polydrug withdrawal (agh, benzos)

[Lord]

I don't know if this is the most awesome section to post this on, but here's the story, I feel that I need to begin quitting now to have much of a chance at beating this. I'm only 17 years old and don't want to struggle with drug addiction for the rest of my life.

On a daily basis, I smoke marijuana, drink, smoke cigarettes, pop zopiclone and lorazepam, take 5-HTP, and a small amount of dexedrine.
I've been smoking pot daily for about 20 months, I rarely have less than 10-20 good pipe hits a day, which no longer even gets me high.
I've been drinking for about a year but I no longer find it that addictive, especially when taking large amounts of 5-HTP. I currently drink 2-5 beers a day. Zopiclone, about twelve months, I am down to about 3 a day. Lorazepam, about 9 months, I am down to roughly 3(mg) a day. 5-HTP I have been taking on and off (about half of the time since nearly a year) at 100-400mg, currently taking 50-200mg a day. With Dexedrine it started a good half-year ago, but no problem there, I rarely take more than 20mg. Tobacco, I think it's been at least 8 months, got down to 2-20 cigs a day.

I need to quit but I am scared... very scared. Last time I cold turkeyed halfway through my addiction career, I felt sweaty and cold at the same time, loss of appetite, felt pretty sick (almost like 'psychological' nausea for the most part) and had mood swings over and over and over, every few seconds I'd go from smiling to crying, holding onto the couch and begging for it to just be over with. Then I'd tell myself 'You're such a pussy, this is nothing, stop it! Nothing is even going on!' It was like I was being tricked into crying over nothing at all, and it just kept repeating over and over every time I told myself I was just being a pussy.

Well now is 6-12 months later... and because of my lapsing memory I actually don't really know how long I've been on the drugs for, the numbers stated above are pretty rough estimates, and some are even conservative. I took 2mg of lorazepam 35 minutes ago and it should help me get through the night... but within 8-12 hours I feel so sweaty and gross, I'm like 'What the fuck have I been doing all this time' and I start feeling sick again, sick about how monotonous and boring my life is, sick to my stomache, anxious about the past, the present, and the future. Something in me is saying 'it's for life, even if you get off everything, but you won't, you've already screwed your life up, you should either get a gun and do it the quick way or stick to drugs for the longer, more miserable way. Lady salvia will be in your nightmares, and the psychosis will resurface when you are older'

I guess I'm gonna have to quit one drug at a time. I got myself into a corner, if I continue I'll get so fucked up, if I quit I'll be fucked up for a while, too. Wish me luck, I know some of you have recently gone through much harsher WDs, congrats on making it through.

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

Certainly want to quit one drug at a time.

I would withdrawal from the alcohol and benzos last, in that order. You're going to want to taper down your lorazepam dosage and maybe switch to a longer-acting benzo like diazepam (Valium) for that purpose. There is a lot of information on coming off benzos by Doctor C H Ashton, it is available here:

http://www.benzo.org.uk/index.htm

Good luck man, its probably going to be the hardest to come off of, which is why you want to save it for last.

 

[phatass]

you can cut down, by slowly tapering.. change the benzos to an equivalent amount of valium (for the long half-life) and taper...

for the pot... as long as it doesn't mess with your studies, fine, if not you can cold turkey the pot

you can stop the ciggs later, they are just addictive, (a long time til cancer or heart problems will be caused) you can quit in a few years once you're more atable

the dexedrine if you take it for ADHD thats not a problem

 

[K'd-OUT-in-AZ]

The pot is psychologically addicting so maybe if you get some of your issues worked out with a therapist you'll have a better chance of getting off it. You can always of course go cold turkey. That's the best way to do it. It may be causing some of your mental issues like the mood swings.

The lorazepam is what is causing the withdrawals. Its physically addictive. You need to taper. You said you were on 3mg, well go down 1mg every couple weeks until your on 1mg and then switch to Diazepam 10mg, go down to 5mg in a couple weeks and then a couple weeks later down to 2mg if you want (optional). Then once you've been on that for a couple weeks go off.

Rest of the drugs are no problem. You haven't been drinking much and a low dose of Dexedrine.