I can use valium 10 mg FOR A week straight and get no withdrawals. never used over a week, because it is unreasonable and unwise to get hooked into benzos.
i just read here and am totally baffled how ppl can take these for years and years, develop a massive tolerance , and for what ? if ur nor smoking weed or using opiates with it ( dangerous for newbies... blablabla ) your benzos you're doing it wrong. just my 2 cents.
You are correct that benzodiazepines are essentially emergency drugs that should never be used for more than 4 weeks of daily use. However, you must be extremely ignorant, young, and/or non-observant because it's VERY easy to fall into the benzo addiction circle of hell even if you were never an addict before. I've been on and off benzos for over a decade (during that time I took 7 years entirely off of benzos) but I returned to them knowing the consequences and almost unavoidable routine of finding a therapeutic dose, increasing it on sleepless night, then tapering for months on end, etc.
I know people prescribed 6mgs a day of Clonazepam who don't even know what a benzodiazepine is. They are over-prescribed in the US, albeit extremely effective in emergency situations. People on any substance can justify a reasoning on why they need a certain drug, even if it's irrational from a logical and medical standpoint. For example, The first time i was prescribed benzos, I was in college and felt like I needed them for public speaking. It's now a decade later, and the reason I returned to them was because of a 3 million dollar lawsuit against me, a breakup, 2 lost family members, all in a short time frame....The benzos worked for a few weeks and then became sugar pills. I'm now tapering off SLOWLY because I agree with most of your statements...
I'm not bashing you, but you are correct in stating that benzos are best used on an as needed basis unless you use them as an anticonvulsant to ward off seizures but to be baffled at how people can take them daily for years BAFFLES me!!!!
I have 15 years of research, observation, and personal experience in the medical field....I've seen and experienced every angle of benzo use and they fall into a category of dependency unlike any other substance. In one case, a mother in her mid 40's with a teenage son was prescribed 1mg of clonazepam daily to deal with the anxiety of her son being a heroin addict in treatment. As more time elapsed, her dosage eventually reached 6mgs a day over the course of ten years. Long story short, she never used any drugs or alcohol her entire life and died on a family cruise because she didn't bring her scripts with her. So to deal with her son's opiate addiction, she didn't do her research, listened to her Dr. who was probably an idiot, and ended up essentially in a worse position than her son!
It's all fun and games until you want to come off and realize that if you do without tapering, the likelihood of death is VERY present.
