Too much too quick?

This might be a long post so please bare with me.

A little bit of background as my use hasn't been straightforward and although nowhere near for the length of time of others in this forum, still left me in my own little hell.

I started taking Diazepam (10mg) infrequently to help me sleep which gradually over 3 months increased to almost daily. These weren't prescribed and I was effectively self-medicating.

Over the Christmas period I ended up ordering 10mg Diazepam which didn't arrive in the post for a long time so I ordered Alprazolam 2mg in the meantime. This is where the problem arose, both the Diazepam and Alprazolam arrived simultaneously and I had a lot in my possession at one time. Over just over a month I was taking 2mg of Alprazolam and 10mg of Diazepam pretty much Daily. Then in my final weekend probably took close to 4mg each day.

Fast forward to last week and I'd ran out and hadn't really thought about it and stopped taking them. I started getting flu like symptoms on the Tuesday and didn't realise until nearly 4 nights without sleep on the Saturday that I was in withdrawal. Yes, I felt stupid not realising this earlier, I really didn't understand how addictive these drugs were until I started doing proper research since then.

So I was so bad I ended up in A&E thinking I was on the verge of death and managed to get help from the doctors and finally get through to them I couldn't go cold turkey by showing them a lot of the literature on benzo withdrawal.

So I'm now on a prescription for the following each week:

Week, Diazepam Dose

1 20

2 18

3 16

4 14

5 12

6 10

7 9

8 8

9 7

10 6

11 5

12 4.5

13 4

14 3.5

15 3

16 2.5

17 2

18 1.5

19 1

20 0.5

21 0

1. My question is do I need to be on this high a taper based on my previous use, I don't know whether its just because I'm feeling better my mind wants to say I don't need this much despite thinking so at the height of my withdrawal. I seem pretty stable taking 2mg every 3 hours at the moment which is 16 mg total.

2. Secondly I'm currently taking the medication in equal amounts spread throughout the day, pretty much one 2mg every 3 hours. Is this as expected or should I be taking multiple in fewer doses?

3. Finally, is this taper speed appropriate?

I don't know whether these questions are appropriate for this section of the forum and if there's a better place or answers already out there I'm sorry, this is just all new to me and there seems to be so much information and misinformation I'm glad to have found this resource. Hopefully you can help at least somewhat!

I’m grateful you were able to get help and can do a taper but it’s important to remember where you were a short time ago because you don’t want to end up back there.  Your use and the time you were on the drug was enough to cause dependence, hence the symptoms you experienced, if it were me, I wouldn’t want a repeat of this, it hurts.

1. Let your symptoms guide you, record your doses and your symptom severity and use this to gauge your next reduction.  Keep in mind that Diazepam has a long half life and your body may not react to reductions right away, this is why we suggest waiting a week or two between reductions.  If you go too quickly, they could pile up and hit you down the road and it’s very difficult to pull the body out of severe symptoms, sometimes going up in dose is necessary.

2. Your dosing schedule is entirely up to you and your needs, do what feels right and works with your lifestyle.

3. Pretty much addressed this in number 1.