Just to add to the info on withdrawing from regular etizolam abuse since there isnt much info that ive found, i'll tell my story..
i've always been a terrible insomniac, it comes and goes over the years, but even in better times i have very light sleep, waking up many times, especially during stressful periods.
So along comes this new-ish "RC" etizolam.. never had much experience of benzos etc, just used to use zopiclone & promethazine combined to knock me out in the worst periods, and then here's these etizolam pills that work great in giving me a good nights sleep, or what seems like a good night sleep.
So I start taking them every night from around late May.. well i can count on one hand the nights I didnt have any in 7-8 months, and that was the odd occasion when i went out and got too wasted on booze.
doses started at 2-3mg nightly, and eventually ended up 3-6mg depending on the amount of booze i'd drank or ODT i'd had. but id take them a leaast an hour before i went to bed, to catch some euphoria.
I think the saving grace was the dose variance and mostly never touching them during the day, also it was never a constant dose increase, more up and down, and i didnt feel much tolerance was building, the reasons for taking more were largely recreational and the good sleep was just a benefit. but suffice to say the average was 4mg/night towards october onwards and in fact towards the end, december, I even had the odd one during the day too if I was feeling a little anxious.
So i have a christmas holiday abroad booked, a week away, and think its an opportune time to knock them on the head once and for all, and figured some winter sun would be the best place to deal with rebound insomnia, any mild WDs etc.
but then the day before i go away, I do some reading up on benzo withdrawals which i naively didnt really pay much heed to previously, and shit myself at what i read, and the cold turkey prospect, read quite a few horror stories and the only thing that comforted me was that the literature seemed to imply that etizolam was a little more forgiving in terms of how fast physical dependence develops, with the caveat that genetic make up could make it more liable or less liable for serious WDs.. but because i'd never had more than 24 hours off them in 7 months, I had no idea if there was any physical dependence, I'd never left it long enough to see if WDs appeared. so there was the dilema.. do i smuggle a load in my luggage and start a taper to be continued on my return from holiday. Or do i cold turkey but take a few in case of emergency?
Well I took an emergency 20 x 1mg along with me (holiday was 1 week) and decided to stick it out. last 2mg was the night before we left. felt a bit funny 24 hours later, skin felt strange, everything was too bright (not used to hot sunny weather though!), didnt feel good at all.. first two nights I boshed myself to sleep on wine and whisky. but then the rebound insomnia hit harder than I imagined, no amount of booze helped, didnt get a wink of sleep for next 2 days, started getting (mild) "brain zaps" too, little shocks in my head. But nothing that was too worrying, after 96 hours from last dose, i thought that if it was going to be bad it would have been BAD by then, so the main thing was the annoying brain zaps and terrible insomnia. So i then took 1mg from the emergency bag to get to sleep, this was first in 96 hours... 1mg wouldnt have touched the sides 2 weeks earlier, but this time let me drift off to sleep and got rid of the brain zaps..
back home now, had 1mg again last night but made sure it was only after trying for an hour to fall asleep and therefore wasnt to do with getting recreational effects. I'm very releived it wasnt as bad as i'd thought it might be, no seizures or even close (although i was drinking small amounts of alcohol during the day which i suppose may have helped), so I think i'll just take 1mg on an ad-hoc basis now when the insomnia is really bad. but long term goal, i need to learn to sleep semi-naturally again and thats going to be really hard. dont abuse these drugs daily is the lesson ive learned, it seemed so benign and was easy to slip into the nightly habit for a bit of a buzz and a good nights sleep, but I now realise I was pretty lucky not to have the holiday from hell.
to pick up a RooFie script.
