cold-turkey benzo after 2-3 weeks heavy duty use..

[Jabberwocky]

hey all

well i fucked up again with the benzos, i guess i shouldn't dabble with them and i'm an idiot for doing what i've done, but please could anyone help me with this situation?

i've used about 10-20mg of lorazepam a night. i don't even know if i was taking that much lorazepam as it wasn't prescribed, but i'm going by the basis that it was.

recently i obtained some etizolam, and popped about 6-7 of them two nights ago along with 5mg of nitrazepam (which once again, i don't know if is truly 5mg or higher but it certainly acts that way).

the next day before bed time i realized i was in agony, after watching a marathon of movies, it seemed as if i was suddenly agitated and was having a mini panic attack (no lorazepam the night i took the etiz).

last night i took 2mg of (supposedly) lorazepam and 5mg of nitrazepam, and withdrawal symptoms started pounding in. rebound REM-sleep, waking up at 6am and not being able to get back to sleep...

during the day i've been sweating a lot and having paranoid thoughts, that come and go, but i don't even know if this is related to benzos (it surrounds my girlfriend mainly, which is a whole other matter..)

i couldn't sleep with just the 2mg of loraz - hence the 5mg of nitraz

now - can i cold turkey this situation? i've never been in such before. i have abused benzos in the past but never at such high doses...

i realize i will suffer withdrawals, what i did over the past 2-3 weeks has been stupid and reckless. however, is it safe to do so regarding the time frame?

i have withdrawn from a 3mg dose of xanax a day habit for three months cold turkey in the past but strangely i suffered little to no withdrawals (thank god)
i DID however experience extreme withdrawal from valium after putting about 200mg down me and blacking out for a week.

this is the direct result of benzo withdrawal and i can't put it towards anything else. i am prescribed dexamphetamine which i take for adhd but recently i haven't been taking them frequently as i don't really feel the need to take them as all the do is make me concentrate which i don't need at the moment. my prescribed dose is 40mg a day, sometimes i take none in a day, sometimes i take 10-40mg, i can't attribute what's going on to the dex as it seems to have little impact on my general self.

to taper or not to taper that is the question.

i have a lot of these stupid lorazepam pills left. i also have about 30mg of nitrazepam. and 150+ tablets of etizolam. i could withdraw slowly if really necessary, but only with these pills. i also have 1 tablet of zolpidem, but i don't even know if that would be of any use...

i don't wan't to resort to a valium taper because i simply wont be able to control myself/it actually made withdrawal worse for me.

cheers for all the help guys, i've always appreciated it from this forum, despite my continual fuck ups and drug relapses... just thanks

 

[RobotRipping]

you are going to have to taper. Those were some insane doses you were using, i'm surprised you can remember or anything (or can you?). Either way for now, take as little as possible and decrease by 10% every 2 days and at the end start skipping days in between your doses. Lorazepam is fine to taper with, lasts long enough, not sure about etizolam though. I've ran out of benzos after being on high doses for a month straight and it wasn't so bad so it won't be the end of the world but for the sake of safety, try to taper off.

 

[Jabberwocky]

see thats why i doubt if it really is lorazepam i'm taking - i can remember most of everything from the past two/three weeks, and all i've been doing is playing diablo 3 mainly but my memory has always been touch and go.

it seemed as if the etizolam is what set about the withdrawals for me, just the one off dose of i think about 6-7mg for two nights in a row, and thats where my memory starts to get patchy and black-out territory.

i was trying to destroy my memory and make my time go faster with the benzos, but it's not happening with the lorazepam i've got. maybe its bunk, maybe i'm resistant i don't know...

now i've realized how fucking stupid i am and really need to stop this, for some reason this w/d seems awful SOMETIMES but not all the time.

 

[THE_REAL_OBLIVION]

This won't be a problem...4 weeks of benzo use is the typical dosage regimen doctors use.

Unlike me who has used clonazepam for 4 years before deciding to taper using diazepam when i reached 3mg a day....finally I had no more anxiety but I felt like a shell of my former self and kind of depressed (clonazepam is the benzo the most likely to cause depression). Well suffice to say i have reduced my benzo consumption by 66% (am now using 20mg of diazepam a day), I can't ever get off them forever I think.

Your use of a few weeks is, sorry, a bit laughable, don't worry, you might have insomnia a little but you won't get convulsions, stomach cramps etc.

 

[Jabberwocky]

it's strange - i don't know if it's attributing to the withdrawals but when on the night i took the etizolam, i was talking to an old friend of mine whom i've been through a lot with - and a lot i don't like discussing, after drinking some alcohol it opened me up a lot and since i've had these "disturbing" thoughts again at night, and was hit in the face when listening to some old music of mine that attributes a lot to the time we were discussing. i have no idea if its PTSD, that has now re-occured, but could that be a possiblility?

as for the stomach cramps oblivion, i have had the shits for the past two days as well. fucking bullshit.

 

[pharm-boy]

I wouldn't worry about giving it a specific "diagnosis", so to speak, of PTSD or whatever. Benzos are known (disclaimer: only from the subjective experiences of myself and friends) to bring on depressive symptoms. I have had a similar experience to what you've described and it basically goes away once the benzos wear off. It seems sorta similar to the effect that alcohol has on some people with emotional difficulties. On the bright side, talking through things with friends can make these sorta things better in the long term seeing as they're aware of how you're feeling. Dexamphetamine could be contributing to withdrawal-like symptoms but if you need it then you need it. Tapering is always the best option, both in terms of safety and chance of success. All the best

 

[mrflowers00]

i took 30mg of xanax a night for almost a month straight and didn't withdrawal but others have done much less and went into wd's it depends on the person

 

[eldub v7.0]

physical dependence can build within a couple of weeks; extreme dosing such as that will definite;ly leave you with wd symptoms, how severe you will only know.

i'd strongly advise against cold turkeying it as you run the risk of seizures when wding. taper down with as little as possible that can get you by.

 

[phatass]

.......

 

[Jabberwocky]

good evening,

thanks all for the advise. attempted to cold turkey but after day three was extremely alarmed and concerned, started to have major migraines and and what can only be described as the beggining of a seizure, extreme lightheaded-ness, huge pain in my temples, my vision became extremely blurry , but no fear, i was ready to accept what was going to happen, but i took 2mg of lorazepam sublingually as quickly as i possibly could, i have some in hand at all times just in case, and the symptoms cut out relatively quickly. i'm guessing it was the start of what could have been a seizure. ah well.

am tapering off @ 2mg lorazepam a night, 1mg the rest of the week, 0.5 next week then hopefully cut it out. sheesh lorazepam gives nastier w/d than most benzos too, much like valium..

i found i didnt withdraw from xaxax either even at relatively high doses.. i guess it really depends on the benzo you are taking. the same goes for bromazepam in my case, i would take 60-90mg a day for a month and could completely quit it cold turkey as well.

i have been dabbling with benzos for months now though, on and off them, no tapering at all. when the anxiety kicks back in i take the benzos, been doing this for about 6 months now something i hadn't previously mentioned so i am sorry for that. my mistake at not realizing that.

lorazepam i guess is my dark knight.

i may have to invest on going to the doctor and getting ahold of say clonazepam as it has a long half life (no experience with it though) to taper and just admit what i've done. perhaps even go down the valium route and just not abuse it but take it sensibly.

for those who were saying i wouldn't suffer w/d's, you're gravely mistaken... i think that you should be more careful when handing out that advise next time, even if was 2-3 weeks...

as for dexamphetamine causing worse symptoms actually they seemed to ease my depression and low mood, i even stook to taking 10mg a day for those three days. alas though, the what i think could have been a seizure incoming made me realize these aren't just candy. dex is also known to lower seizure threshold though, which put me at a worse risk.

thanks for the help everyone.