tapering off benzos is made much, much worse by drinking.
is he taking you down 1mg every three months? he almost has the idea, but not quite. you can help him out. drop yourself .25 every three weeks. should give you some left over, which is good because you’ll want the drops to be even smaller going from 1mg to none.
/\ That's fucked up.
OP, you should ask your doctor to taper you down slower, like drops no bigger than .5mgs although .25 would be better especially at the end. Dropping by 1mg is likely to cause unnecessary suffering imo, especially going from 1mg to 0. Also, adding alcohol to the situation is probably going to make things worse.
these posts are really accurate
So firstly, you mention he's trying to do a rather FAST taper on you, thats not very fair so, i think you should and while not trying to sound 'drug seeking' tell him how you honestly feel, that more or less... theyre helping you (i don't know if youre close enough to tell him about the drinking, if you suspect he'd get agitated then maybe don't, but I have personally expressed to my doctor once upon a time when i was drinking quite heavily, to give you an example, i could finish a rum bottle in an hour, and go for more, my routine was get smashed, cook food eat, continue getting smashed till i'd finally think its bed time, wake up, immediately make food cause my stomach would be out of whack from alcohol, make a coffee with some honey-whiskey in it or maple-whiskey, i do kinda miss those morning coffees, long story short, i drank alot but i was never exactly psychologically addicted to the drink, it was more somthing that made the day smoother so i didn't mind. at one point however, i brought it up with my doctor and told him that i was drinking to essentially cope with everything, told him how much i was drinking, (my doc relation ship did span over 20 years) so he instructed me that if i wanted to cut down, to taper my alcohol use first (i was consuming no less than a Litre of hard liquor a day) so i simply stopped indulging so often, there is a readjust period similar to what happens when you're withdrawing from stimulants, theres days where you feel simply 'off' but thats just the body and brain finding a new balance, and at some point tell him you'd like medication to help you, you'll probably get told as i did, 'fine, but you can't continue drinking especially on the medication' and i was rx'd 6x1mg/day kpin, which i got him to up it to 8mg, but the thing is, you're drinking and taking benzos, this is the opposite of what you should be doing.
you need to get a plan together, you don't really want to go back to eating xans etc, ok. so its cleanup time, you don't have to GIVE UP drinking, or any drug for that matter, but you can't indulge so regularly, once or twice a week is fine, but the body gets very accustomed to downers etc, so once you're able to withdraw from them is when it gets iffy, you'll most likely have some form of wd from the booze, but the benzos are supposed to be there to help that, and keep potential lethal effects at bay, and it's not neccesarily easy to be tapered, i do know this but you should be honest with your doctor if the taper is too quick, tell him you're experiencing anxiety, and it's making you drink which you don't want to do, it'll perhaps persuade him to find a 'maintainable' dose that both of you agree on
doctors aren't robots, you can discuss everything in detail, but he won't be pleased with the booze, they never are so tell him its because its aiding your anxiety or what not, because it seems like thats whats going on, cut back on the booze, because benzos are rx'd for those that are trying to quit drinking and eliminate 'alcoholism' from your life, and benzos do this effectively however and i'll quote my doctor on this 'They are more or less alcohol in a pill' which is probably why the doc wants to cut you down, 3mg isn't too high, so atleast you have that in your favor, but at the same time 3mg sounds like is helping and getting less isn't so this is a topic you need to discuss, you can be honest with your doctor if you think he can handle it, maybe don't tell him you've been boozing it out for so long, i think itd be fine to tell him you've noticed yourself starting to drink occasionally, and that lowering your kpin dose isn't good, but that you think you need to still use the medication because and this is somthing you have to really insist on,
THE MEDICATION HELPS. i'm sure the doctor will understand and take a different approach to your care. Below, keif suggested a great medication that might help you, when i wrote about abit aswell,
abapentinoids - Gabapentin (Neurontin) and Lyrica (Pregabalin)
- These seem to provide a lot of relief to a lot of people withdrawing and should not contribute to the length of your withdrawal. They should be fairly easy to get and Pregabalin has just recently become available as a generic, so it is not quite as prohibitively expensive. Anxiolysis, energy etc.
keif suggested a great medication that could aid, you can definately tell your doc you did some research and think that pregabalin might help you, he'll probably start you off on Gabapentin since its not as strong, but you should insist on the next visit the switch to pregab, i'll always advocate pregabalin, with one warning. Tolerance to pregabalin builds extroardinarily quick, so use it as sparingly as you can, but seems like it would fit this issue perfectly and it'll make tapering off benzos much easier.
May i also reccomend the easier to obtain 'Phenibut' dosed right, i'm not experienced with it that much so you can research that as an alternative gabapentinoid. but Gabapentinoids in general should not be dismissed as they have alot of benefits and potential for quite abit and can in some cases make plenty of types of withdrawal easy or easier. it definately aids in the psychological wd, it'll help with the anxiety, and 'off' feelings that you'll experience.
I hope you get better and stay mostly healthy - i wrote quite a detailed bit... i'm rather ampd right now but my intentions are good 
stay safe, try not to mix benzos and liquor too much it can't end great if you overdo it
~Zonxx
