Been taking 10mg valium a day once recreationally. Would love advice on best way to taper off without a doctor or medical help unless absolutely necessary. After knowing already how dangerous these drugs are I dont even want to get there with this. I would like to wash my hands of it all sooner rather than later. Any help is appreciated.
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BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic
Valium 10mg a day, one week, want to stop.
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So you have only been taking the 10 mg of Valium once a day for a week? Do you have a history with Benzos and Benzo withdrawal? If not, Its safe to say, you can either cold turkey, but may have some slight withdrawal, after 1 WEEK, I doubt anything Serious.
Or you can just slowly Decrease the dose over the next month to minimize any sort of Withdrawal.
But As someone who was on Benzos and Tapered off them(which was hell), 1 Week really isn't enough time to become Physically hooked. Im not saying you wont feel something if you cold turkey, but I doubt you'd get any Life threatening withdrawals Like seizures. Seizures usually only ever happen if you have been on them for a LONG period of time, on a very high dose and just Stop. A Long time like months and months and months or years. Seizures also only ever happen if you have a TBI or a Seizure disorder.
If none of those 3 points above apply to you^(Having a seizure disorder or TBI or a history of long term benzo use), then Your pretty safe to just quit or taper if you wanna feel better about it. good luck !
Or you can just slowly Decrease the dose over the next month to minimize any sort of Withdrawal.
But As someone who was on Benzos and Tapered off them(which was hell), 1 Week really isn't enough time to become Physically hooked. Im not saying you wont feel something if you cold turkey, but I doubt you'd get any Life threatening withdrawals Like seizures. Seizures usually only ever happen if you have been on them for a LONG period of time, on a very high dose and just Stop. A Long time like months and months and months or years. Seizures also only ever happen if you have a TBI or a Seizure disorder.
If none of those 3 points above apply to you^(Having a seizure disorder or TBI or a history of long term benzo use), then Your pretty safe to just quit or taper if you wanna feel better about it. good luck !
Thank you so much. This really helped with my recent anxiery about this sort of thing. My theory was to wait and see if any bad withdrawals started to hit then take a lower dose to help subside the symptoms. After several different google sesrches. There seemed to be no information about only a weeks use of benzos. Therefore I decided to become a new member and seek help feomnthe community. It was relieving gettingnsuch a quick response. Thank you again.
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To be clear OP, you're implying that you've only been using Benzodiazepines for about one week? If that is the case, then you should have no serious fear of withdrawal. I would hazard a guess that all, if any of your symptoms upon cessation will be entirely psychosomatic. What I mean, is that your own apprehension over stopping the use might cause a small amount of fear and anxiety, but otherwise, one week of use is not enough to make a meaningful difference in your physiology that would lead to a serious withdrawal syndrome.
You should be totally fine.
I'll share with you a personal anecdote. I was in a psych ward for about 14 days when I was 19. While there, I convinved the docs to give me 2mg Clonazepam per day for the whole extent of my stay. This dosage of Benzodiazepine is roughly double what you've been using. When I was released, I had no prescriptions and experienced 24 hours or so of mild, heightened anxiety, but was back to normal within a day.
You should be totally fine.
I'll share with you a personal anecdote. I was in a psych ward for about 14 days when I was 19. While there, I convinved the docs to give me 2mg Clonazepam per day for the whole extent of my stay. This dosage of Benzodiazepine is roughly double what you've been using. When I was released, I had no prescriptions and experienced 24 hours or so of mild, heightened anxiety, but was back to normal within a day.
Yes its been only a week actually only about 6 days. I'm more of a opiate user and recently came into contact with this diazepam. However even with opiates I never used enough to get extreme withdrawals. I wanted to completely avoid ANY with this class of drugs. I probably scared myself more than anything after watching some of the severe withdrawal videos
Then every link available always says to immediately seek medical attention or have help from a doctor. As if every case had to be so severe. Today will be the first day not using any of the diazepam and im going to see if any physiological symptoms will appear. As you said though, most of it may be brought on by my own overthinking. How often is it possible to use these drugs without going into full withdrawal. For example: if I were to cease use for a week or two and used them once in a while to ease a comedown. Will my body get used to a routine even at once a month or once every two weeks. Is it the routine of use that cause dependance or frequent/recreational use? A lot of these questions are also personal curiosity, being ignorant to something leaves more room for panic and irrational thinking.
Then every link available always says to immediately seek medical attention or have help from a doctor. As if every case had to be so severe. Today will be the first day not using any of the diazepam and im going to see if any physiological symptoms will appear. As you said though, most of it may be brought on by my own overthinking. How often is it possible to use these drugs without going into full withdrawal. For example: if I were to cease use for a week or two and used them once in a while to ease a comedown. Will my body get used to a routine even at once a month or once every two weeks. Is it the routine of use that cause dependance or frequent/recreational use? A lot of these questions are also personal curiosity, being ignorant to something leaves more room for panic and irrational thinking.
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Indeed, knowledge saves lives. The unfortunate thing is that this information is often easil available/learnable by the general public. For instance, Cold Water Extraction of combination Opioid/APAP pills is a relatively simple process, meanwhile, the uninformed are literally killing themselves through overconsumption of APAP. My point is, I guess, in the drug game, being a jack of all trades/master of none is the best way to go.
Learn as much basic information as you can so you will be prepared when the time comes that you are offered drugs. For instance, if someone were to come and hand you Alprazolam (Xanax) on the street, would you be able to do an accurate dosage conversion on the fly? Continue to learn and you will be much safer.
Learn as much basic information as you can so you will be prepared when the time comes that you are offered drugs. For instance, if someone were to come and hand you Alprazolam (Xanax) on the street, would you be able to do an accurate dosage conversion on the fly? Continue to learn and you will be much safer.
EscapeFromFreedom
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Consider yourself lucky as valium is one of the weakest and longest lasting benzodiazepines, and it takes a while for it to clear from the body. A lot of long term prescribed Benzodiazepine users sometimes get switched from short-acting benzodiazepines (Xanax, Ativan), as well as medium acting ones (Klonopin) to Diazepam, because some of them are unable to taper off their original Rx drug directly since the blood levels fall too quickly. Diazepam has the advantage of being slowly eliminated from the body, so the symptoms are not as severe as say, coming off of Xanax, Ativan or Klonopin. With that said, please stay away from this class of drugs. They don't even work for what they were made for (anxiety, panic attacks), and have the paradoxical effect of creating more and more anxiety/panic the longer you take them. Better to just forget them entirely.
If it's only been a week you should be absolutely fine to stop taking them. I was taking diazepam for just under 3 weeks and I just stopped cold turkey without any negative affects. At the worst you may have some slights psychological dependence to them and may find you miss taking them if you find them enjoyable to take but any cravings or feelings like you miss them I imagine would be over in a few days. It's not going to be dangerous and you shouldn't have any physical withdrawal symptoms but you should stop now rather than later if your taking daily as it doesn't take that long to become physically dependent. I would say it's safe to take now and again like you said once in 2 weeks or so but you still need to be very careful not to slip into a habit and start enjoying it too much that you think an extra day won't hurt and so on until it's everyday as long term from what I know benzo withdrawal it horrible.
EscapeFromFreedom
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Valium can also cause/worsen depression, and it is basically major depression in a pill. The pills from this class have an ability to reduce normal, functioning people into shivering wrecks even if taken as needed. If you need to take a valium, then take a 2mg pill once in a blue moon. 10mg is too strong to take on as needed. You can get physically dependent pretty quickly and will then need to find a psychiatrist to taper you off, which is no fun. Believe me.