Perhaps time and acceptance is the only real road to recovery

I was hell bent on solving my insomnia problem. I tried cognitive behavior therapy with sleep restriction, acupuncture, mediation, yoga, cardio workouts, saw several therapists, tried Lexapro, Trazadone and Remeron as well as several dietary supplements. Although possibly helpful to some extent, all of these approaches have failed to give me a single normal night of sleep.

 

Left with nothing else to try, I am starting to come to the conclusion that only time will heal the damage done from my Ambien misuse. I also need to listen to what my wife and therapists have been trying to tell me from the very beginning. They kept trying to tell me to learn to accept my situation. Acceptance does not make the problem go away, but I am hoping that it can lesson the power that my insomnia has over my mood (and whole life for that matter).

 

This path always seemed too passive for me. I did not want to surrender to my insomnia. I wanted to fight it and kick its ass. All that was accomplished was having one false hope after another along with an endless string of disappointments.

 

I am going to try to focus more on my nightly sleep victories rather than defeats and tone down my worries over the future. It is becoming apparent that my insomnia is not going to just go away anytime soon. I am either going to have to learn to live with it or curl up in a corner and die. Faced with that choice there is only one real path to take.

 

This new outlook is coming after a night of very poor sleep when I tend to be at my worst in terms of optimism. Perhaps this is a good start.

It is indeed a good start.  Being a feisty fighter, I wanted to fight withdrawal, but that's a losing proposition. I had to accept that I needed to go through the process and let my body heal on it's own time.  That doesn't mean that I didn't yell at my symptoms some times though.

 

You are in a good place to move forward now.

 

Aloha,

 

pianogirl

Thanks Pianogirl,

 

Your encouragement makes my day even brighter.

I feel the same.  Months of thinking in a couple I will be fine.  I wasn't. I finally accepted it will take as long as it takes.  Nothing I can take to change that.  It stinks but is the way it is! 

Yea I think that is the final approach to solving this.

 

I did same thing tried all different types of solutions, from brain wave stimulation, therapy, ambien, xanax, lexapro.

 

I think the pills just masked everything and made it worse actually (interday with drawl) always crept up on me.  I am just slowly kicking everything to the curb now just taking ambien and 7.5mg lexapro.  Hoping to be off everything in the next month or two.

 

I never though I would be able to sleep without the combo of xanax and ambien.  I am not only taking ambien and getting 5-6 hrs sometimes more but typically 5-6 and not taking the xanax and I feel like I am doing better now off the xanax.

 

I think most of us have this fight mentality and when we have something affecting us we want to fight it and kick it a$$ but in reality it must just reinforce the issue more in our mind and make it worse.  Good luck Aloha I think you will do well.

Murph,

Be careful with the Ambien. That is the drug that gave me all of my withdrawal problems. It should not be taken nightly for more than 3 weeks. Tolerance can set in beyond that, then comes dependence. Believe me when I say that Ambien withdrawal can be very bad! If I knew then what I know now, I would have put up with some sleepless nights rather than have almost every night become a sleepless one.

I totally here you on that.  i was prescribed xanax and ambien by the dr. when i first had my insomnia issues i had no clue what i was in for.  Dr said 1mg xanax was a small dose and no problem taking it before bed with the ambien.  i think now it has been 18 months i have now been clean from xanax for 12 days and feeling pretty good.  i know i have built a tolerance to ambien by now :/ i dont take more than 1 pill 12.5mg at night.  I am waiting to be a month off xanax then i am going to work on cutting out the ambien too.  Both work on the CNS so i know they both have similar end effects so hopefully i can get off of it.  I just got stuck in a ritual taking all these pills hoping it would put me to sleep.  I have learned that is not he case and most likely has made my sleep worse.

 

I expect to have some sleepless nights and now that I know what to expect I dont have such anxiety over sleep anymore.  Yes getting less than 5 hours of sleep a night does give me a crappy next day but i will live through it.  I'm just glad I booted the Xanax combo so far.

Murph,

 

I read that Ambien CR is associated with more Ambien withdrawal issues than regular Ambien. Also, I do not believe that you are supposed to split the CR pills so you do not have as much control over the tapering process. Hopefully your doctor will have some advice on the best way to get off the drug. You might want to try another doctor since your current one thought that it was okay to take both the Xanax and Ambien every night for so long. I wish you the best of luck.

i got a refill from the Dr and I am switching to the standard 10mg release dose.  From there I am going to slowly step down.

 

Been almost 3 weeks no Xanax and feel really good for the most part.  Sleep has gotten some what better since stopping Xanax so that is good.

 

I think time and acceptance really does play into this.

Any of you here put on benzos NOT bc of sleeling problems but bc of anxiety or what not.?...i know some ppl took benzos bc they already had insomnia to begin with...but how many of you here were great sleepers b4 benzos?

I was a great sleeper before taking ambien and xanax.  It was prescribed to me by my docs because I had a 2-3 month rough emotional season in my life and was not sleeping well.  Trusting my doc and taking those pills was the worst mistake I've made in my life.  I continue to suffer terribly with insomnia since CT withdrawal a year ago. 

My wife told me the same thing, stop fighting it. The harder you fight sleep, the harder it will come. For me what finally helped was to stop taking ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING TO HELP WITH SLEEP, and give the brain time to get back to normal, and it can take months. Almost all the people that end up going to a sleep clinic or sleep study are taking something for sleep. It doesn't work in the long run.

 

Wolf

I guess I am going to stop taking Ambien tonight.

 

Last 3 nights have been crappy very broken sleep I have been taking a half of a 10mg pill meaning 5mg and seems like does nothing so might as well take nothing then and just deal with it until things smooth out 

 

I dont seem to have any other WD symptoms just that I can not sleep.  WD from xanax was a lot more intense as far as physical WD's are concerned.

 

 

I struggled with sleep for years. I still do at times, but its 90% better, and I always bounce back pretty quickly now, When I found this web site a couple years ago and figured out Xanax wd was causing my problems, I quit taking anything to help with sleep, and finally at 10 months or so the sleep started to return. It takes time for the brain to get back to normal after throwing all that crap at it, but it never will if we keep trying different medications, Benadryl, melatonin, herbs, etc., at least for me that was the key.

I guess I am going to stop taking Ambien tonight.

 

Last 3 nights have been crappy very broken sleep I have been taking a half of a 10mg pill meaning 5mg and seems like does nothing so might as well take nothing then and just deal with it until things smooth out 

 

I dont seem to have any other WD symptoms just that I can not sleep.  WD from xanax was a lot more intense as far as physical WD's are concerned.

 

Murph,

 

I am so glad that you are stopping the Ambien rather than taking more than 5 mg. in an attempt to get more sleep. Raising the dose is what really got me into trouble. Better to sacrifice some sleep now than pay a much bigger price for a long time. Ambien does more or less the same thing to your brain as benzos so it would be real hard to heal while taking it.

Aloha how is your sleep doing??

Murph,

I was just about thinking that my ordeal was almost over, but last night was real bad plus I had a few other bad nights this week. I guess it is not over yet.

This is weird but since I realized it would be a while and accepted it, I am kind if treasuring the mandated down time.  In a way to me, that means my brain is healing.  I still cry and feel awful without the sleep, but am enjoying the quiet, the books, the sitcoms.  I have a rational perspective finally!  😏

Judi,

 

I know what you mean. I had to take 2 months off of work to recover. It was not all bad. Having so much time to take care of yourself does not come around too often.