Tapering of Alprazolam - Good or bad tapering plan?

Hi

I've been using Alprazolam (Xanax) for about 15 years now and are currently on 2 mg/day on average - sometimes I use more but I never, or maybe on rare occasions, exceed 3mg. But on average I would say 2mg is just enough for me for the day if there are no other external factors involved (I suffer from social phobia so stuff like meetings or speaking in public usually make me take more).

I've decided to stop and started reducing by 25% to 1.5mg and I'm on my 3rd day now.  I'm not sure but I think I'm already suffering wd in terms of more feelings of anxiety and depression.

I understand going off too fast can be bad but I also read about long term users that came off rapidly or even did it CT. Should I continue this path of say, a quarter every 2 weeks (was planning on every week but I do not think that's viable) or should I do it slower?

My finances are in shambles and I do not have the luxury of seeing my Dr often or buying expensive cutting and or measuring equipment so I must do this by myself.

Please let me know your thoughts, those who agree and those who don't. I will really appreciate all feedback.

This stuff messed up my life and I need to get off as soon as possible, I am impatient by nature as you probably can gather by now 

I look forward to all replies and suggestions.

I'm tapering off 2mg of alprazolam also and have been on it at multiple doses for 26 years.  Before I found BB I tried to taper starting at .50!  Holy crap!  Like you it took me about 3 days to start feeling horrid w/d symptoms.  After that I again tried reducing by too much which was .25. Still felt terrible, maybe even a little worse from going up and down so quickly. I was of the mindset that I could handle a faster taper and the BB crowd was overly cautious.  Now I know that is not the case.  Upon advice from a few of the buddies here, I quickly updosed back to 2mg, which by the way, I was already having interdose withdrawals for many months on that prescribed dose and going back up meant I would still be feeling crappy but not HORRIBLE like when I was reducing too quickly.  I felt no better at 2mg than I had for the many months prior to reducing as I mentioned.  I then decided to do a liquid micro taper using water, was removing 1ml the first few days, and hell hit again with new, more distressing side effects. I was advised that I had not let 2-3 weeks for my body to adjust to a liquid taper from dry method taper (DMT). I had no idea that this could be the cause.  I'm 17 days waiting for my body to adjust and it hasn't so far.  In spite of what is happening for me with this potent drug (which leaves your system very quickly and causes interdose withdrawal when one builds up a tolerance and your nervous system forms a dependence on the drug), I am going to start reducing by 0.2 milligrams every 10-14 days and seeing how I feel with that.  I may need to hold steady at times rather than to keep reducing dose depending on how I feel.

So all that said, CT works for a small amount of folks, but the majority go with gradual reductions.  It's a painful experience to learn this through trial and error.  My advice is you take it slow and try a tapering method that feels doable to you.  The only way you're going to know which one that works is by experimenting and learning. It sucks! I'm impatient also, but I know know after all this shit I've experience over the past month and a half, I going to have to reduce  by 5-10% every 10-14 days.  I hate that I have to do such small reductions, too!  I'm going to send a link for formulating liquid tapers, for DMT you make the same recommended Ashton method reduction of 5-10% of your current dose and hold for 10-14days.  You use a scale(best if jewelers scale) to do the reductions for DMT, also called cut and hold. I'll also send a link to for a taper calculator too help figure out percentages in case you want to do a liquid taper at some point.  This can all be overwhelming at first, I'm in that boat now! There are more experienced users on here and I'm sure you will get many replies that will help you.  I understand what you're going through.  You'll be in my thoughts and prayers.  You will succeed, it will take time though.

http://benzo.alwaysdata.net/titration/titrationHelp.htm?help=Readme+First

http://benzo.alwaysdata.net/titration/titrationForm.php

Thank you so much Widesky I really appreciate your advice and I'm sorry to hear of your bad experiences initially, I hope this time around all goes well. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers as well. I must first mention I made a huge error and maybe this is testimony to how fried my brain is but I'm not on 2mg/day, I'm prescribed 0.5mg 2  x per day so I drink 2 in the morning and then usually, not always, another during the day or evening. But then I get my more stressful days where I will drink 4, 5 or 6 pills even. I  think in my mind I just counted each tab as one mg so sorry for the mistake, but I must say also a huge relief for me that I'm actually on a lower dose than I thought. I'm not sure if I'm using this in the correct context (still new to this) but I think because I use it so randomly the more correct figure would be I'm on 1.5mg/day with my tolerance being at 1mg (again, not sure if I'm using the term correctly but I think where I can still cope and feel decent the entire day is at 2 tabs or 1 mg/day). So now I'm using .75/day. I think my decision to finally stop will lead to me being more conscientious about my usage so I will soon find out what my real dosage and tolerance levels etc. are but I think the above is a fair estimate.

So back to my progress report. And I'm not thinking I'm special or whatever in any kind of way whatsoever but this is day 4 and so far so good.  The w/d's are bearable and I am gonna try to push ahead for now. If it gets worse I'll up the dose and start over but I feel positive. The w/d symptoms I think I experience so far are insomnia (forgot to mention that), higher (but still manageable) anxiety levels, feeling very disorientated in the sense that I feel unable to try and organise simple stuff or concentrate and focus for too long as well as some intrusive thoughts - those are the main ones I think are happening now but as I've said, it is bearable for now. You said you quickly updosed back the first time around so may I ask you long it took you before you went back to your original dose?

I asked for advice so I will never disregard any opinions or advice but I think this might just be working for me, let's hope it does. If you want let's keep in touch and updated on the progress we are making. You will succeed as well and again thanks for the advice and sources, I will check them out now.