stopping Benzo's

I never took them regularly, but prn, but I now am not letting myself take any at all.
Let me tell you - my anxiety levels have shot through the roof and I'm starting to feel physically ill. I know I could take a Benzo and it would all be gone...
But; I really don't want to get lured into Benzo's and possibly getting dependant on them.

Anyone else battled?

That is a bad drug to stop cold turkey. Much better to wean the dose down slowly before stopping completely.

I was only taking Ativan or klonopin. 0.5mg tablets. Every now and again would binge, but I cannot believe I would have got addicted to them.
It's ridiculous how hectic my anxiety is now

For me, therapy twice a week has helped my anxiety tremendously. I took Xanax as-needed, which wasn't even a couple of times a month, but I haven't needed it for a long time.

So, I just take Ativan as needed and try drag it out as far as possible until my body no longer relies on it

Beta-blockers work wonders for anxiety and aren't addicting like benzos.

Ok - I do have some Beta-blockers; just wasn't sure if they would inter-act with any of my other meds. Maybe I'll give that a go again. Thank you

I was on Xanax and Valium at different times of course for many years, in April my pdoc took me off them completely and put me in rehab, now the best I get for anxiety is buspar. It was the best thing for me but hard indeed.

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I have struggled much with the aspect of taking benzo's. Xanax is the only med that works for my anxiety, and it's really helped. However, my body is now physically dependent on it. There is a huge difference between addiction and dependence. While I don't psychologically feel like I have to have the Xanax, and I don't get any type of "high" from it, my body begins to go through withdrawal when it gets down to a certain dose. However, I have managed to wean myself down to a fraction of what I was taking 8 months ago, and I feel good. My eventual goal is to be off of it completely, but it will take much time some discomfort. I'm doing it over a slow process.

Don't stop it cold turkey, you can get really sick. There is a really good site : Benzo Buddies

That has helped me a lot. If you have taken them for more than 2 weeks chances are you are physically dependent. Good news is you can get off of them, it just takes some effort. Really nasty withdrawal if you don't go slow.

I had just abused them through binging. This is where I think I started to become dependent on them. For such a small dose, the withdrawals were quite extreme!

ugh...yea sugahorse. I never binged or abused, I took them as rx'd...but the rx was a high dose and I was in over my head coming off of them. Still titrating after 2 mos, but almost off.

Hey Sugahorse, I've been on xanex & valium plus SSRIs for over ten months. A couple of months ago I tried to come off the xanex (on my own) not good. I had extremely bad side effects. I then started therapy and my doc has put down the prescription. Unfortunately, every now and again, I take a few too many, just to get that lovely feeling of relaxation, but my goal is to get off them completely. I'm hoping if I can continue with therapy, I might be able to get off them completely. I think maybe slowly bring down your dose. I was on 1mg three times a day, that was the xanex. I'm not sure if thats a small dosage or not, but it was severe trying to go gold turkey. Take it slow imho & best of luck x

Thanks for the wake up call. My pdoc just prescribed Clonazapam for me (I had been on Valium). I had no idea these things were so addictive. Maybe I shouldn't take it at all. :-(

I have 0.5mg tabs.
Supposed to take up to 1 tablet 3x a day. I hardly did that. But every now and again I'd take like 5 in one go and with alcohol. Eventually I'd be taking about 2 per day as needed. But I couldn't stop.
I've been put on something called Stresam now. It may be quite unique to South Africa. It's not a Benzo. But I'm meant to use it instead of Benzo"s.
Holding thumbs

Starting the binging again. To hide

It's definitely a challenge. I was abusing Klonopin and Xanax for quite a while, then was rx'd Ativan. I quit cold turkey about 2 months ago and still feel terrible. It has been rough, but remember: we'll all make it through this. Quitting is hard, yes, but we've got the strength and power. I, myself, don't like that class of drugs any longer and have no intentions to take them again.

Yeah, I really hope you have a doctor's supervision while going off this drug. I don't trust those benzo drugs at all, it would be really scary to be dependent on them.
My former Psychiatrist put me on Tenex, a beta blocker, and it does really help. Good luck!

Yeah Benzo withdrawal is awful. I made the mistake of screwing around with my prescription and taking more than prescribed at a time so I could "numb out". I wound up running out of my prescription a week early and in Canada, those drugs are really restricted so they won't renew early without special dispensation from your Dr. and I didn't want to tell my pdoc that I'd been abusing them because I was afraid he'd take me off them. I felt like hell, rebound anxiety, headaches, nausea, shakes, I wanted to die. I knew my anti-psychotic had sedative properties so I tried taking more of my anti-psychotic to help manage the Benzo withdrawal, that was fine, except it really caused my heart to race and skip beats, and me to be generally out of it.

I don't play around with my meds anymore. I'm on a really high dose of clonazapam 5 mg daily, and I know I'm physically dependent on it. I dread coming off of it.

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Thanks all for sharing