Is it safe to quit bromazolam yet?

[SotPoker1012]

I took between 1 and 5MG bromazolam daily between November 30th and January 20th. On January 20th, I attempted to quit cold turkey and after about 3 days, began having withdrawal symptoms severe enough that I decided to taper. I took 1MG for a week, and worked my way down to .25MG as of this week. I was wondering, if I decided to finally stop taking it this weekend, how likely would I be to experience medically significant withdrawal symptoms? ie seizures

I have no regular benzo use prior, just the occasional pill here and there years apart. I cannot seek treatment, and I cannot afford to have a medical emergency like a seizure. Even if I survive, I'd most likely lose my job and be left in huge medical debt that I cannot pay. In fact, if I didn't have a girlfriend that I wanted to be around for, I'd go as far as to say I'm better off dying than having to go into even more medical debt/potentially lose my job.

So, is it safe to quit at this point? and if not, what MG is a better option to quit off of? I can deal with increased anxiety and insomnia, but anything that would require hospitalization or a doctor would be life ruining for me.

I don't crave it when I am not on it and I've had a very easy time tapering, but I cannot risk a medical emergency.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, I tried to find a thread with suggestions on this topic but struggled to find anything + I know its heavily dependent on the extent of the use. So any advice would be appreciated.

PS, yes, I know I shouldn't have started taking it every day. I have no excuse. It was an attempt to self medicate that was short sighted.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

I took between 1 and 5MG bromazolam daily between November 30th and January 20th. On January 20th, I attempted to quit cold turkey and after about 3 days, began having withdrawal symptoms severe enough that I decided to taper. I took 1MG for a week, and worked my way down to .25MG as of this week. I was wondering, if I decided to finally stop taking it this weekend, how likely would I be to experience medically significant withdrawal symptoms? ie seizures

I have no regular benzo use prior, just the occasional pill here and there years apart. I cannot seek treatment, and I cannot afford to have a medical emergency like a seizure. Even if I survive, I'd most likely lose my job and be left in huge medical debt that I cannot pay. In fact, if I didn't have a girlfriend that I wanted to be around for, I'd go as far as to say I'm better off dying than having to go into even more medical debt/potentially lose my job.

So, is it safe to quit at this point? and if not, what MG is a better option to quit off of? I can deal with increased anxiety and insomnia, but anything that would require hospitalization or a doctor would be life ruining for me.

I don't crave it when I am not on it and I've had a very easy time tapering, but I cannot risk a medical emergency.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, I tried to find a thread with suggestions on this topic but struggled to find anything + I know its heavily dependent on the extent of the use. So any advice would be appreciated.

PS, yes, I know I shouldn't have started taking it every day. I have no excuse. It was an attempt to self medicate that was short sighted.

I’ve never been through benzo withdrawal so I can’t be really specific. Just many opioid withdrawals. I would say that if you have a steady source of benzos; do not kill yourself trying to taper down, take it slow and go easy on yourself and don’t force it too hard. Yes you will have to feel discomfort to lower the taper - but don’t make your self suffer to hard if you can do that.

How much is 1 to 5 mg of Bromazolam compared to let’s say diazepam or etizolam dosages?

 

[SotPoker1012]

I’ve never been through benzo withdrawal so I can’t be really specific. Just many opioid withdrawals. I would say that if you have a steady source of benzos; do not kill yourself trying to taper down, take it slow and go easy on yourself and don’t force it too hard. Yes you will have to feel discomfort to lower the taper - but don’t make your self suffer to hard if you can do that.

How much is 1 to 5 mg of Bromazolam compared to let’s say diazepam or etizolam dosages?

I've been through opioid withdrawals twice. Luckily for me, neither were particularly nasty and only lasted a few days each time. I just felt terrible for 5-7 days both times and then suddenly felt normal. Almost like a switch flipped. I've heard plenty of horror stories so I know I got lucky.

As far as benzos, I've opted for a comparatively rapid (about 50% per week) taper, cutting my dose on my last workday so I know what to expect before I return to work the next week and can go back up 25% or so if symptoms are too bad.

The reason for the rapid taper is that, in my research, it was suggested that a long taper for my relatively short duration of use could make it more difficult in the long term. (ie 3 months of use, 3 months tapering might actually make the withdrawals worse. For longer term users, it seems a very slow taper is the best way.)

I do have a reliable source and the income to procure more if needed. So far I am on the same 180mg vial of liquid bromazolam that I originally purchased, but I've bought psychedelics from the same source and I've seen that it's still available. I still have about 1/3rd and I'm not opposed to getting more if required.

Ultimately as I cannot risk a medical emergency, I'm giving myself plenty of room to adjust my dosage upwards if required. So far, it hasn't been.

I can't find hard numbers as bromazalam is not widely studied in comparison to pharma benzos, but everything I've read points to it being a similar potency to xanax (of which it is a direct analogue) with the main difference being a longer half life and more hypnotic effects. So if 1mg bromazalam is roughly equivalent to 1mg alprazolam (xanax) then it would be equivalent to 10mg diazepam. I don't have any experience with etizolam and google isn't much help finding a conversion, probably due to the nature of research chemicals being largely unstudied.

It may be worth mentioning that those 5mg doses were not taken all at once but from days where I redosed multiple times, which were few and far between. Most of the time I was taking 1-3mg, once per day, an hour or two before bed.

I decided to cut my dose again rather than go cold turkey, and I'll see how I feel next week about cutting again or going CT. I took a dose of 0.125 a few minutes ago.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[LucidSDreamr]

I've been through opioid withdrawals twice. Luckily for me, neither were particularly nasty and only lasted a few days each time. I just felt terrible for 5-7 days both times and then suddenly felt normal. Almost like a switch flipped. I've heard plenty of horror stories so I know I got lucky.

As far as benzos, I've opted for a comparatively rapid (about 50% per week) taper, cutting my dose on my last workday so I know what to expect before I return to work the next week and can go back up 25% or so if symptoms are too bad.

The reason for the rapid taper is that, in my research, it was suggested that a long taper for my relatively short duration of use could make it more difficult in the long term. (ie 3 months of use, 3 months tapering might actually make the withdrawals worse. For longer term users, it seems a very slow taper is the best way.)

I do have a reliable source and the income to procure more if needed. So far I am on the same 180mg vial of liquid bromazolam that I originally purchased, but I've bought psychedelics from the same source and I've seen that it's still available. I still have about 1/3rd and I'm not opposed to getting more if required.

Ultimately as I cannot risk a medical emergency, I'm giving myself plenty of room to adjust my dosage upwards if required. So far, it hasn't been.

I can't find hard numbers as bromazalam is not widely studied in comparison to pharma benzos, but everything I've read points to it being a similar potency to xanax (of which it is a direct analogue) with the main difference being a longer half life and more hypnotic effects. So if 1mg bromazalam is roughly equivalent to 1mg alprazolam (xanax) then it would be equivalent to 10mg diazepam. I don't have any experience with etizolam and google isn't much help finding a conversion, probably due to the nature of research chemicals being largely unstudied.

It may be worth mentioning that those 5mg doses were not taken all at once but from days where I redosed multiple times, which were few and far between. Most of the time I was taking 1-3mg, once per day, an hour or two before bed.

I decided to cut my dose again rather than go cold turkey, and I'll see how I feel next week about cutting again or going CT. I took a dose of 0.125 a few minutes ago.

Thanks for the reply!

Ok.



I’ve taken diazepam on and off for a few years and always felt like I was walking the line in becoming dependent. There have been 2 month periods where I dosed 10 to 40 mg per day….and after that I was able to stop with no withdrawl. I’ve also taken 500 mg + of pregabalin daily for like 5 years and had no withdrawal stopping that.

Hopefully it’s just that I don’t get hooked easily on benzos or gabergics

 

[Quasimoto]

I took between 1 and 5MG bromazolam daily between November 30th and January 20th. On January 20th, I attempted to quit cold turkey and after about 3 days, began having withdrawal symptoms severe enough that I decided to taper. I took 1MG for a week, and worked my way down to .25MG as of this week. I was wondering, if I decided to finally stop taking it this weekend, how likely would I be to experience medically significant withdrawal symptoms? ie seizures

I have no regular benzo use prior, just the occasional pill here and there years apart. I cannot seek treatment, and I cannot afford to have a medical emergency like a seizure. Even if I survive, I'd most likely lose my job and be left in huge medical debt that I cannot pay. In fact, if I didn't have a girlfriend that I wanted to be around for, I'd go as far as to say I'm better off dying than having to go into even more medical debt/potentially lose my job.

So, is it safe to quit at this point? and if not, what MG is a better option to quit off of? I can deal with increased anxiety and insomnia, but anything that would require hospitalization or a doctor would be life ruining for me.

I don't crave it when I am not on it and I've had a very easy time tapering, but I cannot risk a medical emergency.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, I tried to find a thread with suggestions on this topic but struggled to find anything + I know its heavily dependent on the extent of the use. So any advice would be appreciated.

PS, yes, I know I shouldn't have started taking it every day. I have no excuse. It was an attempt to self medicate that was short sighted.

It's not a stupid question by any means.

Nobody here is a doctor and everyone has different seizure thresholds and risk (it's not something we can reliably advise on to an accurate degree), but in my opinion you should be just fine, especially since you have no prior benzo dependence or alcohol dependence history. Prior dependence, genetic susceptibility, and what is known as "kindling" are the main factors in seizures.

Bromazolam has a medium-long half life, so a seizure would generally present around day 2-4 of cold turkey. If you made it 3 days, you shouldn't be in a danger zone. Since you're already down to .25mg, you're seizure risk is near zero.

If you are down to .25mg per day, you should be able to stop now without any risk of seizure.

Seizure risk from benzo withdrawal is also a bit overstated, it's not very common and generally only occurs when people are taking more than you were and/or for much longer (years of dependence), and/or have genetic susceptibility.

I would just continue to taper or just go ahead and stop taking it now, you'll be fine. Don't overthink it.

Personally, I find bromazolam to be one of the most forgiving benzos when it comes to withdrawal. I have gone through ~50-75mg over about 2 months on multiple occasions and then did an extremely rapid taper and was fine. Barely any withdrawal, let alone a seizure.

How much is 1 to 5 mg of Bromazolam compared to let’s say diazepam or etizolam dosages?

In my experience/opinion bromazolam is about 33% less potent than alprazolam, so 1-5mg of bromazolam would be roughly equivalent to 15-70mg of diazepam