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Getting off alcohol and bezos at the same time

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Bluuberry

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 18, 2014
Messages
526
(tl;dr at bottom)
Does anyone have experience or advice for this? I'm SO sick of my GABA system raging like a beast. I've been an occaisonal drinker since 19, but it never was an everyday thing until I was 22 or 23. For the last 2 years, probably more likely 3, maybe even 4 (! Sure is hard to remember in this alcohol-benzo haze), I have been absolutely unable to sleep or relax without alcohol. It's absurd. Even with benzos, I need a few beers to get to sleep. The past couple years I was drinking about 8-12 beers (7 abv) every night. This last year I cut back, then switched to gin, now I drink 1.75 L of that every 4-6 days, sometimes 3. Anyways I think thats enough alcohol background, but I can be more specific if need be.

So I was addicted to benzo's from 16-18, then didn't touch them. I got a stash of Etizolam for emergencies (prone to panic attacks). Well, the girl I was living with created a mental breakdown in me daily for years, so about two years ago I started taking Etizolam when we would have really bad fights, so I could go to sleep. IT became an every day thing, and at first I took breaks and just dealt with the misery, but finally I stopped keeping track and months later realized I was habituated.

Benzo use has been atleast 6-10mg Etizolam daily, most of it at night until I pass out. I recently picked up some diclazepam for the taper, but am having technical issues getting it into solution that I won't bore you with.

Fast forward, now I've been totally addicted to benzos again for a good 2 years, and same with alcohol for 2-4 years. I seem to be developing DT's. is this even possible given that I'm only 27? I mean I certainly drink a lot, often starting a couple hours after waking. I wish Id known what I was signing up for, but it's my own fault, I know.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought background info may help. I'm really serious about wanting to cut both of these things out of my life for good. However I can't seem to cut either one back significantly. When I try to sleep with less alcohol, it doesn't happen even if I up my benzo dosage. I'll just black out and drink more unconsciously, even walk to the liqour store half asleep.

Drinking more booze just gives me insane hangovers and I wake up with rebound anxiety, either from the booze or the lack of bezos, maybe both.

It wasn't too hard kicking klonopin, but I was also tapering off bupe at the same time so I think that cushioned it, and then I just tapered the bupe until it wasnt even doing anything. But, then when I kicked bupe, I still had terrible effects and mostly numbed them with alcohol, and I think that's when I started drinking regularly again. :/

tl;dr - Does anyone have any ideas about how to taper when trying to get off of these simultaneously? I'm at my wit's end, I've tried so hard and I feel like I'm treading water, but there's got to be a way out of this pickle.
 
Hey Bluu,

That definitely is a pickle and a rather bumpy pickle at that :p . I don't have a ton of knowledge when it comes to benzos and alcohol but I would imagine it would be best to taper off one or the other at a time as you know, they both affect your gaba system and if a taper isn't done correctly can put some dings in your brain.

There are people in this community much more familiar to your situation than I and I'm sure they will be able give you in depth advice.

Just hang in there Bluu and just let us know what we can do to help.
 
Sleep deprivation is almost inevitable when kicking alcohol. You won't sleep for a couple nights and when you finally get some sleep you will experience very vivid nightmarish dreams. Just be tough and go through it without any chemicals if you can. Get your mind busy with something other than thinking of how bad you're feeling.... reading, exercise, binge a tv show, etc. I don't think, giving your age, the withdrawal could be life threatening, but if you experience seizures then check yourself at the emergency room.

Drink a bunch of chamomile tea, smoke some weed, vitamin B and you'll be find in one week. As far as your body is concerned, alcohol is poison and your body needs to recover and that takes time. You won't sleep because your brain has been accustomed to be in a much more depressive state so it does the opposite (racing), your brain probably stopped creating any melatonin naturally, you should take some melatonin it will make you sleep naturally faster.

hope it helps,
keep it up!
 
Hey Bluuberry -

Yikes, you're in a tough situation. Yes, you are probably experiencing the beginning of DT's as alcohol and benzos are very similar with how they affect the body. I can relate to how you're feeling because I was a heavy drinker while taking Xanax for 10 years...it is a miserable situation. If you keep going the route that you're going, expect your alcohol consumption to keep increasing - by the end of my run I was drinking a case of beer an evening (I'm a 5'2 110lb girl) and taking Xanax. I would frequently OD because my memory was so poor I would forget that I had taken the Xanax and then would just keep taking them until I ended up in the hospital. It's a horrible situation. The anxiety and the sleep problems just keep getting worse until you stop. Whatever you do, do not just stop taking benzos or drinking - that can have fatal consequences. Ideally, you would speak to a doctor and see if you can go to a facility and medically detox from alcohol and then do a long benzo taper. This is the most ideal way to quit. For harm reduction's sake I want to say that age has nothing to do with the severity of withdrawal, given the amounts that you are consuming and the amount of time you have been doing this, yes, withdrawal can absolutely be fatal. I was in a similar situation at your age and I absolutely had seizures from abstaining. The withdrawal is just going to get even more severe the longer you use both these substances. Part of feeling horrible the next day from a bender is the beginning of the withdrawal process. I know you don't feel good the next day now, but I will warn you that can also get significantly worse the longer you continue using.

Are you currently working with a therapist? If not, I recommend that you get one and look into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as a means to handle your anxiety. The inability to productively process anxiety is also what got you to this point so you will have to learn how to deal with it at some point. In your situation it really would be best to medically detox. Is this an option for you? Have you spoken to a medical professional regarding your situation? I had typed up much more information but think I will hold off on posting to hear back from you first. Your circumstance is very serious and whether you do this inpatient or outpatient you still need a team of professionals to help you. I would advice having a general physician, a psychiatrist, and a therapist. Do you have medical insurance to where you can see professionals? Would you be willing to go inpatient to initiate the recovery process? Do you have a support system within close proximity? If working with professionals isn't an option let me know.

If you can't work closely with a medical team, this is what I would advise.

Speak with a doctor about getting Inderal (propranolol) which is a non-addictive beta blocker that will stop the adrenaline response to anxiety so it does work to keep you from entering into a full blown panic attack, and will lower the anxiety somewhat. Also speak to a doctor about getting a prescription for trazodone, which works very well with melatonin to allow you to sleep in early recovery. I found both to be a life saver while going through benzo withdrawal. It is not going to make you feel good like benzos do. Once you have a good therapist and the Inderal begin a taper. From what I have read etizolam is very close to Xanax maybe a bit stronger. If possible, switch to diazepam or a different longer acting benzo. The instructions for doing a taper can be found in the Ashton Manual. If at any point you begin to feel lousy during the taper take more time on the level you are on and stay there for a few weeks before decreasing. The best thing you can do for yourself is to take your time tapering, it will minimize damage. If you try to taper too quickly you can end up suffering from excititoxicity which is horribly painful both mentally and physically and takes years to recover from.

I think you have options with the booze, meaning you can quit booze first before tapering the benzos or quit after the benzo taper. The benzos should keep the alcohol withdrawal manageable, meaning you shouldn't have seizures etc. Anxiety will definitely increase, and physically you won't feel well for a week or so. I found the first month to be the most difficult with respect to cravings and horrible sleep. You may want to speak to your doctor about getting a prescription for trazodone to help with sleep. From personal experience, I think it's much easier to stop alcohol after quitting benzos. I went to rehab in 2010 to stop alcohol. It was there I learned that benzos were definitely part of the problem, I was really ignorant regarding benzos. I had an open long term script for Xanax and never thought it a problem until the last few years when I would run out early and couldn't get a refill until a specific date. My doctors would have to prescribe different benzos, that never seemed to work as well as the Xanax. It took me several years to get completely sober, and I wouldn't recommend what I did to anybody as I was forced to quit the Xanax cold turkey in rehab, which did devastating neurological damage that has taken me years to recover from. I was fine when I left rehab after 28 days, however, a few weeks later benzo PAWS set in with a vengeance. It was absolutely horrible both physically and mentally. I relapsed back on booze shortly there after, and continued to drink for the next year. I was able to stop drinking for another year, and then relapsed again on booze in 2012 and drink until I went back to rehab again in 2014. I have been sober since. This relates to you because it's really hard to stay sober until you learn how to manage stress and anxiety. Now is the time to start learning management techniques such as CBT, mindfulness, meditation, exercise, and a general healthy lifestyle overall. Another tool I found to be surprisingly effective was the Vivitrol shot. It blocks and feel good reactions from alcohol, and it removes the cravings. I found Vivitrol works best once you have stopped drinking for a few days, but it wasn't very effective when I was actively drinking.

Feel free to message me at any time if you have questions or just want to talk. I can relate to your situation. You have a long road ahead of you but its not impossible. Please keep us updated. Good Luck and best wishes!
 
I'm curious what other info you have. This is going to be a DIY taper with RC benzos, sadly. There will certainly be no team of professionals, I'll be lucky to have a couple friends come check on me. I am struggling to piece my rent together this month, and I'm already in debt, so I'm definitely not going to be able to afford professional help. I don't have insurance or a job, so I'm basically screwed that way. I'm switching to diclazepam to start the taper, it should be much easier than etizolam from what I understand.

I had a seizure at a festival this year. There was a lot of factors, but considering my usual intake at fests, I think it was the lack of benzos (zero for 3 days) along with 3 days of no sleep, no food, little water and lots of alcohol that led to what I think was a tonic-clonic seizure. I didnt take any etizolam for 3 days and finally the seizure hit . I didn't want to get medicated because I was having so much fun I didnt want to sleep or forget how amazing the moment was. Suppose my GABA system had other ideas..

I will admit that I have no idea how to manage stress or anxiety without drugs. Ever since I was a kid I just found a substance to deal with whatever I had to face. I've been trying to start a healthy daily routine, it's rocky right now but I'm just starting. I'm assuming it gets easier.

I'd like to avoid adding more pharm's to my diet if at all possible. My plan is to first put into practice a healthier lifestyle, then tapering off the alcohol. then the benzos. I think this way might be easier for me, because alcohol is very compulsive for me, whereas with benzos I can keep track easier of exact milligram dosage. Alcohol is a crapshoot - am i drinking a beer or liquor? 8% or 40%? So it seems more sane to cut out the booze first.
 
Man that's rough. I know you would prefer to do this with no extra substances but please consider getting L-theanine, Melatonin, and magnesium. L-theanine really does help considerably with anxiety...you may not have it too bad now but you're going to have significantly higher anxiety once you begin this process.

A big part of benzo/booze withdrawal has to do with how glutamate is regulated...the body doesn't control it as well and so you end up with excessive glutamate which causes anxiety, seizures, and very real neurological damage. A slow taper will prevent this to an extreme level, but you will probably experience some degree of this stopping alcohol. L-theanine will increase serotonin, dopamine, and most importantly GABA. It's a very safe supplement and in some countries such as Japan it is added to many foods.

I know you're already having issues with sleep, once you begin this process sleep is going to be much harder to attain. Melatonin is quite effective - I relied on it heavily to get sleep during withdrawal and subsequent PAWS. It's a hormone that's naturally produced by the body. The drinking and benzo use has most likely disrupted the way you body regulates it so this will help you get sleep, and it will help you establish a regular sleep schedule.

Magnesium is an absolute godsend in alcohol withdrawal. It will help keep your muscles relaxed, and it will help with the horrible heart palpatstions you will experience. This holds true for the benzo taper. It also helps keep seizures at bay. Make sure to get a form that is bioavailable such as taurate.

Please begin reading about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy- this will be an indispensable tool both for getting sober and for staying sober. The key to getting back to health is learning how to manage anxiety. It tough to learn and implement at first, but it makes a world of difference once you can implement it. It took me two years to learn how to practice it - I learned from the Internet. Now I love medication free, I no longer need prescriptions for anxiety nor do I self medicate.

If you're going to start with booze, are you going to taper or cold turkey? What other info do you want...not trying to be difficult - I spent seven years trying to get sober from benzos and booze, I could write pages upon pages of material, I think it may be easier if you give me a direction with what kind of stuff would help you ;)

Feel free to hit me up if you need anything during this process. It can be difficult at times and it can be scary. I went through it not knowing what to expect and it was horrible and traumatic. If you do this right you won't have to experience all the pain and fear that I did.
 
Ah, I guess I misspoke, I don't mind supplements and the like, I just dont want to have to get any prescriptions. Thank you very much for the supplement recommendations, I will go buy those ASAP. I take chelated magnesium regularly, is that decent form? I've heard it's more bioavailable, there's so many kinds it makes it a little confusing.

You mentioned glutamate. I've also been dosing dissociatives pretty much daily for going on 2 years now, so I'd imagine there's already a glutamate excitotoxicity problem happening, if I understood the literature around it correctly.. How will any dissociative use play into this? Eventually I'd like to stop that too, but it has less of an immediate deleterious effect on me, and it's not a physical addiction like benzo's and booze.

I will have to look into CBT, I've heard a lot of good things. I'm good at teaching myself things so it shouldn't be a problem.

You are not being difficult, quite the opposite - this has all been extremely helpful. I'm going to taper off the alcohol. I was actually able to taper down and then quit completely for a couple weeks a few months ago, but once I was sober I started feeling uncontrollable amounts of anger at the world at large; just angry about the shit I've been angry about my whole life, but without being able to ignore it, I just shut myself in my house and didn't go out or leave my bed or talk to anyone for weeks. One night I was so pissed about life I said fuck it and got some beers, and immediately I started feeling social and hitting up my friends again.. I don't fucking want it to be that way, but that's an anecdote that may be useful. Actually makes me want to kind of cry when I realize how pathetic that sounds. But then I get into this thought loop of hating alcohol and all the hate hate hate makes me paralyzed. Which was essentially what happened during that sober period, (still taking benzos then), I was just so caught up in hating everything that I couldn't get anything done, I was barely even eating.

So yeah. I've been drinking gin lately and I prefer a certain brand, so maybe that will make the taper process easier, if I record how many oz's per night, atleast the alcohol content is somewhat consistent. Today is my first day switching to diclazepam. I don't like how tired it makes me feel but I probably won't mind once the booze is gone, I'd imagine the rebound from that will be at least if not more intense than last time I tried.

To be honest I'm not sure what else I need to know, but I'll definitely be thinking about it. I'm too exhausted to think right now. It's reassuring knowing I can ask someone who actually knows what they are talking about. :) All your advice has been really helpful so feel free to let me know anything else that may make it less of a struggle. It definitely makes one feel alone. I've kicked everything else under the sun at one time or another, but I guess because they are both gaba-ergic, coming down off this combo is nightmarish.
 
Alcohol is a weird drug.. Some people can drink a liter a night for years and stop suddenly with no issue.. Others can drink much less and suddenly stop and face very dangerous symptoms.

Given your combining the synergistic gabas you may consider seeking a medical detox.

If you wish to do this yourself I would decrease your alcohol intake by 20% every ten days. Then I would remain on the bebzos for a bit.. But its important that you do not increase your benzo intake to supplement the gaba from the removed alcohol. If you increase the benzos to counteract the removed alcohol your substituting a healthier drug, but are still kinda in the same place and there is a decent risk you will just add more benzos into the equation.

So if you can detox the sauce and remain stable on the benzos that's what I would do.. Then I would give it six months.

During this time I would figure out how you plan on combating your likely alcohol addiction.

The physical shit ends up being the easy part.

You got this.. Just have to have to approach it in the right and safe way and fine tune it up whenever it needs it.
 
neversickanymore said:
Alcohol is a weird drug.. Some people can drink a liter a night for years and stop suddenly with no issue.. Others can drink much less and suddenly stop and face very dangerous symptoms.

Given your combining the synergistic gabas you may consider seeking a medical detox.

If you wish to do this yourself I would decrease your alcohol intake by 20% every ten days. Then I would remain on the bebzos for a bit.. But its important that you do not increase your benzo intake to supplement the gaba from the removed alcohol. If you increase the benzos to counteract the removed alcohol your substituting a healthier drug, but are still kinda in the same place and there is a decent risk you will just add more benzos into the equation.

So if you can detox the sauce and remain stable on the benzos that's what I would do.. Then I would give it six months.

During this time I would figure out how you plan on combating your likely alcohol addiction.

The physical shit ends up being the easy part.

You got this.. Just have to have to approach it in the right and safe way and fine tune it up whenever it needs it.
Click to expand...

I am going to disagree just based on personal experience though it's possible I am an anomaly. At one point before I went to rehab I was able to decrease my alcohol ultimately down to none keeping the Xanax the same and had a couple of seizures. I went back to drinking and tried again a few months later and increased the Xanax by .07 mg and didn't have the seizures. I feel like abusing both benzos and booze tend to make users even more sensitive to substance fluctuations, and lowers their seizure threshold more than just either substance by itself. Perhaps this is only the case when short acting benzos are involved. Like I said, I am not an expert but did want to mention my thoughts as somebody who battled this combo and tried countless things to try tonquit using.

Technically it is substituting one drug for another, but it's not adding a new drug and the situation is very short term and once stabilized the benzo taper can begin. Even in medical detoxes for alcohol they give benzos, albeit short term.

Bluuberry, if you try NSA's advice and you start getting twitches or feel like there's an electric current under your skin slow the alcohol taper down to 10%.

NSA is correct, the physical aspects of this dynamic are the easiest part of this process. At some point you have to address the underlying issues motivating you to use. I found incouldnt stay sober until I addressed those underlying issues which resulted in my spending seven years of my life battling this insidious addiction- please save yourself some time and try to sort through those issues. If you don't already know what they are a professional can help you pinpoint them.

How are you doing?
 
Yeah I have no qualms about using a bit extra benzo to ease the alcohol, IME taking large steps down when you have a really high tolerance is not too hard or dangerous, it's when I start trying to get below the equivalent of about 6 mg etizolam (not sure how that translates to diclazepam) that I have issues.

I'm familiar with the electric feeling / twitches. Actually I get that quite a lot, my hands shake so badly most days I can't even sit down to dinner with a date because it's so obvious.

I'm doing ok, just trying to come to terms with all this. Alcohol and benzos are like my comfort blanket right now, my life is kind of fucked, but it doesn't seem like it can get better til I deal with this. However, I know I need to improve my life before I can really kick this, so it feels like I'm caught in a catch-22. I switched to diclazepam and that seems to help with the spikes of anxiety I had from daily etizolam use. Right now I'm just kind of trying to come up with a plan. The past few days were a disaster, took some stims and blacked out on the comedown. So I'm resting today and tomorrow I'll start recording exact amounts and times I consume any alcohol and benzos. To be honest, I'm depressed and anxious and miserable feeling right now. Just the idea of tapering makes me start to feel anxious, but I can't just live the rest of my life like this. I already have the chelated magnesium, I'm going to go out tomorrow to pick up the other supplements. One step at a time I guess..
 
Unfortunately there doesnt seem to be any solid equivalency on diClazepam, but if I understand correctly I think it's 1mg diclazepam = 10 mg diazepam. Though even with a tolerance I felt like 10mg diazepam was way stronger than 1 mg etizolam. Definitely will give those links a look through, I'm familiar with the Ashton manual but I didn't see the link on excitotoxicity, thank you!

I really appreciate the support you guys. :)
 
Worrying about things you have no control over is a form of insanity. Worrying about hypothetical views with very questionable conclusions is even worse.

Why not concentrate on what you have power over?
 
Bluuberry said:
Yeah I have no qualms about using a bit extra benzo to ease the alcohol, IME taking large steps down when you have a really high tolerance is not too hard or dangerous, it's when I start trying to get below the equivalent of about 6 mg etizolam (not sure how that translates to diclazepam) that I have issues.

I'm familiar with the electric feeling / twitches. Actually I get that quite a lot, my hands shake so badly most days I can't even sit down to dinner with a date because it's so obvious.

I'm doing ok, just trying to come to terms with all this. Alcohol and benzos are like my comfort blanket right now, my life is kind of fucked, but it doesn't seem like it can get better til I deal with this. However, I know I need to improve my life before I can really kick this, so it feels like I'm caught in a catch-22. I switched to diclazepam and that seems to help with the spikes of anxiety I had from daily etizolam use. Right now I'm just kind of trying to come up with a plan. The past few days were a disaster, took some stims and blacked out on the comedown. So I'm resting today and tomorrow I'll start recording exact amounts and times I consume any alcohol and benzos. To be honest, I'm depressed and anxious and miserable feeling right now. Just the idea of tapering makes me start to feel anxious, but I can't just live the rest of my life like this. I already have the chelated magnesium, I'm going to go out tomorrow to pick up the other supplements. One step at a time I guess..
Click to expand...


It's difficult at first to get through the anxiety to taper and to also focus on the underlying issues. What helped me when my anxiety was extreme was to consciously aknowledge the anxiety and remember that it's only a temporary physiological response. I would also examine why I was having the anxiety and remind myself that I am not in any danger. There are some breathing techniques that works well. For me just taking long slow deep breaths work wonders. The key is to breath with your stomach and not just lungs only meaning make your stomach expand while you breath. There are numerous different methods that are available online.

The diclazepam should help tremendously as it has a long gal life which is probably why you're not as shaky or twitchy as you were on etizolam. One word of caution, because the half life is so long there will be times when you feel perfectlynsober but you will still have a fair amount of diclazepam in your system. This insignificant because it raises the chance for over dose should you decide to go on a bender, especially because you have a high tolerance.

Most of the literature I have found on excitoxicity is a pretty heavy ready as it's coming from scientific journals, but here's the link from Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity

If you want more involved info google excitoxicity and many results will pop up.


neversickanymore said:
Worrying about things you have no control over is a form of insanity. Worrying about hypothetical views with very questionable conclusions is even worse.

Why not concentrate on what you have power over?
Click to expand...


This is so very true. CBT is very useful when combating nonproductive thoughts. If you find yourself ruminating on things outside of your control force yourself to focus on something else. It takes time to learn how to do this but once you do it increase the quality of your life. I recommend downloading luminosity or some other quick puzzle type game and play a game or two to shift focus motility you become smiles t being able to change your focus quickly on your own. I have severe OCD and by learning how to stop the rumination and obsessive thoughts I was able to stop my medication.
 
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