Desperately want to kick xanax habit

I'm so sick of it. I love xanax (or any benzo) with a passion, but its started to put my life into a downwards spiral. I like it because it helps me speak my mind and talk to girls. I'm a really shy person. Well I dont like it because...

I wake up the next day.. All my friends are mad at me, I have pockets full of stolen shit, and usually my parents are mad too. And all of my jailtime is associated with xanax.. But I can't quit.

I know this is stupid, but what is the recommended way to quit? Any kind of over the counter substitutes or anything? I guess i'll just smoke weed when I want xanax... And don't say "just stop" hehe, my friend already told me that.. That may be my only hope though.

Peace

What is your dosage? Im going to assume it is somewhat high since you are waking up with stolen shit and people pissed off at you i.e. you blacked out and became irrational. You are going to need to taper off as quitting benzos cold turkey can result in seizures and other problems.

You may need medical assistance, because it doesn't sound like you have the ability to reasonably control your dosage during a taper. Let your parents know whats up so they can you get you to a doctor and get you the help you need.

Are you physically dependent, or just bingeing occasionally? If you're dependent, you'll definitely need to taper. You might also want to think about switching to a bezno with a longer half-life, like valium.

Have a look around www.benzo.org.uk for information on withdrawal.

Nah.. I just get them when I can, probably 4-5 times a month. But, when I get them, I pretty much black out. I mean i'm still walking around but not myself. I take usualy 5-6 quad bars throughout the night, mainly because they seem to wear off fast?

Maybe try taking less? You can take enough to get good effects, but not end up in jail or stealing from your friends.

If you can't keep your doses reasonable, then 'just stop' is probably the only advice for you.

Try to switch to a longer acting benzo (like Valium) that you will take only once in the morning.
Then taper your dose down a bit to a reasonable amount.
Then try to associate an antidepressant, or a non-benzodiazepine anxiolytic with your benzo.
Then maybe you will feel you are able to stop talking the benzo?

Anyway if Xanax makes you feel bad, it's because it's very short acting, so you always need to take some if you want to feel OK.
Short-acting benzos bring you anxiety (and you seem to suffer from it), because when you wake up, you feel anxious, until you take some Xanax, then 6 hours later you feel anxious again, until you take some Xanax, etc...

That's why it would be a good idea to switch to a long-acting benzo like Valium...

i just finished withdrawaling from xanax (i think...), and now i can use it again recreationally.

firstly you have to REALLY want to quit. enough so that you can wait out the painful withdrawals.

next you have to actually endure said withdrawals... tapering is almost always necessary if you have a physical dependency.

finally you have to stay clean for a while, so as to get it all out of your system and lower your tolerance back down as low as itll go.

quitting benzos is horrible! it is one of the most difficult things ive ever done.... i love how they make me confident, i learned to remember shit on them (how i dont know....).

benzos tend to bring out the violence in me. i also have an ungodly tolerance. withdrawals blow, and i too have the problem of waking up with most of my family and or friends pissed.

i think the bad outweighs the good... its better NOT to be hooked (especially on STREET drugs!). if you need to talk, i have lots of personal experience in this area... feel free to PM me.

good luck!

EDIT: o you arent dependent. you just need to learn some fucking self control. either dont get them, or use in moderation.

whats the fun of blacking out.. you dont even remember what you did to fuck up your life.

i have a friend who had a problem like yours.. he got a DUI, after being arrested twice for possesion. and hes the smartest kid i know.... be careful with that shit!

lyrica helped me when I was going through xanax withdrawal, it might to the trick

^ He's not addicted, so physical withdrawal isn't going to be an issue. It's a matter of resisting the temptation to take them.....I agree with the suggestion of not getting them at all. Any way you can cut off your supply? It doesn't sound like you can use them in moderation, so avoiding benzos completely for a while would be best.

I know where you are coming from...I'm also shy when I'm sober but became a verborragic prick when on benzos, also used to steal and thrash other peoples stuff and I can barely remember things in a 4year period, lost many friends and screwed up relationships and all the ball.

I wasn't using just xanax, but it was mostly xanax, and to top that I also had an addiction to opiates and cocaine, and let me tell you quitting the benzos was the hardest part, I had to go to rehab where I was on a lorazepam and midazolam taper for one month, I also had a script for when I left rehab since I still was on 7,5mgs of lorazepam and 15mgs midazolam a day when I left, but of course I fucked the script up, ended overdoing it and woke up in the ER and had to go cold turkey from there.
W/D's are scary, uncomfortable long-lasting shit, made me suicidal actually, and it's not like opiates that after a week you feel it's starting to get better, with bennzos it progressvely gets worse and you literally go out of your mind.

I'm afraid there's nothing otc that can help, maybe melatonin and benadryl for the insomnia, or dxm as an alternative for getting fucked up.
Prescription drugs that are helpful are lyrica and soma, but when I was on them I used them to potentiate the benzos and opiates so I really couldn't tell, but since you're not using daily and you don't depend on benzos to sleep I don't think you'll need so much for the w-d's, but maybe from the sound of your post you should consider starting a SSRI or lyrica/neurontin. (finishes rant)

sushii said:

Have a look around www.benzo.org.uk for information on withdrawal.

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Excellent idea. There are some serious charachters posting on benzo.org.uk, who've been through hell and back on one benzo or another and more than happy to spread the word.

When I was flirting with adding a xanax addiction to my heroin and cocaine habits I found that site (while hunting for online sources naturally) and many of the stories spooked me so thoroughly that I figured this was one drug I could live without. Nothing but decline and degradation in benzo abuse, and a motherfucker to kick.

That was the first place I read that quitting benzos cold turkey could send you into fatal seizures! Of course every bluelighter knows that already...........

There used to be a forum at the same url but now it's at www.benzoisland.org you need to register to browse the posts.

Good luck man. I applaud your decision to quit, but it is gonna be one of the hardest things ever. I was addicted to xanax, at only 11mgs a day, and quitting nearly tore my soul out. (I went cold turkey)

I did it by writing down every single thing that being a dumb ass addict had done to fuck up my life, and then chronicling every moment of the month long ordeal in that same journal. Eventually everything got better, but it took way more willpower than I knew I had.

1mg alprazolam = 20 mg valium, so 11mg xanax is a massive daily dose. Good work getting off them - cold turkey withdrawal off that amount would have been incredibly unpleasant, not to mention dangerous.

11mg of xanax is hardly dangerous...

thats 5.5 2mg xanax tabs--i ususally take that for a cocaine comedown.

EDIT: for the sake of not hurting yourself, take into consideration that i have a HUGE tolerance. you probably wont need 11mg to come down from a stimulant... or even to get high. you probably wont DIE, but youll be unconscious for a day or so.

^^hardly dangerous for who? 11mg's of xanax can put me in the ER with ease..

watch what you say wesmdow, not everyone needs 11mg's to feel normal..DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM thats a huge fucking dose unless your crazy tolerant and plan to never get off them....

i suppose it depends on how you interpret "dangerous."

what i meant by that, and ill revise it, is that 11mg probably wont kill him.

most everyone else in the thread already made it clear that 11mg is WAYYYY to high a dose, i just wanted to add that i doubt its a LETHAL dose.

hed prolly go to sleep for a few days, and wake up OK.

im not sure of this, but ive seen stuff like that happen before with no catastrophes.

one of my friends whos a REAL lightweight wanted to try xanax....he got 3. i told him it was at LEAST 3 doses for him... but he didnt listen and ate them all, saying, "its only 3 pills."

all he did was pass out and sleep for 20 hours. then he was fine.

Well all I meant by 'only' 11 mgs is that when someone gets addicted to benzos, its really easy for them to end up taking FAR more than that, easily twice that amount.

Of course, 11 mg would put some people in a coma for a day or so.

But even though it isn't an insane dose, it was enough to help me make bad decisions and I was physically addicted

staminawalks said:

watch what you say wesmdow, not everyone needs 11mg's to feel normal..DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM thats a huge fucking dose unless your crazy tolerant and plan to never get off them....

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thats misinformation, too, if were gonna split hairs.

for some people, 11mg isnt that absurd of a dose...you dont need to have a lifetime dependency in order to get a tolerance that high. i got up to 24mg/day in a month and a half or so. then i tapered and quit.

no matter how bad your addiction is, it is TOTALLY possible to get rid of it.

wesmdow said:

i suppose it depends on how you interpret "dangerous."

what i meant by that, and ill revise it, is that 11mg probably wont kill him.

most everyone else in the thread already made it clear that 11mg is WAYYYY to high a dose, i just wanted to add that i doubt its a LETHAL dose.

hed prolly go to sleep for a few days, and wake up OK.

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I don't know. I still wanted more the other night, after 6 quad bars. I ended up eating a couple ex pills too.. I didn't even feel that bad the next day. I fell asleap around 9am fucked out of my mind, woke up about 5pm feeling a little dazed. Slightly depressed and in a trance, but I got some sleep and was fine.. I was just mad because my family was mad at me because they caught me running into the walls a little bit. I'm sure if I had the right sources I could handle 10+ bars, I just don't believe that I want to see that day. lol

sushii said:

1mg alprazolam = 20 mg valium, so 11mg xanax is a massive daily dose. Good work getting off them - cold turkey withdrawal off that amount would have been incredibly unpleasant, not to mention dangerous.

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wow, you are the first person ive seen to make that analogy. its dead on. gj.

11mg IS a massive daily dose if you either:
already have a huge tolerace, or
you have severe severe mental issues that warrant such a drastically large amount of medicine.