5mg of valium is the standard initial pill dosage that valium comes in. it is, as advertised when valium first was marketed by the pharmaceutical companies when it first came to the market in the early 60s, as the drug that all good girls need to socially adjust to a life of happiness and cohesion within the parameters of a 'normal girl's' anxieties and phobias that come from leaving home, going to school, entering the secretarial pool, and being the best girlfriend, finance then housewife that was expected of women in the male dominated age of reason of that period of history.
anyways, 5 mg of valium is just a starting dose. it is virtually nothing. as evidenced by the fact that you had a reaction to the dosage of a 5 mg tablet, you have no experience with benzos. i'd highly recommend you keep it that way. they are wickedly addicting, and once dependent upon them, unusually likely to cause a seizure that will result in death when going through forced detox due to absence of the drug. and only the same benzo that you have been using, or another drug from the benzo class, can prevent that eventuality.
there is quite a true medical need for benzo's in the treatment of many psychiatric mood disorders. casual usage by the user who is not classified medically to need such a type of substance is going to provide a reaction different than the treatment of a patient prescribed it for medical needs. but, from experience and a lifetime of benzo usage for medical reasons, i can offer you this, benzo's never really get you "high", they are a CNS depressant, they relax you, make you less inhibited, make your Central Nervous System relay messages with less impulse intensity. so just be smart about it, you can, going from never having taken any benzo's in your life, take a 5 mg tablet and feel the designed effects of the drug, which are to calm, relax, slightly sedate and bring about a general light feeling of euphoria, like everything is ok, and betty crocker and you should go bake a cake for your loving husband, as he is coming home from work, will want his martini, and goodness gracious, the meatloaf is just about finished. where does the time go. then a nice sleep with prince valium for the night. but anyway.
but anyway, you can also take a handful of those 5 mg tablets, say 50mg in total, or 100 mg in total, or even 200 mg in total, and you will feel very little more than the minimal dosage of valium that initially prompted the euphoric effect, it will just half life at larger dosages in your system, so that feeling of euphoria and relaxation will last longer, while the intensity level increase on a quite skewed slope, very slowly. really just a few more of those 5 mg tablets to a new user will just knock you out and you'll get a good sleep, its not a party drug. i know this sounds counter to common sense, but it really is true.
i mean, take the example of someone who takes 8 mg of klonipin a day, then one day, swallowing 120mg's of klonipin at once to see if he is going to 'get off'. yes, there is a bit more of a 'i'm fucking stoned' reaction, and the half life of the drug takes much longer to work out of your system, so your in that euphoric world for longer, but there is no real amplitude of affect of the effect of the benzo. its more of a subtle climb. and sleeping straight for 96 hours. lucky, in that case, that the CNS depressant effect did not close down his airways.
this, in my opinion, makes benzo's a particularly unfit drug to abuse. medically, they are quite necessary, but you have to remember that this is not the marketing of 1960 when all good girls needed valium to deal with the stresses of their typing studies while going to school. these drugs are used for the treatment of very real, very documented psychiatric disorders where the needs of the treatment outweigh the potential side effects of fucking pharmicuticals, the ultimate of designed living, that have a targeted disease they are made for, a targeted effect for that treatment, and an FDA disclaimer of zero liability for unlabled use.
and with benzo's, especially with large dose continued usage, you risk a quick addiction, a quicker tolerance, and a severe chance of life threatening probabilities in the event of withdrawal, in particular, seizures. fatal seizures.
i really don't recommend benzo's at all for abuse potential, they just don't have that expected culumative effect that you think of when thinking of other substances, say, meth, or coke or barbituates. those, when taken in larger and larger amounts, have a higher and higher magnitue of kicking your ass high. benzo's don't chemically react this way in the body. the higher the dose, the deeper it is absorbed into the bone marrow of the patient, and the quicker dependency is established, and the greater the chance of a fatal event occuring in the case where the drug is not available for the constant, on the clock dosaging that will develop out of use of them.
i'd highly recommend against recreational benzo usage at anything more than an introductory dose, as thats all thats really to it. that calm, gentle feeling, or the effects intented for the psychiatric condition prescribed to treat, which is usually not the condition of wanting to chill out. the only reason to increase the dosage of a benzo is that the dosage taken has produced no discernable effect, in which case your really not reaching a "tolerance threshold", your reaching theraputic dosage levels.
best of luck.