Considering Benzos

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Recently, a psychologist i''ve been seeing on a weekly basis suggested that fast acting anti-anxiety medications like Xanax or Lorazepam may help with the social anxiety that I have been plagued with most of my adult life. Of course he cannot prescribe it. For that I need to visit my psychiatrist. I'm inclined to agree with him since my anxiety has made my college experience a desolate hell and I have to visit relative for thanksgiving, relatives that have four children under the age of twelve. While I hope this will take some of the edge off social situations, I would like to know if anyone else has had positive experiences from meds like this.

I would be very careful with meds like that. Very possible to become dependent on them and it may take the edge off when you need that edge.

I'm aware of risks like this. However, I'm currently taking 20mg lexapro and 400mg Welbutrin daily and seeing very little if any effects. On top of this, my anxiety has made it difficult to speak with instructors which has caused my grades to suffer in several places. As of yet, I have not encountered a situation where my social anxiety was demonstrably helpful. Simply put, if meds like this can offer any improvement, I'm willing to take risks.

I've had good experiences with those meds. I take half a milligram of Lorazepam, which is a very low dose. My psychiatrists insists I should take it every day to get better sleep and says it's not addictive at such a low dose. And it does help in social situations.

They can be addictive, although maybe not as bad as other drugs. They essentially work similar in some respects to alcohol in that they stimulate GABA, the chemical that calms you down after intense situations. They should never be combined with alcohol although I've done it on a couple of occasions.

Are you "aware" in the sense that you've read about the risks? Or are you "aware" in the sense that you've become physically addicted to benzodiazepines and are willing to endure that? These two senses of "awareness" are radically different. And, I'm pretty sure that if you knew what physical addiction to benzodiazepines (even that word scares me today) entails, that you'd never say "I'm willing to take risks."

My Xanax nightmare started in late-2000 when I started law school. Similar scenario: panic attacks in class. I admit that it works. People wouldn't take it if it didn't. It was an amazing (and amazingly short-lived) shortcut to serenity. What makes Xanax such a disaster -- and reinforces its addictive properties -- is its very short half life. It's absorbed quickly, and its effects wear off quickly. Most people end up having to take more of it with ever greater frequency. When I moved and started seeing a new psychiatrist in mid-2004, I told him that I was taking Xanax. He looked at me curiously and asked how much. I told him 5 to 6 mg a day. He literally put his head down on his desk -- I'll never forget that. He told me that I'd likely never be able to stop taking it. I'm like, "whatever, can I have my prescription now?" So, I continued with it; but, he refused to prescribe any more than that, as he considered it the maximum safe dosage.

It wasn't the maximum that my body wanted, though, so I was stuck. I decided that I'd stop taking Xanax and try something else. That was late-2007, and I am still trying to break free of benzodiazepines. I did stop taking Xanax under the care of an addiction medicine specialist. I was right on the border between needing to be hospitalized to monitor the withdrawal effects and being able to do it on an out-patient basis. That first week was the worst week of my life. People say it's worse than heroin or any other kind of withdrawal. I wouldn't know about that, but I do know that I would not wish that on anyone. I started taking huge amounts of Klonopin (because you can't go from Xanax to nothing -- you need an "intermediate") along with anti-seizure medication. Over the past three years I've been able to taper the Klonopin from whatever huge amount it was (I forget) to 0.5 mg a day. I'd like to go further, but even the withdrawal from that scares me. I'll get there one day soon...

Xanax (and maybe to a slightly lesser extent Ativan -- but I'm not sure) is just a disaster waiting to happen. It's a classic "riding the tiger" drug: you can't keep holding on, increasing your dosage for similar effects; and you can't get off, because quitting is so unpleasant that death seems preferable (and death is a definite risk if you stop abruptly).

Xanax has a legitimate use: it's for people going through life's most stressful times. Death of a spouse or child, divorce, things like that. And then, only for a few weeks. Responsible psychiatrists do not consider it a legitimate long-term solution to anxiety in young people. I would be very surprised if you could even find a psychiatrist that would respond to your request for an ongoing (as in X mg, three times per day) prescription for Xanax. My experience is that this just isn't done anymore. You could get it illegitimately, though, as I did when I started. One of the worst mistakes of my life (in a life filled with some pretty big ones.)

I found that Xanax was the absolute best thing I had ever taken for social anxiety hell. It turned me from a total recluse into someone who enjoyed laughing and joking with people. The difference in me was stunning and almost beyond belief. I loved it 100% and was able to do so much more while on this medication. I could go out and mingle with people! Amazing!

I went from taking it as-needed a couple of times a week to taking it more and more often, because it helped me so much in every situation. It got so that I felt unable to face a work or school day without having taken it ahead of time. Not only that, but slowly and gradually each single pill had less and less of an effect on me and I finally had to double my dose to feel the same amount of effect.

A year or so after I started it, I was taking double or triple the prescribed dose, daily. I don't want to say the "addicted" word because, quite honestly, whenever I ran out of it I didn't go through withdrawals or suffer psychological cravings -- I simply couldn't function again and stayed away from people just as I always had previously. There was the good-me on Xanax and the feral-me off Xanax and I really hated the way I felt when I was in public but not medicated.

Two years after I started taking it, I had quadrupled the daily dose or more. I was running out of my prescription very early in the month and had to acquire it in other less official ways. I had to take a quadruple dose first thing in the morning, and on top of that I had to take another quadruple dose if I got into any especially socially stressful situation during the day. And this is when the amnesia became apparent. Listed in small print it says that a possible side-effect of Xanax is temporary amnesia. This should never have been in small print! I couldn't always remember the details of my day after I'd taken Xanax, and because of this got into quite a lot of trouble for forgetting important things at work and school.

Eventually I was taking frequent large doses plus having to supplement those with any other anti-anxiety drug I could find, which turned out to be mostly over the counter cold medications containing pseudoephedrine (decongestant), dextromethorphan (cough suppressant) and codeine (as in Tylenol with codeine). All of that just to be able to even enter the building where I was working or studying.

It all ended when my body basically became immune to all the effects and I'd have had to take handfuls of pills to even take the edge off my anxiety. I just lost interest in all of it because I didn't have anything close to the supply I'd have needed to keep going, and my stomach was getting upset from all those pills. I didn't go through any withdrawals or cravings so I'm not sure whether the word "addicted" is quite the right term. But I've heard from many other people that they went through violent withdrawals and cravings for it.

What I'm saying is you may really like Xanax. You may like it a bit TOO much. Be careful with dosage and frequency. Expect it to work less and less well over time.

The issue with addiction isn't really that you'll become some kind of a dope addict looking for your next fix; it's that you'll develop a tolerance to the medication and it simply won't work anymore. Benzodiazepines are used short-term for that reason: They don't work long-term, and then you have the withdrawal symptoms to deal with on top of that. But if you need them for a short while to help give you some advantage in trying a new therapy or getting a handle on a new situation, they can be useful. Be wary of any doctor who wants you on them long-term.

I have a prescription of 2 mg of Diazepam (Valium) twice per day, to be used as I feel the need - i.e. I take it at times of social stress and don't take it on calm days. I tend to collect them for a while and use them up with holidays and meetings. This is a small dose of a slow-acting anti-anxiety medication, and it is very helpful.

(For comparison, it has similar addictive and abuse potential as alcohol - I don't drink alcohol).

I think Molly got extremely lucky. This is atypical. I would pay attention when she says, "I've heard from many other people..."


+1

Yes, it's important to understand that it causes physical addiction (i.e., causes withdrawal symptoms during abstinence). The "psychological addiction" component (i.e., causes compulsive behavior not connected to physical need) is much less pronounced in my experience. So, in a manner of speaking, you won't want it so much as you need it.



Any psychiatrist that's willing to prescribe you Xanax long-term is acting irresponsibly, IMHO. That's my personal opinion and that of numerous psychiatrists who have discussed this with me.


I disagree with this. Most people who drink do not develop a physical addiction to alcohol. In contrast, almost everyone who takes Xanax develops some degree of physical addicition to it.

I was referring specifically to Diazepam (Valium) - at an extremely low dose - which has one of the lowest addiction and tolerance profiles due in part to its extremely long half-life (20 - 100 hours), compared to 11 hours for alprazolam (Xanax). Anti-anxiety medication has been tremendously over-prescribed in the past, but the current negative image is unwarranted.

Here's my long-term experience with benzodiazepines:

I had performance anxiety since I was a little kid. I quit law/mba, dentistry and medicine because of it. I just could not take all the pressure especially the presentations, clinical rounds in medicine/dentistry or moot court in law scool. I was working as a labourer and janitor for almost 10 years before deciding to try to go back to university and this time with medication. I convinced my psychiatrist to prescribe clonazepam as needed during school days. I enrolled in pharmacy. By the end of the 4 years I had increased my clonazepam dose due to tolerance from 1-2 mg/school day to 3 mg/school day and more during presentations. It worked great initially because it allowed me to finish my program. It did slow down my cognition and made me sleepy and feel tired. I had some trouble studying.

The major problems came when I began to develop more tolerance and could not get enough of it from my psychiatrist. I started getting it illegally and eventually augmented it with narcotics as it was becoming far less effective. By the end of the my 3 years of work I was using at least 4-5 mg clonazepam and 240 mg oxycodone/work shift. My work performance suffered and I called my College as the doses of both drugs were getting so high that I was having many side-effects. My license was suspended.

I stopped both drugs on March 2010. The narcotics I stopped cold turkey. I had moderate withdrawal for ~ 1-2 weeks. The clonazepam I tapered over a period of ~1-2 months. I only experienced mild withdrawal. To this day I have zero desire for the clonazepam. I didn't find it that desirable. The narcotic is a different story as it is still desirable for me despite greater side-effects. I'm currently on Lexapro (5-10 mg) and I'm about to get my license back but with stipulations. I think there are positives and negatives about the clonazepam. Narcotics, though were overall a bad choice because tolerance to it is very rapid (I went from 1-2 Tylenol 3s to 240 mg oxycodone over the span of ~3 years. And the GI side-effects were really bad. The combo of benzodiazepines + oxycodone was an anxiety stopper but a very dangerous one (risk of respiratory depression).

If they can stop my meltdowns, I'll take them.

This is what I mean when I say the "psychological addiction" is just not that pronounced. The only true "cravings" I experienced had to do with negating the withdrawal symptoms, which with Xanax you typically experience every several hours. Misery.

To the OP: I'm curious, is the picture becoming clear?

I have never found anything more effective for anxiety than the combination of clonazepam (or other potent benzos) + oxycodone; the side-effects can be rough, though. Having said that I managed to finsish a 4-year professional degree, get a job starting at >$100,000/yr, buy a car and a house and pay off all my debts.

Not that material things are the most important things in my life (far from it) but, before this, I had zero assets (no car or house), I was working as a cleaner (not that there's anything wrong with it except the coin) and was in debt for over $70,000 due to student loans/credit cards.

Good choice. Benzos are legit! I have a prescription for 10mg of clonazepam every month. It's barely anything, but that's all my doctor will give me, and it's better than nothing. Most doctors frown on benzos.

It's really all about personal preference. A lot of people like lorazepam and xanax. There not my favourite, imo. I like research benzos that you can order off the internet, and clonazepam.

Benzos are the only psychiatric medication I can take without getting sick.