I started searching Youtube last night for any clips which may be helpful in terms of this thread. There are thousands of results on drugs, addiction, and quitting. There are tons of first hand user experience reports, tv documentaries, some more or less scientific and evidence based clips, some sheer sensationalist inaccurate nonsense. (A documentary i watched about Meth kept repeating how all the ingredients required to make it are easily and freely available; and that anyone who could bake cookies could also make meth in less than 1 hour! 8() having also watched Breaking Bad I do not believe this is actually the case, and that certain essential precursors are extremely securely and tightly controlled, and all but impossible to obtain without either having special access or contacts in the criminal world or otherwise).
I'm going to need to find some way of making sure the clips i watch are at least accurate as the quality of the materials is so variable from the absolute bunk scaremongering end of the spectrum right through to the most knowledgeable, impartial, and evidence based, rigorously scientific clips. I think this could be very helpful and motivational overall though. Obviously the quality of the videos will be very variable in terms of their scientific and practical truthfullness, but they will at the very least help focus my mind on the task, and as my sleep pattern is absolutely completely fucked i may as well watch these clips through the night rather than laying in bed for hour after hour completely unable to sleep.
Last night i watched about half a dozen random videos. One of them featured a young woman who looked stunningly together and healthy supposedly going through day 1 of opiate withdrawals. Apparently she had taken 10 Loperamides and some Tagamet (for its antacid properties) and some Ibuprofen, and was feeling as right as rain. I cant help but feel sceptical about some of the stuff uploaded and I wonder what her habit was, but if a handful of Lopes, some Ibuprofen, and and an antacid makes it such a breeze I dont think her habit can have been very severe or long lasting.)
I also watched a couple of really scary benzo w/d experience reports, one user saying it took 18 months to recover, another saying things are no easier for her 8 months after quitting, they did not even say whether they tapered or not. For the sake of my own optimism I have no choice but to assume that they did not taper, or they didn't taper properly or gradually enough. A 3rd account was much more encouraging and pretty much confirmed that what i am currently doing is more or less the right thing in terms of listening to your body during a benzo taper, and taking your time, which should allow your brain time to adjust to the decreasing dose and eventual quit.
If I do manage to find any particularly good clips I will post the links in the relevant threads.