Klonopin transition to valium taper method need help.

Hi guys having some trouble here, 24 years old just a bought a beautiful house I close on in 2 weeks leaving behind a alcoholic that was ruining my life. I've been on klonopin for 2.5 years .5mg a day twice a day. Well my doctor wants me off them due to some over flow anxiety I've been having but I think it was drinking related I wouldn't take my dose if I knew I was going to have a few drinks that night. Well I got alcohol dependent and I stopped drinking and I'm now leveled back out and my doctor wants me off klonopin. I was originally put on them for panic disorder brought on by my playing with Xanax 2mgs to calm down after work and I had no clue what itnwas doing to myself so under all of this there is no panic disorder when I never tried them before. Here's my issue last time I tried a taper with activan off of the Xanax I lost my job lost my car and all means of income. And couldn't make it through at the 3 month mark of being completely off. Now we are 2.5 years into 1mg of klonopin daily. And they want to convert me to valium and do a 8 month taper. Has anyone had an experience with a 8 month taper via Ashtons method... I have a very good job I cannot afford to lose. I can't give everything up a second time. I can't loose my house or my job. I've come this far I do want off the meds. But I just can't afford to lose everything again. My addiction therapist is promising me there will be no withdrawl symptoms and if there is will be minimum I have stopped drinking and will not drink until the taper is over I have say in when I'm going to do this but with the house the multiple trips for my family's deployment in the airforce throught the year and work I can't go back into being in bed all day again. I'm strong enough to not do it obviously has anyone gone through a 8 month taper similar to mine and had liveable conditions to carry on with daily activities???

 

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Personally, I'd just taper the klonopin.  It'll take two months to do a proper crossover to valium.  I'd taper very slowly, and would probably do a daily micro-taper instead of a cut and hold taper.  Be sure to take breaks before the symptoms get gnarly and you feel a need to up-dose. 

 

If you decide to crossover, I think you should have your addiction therapist put that claim of 'no withdrawal' in writing (and back it up with something).  Promises are cheap.  I hope s/he's right, fwiw.

 

(I removed your mention of self-harm as that can be very troubling to read for many of our more anxious members).

We're you able to hold a high stress long hour job during your taper? This is my big concern. Jobs like mine are hard to come by and it's performance based so I need my head in the game.

We're you able to hold a high stress long hour job during your taper? This is my big concern. Jobs like mine are hard to come by and it's performance based so I need my head in the game.

 

My job is pretty flexible.  It can be high stress if there's a deadline approaching, but there is usually also boring busywork stuff that isn't stressful.  I'm more or less an analytical chemist so I also need my head in the game, but it's a math head, not a selling or negotiating head.  The pressure is to be accurate/careful.  I'll admit that benzo brain sometimes made that challenging enough that it would take additional time to complete a task.  I had to resort to calculators instead of doing math in my head.  I'd sometimes start some big calculation then completely forget what I had been doing and would have to start all over again.  At the time, I was at an age (59) where obtaining another job would be more difficult, so I wanted to hold onto the one that I had (in 3.5 months, I'm going to happily retire from it).

 

It's doable, but there will be days...

See my issue is I don't know that I need to be off them. I was drinking to much and had severe alcohol withdrawl that felt like i hit tollerance with my meds. After 4 days im back to normal now I don't have an underlining panic disorder that is due to my withdrawl symptoms but the reason I seeked them was due to the fact that I have tried every SSRI including mood stabilizers and nothing helped with my general anxiety disorder. What I worry is when I do come off that my actual underlying anxiety issue I've always had that the klonopin actually put a stop too. Is going to be waiting for me and going to hit me extra hard since my brain has adjusted to these so now I'm on the edge if coming off of these is even got me. I've been on he same dose for 2.5 years with no complications. And it actually helped my actual problem so I'm on the edge if it's worth the jump to come off when they are actually functioning to assist me in day to day living. It just so happens that the medication I decided to abuse as a kid is actually the one out of close to 200 others that actually works for me. So I'm in a pinch here lol

It's obviously your choice to stay on the meds or not.  I was happy with my 1 mg klonopin (for sleep) until it stopped working.  But for 4-5 years, I loved it.  Hopefully, you med continues to work for you, and you can freely choose to use it or not.

Thanks for the help. Where I'm at im still having slight withdrawl type symptoms I hope it's just the alcohol still working it's magic on me.. was fine all day starting to feel a little shooken up and uneasy. These meds are made by the devil.

Alcohol and benzos are a really dangerous combination.