Personally, I have found that overall, benzos are far more disruptive to quality, restorative sleep than one might believe when beginning to use them for that purpose. The problem is that they do, of course, assist in getting you to sleep, the same way that alcohol gets you to sleep as a CNS depressant, and we all know alcohol creates that trap for people that consume too much of it. In short, I find that being reliant on benzos for sleep, or in general, really gets you stuck in the loop of the initial chemical axiolysis, then rebound anxiety that appears to be even more intense than that which you were warring against in the first place.
I am just speaking for myself, but after using them on and off for some time, I really began to understand that benefits of not relying on them. In addition, I always find myself chasing pretty significant dysphoria that would usually be present in the morning, and even increased dysphoria between doses. This was always more true with me the higher the tolerance, of course, which is why I try to keep that low.
At this point, I have benzos available to me, but only use them occasionally and at low doses. Even with etiz, I usually keep it to .5 mg, with an occasional, additional .5 mg many hours later if I am just doing stuff around the house or whatever. I got stupid with Clon, Flubro, Flual, etc., at some point, and those, while they work, are far to problematic for regular use. Clon was the biggest nightmare, and I had to taper off after developing a tolerance, which was a nightmare. Weird pains in my hands, feet, tremors and uncontrollable shaking in my hands, cramping in my wrists and fingers, wicked headaches, and all manner of odd symptoms. And overall, I found the hard hitting RC "benzos" to be very dysphoric when the doses wore off, and in the end in general. Then you are stuck just looking for relief from the rebound anxiety and dysphoria that increases with tolerance.
So yeah...I find that having such things around for post-psychedelic come downs is really good, so I save them for that primarily. Other than that, I find the benzo pursuit akin to a dog chasing its tail. I get the inclination toward the pursuit, but I have learned for myself that in the end, I feel way better when not dependent on these chemicals. My sleep is far better, I recall dreams more vividly, I am less anxious overall, and I just feel far better. Like, markedly better even with daily, intermittent anxiety. I have just learned to understand and manage my anxiety far better not being on them. Way too much of a crutch for me, personally. In many ways, my take away from looking for relief through a chemical to be simply fantasy, as I have never found any drug to be anywhere near a viable solution for daily use for me, and I have done everything. Was a slave to opiates for quite a time, used psychedelics too much for many years, been through the benzo nightmare, smoked weed daily for years as well. Now, I have learned to live with intermittent use of THC, occasional psychs, no alcohol or opiates works best for me. And to be honest, I like being sober far more often than not, mostly because I am very busy and need to get lots of shit done in the real world. I had to go through hell to learn, but I sure am glad I did. What I really learned about benzos and me is that I actually contributed more to (or created) my "anxiety problem" by using benzos than by not doing so. I can say it is so because I feel way better not using them after hating being on them.
Anyway, to me, there is a sinister push to the harder hitting compounds that is fairly hard to deny if you use them too much, to any extent. Almost like a trade off for the axiolytic effects, we can experience a feeling of impending doom that becomes part of the pattern of use. Then, once we become dependent, the idea of not having them around provokes great fear and exaggerated anxiety that we are convinced can only be resolved by redosing, so we do. Then you are chasing the tolerance dragon which is when the fun really begins.
Dark, is the word I am looking for with the heavy hitters. I think Etizolam with its short half life is way more user friendly for obvious reasons, and I do not find the type of dysphoria with it that I found with Clon, Flubro, Flual. Again, keeping doses and tolerance low. These longer acting compounds just seemed to me to be too problematic unless you can keep the dosing and tolerance reasonable, which I know is the big challenge.
Just my two pennies worth...
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