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Benzos Taking alcohol one day, benzos/thienos another day

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pendulum1234

Greenlighter
Joined
Dec 31, 2008
Messages
22
Hello all I hope your having a great day.

I've always had this question which has bugged me but have never really gotten round to asking.
I take Etizolam for occasional insomnia and anxiety/panic attacks, I am very sensible with it and note down in my diary every dose that I take, I don't use it to get high.
On my days off from work (2 days a week) I tend to have a drink, when I say drink I mean get pretty legless.

For example:
Basically if I take benzos on Mon/Tues then say have a drink Wed/Thurs then take benzos on the Fri/Sat, would my tolerance not drop at all in the days off the benzos, would alcohol/benzos some how have some cross tolerance.
I'm finding it hard to explain what I'm trying to say here, I basically don't want to ever withdraw from benzos and I don't take large amounts.

Are alcohol/benzo withdrawals completely separate, I'm guessing they are since you can treat alcohol withdrawal with benzos.
If this is case then i guess in theory would you be a lot less likely to get withdrawals if you for example: drank for 1 week, took benzos for 1 week then drank again the following week rather than just drinking all the time or taking benzos all the time. This is the easiest way to explain what I'm trying to say.

Thanks for the help in advance guys,
P.
 
They have many overlapping properties, significant but incomplete cross-tolerance (gaba-a agonists), and similar withdrawal symptoms. Rotating between alcohol and benzodiazepines will not lower your tolerance, at least to relevant levels.
 
I think that with most benzos Mon/Tues + Fri/Sat is a little too much to avoid at least some minor addiction and tolerance increase. Also don't think 2 days per week of alcohol will cause addiction in the real sense.

If you want an alcohol like high, 1 dose of GHB per day is highly unlikely to produce addiction and is much healthier for your body. However getting caught with it would suck because of the whole date rape drug stigma.
 
Don't get me wrong I would never use alcohol for anxiety I was just using the 1 week on benzos then 1 week on alcohol as an example of explaining what I was trying to say.


So if I say took benzos 3 days straight then got drunk 2 nights then took benzos for another 2 nights would it be like taking benzos for the whole week without break, withdrawal wise?

Thanks for the advise guys.
P.S I only take low dose Etizolam for anxiety 0.25mg-0.50mg and 1.5mg for insomnia (which isn't that often).
 
It wouldn't be, but most benzos have half-lives long enough (rule of thumb is 5 half-lives until you can consider it out of your system), that you'd never be benzo free even with the 2 days off.
 
Basically this week I took 1.5mg of etizolam Sun/Mon/Tues night due to insomnia, now I have 2 days off work and will probobly get drunk for 2 nights, then I may take 0.25mg of etizolam over the weekend at some point.

I'm just worried that these benzo and alcohol days are somehow going to overlap and link causing making my body thing I'm not having a days break at all from downers.
 
The only benzo I'm using is Etizolam which has a 6 hour half-life I believe.

Am I right in thinking that half-life works like this:

If I take 1mg of Etizolam then 6 hours later I have 0.5mg in my system, then 6 hours later I will have 0.25mg left? etc etc
 
Your worse problem here is etizolam, it's main metabolite has a half-life of about 8h. So you need at least 40h between doses to be safe. Alcohol isn't that problematic since it's harder to get addicted unless you drink huge amounts for days on end.
 
When does it get to the point that the drug is completely wiped out of your system, I mean if half-life works the way I said then it would never leave the body it would just keep halving the dose, when the dose left in the body reaches about 0.1mg would it then finally eliminate or something?
 
Let me give you a run down of my recent benzo use:

08/4 - 2mg (PM - Bed)
13/4 - 0.5mg (AM)
14/4 - 0.25mg (AM)
16/4 - 1.5mg (PM - Bed)
21/4 - 2.25mg (PM - Bed)
22/4 - 1.5mg (PM - Bed)
23/4 - 1.5mg (PM - Bed)

As you can see I haven't been taking it every day and as you can see I even had a 4 day break in the middle of the benzo use and I didn't experience any noticeable withdrawels.
Although I may have drank one or two of those nights, I take it obviously if I don't experience benzo withdrawal within 4 days of none-use, especially to such a short half-life benzo then I am safe as the withdrawals would have already kicked in by that time, I'm just worried that maybe the alcohol is somehow covering up the withdrawals so that I don't notice them!
 
try going one week without both and see how you feel + withdrawals from your doses of etizolam probably aren't going to be that bad
 
Let me repeat what I said, if you take alcohol instead of a benzodiazepine, you're essentially replacing 1 gaba-agonist for another. Gaining nothing in the end of the day.

So if I take diazepam sunday-wednesday, then whiskey friday through saturday, I really haven't done anything different.
 
crazycatman - Thanks for the help mate, a week without alcohol would be pretty tricky for me since I crave it pretty badly on my days off but yeah I really need to try go a week without both.

I'm actually going to see my GP in the next couple of weeks about my anxiety and insomnia (I have never been to the doctor about it in my life) and hopefully she will prescribe me something like Zopiclon/Zopiclone for insomnia and a benzo for panic attacks, this way I will be using 2 completely different drugs for different issues, rather than using benzos for both anxiety/panic attacks and insomnia.

The above dosages are actually a bad week for me, It's very rare I have to take 3 doses over 1mg in a row.

It's usually more like this:

16/3 - 0.50mg (AM)
17/3 - 0.50mg (AM) + 0.25mg (PM)
23/3 - 0.50mg (AM)
24/3 - 1.5mg (PM - Bed)
27/3 - 0.25mg (AM)
29/3 - 1.25mg (PM - Bed)
30/3 - 0.25mg + 0.25mg (AM) + 0.25mg (PM)
31/3 - 0.25mg (PM)
02/4 - 1.75mg (PM - Bed)
03/4 - 2.00mg (PM - Bed)
04/4 - 0.25mg (AM) + 2mg (PM - Bed)
06/4 - 0.25mg + 0.25mg (AM)
07/4 - 1.75mg (PM - Bed)

As you can see my usage usually has gaps in between and I am very sensible with this 'tool' and note down when I take it, at what dosage and for what reason.
I think it's a really good way of keeping track of what I'm taking and not letting it get out of control as you can look back at your diary and count how many days in a row you have been taking the drug.

Thanks for all the help guys, and stay safe.
 
Last edited:
Oh right yes now I understand Chromophobia, thanks for clearing it up.

So basically it's not necessarily the chemical that you take but what it effects in your system.
So if I take 10 different gaba-agonist on 10 different days in a row then I could still suffer from withdrawals after those 10 days, is that what your essentially saying?
 
pendulum1234 said:
So if I take 10 different gaba-agonist on 10 different days in a row then I could still suffer from withdrawals after those 10 days, is that what your essentially saying?
Click to expand...

Pretty much, so long as they work somewhat similarly pharmacologically.
 
Hmmm this isn't really what I wanted to hear, I guess I best chill out a bit more then even though I'm not going crazy on the dosages.

As mentioned above I think one of the main problems here is that I'm taking the same benzo drug for both anxiety and insomnia, increasing the likelihood oh withdrawal, I really need to get myself down to the GP and get some sleeping tablets which are non-benzo and use them on the nights I struggle to sleep.

Does something like 'Zopicon/Zopiclone' effect us the same as benzos/alcohol?
Is this a 'gaba-agonist' type of drug?

Does anyone have any suggestions to what would be a better option, I want something which is going to knock me out but not for too long and I don't want to get hallucinations and mad episodes like some sleeping tablets can give you.
 
How GABAergic is alcohol really?

Sorry to bump this thread, only a couple weeks old! :o, but I've found the answers within it dissatisfying and the answers outside of it elusive (trust me, the search engine has been fuckin' used!). My questions are virtually the same as the OP's, so let me refine them some so as to hopefully elicit some more complete responses...

Let's take someone such as myself. No prior benzo tolerance, and minimal prior experience. Consumes alcohol socially once or twice a week, typically in a low amount of between 2 and 4 drinks in a night (I don't like what it does to me that night when pushed beyond that, much less the next day!). In the past two weeks has consumed etizolam in small amounts, on average once every other day, with an average dose of 1.5mg on that day.

Obviously, alcohol is a GABAergic substance that is contributing to some unknown level to a rise in tolerance/creation of dependence (or at least hindering its decrease) on the days without etizolam. But how much is it actually? Perhaps my question stated most curtly is: exactly how GABAergic is alcohol really?

I have little doubt that if this pattern of use was extended into the range of 1+ or 2+ months that a physical dependency would set in. But for the range of a couple weeks or a month, my gut tells me that it wouldn't be appreciable and that alcohol in this amount is not GABAergic enough to physiologically "substitute" as a benzo/etizolam.

Please note that this is only my gut talking, and would appreciate any input/sources that confirms or denies its speculation!

Please note also that I realize that in the interests of harm reduction that 3-4x weekly use of a benzo/etizolam for someone without an anxiety condition is not encourageable. Alas, that is where I find myself, however. I intend to cease this immediately (a dwindling supply certainly helps!), but for the purposes of my own health/peace of mind/simple curiosity, I would like to know.

Thanks in advance!
 
Chromophobia said:
They have many overlapping properties, significant but incomplete cross-tolerance (gaba-a agonists), and similar withdrawal symptoms. Rotating between alcohol and benzodiazepines will not lower your tolerance, at least to relevant levels.
Click to expand...

^good post man

i would definitely not drink or eat benzos daily,, benzo/alcohol withdrawal is arguably the worst drug(s) to WD from
 
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