I really don't recommend that anyone take Benzodiazepines for any reason unless they really have to.
@Snafu in the Void and I are mostly aligned in our points of view on Benzodiazepine usage. I often use the term "insidious" when discussing Benzodiazepines. People describe Opioids like "being cradled in a blanket by God himself", Cocaine is like "going 100 miles per hour" whereas most describe their first experience with Benzodiazepines as "meh".
There are people you will talk to with true, chronic, crushing anxiety and panic for whom Benzodiazepines are undoubtedly Euphoric just like Heroin is to me. Those people are permanently locked in a cage by their own fears. To take a pill that allows them to experience life, well, you can understand how someone would want that.
For most "normal" folks, Benzodiazepines are not a true recreational experience in any sense. For instance, the first time I took Clonazepam (Klonpin), my first Benzo experience, I bitched the kid out cause I was sure he'd screwed me. Mind you, I had done Amphetamines, Ecstasy, Alcohol etc. After those experiences, I was totally underwhelmed by the effects of the drug.
As I got older, I began to find niches for the use of Benzodiazepines.
-Amphetamine comedowns
-Drug Withdrawal
-Moments of intense anxiety in my life
The way you write about Bromazolam and its role in your life is similar to how I would write about Morphine in my early days. "Man I really like just being able to relax and just do a little dope, not every day of course, just when I need to relax".
I've seen so many people move through the various "phases" of addiction, I've started to see patterns that are difficult to deny. The notion of "weekend use" is one of the ways people get started with their dependency. You're already sitting here mentioning things like
Thursday, sometimes I immediately become worried. This is a very common course for Alcoholics and Alcohol/Cocaine addicts also. The party starts to get longer and longer each week.
I work by the philosophy of, if you were willing to do it the first time, you're probably gonna be alright with doing it again. You have to separate the "possible" from the "practical" in this game. Yes, it's possible for you to keep this going ad infinitum without problems, no dose increases, no dependencies etc. It's possible to use Heroin and administer it yourself every day. It's possible to buy 3.5g of Crack Cocaine, take one hit and then leave the rest for some other time. All of these things are possible, but in terms of what actually tends to happen, these things do not happen. The drugs are going to be smarter than any plan you think you've got going and that's that.
Case in point: if you want to continue messing around with Benzodiazepines, I would see you becoming dependent and ending up in the same bad place every Benzo user ends up in, needing the drug just to stop rattling, living in a state of constant panic/confusion and no longer receiving anything truly "positive" from the drugs. This is why my advice is to simply not do it.
You're in a place right now in your life where you're able to make this choice. You still have the power. It gets harder and harder the longer your dalliance goes on. There are people I talk to whose only wish in life was that they had never touched a Benzodiazepine. I know more than one person who has gone literally insane from chronic Benzodiazepine usage. Most of these people never realized they were taking a drug capable of such destruction.
Use Benzos the way we are told to use them, for no longer tha 4-6 weeks and/or only when needed (re Panic Attacks). Benzodiazepines wouldbe great for instance, for having been in an airplane crash, surviving and feeling emotionally pushed to the limit. This person could be prescribed the medication for this 4-6 week period while engaging in other services to help them resolve their issues. Perhaps at the end, they are given a small supply of PRN medication for breakthrough issues, but the treatment is essentially over. In this hypothetical case, the Benzo is being used to make the person stable enough emotionally to leave their home and engage in therapy/get sleep etc.
They are not medications to be used chronically/regularly. It is one of the greatest sins of our already downright satanic Pharmaceutical/Physician Complex. In practice, the vast majority of Benzodiazepine prescriptions are monthly, at a steady dose. The dependence comes on slowly, insidiously. By the time the patient crosses the threshold of needing more Benzodiazepines to be normal, this is when they are labeled an addict and ejected from treatment, while the doctor is able to wash his hands of the whole thing.
My own grandmother was put on Lorazepam (Ativan) when my grandpa died and was kept on it for ~20 years. Between the death of my grandpa until today, ~20 years after the fact. my grandmother was utterly destroyed mentally, emotionally and physically. She was perhaps 85 at this point. Her doctor died or retired and she was sent to someone new. One thing led to another, she was labeled a drug seeker and withdrawn from all of her medications fast enough to cause her to have a seizure.
She lives in a very small town ~5,000 where everyone is in everyone else's business. My grandmother went from unofficial social ambassador o the city, doing this, doing that, doing church choir, babysitting 10 different grandkids and so on. Today, a good day for her is if she doesn't break down in tears while sitting in her chair and watching QVC. The whispers are that she is a drug addict and everything came apart because she just loved pills so damn much.
The sad angle here is that my grandmother is a TEETOTALER in every sense of the word. Any, I mean any Alcohol whatsoever is a sin. Cigarettes are the same. My grandma wouldn't have smoked a marijuana cigarette for a million dollars. In no version of reality would my grandmother have been a drug addict. Some doctor put her on some pills and made here into one.
I've now written a crazy diatribe. I apologize for the story. I just felt that it gave some meaning to what I was trying to say. These things are like playing with fire. Just like Opioids, they should only be used as needed and when absolutely necessary if one is lookin for any kind of stability or longevity.
