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  • Trip Reports Moderator: Cheshire_Kat

Rapid high-dose benzo detox, withdrawls and PAWS + heroin detox

Project Will

Project Will

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 29, 2009
Messages
542
Location
Tennessee
Three months ago I went into a detox center to get off 200mg/per day Valium habit that has been building for the past three years. Valium is one of the many benzos I was taking - I started using extremely high doses of flu-bromazepam, etizolam and all the regularly rxed benzos which I won't list. I was taking the equivalent of 20 10mg Valium per day just to prevent withdrawals. I was also using 0.5g-1g of heroin per day.

I went through 3 separate phenobarbitol (120mg/hour, about 2000mg per day) to prevent seizures from benzo withdrawals plus clonidine for two weeks. There was no benzo taper.

For heroin withdrawals I was on 16mg suboxone and quickly tapered down.

The first couple weeks were the worst of my life. Hallucinations, horrible depression, no sleep, couldn't eat, puking.. All the bad shit that that goes with heroin withdrawals, plus a whole lot more from the benzos. The benzo withdrawals lasted about a months and a half - during which I lost 15 pounds from not being able to eat much and puking. I also had (and still have) memory problems, very high pulse and blood pressure (for which I take propanolol), insomnia and a bunch of other bad shit. Even after three months I feel "off." My memory was totally fucked for the first two months and is slowly getting better.

For anyone out there using all the RC benzos and developing a huge tolerance, I strongly suggest you try to cut back. Benzo withdrawal is a nightmare - way worse than heroin.

I've been off drugs for almost three months, which is the longest I've been sober in 15 years. I've been going to meetings, got a sponsor and all that stuff. I still love drugs and wish I could do them without fucking my life up, but I can't. As cheesy and lame as it sounds, this is the happiest I've been in a long time and I hope I can stay clean.
 
Congrats on doing that and surviving... I can't imagine. I know opiate withdrawal well but I never got into benzos... and opiate withdrawal is enough of a nightmare by itself. Good work getting clean, I hope you stay that way too. :) I got clean from opiates almost exactly a year ago, I used ibogaine though, but my life turned around completely and now I'm in the best place I've ever been physically, mentally and emotionally.
 
Hope you're still sober OP! I went to rehab in June and the unpleasantness does pass. The BZD PAWS lasts much longer than the opiate PAWS but it will go away.

And for your last statement - there's no shame in sobriety man. It's just another life experience. Hope life is well all these months later.
 
I can completely relate to you OP. In detox I was hallucinating that there were cockroaches all over the walls and they were somehow getting into my skin. I went from 5-6mg xanax, and about 4mg clonazepam a day to them giving me 1mg ativan in the morning and 1mg ativan at night for three days (which pretty much did nothing). I was hearing voices, I kept thinking people were in my room...scariest detox ever.

I am also sober, I am glad you have come so far, and I wish you all the best. Keep up with your sponsor, he/she will guide you through the dark times, and celebrate with you during the light ones.
 
Damn! Sorry you had to go through that...

Ive been through taper-and-quit benzo and opiate withdrawal, both once each at separate times. Fortunately I never really raised my benzo tolerance more than having to take 2 1/2 standard doses or something like that. Since I still took it on my own accord for at least a year it was mostly maintenance / self-medications of my symptoms and the worst of the constant micro withdrawing.

It's a shitty deal and I probably never should have started with benzos (I can take them only about once a week now without much problem, pregabalin helping with my most basic anxieties helps a LOT with that and is probably saving me - though immediately after quitting I did not take drugs or even alcohol for a while - this extended detox is important for your brain to heal and rewire the worst of the addictive patterns!!)... and I recommend anyone taking benzo's to at least find the strength to keep tolerance down.

I agree I guess, benzos are at least as bad as opiates - I could handle acute opium withdrawal (though it felt rough and sickly), and the PAWS of it is depressing but more in a passive way than the alarming shittiness of being insomniac and uncomfortable for way too long after the benzos. Still, its better to get through that shit in the end trust me!! To start taking them again is no solution at all. So always remember that you don't want that, at all cost.

Good luck man! Take good care of yourself youll be okay
 
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