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new here, suffering from extreme xanax widthrawls

K

kostasafos

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Joined
Oct 8, 2013
Messages
5
hello to everyone, my name is kosta im a 20 year old college student from nyc

within the past two and a half weeks i have been recreationaly using around 4mg of xanax every night

within the past few days i have been reevaluating my lifestyle and have decided to drop the xanax for many reasons.

on sunday ( two days ago) was my grand fathers 95th birthday and i celebrated with him. that day i decided to stop cold turkey

within the past two days i have been feeling very ill

i cannot sleep well, my head is pulsing, heart pounding occasionaly, cannot eat, symptoms of IBS kicking in
very dizzy, hot and cold spells, and just overall confusing mental state
i am haveing trouble writing this now as well

i really do not know what to do, i have not told my father (mother passed away last christmas) and i am going to tell my aunt tonight when shes back from work

im really nervous and i feel shakey. any help or insight would be great thank you
 
Hi Kostasafos welcome to Bluelight and I am sorry to hear about your current withdrawal situation. Withdrawals are tough that is why tapering off is the best way to go off meds. Have you spoken to a doctor about this? I am not entirely sure how much mg you should when tapering off xanax but it is advisable to always check with your doctor on this. There are probably some other bluelighters here who can help you out more with this situation.
 
Two and a half weeks is not alot! Stopping cold turkey is hard but you can do it! I really hope you don't relapse. Stay strong, and once WDs are over, you can use but make sure you don't over do it. (once a week or less often)
 
yes it is very hard, i just want to be done with the stuff for ever.

these WD's are pretty bad for my two week binge
 
thank you for your reply, i have not consulted my doctor on this yet, as my use was recreational and not prescribed
 
Kostra....if you are prone to any seizures at all, be aware that you could have that happen .....not likely if you've never had one. Benzos w/d's are among the hardest withdrawal around....I'm really glad you have quit!!! Please keep your resolve! I know you feel like shit but it's such a positive for you to quit! tooky
 
Hey Kosta.. welcome to blue light.. even if you aren't prone to seizures I wouldn't recommend jumping off a decent dose like that.. also you were taking all four milligrams all at night.. how did you feel during the day before you took your dose at night?
 
4mg is roughly equivalent to 10mg diazepam and since you've been taking that, I wouldn't say you are physically dependent at all at this point, especially if you've just been taking the drug for two and a half weeks since it takes much longer to get addicted. You could just stop or you could do a taper. It's up to you but I would do a taper for about 2-3 days and stop.
 
withdrawal can feel horrible, but at least you have something to look forward to. you only used for 2 weeks, your withdrawals will be over within a few days, and you will likely have no long term effects.

people who abuse benzos for years can have withdrawal symptoms for weeks or even months, and PAWS that last years, and it ruins lives. be thankful you dont have this problem.
 
Artificial Emotion said:
4mg is roughly equivalent to 10mg diazepam and since you've been taking that, I wouldn't say you are physically dependent at all at this point
Click to expand...

Totally disagree... Valium is a lot weaker and more for muscle spasms and things like that. I've been taking xanax for over 2 years now and have also taken valium. My daily xanax (prescribed) is 2mgs and it took me about 30mgs of valium to even really feel any different. The people saying that 2 1/2 weeks isn't enough time to get addicted don't know what they're talking about. 4mgs is a large dose, and that every day even for a week I would say could easily give you some withdrawal symptoms. Like someone else mentioned your best bet is to taper down. You're not supposed to quit benzos cold turkey, just search xanax or benzo withdrawals and you will see that.
 
^ I never said the equivalency was exact, but if you look at the table at the top of the forum in BD, that is what it says it is equivalent to. Noticed the use of the word 'roughly'. If it was exact I would have omitted that word or used the word 'exactly'. The whole point of doing the conversion is to give an idea of the dose he is taking for those not familiar with alprazolam since diazepam is the most common gold standard benzo we all know.

I think he is likely to experience rebound symptoms but beyond that, he isn't really at risk of siezures or anything really serious like that. Nonetheless, I suggest a taper.
 
what i am interested in is how you were able to only dose a chemical that needs to be dosed every four hours or so to prevent withdraws severe withdrawal if some one is physically dependent.. since with drawls are all relative I gong to venture a guess that the withdrawals you are having are comparatively mild to a physically dependent benzu user. I would suggest that you you just continue the CT and address with a a good anxiety psychologist the roots of you anxiety. i wish you the best with this.
 
Artificial Emotion said:
I think he is likely to experience rebound symptoms but beyond that, he isn't really at risk of siezures or anything really serious like that. Nonetheless, I suggest a taper.
Click to expand...

I stand by what I said. 4mgs is a large dose and if they were taking it for 2 1/2 weeks straight and stopping that is just plain risky and stupid. How do you know that they aren't at a risk for seizures? Do you know if they are already prone to them? I'm not saying that they're going to, but I certainly wouldn't feel it's safe to say that there's little risk when you don't know the exact case. Xanax is nothing to fuck with, I know.
 
neversickanymore said:
what i am interested in is how you were able to only dose a chemical that needs to be dosed every four hours or so to prevent withdraws severe withdrawal if some one is physically dependent..
Click to expand...

I'm physically dependent and take mine once a day.

neversickanymore said:
^ but the thing is that tolerance and resulting withdrawl syptoms off benzos take a pretty long time to set set in.. lMO longer than two and a half weeks to any big degree.
Click to expand...

At a lower dose I would probably agree with you, but what the op was taking was not a low dose. Their symptoms are classic benzo withdrawal symptoms, so I don't really know what the argument is.
 
Seems to me that Artificial Emotion has misinterpreted the conversion chart. Both the chart from BDD and benzo.org.uk says 0.5mg alprazolam/10mg diazepam, which gives an equivalent of 80mg diazepam for 4mg alprazolam.

As others have pointed out, this is a large dose and is very likely to produce withdrawals, even over shorter intervals of sustained use. Stopping abruptly after such a high dose can be dangerous.

OP, now that you have made it through the first couple of days, I think the worst should be over and I would recommend riding it out. However, if you are ever in a similar situation in the future, please take time to taper down and spare yourself the trauma.

Best of luck with your decision to refrain from recreational use of alprazolam. You have my full support!
 
I've done 10 mg valium for a month and a half and stopped and had no ill effects.

I've done very low doses of xanax 1mg or less for extended periods of time ( longer than 2 weeks) and stopped just fine.

I'd say 2 mg xanax is equal to 10 mg valium. IMO.

You might be having anxiety attacks that seem like wd's? 2-3 weeks doesn't seem long enough to cause a physical dependance to me, unless you were playing around with them before the binge?

Your story scares me. when I sometimes use xanax to sleep, sometimes do it for a month straight, then just a couple days without it. It has a very short half life. I think that's why I don't get addicted. I take .5 to 1 mg at night and thats it.

At this point I'd just ride it out if your already have a couple days into it.

I know if I took 4 mg of xanax , I'd prolly wake up on a boat going to never never land , naked with no phone.

How did you do 4 mg without knocking out? If you didn't have any tolerance to them and haven't been doing them... 4mg= Nighty night.
 
Kostas....I just hope you are feeling less anxiety and can breathe a little now. Check in when you feel more comfortable....tooky
 
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