Benzos finally going to self-taper from valium. DEFINETLY. But a few questions

[WayneRooney]

(if you can't be bothered reading this long story, though I'd appreciate anyone that cared to, please skip to my Q1 at the bottom. That's my main concern)

So its been nearly 2 years since I first discovered diazepam. And have used on and off ever since.

I initially used maybe 10mg once every 2 weeks. Then it got more frequent. Maybe weekly. Then I started upping the dose for certain situations (comedowns/interviews ect). And it just became more and more frequent since.

I guess in the last year I've used an average of 10mg or more a day. But its not been 10mg a day. There have been weeks I've taken 20-30mg a day for 7 days straight. But then there have been weeks I've gone completely diaz free. During such weeks I've ocassionally had insomnia and minor, minor anxiety and shakyness. But I'd never say I've experienced severe withdrawal symptoms. I've always functioned. Up until a few months ago I couldn't have said that I'd managed to 'dodge' withdrawals, as a week-10 days was the longest I'd gone without (and I know it has a long half-life), but a month ago I went on holiday abroad for 3 weeks, which led to me going valium free for a month. During this month I got the minor anxiety around days 5-15, but then was absolutely fine. I was hoping that this would be me knocking the frequent use on the head for good, but I slipped back into my sporadic daily/weekly useage of 10-30mg a time.

I'd say in the last month I've taken about an average of 20mg a day, but again not consecutive days. There have been 2-3 day breaks in between.

But now I plan to stop. And once I've stopped I'll just use them for what I originally intended them for; functional reasons; interviews and comedowns. I have potentially some very important interviews coming up in the new year, and it would be nice for me to be off them by them, and a 10mg to do the trick. (Just to note the reason my intended functional plan for this drug didn't work is that I enjoyed the relaxation it gave me, so started taking it on random nights just to enjoy the footy, or watch a film, or even have an easier day at work... This is the sort of shit I want to stop. Its uncessary and spoils the potential beauty of this drug.

Anyway. I have about 30 x 10mg left and want to use these up and be done. As you can see I know my limits well a little, in that I know I can go a few days-week feeling fine and not wanting more to feel normal. So I plan to just take 10mg whenever this happens. And hope it becomes less and less frequent, until I don't feel the need to take anymore unless I want to.

Regarding this plan I just have a few questions:

1) Seizures are my major worry. As stated I know I can go about 5 days-a week without feeling minor withdrawal symptoms. So my theory is if I take 10mg when these minor withdrawals start I'll avoid a seizure. But my only worry is if seizures can happen WITHOUT these prior minor withdrawal symptoms. So my first question is, can a benzo-withdrawal induced seizure happen out of the blue, with NO prior w/d symptoms, inparticularly in someone such as myself who DOES notice minor w/d symptoms after 5-10 days use?

2) Was my month break in which I felt back to normal by the end long enough to say I 'dodged' full blown withdrawal? I did experience minor withdrawal 10 days in, which subsided. Then felt normal. Would it have been possible for delayed withdawal that much longer after stopping, and considering I'd already 'got over' initial minor w/d symptoms.

I'm pretty confident I can be disciplined enough to do this self-taper myself, and recognise when I need to take a 10mg (which I'll eventually drop to 7 - 5 - hopefully normal. I want to do it this way (taking a dose when I feel I need to) rather than a normal taper (taking more regularly - ie 10 a day for 2 weeks, cutting it to 7 a day to for 2 weeks ect) as I don't need to take diaz daily, so doing so would seem counterproductive. I want this done as quickly as possible.

3) So I guess question 3 is does my plan sound OK? I don't want to go to a doctor, and I know some of you guys will recommend I do. And I appreciate the concern. Its just I think I have a good understanding of my bodies relationship with the drug, and don't want to get a doc involved for a number of reasons.

Thanks for any advice.

(ps, I've never been prescribed anything. Its all been illegimately bought stuff. Its varied in strength. But I'd say I know 10mg when I get it. And I normally get it)

Also I'm gonna add a q4:

4) I was tempted to use Etizolam in this self-'taper'? I can see a pro and con to this though. The con would be that it has a shorter half-life, so would make the ride tougher and need to dose when I feel minor w/d more regular. But the pro would be that I've read anecdotal literature that etizolam is less 'addictive', in that it is less likely to lead to withdrawals? What's your views on this? I've only taken etiz rarely, and they seem pretty similar in effects to diaz. But never taken prolonged enough to notive whether they bring on the same minor w/d that diaz does.

 

[tokenname]

i think your plan sounds perfect.
if i had a low dose habit like you have..
but didn't dose everyday..
then this is exactly what i would do.
good luck..i think you'll be fine.

 

[chrisalt]

Here is a taper plan (im not a doctor use at own risk) Ive tapered from benzos twice and am addicted for the 3rd time.

Say your comfortable at 20mg a day

week 1. 20mg for 7 days

week 2. 15 mgs for 7 days

week 3. 10mg for 7 days

week 4. 5 mgs for 7 days

week 6 2.5mgs for 7 days

stop.

You will not seize on this taper. 0.25 of clonazepam is equal to 5mg of valium. My shrink told me to go down 0.25mg of clonazepam a week and would be fine. He even said 0.5mg of clonazepam would be ok(but i was worried about seizures) So technically you could go down by 10 mg of valium every 7 days but i would go down 5mg. you will be more comfortable.

hope this helps

Cheers
Chris

 

[tricomb]

^If you follow the taper above, you'll be okay with minimal discomfort.

edit: and no, don't use etizolam, bad idea.

 

[WayneRooney]

Here is a taper plan (im not a doctor use at own risk) Ive tapered from benzos twice and am addicted for the 3rd time.

Say your comfortable at 20mg a day

week 1. 20mg for 7 days

week 2. 15 mgs for 7 days

week 3. 10mg for 7 days

week 4. 5 mgs for 7 days

week 6 2.5mgs for 7 days

stop.

You will not seize on this taper. 0.25 of clonazepam is equal to 5mg of valium. My shrink told me to go down 0.25mg of clonazepam a week and would be fine. He even said 0.5mg of clonazepam would be ok(but i was worried about seizures) So technically you could go down by 10 mg of valium every 7 days but i would go down 5mg. you will be more comfortable.

hope this helps

Cheers
Chris

Appreciate the advise, but as I mentioned in my post, I don't think I NEED to taper in the traditional sense. I can go 3-4 days feeling fine. So dosing 20mg a day for a week would actually mean taking more than I currently take sporadically. So seem completely counter-productive.

Basically my options are the plan I suggested, a 'taper' which involves only taking 10mg ONCE when I feel the minor w/d starts. And not taking anymore until the minor wd's return. And then continuing this pattern, lowering the dose, and hence the periods between doses should lengthen.

OR a taper similar to the one you suggested, just spacing the doses out by 3-4 days, rather than taking daily. As I know I can comfortably go 3 days on nothing. Which would mean I could cut the dose much more frequently and get off much quciker. If I did this, what's the minimum days I should go between doses to avoid an unwarned seizure? Ie when do seizures for benzo wd usually occur (diazepam specific)? Day 3 of cessation? Day 2? Day 4? As that would guide me as to how I'd formulate this personal taper.

My preference is my original plan. As it will be over and done quicker, and I'll have more of an understanding of how its progressing (can I go longer between doses without noticing anything, does dropping the dose have same effect for numbing the minor w/d.

 

[WayneRooney]

i think your plan sounds perfect.
if i had a low dose habit like you have..
but didn't dose everyday..
then this is exactly what i would do.
good luck..i think you'll be fine.

Is this a low dose habbit? Cool.

Can such low dose, non daily use habits ever lead to seizures? And again, lead to seizures with NO PRIOR WARNING IN THE FORM OF MINOR WD. As any sense of minor WD i'll just take a small dose to kick the wd. I just don't want to take the risk of my plan when seizures could potentially happen to someone feeling perfectly normal with no wd effects at all?

 

[tokenname]

to me it's a low dose habit..yes.

no one could ever promise you that you won't seize..
but you've gone w/o several times with very little issues..
so i wouldn't expect this time to be any different.
it's usually high dose daily benzo use..and then c/t..
which leads to seizures.
and although seizures are a very real threat with benzo w/d..
they are also extremely rare.
i really think you'll be fine sticking to your plan.
as long as you do actually stick to it

 

[tricomb]

It's definitely a low dose habit.

The seizures do not have warnings, but since you can skip days, then you should keep dosing them as normal in terms of frequency, but in terms of the dosage, slowly decrease it, you probably don't even have to start as high as 20mg, just 10mg and then go --> 7.5mg --> 5mg --> 2.5mg

 

[Where Wolf?]

Hold on. You can skip days because diaz has up to a 200 hour half life. Even at 20mgs, weekly 5mg drops are ambitious: and using shorter-acting benzos or pseudo-benzos like etizolam is a very bad idea. I'd say you need to get hold of some lower dose pills, and take things a little more slowly (CT from 5mgs is dangerous). Something like (again, I'm not a doctor, follow at own risk)

20mgs for 7 days

15mgs for 14 days (withdrawal may not catch up with you till day 8-9)

13 mgs for 7 days (or 12.5 if you only have access to 10/and or 5mg pills)

10mgs for 14 days

Then drop by 2-2.5 mgs maximum every two weeks till you get down to 2.5 - then halve it for two weeks, then halve that again for two weeks. The rule of thumb for a safe taper is to never drop more 1-2mgs or 10% of your dose in one go, give each drop time to catch up with you - 200 hours, 2 weeks to be safe, and going CT off of 5mgs doesn't sound like a good idea at all. You might be fine - you might seize, or DT.

Withdrawal symptoms can occur months after cessation, and over-rapid tapering increases the likelihood of rebounding to a higher dose. You are on a fairly low dose habit, but given the potential lethality of benzo withdrawal, and how often people fail to taper on their own, I'd strongly advise you to find a sympathetic doctor, 'fess up and have some supervision Dropping to zero from 5mgs might be perfectly safe: or you may have a naturally low seizure theshold. There's no way of knowing. The chance of a fatal seizure is infinitesimal - but still, not a risk worth taking. Read the Ashton manual if you haven't already, and if you can't find a doctor to supervise you, get 5mg and 2mg (ideally 1mg as well) pills - the lower you get, my doc tells me, the slower you have to take it.

I'm currently on 44mgs, dropping 2-5mgs every 2 weeks, and once I get down to 1mg, I'll go on a liquid titration to .75, .5, .25, and then kick. I've had a higher dose habit than you, and for a couple of years, but it's really best to be as cautious as possible with benzo w/d: seizures and tremors aren't the only symptoms to worry about, you could develop temporary psychosis and other charming DT symptoms from going too fast.

And dropping 5mgs that first time - a quarter of your dose - may turn uglier than expected, one week isn't long enough to ensure the backlog's eliminated from your system, you really need to plan for longer intervals and get legit supplies. Ideally, I'd say drop 2mgs every two weeks until you hit 'zero', then 1mg, then halve that, et cetera. Better safe than seizing, relapsing, or facing private insect infestations.

Sorry to contradict a mod, but harm minimisation in benzo withdrawal - and being able to function during the process - does mean a long, slow process. 20mgs is a low dose...but the w/ds could still be severe and dangerous. Medical supervision really does help, and the black market rarely supplies the lower-dose pills needed at the end of a safe taper.

 

[jeng1128]

Im currently detoxing off diazapam right now & im at 15mgs/day. It really hasnt been that hard despite my thourough abuse of benzos(esp xanax)....id have to take 20mgs of xanax to get high(not kidding....THOUGH I DO NOT RECOMEND THIS!!) My dr was giving me 6mgs of ativan/daily & asically i was buying bars off the street. My tolerance got so high like 15bars i said fuck this its CRAZY!! So i went to my dr & told him i wanted off the ativan. He brought me down on the lorazapam & switched to diazapam 30mgs/daily.

FF 4 months later Im down to 15mgs/daily. Somtimes at the end of the month i run out before i can get a new script(basically giving them to friends who are sick) so ive done 5mgs a day. I was fine. It dosnt seem like you have much of a tolerance at all. If you can skip a few days Id think you could just stop. Thats what happens on a taper eventually you just stop. Personally I think its mental too. I know you can have seizures but ive been to detox for benzos(w a big tolerance) & i got off them in three weeks. Im choosing to take my time bc i have a dr who will allow it & i really dont want to relapse. It really dosnt sound like youre too addicted & if you have 30 10s....take 5 mgs for a week & stop. Im sure youll be fine.

 

[WayneRooney]

Guys, the point is I don't take these daily anyway. So startting a daily taper is surely just going to lead to more Diaz accumulating in my system than now. Why go from an infrequent-ish habbit to a daily one?

 

[jeng1128]

So why even ask?? Just stop....if youre not addicted than dont take them anymore. If you can go days without them & are an "infrequent" user....than stop using them!!

 

[tokenname]

So why even ask?? Just stop....if youre not addicted than dont take them anymore. If you can go days without them & are an "infrequent" user....than stop using them!!

^^lol.
i get what you're saying..
but i think he had a legitimate concern about seizure risk.
and i think that's what this bl place is all about

 

[jeng1128]

I mean yah i get it but everyone was trying to give him answers to his ? & it just didnt suit him. Really i think i was mad bc i wrote him like a 2 paragraph post bc im going through benzo wds now & have been through them before & his response was like "well i dont take them everyday & im not addicted" then i think ur safe w the siezures & im prob a little jealous im not in his position! Lol

 

[WayneRooney]

I was asking for specific advise based on my personal situation, and not simply asking for your conventional taper guidelines, as I don't think that would ne beneficial to my frequency of use.

So sorry for ignoring your advice, but it wasn't what I asked about though. I think I summed up what I was after pretty well. I do appreciate your attention though, especially from someone in genuine w/d.

Tokenname hit the nail on the head. In my rather long-winded way of getting it out, I was basically asking whether I could avoid seizures by coldturkeying until I felt any minor w/d symptoms, or whether seizures could happen days/weeks after cold turkeying without any warnings at all ( I've become quite self-aware of when I'm experiencing even the mildest w/d symptoms, ie mild insomnia, mild shakiness, mild anxiety.)

I guess the consensus is that with my supposedly low dosing (although I took about 60mg last night to come down from a heavy night.....that's pretty unprecedented for me though), and my history of going days/weeks clean and feeling ok, I should be OK to follow my made-up taper of using on an as and when needed only basis (when such minor w/d symptoms present), gradually cutting down the dose aswel as the frequency of doses.

 

[WayneRooney]

Well I was an idiot and didn't stick to my plan. Started using etizolam on an almost daily basis. Actually probably more like every other day. But I was taking up to 4mg on those days. Like I say, an absolutely idiotic thing to do. I've no excuses either, I just did it because it was easy.

Well I realised the stupidity of what I was doing about 2 weeks ago. So decided to quit whilst I was ahead.

Oh so I thought. A day after deciding to quit I got the worst withdrawal symptoms I've ever had. Although I imagine they would still be considered mild. I had horrible anxiety throughout the day. I had to fight back shakiness and perpetual fear just to appear to family and friends that nothing was the matter, which I just about managed. I had horrible insomnia. This happened for about 2 or 3 days before I got some more etizolam. I decided I'd be safer to take some, but was adamant this time that I'd get off them. So I took 1 or 2mg for a few days, again tried to stop, and again the same horrible effects. So I took another 1mg for 2 days before stopping, and again the same thing happened. This was 5 days ago. But this time I thought fuck prolonging this, I'm stopping. So I went through about 4 days of the same horrible feelings and terrible anxiety. This happened yesterday, and I didn't sleep brilliantly last night.

However, today feels much better. Without wanting to tempt fate, I feel like I'm over the worse part. I still feel like sleep might be hard to come by tonight, but I'm going to try and forget about that and hope for the best.

I've got a feeling that as I'd just stopped taking diazepam in the way I described above when I started taking these etizolam tablets, I was probably hit with withdrawal effects from both drugs at the same time, considering their different half-lifes. I think taking etizolam was the stupidest thing I could have done, and if I'd stuck to my plan of taking 10mg valium IF I needed it (which it turns out I probably would have) I would have had a much smoother ride.

 

[chrisalt]

Sorry to say 3 days in between doses with valium means nothing. You almost might as well take it daily. Thats just not enough time if between to defeat dependance. I would know im addicted to benzos.

 

[Aphex747]

^what token said. and i also agree keep it to every few days like you are, and i recommend dropping from 5 to 2.5 to 0 you wouldnt want to drop from 10 to 5 so i think (just my opinion) maybe go the extra week on 2.5 then jump off and be glad you jumped off the fast moving benzo train, landing on your feet. good post btw. -aphex

 

[contalginabuser]

Yo! this is a great way!

Here is a taper plan (im not a doctor use at own risk) Ive tapered from benzos twice and am addicted for the 3rd time.

Say your comfortable at 20mg a day

week 1. 20mg for 7 days

week 2. 15 mgs for 7 days

week 3. 10mg for 7 days

week 4. 5 mgs for 7 days

week 6 2.5mgs for 7 days

stop.

You will not seize on this taper. 0.25 of clonazepam is equal to 5mg of valium. My shrink told me to go down 0.25mg of clonazepam a week and would be fine. He even said 0.5mg of clonazepam would be ok(but i was worried about seizures) So technically you could go down by 10 mg of valium every 7 days but i would go down 5mg. you will be more comfortable.

hope this helps

Cheers
Chris

i have often been addicted to benzos (sometimes less and often much more) i would recoment the same thing that chris here is saying.. maybe only with something like resolid or librium.. good luck and stay possitive!

sorry about the spelling (from iceland hehe)(and wd from opiods)

 

[WayneRooney]

Sorry to say 3 days in between doses with valium means nothing. You almost might as well take it daily. Thats just not enough time if between to defeat dependance. I would know im addicted to benzos.

Well its been 2-3 weeks since I last took Valium now. And almost a week since I last took Etizolam, which has a MUCH shorter half-life. I'm feeling ok today and will hopefully get a good nights sleep tonight.

And to those suggesting taper plans.....I don't want to take a benzo everyday. I have never really done that, so to do that now would seem counterproductive. Before dabbling with etizolam I would happily go days at a time with nothing. Obviously that caught up with me. But hopefully I've just rode out both the etizolam and valium WD at the same time. IF I don't get a good nights sleep tonight, I think I'll take 5mg diazepam before bed tomorrow and I think that will be the end of it.