So, the new doc is giving me:
12mg bromazepam/day
400mg tramadol XR/day
Found a new doc some time ago that I explained the situation with my previous doc to, and he was very understanding. He also urged me to taper but he has a more realistic view of how a taper should be done when you've been on benzos for years. He said I could to it at my own pace, he said that if I felt like I needed 2 months to stabilize on 9mg (-3mg) that that was perfectly fine.
Every doctor before this one that ever suggested a taper to me, said I had to drop 3mg per week, 2 weeks max. That's too fast for me, I still notice the drop after 2 weeks which usually leads me to think "it's futile anyway if this is my deadline" and just go back to 12mg. This time I'm not afraid to listen to the doc's taper plan at all. This man seems to know what benzo addiction means, finally!
He called my previous doctor incompetent and a disgrace to the profession when I told him how he cut me off completely without warning because he got a slap on the wrist for the amount of benzo Rx'es he was writing. He said "2 years ago I had the same thing happen to me, and I just gave my patients on benzos a taper schedule that they were comfortable with. The government kept an eye on me for a bit, but starting your patients on a taper is how it should be handled. Has to be handled, even." The people who do these checks on doctor's prescription behavior obviously know how discontinuing the use of a benzo works and that it has to be tapered. so my last doc cutting me off was very unprofessional in my new doctor's eyes. I feel the same way. Now I know that I was "just another paying costumer" to his little drug-shop. Mind you, this asshole doc I speak of lived 1 block away from me, for 12ish years, so did my uncle who was a doctor too before he passed. They knew eachother quite well, and my mom knew him too. Did that matter to him when I full on panicked on the phone when he first told me? Nope, it didn't.. What a douche.
Now, even if I were to fail my taper, or only manage to go down 3mg in 3-4 months instead of every 2 months, I'm fairly sure he wouldn't even be mad about it. As I said, he urged me to taper. But in no way did he try to force me.