Thank you very much for sharing your story with me. It is definitely difficult. I have tapered down to 1.6mg of diazepam as of right now (daily liquid micro taper with my own homemade solution). I have at least 13 more months of planned tapering. I live in my house. More specifically, I live in my room. I can make it to the mailbox and back once every month or so and I make it out of the house for therapy one time a month at the most -- I actually end up having to do a number of those appointments over the phone (and thanks to COVID-19, I will probably be doing it that way for awhile because my immune system took an absolute beating once I started tapering). It is exactly as you say, I don't know how to live life without the pills. It has indeed been a very long time. I am quite frankly amazed that I am substance free right now, I don't even vape nicotine anymore and I have been off the alcohol for over 2 1/4 years. I was self medicating with alcohol from the age of 17 and obviously when the tolerance withdrawal got bad with the benzos, I turned to alcohol to make up the difference in increasingly ridiculous amounts. I have tried tapering before, back in 2012, and I couldn't finish. When I failed, I went right off the deep end with the drinking. I think the only reason why I gave it up this last time was because I was about to be homeless again and I didn't want to do the couch surfing/fuck buddy thing I had to do when I was fighting for disability again.
I am fortunate that I eventually won my SSDI benefits after 3 years of fighting for them and my roommates right now are supportive as much as they can be. I have been really struggling since I got under 2mg though. It would be very easy at this point for me to go off the deep end and I think the fact that my subconscious was harping on me to get on Bluelight and post in TDS after not being active for years shows just how close I am to the edge and how hard I am fighting to get my life back. My psychiatrist asks me what dose I am currently taking and how many pills I need (she can't do the math on doses which is crazy to me but whatever). I am actually fortunate that she lets me direct my own treatment. My original taper plan I drew up and brought to her was supposed to be from 2/2018-6/2019... She hasn't given me a hard time about the fact its going to take me two years+ longer than the original plan.
The thing is, I don't know who I am when I'm sober. I don't even know if I am capable of remaining sober once I am taken out of the bubble that I currently exist in..... and if I am being totally honest, I am not sure that the work is worth the hassle. At least when I drank I could do more than sit in my room -- in fact, I could even go to a club if I wanted to -- it wasn't until the alcohol wore off that everything really went to shit.
Sorry, I droned on more than I meant to. I'm feeling quite scattered today. Anyway, thank you for the reassurance that life is better without benzos. That is the hope that I keep clinging to. I really can't afford to fail this time because it will truly be the end of me. With how much I was drinking, its a miracle that I don't have severe liver damage. I already know the first thing I'll do if I fail is turn to alcohol -- this time my liver won't put up with a third to half of a handle of vodka 5-7 days a week.
I used to drink..... A LOT. For about 15 years. I was very functional as a drunk. Great employee, father, etc. And then the pills for a few years. So yeah, I know exactly what you mean about self-medication.
I always felt like I knew who I was when I was sober, but that I really didn’t like that person(me). I drank so that I could be a better person, and %95 of the time that was genuinely true. My head was so confused and scrambled when I was sober that everyone in my life made sure there was alcohol available for me, because I was a much nicer person when I drank. And the pills literally took the place that alcohol left.
After the pills I couldn’t drink much at all. 2 fucking margaritas and I was puking the whole next day (an average day for me previously would have been around a liter of whiskey or gin, or 25 beers..... every day) So I had to make some life choices since my band-aid wasn’t working any more and it really sucked. Mainly because I didn’t know what to do and nobody could tell me anything useful.
Several doctors, different treatments, 4 back surgeries, 20 screws in my spine, and 5 years of struggling later I feel like I’m pretty close to figuring life out without having so much stuff to numb the pain. But it never gets easy, just easier every day until one day you look back and it’s been a couple of months and you have been handling shit on your own pretty well.
I always felt that when my head was scrambled and I couldn’t handle life, or when my back was hurting (enough that I could still walk but not so much that I couldn’t sit upright) that the solution was to crawl into bed and hide. Sometimes for days. “If it hurts, whether it is my back or my head, the best way to take care of myself is to be in bed, right?” Not always.
Depression fucking sucks. And it’s worse when you’re in withdrawal. No matter if I’m hungover or the screws in my spine are coming loose(that actually happened at one point) hiding in my bed felt like the only way to deal with my pain when I no longer had my crutches(i.e. booze and pills) and the people in my life seemed to be very supportive of my obvious pain when I was lying in bed. But unless I was really hurt it didn’t really fix much in my spine or in my brain.
Fresh air and sunshine really helped me. Not exercising, just forcing myself to Get out of bed, taking a shower, eat breakfast, brush/shave/get dressed..... and go find some sun, preferably alone.
