Well to keep it short yes but if you were a heavy abuser for years you're more than likely always going to deal with some type of PAWS
Next step being learning to manage that
I used to be on 300 mg of Xanax a day and it took me over 2 years to even resemble feeling normal
Jesus Christ! 300mg daily? I thought I took more than anyone else on the planet because when I told doctors and nurses how much I took they said wow I've never met anyone that took that much and well...lived. Not because of an overdose which is nearly impossible on benzos alone - luckily I knew not to drink with them (which I very stupidly did once <see below>) I don't remember the formula of mg/kg of body weight for Xanax but I'm sure you can find it if you care. At any rate, for me at the time it was something like 3000mg I believe
< One of the United States official medical websites explains the high toxicity of alprazolam compared to other benzodiazepines (though compared to some other categories of drugs is still very low)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1884537/ >
but the fact that you are a zombie and usually die from a fall down a flight of stairs (Which did happen to me the one time I very stupidly DID drink with them even though it was only 3 or 4 cans of <gag> Budweiser but I didn't break my neck somehow. I did, however, lose a front tooth and split my bottom lip open so badly that it looked like I put a mighty might mini firecracker in my mouth like a wad of chew. I only know because I went back to the plastic surgeon who did my surgery and she showed me a picture of what it looked like. I thought I was going to hurl). Or you get into your car and kill yourself or walk into traffic or any number of stupid things you can do. My biggest fear every morning on the rare occasions I could remember the day before was going to my car and finding a huge dent and blood all over the front because I would have absolutely no memory of it. My pot dealer at the time told me that after he smoked me out when I'd stop by to buy <he smartly made you hang out for at least an hour so people weren't coming and going every 10 minutes. When Star Trek TNG was on, there would be a group of people at his place every Saturday at 6pm> that I'd fall asleep on his couch sitting up and drool on myself. Other people told me other things I did but I no longer remember what they said, just that I did things I had no idea I was doing <imagine that>(I was taking 90 mg tid (three times a day for those not in the know) of an unknown generic Alprazolam I bought online from India from a now defunct website called MedsIndia. That was back in 2000-2001 when you could buy benzos online without a script and on this particular site Alprazolam and Valium were only $1.00 per pill. No, that isn't a typo, they were a buck each for 1mg generic alprazolam or 10mg Valium {brand}. You could buy 100 pills for $100.00 or 200 pills for $200.00. You could not buy opioids <probably due to the scheduling difference in the United States of 4 for benzos and 3 or 2 for opioids. Strangely you could buy pure codeine sulfate in, if memory serves, 15mg tabs. Luckily for me (as the combo would likely have killed me.) my body does not respond well to opiates. Codeine just gives me a weird headache similar to a sinus headache which can be lessened by lying down and/or eating but is not worth it due to the accompanying projectile vomiting every 30 minutes until my stomach is empty, usually about 90-120 minutes followed by another 3 hours of heaving up bile the way you do when you are a kid with a really bad flu. And morphine <I've only had the IV version in the hospital due to severe chronic back pain due to 9 or 10 issues thereof>. I was given 10mg/4 hours which the nurse thought was a mistake and called down to the hospital pharmacy because she never saw a dosage that high. The pharmacy verified the dose as the max amount. It did nothing for my pain but thankfully unlike oral Codeine did not make me sick in any way, it just made me dizzy for about 30 minutes and then nothing. After 3 doses I told the nurse that it wasn't doing anything. She made me laugh with the response 'Yeah, unless you're an 80 year old woman who weighs 90lbs morphine won't really do much.' I responded, 'huh.., you hear morphine and you think OH MAN!' She said 'no but now you're getting the good stuff.' I had no idea what she meant until 4 hours later when a new nurse came into my room and he asked me if I ever had Dilaud before. I hadn't. 'well, he said, you're getting 2mg' (again with the max dose...?) Not only did it eliminate the pain completely but it was the most insanely euphoric feeling I've ever had before or since. Let's put it this way; if you had the choice of an everlasting orgasm or an everlasting Dilaud rush you'd probably choose the Dilaud rush. I remember thinking 'oh my god, do it again!' Which is why people kill themselves with IV opioids. Years later I read on a drug user site that to get the kind of rush 2mg of Dilaud gives you would take a fatal dose of Heroin. I've never done Heroin in any way so I can't verify that but I definitely believe it. People who have done both say that the downside of Dilaud is that the rush only lasts about 5 minutes (which I Can verify.) and then you feel pretty much normal except for the fact that if someone cut off your finger you probably wouldn't care-the way a huge dose of Xanax would make you feel next to nothing if someone told you that your mother died. As opposed to Heroin which lasts about 4 hours. Sorry for the long tangent but for those of you who are like me and love reading experiences, you're welcome <grin> along with 500mg of Valium (Roche Brand) @ 100mg five times a day. I was also smoking an ounce of high grade marijuana (now that it's legal in the state in which I live, I'd guess about 20% thc, which in 2000 was considered kind bud. It doesn't compare to the Kush Cake I had @ 38.759% or the South Beach @ 37.632% but is still considered good pot by today's standards. Those of you who have grown your own will know that 20% is not an easy feat.) every 10 days. For those of you who have used benzos and weed together know that pot significantly increases the effects of benzos.
So to hear someone took 300mg/day unless that's a typo, I don't know how you stayed awake - amphetamines? Meth? An ounce of freebase coke daily (lol)? But I totally relate to the 2 year comment. I had cravings for 2 years myself and I occasionally still have Xanax dreams almost 24 years later. Thankfully, unlike opioid addiction the craving, for lack of a better term, goes away. I've been dependent on alcohol, pot <yes you can!>, benzos, opioids, Baclofen <acts on GABA b as opposed to benzos acting on GABA a but still causes the same withdrawal symptoms only worse and must be titrated at the same rate of no more than 10-12% every 4-6 weeks. Once you've been dependent on something, the desire for whatever it is eventually goes away with the exception of opioids. Once you've been dependent on opioids and you manage to quit you never feel whole again. Which is why I'll be on Suboxone for the rest of my life. And despite what people though and said early in its use, taking Suboxone DOES NOT mean you aren't in remission. I see an Addictionologist every 3 months via video visit and once a year in office so he can keep prescribing it and my chart (which I can access thanks to virtually all businesses and all medical clinics having portals) under conditions it lists all of them and next to OUD (opioid use disorder - today's medical parlance for opioid dependence - it states, 'in remission'
I hope you enjoyed as opposed to being annoyed by the tangents.