can you take benzos in a way that doesnt end up causing more harm than good?

[Diamorphazepam]

Usually when I take benzos I get them & want to try to get a high out of them so I take large doses, sometimes up to 100mg of valium or 200mg of temazepam. It relaxes me but lowers my inhibitions and causes me sometimes to act stupidly and even cause slight amnesia without ever feeling content with how much ive taken.
Today I took only 40mg of temazepam. I feel less anxious but my judgement isn't impaired. Im thinking maybe id be actually better of using smaller doses for a few days rather than using it all at once. I think 40mg of valium would be the best dose to lower my anxiety and feel a bit high without impairing my judgement to much. Its good to have my social anxiety gone while still acting normal.

im just wondering if every time u take a benzo ur going to have rebound anxiety or if its actually possible to use the for short periods of time without any withdrawal. If you can use them without withdrawal about how much per month can you get away with?

Im also curious with opiates. Say I have a headache or I just want to relax and I take 25mg of oxycodone as a one off. Will that instantly give me a very mild withdrawal or do I have to use it for like a week or something before there's withdrawal. If this is the case about how much can you get away with a month. Would it actually be possible to get high once a week without any withdrawal?

Well at least not a physical addiction. Obviously the Psychological withdrawal can be there.

 

[Mysterie]

i just think its impossible to be able to rationally plan safe usage of opiates, benzos for some might be less difficult

if you don't want to cause harm to yourself i would recommend not taking oxycodone at all, and if you are dead set on it you could do 40mg temazepam once a week, but who's to say you dont end up doing it every day, i dont know

ive done strong opiates before, and i will never do them again, they are just too psychologically addictive, there is something wrong when you fantasize about using a substance for up to 3 months after doing it once.

 

[Psychonauticunt]

Usually when I take benzos I get them & want to try to get a high out of them so I take large doses, sometimes up to 100mg of valium or 200mg of temazepam. It relaxes me but lowers my inhibitions and causes me sometimes to act stupidly and even cause slight amnesia without ever feeling content with how much ive taken.
Today I took only 40mg of temazepam. I feel less anxious but my judgement isn't impaired. Im thinking maybe id be actually better of using smaller doses for a few days rather than using it all at once. I think 40mg of valium would be the best dose to lower my anxiety and feel a bit high without impairing my judgement to much. Its good to have my social anxiety gone while still acting normal.

im just wondering if every time u take a benzo ur going to have rebound anxiety or if its actually possible to use the for short periods of time without any withdrawal. If you can use them without withdrawal about how much per month can you get away with?

Anxiety comes off as an ancillary function for benzos in your life (or it seems that way to me from reading it - sorry if I'm mistaken). I don't know, obviously, but maybe you wouldn't feel anxiety if you hadn't binged on benzos in the first place - ie. you could already be having rebound anxiety.

Are you prescribed benzos for anxiety by a physician or do you self-medicate, or do you primarily use them recreationally (as your post would seem to indicate)? If you have a medical need for them you are completely eliminating any therapeutic effect they may have by taking even 40mg of diazepam, if that's past what you need to lower your anxiety but enough to "feel a bit high". Also, if 40mg of Valium only lowers your anxiety as opposed to completely obliterating it, we have a problem.

If you need these as anxiolytic medication you need to taper to therapeutic doses (around maybe 20mg diazepam daily) or you will find lost efficacy and eventually withdrawal symptoms, which are potentially terrifying to say the least.

If you only take them occasionally you shouldn't have a tolerance issue, but "occasionally" is a very wide margin, and the fact that you already feel you need 40mg Valium to feel normal is clear evidence that you're taking them more occasionally and/or at higher doses than you should. There's no easy rule of thumb for how often you can take them, and how much, but it's real easy to slip into a pattern of "just this once" or being strict with limiting it in terms of days, but compensating with higher doses. It can be real tempting, as you already said yourself.

It is possible to use for short periods or occasionally without WDs, but your current tolerance indicates if you went cold turkey now you'd be feeling pretty shit - provided it's been going on for more than a couple weeks.
EDIT: This depends a lot on the drug as well though. Coming down off, say, 20mg diazepam is a hell of a lot smoother than 40mg temazepam for pharmacological reasons.

It's a tricky one - however I think it's exceedingly difficult to use benzos for recreational purposes in a totally benign and harmless way, either in terms of dependence or (even criminal legal) consequences for taking one pill too much and going on a mad bender. 100% of my friends and I can attest to this.

Im also curious with opiates. Say I have a headache or I just want to relax and I take 25mg of oxycodone as a one off. Will that instantly give me a very mild withdrawal or do I have to use it for like a week or something before there's withdrawal. If this is the case about how much can you get away with a month. Would it actually be possible to get high once a week without any withdrawal?

Well at least not a physical addiction. Obviously the Psychological withdrawal can be there.

You could conceivably get high once a week and not have to raise your tolerance or experience any withdrawal symptoms. However, as for the chances of anyone keeping to their "once a week" - the deck is heavily stacked against you, rigged like a motherfucker. I went from "sniff/snort no more than once a month" to injecting heroin in a surprisingly short time, and I'm not that prone to junkie-ish fiending for most drugs in general.

So yes, you could, but I dunno if you can.

 

[SixBuckets]

I've been prescribed Valium for twelve years and have no dependency or tolerance issues. I take them 'as needed' (ie when I'm having a panic attack) at the prescribed dose and rarely go through more than one bottle of 50 over the course of a year.

Pretty boring, but I think that's the only way to use benzos regularly without developing tolerance/dependency issues. There's no magic recipe that will let you regularly binge and not have that occur.