Stimulants Quiting Meth With The Help of Benzos? Thoughts Pleeeease

[Michaelablue]

Hey everyone,
So this is the first time I've posted. I've read many threads over the last year during my constant battle with Meth addiction. I started snorting, then smoking and now I'm smoking EVERYDAY! I hate it but I can't seem to stop. I have constant anxiety and promise myself everyday to stop but it's so damn hard. I wake up and say I'm not doing it, I seem to be doing good for half the day and then the encouraging thoughts to go buy it start to creep in - a long with the hopeless feelings of - I can't get through the rest of the day without it. Slowly the evil takes over, I've made the call or driven round and I'm buying it. I seem to talk myself into the fact that it's a great idea and love the initial hit but then I get greedy, I have to much and then the anxiety starts and I feel I'm having a heart attack and I'm going to die. This is now a daily cycle. REPEAT - REPEAT - REPEAT. I'm so sick of being like this but I can't stop. The longest I've gone is 3 days twice in the last 2 months. I've even gone as far as intentionally breaking 3 pipes to stop but then I just buy another one. And it's soooo expensive here. A point is <snip>. I can spend <snip> a week on it sometimes it's ruining me financially. But I can't stop
Anyways my question is...I have benzos and Ativan, I have them for anxiety but only take them a handful of times per year. Would it help to take 1-2 of these a day for the initial week and then tapper down through the next week or 2? I'm just out of ideas and there is no support here. Any help, advice or your story would be really appreciated xxx

 

[DoctorMolecule]

What you need is a more gentle stimulant to replace the meth with. When I quit shooting meth a couple of years back, my Psych put me on Wellbutrin (bupropion) which is an NDRI and it has very slightly stimulating properties but no significant euphoria. And I was able to quit, that's my two cents. Benzos tend to make me more impulsive, so my willpower to not use is greatly diminished

 

[ovo1024]

<snip> a Point? A point as in 100mg right? That's fucking bizarre. It's around <snip> a Point here & that's for quality stuff.

 

[kleinerkiffer]

Price discussion is against the rules, please edit your post!

 

[keeping]

^ yeah you should know this by now ovo1024

 

[CuriosityMonster]

According to a friend who has a personal experience with this, benzodiazepines work wonders to combat withdrawals and to help an individual get out of addiction. By no means am I recommending this particular extreme strategy as it seems potentially dangerous, but my friend (and this really was my friend) downed eleven bars of xanax, slept for 30 hours and was inebriated for the better part of the week. He said he didn't even think about taking more of the drug he was addicted to (heroin in this case) since he was so out of it. I suppose it has a certain logic to it. My friend was desperate enough to try it and it worked out for him. He did say he felt pretty awful after the xanax fully wore off though.

Personally I'd recommend taking a few every day as you need them. You almost certainly won't develop a dependency after just a couple weeks of use or less. A short-lasting, potent benzodiazepine would be best, like alprazolam or lorazepam.

Fundamentally though, if you're psychologically addicted to meth I don't think introducing other chemicals to try and manage the withdrawals is going to help that much. You can treat the physical symptoms of dependency but the psychological addiction is still present. Therapy and will-power is best for treating this.

 

[dood42069]

Fundamentally though, if you're psychologically addicted to meth I don't think introducing other chemicals to try and manage the withdrawals is going to help that much. You can treat the physical symptoms of dependency but the psychological addiction is still present. Therapy and will-power is best for treating this.

Yes, other chemicals may help you make it through physical addiction but you will not able to quit if you dont have will power to.

 

[ovo1024]

yeah you should know this by now ovo1024

I do i was just so shocked they pay that much plus its a stupid rule that i never usually follow but out if Resect for this site i will listen better

 

[keeping]

^ thankyou

and i don't think quitting meth with some benzos is a bad idea, as long as you can control your benzo dosage - no point swapping one addiction for another.
but i always use benzos when i'm coming down off a stimulant, same rules apply here.

 

[CuriosityMonster]

An interesting note to add; a study found that in those who had been taking benzodiazepines regularly for over 8 months, only 44% had developed a physical dependency. As it seems, benzos are actually quite hard to end up dependent on.

 

[keeping]

An interesting note to add; a study found that in those who had been taking benzodiazepines regularly for over 8 months, only 44% had developed a physical dependency. As it seems, benzos are actually quite hard to end up dependent on.

could you cite this study? i'm having a hard time believing that, 8 months of solid benzos use would certainly result in addiction. ༼ ༎ຶ ෴ ༎ຶ༽

 

[CuriosityMonster]

could you cite this study? i'm having a hard time believing that, 8 months of solid benzos use would certainly result in addiction. ༼ ༎ຶ ෴ ༎ຶ༽

I read it on Wikipedia on its 'alprazolam' article, and the citation it provided is dated, but here you go:
Schatzberg, A.; DeBattista, C. (2003). Manual of Clinical Psychopharmacology. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Pub. p. 391. ISBN 1-58562-209-5. Retrieved 22 January 2014.

The information itself seems to derive from the Manual of Clinical Psychopharmacology, which is available with a bit of digging online.

Personally I have taken 5mg of valium once a day (sometimes twice if particularly anxious) for a period of over two years and when I ceased usage I experienced no withdrawal effects.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

I was never anxious coming off meth, but I guess benzos can help reduce the craving. Don't use them for an extended period of time.