Anyone with experience tapering off etizolam with only etizolam (low dose)

[pbuilder]

Please move to OD. Can't make threads on mobile in OD because it's impossible to select a thread prefix yet you can't post a thread without one.

So a few months ago, around the end of july i stupidly got 40 2mg xanax bars. I had a benzo habit a few months before that, and i managed to do a relatively short valium taper to get off, but i was experiencing panic and benzo paws until i got the xanax bars about 2 months after quitting all benzos with the short valium taper.

So through august and september, i went through the 40 bars, averaging roughly 1mg a day, with a few days where i did around 4mg. So the 80mg xanax lasted 2 months.

When i ran out i had some pretty scary withdrawal symptoms and managed to get some etizolam powder which i made a 1mg/ml PG solution with. I started at around 1mg a day, and have now worked down to between .4mg to .6mg of etizolam a day. I dose accurately with a 1mg oral syringe, usually .2mg in the morning when i awake, .1mg at some point mid day, and usually .2mg before sleep.

I plan to switch those morning and night doses to .15mg soon, and then slowly even lower, so i can get down to like .3mg a day total, and then lower that even more until im taking miniscule amounts daily, before hopping off.

Is this possible with such a short half lifes benzo? I dont find benzos recreational or euphoric at all, so tapering hasnt been a problem so far. I do suffer from GAD and some social anxiety however, which is why i also get sucked back into the daily habit of low dose benzos.

I have a trip coming up in about 1 and a half months and want to be completely clean by then from the benzos.

I know my dose seems miniscule but i really suck at cold turkey withdrawal.

Does anyone have experience tapering off etizolam successfully?

Ideally i dont want to have to get a long acting benzo, i just want to get it done with etizolam.

 

[PotatoMan]

homeless -----> OD

 

[liftedgift]

Oh it's possible, I mean you are hitting the same receptors as a benzo with a longer half life. But it's definitely more difficult with a short acting benzo since you will probably go through more highs and lows throughout the day as the drug wares off. That's why everyone will recommend you get some diazepam or clonazepam. Sorry I don't have first hand experience with tapering etizolam but just wanted to let you know it's possible.

 

[dus_aster]

Recently tapered. Had been using for four weeks, at dosages ranging from 2-4mg (initially) to 6-12mg (for the last week and a half); began to run out of Etizolam, and was undergoing a period of financial hardship that prohibited procuring more. Didn't feel particularly mentally addicted, but noticed inability to sleep, exacerbated anxiety (suffer from GAD), and this awful restless feeling like my skeleton was trying to boogey right out of my body if I attempted to cut out my nightly dose.
Me being me, I waited until almost the very last minute to attempt a taper, and stuck to the following schedule:
First day- Dropped from 15mg (five 3mg oral doses) to 12mg (same dosing pattern, skipping my 3PM dose)
Experienced increased anxiety while on the job (taking care of animals), found myself prone to overheating and sweating (as a result of anxiety), instant relief provided upon redosing later in the day.
Second day- Dropped from 12 to 8mg (switched from 3mg doses to 2mg doses for four doses total)
Each dose seemed to last an hour or so less, and rather than raising me above baseline more just made me feel 'normal.' Anxiety began to set in two hours after each dose, and sleeping required 75mg diphenhydramine and a fair amount of cannabis. Sleep was inconsistent, some strange thought-loop type nightmares, awoke in a shitty mood.
Third day- Dropped to 6mg (same dosing pattern, 2mg oral)
Persistent anxiety even after dosing, doses provided minor temporary relief (though not a lot of it), much more prone to becoming hot and flustered (...the bad kind of hot and flustered) at the drop of the proverbial hat. Did *not* enjoy being at a job I normally love, difficulty sleeping. Smoking cannabis after work provided some relief, and in the comfort of my home the dissociation I get from cannabis and mindless, distracting activities alleviated most of the symptoms. This is where the 'second man inside me trying to get out' feeling began in earnest, and by 8PM that evening I found myself twisting around in my bed and moderately, persistently uncomfortable. Could sleep with melatonin, 5-HTP, diphenhydramine, and cannabis.
Fourth day- Two 2mg doses, one upon waking and one before bed.
Geej. Ugh. Ew. Had the day off work, luckily. Smoked weed all day, tried to nap, could not, ended up CWEing a couple hundred milligrams of codeine. Relief from that lasted a few hours, took evening dose, managed to sleep for two hours before waking up to more intense akithisia, couldn't really get back to sleep.
Fifth day- Single 2mg dose in the morning. Called in sick, felt like I was on a low-end recreational dose of a deliriant for most of the day, took 100mg Seroquel in an attempt to facilitate sleep. No dice/awful idea; made the akithisia worse and only permitted a shallow, restless doze.
Sixth day- felt like I did the fourth day, despite not dosing.
Seventh day- same thing, though sleep was better.
Eighth day- sleep now possible with the aforementioned supplementations, pretty nasty anxiety, had a small panic attack. Smoked a lot of cigarettes (twice as many as normal) in a semi-conscious attempt to calm myself down.
Ninth to eleventh days- increased anxiety, still. No mental cravings. Could function reasonably well.
Twelfth day- just felt like a regular 'off' day for me. No worse than an 'off' day would have been had I not been using Etizolam with such frequency in the weeks prior.
Fourteenth day- felt pretty much totally okay.

Thoughts-
It probably looks worse on-screen than it did irl... it was unpleasant, but I'm used to stimulant-induced anxiety on top of my run-o'-the-mill anxiety, and it wasn't anything worse than the anxiety one gets from, say, coming down off a few 80mg oral doses of ethylphenidate. Mental cravings were honestly pretty much nonexistent?
The worst part, for me, was the 'restless-agitated' feeling and the inability to sleep properly. Even that wasn't unpleasant enough to stop me ordering more Etizolam, recently (though it *did* teach me to be much more cautious and to be more intelligent with tapering.) If you're someone who occasionally uses mild opiates, a midling dose of (properly CWE'd) codeine can provide a fair amount of relief (not recommending it, but it bears mentioning). Cannabis was hugely beneficial, but only once I was away from the things that make me anxious (...the world outside my house. Welp.) Passionflower tea, had I had any, might have helped; ditto valerian.

My rapid taper was necessitated by dwindling supply, and if I ever need to taper in the future, I would definitely stretch it out over a month, decreasing in 0.5mg-1mg dosages and giving myself a few days to acclimate at each new dosage. The schedule you proposed seems even better, safer, and more pleasant ^_^
Honestly, if you're not feeling horrific at the dosages of Etizolam that you mentioned, I don't imagine you'll have a whole lot of trouble with physical withdrawal symptoms; 0.4-0.6mg of Etiz isn't even 10mg Diazepam, and I found that once totally off that I felt back to normal fairly quickly.
I MIGHT BE TOTALLY WRONG but it sounds like you've gotten through the worst of it without too much trouble??


Best of luck to you, I hope my somewhat ill-advised tapering experience can be of some use~


EDIT: Tl;dr, it's totally possible, shouldn't be very unpleasant at the levels you're at. In the past I've used 1-2mg a day for a few weeks and not felt any withdrawal effects beyond difficulty sleeping for a night or two, and that was alleviated with cannabis/melatonin/diphenhydramine/5-HTP. Your mileage may obviously vary, but it sounds like you've done an awesome job tapering

 

[smackydowners]

sure. etizolam isnt all that short acting, really. you'd be ok hopping off now, but as long as youre still reducing and not increasing the doses, your plan sounds fine to me