RCs I really screwed up. (Benzos/etizolam)

[remsensor]

First and foremost I'd like to begin by telling everyone my previous drug history involved 10 years of opiate abuse and then being on suboxone 16 mg a day for 2 years. The suboxone helped me get my life back. For the first time I had money, my own place, car, things normal people had. I knew and still know im addicted to an opiate but I'm not strung out and doing the behaviors I was because I go to the pharmacy and get a free bottle 1 time a week.
Well about a month and a half back I decided to really fuck up my life and I knew better that's the thing, my own mother had been hooked on xanax for 15 plus years and still is. All the junkies would even say fuck benzos man those make heroin withdrawal look like a cakewalk. Yet for reasons such as having psychological issues and ptsd in the mix I decided to order etizolam online. "I'll have self control and only take it twice a week max."
Lol yeah fucking right. about a week in I was taking 4 mgs nightly. Then by the grace of the devil himself 60 bars of xanax for 20 bucks landed in my lap. I couldn't pass up that deal.
I went through them all in a few weeks. Then I went back to etizolam. I ordered liquids, mouth dissolve pills. Next thing I know I'm taking 20... yes 20 mgs of this a day. I look up the chart in regards to strength and 1 mg is equal to 10 mgs of valium..... shit. Now I need to stop but how fast can I?
I notice when I wake up I dont enjoy it. My muscles hurt and the first thing I want to do and do is take 10 pills. Some days I've made it on only 4 or 6 though. I also ordered phenibut and took that for 48 hours on my two days off from work and didn't experience much withdrawal last week.
I also know that phenibut is addictive so I wont and haven't combined or taken it more than two days by itself a week. I just took 12 mgs of etizolam today when I woke up. About 6 hours later I wasn't feeling too hot so I took 900 mgs of phenibut instead of more etizolam. Am I in too deep to taper this fast?
I cannot go to a doctor. I dont think my suboxone doctor would appreciate me coming clean and telling her I've been using my friends urine that only contained suboxone kept in my freezer to pass my monthly UA's. They trust me so much now they UA me once a month and tell me when... I don't want to lose that and if I had to come off both suboxone and etizolam at the same time I think I'd rather die and that's not a joke.
Any advice... someone with any kind of experience that could give me anything would help. I cant get my hands on any street valium I've tried. Best I can do is xanax and that's worse than etizolam. I think I've only doubled form 10 to 20 mgs of etizolam in the past two weeks so I'm thinking it might be safe to cut my dose in half or damn close to it and be relatively safe and then go from there.
Is that too fast? I dont have enough money or etiz left to do otherwise anyways. Cant get more til the 18th. It's only been a couple months I'm glad I am trying to get off now instead of say a year later but still I know im dependent probably at this point. I had no idea as I was eating these like candy what I was fucking with. I thought I did but I didn't in my blacked out states of consciousness. I'm scared. I don't like this drug the payoff isn't worth the pain. I just need to know how fast I can taper. I have to work too. I cant afford to take time off unfortunately.... I can maybe get 3 days off next week somehow. Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Edit: Forgot to mention that yes I know combining opiates even suboxone with benzos or benzo like drugs is dangerous. I've cut my does of suboxone in half from 16 mgs a day to 8 with seemingly no difficulty. I'm being as careful as I can about this and do not drink and haven't for over 2 years.

 

[Prescottdave]

If you can get ahold of etizolam then you may be able to get ahold of some diclazepam and taper down. Diclazepam would be similar to doing a diazepam taper. This would be extremely doable if done correctly and as soon as possible.

Maybe think about getting a prescription for gabapentin instead of using the phenibut. Both are voltage gated calcium channel blockers or something like that and feel really similar to each other. I find gabapentin is a bit less addictive then phenibut. If you also smoke weed or even if you don't you have to think about the cognition problems caused by your medication regimen. These will likely get worse as time goes on when using the etizolam and phenibut especially together in high doses.

If you some how run out or have to stop you are likely then at a high risk of sezuires. As time goes on cutting your dose in half can also result in sezuires and other WD related symptoms. Always try and taper at least over 3-4+ days if shooting for half you normal dosage at the end. Get your dose slowly down and try to maintain for a week on like 0.5 mg diclazepam. Then taper to 0.25 mg for a week and then stop. If you want to quite you will likly have to learn how to maintaine at a tiny dose. MG for MG both of these gray market benzos are similar in dose.

 

[oar9fi]

I don't mean to come off as being rude or mean just trying to give some advice. Reckless, irresponsible use by people who lack self control and respect for the substances they use should just leave them alone and those that can handle responsible use should probably just keep their ese private and rwmember to be responsible. I have used and been prescribed just about every benzo/sleep aid available. Out of all of them my favorite was probably estazolam (Prosom) but can no longer afford to go to the Dr. because of our messed up for profit healthcare system in the US.

That said, I used etizolam for 3 years and have never taken more than 3mg a night just as a sleep aid and it is affordable and effective, at least for myself. Have never had any problems with amnesia or tolerance like I have had with other stuff though I like to use a rotation of sleep aids so as not to fall intom a pattern of escalating doses etc. I don't think anyone should be put in jail just for wanting to get a good night's sleep. However people whom think its a good idea to take 10mg at a time give stuff like this a bad name while they ruin a good thing for othe people. Etizolam has saved me THOUSANDS of dollars just because I am not dumb and don't abuse it. Hope this advice helps.

Loose lips sink ships. But I have been on the boat for 3 years and along with Doxylamine, Valerian, and some other stuff in rotation I have been able to stay afloat and have had zero problems. Ambien on the other hand almost caused me to burn my house... it never worked if I had aby food is stomach. and so would take it, start to make food only to pass out and wake up to a smoke filled house.

On a full stomach, even 40mg didn't do jack shit. And i had a really cool Dr who gave me pretty much anything I asked for provided I had don my research and shown myself to be responsible. Now I don't even go to Dr. Though just might cuz medical MJ just got passed in my state a few days ago. Stay safe everyone, Do your homework be responsible and hope fro the best! -oar

 

[morphine-dreams]

A long, slow taper would be ideal and given your dose, you need to either see a doctor before you even begin to drop your dose or get enough etizolam to last you a very long time. You're probably at seizure risk and you shouldn't even think about doing a quick taper or CT, especially if you're going to do it on your own.

Google the Ashton Manual, it should give you a lot of good info on how to taper off of benzos.

Also, you can check out my RC benzo taper thread: http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/807954-The-RC-benzo-taper-thread

 

[Mracid]

At first, I would stop using phenibut, it is horribly addictive and can ony be used maximum once a week.

Then, how long have you taken benzo or thienobenzo? Thats a good clue to how long your taper needs to last.
The longer you took it the longer the tapper will need to be for lower chances of WD's.

Then How quick did you increase the dose and how long did you stay on the maximum dose that you took daily? That is also a good clue to how quick you can reduce dosage during your tapper.
If you increased quickly and used a high dose daily for a long time then you should reduce the dosage by smaller amounts and wait for longer time before doing it again.

If you are ok with math (if you are not skip this part), it can help to make a graphic;

the dose on Y axis / days on X axis.
The day you start tapper should be equal to 0 on the X axis and equal to the minimum dose where you feel absolutely no WD's on the Y axis.
The negative side of the X axis should be the amounts of days you've been taking it since tapper, with the dose you took on which days on the Y axis(this part is really going to be approx as I do not think you remember the exact dose you took which day since you started).
This should give you a good idea of at which rate you increased your dose and how long you used it.

Then the tapper; the positive part of the X axis should be for best results the same lenght than the negative part (the use) , with the last day (lets call it the stopping point) with a value of 0 on the Y axis (the dose).
To reduce the chances of WD's the line between day 0 and the stopping point should look like a square root function with a reflection on the Y axis linking the stopping point to the day 0. This is what a Square root function with a reflection on the Y axis looks like: http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/Alg/Transformations_files/image008.gif (its the red one).

The one I linked is standard, it starts on 0 on the X axis but yours should start on the stopping point, it can also vary in terms of how quick the Y value goes down. The longer you were on a big dose the slower it should go down.

Continue here if you are really not into math,

I'll just say it like that: the amount of time you used the drug before starting to tapper should be the number of days you tapper, the rate at which you increased the dose should be the opposit of the rate you reduce the dose while tappering, so if you increased quickly reduce really slowly, and if you increased slowly, you can reduce a little more quickly than if you increased quickly.

Then tips to make the tapper a little more bareable:
-If you can, like one said, switch do a longer half life benzo to avoid WD's between doses.
-Try chamomile it can help with anxiety and physical discomfort
-Drink green tea instead of coffee or no caffeine at all
-Try rooibos to reduce the stress on your neurons from oxidative stress.
-Try valerian to sleep (there are also natrual sleep aids in most pharmacy that are a blend of alot of herbs that somehow mimic benzo that usually contain valerian extract since valerian tea taste like SHIT)
-It can be hard but try to meditate.
-Do alot of physical exercise to wear yourself out for sleep and endorphin boost.
-Mabe B-complex vitamin to help produce GABA from Glutamic acid and avoid any deficiencies.

Thats mostly all I got, I hope you get out of trouble and make this a thing of the past.

 

[morphine-dreams]

^agree about phenibut being a bad idea, plus it targets the GABA-B receptors (as opposed to GABA-A which benzos target) so it's not the most effective method anyway. I don't think it's really as cross-tolerant with benzos as many people believe. My benzo tolerance has been pretty high, but my phenibut (which I rarely use) tolerance remains the same. Diclazepam is a good suggestion but you probably need to lower your etizolam dose significantly before you switch over. I started out with a 6mg etizolam tolerance and after a month, am at around 4mg. Taper slowly. I went into more detail in the thread I linked, but even .5mg drops are a bit much for me, and my tolerance is lower than yours. Play it safe with this one. Besides seizures, I'd be worried about excitotoxicity if you drop your doses too drastically.