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Should I Be Honest With Doctor About Self Medicating With Benzodiazepines?

M

mybestfriend

Greenlighter
Joined
Jan 30, 2012
Messages
8
Some background information, I am 27 years old and have had severe anxiety and mood disorders for quite some time. I began self medicating (Probably not the best idea, I know) with klonopin and xanax daily for the past year or so. It worked for a while, but I want to get on the right path and I finally have health insurance. I stopped taking the drugs a couple days ago and withdrawal symptoms are starting to kick in and it is hell. I have an appointment with a psychiatrist who I think would be a good match with me tomorrow, but i'm not sure what I should say to him when we meet. I want to stop self medicating and taper off the benzo's correctly, and find a new solution to my anxiety problems, but I don't want to just go in there and ask for drugs as he might refer me to see an addiction type doctor etc. Should I be totally honest and tell just tell him my entire story? Any advice is greatly appreciated.
 
So you want to start using your Benzodiazepines in a correct manner? If you elaborate your problems to him he could help or hinder, it's just all dependent on the Doctor himself. I'd choose to get of the benzodiazepines and start something similar like Pregabalin or Gabapentin, they have similar pharmacokinetics and psychoactive properties to Benzo's but there no where near as addictive. Tell him the truth, if you can do it in a manner that is honest and truthful he should find some form of sympathy for you. Do some self educated research on Bezodiazepine dependence to help your comprehension of what's happening to you and how you can possibly overcome it. :)
 
Thanks for the reply Neurogenesis. I think I am just going to be 100% honest and upfront and tell him the current situation I am in, otherwise what is the point. Hopefully he will have some compassion and won't just dismiss my case.
 
It wI'll be a big red flag that your drug seeking. Why not just go describe your symptoms and see what he says. If your just looking for drugs then going to the doctor is a dumb way to go b about it. Too much bullshit to go thru. If your legit looking for help benzos are poll not your best solution long term.
 
hmm I dont know what to do now and have mixed feelings. Appointment is in a couple of hours. I am in need of benzos now so I can taper off of them, but I am fully open to being off of them and am not necesarily looking for them long term. I just want to stop self medicated and want to go about things the proper way, whether that be a supervised taper from a prescription. Should I tell him i've been self medicating for the past year or so or no? What do you all think?
 
I feel like if I tell him that i'm just really anxious etc that he definitely won't precsribe me benzos, but if I am honest and tell him I have been self medicating but just stopped and am open to being off them, then he might realize that I need a proper prescription to taper properly without harm.
 
In case anyone else is reading this and wondering, I ended up telling my doctor the truth and I got a 2 week prescription of klonopins to help me taper off of them. I will see him again in 2 weeks to see if I need more.
 
That's great news mybestfriend. Now it is up to you to be committed and try to do a proper taper off and not have a binge on the remaining benzos available to you. Iknow easier said than done but if you want to stop the cycle of benzo abuse then this doctor your seeing could be the first step in getting clean from abusing benzos.

Try checking out the sober living threads on bluelight. Plenty of taper threads and many Bluelighters who have gone thorough what you are trying to achieve.

I noticed you mentioned you just got health insurance so i take it you are in the States, out of interest would your health insurance cover you for a week or two stay in a acute mental health hospital ward? For the final taper off period when you finally go cold turkey and stop benzos a few days at least under medical supervision would have to help surely.

If a hospital visit is not possible please just listen your new doctors advice. In the sober living forum section read up on PAWS or post acute withdrawal symptoms. Don't be afraid to ask for advice. The trick to not relapsing if you have had a problem with any drug from what i've been told is understanding PAWS and learning to be self aware to deal with the triggers that can lead to abusing benzos again.

Once the benzos are finally out of your system and the chances of having a seizure are over that's only half the battle over. You need to learn to deal with your anxiety as well as the boredom of life minus the excitement of benzo use.

Remember if you have been abusing benzos to self-medicate anxiety there is a probably a good chance you would be also prone to self-medicating with alcohol. Just something to be aware of. You don't want to relapse on benzos if you start start drinking hard spirits in large amounts to self-medicate your anxiety. That could be fatal.

Be safe and good luck with the taper
 
Good decision buddy. :)

I kind of twisted the truth a little of how I went about it: I just said to a doctor I was buying legal pills that I didn't realise were addictive and was having horrific withdrawals. TBH not far from the truth (was taking clonazolam and etizolam amongst other thineo-benzos and didnt take the addiction potential seriously...) that put me on a diazepam substitute using the Ashton Method (lucky I got a GP who knew what they were talking about).
Unfortunately I relapsed as I did not have the support structure and was travelling in nations where I could benzos OTC. So I cannot stress the importance of getting counselling and a support structure behind you. Unfortunately I got addicted to heroin, oxy etc when the benzos started to lose effectiveness and ended up with a dual opiate-benzo addiction...Yeah that is something I am still paying for today.

Anyway, I eventually got referred to an outpatient clinic and it's a lot better. I have had the psychological support and got to the root causes of why I abused both types of those drugs. IMO this is what is essential. I am not going to bullshit and say it's going to be easy, but tapering at 10% every fortnight, slowly, patiently is the most painless way of doing this. But there will be pain. Whatever it is that has got you hooked in the first place will now come out. For me it was depression/anxiety and brutal insomnia. I have been prescribed anti-depressants for that with counselling and am withdrawing at 1mg diazepam a week down from 25mg. Currently on 22mg. I have had to quit all other drugs (avoid alcohol like the plague - it will completely fuck your withdrawal and is also pretty dangerous in combination with benzos).

Good luck to you.

F'loki
 
Is 2 weeks going to be a long enough taper?
 
cj said:
Is 2 weeks going to be a long enough taper?
Click to expand...

This crossed my mind too...I assumed he was just getting enough for 2 weeks and then they would re-prescribe after a review.

Either way, I think Clonzaepam doesn't have a long-enough half life and diazepam is still the best for withdrawing - it's like the methadone of benzo withdrawals. Clonzaepam only has a 20 hour half life once you get used to it and so there is a 4 hour window where potential withdrawal symptoms can creep in and make things very uncomfortable.

But there are worse benzos to use for tapering so you should be fine in the long-run.....Here in the UK Clonazepam is only allowed to be scripted for epileptics. Not sure why that is.
 
I never ever EVER would have told the doctor. You're not going to get a long term script now, and it's on your record.

Telling the truth isn't always the best thing to do. Never trust a doctor (that's just a statement I live by, and it has done me well since I have abided by this rule). Doctors lost all of my trust. That doctor is going to care more about losing his/her license than what your benzo "misuse" or "self medication" really means, since it's impossible for him/her to know. You could be using 100mg xanax a day for all he or she knows.

I got a benzo script, I just said I was previously on them (which I was) and was having terrible anxiety lately which was clearly exhibited in the appointment. I have panic attacks daily and would probably end my life without them, but it still took a solid year to get a script, and even longer for a regularly refilled one. It's as serious as getting an opiate script for chronic pain, you went in seeking it and trust me they are just trying to taper you off. Not keep you on. And that is WAY too fast a taper, just showing how little a fuck they really give.
 
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