It is definitely "hard" compared to how ridiculously easy it used to be in the 90's and 00's, especially in the US.
The way it used to be was that many patients would be receiving their xanax in the form of the infamous "bars" (sometimes several of them per day) which represent massive doses - each bar hits as hard as 4 mg of ativan, or 40 mg of diazepam; also, many patients would be getting xanax as a first-line treatments from their GP for conditions like mild depression or light insomnia, where they would have been better served with an SSRI or a sedating antihistamine.
Of course there is still a significant use for xanax in the treatment of moderate to severe anxiety disorders and panic attacks, which partially explains why it is still among the most widely used prescription drugs; the other reason for its ongoing popularity is of course that many people have been on it for decades now, and are understandably not interested in experiencing unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. However, even these long-term patients are nowadays going to have trouble getting their doc to increase their dose to compensate for tolerance; in fact, their doc might actually try and get them to de-crease their dose, at least partially replace the xanax with far less addictive alternatives like pregabalin or quetiapine.
