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Benzo/alcohol withdrawal question

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Fanaticrabbit

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Joined
May 5, 2018
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6
I was thinking about alcohol withdrawal, due to the fact that I used to drink extremely heavily and had to medically detox. So my thought process(to avoid the hospital) is to have benzodiazepines on hand. What?s the best benzo to utilize? Can it be done with clonazepam or alprazolam? Or Does it have to be tranzene.......also........if one could successfully detox oneself simply by tapering down his alcohol intake- could a benzo addict taper himself off with beer.......I am purposely ignoring the self control part and all of the arguing about supports from others blah blah, my question is simply if the drugs can interchangeably taper each other off becaue benzos and alcohol both use the same mechanism. Thoughts?
 
Hi,
If you are serious enough to think about using benzos I would suggest you to get inpatient.

Diazepam is the med to use atleast here in Finland for alcohol cessation.

Clonazepam might come handy as it too is longer acting benzo.

Seriously go to inpatient detox if you think you might have seizures or delirium tremens when you quit.
 
Yes thanks for the answer to longer-acting. I actually had this problem 3 years ago and did inpatient and now a childhood friend has recently told me about his seizures, and I was like ?holy crap? i can give some advice! People nowadays are better off kicking themselves I believe due to the fact that all a hospital does is hystate, replenish, and stabilize with Ativan. Then they send you a $17000 bill and is some people were more educated they could self taper and eat healthy for about $150. Kind of a bad system huh?
 
Stabilization with lorazepam and handing off is an ER protocol in the USA. I can only say I used to drink 26-27 drinks a day, and when I detoxed, I had a 90 day supply of 1mg clonazepam (270) and I took handsful of it along with a large amount of clonidine, and they did nothing to prevent withdrawal, except status epilepticus; My hands still shook so badly I could not hold a cup to drink water, and I had the most insane week of hallucinosis imaginable.

I urge you to look into PSYCH inpatient that specializes in alcohol detox. Do not deal with an orthopedic hospital. They will label you an addict, disrespect you, do the least possible to help you and discharge you with no followup, and charge you an insane amount for it. Ultimately you want to deal with people who are trying to prevent neurotoxicity and major damage with acamprosate, benzos, alpha/beta blockers, etc.


Fanaticrabbit said:
Yes thanks for the answer to longer-acting. I actually had this problem 3 years ago and did inpatient and now a childhood friend has recently told me about his seizures, and I was like ?holy crap? i can give some advice! People nowadays are better off kicking themselves I believe due to the fact that all a hospital does is hystate, replenish, and stabilize with Ativan. Then they send you a $17000 bill and is some people were more educated they could self taper and eat healthy for about $150. Kind of a bad system huh?
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MrRoot said:
Hi,
If you are serious enough to think about using benzos I would suggest you to get inpatient.

Diazepam is the med to use atleast here in Finland for alcohol cessation.

Clonazepam might come handy as it too is longer acting benzo.

Seriously go to inpatient detox if you think you might have seizures or delirium tremens when you quit.
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Stay away from fast acting/short half life benzos like alprazoloam.

Benzo WD is no joke either. Just got out of the hospital after having my second benzo WD induced seizure. My family almost got to watch me die. Not everyone wakes up after a seizure.

I'm an emotional wreck right now on top of being in physical pain. All this the result of a binge lasting maybe a month or two long. So it doesn't take long..

I was considering medical detox before I had the seizure. I probably shouldn't have waited. Be safe.
 
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How do people usually know if their in danger of a seizure? They will experience other less severe withdrawal symptoms first right-like insomnia, shaking etc......
 
You won't know.

The first time there were warning signs, but this second time was literally a few hours after my sister noted that I was looking better than I had been the past week(was going thru the bulk of the WDs). I was in the middle of a conversation and can remember what we were talking about up until the event.

No warning signs, was just sitting there calmly talking, felt ok- not great but didn't thought the risk of seizure had passed. There will probably be other warning signs like insomnia, anxiety, irritability preceding the event, but these things will probably be present whether or not you have a seizure. As far as I know, people don't just fall into seizure without being in heavy WD.


Basically, if you have done things that put you at risk, like using large amounts benzos or alcohol, then you are in danger. I don't mean to scare you, but it really is that simple. The risk of seizure comes from excessive activity in the brain relating the drug leaving the body.
 
Absolutely true. On several occasions I felt fine and had a tonic-clonic seizure out of the blue - once was talking to someone and had a seizure, fell down a flight of stairs and continued convulsing. I had no idea what happened. I practically bit my tongue in half. They called an ambulance and took me to the ER where they induced general anesthesia. Don't fuck around with benzo/barb/etoh withdrawal, especially if it is abrupt and not the first time. Kindling is a real phenomenon.

If nobody had been there to get help, I could have died from brain injury; I was on ceramic tiled floor.
 
modocmodoc said:
Absolutely true. On several occasions I felt fine and had a tonic-clonic seizure out of the blue - once was talking to someone and had a seizure, fell down a flight of stairs and continued convulsing. I had no idea what happened. I practically bit my tongue in half. They called an ambulance and took me to the ER where they induced general anesthesia. Don't fuck around with benzo/barb/etoh withdrawal, especially if it is abrupt and not the first time. Kindling is a real phenomenon.

If nobody had been there to get help, I could have died from brain injury; I was on ceramic tiled floor.
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Glad you are still here with us my man.

I've heard someone else on here talking about kindling but I can't recall exactly what it was.
 
Essential kindling: The more times the brain is forced into abrupt cessation of a drug it is dependent on (particularly GABAergics) the amount of stimulation required to fire neurons is reduced, so that less and less stimulation is required to open the ion channel for a large neurotransmitter release (long-term potentiation). During GABAergic withdrawal, predominantly glutamate is already primed to fire to counter the depressant drug, so you go into overdrive quicker and more intensely each time. With severe alcoholics, most generally die by the 7th failed abrupt withdrawal. That's a rule of thumb, not a fact.
 
Very interesting, thanks for sharing. Do you happen to know of any sources that I can read more about this? Feel free to PM with more info, I don't want to completely hijack this thread, but it is relevant as well.

If that is the case, it seems reckless to be doing rapid tapers at all, and week long detox for people who are heavy users almost a death sentence.
 
Wow so..... if one is attempting to do a sucessful withdrawal on their own is an extremely small of benzodiazepines useful to not necessarily stop all symptoms but prevent the worst? I.e 15 mg cloraZepam every 4 hours
 
modocmodoc said:
Essential kindling: The more times the brain is forced into abrupt cessation of a drug it is dependent on (particularly GABAergics) the amount of stimulation required to fire neurons is reduced, so that less and less stimulation is required to open the ion channel for a large neurotransmitter release (long-term potentiation). During GABAergic withdrawal, predominantly glutamate is already primed to fire to counter the depressant drug, so you go into overdrive quicker and more intensely each time. With severe alcoholics, most generally die by the 7th failed abrupt withdrawal. That's a rule of thumb, not a fact.
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Great post! I?m hoping the two grams of diclazepam is enough to ween me off of taking about 8-900mgs of etizolam in a month(stupid I know)I?m down to 1.4g of diclaze and am taking 3.7mgs about 4 Times through out the day and am about to cut down to just 3mgs(X4)for a week or so and then cut back another .5 and so on. Hopefully it should be enough. This will be my third time coming off of benzos and the second time was abrupt causing 2 grand mal siezures. Hopefully that kindling effect takes it easy on me!
 
Yeah I used to drink 1500 mg 40% alcohol a day and that gave me seizures. I want to get sober again but now drink 400 ml but have been taking .5 gram alprazolam and 1 mg of cloraZepam lately....... so when I?m sober my hands don?t shake but I do have mild WD symptoms, should I go to a doc with it or cut the booze and taper off the pills over the next 2 weeks?
 
Do gaba receptors return or heal up over time? When I had seizures before it was a few years ago and then I was completely sober for 3,years
 
GABA receptors do heal, but it takes a while, especially gaba b's from what I have experienced abusing things like alcohol, phenibut and gabapentin. I had three seizures after being forced to cold turkey in jail.

It's not a game you want to continually play because every time you have a seizure you put yourself at risk if developing excitotoxicity which essentially is brain damage.
 
CosmicG said:
GABA receptors do heal, but it takes a while, especially gaba b's from what I have experienced abusing things like alcohol, phenibut and gabapentin. I had three seizures after being forced to cold turkey in jail.
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That's seriously fucked up and inhumane.
 
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