16 years of klonopin 1mg 3x daily off for just over a year

Hi all,

 

I am here to post my success story. I’ve been trolling this site since April 2018. I went to rehab for benzos on March 31st 2017 with a five day taper after 16 years of klonopin/Xanax use. I was prescribed Klonopin 3x daily.

When I was 21 I had anxiety and went to a doctor...he gave me Xanax while I was in school. That came to an end and I started doing street drigs.

To alleviate the stress the street drugs gave me, I counteracted with Xanax off the street. I ended up doing that for about 3 years until my boyfriend overdosed on drugs in my bed. After that I was prescribed Klonopin for the following 13 years. I thought I’d be on them for the rest of my life. I was married and divorced and in five years, had four children. During all three pregnancies I came off klonopin  became housebound for the duration.

In 2016 I was doing really well in my life. I was going to school, got a promotion at my job, had a boyfriend, and was remodeling my home. Everything was going well. So I thought why not, I could do some street drugs again and it wouldn’t get out of control. Long story short I lost my job, got kicked out of school and knew I needed rehab. My four kids were left in the care of my family while I left for rehab.

 

In the first month at rehab and in benzo withdrawal, I hallucinated and thought all kinds of crazy things. I thought the rehab was gonna sell me on the black market in Mexico. I thought all sorts of whacked out things. I transferred rehabs because of it and lucky for me the hallucinations ceased during that transition at about 30 days. Still I found that I didn’t even want to speak to the other people and thought I would never feel right  again. This went on for months and months.

 

My year anniversary of being benzo and drug free came and went and I found Benzo Buddies. I saw that this ordeal could take a really really long time but that there was hope for me. I found the site in April of 2018, at 13 months. I just want to say I tried many psych drugs hoping to find something that would make me feel half way normal, but of course nothing did. I thought I might be schizophrenic, thought I might be bipolar, tried to figure out what I was but again, this site set me straight...all my symptoms led back to benzo withdrawal. I kept sifting through the success stories aching to find someone who’d been on them for as long as I had been for the amount I had been on so I could rest assured there was hope for me. Nothing matched up perfectly enough and I’d fall asleep thinking I was the exception to all the healing people.

 

I came back to tell you all that after 16 years of benzo use and over a year of recovery I started my first job two weeks ago and things are going okay! I got the job on my first interview, and got the job I wanted. I came back because I had come to accept the idea that I may be headed for Disability and that I wouldn’t be able to function in society again. I was so depressed I sat on the couch watching tv all day thinking it was all over for me. I didn’t want to shower, clean my house, do anything. Here I am to tell you that it’s all gonna be okay in due time. I couldn’t find anyone who had the time I had or the milligrams I had who had the recovery time I had already endured to give me hope so I’m here to tell someone like me who’s still suffering that it’ll be okay.

 

I should also note that I still have panic attacks if I run into people who saw me at my worst. For example past coworkers that knew me when I was doing drugs and going to work. People who knew me at my worst. I still feel sketchy when I go to places where I’ve had panic attacks but now I can do these things because I can. Getting the job I was aiming for helped a lot, and I’m still not 100% but I honestly thought I’d never be employed again. So here’s my message to you if you feel like I did.

 

Cheerio! I hope this helps somebody.

thank you Ello  and congratulations on being free of benzos!!

 

MiYu

Congratulations, Ello!  Best to you to continued happiness!

Thank you for sharing your success with us!  Congratulations on life anew 

Congratulations and thank you so much for your story. I too can't find a match in experience, dosage, or symptoms. I know exactly how you felt, and I feel exactly that way now. Your story gives me hope. Thank you so much.

Thank you for sharing your story. It sounds like you have been through a great deal. And not all that different from what I went through. Getting through benzo withdrawal was the hardest thing I have ever done. It taught me how strong I really am. It also made me take a long look at some other things, such as my OCD tendencies to self-medicate. When I was 17, in 1997, I experimented with street drugs. Mostly harmless stuff until I moved to Boston. There, I was introduced to meth and I shot meth for about 6 months. And got Hepatitis B from it. Went home to recover which took almost a year. Did this teach me not to mess with drugs? Nope. I still  experimented, and I also drank too much.

I finally went to Nursing School, got my RN and my first job. Back then, benzos were not accounted for. They were just left in the med cart drawers and many people "took" them. Including me. I took a LOT of them. I did this for chronic insomnia, which did truly trouble me. I knew those pills were addictive. But I did NOT know how awful withdrawal can be for some people. I continued taking them almost nightly for the next 20 years. Then, facilities began counting benzos and accounting for their use. I found a psychiatrist and told him my story - which was quite true. He prescribed Klonapin, Ambien and two antidepressants. For 12 years more I took this crap, and over time all my doses went UP. I began having health problems, big ones. I kept falling. I broke several bones and had several surgeries. None of my doctors figured out that my drugs were causing those falls. I was told I had MS, Parkinsons, and a bunch of other silly neuro problems. At the VERY end, my PMD figured it out and I was cut off abruptly from my drugs. I went cold turley, having no choice in the matter.

My withdrawal was simply awful. I still cannot find the right words to describe what I went through.  I looked for online support and somehow stumbled upon BB. That was my very first step in recovering. I spent over a year here, every day for hours and hours. I went through an awful withdrawal, perhaps one of the worst. I had every symptom you can think of. I was purely miserable and just trying to survive, minute by minute. BB helped me immensely, in ways I try to understand - the support, the knowledge, the ideas for coping - all of it was just wonderful . It took me almost 5 years to heal. It is almost 6 years to the day since my cold turkey. I am healthier than I had been in many years. I sleep okay and feel good about everything. I am not a perfect person but I can live with who I am now. It has been a long tough journey.

 

Thanks again for sharing.