In my limited experience, my understanding is that most doctors won't prescribe benzos if there is an addiction history or drug use history.

I have been taking benzos since I began psychiatric treatment in 2006 which was when Bipolar disorder reared its ugly head along with OCD, GAD, and Panic disorder. My benzos are prescribed to me for panic attacks and to keep anxiety at a reasonable level. 1 mg every six hours of Xanax.

I didn't ask for benzos...my pdoc likes to hear my symptoms and how I'm doing and focuses less on labels, he says that my mental illness(es) need to be treated by monitoring the symptoms and treatment/management through meds, therapy, self-care, etc. (That's just as to me as he testified in my divorce that I will need bipolar medications for the rest of my life. I'm not saying everyone that has bipolar disorder requires meds.)

He does remind me of addiction potential and memory side effects, etc. and occasionally we discuss decreasing my dosage - we haven't increased it in four years.

That's my experience. I hope that helps. I hope that didn't come across too rambling, my post. My brain may be going "wheeee"! lol xo