Benzos Chronic (therapeutic) benzo use vs chronic Alcohol use

[Mycophile]

No, it's not. It's a completely different animal. Seizures from alcohol withdrawal only occur in people drinking large amounts and the PAWS from alcohol is not even in the same ballpark as serious benzo withdrawal, unless again you are talking about people consuming ungodly amounts (and even then Ive never heard of alcoholic suffering severe protracted withdrawal 5 years sober the way some benzo users do).

The comparison I was making was between moderate alcohol use (usually defined as one or two drinks per day) but up to a few beers let's say and daily therapeutic benzo usage levels like 1.5 miligrams of klonopin per day. The harms of benzos are vastly greater than the harms of alcohol in this case.

With alcohol, the toxic effects are extremely dose related. I regard alcohol as a relatively safe and benign substance at low doses, but the dangers rise exponentially as the dose rises and so large amounts are extremely harmful. Benzos on the other hand, are relatively safe and benign when used sporadically or for a very short time (often even in large doses), but the dangers rise exponentionally when they are taken daily for any extended period.

So with benzos, it's the length of usage that is the biggest determining factor whereas with alcohol it's the dose.

If you doubt what I am telling you is true just do some research on benzo withdrawal. You will entire websites like benzobuddies filled with people trying to recover from these drugs. They often have to taper for months or years and then spend months or years recovering after that and some never fully recover. I withdrew from benzos 10 years ago and it was horrendous, I won't even go into what those drugs did to me.

You just don't see this with alcohol. I challenge you to find me even one person who became ill for years because they stopped drinking their nightly glass of wine. Remember alcohol is one of the most commonly used substances on the planet, there are far more alcohol users than benzo users. If alcohol was causing effects like this the internet should be full of people complaining about how their brain is ruined because they stopped having a couple beers after work. You never see it.

I guess the takeaway is if you want to avoid the harms of benzos, only use them sporadically and if you want to avoid the harms of alcohol only use low doses, though it can be safely used more frequently than benzos as long as you stick to low to moderate doses.

The bolded is NOT true.

I've been told by doctors at a hospital that length of usage of benzos is irrelevant and only the dosage, so long as it is regularly, is what makes the danger.

You are right that the risk of WD is worse with regular low dose benzo use than regular low dose alcohol use, but other than that, in pretty much all other ways alcohol is more dangerous and I don't see how you can argue otherwise.

Again, overdose from alcohol whereas overdose from benzos doesn't happen without mixing in other drugs, liver damage from alcohol and not benzos, cancers relating to alcohol and not benzos, and still alcohol also being bad for the brain as well.

There are more negatives to alcohol use in equal proportion than to benzo use in equal proportion, other than the necessity of a taper for benzo use that may not be necessary for alcohol use.

I also know I was lucky, VERY lucky, but I withdrew from benzos after 10 years of use with no signs of WD. It might have been a fluke, but it was the case.

Overall, alcohol is just more dangerous in more ways.

While the internet is not full of people getting so much horrendous WD from alcohol as they do benzos, I am sure you can find statistics on yearly deaths related to alcohol as MASSIVELY exceeded yearly deaths due to alcohol use.

Alcohol is one of the biggest killers worldwide. You will never see the numbers of actual deaths attributed to benzo use as the number of deaths attributed to alcohol use.

I'll take even the worse WD over death, so if benzos = worse WD and too much booze = death, then for me.... benzos + worse WD >>> Alcohol + liver disease and death

 

[Mycophile]

Because they are, as I tried to explain above. There is a safe level of alcohol exposure for most of the population at least (some people should not drink obviously) but there is no safe level of daily benzo exposure. When benzos are taken every day - even in small amounts that barely even give you a buzz, there is still a risk they will cause changes to your brain that result in what is called protracted withdrawal syndrome which can last months, years or even indefinitely in some cases.

I have spent a lot of time in the benzo withdrawal community and I've seen so many cases of people prescribed what you would think was a minuscule dose, like .5 miligrams of klonopin per day, who had hellish experiences coming off it. They weren't even getting buzzed, at least with alcohol you have to drink enough to get buzzed before you get withdrawal.

It's just that the risks and dangers are different.

Yes, SMALL amounts of regular alcohol are less likely to cause dependence and brain changes than small amounts of regular benzos, and this sucks cause I need regular benzos.

BUT....this thread is about chronic but THERAPEUTIC benzo use vs SEVERE ALCOHOLISM, NOT chronic benzo use vs chronic VERY LIGHT alcohol use, and there's no question that severe alcoholism is related to more fatalities and deaths per year than therapeutic benzo usage when not combined with other drugs.

There have also been studies showing that just a couple drinks a day is more dangerous than we thought.

I wish this wasn't true cause I drink also.

They have different dangers related to them, but booze is MORE TOXIC and overall worse for the body and internal organs and overall lifespan than benzo use, whereas benzos have worse WD in terms of it developing more quickly.

 

[BzCurio]

Do you really believe that it's IMPOSSIBLE for a person who has been on long term benzos to re-learn to cope with anxiety off of it even after years?

No I was simply saying it will need to be re learned, which can be a process in itself. This is why I try and keep any daily dosing down to 'keeping the edge off' so I still feel anxiety and have to respond to it.

 

[Lucy20]

Im on a therapeutic dose of clonazepam at .5 two times a day as needed.
I would think alcohol would be the worst of both, heck i think alcohol is the most dangerous drug out there, but legal.
Ive had family members die of either liver cirrhosis and withdrawal.
I know noone dead from therapeutic benzos

 

[Keif' Richards]

Alcohol is really a silent killer in my opinion. If I walk to the store to get smokes or whatever, I'll pass at least a dozen bums on the way. How many of them are sick from Alcohol withdrawal? Who knows. I pass people who are clearly shaking and in need of a drink. Around here though, the only think people will give any attention is the Heroin. Alcohol is, in reality a much greater drain on society and affects more people than Heroin or other drugs. Let's get real, Alcohol is probably the most physically harmful substance there is.

 

[FutureReference]

Alcohol is really a silent killer in my opinion. If I walk to the store to get smokes or whatever, I'll pass at least a dozen bums on the way. How many of them are sick from Alcohol withdrawal? Who knows. I pass people who are clearly shaking and in need of a drink. Around here though, the only think people will give any attention is the Heroin. Alcohol is, in reality a much greater drain on society and affects more people than Heroin or other drugs. Let's get real, Alcohol is probably the most physically harmful substance there is.

Amen!! From people who die in a single night from alcohol poisoning, to those who destroy their liver over years, to the people who lose their families and homes; Alcohol is by far the most damaging substance in my eyes as well. The easy availability makes it popular, but after seeing a drunk driver murder a pedestrian in front of me I will never respect that stuff. Evil substance

 

[BzCurio]

The liver argument completely blew past me and I am very glad you guys brought it up.

Chronic use of both can't be compared fairly because of the liver damage caused by alcohol, cirrhosis is a complete wildcard in this comparison.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3321494/

According to some reports, cirrhosis does not develop below a lifetime alcohol consumption of 100 kg of undiluted alcohol[8]. This amount corresponds to an average daily intake of 30 grams of undiluted alcohol for 10 years. Heavy alcoholics consuming at least 80 g of alcohol per day for more than 10 years will develop liver disease at a rate of nearly 100%.

14 grams of alcohol is roughly one beer: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/what-standard-drink

Somewhere between 2-6 beers a day is enough to bring on cirrhosis after a decade, being almost guaranteed at 6 and "low risk" (according to previous links) at 2. The whole argument can be thrown out by the fact that someone on a therapeutic benzo dose may still be alive well after the alcohol user, even if they just drank to a buzz.

 

[burn out]

It's just that the risks and dangers are different.

Yes, SMALL amounts of regular alcohol are less likely to cause dependence and brain changes than small amounts of regular benzos, and this sucks cause I need regular benzos.

BUT....this thread is about chronic but THERAPEUTIC benzo use vs SEVERE ALCOHOLISM, NOT chronic benzo use vs chronic VERY LIGHT alcohol use

Umm, no it isn't. As strange it is that I have to be the one to tell you this considering you posted the thread, the original post mentions nothing about "severe alcoholism" in fact it doesn't even mention alcoholism. I haven't read the entire thread so I don't know if you changed the subject later on in an attempt to make benzos look better (since that's all you appear interested in) but I was simply responding to the original question.

They have different dangers related to them, but booze is MORE TOXIC and overall worse for the body and internal organs and overall lifespan than benzo use, whereas benzos have worse WD in terms of it developing more quickly.

No, it isn't or least you certainly have not provided convincing evidence to that effect. Some studies have found increased mortality risk associated with benzodiazepine use and this study shows a significant association with cancer risk: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5731963/.

Everyone knows that severe alcoholism is terrible for you and kills you but the jury is still out on whether moderate drinking reduces life expectancy or to what degree and what level. It all comes down to the dosage with alcohol, whereas with benzos the risks are more related to the length of use than the dose. Even low doses taken every day for a long period can cause serious problems for many people.

 

[burn out]

I went over withdrawal in my main post. Withdrawal from benzos at therapeutic levels is often asymptomatic, from the doctor that developed the method herself, stating that fears of withdrawal are often overblown due to horror stories from heavy abusers/street addicts that may have gone through rapid detox by a bad doctor or ran out of supply. Yes, horror stories will gravitate towards sites like benzo buddies but there are already anecdotes in this thread of asymptomatic withdrawal. The people who tapered off without issue aren't online sharing their experience. This is true for all drugs. Read some SSRI horror stories, yet they are some of the most prescribed medications. There used to be a site called paxilprogress, filled with people struggling to get off the SSRI paxil.

We are not talking about a "Nightly glass of wine", that was not the comparison here. It was the outlined "low risk" limit, which is 14 beers a week for men.

LOL so is this thread only about men, then? Because I don't think you mentioned that either. It seems the goalposts keep moving...but moderate drinking is typically defined as one drink per day for women and 1-2 drinks per day for men. So, one glass of wine would quality (at least for women) and 2 beers a day or glasses of wine a day for men.

Of course I am aware of paxilprogress and the fact that these types of sites draw the worst cases. My point was that sites like these don't even exist for alcohol, even though alcohol has far more users. Even if a small percentage of alcohol users experienced the sort of neurological symptoms associated with protracted benzo withdrawal, the internet should be full of folks complaining about how drinking two beers a day ruined their life...and yet you just don't see it. I've never met or heard about a single person saying that moderate drinking gave them a protracted withdrawal syndrome like what benzos can do whereas new people are registering on the benzo forums every day sharing their stories of this very thing. I've been to AA meetings and even among the heavy alcoholics the focus is usually on combating the urge to keep drinking or the trouble drinking got them into, not "protracted alcohol withdrawal syndrome". Yes, I know alcohol can cause PAWS and heavy alcoholics do deal with it but it's just nowhere near on the scale of what benzo users deal with except perhaps among the heaviest long term drinkers who have detoxed many times and just completely messed up their brains with extreme alcohol abuse. It doesn't happen to Joe down the street who likes to have a couple beers after work.

 

[burn out]

You keep saying the word buzz, which makes be think you were seeking their use recreationally. The few people I've talked to saying they are withdrawing badly from their "0.5mg script" weren't actually taking 0.5mg.

Alcohol and benzos both alter gene expression with daily use. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4785873/ & https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9586850

As @FutureReference pointed out, perhaps there is no hard evidence of lasting withdrawals from long term alcohol use because it only takes about a solid 10 years of moderate-heavy drinking to start to damage the liver beyond repair. At that point any withdrawal "symptom" may be attributed to the degrading organ.


Also, yes, alcohol is lumped in with drugs that cause protracted withdrawal: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19403807

I have spent many years in the benzo withdrawal community and I have talked to many people who were taking 1 mg per day or less and suffered bad withdrawals, people who never abused drugs in their life. Yes I was taking them at least in part for the buzz ( I also had horrible anxiety) but I am a drug addict so of course I liked the buzz, I never claimed I was only using them therapeutically.

Next, liver disease and withdrawal symptoms would not be difficult to distinguish between. Withdrawal symptoms would go away when alcohol use was resumed, whereas symptoms associated with liver disease would not. Furthermore there are tests which can measure liver function, so again it would not be difficult at all to distinguish people those suffering from cirrhoses and those suffering PAWS simply by performing liver tests to see if they were indeed suffering from liver disease. Third the symptoms of liver disease and alcohol withdrawal are not the same.

Somewhere between 2-6 beers a day is enough to bring on cirrhosis after a decade, being almost guaranteed at 6 and "low risk" (according to previous links) at 2. The whole argument can be thrown out by the fact that someone on a therapeutic benzo dose will still be alive well after the alcohol user, even if they just drank to a buzz.

You misread the study. You are vastly underestimating the liver's ability to handle alcohol. The study says that 10 years of six beers a day will cause liver disease (NOT CIRRHOSIS) in nearly 100% of drinkers. There are three stages of alcoholic liver disease, alcoholic hepatitis, fatty liver and finally cirrhoses. The first two stages, alcoholic hepatitis and fatty liver are both entirely reversible. The liver is not "damaged beyond repair"as you claim. I have known people who drank a fifth of liquor a day for 20 years and did not have cirrhoses. I have met alcoholics who drank a 12 pack a day for decades and their livers tested normal. Go to Russia and you'll find tons of old men who have been drinking way more than the recommended amount of vodka for their entire life and have no major health problems Yes, alcohol does kill a lot of people in Russia but it's nowhere near 100% of alcoholics developing cirrhoses, it's actually only a minority (similar to how only a minority of smokers get cancer or emphysema) and scientists are still trying to determine why this is.

Finally I'd like to point out that cocaine and heroin are also included on that list of drugs that cause prolonged withdrawal. That is true. But my point is that it does not mean it is comparable to the phenomenon of protracted benzodiazepine withdrawal. You need to read more benzo withdrawal stories. I have withdrawn from heroin also. It can have you feeling pretty rough for a few months but really after 2 weeks off you are already feeling way better than you did the first week. With benzos, after one full year I had not improved at all yet. The recovery from benzos is just orders of magnitude slower than these other drugs.

 

[BzCurio]

Umm, no it isn't. As strange it is that I have to be the one to tell you this considering you posted the thread, the original post mentions nothing about "severe alcoholism" in fact it doesn't even mention alcoholism. I haven't read the entire thread so I don't know if you changed the subject later on in an attempt to make benzos look better (since that's all you appear interested in) but I was simply responding to the original question.



No, it isn't or least you certainly have not provided convincing evidence to that effect. Some studies have found increased mortality risk associated with benzodiazepine use and this study shows a significant association with cancer risk: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5731963/.

Everyone knows that severe alcoholism is terrible for you and kills you but the jury is still out on whether moderate drinking reduces life expectancy or to what degree and what level. It all comes down to the dosage with alcohol, whereas with benzos the risks are more related to the length of use than the dose. Even low doses taken every day for a long period can cause serious problems for many people.

I started the thread not Myco, correct, was never about alcohol abuse or heavy drinking

Very cool study, thank you for that. Looks like RR = Relative Risk, so it increases lifetime risk by roughly 1.2% across the board (per 5 years of usage?), so a cancer with a lifetime risk of 0.02% is now 0.024%? Is that correct? Alcohol looks to have a RR of 2-3%, cigarettes 17-20%, and for the sake of ridiculous comparison, 2 cups of coffee a day is 2.1% RR for lung.

Link seems to be related to inflammation, so the longer you use them you essentially give yourself chronic inflammation in the same way alcohol causes inflammation if I read that right. Probably why they're pretty close.

It's also worth mention that stress/anxiety such as GAD on the body also increases cancer risk on it's own. So in this case the comparison would not be risk between a non-user and a recreational user but a sufferer and a therapeutic user.

 

[BzCurio]

You misread the study. You are vastly underestimating the liver's ability to handle alcohol. The study says that 10 years of six beers a day will cause liver disease (NOT CIRRHOSIS) in nearly 100% of drinkers. There are three stages of alcoholic liver disease, alcoholic hepatitis, fatty liver and finally cirrhoses. The first two stages, alcoholic hepatitis and fatty liver are both entirely reversible. The liver is not "damaged beyond repair"as you claim. I have known people who drank a fifth of liquor a day for 20 years and did not have cirrhoses. I have met alcoholics who drank a 12 pack a day for decades and their livers tested normal. Go to Russia and you'll find tons of old men who have been drinking way more than the recommended amount of vodka for their entire life and have no major health problems Yes, alcohol does kill a lot of people in Russia but it's nowhere near 100% of alcoholics developing cirrhoses, it's actually only a minority (similar to how only a minority of smokers get cancer or emphysema) and scientists are still trying to determine why this is.

Thank you for this as well, I appreciate you steering this topic away from anecdotes so a fair comparison can be made.

Also to those of you shaming alcohol due to its societal/family/relationship damage are kind of missing the point. I agree on all fronts but that wasn't really the point of the comparison. Someone having a couple beers after work isn't necessarily ruining their marriage or being an absent father.

The recovery from benzos is just orders of magnitude slower than these other drugs.

Any reason as to why? From my understanding the GABA system bounces back quite rapidly. Downregulation of GABA may not be possible at all: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3321276/ and if it is it appears transient and short lived: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8818332/

From reading the wiki page on benzo tolerance all fingers appear to point to the glutamate system which is no shocker. Glutamate is also affected by alcohol though, so what could be going on in the two scenarios?

 

[Mycophile]

Umm, no it isn't. As strange it is that I have to be the one to tell you this considering you posted the thread, the original post mentions nothing about "severe alcoholism" in fact it doesn't even mention alcoholism. I haven't read the entire thread so I don't know if you changed the subject later on in an attempt to make benzos look better (since that's all you appear interested in) but I was simply responding to the original question.



No, it isn't or least you certainly have not provided convincing evidence to that effect. Some studies have found increased mortality risk associated with benzodiazepine use and this study shows a significant association with cancer risk: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5731963/.

Everyone knows that severe alcoholism is terrible for you and kills you but the jury is still out on whether moderate drinking reduces life expectancy or to what degree and what level. It all comes down to the dosage with alcohol, whereas with benzos the risks are more related to the length of use than the dose. Even low doses taken every day for a long period can cause serious problems for many people.

Ok, I had interpreted "chronic drinking" to be alcoholism, cause that's what it sounds like to me.

Who considers "chronic" usage of any substance to only mean very low level amounts on a regular basis?

I guess I don't.


I did NOT start the thread. BzCurio did.

Also, as I explained, I was at a hospital where they took me off benzos after being on 1.5mgs a day of Klonopin for 10 years, and while I was certainly a freak case in that I had no symptoms of acute WD, the doctors explained to me very carefully that the severity of WD is NOT dependent on length of usage but rather dose.

If you want to debate someone who knows more about that then debate OP, which is NOT me, but these doctors have more credentials than you and said I'd be at greater risk having taken 4mgs daily for 6 weeks than 1.5mgs daily for 10 years.

Also, the jury really is not out regarding whether or not TRUE CHRONIC heavy usage of alcohol reduces life expetancy.

Web Md says 4 beers is enough to shorten your life span.

I would consider 4 beers a day, for someone with a tolerance, to be on par with 1.5mgs of Klonpopin a day, which is what I take.

1-2 beers a day, which is what you are talking about, would probably equate to like 0.25--0.50mgs of Klonopiin daily, and while I think that using that amount of Klonopin is worse for you overall, that's not going to be very hard to get off of and not likely IMO to lead to long term health consequences either.

Health Risks of Alcohol

Drinking too much alcohol regularly can damage your body and your brain. Find out what can happen, and how to get help.

www.webmd.com

"If you have a little too much alcohol once in a while, it probably won’t do lasting damage if you’re otherwise healthy. But it’s a different story if you regularly drink heavily.

For most men, that’s defined as more than 4 drinks a day, or 14 or 15 in a week. For women, heavy drinking is more than 3 drinks in a day, or 7 or 8 per week."

Also:

"The Low Risk Drinking Guidelines define a standard drink as 5 oz. of wine, 1.5 oz of spirits or 12 oz. of beer. (Remember, coolers and some beers have more alcohol than a standard drink.)

Not drinking at all carries the lowest risk for an alcohol-related problem. The risk is not zero, however, because you could be killed by a drinking driver, as my mother was.

The guidelines for low-risk drinking set the limit at two standard drinks in any one day. They further set a weekly limit of 14 standard drinks for men and 9 for women.

To a former alcoholic these limits seem comically low, but the research suggests that the risks go up substantially if you drink more than the two drinks and 14 or 9 total for the week."



Hey man, I also drink alcohol and would LOVE to believe that 3 beers a day (VERY moderate drinking IMO) is pretty risk free, but it's not according to multiple sources.

Neillneill.com

www.neillneill.com

Also, it seems like pretty much every post in the thread that we are not talking about drinking 1-2 beers a day, we are talking about drinking that is at least somewhat heavier than that, so if I misread the OPs intention then that is why.

 

[Mycophile]

LOL so is this thread only about men, then? Because I don't think you mentioned that either. It seems the goalposts keep moving...but moderate drinking is typically defined as one drink per day for women and 1-2 drinks per day for men. So, one glass of wine would quality (at least for women) and 2 beers a day or glasses of wine a day for men.

Of course I am aware of paxilprogress and the fact that these types of sites draw the worst cases. My point was that sites like these don't even exist for alcohol, even though alcohol has far more users. Even if a small percentage of alcohol users experienced the sort of neurological symptoms associated with protracted benzo withdrawal, the internet should be full of folks complaining about how drinking two beers a day ruined their life...and yet you just don't see it. I've never met or heard about a single person saying that moderate drinking gave them a protracted withdrawal syndrome like what benzos can do whereas new people are registering on the benzo forums every day sharing their stories of this very thing. I've been to AA meetings and even among the heavy alcoholics the focus is usually on combating the urge to keep drinking or the trouble drinking got them into, not "protracted alcohol withdrawal syndrome". Yes, I know alcohol can cause PAWS and heavy alcoholics do deal with it but it's just nowhere near on the scale of what benzo users deal with except perhaps among the heaviest long term drinkers who have detoxed many times and just completely messed up their brains with extreme alcohol abuse. It doesn't happen to Joe down the street who likes to have a couple beers after work.

First off, I do not know why you quoted me as I didn't say what you wrote above.

2nd, if anyone had EVER said this thread was about DRINKING ONE OR 2 BEERS A DAY vs benzo use I'd have said drinking one or two drinks a day is safer, but I never heard anyone say that.

I interpreted (perhaps incorrectly) chronic alcohol use to mean some form of alcoholism, because that is what it sounds like to me.

I personally will admit my bias towards benzos because I have needed Klonopin for years or else I cannot function, but I am sick and tired of everyone attacking them when the truth is we don't really know that they are as dangerous as many people claim.

And there is no medical usage for alcohol. It is not prescribed, whereas benzos are, and I believe there are reasons for that.

So, yeah, sure, 1-2 drinks a day is safer than 0.5mgs of Klonopin a day, but I took this thread to mean more than that.

Also, honesltly I think if we compare the WORST benzo use WHILE UNDER A DOCTORS CARE....like 4mgs of Klonopin a day (I have never heard that prescribed) vs the WORST alcohol use (or at least not the worst because we'd have to have the benzo dose be higher), but lets say a six pack a day?

Yeah....I think a six pack of beer every single day of your life will kill you faster than 4mgs of Klonopin a day.

Certainly if we raise it more, like 6mgs of Klonopin vs 10 shots of whisky a day?

The whisky is killing you faster.

 

[Mycophile]

I have spent many years in the benzo withdrawal community and I have talked to many people who were taking 1 mg per day or less and suffered bad withdrawals, people who never abused drugs in their life. Yes I was taking them at least in part for the buzz ( I also had horrible anxiety) but I am a drug addict so of course I liked the buzz, I never claimed I was only using them therapeutically.

Next, liver disease and withdrawal symptoms would not be difficult to distinguish between. Withdrawal symptoms would go away when alcohol use was resumed, whereas symptoms associated with liver disease would not. Furthermore there are tests which can measure liver function, so again it would not be difficult at all to distinguish people those suffering from cirrhoses and those suffering PAWS simply by performing liver tests to see if they were indeed suffering from liver disease. Third the symptoms of liver disease and alcohol withdrawal are not the same.



You misread the study. You are vastly underestimating the liver's ability to handle alcohol. The study says that 10 years of six beers a day will cause liver disease (NOT CIRRHOSIS) in nearly 100% of drinkers. There are three stages of alcoholic liver disease, alcoholic hepatitis, fatty liver and finally cirrhoses. The first two stages, alcoholic hepatitis and fatty liver are both entirely reversible. The liver is not "damaged beyond repair"as you claim. I have known people who drank a fifth of liquor a day for 20 years and did not have cirrhoses. I have met alcoholics who drank a 12 pack a day for decades and their livers tested normal. Go to Russia and you'll find tons of old men who have been drinking way more than the recommended amount of vodka for their entire life and have no major health problems Yes, alcohol does kill a lot of people in Russia but it's nowhere near 100% of alcoholics developing cirrhoses, it's actually only a minority (similar to how only a minority of smokers get cancer or emphysema) and scientists are still trying to determine why this is.

Finally I'd like to point out that cocaine and heroin are also included on that list of drugs that cause prolonged withdrawal. That is true. But my point is that it does not mean it is comparable to the phenomenon of protracted benzodiazepine withdrawal. You need to read more benzo withdrawal stories. I have withdrawn from heroin also. It can have you feeling pretty rough for a few months but really after 2 weeks off you are already feeling way better than you did the first week. With benzos, after one full year I had not improved at all yet. The recovery from benzos is just orders of magnitude slower than these other drugs.

So I suppose I am an anomaly and got VERY lucky, but I took 1.5mgs of Klonopin a day for 10 years and got ZERO acute WD when given a shitty taper off of it.

I think the doctors were GROSSLY negligent, and I needed the Klonopin again after 9 months cause my anxiety returned, but there is such thing as asymptomatic benzo WD.

Overall....I DO think the WD from benzos is worse and their addictive potential is FAR worse than alcohol, no question about it.

I also think 2 beers a day is safer than a small amount of benzos a day.

BUT....I think alcohol is BY FAR THE MORE LETHAL of the 2 to the body as a whole when both are taken to their extremes.

Alcohol is much more easily able to cause CNS depression leading to death than benzos which rarely do when NOT mixed with other substances, and does far worse damage to the liver.

Overall, they pose DIFFERENT risks.

All I know is, I owe a SERIOUS debt to whoever created Klonopin because without it I don't know if I'd be able to handle life so well or have the career I have.

 

[Mycophile]

The liver argument completely blew past me and I am very glad you guys brought it up.

Chronic use of both can't be compared fairly because of the liver damage caused by alcohol, cirrhosis is a complete wildcard in this comparison.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3321494/


14 grams of alcohol is roughly one beer: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/what-standard-drink

Somewhere between 2-6 beers a day is enough to bring on cirrhosis after a decade, being almost guaranteed at 6 and "low risk" (according to previous links) at 2. The whole argument can be thrown out by the fact that someone on a therapeutic benzo dose may still be alive well after the alcohol user, even if they just drank to a buzz.

@BzCurio: So when you made this thread, what did you mean by "chronic alcohol use"?

Did you really mean only 1-2 beers a day vs like 0.5mgs of Klonopin a day? (if we are going that low with beer we have to go that low with Klonopin, and honestly, THAT little alcohol should be more like 0.25mgs a day).

If that was what you meant, I'd have thought benzos were worse, but "chronic" to me sounds like the person is at least drinking enough to get a significant buzz on, probably for a person with a tolerance at least 4 drinks, not just a tiny little bit.

So, has burn out changed your opinion, or do you still think overall that alcohol is more dangerous??

Me personally, I believe that in low to moderate amounts, that benzos obviously produce far worse risk of dependency, and worse risk of dependency overall.

But I believe that alcohol is more damaging to internal organs and overall health regarding weight gain and loss, and that taken to their extremes, that extremely excessive and chronic benzo use WITHOUT mixing with other drugs, is less likely to kill you as quickly or live as much permanent damage on the body as extreme alcoholism, and that in terms of fatalities and deaths per year, even if people had equal access to benzos as they do alcohol, that alcohol would still be by far the worse killer of the 2.

So I think they are bad for you in different ways, but taken to extremes, I think alcohol is the one more likely to kill you.

I acknowledge the dangers of benzos, but i just can't stand how much everyone bashes them when so many people like me need them to make it through life.

We are basically shamed and told that what we are doing is too dangerous even if it helps us to live our lives, and people don't acknowledge how benzos help us with quality of life and how bad living with anxiety can be, and only the physical dangers they pose.

On the other hand, alcohol has been use for so long that it is very easy for people to "poo poo" its dangers.

Unfortunately, I use both alcohol recreationally and benzos therapeutically, so I get the worst of both worlds, but the difference is that I won't go around defending alcohol's therapeutic usage, because it really doesn't have much of one, and won't try to tell heavy drinkers over and over about the dangers of drinking because most people already know, whereas I am constantly being told I should stop using the medications that I am legally prescribed and which help me with a condition, because of the dangers associated with them.

If I could stop Klonopin, believe me I would, and I hope to in the future.

 

[BzCurio]

he doctors explained to me very carefully that the severity of WD is NOT dependent on length of usage but rather dose.

Think you may have slightly misread @burn out 's post. He is not talking about WD getting worse with length of use, just the neurological (and apparently carcinogenic) consequences of benzo use, which if my read over is correct isn't *that* significant, but given how close it is to alcohol it was definitely not worthy of ignoring. The study states the longer you are on benzos the more your risk of certain cancers increases, same with alcohol usage.

WD's being worse the longer you are on benzos (provided no dose is increased) can be debated. As far as I'm aware once you enter steady state, you will become fully dependent in about 1 additional month. At that point your brain does not care about any further time spent on the drugs as the adaptations have already taken place. Take SSRI's as an example, the adaptations are done in about 3 weeks.

The only way WD's can be worse with time is if you withdrawal multiple times. This is a known phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindling_(sedative–hypnotic_withdrawal)

 

[BzCurio]

@BzCurio: So when you made this thread, what did you mean by "chronic alcohol use"?

In the very first post I outlined low risk chronic alcohol use with what health officials deemed "low risk". It appears to be 14 beers per week for men.

The point I've been getting at all this time is: Why is there a low risk range for alcohol but not benzos? If the answer is WD or PAWS, mechanically what is going on that makes it different from alcohol? We have already recognized that alcohol does in fact have PAWS, but I think a big thing not being looked at is who is more likely to be aware of PAWS? Someone who went to the doctors for anxiety, ended up on benzos, and went off of them, or someone who just routinely bought cold beers? The latter group could be unaware that PAWS even exists with alcohol and at that point it is very easy to point the finger at life stresses or anxiety *onset* in late age.

 

[Mycophile]

In the very first post I outlined low risk chronic alcohol use with what health officials deemed "low risk". It appears to be 14 beers per week for men.

The point I've been getting at all this time is: Why is there a low risk range for alcohol but not benzos? If the answer is WD or PAWS, mechanically what is going on that makes it different from alcohol? We have already recognized that alcohol does in fact have PAWS, but I think a big thing not being looked at is who is more likely to be aware of PAWS? Someone who went to the doctors for anxiety, ended up on benzos, and went off of them, or someone who just routinely bought cold beers? The latter group could be unaware that PAWS even exists with alcohol and at that point it is very easy to point the finger at life stresses or anxiety *onset* in late age.

Ok, I didn't understand that that was your intention with the thread.

So, do you have an opinion on overall, which is the more dangerous substance, in terms of alcohol vs benzos?

Also, I think you might have mentioned you used benzos before (not sure if you did), but don't you find that it gets frustrating hearing so many people warn only about the dangers of benzos and not the difficulty in certain people dealing with their anxiety without them?

There are any number of medicines which have serious risks and side effects associated with them, but I don't usually hear that many people preaching about how wrong it is for people to take these medications because of their side effects and risks like I do with benzos (with the exception of SSRIS which I also hear about).

I think It gets to be a bit much at times frankly.

 

[BzCurio]

So, do you have an opinion on overall, which is the more dangerous substance, in terms of alcohol vs benzos?

I'd say alcohol. Benzos are an isolated (but potent) aspect already contained within alcohol. Alcohol affects many more parts of the body and brain - which begs the question again, why is there low risk alcohol usage?

Also, I think you might have mentioned you used benzos before (not sure if you did), but don't you find that it gets frustrating hearing so many people warn only about the dangers of benzos and not the difficulty in certain people dealing with their anxiety without them?

Very. I struggled to live a normal life before being introduced to Klonopin (through my mother during a breakdown). Not only did I struggle but I was also very against medication and tried all other possible routes first. While it's unfortunate that street users go through hell and people who may not need them end up on them, the doctors need to be blamed, not the drug. The crusade on benzos feels like a crusade on wheelchairs for lack of a better comparison.

Would I give 15 years of my late stage life to be able to experience being young and traveling? Absolutely.

With that said when life slows down I will try to hop off them at my own pace, but I have no desire to do so right now.