I haven't read the whole thread, or anything but, just gonna respond to the OP
Now and days benzos aren't the norm for 1st line anxiety treatment. There are many good reasons for this, especially with a history of abuse of drugs. There are many, and I mean many different drugs used in the treatment of anxiety, even with in SSRI's that have come out over the recent years that may not have any of the side-effects you've experienced so far. As much as i dislike anti-depressants and SSRI's I do come to recognize that with the larger variety of them on the market, especially with the intent to reduce a lot of the common side-effects people come across, they can be very beneficial especially compared to benzos for long term treatment (more than a few months). There are also drugs like SNRI's that are tolerated a lot better than SSRI's among people who have nothing but negative experiences with a verity of them. MAOI's that many people fine very effective, but have large amount of interactions. tricyclic antidepressants for certain types of conditions. Various Anticonvulsants have also been seen to help anxiety and other forms of mental disorders, with great success. Some of these with less side-effects than others, like gabapentin (some find it to be a great mood stabilizer, fantastic for social anxiety and decent for GAD - this coming from my experience). Even some Parkinson's drugs have been shown to be effective in reducing both anxiety and treatment resistant major depression (pramipexole, ropinirole). Alpha-2 adrenergic agonist as well may be an option No matter what pharmacological treatment you may go with, it is also important to always involve therapy with it. It can help limit the dose they may place you on (less you try to improve yourself they are more likely raise the dose), and this leads to higher side-effects. It can limit the length of time on the drug/s, which is good for any treatment, and post treatment. It will potentially do more good than the drug therapy on it's on as it will allow you to alter how you function/interact once with out any medication. They can help with issues that you may not even know where causing problems, or even help give you a neutral friend to bounce ideas off of. If you recieve a benzo, it is probably the most important thing you can do as well. No benzo script for anxiety should be taken with out weekly or more therapy sessions that you take ultra seriously. If you don't try to take advantage of therapy, there is no point to benzos besides finding easy anxiety relief till you are forced off them, throwing yourself into anxiety that makes what you have now seem like nothing.
With all the options of medications honestly it is not the best sign to get overly picky about the drugs you'd like to take for your problems, not to mention you may not even know what specific disorders or symptoms of certain disorders you may be exhibiting that can make a better choice in medication for you. Wanting/expecting a certain drug also will limit the effectiveness of all other drugs you try. The mind is a powerfull thing and because you think xanax or whatever benzo is the right thing for you, you will convince yourself that to be true. A therapist and psychologist can help find one that may help worlds beyond the limited scope of benzos if you go in with a open mind. Majority of these drugs can help with multiple issues involve with recovering from drug addiction, multiple different type of disorders that have anxiety as a common feature (anxiety can be a result of a more specific problem, and not just solely general anxiety disorder. Not to mention having general anxiety disorder can lead to the potential of other disorders). The majority also don't have the as lasting of negative side-effects like benzos have (gaba modulation, leading to your anxiety being worse than when you started, especially with out frequent therapy TAKEN SERIOUSLY). Also, xanax would be a terrible option for a benzo for anxiety therapy unless your dealing with preventing panic attacks, only taking as needed (preferably not everyday). Long action benzos, would be better options, especially to help prevent with abuse. I've noticed alot of docs script clonazepam, and once you build a little tolerance to them, getting high becomes pretty much impossible, which is good. Being on any abusive meds while trying to recover isn't a good idea.
If you are considering benzos also because you are having trouble sleeping, then I can tell you, that is also a terrible reason to choose them over other anti-depressants. There are less troublesome sleep aids out there like the z-drugs, or some of the anti-depressants above (pramipexole, some snris, alpha-2 adrengeric agonists, gabapentin, etc) that can help out with your sleep issues with out all the dependency issues. You may even notice that getting a quality nights sleep will reduce a good portion of your anxiety, or other symptoms making non-pharmacological options for treatment more effective. Not to mention majority of benzos do not give you a qualities night sleep. They will mess with the sleep cycle preventing you from getting the proper sleep even with say 8 or 9 hours a night.
If you do get one a benzo, please go for a long action benzo, stay at the lowest dose possible. You may not feel 100% anxiety free, but that will prevent a bad dependence, help you work through your anxiety issues, reduce side-effects (memory issues, sexual issues, irritability, somnolence), etc. Like I've said multiple times go to therapy and make use of it. That may mean finding the right therapist for you. Don't shrug off therapy because you had a few that you didn't click with. When you actually find someone you enjoy seeing every week, you'll see noticeable gains in your mental health, the people around you will see it, and you'll just start to feel the world beginning to click once again.
I think honestly, expecting any medication to 100% get rid of your symptoms especially mental health is a terrible thing. You are putting to high of expectations on drugs, and in the case of benzos like i said above, you wont really be working on getting through your problems. If you aren't experiencing any anxiety its likely you will have a hard time even learning to get over it, or deal with anxious situations through changing the way you behave. Your also not guaranteed to be able to start functioning like a successful human being just because your major symptoms are taken away, you still need to work. Think about how opiates can take away all of lifes problems, and yet you still may not be able to get the As in a university class cuz you so feel good atm, so you don't care atm to study. Or you just glide along doing the minimum to function in life yet, not progressing because your feeling good, so why try when you don't even have to try to feel good?
while you are seeking out finding the right medication, try the best you can at using the non-pharmacological route to the fullest. Start carrying a little notebook to express yourself, remind yourself of things, keep track of you behaviors and habits, etc. Start carrying out a diet plan. Not saying you need to lose weight, but eating like all those stupid health food triangles say with exercise everyday will make any anti-depressant work 100x better, but also function as one. Stop all recreational drug use. I've found seeking out instant gratification for feeling good is the worst thing you can do while depressed. It leads to old habits, prevents you from following along with your therapy plans, makes your mental symptoms worse, and the side-effects of the drugs themselves become worse. Forexample with weed, the more depressed I am, the worse it will make my memory, kills my motivation, etc.
I'm sure alot of this has been said over and over, and probably has a lot of mistakes but it late as shit, after working all day then going to class all day. I'll tell you what though, working and going to class, on top of going to therapy has made a huge increase in my mood/direction in life that frequent TDSers can easily see.
Good luck.
