Stuck in a rut

[misplaced energy]

I have been taking benzo's on and off for some years. The first time i knocked it on the head, i was lucky, taking 2mg a night every other day or so for a couple years with the odd break. I had minimal withdrawals apart from insomnia and panic attacks for a week but i was going through some other stuff at the time I've always suffered from anxiety and panic attacks. I didn't suffer any of the other horrific symptoms.

Like the fool i am after a good while i start to take them again with a vengeance after suffering a traumatic event which I've posted about. Diazepam xanax etizolam fluborazepam, other rc benzos before the ban. Basically whatever i could get. My tolerance now is insane for me. I don't take other downers. I take stims and occasionally psychedelics and drink alcohol whilst on other drugs recreationally, its borderline addiction as i get high nearly every weekend but i dont take drugs everyday, i never have apart from benzos and believe me i wish i hadn't.

Back to why I'm here. I was saying about my tolerance, I need 8mg etiz to even feel them.
Maybe it's psychological, I'm not sure because before i could get hold of them again i was only able to get fluborazepam which are very long acting. I feel no recreational effects from these at all. They don't help me sleep. Simply put anxiety at bay for a couple days. It's been well over a week and half since i last had the fluborazepam in a way to test myself but in all honesty i have no idea what I'm doing.

I've got to the point where i want to stop and i can go a good few days without any withdrawals, i manage to sleep. So for the past couple week I've only taken etizolam or fluborazepam once a week before that it was twice and before that it was daily but only at night.

Im wondering if my dependency is more psychological again but i dare not to find out. Sticking at my weekly dose when i begin to feel anxious. For certain reasons i cannot tell my doctor. I've tried cbt to help with my mental state. It didn't help.
I suffer quite bad from a number of things.
Most recently agoraphobia brought on by PTSD.

If i only start to feel like i need to dose around once a week is that good? I'm so worried im not helping myself because i THINK i will go into harsh withdrawals after around a week so i get anxious. Pop a few tablets and get a shit quality of sleep.
Something else I've noticed. I don't sleep as well. Without anything to help me sleep it takes longer but i sleep deeper.

If i was physically addicted could i continue to do what ive been doing or would i be going through physical withdrawal right now? I'm not in denial i know it's a problem but i just wanna know how big.

Im running out of sources so i have to quit. I only wanted what i thought was a magical cure to my mental health problems.

 

[Muzda Jonxx]

Second etizolam thread of the day.. Is it just etizolam you're taking now? I know what you mean about tolerance, at the height of the UK rc benzo craze I was buying them by the thousand and eating handfuls at a time. Literally. I couldn't tell you how much because I remember very little about that period. I got the odd snapshot still in my head, but that's it. Whole months of my life where I have no idea what I did. It ended me up in a police cell on more than one occasion for doing properly stupid things. What's saddest of all was that in the cell, all I could think of was when I was going to be set free, because I needed more etizolam.

Anyway, am I right in thinking you still got etizolam at your disposal? If so, you got to get on this now and start tapering down. Etizolam is the easiest benzo I've ever come off, but it's still no joke. If you cold turkey you could get seizures and all that other horrible stuff. I went through all that, but it was minor compared with coming off a comparable vallie / xanax habit.

Might be worth getting yourself to a GP, I did that and they agreed to a tightly controlled valium taper (starting at 30mg/day). It was still horrible, but nowhere near as horrible as cold turkey was.

 

[misplaced energy]

Wow! That's pretty crazy. I have never had a blackout. I've read about them but I've never taken more than i know i can handle because the thought of having a major blackout scares me. I've blacked out on alcohol alone and that was scary. I don't often drink without stimulants.
I have a small amount to cover a few weeks if i only take them once a week. Even writing this now though is malling me feel psychologically like i need some yet i had some a couple days ago. I take it you've managed to be clean from them? Well done. Even the thought of getting off them is horrid. I've never had any of the major withdrawal symptoms but they scare the crap outta me. That's why i was quite good before. I never built a tolerance at first years ago then i quit cold turkey and was fine. I know it won't be the case this time but only dosing once a week. I know if i can stick to that and lower by half a mg a week see how that hope whilst i wait for this CPN as I'm sure they will have more knowledge than my doctor that although he is a lovely man i doubt he knows enough to put me on a taper. I've not told him I've got a problem. Im too scared.

My doctor is not clued up at all. He told me he was prescribing me diazepam after i went through my ordeal and he'd actually prescribed me zopiclone. Because i pulled him on his mistake he a accused me of asking for addictive drugs but did actually prescribe me the lowest dose of diazepam.....2mg, they didn't help much and the whole thing made me feel tiny considering i was suffering really bad at the time from PTSD. I did go back for help and he prescribed me SSRI's which I've always refused but i wanted the psychiatric help. The CBT but that didn't help. Im getting a community psychiatric nurse as I'm struggling to leave the house. Maybe they can help better. I did mention to my other therapist that i self medicated. She said she'd mention it to my doctor which she did but he again went on to prescribe me a week worth of zopiclone telling me it was diazepam again. Pointless because the low dose doesn't touch me. May as well give me sugar pills.

 

[Muzda Jonxx]

Yeah, I haven't touched a benzo in years now - thanks! It was a tough haul but it's entirely doable.

I never blacked out on benzos, I still went to work, looked after my family, saw my friends blah blah. My short term memory was serviceable so I got away with it. Trouble is that benzos at both doses mess terribly with long term memory, so I have absolutely no recollection of that time whatsoever now. Sad really..

That's absolutely shocking behaviour from your doctor! Zopiclone most certainly isn't valium, it's not even a benzo. I got prescribed them for a couple of withdrawals when I hadn't slept for over a week, even taking the whole prescription in one go wouldn't knock me out. Plus it's primarily a sedative, so why on earth it was prescribed for daily maintenance is beyond me.

Any chance of seeing a different doctor? When it comes to dealing with addiction it's worth shopping around. I went through almost all the doctors in a practise, eventually one of the old guys who was on the board actually knew his stuff on the subject and actively helped me get my head straight.