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Benzos Etizolam Taper Plan....

H

HELP!

Greenlighter
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
Messages
18
Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could offer any advice or any opinions on this taper plan I have come up with.

A little bit of background information:

I have been taking Etizolam for about 9 months daily, sometimes upto 18mg a day. I am currently stable on 7mg a day and have been for a month or so. I really need to get off this RC as quickly as possible, however understand the risks involved with just stopping (plus I don't fancy another nasty W/D). I have previously had benzo (I know Etizolam isn't technically a benzo, but I also know there isn't much difference) habits and managed to get clean - usually Diazepam being the main problem. I managed to stop taking all drugs and was abstinent for a decade, however fell off the wagon about 9 months ago with Etizolam. Ideally I would like to swap over to Diazepam for the end of my taper but this is unlikely, as I don't have any way of getting them and can't tell my Dr about this, for various reasons I don't wont to go into.

This is a taper plan I have put together.

6mg a day for 1 week
5mg a day for 2 weeks
4mg a day for 2 weeks
3.5mg a day for 2 weeks
3mg a day for 2 weeks
2.5mg a day for 2 weeks
2 mg a day for 2 weeks
1.5mg a day for 2 weeks
1mg a day for 3 weeks
0.5mg a day for 3 weeks
STOP

So basically dropping down every 2 weeks until I get to 1mg a day then dropping down by every 3 weeks. In total a 21 week taper plan.


I think this seems reasonable and achievable. However, it would be nice to get some feedback and opinions or even experience with regards to this.

Kind Regards.
HELP! (AKA - Japan1980)
 
It's much harder to taper a shorter acting benzo like etizolam. Why not seek assistance from your doctor? I realize you said you "can't tell your doctor" but is it because of the fear that he will label you an addict or eliminate other scripts that you currently have? If you inform him of your current etizolam abuse and state that you wish to taper off I don't see why he would deny you care. It would be liability issue on his part if you went in seeking a safe taper and he sent you away to possibly have a seizure and suffer severe injury.

Your current taper plan seems to be extremely protracted as well.... almost 6 months long? Please consider trying to get a long acting benzo such as clonazepam or valium.
 
orgone said:
It's much harder to taper a shorter acting benzo like etizolam. Why not seek assistance from your doctor? I realize you said you "can't tell your doctor" but is it because of the fear that he will label you an addict or eliminate other scripts that you currently have? If you inform him of your current etizolam abuse and state that you wish to taper off I don't see why he would deny you care. It would be liability issue on his part if you went in seeking a safe taper and he sent you away to possibly have a seizure and suffer severe injury.

Your current taper plan seems to be extremely protracted as well.... almost 6 months long? Please consider trying to get a long acting benzo such as clonazepam or valium.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply - appreciate it.

The reason I can't tell my doctor is due to my profession, I simply can't have anything addiction related on my health records.

When you say my plan is extremely protracted, would you recommend a shorter one then? The reason I went for a longer taper plan is because I want it to hopefully run smoothly with minimal withdrawal effects.

I understand the benefits of long acting benzo's and wish I could access some, but as it stands It's likely I'll have to tackle this alone. I have a good support network, especially my partner. I'm confident I can do this without professional help - I have before (years ago), albeit with long lasting benzo's.
 
Thank-you for the link. I will be having a good read of it, although I have heard of it before I never had a good chance to read through it. So thank you for prompting me to do so.

Very much appreciated orgone :)
 
From what i understand the more gradual and drawn out the taper is, the recovery period for the brain is much quicker when you finally do stop. So even if your taper does take 6 months, at least you shouldnt be mentally fucked for 6 months or more as can happen if you taper too fast or just suddenly stop. I expect my taper will also last several months, when i finally start it. Just working on sticking to a stable dose atm, and am steady on 6mg.

As for doctors, if you live in the uk ?, my initial experience is that you get no help atall from them, in terms of switching to a prescribed and controlled drug.
 
I can try to help answer your question if you can't PM him HELP!. Both of these meds are Rx only so it might be tricky to obtain them since you cannot tell your primary doc what you'd be using them for. Here is a snippet from Sonic in another thread about using these meds to help with benzo WD:

"Gabapentin is mainly a GABA-B agonist. I tried using phenibut in place of benzos before (phenibut and gabapentin are very similar). I think it helped a little, but I certainly wouldn't want to rely on it as my only withdrawal aid.

I've been looking for people's experiences using these easy to obtain GABA agonists for benzo withdrawal and I've yet to find much of anything useful. Unfortunately I don't think that gabapentin will kill the benzo withdrawal completely. It might help some, but that's just a guess."
 
Thanks orgone - by the sounds of it it's not worth trying to even bother getting hold of these.

Someone mentioned to me that beta-blockers such as Propranolol can be slightly beneficial when tapering - anyone know if this is true, and if so why and how?

Sorry for all the questions!
 
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