Misc need advice on coming off ambien/lunesta -- help needed desperately

[T1gersxjaw]

Hello,

I'd like to preface by saying that this past year I've *finally* been able to get off klonopin, which was a real a battle, as the withdrawals after a couple of years were terrible.

I've finally reckoned with what I admit is sleeping pill dependency/addiction, to both ambien and lunesta; I've been on the 2, rotating between each, for the past couple of years, and have been on them the majority of that time, though there were a couple of periods of time where I would take all of the ambien purely recreationally in the first couple of days and would then be out the rest of the month, thus causing me to come off it. The past few months, though, I feel into a very deep depression and have been extremely dependent on them, and have had more than I've ever had before, quantity wise.

My question really, then, is that I'm coming off, cold turkey, 25mg of Ambien CR a night (2 x 12.5's) for about a month, and was on 10mg a night for a month or two prior, and it's day 4.
I want to get off this stupid shit, I feel horrible, it doesn't help a whole lot, and I'm tired of being a slave, but, frankly, I'm scared of how I'll feel (I ran out a couple of times while I was coming off of klonopin and it was hell) and have thus gravitated to supplementing with lunesta, 3-5mg, which has allowed me some sleep, though I feel pretty horrible.

Should I avoid going down the lunesta road and try to tough out the cold turkey ambien? Will my sleep likely return to at least a functioning level within the next month? I have class starting at a new university I've been working really hard to transfer into, which is a major reason for this reckoning.
I want to avoid a detox center at all costs, as I'm home with family for the holidays, Christmas fast-approaching, and only have a month or less left until I have to move down to start university.

I also wanted to know if people have had experiences with a fast heartbeat or heart palpitations coming off this stuff, because it took me a while to realize that, last summer, when I was heavily abusing these 2 meds at the same time and ran out, it was likely them causing this around the clock, though I'm not sure. I was also coming off klonopin. I'm scared it'll come back.

Any and all advice would be appreciated.

 

[Slow_Mobius]

I have experience with similar issues. IME, coming off similar amounts of ambien, it took a couple days to get through the worst of the WD, about a week before I felt like I was getting normal sleep, and a few weeks before tolerance completely resets to more or less baseline. However, things could definitely be different for you, and you're taking drugs with longer half-lives (lunesta and controlled release) than the Ambien IR that I was taking. So you're WD might be a little more protracted, but you can definitely be done with the acute WD phase well before University begins.

My advice is to supplement with other sleep meds. CBD rich cannabis products, OTC sleep meds, and kava root powder have helped me a ton. Also, tapering can make things much more manageable. I find it much easier to jump to CT after quickly tapering down to a much lower dose of Ambien, like 2.5-5 mg.

Good luck. Hopefully you find something that works.