But how heavily were you abusing?
Define "heavy". Compared to prescribed doses? Probably heavy. Compared to what I see some people on the internet taking? Not so much.
What exactly did your daily intake look like and was it daily or multiple times daily or what?
Benzos were not an everyday thing for me most of the time. From about 2001-2008 they were a once in awhile treat but almost always taken at doses of about 3mg. Anything less was considered a waste. Anymore more was considered a waste. That was just how the locals saw them if your intent was to "get fucked up".
My benzo use after acquiring an opioid habit (from about 2006-2015) was mainly a way to increase the effects of the opioids I was already taking. They were only available when I had extra money for drugs beyond opioids. They were always bought last (weed came first) or when I could obtain them for free (lots of old bottles laying around in these parts). I usually started them later in the day so I could be functional (I can work on opioids). They were something I took in the afternoon-evening with my later doses of opioids in the day when I planned to nod.
I typically took 2-3mg to start most of the time. I typically intended not to take more benzos (or opioids). I typically didn't give a fuck once I obtained a nod and would sit in a recliner from 8pm-4am casually snorting more opioids every couple of hours and popping a benzo here and there. From memory I typically never consumed more than 6-8mg of benzos on these nights along with whatever my usual dose of opioids were at the time. It ranged from 40-50mg in the early days up to 100mg of hydro/oxy a day near the end before I switched for morphine through anal route because it was cheaper, provided a better nod, caused morphine dreams, worked better for pain, I enjoyed the histamine release and it had become easier to acquire with the crack down on oxycodone prescriptions and changes in the local drug market.
Benzos were an
enhancement substance in other words. By this time in my life the feeling of getting "fucked up" on them was already long gone. They were only used to extend and increase opioid effects or an attempt to make them last longer. I sometimes used them for withdrawal symptoms as well. But that was rare since typically they were usually all gone by the same time of the month when the opioids were. At first that was 1-2 day out of the month. Near the end it was 1-2 weeks out of the month.
All together I've used benzos off and on since about 2001 - 2025. With the last 10 years of so being a peroid of decreased (ab)use. Now a days I only very rarely take them and I typically stick to 0.5mg-1mg doses. I sometimes attempt to take more. But again there is little to no difference between 0.5mg and 3+mg. I'm no longer the type of person that finds a bunch of 0.25mg white footballs and attempts to get something out of them by eating 12 or more at a time.
And how long were you able to use heavily before you lost the magic?
I estimate that the "magic" of benzos was already gone by 2005. Meaning they were no longer interesting unto themseleves. The days of blacking out and getting high on them didn't happen anymore after a few years of light (ab)use. They did continue to work pretty well for slightly increasing the effects of opioids up until 2015/2016 for me. But opioids also lost their "magic" around that time for me personally. Mostly because they became more expensive, harder to source (the ones I like anyway) and nods were becoming harder and harder to obtain. A few close calls with death also played a part I guess. Along with a desire to no longer be handcuffed to taking them everyday. Nods are so rare for me now even when I do have good material to work with that I'm inclined not to attempt to go for them at all. Because it's a waste of drugs I need not to be sick tomorrow. But also it's a waste of material that can be used to improve my general quality of life (less pain). It has been 10 years now since I've had a proper nod and morphine dream. I have obtained what some might consider a light nod several times from the substances I can commonly take now (kratom, bupe, very rarely hydro/oxycodone) but they do not last very long and are very rare even if I push doses. Although most of those substances aren't known for providing a good nod anyway and when I have substances that are my tolerance is already so high that it'd cost a lot of money to get enough of them to make a nod attempt possible. I'm sure some morphine could still do it provided I stuck it up my ass. But I don't find much morphine anymore and the last time I tried I either wasted it all or my tolerance was so high that it didn't have the desired effect.
In other words. The only place left to go is the IV route. Which is something I'm not keen on attempting yet. I did have a short stint with heroin near the very end of my nodding days it it works pretty effectively through nasal route. But I didn't like it as much as proper morphine and I didn't really trust the material. This was pre-fentadope and horse tranq dope I hear about now. I wouldn't even attempt injesting heroin today with all the bad things I hear about it.
The tolerance issue just never goes away for me. Phenibut is fun and chills me out for example. But not like other people I give doses too. I don't feel it if I attempt to take it two days in a row. I'd have to eat so much to get high on it that it would ruin my stomach. I know because I've tried. It's just better not to order any at all. Even the FAA kind causes all the usual problems if I attempt to injest it. No matter if I mix it with something else or not.
Xanax really only does one thing for me these days. It gives me turbo munchines and a craving for sugar. I will eat all the junk food in the house. But I no longer find it effective for inducing sleep. It's barely effective for curbing axiety and just causes horrible rebound axiety within a few hours of injestion. The only real positive effect I get from it is being able to smoke a lot of weed that would usually bring on instant panic attack if I consumed more than a couple of tokes. But all that does is makes the munchie problem worse and later the rebound axiety. So instead I just limit my weed intake.
All of this isn't unique to me as well. I had a friend that got 250+ bar xanax a month along with a massive opioid prescription (two different kinds of pills) for several years. He ate the xanax like candy and snorted the pills like cociane. I would join him whenever he was willing to share (which was pretty often until the end of his run before he got arrested for the final time and sent to prison). He's got burned out GABA receptors now too. But instead of simply quitting and dealing with the horrible withdrawal like I did (which would probably kill him honestly) he prefers to eat 20+mg a day despite getting nothing postive out of them. The guys spends several hundred dollars a month to cover the 1-2 week gap between when his own script runs out and when he can refill it. He's been hospitalized several times due to benzo withdrawal symptoms. I'm sure it will eventually kill him. I don't hang around him anymore because before going to prison he got into meth and he's aged at least 20-30 years just in the last handful of years. He speaks nonsense and uses people. My friend isn't inside that body anymore. I keep waiting for him to hit rock bottom but he always seems to find a way to go lower instead of stopping to take a look around. If he ever looked back up the hole I'd reach in and try to pull him out.
He's just one of many examples in our local area of people that used benzos for a decade or more and now get no positive effects from them at all. It was handed out like candy here for decades and people ate them casually for many years. Most are either stuck on them for life and get nothing positive out of them at all. Or they've gone through the hellish withdrawals like I did and refuse to touch them anymore outside of very minimal use for legit reasons. Most of them say they are only effective for medical reasons like inducing sleep and axiety for 1-2 days tops. After that point the old tolerance comes back/resets and they either quit right then because they know the horrible withdrawal isn't far behind or they keep going and end up having handfuls of them to feel anything at all.
This has become a novel sorry. I could write at length about benzo withdrawal and benzos in general. Xanax was the first drug I got introduced to after weed. Well "on the street" anyway. I had taken opioids several times in my youth without knowing it. Probably as young at 5 years old. Since my parents would hand me half of a pain pill when I was a child if I complained about having a headache or general pain. The stuff was truly treated like tylenol around these parts for many years.
www.benzoinfo.com
That list is extensive and the reasons they state for staying away from some compounds is rather vague.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
