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Benzos Please do your best to talk me out of becoming benzo dependent because I’m crossing that line and know I need to stop myself but I can’t

I've been addicted to alcohol, benzos, cocaine, meth, opioids, and various combinations thereof.
Benzos might be the worst, for several reasons:
  • Benzos tend to make me more fucked up than I  feel like I am-- much more so than other drugs
  • Likewise when I realized I was dependent on benzos, I was much  more dependent than I thought I was
  • I've successfully tapered off of other drugs, but I was never able to taper from benzos-- at least not while I possessed the pill bottle
  • Over time, benzos dramatically increased my anxiety level and sleep disturbances
  • For me, the long-term symptoms of withdrawal (PAWS) were more severe and lasted longer than with any other drug
 
I'm off the benzos for over a decade. After many years of use the acute withdrawals and concurrent severe PAWS lasted 1.25 years. yep years. Benzos like opioids are great at short term use, but anything over that causes exacerbation of the very symptoms you're trying to treat. Do yourself a huge favor and limit your use schedule to at least use then 5X the half life plus 3 or 4 days or pay the piper.
 
neversickanymore said:
...Benzos like opioids are great at short term use, but anything over that causes exacerbation of the very symptoms you're trying to treat...
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I agree, but I think benzos are much worse than opioids in this regard.
In my case, it took years for the negative effects of opioids to outweigh their benefits. With benzos this happened in just a few weeks.
There are very few things that I've absolutely sworn off for life. Benzos are near the top of the list.
 
It took me a benzo withdrawal too realize this isnt something to take in high doses for more than 3-4 days. Ive been able to do low doses and only minor withdrawals from a weeks worth.
If I were to come off a benzo I'd choose kpins because the transition is smooth due to the long half life.
But the most I ever done was 1-2 bars for a week while drinking.
I cant imagine what hell people on a month of xanax are going thru.
 
LucidSDreamr said:
Please do your best to talk me out of becoming benzo dependent because I’m crossing that line and know I need to stop myself but I can’t

I’ve been an opioid dependent person for over a decade and it’s a fucking living hell. Now I’m going to add benzo dependency on top of it.

I know this is going to fuck me over bad if I get dependent I need someone to slap some sense into or lecture me or something.

I need to gain the desire not to cross this line. How do I get that desire? Common sense tells me it’s wrong to do this But things are going badly health wise for me and I just don’t care about anything anymore. I know I’m going to pay hard for it if I become benzo dependent.

I’ve always taken tolerance breaks my whole life annd experienced a very minor withdrawal starting a few of the past T breaks (a strange feeling of malaise that I can’t quite describe). but for a month now I’ve been taking 20 to 40 mg diazepam daily.
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I wish you could have witnessed some of the seizures I've had to call 911 for. Motherfucker in the ICU, comatose with a brain injury from falling, all because the xans were one day late in the mail.
 
I'm sure the benzo serves some purpose, otherwise you wouldn't do it. But along with the posts reminding you of the drawbacks, also remember that these things that you're using benzos for CAN be overcome without the drug. They absolutely can be. And the end result will be freeing.. a feeling of lessened anxiety and some sort of happiness in and of itself

I blacked out from Klonopin in high school. Then was prescribed lorazepam in the hospital. So for me yes it did serve an underlying anxiety and I guess the nurse agreed.

But as a dramatic example I missed out on that portion of life (mainly just and ambulance ride). But big picture, we might miss out on things in life that move us more than addiction
 
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Agree with Madness. The drugs do serve a legit medical purpose, but those issues CAN be overcome without, and so much more rewardingly.

Also, speaking of blackouts. From my own experience, it is utterly terrifying to wake up in a jail cell, no recollection of how or why you got there, having to dig through the box beneath your bunk and find the magistrate papers. Did I hurt someone? Did I kill someone?

Oh, nothing so bad, I just ate 50mg of klonopin and broke into every car for a three block stretch. 🙄
 
LucidSDreamr said:
Please do your best to talk me out of becoming benzo dependent because I’m crossing that line and know I need to stop myself but I can’t

I’ve been an opioid dependent person for over a decade and it’s a fucking living hell. Now I’m going to add benzo dependency on top of it.

I know this is going to fuck me over bad if I get dependent I need someone to slap some sense into or lecture me or something.

I need to gain the desire not to cross this line. How do I get that desire? Common sense tells me it’s wrong to do this But things are going badly health wise for me and I just don’t care about anything anymore. I know I’m going to pay hard for it if I become benzo dependent.

I’ve always taken tolerance breaks my whole life annd experienced a very minor withdrawal starting a few of the past T breaks (a strange feeling of malaise that I can’t quite describe). but for a month now I’ve been taking 20 to 40 mg diazepam daily.
Click to expand...
I feel for you and am in a similiar predicament. I've been on 40mg diazepam for a year and change and am scared shitless in terms of beginning a taper or trying to get off of them. I'm also underprescribed opiates (codeine) and I found myself using more and more benzos to take the edge off when my 1 month script of opiates lasts 9 days... I can't offer any real advice because like you, I feel like I'm up shit's creek. A year and change at 40mg per day of valium is no joke. I feel daily anxiety and the benzos were prescribed to me for managing PTSD. I don't want to be on bnz for life and I really don't want to face the music. I can see it being a 6 month-year process to taper safely and get right. I'm about to start a new, very intensive French course and that adds to my anxiety too. All I can say is that a very slow taper after a month of use at those levels is going to be painful but not impossible. Perhaps a 2.5mg drop and hold every couple weeks?

Don't become bnz dependent, the WDs are hell on earth (and I've WD'd from heroin, alcohol, meth and to a degree, bnz).

Best of luck mate
 
This thread should be another sticky. Harm reduction at its best. As well as acknowledging the medicinal value. I guess benzos are still prescribed somewhat freely. Just heard from a family member and two other people put on diazepam and clonazepam. I really hope they have this type of knowledge of what they are getting into. And I do not have faith is *some* doctors to know what they are throwing their patients into.

Once a person knows they can make their own choice. But the stories are fascinating and effective.
 
Yeah, I'm a bit surprised to hear how readily some doctors are giving out big, ongoing scripts for benzos. My doctor only gave me a couple scripts for 30 of the littlest ativans over a period of 6 months and then refused to refill. I was really far from being addicted IMHO, but I guess ongoing scripts is how it starts. I definitely wanted more. The same medical HMO wouldn't even give me a solitary vicodin for my broken ribs. Damn did they hurt! I guess they are really uptight about potential addiction, but that was some bullshit!...though maybe in my case they have a point :)
It just seems to me that giving out benzos in large amounts long term really does not help, though. The undeniable benefits wear off after a month or a few and you end up trapped into redosing just to stave off withdrawal. It doesn't sound like they even really treat the anxiety anymore once you've taken them for awhile.
I'm not sure some of these doctors are thinking things out very well.
 
chippermonk said:
It just seems to me that giving out benzos in large amounts long term really does not help, though. The undeniable benefits wear off after a month or a few and you end up trapped into redosing just to stave off withdrawal. It doesn't sound like they even really treat the anxiety anymore once you've taken them for awhile.
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And they could make life absolutely horribly inert and mundane. When I had been having benzo in my system 24/7 for a year straight with ever-increasing dose, I was completely flat which prevented me of processing anything that made me anxious or being able to properly feel anything that could have distracted me from anxiety. I remember watching cowboy bebop and just feeling this horrible darkness. This reminded me of @Keif' Richards description of how they felt when consuming opioids with endless supply.

There are also implications regarding benzos ability to cause actual brain damage that have led me to form a theory that if you do benzos long enough, the gaba signaling could be weaker even when blood levels of the drug are peaking after dose.
 
chippermonk said:
Yeah, I'm a bit surprised to hear how readily some doctors are giving out big, ongoing scripts for benzos.
Click to expand...
in the US they are schedule IV while opioids are schedule II.

The doctors are all being arrested or stripped of their licenses for prescribing schedule II drugs but they don’t get harassed for prescribing schedule IV drugs.

Basically the reason.
 
BK38 said:
I feel for you and am in a similiar predicament. I've been on 40mg diazepam for a year and change and am scared shitless in terms of beginning a taper or trying to get off of them. I'm also underprescribed opiates (codeine) and I found myself using more and more benzos to take the edge off when my 1 month script of opiates lasts 9 days... I can't offer any real advice because like you, I feel like I'm up shit's creek. A year and change at 40mg per day of valium is no joke. I feel daily anxiety and the benzos were prescribed to me for managing PTSD. I don't want to be on bnz for life and I really don't want to face the music. I can see it being a 6 month-year process to taper safely and get right. I'm about to start a new, very intensive French course and that adds to my anxiety too. All I can say is that a very slow taper after a month of use at those levels is going to be painful but not impossible. Perhaps a 2.5mg drop and hold every couple weeks?

Don't become bnz dependent, the WDs are hell on earth (and I've WD'd from heroin, alcohol, meth and to a degree, bnz).

Best of luck mate
Click to expand...

May I ask how long it takes your withdrawal to kick in and to describe it?

I just went 5 days without any diazepam but my pain was so high last night that after tripling my opioid dose with no effect on the pain I added a benzo to knock me out.

I wasn’t feeling benzo withdrawal after 5 days but I know diazepam withdrawal can take from one to two weeks to manifest after your last dose according to some reports on this site


I’m taking about half your dose but I always take one week off per month usually. But as I said in my OP this time I had been dosing daily for probably lose to two months and didn’t take my usual one week tolerance break. And the dosies were getting bigger so I start to really worry ther will be no turning back soon.
 
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Chris Cornell's final performance: Something clearly wasn’t right 😢​

But when I woke up this morning, everything had changed. And the sold-out show suddenly took on a different meaning.

Chris Cornell, Soundgarden’s lead singer, was found dead in his hotel room at MGM Grand Detroit just hours after the group performed at the Fox, with a medical examiner now ruling his death a suicide.

Even without the benefit of hindsight from the morning's awful news, it was clear that something wasn’t right with the 52-year-old Cornell during the Fox performance. He often staggered back and forth across the stage, and seemed weak in his movements. Just one or two songs in, it was as if the energy had exited his body, and what was left was a shell of a man scrambling to do his job.
www.usatoday.com

Chris Cornell's final performance: Something clearly wasn’t right

Hours before his suicide, the Soundgarden singer gave an unfocused, irritable performance.
www.usatoday.com www.usatoday.com
 
Landrew said:

Chris Cornell's final performance: Something clearly wasn’t right 😢​

But when I woke up this morning, everything had changed. And the sold-out show suddenly took on a different meaning.

Chris Cornell, Soundgarden’s lead singer, was found dead in his hotel room at MGM Grand Detroit just hours after the group performed at the Fox, with a medical examiner now ruling his death a suicide.

Even without the benefit of hindsight from the morning's awful news, it was clear that something wasn’t right with the 52-year-old Cornell during the Fox performance. He often staggered back and forth across the stage, and seemed weak in his movements. Just one or two songs in, it was as if the energy had exited his body, and what was left was a shell of a man scrambling to do his job.
www.usatoday.com

Chris Cornell's final performance: Something clearly wasn’t right

Hours before his suicide, the Soundgarden singer gave an unfocused, irritable performance.
www.usatoday.com www.usatoday.com
Click to expand...
He killed himself by hanging and he had high levels of benzos and barbiturates in his system apparently he had just relapsed according to his wife (although I don’t think you can trust what his wife is saying it might just be damage control and he was using the whole time)


the article just talks about how he was high as heck during his last show I had to google to find details of exactly what happened to him.
 
His doctor put him on benzos for two years or so to help him sleep with a shoulder injury.

- His wife blames Chris's being an addict for the trainwreck in the end, but I suspect it was Chris's Anxiety disorder and tolerance/rebound issues leading him to supplement with barbiturates.

Also his wife was pretty much nagging him IMO before he did it, hard to really blame her as its the norm to encourage this discredited 'tough love' behavior.

But whatever happened he seemed like a real cool guy and its pretty tragic.
 
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