After years (like 11) of benzo use does tolerance ever really go away or reset itself

[K'd-OUT-in-AZ]

Quick background: I've been on benzos for 11 years now & was prescribed doses of 2-8mg Klonopin -or- 2-8mg Xanax daily with 30-60mg Temazepam -or- .125mg-0.25mg Halcion. So I took a hypnotic nightly with either Klonopin or Xanax as my anxiolytic. Long story short, I quit by using the Diazepam taper which begun at 40mg. So I've been clean from benzodiazepines for 9 months with some bumps in the road.

My first relapse was about 5 months after I tapered. I took 1.5mg of Alprazolam and felt "nothing", literally nothing, not even drowsy. I was very disappointed. My second relapse, 6 months after taper, I went on a small run with diazepam and doses below 30mg did nothing but I was still able to get pretty fucked on doses around the 60-80mg range, especially 80mg. So that gave me hope that I could still at least get high on benzos still.

My third and current relapse I took 2mg lorazepam last night and felt some very little effects, sort of drowsy, moderate relief of anxiety. But this morning I took 4.5mg and feel very nice. I'm also aware that just 4mg of lorazepam can get me "high" (if you want to call it that.)

So here comes my question, since I felt nothing from 1.5mg alprazolam after 4 months clean does this mean my tolerance will always be this high, requiring much higher doses. Or maybe if I were to go an entire years clean might I have been able to feel it? Or do I now have a permanent tolerance to benzodiazepines since I was using such high doses for the longest time? I know I can still feel them but only at "relatively" high doses (for instant 60-80mg diazepam or 4-5mg lorazepam). Back when I was using these doses would have barely worked.

So how about it...does tolerance to benzodiazepines ever completely go away when you've been using them for very long periods of time (like 6 years or more, in my case 11) By "completely" going away I mean will your ever be able to get high on just 1mg of Klonopin or Alprazolam again. I know your tolerance decreases at least a little.

Experts and those with experience please help a confused benzo'd out guy.

 

[K'd-OUT-in-AZ]

But the question on this thread is about benzodiazepine tolerance, not opiate tolerance. If you want answers about that, start another thread.

 

[Mugz]

Hi,

I have been on and off benzos for over 7 years now and although I wasn't on as much as you most of the time I did have a spell of over a year being prescribed 7.5mg of lorazepam a day which had been upgraded from 1mg as needed without any contact with my doctor other than phonecalls and letters I would have to say that that was probably the hardest benzo spell that I had to get past.

I can see your point about it not feeling like it is doing anything after a sustained period of absense, but IME it will always feel slightly like that because you are so "mentallly" used to taking the higher doses that the lower doses may seem like small childs play.

From my own experience you have to have a clear mind when going back to them, or even during your tapering down, as I have been tapering down then relapsing then continuing the taper for a long time now. I actually do notice the tolerance drop though when I am tapering or have had a sustatined period off. I had tapered from 70mg diazepam down to 5mg diazepam and was functioning well again at one point. If I took a dose of 20mg though whilst I was tapering and on the prescribed 5mg dose I would be a lot more outgoing and a lot less anxious.

I think it must affect everyone in different ways. I think a lot of it though has to do with your mindset and how you view the benzos.

Is just my opinion though.

Would be interested to hear some other peoples comments about benzo tolerance staying around or not




edit - I would also like to mention that I think having had a tolerance to benzos in the past IME seems to make it more likely that the tolerance will build faster than for someone that has never taken benzos before.

 

[Pegasus]

I've actually noticed that over time, I've come to require less than I did in the past.

 

[Violenza666]

Sadly it doesnt really go down. Atleast not in my opinion... I can't get my tolerance down either.

 

[kokaino]

Quick background: I've been on benzos for 11 years now & was prescribed doses of 2-8mg Klonopin -or- 2-8mg Xanax daily with 30-60mg Temazepam -or- .125mg-0.25mg Halcion. So I took a hypnotic nightly with either Klonopin or Xanax as my anxiolytic. Long story short, I quit by using the Diazepam taper which begun at 40mg. So I've been clean from benzodiazepines for 9 months with some bumps in the road.

My first relapse was about 5 months after I tapered. I took 1.5mg of Alprazolam and felt "nothing", literally nothing, not even drowsy. I was very disappointed. My second relapse, 6 months after taper, I went on a small run with diazepam and doses below 30mg did nothing but I was still able to get pretty fucked on doses around the 60-80mg range, especially 80mg. So that gave me hope that I could still at least get high on benzos still.

My third and current relapse I took 2mg lorazepam last night and felt some very little effects, sort of drowsy, moderate relief of anxiety. But this morning I took 4.5mg and feel very nice. I'm also aware that just 4mg of lorazepam can get me "high" (if you want to call it that.)

So here comes my question, since I felt nothing from 1.5mg alprazolam after 4 months clean does this mean my tolerance will always be this high, requiring much higher doses. Or maybe if I were to go an entire years clean might I have been able to feel it? Or do I now have a permanent tolerance to benzodiazepines since I was using such high doses for the longest time? I know I can still feel them but only at "relatively" high doses (for instant 60-80mg diazepam or 4-5mg lorazepam). Back when I was using these doses would have barely worked.

So how about it...does tolerance to benzodiazepines ever completely go away when you've been using them for very long periods of time (like 6 years or more, in my case 11) By "completely" going away I mean will your ever be able to get high on just 1mg of Klonopin or Alprazolam again. I know your tolerance decreases at least a little.

Experts and those with experience please help a confused benzo'd out guy.

Tolerance to benzodiazepines will never go back down to zero or to "baseline" like when you first started. However, it DOES go down after a lengthy period of complete abstinence. By "lengthy" I mean more than 6 months and the longer you abstain the lower the tolerance will go. I speak from personal experience and from studies which do suggest that benzo tolerance is not permanent.

I started using benzo's in 2001 at the age of 17 (unprescribed). My first experience was with diazepam and I didn't even know what benzo's really were at the time, but I had just read in a medical book about tranquilizers one time and noticed that they all ended in -pam. So when I saw this sitting on top of my aunts fridge - I knew it was a tranquilizer and I opened the bottle and grabbed a little handful (can't remember, but maybe about 7 or 8 pills). They were blue and I searched online about them and there was a lot of info. So I took 2 of them that night and boy did I ever feel great. It didn't knock me out, but it made me feel happy, relaxed, drowsy, and it just felt good.

So from then on I did more research on them and started to look for them on the streets. Well I abused them from that year until now. I tried almost every benzo commercially available in the US except for quazepam. I live in Detroit, so Windsor, Canada is literally 20 minutes away and I had lots of friends from there that used to come hang out in Detroit and I used to go there, especially before my 21st birthday in 2005 because the legal drinking age is 19 there. So I tried even benzo's in Canada that we don't have in the US - nitrazepam, bromazepam, flunitrazepam (they don't have it on script but it was available on the streets at the time, but no longer easy to find), and some others. So I had a lot of experience with these benzo not available in the US, especially nitrazepam. The only break I had was in 2006-2007. I had a 10 month break from them for court reasons. When I stopped using them in August of 2006 - I was using 11 mg of alprazolam without any effects (I completely stopped using alprazolam). More than 200 mg of diazepam with no effect, I got some effects when I did about 300 mg of it. I was using 5 mg of triazolam with some effect and 300 mg of temazepam provided about the same amount of effect as 5 mg of triazolam. Clonazepam had no effect at all no matter what dose I took, just like alprazolam. Same with lorazepam. So basically nothing was working, except high doses of triazolam, temazepam, and nitrazepam (I needed doses of like 170 mg) when I could get it from Canada.

So in July of 2006 something happened (legal trouble) and I had to cease drug use. August I stopped all drug use until June of 2007. When I restarted doing benzo I remember I was so happy I got some Restoril 30 mg caps and knowing my shit about drugs, I decided to start low and then go higher if needed since I hadn't touched any of them for 10 months. I took 2 caps (60 mg) and I was trashed. I was so happy, relaxed, euphoric, and just felt great. So I knew my tolerance had come back down. So don't worry, there is hope. Alprazolam is a weak sedative to begin with (alprazolam is a very, very shitty benzo with no qualities but being a powerful anxiolytic and that's it), so it could've been that. I bet if it was something hypnotic, you might've had a different reaction.

 

[K'd-OUT-in-AZ]

I've actually noticed that over time, I've come to require less than I did in the past.

After abstinence you found that you required "less" than what you used to take when you first started using? How is that possible?

Has anybody else noticed that after many years of abstinence, the duration of action seems to last longer. Whatever benzo that it may be. Yesterday I took 4.5mg of Ativan around 2pm (eastern) and I was still feeling it early this morning. Maybe until 6am. That is roughly 16 hours. The effects were mostly residual...of course. I still feel loopy & out of it. It has taken me 15 minutes to write this. Ativan always lasted a long time for me (about 8 hours) but never 16 or so hours.

BTW: I also had some closed eye visuals...weird.

 

[Violenza666]

I have closed eye visuals sometimes too... Maybe it is the benzos... Sometimes I wonder what's causing that. Interesting!

 

[Pegasus]

After abstinence you found that you required "less" than what you used to take when you first started using? How is that possible?

Has anybody else noticed that after many years of abstinence, the duration of action seems to last longer. Whatever benzo that it may be. Yesterday I took 4.5mg of Ativan around 2pm (eastern) and I was still feeling it early this morning. Maybe until 6am. That is roughly 16 hours. The effects were mostly residual...of course. I still feel loopy & out of it. It has taken me 15 minutes to write this. Ativan always lasted a long time for me (about 8 hours) but never 16 or so hours.

BTW: I also had some closed eye visuals...weird.

I don't know why it happens, though it really has happened with all of the drugs I've abused. Opiates used to require pretty large doses... Now 15mg oxycodone is plenty for me.