Benzos Help with fast benzo taper schedule (+some bupe involved)

[thelespauls]

I'm in need of some good experienced advice.

i got on alprazolam for the past month while on vacation in a south asian country where it is pretty easy to get otc although its technically a scheduled substance. I have always had a very low tolerence to xanax, as in 1mg would make me forget the whole night if I had a few beers. However, the bars I got in this country came as .25mg. .5mg. , 1mg under the brand names trika, restyl, and a tranzax or something. I noticed my tolerence shot up so fast that before I knwe it (within a week) i was up to something like 5 mgs a day of alprazolam plus another mg or 2 of Kpins. I have a highly suspicous feeling that these meds were of poor quality and the stated dosages were incorrect and lower than they should have been. Then again I know how easy it is to just start popping .25mg tabs like m&ms and lose track really quickly of my total dosage.

By my second to third week on vacation I was worried about withdrawals from these benzos because i was basically taking like 1.5 mgs of alprazolam and 1 mg of clonazapam in the morning , then again in the after noon, and another dose of equivilant amounts once or twice more at night depending on the occassion. I guess my body got used to the benzos pretty quick because 1mg of alprazolam used to make me slur my speech and 2 would make me def pass out. Now that im back home in the good old us of a, my stock i managed to bring back with me about 15 mgs of alp and 7ish of kpins. Anyone wanna offer me a tapering schedule?

Before i left for my month long vacation I had a pretty damn high dope habit that 8mgs of suboxONE sublingual would barely keep at bay. I took a damn high dose of dope before my 30 odd hour plane ride halfway around the world so i wouldnt withdraw in midflight on an airbus a330. Thank god my plan worked out well, but it was really dangerous and my only option since i couldnt get any subs for the trip. As soon as I arrived in the south asian country I managed to find some codeine phosphate cough syrup which i took around 50-60 hours after my last dose of real dope. It helped a little but not much. The w/d along with jetlag made the first week kind of shitty cuz I would try to go to sleep at 9 pm and wake up at 1230 am and stay awake staring at the ceiling craving. overall though, Ive had much worse withdrawals before from dope and a few sleepless nights (before I managed to score benzos) was a small price to pay.

Anyways, so once i started getting alprazolam at .25 tabs and kpins at .5 tabs like i said earlier my tolerence shot up very quickly to multiple mgs of both per day although not all at once, more like a mg of each every 6 hours or so. now that im back home i manged to score some subutex and took an mg of alprazolam and then a 4 mg shot of bupe IV and it felt like heaven. I actually kind of pissed off some family members who thought i was back on my heroin habit which im not thank god. Still I have about 3.5 8mg subutex left and i know i really need to be responsible and slow down so I dont suddenly run out of stock and withdraw from both opiates AND benzos at the same time.

thanks to everyone on this board i wouldnt be alive if it wasnt for some good advice from some experienced people.

 

[Secobarbital]

I would just stop taking the benzos. It will be hard to "taper" from just a month's use. There was a time where I would go through 50+ 10mg valiums per day. It did not have a hard time going from like 10 per day down to just one or two. Sure I felt bad, but you are on subs, you know the name of the game. What it boils down too is that you haven't been using them long enough to need to taper. Any sort of taper you would attempt would probably be making you slightly more dependent on them. I would focus more on the suboxone, and be trying to taper it down, as it sounds like that is the bigger of the problems you have.

 

[thelespauls]

thanks for the quick reply. The subutex is something i just got last night out of boredom and to to reminice. part of my vacation was to get off the H which I still intend to stay off. I know i may be playing with fire though fucking with the Bupe and all. I have no tolerence or dependance to opiates right now and would like to keep it that way. You really think ill be fine if i suddenly stop taking the benzos after being on them for a month?

 

[Cyanoide]

Lyrica is great for benzo withdrawal, however you'll get hooked on Lyrica too if you use it for too long. However, you've only been on benzos for a month. The withdrawal symptoms would be far worse if you'd been on alprazolam for years. I would never, ever suggest going cold turkey after years of use, but we're talking about a month here. I suggest a radical drop in the dose or maybe even going cold turkey if it is bearable. Lyrica would take away most of the symptoms the first few weeks, after that it loses it's effect rapidly. However, that might be enough in your case.

Alcohol makes withdrawal even worse, avoid it.

 

[Secobarbital]

thanks for the quick reply. The subutex is something i just got last night out of boredom and to to reminice. part of my vacation was to get off the H which I still intend to stay off. I know i may be playing with fire though fucking with the Bupe and all. I have no tolerence or dependance to opiates right now and would like to keep it that way. You really think ill be fine if i suddenly stop taking the benzos after being on them for a month?

If you go into it with the right mindset, yes it will be no problem at all. If you convince yourself that it will be impossible to get through without "help" then you are going to have great big giant problems now and forevermore. This is largely a mental game you are playing, and trying to rationalize that you are going to have problems when you have only been taking benzos for a month is not the way to go. You might feel a little extra stress for a day or two, but it takes much longer than a month to develop anything approaching physical dependence.

P.S. - Taking suboxone just for a buzz, or to "reminisce" is a terrible idea... That it's self isn't so much playing with fire, as it shows how ready you are to relapse. Mind your feelings, they betray you.

 

[thelespauls]

thanks for the advice about the subs....the more i think about it the cold truth begins to dawn on me. I shouldn't even be messing with them if ive finally gotten past the real physical dependency. I agree completely with the mental part because that's the only way i can reason not having terrible withdrawals after my last H dose. I meditated, prayed, did yoga, etc. and even tried various methods of auto-suggestion. Its my subconscious i need to mend and i can feel the battle raging within me that its either no intoxicants or all the way down the drain. What i really want is something in between. Where i am not attached to anything in particular and any lack of substance doesn't make me feel lacking in life in general. It was the fear of withdrawals that kept me on H or so I thought. But after this spiritual trip to my motherland I realized that it is truly the fear of unknown that burdens my soul. I don't know how to live a normal life without using daily something or another. Something's gotta change and everyone who i look up to says it has to be internal. I've searched my soul and found things i like and things i detest. I want to be a better human being but I also feel more complete with mind altering substances even if its "just weed". this shits tearing apart my life and my relationship with my parents. I don't know why im writing all this out now, but it feels cathartic so ill go ahead. edit it out if its irrelevent. sorry.

 

[suessmayr]

Firstly I agree that you should just drop the benzos. See how you go, if you need to do a little taper then start back up on a tiny dose. A drawn out taper would, I agree, probably increase the extent of your physical addiction but also and more importantly put you smack into the mindset of addiction - every day measuring out your dose, thinking that you ought to feel something bad because you go down to xmg today and so on. Just kick it.

I'm getting clean presently as well. I've come from 90mg methadone to 2mg bupe and yeah it's scary and weird feeling but it's what I want to do. I can relate to that feeling of needing to be totally clean or totally dirty. I don't believe that there is a middle ground, not for people like us anyway. Opiates are so unique and powerful that once you've used and enjoyed them the middle ground for you just evaporates.

S

 

[Secobarbital]

Firstly I agree that you should just drop the benzos. See how you go, if you need to do a little taper then start back up on a tiny dose. A drawn out taper would, I agree, probably increase the extent of your physical addiction but also and more importantly put you smack into the mindset of addiction - every day measuring out your dose, thinking that you ought to feel something bad because you go down to xmg today and so on. Just kick it.

I'm getting clean presently as well. I've come from 90mg methadone to 2mg bupe and yeah it's scary and weird feeling but it's what I want to do. I can relate to that feeling of needing to be totally clean or totally dirty. I don't believe that there is a middle ground, not for people like us anyway. Opiates are so unique and powerful that once you've used and enjoyed them the middle ground for you just evaporates.

S

Nevermind, I got this thread mixed up with another.... This fella is doing the smart thing by just walking away. Opiate addicts focus too much on how we feel. So much so, that this can easily cause us to have problems dumping other drugs b/c we psych ourselves into feeling bad ahead of time. The smart thing to do is just walk away. Because of how we focus on how we feel all the time, it would be easy to rationalize taking one pill per day pretty much forever. I've gotten stuck in that rut to many times I cant count.

O.P.- I'm glad I can help, I've been where you are before, and you just made the right decision to just walk away and focus on the sub. Be prepared to not feel 100%, but you won't feel anywhere near bad enough to need to taper. The reason benzo tapers happen at all is b/c when you are seriously addicted to them, detox can in some cases be fatal. Seizures are common, it is more dangerous than opiate withdrawal. It also lasts quite a while. In lower doses where you are at, and especially with such a short time frame, there will be no real problems. Especially when you factor in just dealing with having it in your head in the first place that you have that crutch there. I'm glad you are wise enough to realize this, and to calculate what to do. Seeing people avoid heartache that I have been through is why I'm hear, and I'm glad I was able to help you!

 

[Where Wolf?]

Hate to sound a note of discord, but seizures have been reported - admittedly, in rare cases - after only a few weeks of daily benzo use. I'd say keep some at hand, try not to think about it: but if you start to feel shaky, take a low dose. Metabolisms differ, and even an outside chance of severe benzo withdrawal isn't worth risking. Cold Turkey if you can: but be prepared, just in case.

 

[suessmayr]

I HIGHLY doubt that a young or reasonably fit person would experience seizures from such short use. I've used at least 8 different benzos extensively and I am now 100% clean and I think that seizures apply mainly to the extreme cases. Maybe just - like someone else said - keep one or two at hand.

S

 

[Pegasus]

I'd take around 0.5mg of either alprazolam or clonazepam (preferably clonazepam) as needed. Don't use more than you need to... If you feel really bad, take just enough to ease the symptoms. I've done this quite a few times and I notice that the worst feeling is usually when trying to fall asleep, so dosing maybe 0.5mg every other night or something like this would be sufficient IMO. If you find that you need to dose daily, try to do like 0.5mg per day and go to every other day ASAP. Eventually, you can go every third day and then jump off without ever going through much pain.

Bupe will make the benzos stronger, so if you're trying to taper, keep the bupe and benzos separate or you will be continuing your addiction to high-dose benzos essentially.

Good luck, try not to stress too much over this as you were on for a pretty short time.