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Really worried about benzo detox

Tommyboy

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Dec 10, 2009
Messages
14,260
Hey guys,

I'm leaving for detox tomorrow night so I'm not sure how far into this discussion I will get, but the title says it all. I am going into a detox facility tomorrow and despite the fact that I don't abuse benzos and have a legitimate prescription for them they said I can't be on them there. I have been on benzos since 2005 (3mg of xanax until 2009 when I began a valium taper, got down to less than 1mg a day but couldn't take it and am now taking around 7.5mg a day) so I don't see how I can stop without a longer taper.

I told them that I don't abuse my valium and I have my script with a bunch left over when it should have ran out today, so I don't see why I can't continue taking it if I just want to detox of opiates and wish to continue on my valium script. I'm not mandated to go or anything but my parents are forcing me to go and they swear that if it gets too unbearable that they will pick me up right away.

I don't know what to do with the script while I'm there. Should I bring it with me in case the benzo detox is too horrible and I need to leave and take it, or should I leave it with my parents who I don't know if I can trust to come and bring me it if I need it and want to leave?

I've mostly been taking 5mg of valium a day lately, so I'm wondering if there is a change I can successfully kick it, but I'm barely in a sound state of mind on that dose so I don't think I'll be well without it. I would love to no longer be dependent on benzos, but it takes time. I think that perhaps they are more used to the benzo addict that has been on them for a few months and just recently became physically dependent, compared to me who has skipped maybe 15 days the 7-8 years I've been on them.

I'm assuming they will give me phenobarbital or something, and it better be for a few weeks if that's the case. I'm just afraid of a) seizures and everything else that comes with benzo w.d. and b) not being able to get anything out of rehab since I'll be in such a bad state of mind that I won't be able to focus on anything.

Ugh, I just wish I could focus on the opiate detox and go from there. I wouldn't even mind going down to 2mg of valium while I'm there, but having to stop is probably going to be too much for me. My parents are telling me the whole "they will give you stuff to make you comfortable, that's what they do. Trust them, they are professionals, etc..." but I'm telling them otherwise.

Any suggestions? Has anybody kicked a similar benzo dosage and duration of use?
 
I would bring the script and leave them with the nurse. If you start to have DTs then you can take one. Otherwise, in my opinion, it is best to withdraw from everything before entering rehab. You are going to physically feel awful for a few weeks. Every day you don't use you will feel a little better! That is the nature of drug addiction and one of the many reasons why I'm so happy to be sober today.

You can do this. Is a few days of feeling miserable worth a lifetime of not having to use drugs every day? I think so!!!
 
Hey i dint see this before you left.. its going to be rough.. but i detoxed benzos (6mgpd xan) and opiates (150mgpd methadone and 260mgpd roxy) all at the same time, without a detox facility.. with the help of clonidine and a little ritalin ... in reality I believe you can feel so bad.. your already going to feel ruff, IMO why not go for both instead of tackling them one at a time as I think if you take the two together you will have an easier overall time of it than if you took them one at a time.. when you get out you will want to do everything you can to facilitate a good dopamine release to minimize the paws.. when you can let us know the story.. I hope it went well and you are clean and pushing through<3
 
Hey i dint see this before you left.. its going to be rough.. but i detoxed benzos (6mgpd xan) and opiates (150mgpd methadone and 260mgpd roxy) all at the same time, without a detox facility.. with the help of clonidine and a little ritalin ... in reality I believe you can feel so bad.. your already going to feel ruff, IMO why not go for both instead of tackling them one at a time as I think if you take the two together you will have an easier overall time of it than if you took them one at a time.. when you get out you will want to do everything you can to facilitate a good dopamine release to minimize the paws.. when you can let us know the story.. I hope it went well and you are clean and pushing through<3

Ugh. That must have been hellish.

Now that you're gone - I offer my very best wishes, TB. I'm sure they will make accommodation - when I was in prison they gave me minimal amounts of Librium (disgusting drug) to stave off w/D's in order to avoid a lawsuit in case I did have a seizure in there. Was on 5mg Xanax/day at the time but they didn't stock any other than Librium at the facility.

I've been to detox, too, and they damn well treat you better in there!!

Al the best <3

~ Vaya
 
Update

I am proud to say that I have successfully detoxed off of benzos (and opiates too but this thread is focused on the valium) after using them daily since 2005. I had taken my last dose of Valium on July 5th, and it was just 2.5mg which was 1/4 of my daily dose, and then was admitted into a detox facility the following Monday [July 8th] where I was given Librium for 3-4 days (along with methadone for the opiate withdrawals), so the last time I took a benzo was the morning of Thursday, July 11th, at which time I took a morning dose of I believe 20mg of Librium.

I know that Librium (or rather its metabolite) has a very long half-life so I'm definitely not 'out of the woods' quite yet, but I'm taking it one day at a time which is all I can really do, and it looks like I can continue to cease my benzo use while my body and mind adjust to life without them.

My withdrawal symptoms come and go (as does the intensity), and consist of anxiety, headaches, the feeling of my brain being squeezed, nausea, distorted vision, sensitivity to light, tremors, 'hot flashes' (I guess that's what you would call these feelings of my body burning up for 20 seconds at a time) as well as a few other symptoms that may or may not be contributed to my opiate withdrawals.

All things considered, its going better than I had expected. When I was first told that these detox facilities wanted me off benzos even though I wasn't abusing them and had planned on only stopping the opiates, I was petrified. At first I figured that I would just go right back on my Valium script after detox, but then there was the issue of rehab since all of them were very unlikely to dose me while there, and the thought of being away from home with no access to my Valium scared the shit heck out of me.

Then one day my whole outlook on getting off benzos changed. I suddenly 'surrendered' to benzos and decided I really wanted to try getting off of them for good. Right when I got off the phone with the detox facility that I scheduled my intake with I decided that I was going to give it [ceasing my benzo usage] an honest try. I took my final Valium dose that day [July 5th], only taking 2.5 mg that morning instead of my usual 5 mg dose (which I usually took one of in the morning, and then played the rest of the day by ear, taking either no second pill, a half of one, or a full one).

Now that I have completed the detox I feel so liberated. I no longer have to worry about making my monthly psychiatrist appointments (NY does not allow refills on benzo scripts so you have to see the doctor each time you need your script), and then worrying about getting the script filled, and making sure I have it with me at all times, making traveling even more anxiety ridden than it already is. I'm already enjoying the benefits of ending my benzodiazepine dependence.

I actually just got back from a mini 'post-detox vacation' in which I left the state for several days without having benzos on me, which I haven't done since I first got on them in 2005. It went better than expected and I'm glad that I went through with it, [both the cessation of taking benzos and also going away for 3 days after doing so]. It's making it a lot easier for me to quit taking benzos for good, and I honestly don't have any cravings especially since I wouldn't want to start the withdrawals over from the beginning.

I had read somewhere that some people get the whole 'grass looks greener, air smells fresher' feeling upon discontinuation of benzodiazepine usage since their senses are no longer being dulled, and it seems as though I'm getting some of those feelings which is yet another thing keeping me strong as I continue to deal with the negative symptoms of withdrawal, but I'm taking it one day at a time which is all I can really do.

So that's my update. I hope that it serves as an inspiration for those of you that wish to stop taking benzos. A slower taper may be a better option for others, but I guess I was on a low enough dose of diazepam for it to be bearable. Another thing that helped tremendously was quitting my job so that I could focus on the detox since I knew that the anxiety from working while in withdrawals would likely result in a relapse. I know that this may not be a feasible option for others, but if you get down to a low enough dose you can probably use up your vacation time to take a week of two off from work to detox and begin the healing process.

I detoxed when I was just shy of 8 years of daily benzodiazepine use, and only missed dosing maybe a dozen days during all of that time, and even though I've been taking them as prescribed there was a time that I was taking 14mg of Xanax a day, so if I can quit anybody can, although one must keep in mind that it needs to be done under medical supervision due to the risk of seizures.

I'll continue to post updates so I can let everyone know how the withdrawal symptoms are going, whether they get better or worse, how long it goes on for, etc...
 
Great news tommyboy=D.. I was on bezos consistently from 1996-2012.. and I once i kicked I never looked back.. I think since they dont manipulate the dopamine reward pathway directly or in a indirectly in any real significant way they dont carry to much of an addiction, just a real bad physical dependence.. i hope your experience is like mine. Congratulations on all the amazing work!!
 
That is so inspiring to read Tommyboy :). Surrendering to the addiction is the most important step in ongoing recovery I believe. Now you can't bullshit yourself that using one time will be okay because you know that is not the case deep inside.
 
Indeed. I was sectioned into a psychiatric ward on Sunday after I had a grand seizure 24 hours after no Etizolam which caught completely unaware. And, truly, I'm one of the sanest ones here.
 
It's actually nothing as bad as I imagined...it was like one of my worst fears and I pictured something not far from a prison-like conditions...but it's more like a combination of a hospital and a hotel. I might make a thread and tell about my experiences, but everything is being logged, so I need to be a bit careful.
 
I'm glad to hear you succeeded - I've been using benzodiazepines (diazepam, clonazepam, alprazolam) for approximately the same amount of time you have and I also felt exactly the same way you did at first: I wanted to go back onto the benzodiazepines after I was free of their grasp, but then I just neglected to begin taking them and haven't looked back. After all, the real problem seems to be fighting the anxiety. How do you manage to get rid of the panic and unpleasant sensations associated with it?

The hyper-sensitivity stuff is incredible, is it not? I felt like I'd been wearing earmuffs and a blindfold for almost a decade, suddenly gaining sensitivity to light, sound, smell, touch and so-on after years of being so... not "numb" exactly, but it feels like my mind is far sharper than when it was subdued with the drugs. Still, I've traded addiction for rampant anxiety problems again, so it's not all smooth sailing. How do you deal with it?

Thanks and best of luck! I would love to give advice to people about benzodiazepines, opiates and other drugs, but I'm just not sure what I could say. The biggest problem was always that I didn't want to quit just yet. If you've decided that you're going to quit, you're already doing amazingly well.
 
I still haven't touched a benzo. My sensitivity to light has gotten better, as has my sensitivity to smell. I was supposed to go to a 28 day rehab but was turned away since apparently I was supposed to go to one of their shelters in between getting out of detox and waiting for a bed spot to open for me, but the case workers at the detox told me that the shelter place had a bad history of dealing with withdrawal induced seizures, so I just went home in between thinking they would still honor my bed date when I got there, but that wasn't the case. I was glad though since it was a state-run place that looked more like a prison than anything else, and the people there all looked like they were straight out of prison, and that's even with comparing them to people I was in detox with. The place smelt horrible to me and that's all I could concentrate on while waiting to meet with the person doing the intake, so my hypersensitivity to smell was something that would have gotten the best of me there.

As for dealing with anxiety, well it comes on in waves as do all of my withdrawal symptoms. I have times where my tension headaches come on pretty hard, and my tremors and muscle twitches begin, which triggers my racing heartbeat and anxiety. I've just been telling myself that it will get better in time, and I'm hoping that when I start outpatient in a week or so that it will take the place of my anxiety since boredom has probably contributed to it a lot.
 
Tommyboy,

CONGRATULATIONS, man!!!

That seems so unbelievable... I was in involuntary benzo withdrawal the past 7 days, and the hallucinations were the worst. It was the worst bout I've ever had in my life, and was intense and terrifyingly uncomfortable and scary that for the first time in ten years Im setting up a game plan with my doctor to get off these things and begin the healing process.

So it's truly great, inspiring, and needed to read about this tremendous success story!! You're an inspiration to me, and I mean that.

I'm so happy for you...
 
First of all most of this is not true. Equivalency tables mean nothing, the Ashton method is a silly route to take, benzo's do have withdrawals and they are easy to come off unless you hve abused them. If anyone reading this is scared because of what they read on the internet, my advice is do not read the internet.
So, as with all things, if you have been using a chemical like the chemicals in benzo's to mask your anxiety then it depends how you got your anxiety to whether you will experience withdrawals and how bad, also depends on your situation at the time. If you have abused benzo's and you dont need them for anxiety then you shouldnt have taken them in the first place but if you did it is not a big problem unless you spend your days on blogs and reading on the internet.
Benzo's are incredible drugs, if you have some stress issues and need them for 2-4 weeks then you will experience no withdrawals at all, if you do then there is some underlying anxiety which requires you to combat it with CBT or with SSRI's, and SSRI's will be easy to taper when the time is right.
YOu do not taper by lowering the dose, it makes no sense, if your tolerant on 2mg/day on Xanax for example, its extremely rare your going to get a seizure withdrawing and it doesnt matter how long you've been on it.
If you have abused them and are at over 4mg/day then you need to taper first but you can taper quickly to 4mg/day.
Equivalency charts, do not look at them, they mean nothing. 5mg of Klonopin is not the same as 100mg of Diazepam, its completely wrong.
This is how you taper:
Firstly, you do not in any way do it when you are in a stressful period of your life if you have been using them for longer than 4 weeks, wait until a quieter time, if the doctors wont prescribe you and want you to go through hell instead, then get another doctor.
When you are in a quieter period (ie take a month off work and blame it on some other reason), you do not taper down your dose unless your on something ridiculous. instead you use a time method and a GABA drug. If for example you took a 0.5mg xanax at 6am, 12pm and 6pm, then you took 1.5mg a day for a year. You then take the same schedule once every two days for 3 months, then once every three days for 3 months and then your done. Tapering your dose doesnt work, you kep it constant in your system so as your tapering, your still building a tolerance (especially if you have a strong liver) and living with worse withdrawals as you taper.
Remember, the internet is the worst place for advice, it is filled with people who have bad experiences, the people who dont have bad experiences (99% of the population) dont go to a forum for help with other people also experiencing bad experiences.
If you take amphetimines, drink heavily etc whilst tapering, then forget it, and that doesnt mean you cant have a beer or two.
No one fails tapering if its done correctly, so the time related formula is what you want and on top of that take a gabapentin (900mg per dose up to 2 times a day always works) or a lyrica when you get that feeling, distract yourself and excercise. if you get a tingly feeling in your hands and feet then its called hyperventilating, take a brown paper bag and breath in and out into it 10 times or so.
Is tapering off benzo's harder than heroin? no. Harder then alchohol? no. But you have to do it properly and you have to discourage these people giving opinions about their own thoughts. Taper properly, be safe!
 
I was taking a minimum of 4mg of Alprazolam, most nights I tried to make it 10-20mg, for two years+, and I was on Buprenorphine for almost for 5years. I detoxed off of both with no medication. I was in an inpatient rehab facility, however, so if I needed medical assistance, I was near professionals. I didn't have any problems with the Alprazolam withdrawal. I would recommend not being so thickheaded like I am and refuse medication assistance in the process of getting off a benzo. I have a problem trying to do the doctor's job for them..
 
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