I have problems sleeping so my friend gave me a few small red pills which he said would help. I took one at 8 or 9pm and it knocked me out till 7am. I was happy that I might of found a working sleep aid but didn't like how long it made me sleep. A few days later I broke one in half to see if it wouldn't last so long but it did nothing. I was wondering if I took a .25mg of xanax with would it help?
The 5mg zolpidem probably didn't have much to do with the sleep - you said you didn't sleep a wink the night before, so that was probably the most important piece of the puzzle.
But, if you mixed 0.25mg alprazolam w/ 5mg zolpidem, I highly doubt it would be problematic, even with no tolerance. The thing is, the two drugs are VERY similar so there really is no point in mixing them, like taking H then oxy on top. Wasteful, unnecessary.
Try 10mg zolpidem if you can't sleep. That is the usual dose, if I'm not mistaken. Try to steer clear of alprazolam, it's a treacherous drug. You start at 0.5mg and a few months later you need 2-4mg to achieve the same effect, then when you stop you have Parkinson's and insomnia for two weeks.
Zolpidem is probably similar; I hear doctors usually only prescribe it for a short while and rotate it out due to tolerance/the need for dose escalation.
If you have severe insomnia, I'd suggest a longer acting benzo like diazepam. With alprazolam and zolpidem you run the risk of waking up when it wears off (3-4 hours after you've fallen asleep) and then if you take more you'll oversleep and wake up groggy.
And since diazepam is also a benzo and can result in the same w/d problems as alprazolam, I'd rotate it out for something else after a few weeks so you don't get physically dependent on anything.