I know that people on this forum have continually mentioned that benzodiazepines are horribly addictive, which they are. At the moment I'm trying to taper down to nothing the lorazepam I've been taking for years and years. Recently I did wonder whether some of the things I'm feeling (much greater irritability, pins and needles, difficulty sleeping, etc.) were caused by my lowering my lorazepam dose. (I started at 3mg per day and have now worked down to 1mg per day.)

So I did some google searches and found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzodi...rawal_syndrome
and this:
http://benzo.org.uk/manual/index.htm

Both of these items are excellent and worthwhile. I would strongly urge anyone reading this post who's on a benzodiazepine (for anxiety or sleep) to consider whether it's really doing something for them other than prevent withdrawal symptoms. The sources above do say (as many people here know) that benzos only "work" for about two months.

Both of these websites assert that benzo withdrawal is worse than opiate withdrawal, and that's saying a lot. And it can extend for a long period of time. Of course, how long and how irritating your withdrawal might be depends on you; we all react differently. I myself didn't have a problem
coming down from 3mg to 2mg. But now coming down from 2mg to 1mg does have some mild side-effects. So I'll go to .5mg before I go down to zero. Apparently, for many people it can be worse.

I don't believe I've read anything ever that challenges the assertion that benzos are only effective for a short while. If that's true, then why do P-docs across the country hand out benzo prescriptions year after year to their patients? No doctor or pharmacist ever told me the sad truth concerning benzodiazepines. If anyone reading this post is a P-doc or a T and knows more about this than I do (certainly an easy job), I'd appreciate them posting an answer to that question: If P-docs in fact do know the truth (how can they not?) about benzos, why do they keep their patients on them long after it's obvious the patients are deriving no benefit from them?

Take care!