Trying to quit drugs, but digging a deeper hole instead

[Sun Drugs]

Hello,

Ahhh where to begin. I am 28, have a pretty extensive drug use history, but the last year and a half or so I have settled down into more of a...long term dependence that I hadn't really realized (or wanted to realize until now). I have experience withdrawing from opiates and have used many many classes of drugs, but benzos are kicking my ass.

I started taking etizolam daily in March of 2016. Started with 1mg a day, it was wonderful. Then at some point I went up to 1mg twice a day occasionally. A few months go by, I attend a music festival in Austin in October and still things are good...but I am beginning to realize that I am having trouble "getting going" without etiz. So late October, I leave my job for a higher paying one, with a lot more responsibility and hours. It is a LOT more stressful and next thing I know I am up to 4mg a day (2mg morning, 2mg lunch).

This continued until June or so, when I decided to taper my etiz dose with the help of clonazolam. Regrettably, I ended up using them both concurrently and not lowering my etiz dose. 0.5mg of clonazolam doesnt do much and I am hesitant to raise my dose above .75mg.

Oh yeah almost forgot...I also use 4.5g phenibut every two days. Been doing this for 13 months now.


So currently my regimen consisits more or less of:
-4.5g phenibut every two days
-.5mg clonazolam daily
-2.5-4mg etiz (depending on stress...if I want to get recreational I will throw down another 2mg at the end of the day :/)
-Marijuana - when I am on benzos, I smoke so much weed. Want to cut down on this too.

Anyone else have experience or advice? Today I am being more rigid -- already took the phenibut....will take .5mg clonazolam, 1mg etiz....then maybe .5mg clonazolam in the evening and .5mg etiz (or none) if I can handle it.

I feel like benzos have sapped my life force completely. I feel sub-human. Not enough emotion in me, nothing really phazes me, I'm in a quagmire and want to get out. I have a bright future ahead of me so I need to be off of drugs by January.

Oh yeah, also, psychedelics would always temper my drugs usage for some time after the experience, but I have not been able to get my hands on any recently. They help me out immensely.

Sorry for the rant, wrote it very quick because I know if I don't write this now I'll go another year just sinking into the quicksand.

Thank you for reading.

EDIT: Ordered a few oz of kratom a few weeks ago to see if it would help using less benzos, but it did not. Used it for 3 weeks twice a day and stopped with no issues too hard to manage. Are there over the counter supplements that would help with the benzos?

 

[Mafioso]

SD, can definitely relate. I've had a seizure and experienced 2 psychotic episodes from benzo WD as well as other drugs like opiates and cannabis.

My first piece of advice, and probably the most important, is do not try to quit cold turkey/abruptly. A slow taper is the only safe way to quit benzos that I know of. You want longer lasting benzos as opposed to quick onset/short effect.

Might want to start laying off the cannabis, smoking gave me some pretty nasty side effects when I was going through benzo WDs. I would experience some anxiety and smoke in attempt to mitigate the anxiety but it would only make it worse and set off mild hallucinations. I definitely would advise against using it while you are detoxing off of benzos.

Opioids and benzos tend to have a synergistic effect so I would not recommend combining the two. Again, TAPER!! Rather than try to replace your drug use with another substance, slowly decrease the amount you are using by reducing the dosages and then spacing out the doses more and more. Key word being SLOWLY here. Basically you want to take as little of the drug as possible to stave off WDs and slowly allow your body/brain to return to functioning as normal.

I would probably switch to one type of benzo and would choose the one that has the longest half life so the taper will be smooth rather than up and down constantly.

Beyond that, a good diet with proper nutrition will help your body make the chemicals it needs to normalize and exercise can help with stress, anxiety, depression, and so on. I wouldn't recommend highly strenuous activity but mild to moderate exercise should be ok if you are maintaining a taper and are not dropping down too quickly, something like a brisk walk/mild jog with breaks. Be sure to stay hydrated as well.

 

[Sun Drugs]

SD, can definitely relate. I've had a seizure and experienced 2 psychotic episodes from benzo WD as well as other drugs like opiates and cannabis.

My first piece of advice, and probably the most important, is do not try to quit cold turkey/abruptly. A slow taper is the only safe way to quit benzos that I know of. You want longer lasting benzos as opposed to quick onset/short effect.

Might want to start laying off the cannabis, smoking gave me some pretty nasty side effects when I was going through benzo WDs. I would experience some anxiety and smoke in attempt to mitigate the anxiety but it would only make it worse and set off mild hallucinations. I definitely would advise against using it while you are detoxing off of benzos.

Opioids and benzos tend to have a synergistic effect so I would not recommend combining the two. Again, TAPER!! Rather than try to replace your drug use with another substance, slowly decrease the amount you are using by reducing the dosages and then spacing out the doses more and more. Key word being SLOWLY here. Basically you want to take as little of the drug as possible to stave off WDs and slowly allow your body/brain to return to functioning as normal.

I would probably switch to one type of benzo and would choose the one that has the longest half life so the taper will be smooth rather than up and down constantly.

Beyond that, a good diet with proper nutrition will help your body make the chemicals it needs to normalize and exercise can help with stress, anxiety, depression, and so on. I wouldn't recommend highly strenuous activity but mild to moderate exercise should be ok if you are maintaining a taper and are not dropping down too quickly, something like a brisk walk/mild jog with breaks. Be sure to stay hydrated as well.

Thank you for your kind words!

Yeah, cannabis will be the first to go. I also lost my job a week ago so I am in total money saving mode right now. I have about 4g of weed left and 240mg of THC in edible form. I figure I can taper off of that too, the insomnia is hard. I'll be graduating school in January and will have employment opportunities lined up, but they are very technical and I assume stringent drug test.

I am thinking of .5mg clonazolam twice a day and 1mg etiz twice a day should keep me anxiety free enough. Then I can gradually eliminate the etiz, and then the clonazolam, which has a longer half life I believe. I have this horrendous habit of smoking a lot of cannabis when I decide to take an evening booster dose of etiz a couple of times of week, but it's stuff like that I can't be doing.

I've actually gone as low as .5mg clonazolam twice a day, and just 1mg etiz in the morning but I just didn't have the recognition of a problem and wherewithall to maintain that and go down from there.

 

[Mafioso]

If you can I would advise letting someone know what is going on incase things go wrong. IME, you won't know that you are in psychosis until long afterward, or if you do realize it you may likely be too paranoid or delusional to do anything about it. Also, having someone or people you can talk to while going through the WDs can really help. Isolation tends to make everything worse.

Be careful stepping off benzos, the WDs seem to take a few days to really kick in and may come and go with differing amount of severity. If you notice you are having hallucinations, severe insomnia, severe anxiety or are unable to eat, you may be stepping off too quickly. When I say severe anxiety I mean anxiety like you've never experienced before, like unable to sit still, pacing around, sweating, shaking and pulling your hair anxiety... I can almost promise that you will experience some mild to moderate anxiety while stepping off, but if it becomes extreme it may be a point of concern.