A Patient Tapered Off Klonopin. The Doctors Had No Idea What Hit Him.

> Having kicked opiates cold turkey in the past, I felt nostalgic for three simple days of traditional nausea, sweatiness, and bone-deep ache.

I am one of few people stupid enough to have, at one point, been addicted to and subsequently withdrawn from, almost everything but alcohol.

There is no way to explain the hell on earth that is benzo/GABA-ergic drug withdrawal, and I would not wish it on my worst enemy. It is an order of magnitude more intense than opiate withdrawals, and the timeline is weeks/months rather than days.

Like the author, I managed to quit via a year-long Ashton protocol taper.

The irony is that benzos were the one class of drugs I wasn't abusing for recreation. I was using mega-doses of Etizolam to cope with PTSD flashbacks, and only discovered I had become physically addicted after flushing it all and winding up in the ER.

Fun story time:

Almost a decade ago now, I was a happy, high-functioning alcoholic. Winery tours, Scotch tastings, workplace drinks, etc.

It was all "fine" until I started struggling to get to sleep without a little "nudge"; then it was getting back to sleep in the wee hours; then it was every hour or two, 24x7.

Then I decided to go cold turkey while on vacation in Hawaii with my family, because who wants to be the drunk asshole in search of a cocktail while everyone else is having a good, sober time at the beach?

Boom: detox seizures, ER visit, and the ever-so-helpful prescription of Ativan so I wouldn't seize again. I was discharged with the instructions to "take as needed, up to every four hours." Since I was an addict in pain, I took that to mean, "take them every four hours, or maybe more often."

Cut forward 3-4 days, and the scrip ran out. Boom: more DTs, this time from the benzos.

It wasn't long after that when I went through my first inpatient psych visit b/c I was in no way equipped to handle withdrawals from two highly-addictive drugs at the same time.

Sadly it took another couple of years and another trip through the ER + inpatient care before I realized that doctors would and did prescribe me meds that were actively harmful in the interest of short-term comfort.

It's been six years since the last big episode and I'm genuinely grateful I only threatened myself with my shitty brain chemistry (however aggravated by poor medical intervention) rather than putting other […]

The only cure for anxiety is, ultimately deconditioning.Meds definitely can help smoothen that process , but that needs to be addressed carefully, as PRN /SOS will reinforce the maladaptive conditioning. Ultimately the simplest analogy is to not respond to the false fire alarm - and the brain eventually stops treating it as emergency. Easier said than done , but that’s the hard facts. Most suffer from Somatic symptoms, but keep the noise peripheral, never central- by returning to whatever you are doing, however badly. As for anxiolytics- Fixed time dosing for a finite period prevents maladaptive conditioning and makes exposure therapeutic. Ultimately, for a panic attack emergency- creating a threshold rule is better, and even then hydroxyzine like antihistamines serve better than to messing with Benzos.

To give a different point of view: I've been taking Bromazepam for 25 years, but very occasionally when I'm very anxious or can't sleep, a few times a year, never more than 1-2 days in a row. It's been helpful, especially when I was younger as sometimes I was paralyzed by anxiety. I never had the slightest sign of addiction but was also careful not to rely on that too much (and never had any addiction problem).

I've also seen friends or family members who used and stop these drugs without much difficulty.

This isn't medical advice obviously, but I wouldn't rely on anecdotal experience to form an opinion on this. These drugs can certainly be helpful to some people.

I helped my mother go through this after her psych decided it was time for her to cold turkey a 4x a day xanax prescription she'd been taking for 20+ years. 5 total ER trips, 3 separate hospitalizations, and a full year of absolute misery before she started getting some relief. A YEAR.

I have watched family members die of AIDS, cancer, and Alzheimers. I have myself recovered from alcoholism (5 years next month!). Nothing in all my life has ever held a candle to how hellish Benzo withdrawal is. These drugs need to be banned. Period.

Curious if anyone with epilepsy has experienced this. Dosing can be a bit heavier. Ativan had terrible withdrawal for me.

Currently on maximum strength of clobazam. Missing a dose by more than an hour wakes me from sleep. Miss one entirely and I'm sobbing for the next 3 days.

The "taper with Valium" path sounds promising, but I'm not sure my neurologist would agree. Or if it is even effective in the same way clobazam is. Something to ask.

The prescription of benzos to help with things like sleep is wild to me. There are certainly use cases where they are extremely helpful but just like anything the lack of nuance is where things get shitty.

I wonder how many anxiety sufferers would jump on the option to be completely free of their misery in exchange for a 1 hr mandatory daily exercise routine that can be done entirely indoors. I was a complete shitshow until I started rowing at least 10km every morning (365 days per year).

There was a time when this level of exertion sounded insane to me. The unfortunate reality is that this is the bare minimum my particular physiology requires to achieve the desired outcomes. I suspect the threshold isnt that far off for some others. It took me half a lifetime to get used to the idea of exerting myself like this for at least an hour every single day.

There are days where it feels very hard to get going, but then I recall the alternative options and their consequences. That's all it takes for me now. I've been to the bottom of a few rabbit holes. I know how those stories end.