Benzos Basic xanax questions

[.:Holy::Toast:.]

Ok so almost three weeks back I decided to quit using marijuana, it overall just demotivated me and the non-stop daily habitual use put me in a state of depression that I just couldn't shake.
So I used xanax the first week, about 8mg total across the first seven days right after cessation, to help stave off the worst of the symptoms and help me sleep.
The next two weeks I only needed to use it maybe 3 nights a week, about 1mg a night, when my insomnia was really bad and I had to work the next day (if the next day was a day off I'd just suffer through the insomnia).
The worst of the withdrawal symptoms are certainly gone so I'm gonna just try to do the rest without xanax and save my stash for trying to sleep after LSD or 2c-e.

So my first question is I have been noticing a definite tolerance, while 1mg can still help me sleep, it certainly doesn't give me the completely unhinged sociability it used to when I first began using it, so how long does tolerance last given my fairly sporadic and short history of use?
I've heard stories of people who used daily at recreational doses and were using up to 8 bars a day just to feel anything, and for them tolerance lasted up to 6 months before it returned to baseline.

Second question is, how long on average would one need to use xanax at the doses and rates I have been before one notices any withdrawal symptoms?
I've heard it can take up to months before benzo withdrawal symptoms set in but I seem to keep finding different answers, probably due to the fact that everyone uses in different amounts and since xanax has such a short half life I would imagine the withdrawal symptoms would set in after a shorter period of use compared to longer acting benzos like diazepam or clonazepam.

 

[Rambo!12]

For your first question, it is on a person to person basis. For me I take anywhere from 2 mg to 4 mg. This is about 3 years of abuse fairly consistently and I am still locked where you are now. If I go over 4 mg I blackout and If I go anywhere under 2 it literally does nothing besides kill my craving for a bit. Benzo tolerance in my experience goes up insanely fast. After the first couple weeks, I didn't get the sociability you describe and I loved so much. Then I would make the mistake of drinking on it or I would take too many benzos to add to my "high" aka make my blackout blacker. The longest I have gone in three years without a bar is 3 months and when I took one bar I was flyin, but then a week later back between a rock and a hard place. So, long story short tolerance goes up very quickly and takes forever to come back down.

For your second question, again it depends on the person. It hinges on a variety of things including what you mentioned on the basis of what amount and what type of benzo. Short acting benzos and long acting have basically the same withdrawal contrary to popular belief. Xanax does come on a bit faster, as it leaves your body quicker and a bit more intensely in my opinion. They also depend on if you are addicted to any other kind of drug, the method you used to take it, and your current mental state and overall well being. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, they report to feel the worst of the withdrawal symptoms one must use 4mg per day for 3 months. Now thats not to say you wont experience any withdrawal symptoms, thats just one of the worst case scenerios and trust me it gets a lot worse than 4mg per day. Xanax is not intended for extended use. If you use it how you are currently, just for sleep, then withdrawal will be hardly noticable. You will just crave it, maybe get some headaches, hard to concentrate fora few days, and definetly face the dreaded insomnia. If you do get addicted and trust me, you will, symptoms can get worse and eventually deadly. You will experience anxiety obviously, muscle spasms, sometimes seizures, lots of agitation if you took during the daytime, a short fuse, trouble concentrating for long periods, and weight loss. Extreme cases come with suicidal thoughts, but I believe those people are mentally unstable to begin with. These withdrawal symptoms can last in an ungodly range and there is no accurate time frame unfortunately. It can last anywhere from a couple weeks to several months. The only basis you can somewhat tell is based on your use.

I personally experienced withdrawal from a rehab facility, so I had therapists, a understanding enviornment, and uh was administered other drugs to compensate for heavy use because stopping abruptly is bad news with that stuff. In my experience, it wasn't bad at all compared to other withdrawals I have faced. So long story short for the second question, you can experience withdrawal after the first week of use. However, the withdrawal will be considerably shorter than a long term abuser and not as severe. With your usage taken orally, i presume, and 1 mg a night 3 times a week I would be absolutely shocked if those symptoms lasted more than 2 weeks. I would guess more along the lines of 4 to 7 days. The more you take and the longer you take it the worse your gonna be when the bars dry up. Again, the way you are taking it, is how it is supposed to be administered, you will be fine, nothin to worry about brotha, but be careful, xanax is one sneaky bastard.

Also, using benzos to come down of weed, isn't something I would advise. Your using a harder drug to comedown off a soft drug. The xanax comedown will be worse to withdraw from in the future.

 

[Mracid]

I am kinda drunk so I am not really gonna answer you question but post comments related to your questions to help you make your own idea of what it is happening to you.

First, the most important, is your LSD tasting something when you take it. If yes its not LSD and you should avoid that shit it can be like 20 different substances created to copy LSD, I once slept on REAL LSD in the middle of a trip and felt soooo refreshed after.

Then lets go to Benzo tolerance, I read some of the reports of Dr Rosenbaum researches on benzodiazepines, and it seems that in most case our body will adapt itself to what is not useful and will not adapt to what is useful other than stabilizing the ratio effect/dose. So basically if Xanax is stopping its effect you are not taking it for a physiological effect which is kinda good cuz you can work on why you are feeling the need to keep using Xanax after stopping cannabis which has barely no WD effect.

Also the WD can happen in different lenght of usage, I used benzo for 1 year and a half (not daily) and never felt WD even when I stopped for 15 days. So it all depens on you.

If you have done math you might understand this metaphore, if not well at least I'd tried; In a function the point of origin is really important regarding the maximum of the function, since if your origin is below 0 your maximum will be lower than ''normal'' people . Sadly I am one of those, If I take less than 2mg clonazepam I do not feel a thing. What I mean is every drug can be attributed to a specific function and every person has a different Origin which make the maximum different for every1 specially when you can use the dose in the X part of a graphic, and the Y part would be the effect.

To clarify all that metaphore, I think every drug does the same thing but the person who takes it make the effect different since it's origin (neurochemical balance) is different. You gotta experiment to see, BUT I would advise to use the lowest effective dose with every drug you use since it's the best way to be safe and feel the use.

 

[.:Holy::Toast:.]

Thanks for the responses you guys!
And while for some people marijuana has little to no WD, for me the withdrawal symptoms are quite pronounced.
Im quite sensitive to the effects and always had trouble sleeping even before I had ever smoked marijuana.

Even the last two nights I only slept about 2 hours each and this two and a half weeks since the last time I blazed, I've heard of similar durations of WD effects from other users.

Anyway I dont like the feeling of having a chemical dependence on anything which is why I never used xanax to help me sleep these last few nights, I didnt want to be in a position where I needed it to sleep.
I'm on days off from work anyway sand can just suffer through the tiredness.

 

[trebo126]

Tread very lightly when messing with benzos. Especially one with such a short half life like xanax.

I understand that drugs effect everyone differently, but if smoking is that potent too you I would most definitely not mess around with xanax. If you must take a benzo go with one that has a longer half life such as valium, or klonopin, that way it is less likely that you will get addicted. I am not saying this too scare you, but rather to warn you.

I'll try to keep this as short as possible, but here is my experience with xanax. I started off like you where actually the 0.5 would be good enough for me, and over about 6 weeks, that's right only 6 weeks i was taking around 6mg a day.

When I ran out my source could not get me any and I didn't have another refill for 1 week later, so I said what the hell, i could probably go cold turkey... wrong. I started filling WD symptoms after 12 hours of my last dose. I had terrible insomnia, bad anxiety, restlessness, but I managed to suck it up for 3 days. Then the 75th hour hits and I'm taking out the trash when my legs start too get numb, and I was quite disoriented, and the next thing I knew I woke up in the ER with my family around me.

I had a grand Mal seisure and fell straight back and hit my head on the cement in my backyard, and now have a terrible headache, which I later learned that I have a pretty serious concussion, and brain zaps which are quite painful and unpleasant. At the moment I am in week 2 of a rapid taper to get off benzos. I am in real life hell from these withdrawals, and some days are so bad I truly feel like ending my life.

I don't know if I answered any of your questions, but I felt compelled too share my experience. Xanax works great for a short period of time,and it will be your best friend then next thing you know it will be your worst enemy. I have real bad anxiety and I am suffering tremendously now. I was to stubborn to listen too everyone else's advice and boy do I regret it.

I hope you figure everything out and stay safe. Best of luck too you.

 

[Rambo!12]

Thanks for the responses you guys!
And while for some people marijuana has little to no WD, for me the withdrawal symptoms are quite pronounced.
Im quite sensitive to the effects and always had trouble sleeping even before I had ever smoked marijuana.

Even the last two nights I only slept about 2 hours each and this two and a half weeks since the last time I blazed, I've heard of similar durations of WD effects from other users.

Anyway I dont like the feeling of having a chemical dependence on anything which is why I never used xanax to help me sleep these last few nights, I didnt want to be in a position where I needed it to sleep.
I'm on days off from work anyway sand can just suffer through the tiredness.

Is insomnia is the only withdraw symptom you feel from breaking up with mary jane? Ive heard loss of appetite is a big one too. Im sure you feel crappy, but I just meant a bad benzo withdrawal, only heroin and meth are only worse. And I feel you on insomnia it sucks so bad. You got this shit on lock tho brotha, I was just going to advise to not use and suffer through the night when you don't have to be up for anything. When sleep is necessary, then go ahead. Honestly your not going to have any withdrawal symptoms from your usage, I just worry you will start taking more. Keep doin what your doin. Do have one suggestion if you want to be totally xanax free. Attempt melatonin instead of xanax for your days off work, which is a natural sleep aid that is already produced in your body. Much healthier. I used that to get back on a regular sleeping schedule and felt great. If it doesn't work for you then it is safe to combine the two. The tricky part is that you have to take it consistantly for a week for it to fully do its job. Good luck my man

 

[DETROIT*edm*JUNKIE]

if youv been using like 8 days and you want your tolerance to go back down to 0, you should not use any xanax or gaba drugs for at least 2-3 days.

you will always feel your tolerance go up fairly quickly with opiates and benzos. Id say after your first use you can notice tolerance going up...

For example, you take 2mg of xanax and you feel nice as fuck its enjoyable, you take another 2mg 7 hours later and you feel nice as fuck and its enjoyable but it doesnt have as "new" and "alluring" of a feeling as that first hit. This is often much more noticeable with opiates for me (my first get high of the day is my best get high of the day), but I believe it translates to benzos as well, just on a much less noticeable scale.

 

[Rambo!12]

if youv been using like 8 days and you want your tolerance to go back down to 0, you should not use any xanax or gaba drugs for at least 2-3 days.

you will always feel your tolerance go up fairly quickly with opiates and benzos. Id say after your first use you can notice tolerance going up...

For example, you take 2mg of xanax and you feel nice as fuck its enjoyable, you take another 2mg 7 hours later and you feel nice as fuck and its enjoyable but it doesnt have as "new" and "alluring" of a feeling as that first hit. This is often much more noticeable with opiates for me (my first get high of the day is my best get high of the day), but I believe it translates to benzos as well, just on a much less noticeable scale.

Good advice Detroit
Another thing to add, for anyone else looking at this thread, if you don't need for insomnia or extreme panic attacks, dont take it. The high fun the first two days and then you need it to not want to Donkey Punch everyone at work. Then your tolerance goes so high that to feel anything you have to blackout. Anyone wanny buy some pills that will make you forget what ya did last night?? No. So don't do xanax. It has no real positive effects, except for those that it is necessary for. I am suprised at this jump in popularity of a sleeping aid.....but whatever rap music tells us to take right
Re\

 

[.:Holy::Toast:.]

I've definitely noticed the tolerance issue with xanax, but I first noticed it with ketamine tbh.
Such as I can only have a truly lucid immersive khole experience if it is within the first hour of taking my first bump, afterwards I'll only black out.
But xanax was never a problem for me, I still have 20 bars on me because I got them at a good price, and haven't used any since a few days before starting this thread.
Sleep still isn't coming easy but it's slowly returning, still have problems with waking in the middle of the night but this has always been common for me without marijuana.

 

[stillkickin]

I'd definitely be extremely wary of xaxax. I never really abused xanax but was still using it to help assist with sleep over the span of 5+ years. I never thought there would be a problem when I decided to part ways with it as I didn't ever have that addiction quality to it like I did with opiates.

Then I quit taking it... Talk about 9 months of wondering if I would ever see the other side of it. The mental w/d's of benzos was soooo much more intense than anything I ever could have imagined. I still struggle with my insomnia, but it's never been worth it for me to go back on the benzos for any amount of time past a single night in a week or two. And even then, no more than .5mg.

 

[redhothasz]

I was on 2 mg/day for 1 yr & decided to stop cold turkey. Dumb move. Withdrawals were killer. When I say killer...I'm talking a fucking nightmare! Rebound anxiety/insomnia. Restless legs. Body aches. Muscle aches. Hyperawareness. Hypersensitivity. Hallucinations. Headaches. If I wasn't aware of what was causing all of those symptoms I swear I might have considered suicide. It lasted for about 3 mos. Onset took about 1 week (for me anyway.) Oh...and another fun fact about benzo withdrawals...the symptoms are known to wax & wane. Ie; one morning you'll wake up thinking you're cured of this nightmare & the next day it's back. Mornings were the worst for me. I could barely get out of bed in the morning. The rebound anxiety & insomnia is probably the worst part of it. I ended up in the ER twice because I couldn't take it. They did nothing for me though except offer me more xanax to try & rid me of the anxiety. I refused & just pushed through it but man I'm telling you I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. I've heard/read benzo detox is at the top of the list of the worst. I concur.

 

[bobby1978]

If you don't like weed withdrawals, you will probably be awed (and not in a good way) at benzo withdrawals.

I mean I get that your problem needs to be addressed, but going from weed to alprazolam (or any benzo really) seems akin to cutting out a hangnail with a rusty knife in my view.

I'd quit the benzos and look at other options. Exercise, meditation, other meds, etc. Almost anything will ultimately have a better outcome.

 

[EnlightenedOne1]

Withdrawals from any compound is CHILD'S PLAY NURSERY SCHOOL compared to a Benzodiazepine withdrawal. I was prescribed them for 2 years, was forced by the courts to detox in 5 days and had 11 grandma seizures in 14 days, each one closer to death. 7 years followed with no benzos and I got back on 6mg of Clonazepam 2 years ago knowing what it would lead to....I'm now down to 3mg a day and I could eat 2,000mgs and not feel high...However, when I taper down to 2.75mgs in half a month, I'll get rebound symptoms.

 

[Dimm]

I already made a post in a similar thread, but I'd like to reiterate what the poster above me said. Withdrawal from Xanax was far worse than heroin withdrawal. My friend had an incredible amount of seizures while withdrawing (I must not be prone to seziures because I didn't have a single one, AFAIK). Withdrawal from too large an amount all at once can kill you.

To answer your original question, most medical sites say that 3-4 weeks of daily use is what really grabs you. That's why most doctors won't prescribe them for more than 2 weeks time. Withdrawal lasts ages, too.

Seriously, the physical pain and mental torment is unimaginable. My nerves were on fucking fire. My muscles cramped up constantly. I was totally convinced that invisible entities were following me around and tormenting me. Hearing voices, seeing shit, etc.

I never get social inhibition from it any more, or maybe I've just realized it's more of a stupor and loss of common sense than anything.

Great for comedowns, though.

Moderation is key, as with anything.

 

[Mracid]

Have you tried large amounts of chamomile and lemon balm combined in a tea or eaten raw? This combo is GREAT to kill anxiety and insomnia even when WD from benzodiazepines. Also they do not create tolerance or dependance and are anti-cancer, so they are great! You can buy them in bulk (I bought a pound of each and am sooo glad I did, organic and cost 20 bucks CAD for each pound plus shipping which ended at 55 bucks for 2 pounds of plants) and you can buy boxes of 20 bags containing less than 1g of each for like 8 bucks CAD. When I counted, I found that I saved, 220 bucks CAD for each pound I bought in bulk and they are organic too.

Those plants can easily replace benzodiazepines when used in high dose like 3-4 grams of each.