Benzos Is it possible to be 'immune' to benzos? Ive never felt anything.

[moonyham]

I was just thinking about how everytime(3 times exactly) I've done benzos I felt nothing at all. Each time was diazepam. From a pharmacy. A 5mg dose once, a 10mg dose once, and a 50mg dose once.

Everyone else I know feels a single 5mg. I literally felt nothing at all on all 3 occasions. Zero effect. Other people consumed these with me and got full effect.

I smoke a lot of weed, but that's basically it besides a very rare binge of coke or something.

Is it possible something is wrong with me? My only thought is I am too chill and lacking any anxiety that I don't feel it because there's no anxiety to dull? I dunno, just thought it was weird. Couldn't find anything on this, just talk of how tolerance can cause this but each time was a one off occasion months apart. I did once have a crazy high oxy addiction for a few months but that's the only real 'abuse' I've dealt to my body/brain and that was 10 years ago.

 

[Vastness]

I doubt it's possible to be completely immune, but I'm not really surprised you didn't feel anything on 5mg or 10mg of diazepam, these would not be overwhelmingly effective doses for me either, I think now that I have a fair amount of experience with benzos I would be able to notice a 10mg dose but for me benzos in the typical dosage range or even slightly above are not really drugs with an immediately obvious subjective effect other than the alleviation of the general baseline of anxiety that most people have, to a greater or lesser extent. And this effect isn't something that's necessarily easy to notice happening for everyone since for most people it tends to wax and wane from day to day and hour to hour anyway, depending on one's environment or just general state of mind and somewhat hard-to-pin-down changes in the flow of one's own thoughts... it usually becomes more obvious in retrospect and after this becomes easier to appreciate in the moment, or at least it did for me, although not all benzos are equal and the sobriety delusion and lack of significantly detectable subjective effects can persist for a while with some, IME.

So yeah it's possible if you generally don't have much baseline anxiety that you'd be much less likely to notice anything significant from low to moderate doses of many benzos. Even without this though it's possible, even somewhat likely, that benzos would still be lightly disinhibiting in even harder to detect ways which for many people manifests as just strange out of character behaviour, but I'd venture to say it's possible that your general baseline is just accross-the-board balanced enough that you're not prone to this either.

50mg doing nothing at all is a little stranger to me, there's a point where the physical effects, sedation, muscle relaxation, possibly some clumsiness and the like, will inevitably start to become more apparent, in most cases 50mg would just send me to sleep, I could see myself staying awake depending on the situation in some cases but even then at this dose I'm curious what you were actually doing, if you were just sitting around not really doing very much of importance then I can easily believe you wouldn't notice much either if you're expecting a more typical messy "drug effect", or like alcohol or something, but if you were trying to do anything requiring fine motor control, attention to detail, cognitive effort and such, I'd think most people would notice some impairment at this dose.

Although even if you genuinely don't, for whatever reason, this odd neurochemical resistance surely has it's limits, I'd think if you tried 100mg diazepam or a heavy dose of a benzo with a stronger physical, sedative element, eventually you would start to feel effects. If you don't get any of the cognitive aspect at 50mg though I wouldn't expect benzos in general to be a particularly enjoyable substance for you, probably just be kinda like too much alcohol but without the sickness and without really any of the fun... probably they'll just make you a bit clumsy and then send you to sleep.

 

[moonyham]

I doubt it's possible to be completely immune, but I'm not really surprised you didn't feel anything on 5mg or 10mg of diazepam, these would not be overwhelmingly effective doses for me either, I think now that I have a fair amount of experience with benzos I would be able to notice a 10mg dose but for me benzos in the typical dosage range or even slightly above are not really drugs with an immediately obvious subjective effect other than the alleviation of the general baseline of anxiety that most people have, to a greater or lesser extent. And this effect isn't something that's necessarily easy to notice happening for everyone since for most people it tends to wax and wane from day to day and hour to hour anyway, depending on one's environment or just general state of mind and somewhat hard-to-pin-down changes in the flow of one's own thoughts... it usually becomes more obvious in retrospect and after this becomes easier to appreciate in the moment, or at least it did for me, although not all benzos are equal and the sobriety delusion and lack of significantly detectable subjective effects can persist for a while with some, IME.

So yeah it's possible if you generally don't have much baseline anxiety that you'd be much less likely to notice anything significant from low to moderate doses of many benzos. Even without this though it's possible, even somewhat likely, that benzos would still be lightly disinhibiting in even harder to detect ways which for many people manifests as just strange out of character behaviour, but I'd venture to say it's possible that your general baseline is just accross-the-board balanced enough that you're not prone to this either.

50mg doing nothing at all is a little stranger to me, there's a point where the physical effects, sedation, muscle relaxation, possibly some clumsiness and the like, will inevitably start to become more apparent, in most cases 50mg would just send me to sleep, I could see myself staying awake depending on the situation in some cases but even then at this dose I'm curious what you were actually doing, if you were just sitting around not really doing very much of importance then I can easily believe you wouldn't notice much either if you're expecting a more typical messy "drug effect", or like alcohol or something, but if you were trying to do anything requiring fine motor control, attention to detail, cognitive effort and such, I'd think most people would notice some impairment at this dose.

Although even if you genuinely don't, for whatever reason, this odd neurochemical resistance surely has it's limits, I'd think if you tried 100mg diazepam or a heavy dose of a benzo with a stronger physical, sedative element, eventually you would start to feel effects. If you don't get any of the cognitive aspect at 50mg though I wouldn't expect benzos in general to be a particularly enjoyable substance for you, probably just be kinda like too much alcohol but without the sickness and without really any of the fun... probably they'll just make you a bit clumsy and then send you to sleep.

Thanks for the very insightful response. Very interesting!

On the 50mg I did everything I normally did - shopping, driving, walking, gaming. Nothing was difficult or had any issue. My kd ratio in the game I regularly play(a fast paced first person shooter) was the same as usual which tells me it had zero or close to zero effect.

I've always needed larger doses of opiates to get any relief even before I ever abused them. And one other drug never does anything for me too - edible thc. I can eat a dozen times what my friends do, who also smoke regularly, and get no effect.

 

[Vastness]

Interesting... yeah for whatever reason some people's brains are just wired in a way that makes many drugs less impactful, especially the more "subtle" ones, I mean I wouldn't personally call benzos subtle necessarily but they certainly can be... I remember another user posting a similar question I think in the psychedelics forum a while back... actually maybe it was you? Lol anyway yeah it's strange to me as someone with a more typically sensitive "subjective response threshold" and I'd like to know what's going on neurochemically, if you ever get a brain scan of some kind to see if you have a abnormal distribution of certain neurotransmitters or some structural brain differences please do report back!

I guess there's 2 (well... more than 2 but for the purposes of argument) broad systems in play, very generally speaking... there's the "hardware" of brain activity mediated by receptors and the neurotransmitters that activate those receptors, which who knows could be somewhat different... perhaps also elevated levels of some enzyme that breaks down excess endogenous neurotransmitters faster than usual... perhaps naturally elevated neutrotrophic factors which accelerate the usual receptor re-regulation in response to drug-induced chemical instabilities... an unusually rapid feedback/response apparatus in the autonomic nervous system... I mean I'm not a doctor but humans end up with all sorts of odd outlier mutations all the time, and who knows how many invisible and mostly symptomless oddities there could be that might be hard to observe without really looking...

Anyway so the physical stuff usually is correlated to subjective effects, but the effects themselves, the "qualia" of experience so to speak, are largely part of the "software" of the autonomous psychological response to brain activity, which is probably a lot harder to measure although I suppose it could be done via secondary effects. And I guess for whatever reason some people develop some kinda unconscious mechanism that just compensates and suppresses a lot of experiential "noise" induced by drugs... and/or possibly other experiences too? Of course in actual fact there 2 systems aren't independent, brain structure is inextricably tied to one's psychological tendencies at some level and the latter is a reflection of the former and eventually probably influences it via biofeedback mechanisms too but maybe it's helpful in some way to consider them independently sometimes... you said you tend to be pretty chill, don't have much if any baseline anxiety, this would certainly correlate to an anomalously effective psychological/neurological homeostatic mechanism of some kind. Curious how far this extends, to be blunt, I guess if you'd ever experiences something genuinely traumatic but walked away from it without much impact that might be somewhat indicative too. Also, family history, if you have one, are your close family mostly high functioning or any classic late-capitalist mental health issues evident? More typical anxiety, worry, depression, more severe substance use issues, eating disorders, etc... this probably isn't all that reliable because of the inevitability of socioeconomic noise fucking up outcomes but it might hint at genetic tendencies to whatever is going on. Oh! Obviously more importantly - if you know if any of your close family have similar reactions (or lack of them) to many substances?

Heh... as a general rule driving on 50mg diazepam should be discouraged... the sobriety delusion is real for a larger chunk of humanity than those who have whatever your condition is. From what you say it might actually be fine but I'd test this out a bit more thoroughly before driving on that dose again for sure, best metric maybe someone who knows you really well, oh actually better metric do some actual online IQ tests and shit depending how much you even care and how scientifically inclined you are just to see if you can eke out some less obvious cognitive shifts.

I guess opiates being one of the only obviously effective drugs makes some sense in that endogenous opioids are one of the most basic parts of the animal brain's risk/reward architecture, with a generally simpler mechanism of effect and link to the subjective stuff... although bringing it back to benzos, curious if you've tried other gabaergic drugs? Obviously alcohol is the most commonly known if a very, very messy one. Other than that, gabapentinoids (pregabalin, gabapentin, phenibut) or barbiturates like quaaludes if you've ever been into that kinda stuff... since if these all affect you differently it could point to some specific mutation affecting your GABA system. I dunno if that would explain the THC-immunity too, but maybe it would point to something. I still feel like there's surely a point where the "bodily" effects should start to become undeniable but I actually don't really know, not a doctor or anything just an armchair psychonaut at times... sorry heh, a lot of questions I know but your case is a strange one.

 

[blazR]

In the past, before I developed anxiety, benzos wouldn't affect me as well..

Though it made me have blackouts, because I overdosed regularly trying to feel the effects.

Some years later after having abused especially GHB and (meth)amphetamine, I developed anxiety and suddenly benzos would feel almost euphoric.

FWIW, benzos isn't recreational drugs

 

[abefourth]

Some years later after having abused especially GHB and (meth)amphetamine, I developed anxiety and suddenly benzos would feel almost euphoric.

It's interesting how relief is almost a drug in and of itself. Whether it be coming out of immense pain, or breaking out of the deep waters of anxiety, or even when a shock turns out not to have been what you thought it was at first.

 

[moonyham]

Interesting... yeah for whatever reason some people's brains are just wired in a way that makes many drugs less impactful, especially the more "subtle" ones, I mean I wouldn't personally call benzos subtle necessarily but they certainly can be... I remember another user posting a similar question I think in the psychedelics forum a while back... actually maybe it was you? Lol anyway yeah it's strange to me as someone with a more typically sensitive "subjective response threshold" and I'd like to know what's going on neurochemically, if you ever get a brain scan of some kind to see if you have a abnormal distribution of certain neurotransmitters or some structural brain differences please do report back!

I guess there's 2 (well... more than 2 but for the purposes of argument) broad systems in play, very generally speaking... there's the "hardware" of brain activity mediated by receptors and the neurotransmitters that activate those receptors, which who knows could be somewhat different... perhaps also elevated levels of some enzyme that breaks down excess endogenous neurotransmitters faster than usual... perhaps naturally elevated neutrotrophic factors which accelerate the usual receptor re-regulation in response to drug-induced chemical instabilities... an unusually rapid feedback/response apparatus in the autonomic nervous system... I mean I'm not a doctor but humans end up with all sorts of odd outlier mutations all the time, and who knows how many invisible and mostly symptomless oddities there could be that might be hard to observe without really looking...

Anyway so the physical stuff usually is correlated to subjective effects, but the effects themselves, the "qualia" of experience so to speak, are largely part of the "software" of the autonomous psychological response to brain activity, which is probably a lot harder to measure although I suppose it could be done via secondary effects. And I guess for whatever reason some people develop some kinda unconscious mechanism that just compensates and suppresses a lot of experiential "noise" induced by drugs... and/or possibly other experiences too? Of course in actual fact there 2 systems aren't independent, brain structure is inextricably tied to one's psychological tendencies at some level and the latter is a reflection of the former and eventually probably influences it via biofeedback mechanisms too but maybe it's helpful in some way to consider them independently sometimes... you said you tend to be pretty chill, don't have much if any baseline anxiety, this would certainly correlate to an anomalously effective psychological/neurological homeostatic mechanism of some kind. Curious how far this extends, to be blunt, I guess if you'd ever experiences something genuinely traumatic but walked away from it without much impact that might be somewhat indicative too. Also, family history, if you have one, are your close family mostly high functioning or any classic late-capitalist mental health issues evident? More typical anxiety, worry, depression, more severe substance use issues, eating disorders, etc... this probably isn't all that reliable because of the inevitability of socioeconomic noise fucking up outcomes but it might hint at genetic tendencies to whatever is going on. Oh! Obviously more importantly - if you know if any of your close family have similar reactions (or lack of them) to many substances?

Heh... as a general rule driving on 50mg diazepam should be discouraged... the sobriety delusion is real for a larger chunk of humanity than those who have whatever your condition is. From what you say it might actually be fine but I'd test this out a bit more thoroughly before driving on that dose again for sure, best metric maybe someone who knows you really well, oh actually better metric do some actual online IQ tests and shit depending how much you even care and how scientifically inclined you are just to see if you can eke out some less obvious cognitive shifts.

I guess opiates being one of the only obviously effective drugs makes some sense in that endogenous opioids are one of the most basic parts of the animal brain's risk/reward architecture, with a generally simpler mechanism of effect and link to the subjective stuff... although bringing it back to benzos, curious if you've tried other gabaergic drugs? Obviously alcohol is the most commonly known if a very, very messy one. Other than that, gabapentinoids (pregabalin, gabapentin, phenibut) or barbiturates like quaaludes if you've ever been into that kinda stuff... since if these all affect you differently it could point to some specific mutation affecting your GABA system. I dunno if that would explain the THC-immunity too, but maybe it would point to something. I still feel like there's surely a point where the "bodily" effects should start to become undeniable but I actually don't really know, not a doctor or anything just an armchair psychonaut at times... sorry heh, a lot of questions I know but your case is a strange one.

Thank you for this very well written response. Its like crack form of information haha. Love it.

That poster might have been me. I have definitely mentioned it before, and probably in the psychedelics part because thats where my interest in them came from.


>Anyway so the physical stuff usually is correlated to subjective effects, but the effects themselves, the "qualia" of experience so to speak, are largely part of the "software" of the autonomous psychological response to brain activity, which is probably a lot harder to measure although I suppose it could be done via secondary effects. And I guess for whatever reason some people develop some kinda unconscious mechanism that just compensates and suppresses a lot of experiential "noise" induced by drugs... and/or possibly other experiences too? Of course in actual fact there 2 systems aren't independent, brain structure is inextricably tied to one's psychological tendencies at some level and the latter is a reflection of the former and eventually probably influences it via biofeedback mechanisms too but maybe it's helpful in some way to consider them independently sometimes...


Every drug I have ever consumed - psychedelics, stimulants, opiates, weed, dxm, ketamine - all of it I have had to always take a bigger dose than guidelines to get the effects said dose should be giving. I seemingly have a tolerance to every drug. Especially opiates - when I broke a bone really bad(like, shattered) I was in an ED and they were pumping me full of opiates. They moved to fentanyl which came in the form of snorting some kind of minty liquid? Thought that was kinda wild(snorting liquid opiates is a legit thing? who knew!). They hit the limit of how much fent they could give me which they said hasn't happened before and I was basically unphased by it. As one example anyway. Ive had a nurse plunge(accidentally) almost an entire fat ass syringe of morphine directly into me on another occasion in hospital for a seperate injury. Everyone freaked out as she put the whole dose(was only meant to get 1/10th of what she gave from memory). Everyone started waiting for me to pass out and I'm just like.. can I have more please? lol This was all before I ever recreationally used oxycodone for a few months.

>Curious how far this extends, to be blunt, I guess if you'd ever experiences something genuinely traumatic but walked away from it without much impact that might be somewhat indicative too.

Haha yeah I've faced some very crazy situations(kidnap for example, deaths in the family with huge betrayal from others) I dunno.. I lose count of all the fucked up things I've lived through tbh that should definitely be 'traumatic' but no, no trauma. Past is the past, don't really dwell on it. I look into the future in general and live in the present. Also I'm very forgiving, I don't hold onto grudges or bad feelings.

>Also, family history, if you have one, are your close family mostly high functioning or any classic late-capitalist mental health issues evident? More typical anxiety, worry, depression, more severe substance use issues, eating disorders, etc... this probably isn't all that reliable because of the inevitability of socioeconomic noise fucking up outcomes but it might hint at genetic tendencies to whatever is going on. Oh! Obviously more importantly - if you know if any of your close family have similar reactions (or lack of them) to many substances?

The only family member as chill as me is my dad. Siblings.. multiple mental health or physical health issues. We all have nerve issues of some form though. Mine aren't too bad, mostly injuries will mean nerve issues take much longer to heal for me but epilepsy/siezures in one and literal spontaneous nerve failure for a limb in another thats now atrophied and my mother has nerve issues in her legs.

My siblings also seem to handle drugs quite well though - we all need big doses to get a hit but I handle everything better and am mentally much more stable and chill than them.

>Heh... as a general rule driving on 50mg diazepam should be discouraged... the sobriety delusion is real for a larger chunk of humanity than those who have whatever your condition is. From what you say it might actually be fine but I'd test this out a bit more thoroughly before driving on that dose again for sure, best metric maybe someone who knows you really well, oh actually better metric do some actual online IQ tests and shit depending how much you even care and how scientifically inclined you are just to see if you can eke out some less obvious cognitive shifts.

I had read about this sobriety delusion and was very aware of it. I made sure to play video games and do other things to verify that I was indeed not in such a state but appreciate your concern and whole heartedly agree.

>I guess opiates being one of the only obviously effective drugs makes some sense in that endogenous opioids are one of the most basic parts of the animal brain's risk/reward architecture, with a generally simpler mechanism of effect and link to the subjective stuff... although bringing it back to benzos, curious if you've tried other gabaergic drugs? Obviously alcohol is the most commonly known if a very, very messy one. Other than that, gabapentinoids (pregabalin, gabapentin, phenibut) or barbiturates like quaaludes if you've ever been into that kinda stuff... since if these all affect you differently it could point to some specific mutation affecting your GABA system. I dunno if that would explain the THC-immunity too, but maybe it would point to something. I still feel like there's surely a point where the "bodily" effects should start to become undeniable but I actually don't really know, not a doctor or anything just an armchair psychonaut at times... sorry heh, a lot of questions I know but your case is a strange one.

Bro funny you mention this. So, I never had gabapentin until about 2 years ago. I got given it with morphine and boy, I loved it. Really really made the morphine kick in so much harder. I finally got relief from pain with that combo. I didn't know what to think when I was prescribed it - thought the doctor was screwing me to be honest, but he insisted its a good combo and I definitely agree.

The first day after my operation I didn't touch it, but used just morphine and acetaminophen and had my typical 'doesn't do shit' effects. But the next day I took it with GABA and holy crap. Felt so damn good.


Oh and alcohol? I don't really like it. Like don't get me wrong, the buzz of 2-3 drinks with your mates at a BBQ is nice. But, I have no desire for it. I have a liquor cabinet with bottles unopened for many years. My entire family on both sides, as far as I can know(grandparents) - there is zero alcoholism. Cousins, uncles, aunties, parents etc. No one consumes alcohol regularly, most don't consume any at all. In fact my extremely sporadic drinking(havent been drunk in years, get tipsy a couple times a year at events with friends etc at best) is probably the most out of 50 odd family members. I've never seen a family member drunk(well.. one of my siblings, once). I have thought based on this(as I've considered how abnormal this is) is there is most definitely a genetic component to alcoholism/enjoying drinking and none of my family has that DNA.