includes being a pretty hardcore stoner, and LSD and DXM a few times. I have not used those substances in several months now though as they stopped being fun during Phenibut withdrawal and recently out of desperation to recover. I've been on several antidepressants (not in over a year) which did nothing for me. I also took Adderall for ADD for years before about a month ago, in which I ceased that as well to see if it would have any effect which it hasn't. I have abused Adderall before too but not in several months. These days I don't use any psychoactive drugs at all (not even caffeine) since I feel like that would give my brain the best possible chance to heal. But I don't know.

Sorry for the length of the post, but I feel all these details are pretty important. Am I experiencing a protracted benzodiazapine withdrawal? I understand that hardcore depression can cause some of these symptoms, but I've been very depressed for a long time and have never experienced anything quite like this. Any opinions/insight into what this might be would be strongly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Mighty-oak]

Sounds like a build up of things friend.
I have never tried Phenibut (may do soon due to agoraphobia as nothing else is working) so cant really advise on that. I can help with benzos though as been on them daily for 16 years! Clonazepam is one of the strongest and hardest to come off. What doses as in how many mg's were you taking a day? The only real way to get off benzos is Diazepam (Valium) due to the incredibly long half life, although it still is a benzo and needs to be treated with respect. They come in 2,5 and 10mg tabs so the taper can be done very slowly and precise to ease withdrawal.
Past use of LSD and hardcore cannabis use maybe flagging up all kinds of anxiety's. It is not for me to personally recommend you do but if I was in your shoes I would take a low dose of Diazepam and learn CBT and meditation.....Then very slowly withdraw from Diazepam. Just for interest here, Clonazepam is so strong....0.5mg of Clon' = 10mg of Diazepam!!

 

[Slow_Mobius]

Can you elaborate one what specific symptoms you're still experiencing, severity, and whether they've improved at all since you've stopped using all psychoactives? Have you been sleeping well?

Also quitting the atoms could be having an effect on poor cognitive function. Also ambien is incredibly addictive, and IME you really need to space your doses about a week apart to avoid tolerance build up. What kinds of ambien doses were you taking with the clonazepam?

It can be really difficult to pinpoint it on anything in particular when it comes to poly drug use. Based on what you said, I'm thinking that you were experience some WD and cognitive issues from abusing clonazepam and zolpidem, and I think that you might have quit your stim use before giving your brain enough time to fully recover.

I get the same sort of problems when I overuse ambien, and it is much worse when im taking it in high doses. Ambien is great if your using it in low doses when youre very sleep deprived, but long term abuse is a really terrible idea. Throwing in the benzo abuse probably made things much worse

Also, kava might be a really good stop gap for you. It will provide some mild relaxation and can take the edge off WD from depressants.

 

[fattymagee1]

Right now I'm experiencing essentially the same symptoms I've been experiencing since this all began about three months ago just before I stopped the abuse and they haven't really improved noticeably. It hasn't really changed. Some days seem worse than others, but there isn't much of a pattern other than they seem worse if I excessively oversleep thus I try not to. The symptoms are always there to some extent, though. The most striking and obvious symptom is certainly the decline in mental/cognitive cognitive ability. It's very difficult to explain, but one of the most weird and unpleasant occurrences is whenever I'm reading or speaking to someone or listening to anything, I can hear the words and seem to understand what they mean, but when I try to process them in my head it's like they don't sink in to me. I can say the words in my head over and over again and I usually can respond accordingly to the words accordingly if it's a simple conversation...but I feel detached from the words' meaning. Maybe some kind of depersonalization? I'm not really sure but it's made life miserable with the anxiety that creates for me. My general memory, especially short term memory, is also clearly impaired. It's almost like the memory impairment that can occur from pot use, but constant and not pleasant at all. Very simple things that used to make perfect sense to me before this now often don't, or not in the same way as before. My eyes feel watery and strange, as well as the skin on my face (and sometimes my whole body). My eyes also feel heavy as I'm constantly very tired/fatigued. Falling asleep has actually been quite easy (I used to have some trouble sleeping before this), however the sleep doesn't feel restful at all as I always wake up now super tired and these symptoms seem to usually be at their worst in the morning. I get mild headaches all the time. I've also had a stuffed up/runny nose the whole time as well, however I'm not sure if that has anything to do with this directly. My anxiety/depression has been off the charts, with literally just about everything giving me excessive anxiety now. I'm basically in a state of anhedonia these days, since whatever this is makes it essentially impossible to enjoy anything.

Yeah... I understand now the hard way that clonazepam and ambien are not drugs to be messed with. I didn't usually take them together when I was abusing them, but I would use them interchangeably. Oh man I was probably taking somewhere around 60 70 80 milligrams of ambien over the course of an evening when I abused it which pretty much always resulted in partial/total blackout but for me that was the point in order to make the time seem to go by faster. I was trying to escape a different kind of miserable withdrawal from Phenibut (which ironically wasn't as bad as what I'm experiencing now). I would only do it once or twice a week since I did have some sense of the drug's addictive nature at the time, though I remember on one occasion doing it two days in a row. I followed roughly the same pattern of use with clonazepam with excessive doses, however I recall using that more towards the beginning of this period, and ambien more towards the end as I discovered ambien seemed to work more effectively at achieving the life-escaping effects I desired. So I would really get messed up on that I believe more intensely than the clonazapam.

Yeah, withdrawal from these substances has been my best theory as to what this is for a while now. I simply did not realize or care enough at the time to understand the kind of fire I was playing with. The thing about my adderall cessation is that it really made no difference in how I felt after I quit weirdly enough. The symptoms have been about the same before and after I stopped my legitimate adderall use. But it may still play a part in this I'm not sure. I'm committed to abstinence with that too at this point though.

Yeah, it was a very foolish drug to abuse. I understand that it's meant for occasional insomnia treatment and shouldn't be messed with. However, since this is probably a withdrawal, my brain should eventually recover from this with abstinence should it not? I know any withdrawal involving the GABA receptors in the brain can take a very long time to recover, though. Yes, I'm sure abusing the clonozapam certainly didn't help too.

I've heard of Kava but don't really know much about it. Is it addictive in its own right? The last thing I want to do is swap one addiction for another like I probably did earlier this year.

Thanks for your response.

 

[Slow_Mobius]

Kava is not physiologically addictive. It might be moldy addictive. I would say it's addiction potential is somewhere between food and cannabis. There really isn't a WD symptoms associated with it.

I would imagine that you would experience some sort of improvement since quitting. Very strange that your symptoms haven't improved. I would highly recommend seeing a medical professional about this, as everything you've described seems to go against expectations. There's a chance it's not related to your drug abuse... I don't think there's anyway to know the cause without a thorough medical examination. Ambien has a very short half life, so withdrawals shouldn't last nearly as long as most benzos despite it being incredibly addictive. I wouldn't rule out it being related to the drug abuse, but since you're having unusual reactions to multiple medications, I think your past due for a full work up with a doctor

Also, I don't want to scare you by saying this, but a lot of your symptoms match that of a more serious neurological issue or even a brain tumor. Now this is highly speculative and unlikely, but it's one reasone why you really need to get checked out by a doctor on this one.

 

[xtcgrrrl]

some of your symptoms sound like what I experienced in Xanax withdrawal. However, I was using (and abusing) Xanax for YEARS, daily. I was able to go to a rehab at the time I got clean from this and some of my WD symptoms were reduced by suboxone (which is really more for opiates than Xanax, but they really didn't know what else to do for me and I was feeling SO lousy that I would've been climbing the walls without it.) I was put on a very slow sub taper which mostly made me sleepy but as you said, when withdrawing from something sleeping is a good way to pass the time more quickly.

Not to scare you, but in my case it was a YEAR before I finally felt "calm" without benzos. AND I was given Neurontin so I had an gaba-ergic type medication to help me. Maybe try and see if you can get that prescribed, for anxiety? It CAN be abused but its abuse potential is not widely known so most doctors should have no problem prescribing that. I'm currently prescribed 800 mgs 4x/day which is quite high, but you cannot really OD on this med. It might help you, so there's a thought...

 

[Slow_Mobius]

It just doesn't make any sense for OP to have those kinds of WD symptoms when he was only using once or twice a week. Clonazepam has a long half life, but that was abused more at the beginning of his use so certainly after several months of ceasing sporadic use, he should see improvement. Honestly, I might be even worse about ambien use than you, and as long as I'm not taking the ambien every day, I don't get more than a couple days of rebound anxiety and insomnia--both of which can be combated with kava.

It could be the drugs, but I'm thinking there's a very real possibility that something else is at play here.

 

[fattymagee1]

I may give Kava Kava a try, as I'm willing to try just about anything at this point.

Yeah, it's puzzling why I haven't seen any improvement yet. The symptoms haven't really changed much since they began. It's hard to believe that they couldn't be involved with the drug abuse since the timeline matches up perfectly for this to be a withdrawal, but you're right it is strange that this hasn't improved considering I didn't use the drugs all that much.

I actually have gone to a physician, and he believed it may be sleep apnea. But I find this unlikely since parents and others have told me many times I don't snore and I've never woken up in the night gasping for air. I'm also getting an MRI done tomorrow to look for things like a tumor. I really hope it's not brain cancer or some degenerative neurological disorder, but at this point I guess I can't necessarily rule those out. Hopefully the MRI will shed some light on this (without it being life-threatening). I mean... I'm only 23, so cancer or something like that seems pretty unlikely, but I guess not impossible...

 

[fattymagee1]

I may consider that if my MRI tomorrow (hopefully) comes back negative for something more serious. It's really less the excessive anxiety and more the cognitive/memory issues that really scare me though. Does Neurontin seem to help that with you? I guess perhaps treating terrible anxiety would probably inherently help that...

 

[Slow_Mobius]

It's good to hear your doctor's are covering the bases. Like you even said, it's very unikely for it to be something like a brain tumor, but it's a possibility that needs to be ruled out. Definitely give kava a try.

Gabapentinoids wouldn't normally help with cognitive deficits, but if it is being caused by withdrawal from the zolpidem or clonazepam, then it might help. It would probably help with the anxiety as well.

 

[norman$]

Anxiety itself interferes with cognition, as you note. Just like depression and pain do. Relieving the anxiety will very likely help, even if you aren't truly WDing from the benzos. When I was a young fiend I leaned various relaxation techniques, self-hypnosis, etc. It has helped me for the last 30 years. Find a therapist and brain doc to help with this shit- it sounds like you're on your way though.
Just some ideas...

Excercise helps most all brain issues- from depression to cognition, and is unlikely to hurt your brain. While I'm shitty at keeping at it, it's as close to a panacea/wonder drug as I've ever found. Next is eat healthy. I'm a junk food guy, but I know it hurts my brain and body- I can feel it- so I always eat lots of veggies, fruit, whole grains, pref but not necessarily organic. Get some sun in your eyes too. Esp. important if you are in the northern 1/2 of the US in wintertime.

Maybe antidepressants (again... incl. wellbutrin and combinations) - several are known effective in treating anxiety-related conditions. Worst comes to worst, try benzos (carefully) for the anxiety. They are well and truly addicting and brain-dumbing but some few people do actually benefit from chronic benzos. (i'm also sceptical that this is benzo-WDs ... especially the excessive sleep exacerbating symtoms)

Cognitive issues can also be treated with stuff like ginco, nootropics and modafinil.

But I sense serious brain disregulation, induced or otherwise. It may be difficult, but try to find a good psychopharmacologist (they usually call them psychiatrists) and neurologist. If sleep apnea is even a possibility I'd expect a sleep study lies in your future- and if not, maybe it should be. Extra rest fucking you up just sounds wrong.

Keep working at it, chances are much better than even that you'll find something that helps with symptoms even if no "medical" cause is identified.

Cheers