CONQUERING HEAVY ABUSE CLUB (CHAC?)

Am I( the only one?

 

I love all of the support and thank you everyone for the guidance.  However, I often feel isolated because I can't find stories like mine.  I know that benzo withdrawal can be hard for anyone.  Every success is a huge victory for all of us. 

 

But when I talk about my abuse of Xanax, people often think I've hit a typo when I say that after 14 years I was a hard-core addict taking up to 30 (thirty) mg. of Xanax a day.  One of the badges I'll wear for the rest of my life is that I have 15% necrosis (tissue death) in my left kidney.  How did I wake up some days?  Ritalin of course.  What did I do for pain?  I needed lots of dental work and I'd see my dentist for a root canal to get 10 day scripts of narcotics to east the WD when I was out of benzos.  I still have dreams and nightmares about other times in my life with absolute clarity and remember specific things about people and things I haven't thought about in 30 years and could have never remembered.  It's like my brain is re-living my entire pre-benzo life.

 

My success is that I was able to taper down to 6 mg. a day myself but when I felt very ill I went into inpatient without a seizure.  When I first went into inpatient I was almost transferred to the ICU because my potassium and sodium levels were so low.  I have been out of inpatient for a year now, and am still on a slow taper of Klonopin.  I am struggling big time with compliance with my taper.  It's a daily fight for me.   

 

Am I the only one?  I feel; lonely at times.  I'm hoping to find others coming from similar situations.  I am thankful I'm alive, but please tell me I'm not the only one! I could use some company . . .

You are not the only one. My tale is one that started with a drs script but ended with myself overusing, dr shopping, buying off the internet and taking it all into my own hands.

 

I am now on a medically supervised taper but cannot pretend to be an accidental addict.

 

I have access to ritalin and every day I want to take some, but I don't as I know they test for that with random drug tests and I can't afford to lose my license. I also struggle staying within the limits of my taper. Each day I have to force myself not to cheat. I don't and wonder often how I dont, I want to drink but don't and every night wonder how, and every morning am glad I'm not facing the double whammy of a hangover with the desire to take more pills.

 

I doubt very much that an extra pill (or even a few) would help, but it doesn't defeat the urge.

 

I do eat sugar, chocolate and fried foods, naughty I know but whilst forcing myself not to succumb to all the things mentioned before it feels like the least of my worries. I'm naturally skinny, maybe when I start getting a bulge from my bad food choices I might change my thinking. But the chocolate is something I eat when I wake in the middle of the night which is often, so no matter how much I mean well during the day it is always compromised with my half asleep reach for a mini Hershey's.

 

You are not alone, but I know how you feel. And I often feel alone feeling it.

Well, I'm one more of those dime a dozen 'accidental addicts,' but I just wanted to say I think it's brave of you to give others some insight into your suffering-and for both of you to be working at staying as 'sober' as possible. I don't want to feel better because of what you've been through, but it should help give us lightweights (even if we feel trapped, too) a bit of perspective.

 

Alcohol and hard drug addiction are obviously rough, but having gone through a couple of decades of eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia), I do know the feeling of being desperate for a fix. Food may be legal and easier to get/cheaper, but ED's are their own hell for sure. Just empathising, hopefully to some degree??

 

Anyway, hope you find some others who can relate to your deep and dark struggles, and again...good on you for fighting your way to where you are, and please don't give up on getting all the way out.

 

p.s. I comfort myself with food too-especially chocolate!-just not with 10 thousand calories at a time, anymore, yowza.

Well, I'm one more of those dime a dozen 'accidental addicts,' but I just wanted to say I think it's brave of you to give others some insight into your suffering-and for both of you to be working at staying as 'sober' as possible. I don't want to feel better because of what you've been through, but it should help give us lightweights (even if we feel trapped, too) a bit of perspective.

 

Alcohol and hard drug addiction are obviously rough, but having gone through a couple of decades of eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia), I do know the feeling of being desperate for a fix. Food may be legal and easier to get/cheaper, but ED's are their own hell for sure. Just empathising, hopefully to some degree??

 

Anyway, hope you find some others who can relate to your deep and dark struggles, and again...good on you for fighting your way to where you are, and please don't give up on getting all the way out.

 

p.s. I comfort myself with food too-especially chocolate!-just not with 10 thousand calories at a time, anymore, yowza.

 

Thank you for understanding 

 

And thank you everyone on this site, you have all been very supportive and a great inspiration to me. 

 

And Bablatrice I can understand the eating disorder. I battled it myself all through teenage life and I think it was the first step in what has become a life fighting addiction. I have had more of my life clean but after this last battle (and my first exposure) I realised I couldn't do it alone.

 

I go to NA and with my bad eating habits of late can see the "hmmmm maybe I should diet?" Thoughts coming back..... And my idea of dieting is often extreme.

 

I was both lucky and unlucky to have Graves' disease (hyperthyroidism) which speeds up the metabolism, causing all sorts of nasty side effects however having the perk (yes I saw it as a perk) of keeping one very thin. My Endocronoligist now has that under control with meds - and yes having a cleavage good, but being so used to being super thin for so long I now have a messed up body image. If I get to size 4 I start thinking "diet!" I'm happy being size 4 but at 5f8 I know that this is ridiculous thinking.

 

 

'BC,' good for you, once again, for keeping at it-fighting to reclaim a cleaner life. Re: ED's, yeah, those stick to you like a burr. At one point deep in my years of ED, I read that they are one of the most difficult mental illness/addictions to treat (yet so few programs and hospital beds, still, unless you've got enough bucks or insurance).

 

I think most women unfortunately fall somewhere on the spectrum of ED; luckily, more on the mild end. And even though I've been pretty much asymptomatic for a decade or so, I still struggle with any sign of 'extra' body fat, and tend to fall back into eating less when I'm stressed. I'd so like to be done with all that, but guess it's something you tend to just live with to a certain extent. Bleah!

 

I actually got onto benzos unknowingly, when my doc was treating an ED complication, so how's that for crappy irony! Out of the frying pan and into the fire seems to be my specialty, but I sort of come by it honestly i.e. genetic addiction (alcoholism). I wish you the best of luck with your 'journey,' and hope you find some more folks to give you hope and strength.

 

If not that many post who have more similar histories to yours, don't worry about it. Probably a lot more 'lurkers' do, but don't want to go public; also, EVERYone on here really is in more or less the same sort of situation. I'm envious of people who only took benzos for a month or so, or never took more than a milligram or so...so it's all relative! Just keep on plugging  .

Yes me too atavan 14 years.  took me off for 3 months put me on 6 mil xanax had seizure  went back on atavan was ok for a while got blood disease thinking its getting worse, trying to get off but no doc will help me.  All they want to do is give you more drugs  Atavan doesn't even work anymore, withdrawing while i'm on it, can't sleep at all.  Good luck to everyone.  Its such a shame they do this to us.  I never knew they were so bad.   

I disappeared for six days because things got rough for me and I went into "isolate" mode.  I know that's self-destructive.  How long will I have to feel this way?  I know it's different for everyone but I have to wonder.

 

Thanks to you guys for keeping this thread alive.  I think we do have something unique in common.

 

Paul

I wish I could answer how long you will bad for, but it is different for everyone.

 

I still feel pretty rotten but if I compare it to early taper there has been a vast amount of improvement.

 

I feel things improved dramatically once I got below 20mgs. Sometimes in a wave that is hard to tell, but if I really think about it I know I'm going a lot better than earlier in my taper. Earlier in my taper the pain was so extreme the thought of wanting more of this poison repulsed me, whereas now I crave extra pills, and use will power to not succumb. It does show me that my suffering must be a lot less though - as when in my first half it was so so painful I would want nothing more to do with the demons.

I'm amazed at your comment that early on you were repulsed by the drug and didn't crave it.  When I was doing my insanely fast taper and suffering so much I was repulsed by the drug and called it poison as well.  I was shocked that I really didn't crave it.

 

Now that I'm taking much less and on a slower taper I crave it and get into trouble.  I'll trick myself into thinking that I need it to do my work; and I really do crave them.  I guess it's also hard to be so far along and still craving.  I heard a story once about a man who abused benzos and even after he got off of them he had to carry an empty pill bottle in his pocket because he was so used to it.

 

I'm afraid that will be me.  Hope not. 

I so can relate one year.

 

Early on I was completely repulsed by the drug. But now I crave - resist - keep cutting - but crave.

 

I'm also having the head F@$* of thinking that it is keeping me calm, and that maybe I'm someone who has GAD that needs a therapuatic dose to deal with a rather stressful life. But I don't want to be a forever on the drug. I've read the benzo lies and I know it's one of them. I just don't want to be a super sensitive, worrying, anxious time bomb and fear makes me believe the drug is stopping that.

 

I know more benzo lies, but they scream so loudly.

 

I will however keep cutting, get off and hope for the best. What will be will be.

I can related to your description of being a super-sensitive time bomb.  The drug made me think everything was fine; when it obviously wasn't.  There are some studies I've read about Xanax withdrawal that said it is more difficult to get off and stay off than heroin.  I hate to be really sarcastic about the drug companies and my first psychiatrist.  But I will be.  If Pfizer and your psychiatrist told you to shoot heroin 3-4 times a week would you? 

 

If not you better think twice about using benzos for any period of time.  From what I've read the withdrawal can be as bad as any street drug.  It just came in a pill bottle and my doctor told me to take it; so it must be safe, right?

 

With I knew better . . . 

That's true about herion. And I have read the same thing. Benzo's are apparently number 2 after alcohol for worst WD. I'm sure a heion user might argue but I quite honestly am glad I don't have the knowledge to make the comparison.

 

It is said that Heroin is much more dangerous to stay on and Benzo's far more dangerous to come off.

 

How do you deal with your cravings. I try distraction and the good old "in an hour", then in an hour I say "in an hour", which I suppose is another one day at a time approach on a shorter scale.

 

I am also at the stage where I miss my comfort/ vices. Coffee, sharing 1 bottle of wine one night on the weekend. I'd say sugar, but I still eat chocolate so I failed there. I do allow myself 1 shared bottle a month with friends, and it doesn't seem to impact me. But I keep it to that just in case.

I had a friend who has been clean from heroin about 30 years.  When he was young he got caught shooting up at work and got in real trouble.  I met him about 10 years after he was clean from heroin.  I was in his office and told him I was taking Xanax and he came unglued telling me how dangerous Xanax was.  I thought that he was absolutely insane by telling me not to use a prescription when he had been hooked on heroin.  I wish I'd have listened to him.  I guess you can't go back and fix these things.

 

I've done better, but right now I'm having real problems with cravings.  I'm not really following my rules because I take all of my klonopin in the morning so I can get through the day.  I'm supposed to have a little before bed.  Right now I'm using the entire day's worth to get through the day and just dying waiting until it's time to go to bed so I can escape.  My next cut is in two weeks.  I can sleep at nights right now.

 

Distraction is how many people deal with the cravings.  I've read lots of posts where people say that they find anything to do that they like to do and it takes their mind off of things.  This works for me, but only if I really have something I want to do. 

 

Exercise, even if very mild definitely helps me with cravings.  I think that the "in an hour" approach is good if it helps.  You are right.  It is just like taking one day at a time to an hourly accomplishment. 

 

Looking back to a different post of yours about how you got your meds reminds me of myself.  It's just that I was getting them from a doctor and doing the same things you were.  Amazing how creative you can become.

 

So, if you've done the internet thing I bet your are like me and spent some long days waiting for the mail or Fed Ex to arrive?  I'm really dying to know I wasn't the only one who would do that!  That was horrible.  If you've ever spent the day frantically looking for your internet script to arrive it's a long day.

 

If you have, and even if you haven't, you gotta admit that we're in a much better place now. 

 

That was no way to live.

 

 

I only made one large order (originally) through the Internet, and when it came I was so scared of it I tried to get rid of it as quickly as I could. That I did by eating it.

 

My children were sick so I didn't need to drive much and most of it I took at night, remembering less than half the usage the next day. I did put through another stupid order during that time but it took months to arrive and I was well into my taper by then.

 

It was due to this heavy use that had me in the world of hell of CT when it did run out. I ended up at the ER and had to come clean. I went through 3 drs (including my original - used to be kind to me) dr before I found one that not only didn't treat me like scum but would allow me to do a safe taper. I had had therapuatic doses twice earlier in the year then another 3 weeks prior to my big order and I dr shopped twice. It was a 6 week period leading up to ridiculous abuse amount levels that had me in trouble. But I have spent so so so much longer paying and trying to fix the mistake of those 6 months.

 

I do hope I've learned my lesson and I hope this will be a journey of growth once I finally come out the other side. Time will tell 

Hey Bad Choices,

 

Are you hanging on?  Sorry I missed your reply.  People tell me not to be so hard on myself, but I still am.  But I will tell you that from the outside I think you are being too hard on yourself.  I really do.

 

I have older kids and worry about what I've done to them.  Also, I haven't worked for four months because things have been hard and I have to start looking for work right now.  I've cut quite a bit (scheduled) while not working and I guess I'm proud of that, but in this time I just put off looking for work and I have to go back.  Scares me.  And figure what to tell the kids.

 

Anyone else please feel free to join in.

Just looking for company before I let this thread die.  Anyone?

I think I lie somewhere on the continuum. My benzos were prescribed but I often took more than I was supposed to--a little extra klonopin and the nights I'd take a sleeper (restoril, lunesta or ambien) I almost always took too much (2-4 times the prescribed amount). I knew I couldn't do that every night or I'd run out but it never occurred to me that there'd be hell to pay with wd.

 

I thought not sleeping enough was the worst thing that could happen to me (despite having lived through some pretty horrible things). If I hadn't catastrophized insomnia none of this would have happened...well other than the initial going on Klonopin on the advice of a nationally renowned doc in the field of CFS. I think all that I was taking also kept my anxiety down during the day so I was able to accomplish things I didn't feel up to nondrugged. If I was super anxious I'd take something but the polydrugging usually kept it from getting bad. Now I find myself wondering what I would have accomplished straight and what will happen now with no buffer for my feelings.

 

So I often beat myself up like you folks for taking so much and thinking doctors who had problems with high doses were being unreasonable. I was soooo naive and foolish. Taking higher doses seems to make this all longer too so I have so much regret.

I was fairly good with taking 0.5mg on select days, but then updosed several times in Nov '2014, and lost control in Dec '2014 when I was fluctuating between 1mg and sometimes 3.25mg of ativan. Also, the ER has put me to up to 3.5mg ativan in the meantime I'm unable to get much below 2mg Ativan, even with all help of valium.

 

Symptoms:

 

can't work, deep shame, suicidal thoughts, benzo belly, tachycardia, rollercoastering blood pressure, weakened leg muscles, tolerance to the hilt, able to go to the store one day, and collapse the next day. Been using beta blockers for heart sxs. Afraid I am really messing up my system badly.

 

In retrospect, as somebody who has read so much about psychology and has heard about benzo tolerance, I feel so dumb for having taken them for so long. I didn't really think that Ativan was as strong. Took some serax in 1994 and 1997 and it was a breeze getting off of it. Took xanax short term in 2001-2002, and it was easy get off of that, too. So I guess there was this false confidence.

 

What's worse for me is that I have carried this profound sense of shame/worthlesness my entire life. So, benzo use in me usually comes in response to fear of faliure (work stress), abusive people,etc. etc. But the worst part is that wd is unmasking all that bloody shame I've been avoiding all my life. The intrusive memories filled with shame and past mistakes are horrid. Sometimes I feel I'd be better off dead.

 

I feel like I'll never get off this poison. I was in a very rough patch of life when I started taking A, but can't believe I didn't connect 2+2. There were so many stressors in my life at that time, that I convinced myself that was all original anxiety (it wasn't).

 

Now, my willpower is fading, and I would sure as hell want to know what your coping strategies are....

 

LF2015, I hear you with the deep shame as we go through this. Both the wd and the shame are incredibly isolating. I often feel embarrassed running into people I know because I feel so off. Friends are moving on with their lives and I'm in a holding pattern for 2 years now. Could be years more. I feel dumb because I have a medical background and work with mental illness and still I missed all of this. Still, we have to give ourselves credit for catching this at all and working to get off this crap. Confidence and self-worth have been problems for me since I was a small child and this rocks it further. But again, it takes courage to begin this journey and I think it can ultimately give us confidence--the knowledge that if we can survive this, we can survive anything.

 

How do I cope? Distraction, distraction. I set teeny tiny goals of things to accomplish in a day and pat myself on the back when I do them. I've created a routine for each day and the week so there is some structure and my tasks are spread out since I'm so easily overwhelmed. I push myself to exercise even though it feels impossible. I find it helpful to read certain posters like River. I read a lot---books on wd, sites about it, success stories, and don't linger on the horror stories. I work hard to think of people who have it worse (cancer, war zones, disasters, multiple tradegies, etc.) and go through my day looking for even the smallest thing to be thankful for and saying it to myself, "thank you for...". Like little purple flowers in my front yard, not being nauseated today, making it through the night, and so on. Finding anything I can do to help someone else helps. Anything from a smile and kind words to running an errand or cooking a simple meal for a family member. It's not much but it's something. This is miserable and oh so difficult to tolerate but people do. They make it. We'll make it. One tiny bit at a time.

Thanks MTFan. It's good to get this off my chest since I can't exactly claim to be an accidental addict. But it pains me, since I've done no alcohol, marijuana, or any street drugs at all. Had some vicodin for medical procedure and found those making me feel euphoric but easy to kick. Seems like benzos are the bane for me.

 

Yeah, I didn't think ativan was that strong (thought it was much weaker than Xanax), but now I know. It also pains me since I got my life in order after several years of struggle and then the wd hit and I didn't recognize it.

 

My main thing is like you say: distraction, keep suicidal thouights at bay (shame being a huge trigger) and not reading people sigs.

When I read a sig of someone who's on 5mg valium and it goes like

 

4.78 brutal

4.66 a little better

4.50 falling apart.

4.33 ok

4.22 relief

4.0 oh God, end of the world!

 

It is extremely discouraging since I wonder how the heck will I come down from my dose.

 

 

LF2015, I know what you mean about getting fearful after reading other's signatures. There are a lot of short-term, low dose users, and some of them are really struggling badly. I look at the signatures to try to find others with similar histories because their posts mean so much to me, especially when they're doing better.

 

I went and read success stories yesterday but for each one I read the sig first. If it wasn't a long-term and/or higher dose user I mostly skipped ahead. 

LF2015, I know what you mean about getting fearful after reading other's signatures. There are a lot of short-term, low dose users, and some of them are really struggling badly. I look at the signatures to try to find others with similar histories because their posts mean so much to me, especially when they're doing better.

 

I went and read success stories yesterday but for each one I read the sig first. If it wasn't a long-term and/or higher dose user I mostly skipped ahead.

 

Yeah, I really need to work on self-directed anger as that stops my progress. When E.R upped me from 1.5mg to 3.5mg ativan, I was able to drop back to 2mg with some help of propanolol ER 120mg. So, I think I probably had a lot more GABA initally than I thought I had, but 2mg ativan seems like a brick wall. Now, a lot of it is situational, and fear of losing everything. I haven't updated my sig in a while, as I am just micro tapering now (somewhere around 1.94mg ativan). Seems to work, but am fearful it will take lot longer than my finances allow and my med supply allows. Also, I don't have the proper Dr. support. I wanted to c/o from Ativan to Valium, but most Dr.s here are "either take one or the other, not both". So, my current GP is giving me Valium, but that will run out in about 60-80 days. I have ativan for several months, though.

 

I never really started the stuff recreationally. It was a very tense work environment with an abusive boss (basically, a shame trigger for me), and this job was after a grueling job with a long-distance commute (no benzos taken, but probably severe adrenal fatigue), and that one was after a relocation fiasco and yet another abusive boss, and this was after another job that was great for several years and became also very difficult (another abusive higher-up). I managed without benzos until that final job and then I caved in. I think I was basically self-medicating shame. I've called the hotline several times just to calm down. Is it a bad thing if I call them too often?

 

So, the life has been in a slow downward spiral since 2007, and the depression is huge. I suppose I will try to wean myself off as much as I can. Still keep kicking myself why I didn't catch it during Thanksgiving holiday. I was on a 0.5mg dose (not all days) and I didn't take any benzos for those 4 days and had a lot of anxiety and intrusive thoughts, but thought that was due to my GI issues and work project. There was not a seizure or anything at that time.

 

The funny thing about those darn pills and the retrograde amnesia and seeing all of my life before me,  I realize I would have probably done well enough in life had it not been for an abusive/critical father who didn't like me for who I was, and a loving but OCD'ish mother who didn't recognize some of my anxieties, and would just tell me stuff "turn your brain on", "why are you so absent-minded", etc. And they argued all the bloody time until they divorced. Now, I realize it wasn't absentmindedness, just anxiety. So, in my case, I think the damage was done more by nurture than nature....

LF2015, for almost all of us a big part of the challenge of recovery is coping with past wounds. Many of us are dealing with the affects of childhood trauma, including you and me, and the things we've done to survive that that don't go well. Shame is huge for survivors of childhood trauma and the overall "nurture" we endured. I try to hope that surviving all of that childhood hell may have also given us some skills for surviving this adult hell. I often tell myself that at least I'm not a helpless child under the thumbs of clueless or harmful adults.

 

We've ALL made mistakes. Every single one of us. Even the folks who say they're complete "accidental addicts" had to turn off some part of their brain to not pick up any red flags about benzos. I would likely be over all of this wd crap if I hadn't misunderstood what my symptoms meant (I thought I was seriously medically ill, not in wd) and reinstated 3 times/week for much of last year.

 

Brene Brown (therapist, professor, researcher and writer on shame) has this exercise where she asks people to write these words on their palm in permanent marker: "I'm imperfect and enough." Seeing those words over and over throughout the day helps get them in the skull. So we're all imperfect. As is everyone else--even those we look at and think have it all together.

Well, MTFan, you give me a lot of hope with how you've been able to taper off of Klonopin after 18 years. That is pretty impressive. How did you do it? Standard 5-10% cuts, microtaper, etc?

 

I keep beating myself about how I went from a smaller dose of ativan 0.5mg to the current dose and keep wondering if I'll bring it back down one day. But like you said, we all made mistakes and past cannot be undone. There is only the present and the future.

 

The psychologist I saw briefly also mentioned Brene Brown, so thanks for reminding me of her.

LF2015, this is the second time I've tapered off. The first was even more of a nightmare as I had no clue what was going on, shook like I was seizing, and couldn't hold down food for a very long time. This time has been bad but not as bad as I know it can get.

 

The first time, on the advice of my now fired pdoc, I weaned off 0.5 mg per week. Very bad. This time I went off 0.5 one week then 0.25 every week after until off. I was only on 1.5 three times/week at that time along with the ambien (I took higher doses of sleeping meds than prescribed because that's the only way they'd work, not because I liked how it felt).

 

My tapers were too freaking fast. At the time, since I was only taking them a few day a week I thought all I'd run into was rebound insomnia, not wd. Wrong. Then I thought the sooner I was off the sooner I could recover and become normal. Wrong again. I didn't find BB until I was off about 6 weeks and by then it was too late.

 

What you're doing with tapering is much smarter. And yeah, if I can do this, anyone can. So very hard but not impossible. If I could sleep I think I could manage this. That's what's killing me.