Hi, I had a ball abusing benzos for many, many years but now I want to stop and find that I can't. As in, even after a reasonable taper (I've never done a supervised withdrawal) I soon end up with unendurable anxiety and other nasties and it lasts for months and I'm not confident it will go away, and if it does that I have the stamina to last the process. So I've resigned myself to taking them forever, but only as I need to. Problem with that is total lack of discipline and popping the odd one with a glass of wine just to liven up a boring afternoon. Thoughts, advice, experiences?
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BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic
Benzos Can't get through withdrawal - resign to take them forever?
- Thread starter billyj
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Branggen
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after a reasonable taper as in mid way through the taper or after your finish the taper? after years of abuse I would recommend tapering over a year or 2 if you haven't tried that, the more time you give your brain to adjust the easier it is and if you are really committed the length of time shouldn't matter to much
I find I can't do such a prolonged taper. I can take lesser and lesser amounts then stop altogether after about 2 months. As I said in my OP if I have them at hand i find it difficult to not take them recreationally so I can't see myself going 2 years on a discipline taper. I live in south east Asia, where they're over (under) the counter so that's a problem too - I can always get more, I don't have a prescribing doctor keeping me on track.
somnilicious
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Ain't gonna lie..... Probably gonna have to go to rehab and accept that your life is fucked for the next year or so..... Just my experience.
somnilicious
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I quit a roughly 6mg per day Xanax or Klonopin habit of 10yrs running in 2015.
Edit: oh you probably meant OP. Sorry.
Have thought about that. Does it work in the end?
Valium and Xanax, on and off for about 20 years, light use at the start and extended periods across the whole time with no use at all, but over the last three or four years it has really gotten out of control, up to 5 x 1mg xanax a day and up to 4 or 5 10mg valium per day. If i'm travelling in a place where they're dispensed with little drama I'll take much more.
somnilicious
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Did for me. Of course I got other problems still and had to spend another 9mths in a halfway house, though I probably could have stayed off the benzos after 70day rehab stay. 8 yrs and I've never looked back. So glad I made the decision.
Isavela
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I suggest you first get rid off xanax in 1.5-3months. It is very important you do not try to taper Valium at The same time. Maybe you could take 60-80mg Valium total per Day, instead of xanax? Valium has much longer half Life and much "easier" to taper than xanax. Less anxiety and less insomnia. Valium can be tapered in 4-8months, so go sloooooow. I know, it is hard and IT IS a frustrating way to go but trust me, it is safer and less withdrawals. Been there and done that, i had PAWS 7months after quitting heavy using benzos (6 years with Clonazepam 6mg per Day, Temazepam 20-40mg per Day, Diazepam 50mg per Day, My psychiatrist was indeed crazy when she prescribed me these all for many years), i tapered them in 8months, it was painful! It has Been many many years but
Nowadays i can't take any benzos over two weeks or Else i get withdrawals and rebound anxiety and severe insomnia, especially etizolam and alprazolam and Clonazepam.
I smoked a lots of weed (mmaybe not so good idea but it helped me to relax physically) and took 5htp, l-theanine to relax, and magnesiumtaurate and magnesiumbislycinate to help restless legs, also i had to really focus at tapering, avoid alcohol and coffee. It is a long Road to travel, but it is worth it.
Nowadays i can't take any benzos over two weeks or Else i get withdrawals and rebound anxiety and severe insomnia, especially etizolam and alprazolam and Clonazepam.
I smoked a lots of weed (mmaybe not so good idea but it helped me to relax physically) and took 5htp, l-theanine to relax, and magnesiumtaurate and magnesiumbislycinate to help restless legs, also i had to really focus at tapering, avoid alcohol and coffee. It is a long Road to travel, but it is worth it.
Las Veghost grower
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Bottom line when your a long term addict the recovery will be long term too, how bad do you want it ?
Yes I said as much in my OP. Damage is done now, and the withdrawal is long and painful. Forge ahead and plant a flag at the end, half dead from the torture of it all, or just try and manage and minimise the addiction I gave myself as much as possible. There's pros and cons to both sides. I actually don't know if I could survive months and months and months of gut wrenching anxiety and weekly heart attack scares, but I am sure getting there in the end is really worth it. On the other hand, I'm 50 and I was drawn to benzos in the first place out of social anxiety, GAD, and all that stuff. Certainly the benzos didn't fix any of the initial problems, if anything they're worse than ever and may never be resolved or even softened even if I went all the way with withdrawal, so why suffer?
SpiralusSancti
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You answered your own question, you would suffer so in the end you would be better than while addicted.
You have basically 3 choices how to resolve your situation, aiming for total sobriety, aiming for medicinal (or at least less reckless) use of same meds or seeking replacement substances that is less damaging. Whatever you chose is better than just staying on high doses of benzos, that applies even if you were much older. You certainly don’t consider stopping benzos cuz being addicted to them is a wonderful thing, right? If they were not causing you any problems you wouldn’t bother with getting rid of them.
You have basically 3 choices how to resolve your situation, aiming for total sobriety, aiming for medicinal (or at least less reckless) use of same meds or seeking replacement substances that is less damaging. Whatever you chose is better than just staying on high doses of benzos, that applies even if you were much older. You certainly don’t consider stopping benzos cuz being addicted to them is a wonderful thing, right? If they were not causing you any problems you wouldn’t bother with getting rid of them.
Update?
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@billyj I hope you're doing well man.
You're never going to not take the shit if it's in your possession. It's a cool idea but it is highly-impractical. When people get clean, motivation and dedication are obviously huge. There is also something to be said about not being stupid. You have to also do your best to manage the potential for situations to arise in which you might break. I don't drink today. I used to drink quite a bit. I don't have a problem abstaining, however, I also don't hang around in bars.
You're either going to need to get rid of the pills or better yet, entrust them to someone that you feel can administer them effectively. You need to make a commitment of some kind dude. Having all of the pills in a candy dish in your room is not making a commitment, it's holding on to the past. Believe me, I've never thrown drugs away, so do as I say and not as I do.
I think the best and most-realistic scenario here is for you to check into detox and hopefully engage in a 30 day program of some kind afterward. If you're unable to cope following this longer-term stay, then you should consider looking into Buprenorphine or Methadone. Everyone loves to say that the clinic runs their lives, when the reality is that Fentanyl is controlling their lives already. The structure of receiving a standard dosage of Opioids every day will allow you to find some stability. If you want to stay on maintenance you can or you can use Buprenorphine to do a taper.
Either way, this is not ever gonna work. Let me know if you have questions.
You're never going to not take the shit if it's in your possession. It's a cool idea but it is highly-impractical. When people get clean, motivation and dedication are obviously huge. There is also something to be said about not being stupid. You have to also do your best to manage the potential for situations to arise in which you might break. I don't drink today. I used to drink quite a bit. I don't have a problem abstaining, however, I also don't hang around in bars.
You're either going to need to get rid of the pills or better yet, entrust them to someone that you feel can administer them effectively. You need to make a commitment of some kind dude. Having all of the pills in a candy dish in your room is not making a commitment, it's holding on to the past. Believe me, I've never thrown drugs away, so do as I say and not as I do.
I think the best and most-realistic scenario here is for you to check into detox and hopefully engage in a 30 day program of some kind afterward. If you're unable to cope following this longer-term stay, then you should consider looking into Buprenorphine or Methadone. Everyone loves to say that the clinic runs their lives, when the reality is that Fentanyl is controlling their lives already. The structure of receiving a standard dosage of Opioids every day will allow you to find some stability. If you want to stay on maintenance you can or you can use Buprenorphine to do a taper.
Either way, this is not ever gonna work. Let me know if you have questions.
Gaz_hmmmm
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I was tapered off of benzo’s over the course of almost a year.
I was moved on to the equivalent dose of diazepam (Valium) which was 60mg and weaned down from there.
That’d your best bet, find the equivalent diazepam dosage and just move over to that, from there slowly taper over a year to a year and a half.
If you can get them easy have a trusted friend/loved one control the use of them for you.
Good luck.
I was moved on to the equivalent dose of diazepam (Valium) which was 60mg and weaned down from there.
That’d your best bet, find the equivalent diazepam dosage and just move over to that, from there slowly taper over a year to a year and a half.
If you can get them easy have a trusted friend/loved one control the use of them for you.
Good luck.
smokeymcpot42088
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Congrats on not drinkin Kief Richards!!
I dont like that rehab/halfway house rotating door nonsense myself but it certainly helps alot of people and can work DEPENDING ON YOU, YES. It is going to be very horrible, probably worse than dealing with it on your own terms (which would be slow and require lots of free time and minimal work, not many are able to swing it), but also faster and they WILL GET YOU TO 0. Once you enter you have lept off the cliff and put your life in the hands of wherever you choose; understand that and get some first hand accounts from folk who go or went to where you are choosing so you have a rough idea of the ropes if you do.
smokeymcpot42088
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That was the method that I used. God bless that persons soul for I am sure I was a whiny bitch quite often.
pbuilder
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Umm mate, he’s addicted to benzodiazepines. Why are you talking about opiate maintenance therapy with suboxone or methadone? That wouldn’t help him out with his benzo addiction / withdrawal symptoms at all. Would just add something else he’s dependent on lol.
pbuilder
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In 2020 I got addicted to 2mg Xanax bars that I was initially ordering on the darkweb that were real alprazolam, and as my addiction worsened I also found a local connection so I was also buying street Xanax bars 100 at a time from that guy, and most of the time they were likely not Xanax, but instead etizolam or some other research chemical benzo. Really easy to tell because real Xanax is bitter as fuck. I was using them to mask my awful social anxiety and I was in a relationship that started near the beginning of the year and Xanax made me feel less anxious and I could have a good time with the girl, without being awkward when i’m anxious and in my head like usual. But eventually we were spending 3-4 days a week living together, either I’d come for a little trip to her apartment and stay for 4 days or she’d come over to mine and stay over for 3-4 days. Thus, I was constantly using the crutch of benzos so I could feel chill and not be an anxious mess around her. I also broke my jaw in 3 places during June of 2020 from a skateboard accident (while fucked up) and had to have my mouth wired shut for 6 weeks. That was also an extremely anxiety causing event, so yep, more benzo use. I’d have to push the bar behind and around my wisdom teeth at the back of my mouth to get it in hahaha, because my jaw was wired shut. Or I’d have to dissolve it into some water and then take it like a shot.
Over the year my tolerance grew and grew until it got to the point where I was taking at least 3-4 Xanax bars per day, which was 6-8mg of alprazolam, or an equivalent RC benzo, maybe even more because some of the pressed bars were probably more like 3-4mg of alprazolam each (or equivalent) and I got to the point where I’d wake up in the morning in a state of pure panic from the rebound effects / withdrawals starting and would immediately need to pop a Xanax bar. Keep in mind I’m doing this all in secret, my girlfriend had no clue until one day she found a Xanax bar on the floor and confronted me…
This type of reckless benzo usage is not sustainable. And being disinhibited by benzos all the time lead to me beginning to use and shoot dilaudids again (at the time I was clean from opiates, just taking daily Kratom) as well as occasionally buying and smoking a couple of grams of crack. One time my dealer was out of dilly’s, but he had fetty which is this coloured street fentanyl dope that we have around here. Comes in blue, purple, green, red, basically all the colours of the rainbow, whoever is the original manufacturer changes it up each batch I guess. Fetty’s potency can change massively batch to batch, and if there are any hotspots. So one bag can get you feeling right and real nice, and the same amount of another bag next day can be 10x stronger and boom you OD. So at the end of August, addicted as fuck to benzos, and using opiates much more frequently again, I pick up some Fetty because my dealer was out of dilaudids, and I shoot it up and end up OD’ing in the middle of the night. Thank god a family member heard me breathing weird as fuck, came in and narcan’d me and called 911. Saved my life, I probably wouldn’t be here right now otherwise. This at the end of august.
When I went to visit my girlfriend the next day, our relationship was already a little rocky at that point, and when I told her I OD’d and that I’d relapsed on dope, this really was the final straw that broke the camels back. This caused us to break up.
That break up threw me into some serious heartbreak pain and emotional turmoil and I went on a bit of a binge for the next week and ended up OD’ing again the next Friday. Again a family member heard me breathing weird as fuck and narcan’d me. Called 911 and I went to the hospital again. Saved my life again. The next day I’m back at home and having been drinking beer all day on top my regular benzo use, and decide to hit up my dealer for a gram of crack and a couple of points of fetty. This time I was gonna be way more careful with the Fetty… or so I told myself. Anyways I’m chilling on the front porch when the dealer rolls up and I guess my brother suspected I was waiting for a dealer so he runs out the front door, the dealer sees this stranger to him so he just throws the bag on our lawn and drives away (I’d already paid for it via cash app) and my brother manages to grab the bag before I can, I’m chasing after him and he sprints to the toilet and flushes it. 150$ of drugs down the toilet. I freak the fuck out and basically my family ends up calling the police and I’m screaming like a maniac when they show up, so they end up having probable cause to detain me, I almost even got tazed lol but once they pointed the taser I immediately chilled out and corporates with their orders, but rather than arrest me I was placed on a 72 hour psych hold, because my family essentially thought I was trying to commit suicide by knowingly trying to get more of the drug that had almost killed me twice in the past week, and because I was freaking the fuck out in front of the officers initially, they were able to get the 72 hour psych hold done.
The psych ward sucked ass, I’d popped two bars right before getting detained so for the first 24 hours I still felt okay but eventually I started to feel the benzo withdrawal start, on top of not even having my usual kratom, I was feeling like crap in the psych ward but otherwise I was the normalest person in there. A psychiatrist had chatted with me and I had explained I was not trying to kill myself, I was just trying to get a recreational high and had accidentally overdose in the week prior. Neither were a suicide attempt and I did not want to or have any plans to kill myself. There was one or two people constantly screaming in the psych ward, day in, day out. Also, another woman who was clearly schizophrenic or something randomly walked into my room at one point and just stood there. It was Fucking weird… honestly as I began to feel benzo withdrawal symptoms, the constant screaming from one of the patients in another room just began to make me feel like I was going crazy, or like I was in some kind of hell. After 36 hours of monitoring they could tell I was fine, and that I wasn’t at risk for attempting suicide, nor was I exhibiting any other symptoms like hearing voices, so they release me early, thank god. I rushed home and immediately popped a Xanax bar and a cup of kratom and was so thankful to be home. As the effects of the Xanax and the kratom washed over me, I felt at peace again after the hell that was the psych ward.
This was a big wake up call, I came clean to my family about my benzo dependence and also gave them all my debit cards or credit cards so I had no access to money. I cleaned myself up from everything else I’d been dabbling in, and was just back to taking my daily kratom and of course benzos. But I was trying to slowly taper myself off the benzos. Benzo withdrawal sucks, at times it feels almost like you are drowning, like you can barely breath. Tapering with a short acting benzo like alprazolam or etizolam is very difficult. I’d cut way back, and was maybe trying to get by on a single Xanax bar per day, split up into 3 or 4 pieces throughout the day.
But I guess I lowered my dose by too much and tapered too quickly because suddenly I’m waking up with my family all around me, they are on the phone with 911 again, and they seem really worried. Apparently they heard a bunch of loud noises and bangs and rushed up stairs and I was on my bed that’s against the wall, flopping around like a fish, having a full blown Grand Mal seizure. My chest is absolutely killing me by the time I got out of it, and my whole body just aches like crazy. I guess your muscles tense up an insane amount during a big seizure so your muscles feel sore and in general you feel like complete shit after a seizure. This was the first time I’d ever had a seizure. I immediately tell my family that it is a symptom of benzo withdrawal, and that I must have been tapering too quickly and went too long between doses. So I take a quarter of a Xanax bar and we wait for the ambulance. I go to the hospital and get all checked out, physically it turns out I’m fine, and I let them know I had a benzo addiction and dependence and had been tapering and trying to get off the stuff for the past month and that I guess I’d tapered too fast or waited too long between doses. And keep in mind I’ve been feeling super crappy and anxious, and had a boat load of other extremely unpleasant benzo withdrawal symptoms, over the last month or so, because of the taper, but I thought I’d be able to get through it without a major incident like a seizure because I was still taking some Xanax every day, basically just enough to keep the really bad withdrawal symptoms at bay. But clearly it was too much to soon.
The doctor at the ER gives me a card for something called the “RAAM Clinic” that is actually in the same hospital. Rapid Access Addiction Medicine is what it stands for. The doctor recommends I go there, and that they’d be able to help me do a doctor supervised taper. This place ended up being a life safer. I go the following Monday morning when the clinic is open and explain the whole situation and benzo addiction that I explained above. The only thing is my piss doesn’t show a positive for benzos… unfortunately the most recent bars I was taking either had etizolam in them or some other research chemical benzo that wouldn’t show up on a regular 10 panel drug test. But they can see in my records that I recently had a seizure. Anyways I bring them one of the Xanax bar’s I’d been taking, and they send it away for testing. It came back for etizolam and some other research chemical benzo. But this leaves them having no way to know how much Valium I’d need to start at for the taper, as they didn’t know how much benzo’s I’d truly been taking. So I end up having to go for two observation days where I had to stay at the clinic for 8 hours, 8am to 4pm (coming in the morning having taken no benzos) and a doctor or nurse would monitor me and start me off on 10mg of valium and monitor me through the day. Of course 10mg of valium barely makes a dent in the hour after they give it, so I explain I’m still feeling all kinds of withdrawal symptoms and anxiety, and they give me another 10mg and monitor me. Obviously if someone was lying about their benzo tolerance they’d appear drowsy and a little fucked up. Anyways by the end of the day they’d given me 10mg of Valium 4x throughout the day. That seemed to get me feeling almost normal. And then the next day I came in again for another 8 hours. Same deal. Ended up on 40mg of Valium as a starting point for my taper. Keep in mind I had just spent the past month tapering myself at home with the Xanax bars or whatever tf benzo was in those pressed bars, so I’d already lowered my tolerance quite a bit by going through that taper at home before the seizure.
Anyways 40mg ended up being a good starting point, it had me feeling pretty much normal without being impaired in any way, which is the goal of figuring out where to start your taper. Got a one week supply of Valium, 4 10mg pills per day. Gave it to a trusted family member, and that family member would give me the 4 Valium pills each morning. This was to avoid any temptation to take more. And it worked, I would visit the RAAM clinic once per week, be urine tested (if you have had a relapse or fail a drug test, they will never stop your taper, and they will never kick you out of the clinic, these guys are super harm reduction, science based, incredible empathetic doctors that treat addiction like a disease and not a moral failure) they just do the drug test so they have a true accurate representation of what substances you’ve used recently, talk about how it was going with the doctor, and we began tapering by 2mg every 2 weeks. Although the speed of the taper WAS ENTIRELY UP TO ME. Which I thought was amazing. At some points I’d go an extra week or two without dropping the dose. Anyways, by doing a really slow taper on a long half life benzo like Valium, which is the golden standard drug to use and how to taper off benzos according to the Ashton benzo taper manual. Over the course of the next year and a half I slowly kept tapering down, experiencing pretty much no withdrawal symptoms because it was such a long drawn out taper. It was smooth as butter. Towards the end I was only dropping by 1mg of Valium every couple of weeks. And I tapered all the way down to 1mg of Valium per day, and stayed on 1mg for 5 extra months lol. I told the doctor that even though I didn’t think the 1mg was really doing much at all, it was a psychological crutch and brought me comfort knowing I had it. Really I was just storing that 28mg of Valium I’d get each month and would occasionally take 5-10mg to chill out. Old habits die hard I guess hahaha. But after 5 months I finally jumped off and finished the taper. I had no noticeable withdrawal symptoms. We’d tapered from 40mg of Valium per day all the way down to 1mg per day, and 1mg is such a tiny dose of Valium in the end, that there just wasn’t any withdrawal from it. My brain had slowly adjusted to back to normal over the long drawn out taper. My GABA system clearly properly slowly reupregulated itself again. Which was amazing. And I was sober from benzos finally. That demon gone off my back. Because Valium(Diazepam) and all of its metabolites has between a 100-200 hour half life, it’s the perfect benzo for a nice and slow taper. It keeps you with a very steady blood concentration of the Valium, without the big ups and downs that would occur with a short half life benzo like Xanax.
Sorry for such an incredibly long post. I guess I’d never told this story before, I’ve never written it all down so I decided to just kind of try to paint the whole picture.
I’d really recommend you stop taking Xanax and instead stick with just the Valium. Find the starting dose for your taper. It seems like it would be around 80-100mg of Valium if you are taking 5mg of Xanax and 50mg of Valium every day right now.
You just want to find that right amount that had you feeling normal, no bad withdrawal symptoms but you also don’t want to lie to yourself and take so much that you are still catching a buzz and are feeling a little fucked up. Be honest with yourself. Find that starting dose for your taper and then slowly taper down by roughly 5% every 2 weeks. The Ashton Manual for benzo withdrawal goes into detail about this if you google it. Maybe give the Valium to a trusted family member or room mate and have them just give you your daily dosage each morning. I would usually split my daily Valium dosage up into a morning dose and an evening dose.
Good luck, I wish you all the best! A slow taper is really the only relatively painless way out of benzo addiction hell. Cold turkey off benzos can actually leave you brain damaged because it doesn’t give your GABA receptors anytime to slowly upregulate again like they do during a slow and long Valium taper. You can end up with Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms for years after you cold turkey off benzos, or even from too fast of a taper. So take your time, slow and steady wins the race. Again, good luck!
Over the year my tolerance grew and grew until it got to the point where I was taking at least 3-4 Xanax bars per day, which was 6-8mg of alprazolam, or an equivalent RC benzo, maybe even more because some of the pressed bars were probably more like 3-4mg of alprazolam each (or equivalent) and I got to the point where I’d wake up in the morning in a state of pure panic from the rebound effects / withdrawals starting and would immediately need to pop a Xanax bar. Keep in mind I’m doing this all in secret, my girlfriend had no clue until one day she found a Xanax bar on the floor and confronted me…
This type of reckless benzo usage is not sustainable. And being disinhibited by benzos all the time lead to me beginning to use and shoot dilaudids again (at the time I was clean from opiates, just taking daily Kratom) as well as occasionally buying and smoking a couple of grams of crack. One time my dealer was out of dilly’s, but he had fetty which is this coloured street fentanyl dope that we have around here. Comes in blue, purple, green, red, basically all the colours of the rainbow, whoever is the original manufacturer changes it up each batch I guess. Fetty’s potency can change massively batch to batch, and if there are any hotspots. So one bag can get you feeling right and real nice, and the same amount of another bag next day can be 10x stronger and boom you OD. So at the end of August, addicted as fuck to benzos, and using opiates much more frequently again, I pick up some Fetty because my dealer was out of dilaudids, and I shoot it up and end up OD’ing in the middle of the night. Thank god a family member heard me breathing weird as fuck, came in and narcan’d me and called 911. Saved my life, I probably wouldn’t be here right now otherwise. This at the end of august.
When I went to visit my girlfriend the next day, our relationship was already a little rocky at that point, and when I told her I OD’d and that I’d relapsed on dope, this really was the final straw that broke the camels back. This caused us to break up.
That break up threw me into some serious heartbreak pain and emotional turmoil and I went on a bit of a binge for the next week and ended up OD’ing again the next Friday. Again a family member heard me breathing weird as fuck and narcan’d me. Called 911 and I went to the hospital again. Saved my life again. The next day I’m back at home and having been drinking beer all day on top my regular benzo use, and decide to hit up my dealer for a gram of crack and a couple of points of fetty. This time I was gonna be way more careful with the Fetty… or so I told myself. Anyways I’m chilling on the front porch when the dealer rolls up and I guess my brother suspected I was waiting for a dealer so he runs out the front door, the dealer sees this stranger to him so he just throws the bag on our lawn and drives away (I’d already paid for it via cash app) and my brother manages to grab the bag before I can, I’m chasing after him and he sprints to the toilet and flushes it. 150$ of drugs down the toilet. I freak the fuck out and basically my family ends up calling the police and I’m screaming like a maniac when they show up, so they end up having probable cause to detain me, I almost even got tazed lol but once they pointed the taser I immediately chilled out and corporates with their orders, but rather than arrest me I was placed on a 72 hour psych hold, because my family essentially thought I was trying to commit suicide by knowingly trying to get more of the drug that had almost killed me twice in the past week, and because I was freaking the fuck out in front of the officers initially, they were able to get the 72 hour psych hold done.
The psych ward sucked ass, I’d popped two bars right before getting detained so for the first 24 hours I still felt okay but eventually I started to feel the benzo withdrawal start, on top of not even having my usual kratom, I was feeling like crap in the psych ward but otherwise I was the normalest person in there. A psychiatrist had chatted with me and I had explained I was not trying to kill myself, I was just trying to get a recreational high and had accidentally overdose in the week prior. Neither were a suicide attempt and I did not want to or have any plans to kill myself. There was one or two people constantly screaming in the psych ward, day in, day out. Also, another woman who was clearly schizophrenic or something randomly walked into my room at one point and just stood there. It was Fucking weird… honestly as I began to feel benzo withdrawal symptoms, the constant screaming from one of the patients in another room just began to make me feel like I was going crazy, or like I was in some kind of hell. After 36 hours of monitoring they could tell I was fine, and that I wasn’t at risk for attempting suicide, nor was I exhibiting any other symptoms like hearing voices, so they release me early, thank god. I rushed home and immediately popped a Xanax bar and a cup of kratom and was so thankful to be home. As the effects of the Xanax and the kratom washed over me, I felt at peace again after the hell that was the psych ward.
This was a big wake up call, I came clean to my family about my benzo dependence and also gave them all my debit cards or credit cards so I had no access to money. I cleaned myself up from everything else I’d been dabbling in, and was just back to taking my daily kratom and of course benzos. But I was trying to slowly taper myself off the benzos. Benzo withdrawal sucks, at times it feels almost like you are drowning, like you can barely breath. Tapering with a short acting benzo like alprazolam or etizolam is very difficult. I’d cut way back, and was maybe trying to get by on a single Xanax bar per day, split up into 3 or 4 pieces throughout the day.
But I guess I lowered my dose by too much and tapered too quickly because suddenly I’m waking up with my family all around me, they are on the phone with 911 again, and they seem really worried. Apparently they heard a bunch of loud noises and bangs and rushed up stairs and I was on my bed that’s against the wall, flopping around like a fish, having a full blown Grand Mal seizure. My chest is absolutely killing me by the time I got out of it, and my whole body just aches like crazy. I guess your muscles tense up an insane amount during a big seizure so your muscles feel sore and in general you feel like complete shit after a seizure. This was the first time I’d ever had a seizure. I immediately tell my family that it is a symptom of benzo withdrawal, and that I must have been tapering too quickly and went too long between doses. So I take a quarter of a Xanax bar and we wait for the ambulance. I go to the hospital and get all checked out, physically it turns out I’m fine, and I let them know I had a benzo addiction and dependence and had been tapering and trying to get off the stuff for the past month and that I guess I’d tapered too fast or waited too long between doses. And keep in mind I’ve been feeling super crappy and anxious, and had a boat load of other extremely unpleasant benzo withdrawal symptoms, over the last month or so, because of the taper, but I thought I’d be able to get through it without a major incident like a seizure because I was still taking some Xanax every day, basically just enough to keep the really bad withdrawal symptoms at bay. But clearly it was too much to soon.
The doctor at the ER gives me a card for something called the “RAAM Clinic” that is actually in the same hospital. Rapid Access Addiction Medicine is what it stands for. The doctor recommends I go there, and that they’d be able to help me do a doctor supervised taper. This place ended up being a life safer. I go the following Monday morning when the clinic is open and explain the whole situation and benzo addiction that I explained above. The only thing is my piss doesn’t show a positive for benzos… unfortunately the most recent bars I was taking either had etizolam in them or some other research chemical benzo that wouldn’t show up on a regular 10 panel drug test. But they can see in my records that I recently had a seizure. Anyways I bring them one of the Xanax bar’s I’d been taking, and they send it away for testing. It came back for etizolam and some other research chemical benzo. But this leaves them having no way to know how much Valium I’d need to start at for the taper, as they didn’t know how much benzo’s I’d truly been taking. So I end up having to go for two observation days where I had to stay at the clinic for 8 hours, 8am to 4pm (coming in the morning having taken no benzos) and a doctor or nurse would monitor me and start me off on 10mg of valium and monitor me through the day. Of course 10mg of valium barely makes a dent in the hour after they give it, so I explain I’m still feeling all kinds of withdrawal symptoms and anxiety, and they give me another 10mg and monitor me. Obviously if someone was lying about their benzo tolerance they’d appear drowsy and a little fucked up. Anyways by the end of the day they’d given me 10mg of Valium 4x throughout the day. That seemed to get me feeling almost normal. And then the next day I came in again for another 8 hours. Same deal. Ended up on 40mg of Valium as a starting point for my taper. Keep in mind I had just spent the past month tapering myself at home with the Xanax bars or whatever tf benzo was in those pressed bars, so I’d already lowered my tolerance quite a bit by going through that taper at home before the seizure.
Anyways 40mg ended up being a good starting point, it had me feeling pretty much normal without being impaired in any way, which is the goal of figuring out where to start your taper. Got a one week supply of Valium, 4 10mg pills per day. Gave it to a trusted family member, and that family member would give me the 4 Valium pills each morning. This was to avoid any temptation to take more. And it worked, I would visit the RAAM clinic once per week, be urine tested (if you have had a relapse or fail a drug test, they will never stop your taper, and they will never kick you out of the clinic, these guys are super harm reduction, science based, incredible empathetic doctors that treat addiction like a disease and not a moral failure) they just do the drug test so they have a true accurate representation of what substances you’ve used recently, talk about how it was going with the doctor, and we began tapering by 2mg every 2 weeks. Although the speed of the taper WAS ENTIRELY UP TO ME. Which I thought was amazing. At some points I’d go an extra week or two without dropping the dose. Anyways, by doing a really slow taper on a long half life benzo like Valium, which is the golden standard drug to use and how to taper off benzos according to the Ashton benzo taper manual. Over the course of the next year and a half I slowly kept tapering down, experiencing pretty much no withdrawal symptoms because it was such a long drawn out taper. It was smooth as butter. Towards the end I was only dropping by 1mg of Valium every couple of weeks. And I tapered all the way down to 1mg of Valium per day, and stayed on 1mg for 5 extra months lol. I told the doctor that even though I didn’t think the 1mg was really doing much at all, it was a psychological crutch and brought me comfort knowing I had it. Really I was just storing that 28mg of Valium I’d get each month and would occasionally take 5-10mg to chill out. Old habits die hard I guess hahaha. But after 5 months I finally jumped off and finished the taper. I had no noticeable withdrawal symptoms. We’d tapered from 40mg of Valium per day all the way down to 1mg per day, and 1mg is such a tiny dose of Valium in the end, that there just wasn’t any withdrawal from it. My brain had slowly adjusted to back to normal over the long drawn out taper. My GABA system clearly properly slowly reupregulated itself again. Which was amazing. And I was sober from benzos finally. That demon gone off my back. Because Valium(Diazepam) and all of its metabolites has between a 100-200 hour half life, it’s the perfect benzo for a nice and slow taper. It keeps you with a very steady blood concentration of the Valium, without the big ups and downs that would occur with a short half life benzo like Xanax.
Sorry for such an incredibly long post. I guess I’d never told this story before, I’ve never written it all down so I decided to just kind of try to paint the whole picture.
I’d really recommend you stop taking Xanax and instead stick with just the Valium. Find the starting dose for your taper. It seems like it would be around 80-100mg of Valium if you are taking 5mg of Xanax and 50mg of Valium every day right now.
You just want to find that right amount that had you feeling normal, no bad withdrawal symptoms but you also don’t want to lie to yourself and take so much that you are still catching a buzz and are feeling a little fucked up. Be honest with yourself. Find that starting dose for your taper and then slowly taper down by roughly 5% every 2 weeks. The Ashton Manual for benzo withdrawal goes into detail about this if you google it. Maybe give the Valium to a trusted family member or room mate and have them just give you your daily dosage each morning. I would usually split my daily Valium dosage up into a morning dose and an evening dose.
Good luck, I wish you all the best! A slow taper is really the only relatively painless way out of benzo addiction hell. Cold turkey off benzos can actually leave you brain damaged because it doesn’t give your GABA receptors anytime to slowly upregulate again like they do during a slow and long Valium taper. You can end up with Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms for years after you cold turkey off benzos, or even from too fast of a taper. So take your time, slow and steady wins the race. Again, good luck!
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