A message from my recovered friend, Jill.

Well, the 1st (xanax, valium)was horrific..the 2nd from Ativan was a nightmare, the 3rd from xanax was a slow taper. To be honest, it is very painful & difficult to rehash into. Tell them I said, you do heal, you do get better. Get off the computers & stop talking to people, you think yourself sick! You know ?! So many people are still ill b/c it becomes the only thing they can identify with. No 2 people have the same experience, so no 2 people will have the same recovery. Give it time..when you wake up in the morning, remember yesterday was behind you, today is a new day & a nrw day of healing. They will get there- but they have to want it. Those that continue to search for answers will only get frustrated & slow down their healing.

There you have it! She ct 2 times, recovered from them and did a slow taper, the second time it took her about 2 years.

Thank you for the update,

  But I do feel you need some support and also when you heal you need to still give some support to give people hope. Your friend is right no two people are the same and we all heal differant. But, we also need to have support to get through this terrible time as many of our friends and family do not understand at all.

  I went through 3 c/t too and now I am on a slow taper. But, I would not have made it this far without support from loving caring people om these forums.

  I have noticed as I get better and lower on my dose I am not on the computer as much but in the beginning, I was on constantly.

  I hope what I have wrote does not offend anyone, I am only saying we do need support from eachother especially in the beginning of this horrific journey. That's why there are these wonderful site, and we meet wonderful people on our journey back to life.

Love,

S

I love reading success stories. Without these, many of us lose hope. Therefore without our computers, there are no success stories, information or hope.  I wouldn't offend anyone here for any reason and am grateful for every single person on this forum. When they feel they are losing hope, I would love to give them hope or that they can receive something from someone here that gets them through the tough time they are having. I want to thank everyone who is on this forum for the strength they are. We all have something to give - even in our difficult time.  Each time I read a success story, I am rejoicing with them - because I know how difficult their struggle has been. Blessings and strength to each of you. 

amb

There is a catch-22 that comes with these boards.  On one hand, almost everyone who comes here has gotten bad information from other sources about benzos and about benzo withdrawal, which can make really bad symptoms worse -- people don't know what is happening and then don't know what to do.  And every other source of information people go to tends to be flawed and inconsistent.  People hear from doctors that it can't be benzo withdrawal after a period of time, that their symptoms are not typical of benzo withdrawal etc etc.

For this reason, the board is a very important source of information.  Without this information, someone who was suffering symptoms 3 months out after feeling better two months out would have no idea that they didn't have a permanent problem, and that what they were going through is typical of people who will ultimately get better.

At the same time, people want some sense of what their prognosis is. And unlike other medical problems, doctors are not going to be helpful here.  So people look to this board for hope.  Going by my experience, that is what people want -- some sense of how they are coming along.  And this board is helpful in that regard, but in some ways it can make things worse.  The information regarding how people are progressing is not posted in a stardardized way.  That is why I have pushed for a forum category where each person would provide standardized information and nothing else:  drug that they were on, dose, how long, method of tapering, other drugs that they were, where they are now in their taper or how long off, symptoms that they have now and at each point, and things that seem to work and not work or make things worse (and I'm trying to see if I am missing something).

If I am like other folks, what I do is scan the success stories and anniversary entries for information about how people are doing and try to compare it to my situation.  But because there is a lot of variation and extra material in here, I often  go through pages and pages of entries trying to find something helpful.  So I'll read an entry where a person says "I'm feeling great at 11 months off, while 4 months ago I thought I was permanently damages after being on for 5 years."  Ok that is great, but I can't tell how this person was doing at 10 months, at 9 months, how long they were on, how they tapered.  And then there will be a bunch of additional entries that are completely uninformative on what I am looking for.

Now I'm not saying that these entries do not serve a purpose in terms of hope and support, but in terms of pure information, they are not helpful.  So I am not criticizing these entries themselves, but simply calling for another category where someone can look and see if they can gleam a pattern.  Yes everyone is different but that is true for a cold, heart disease etc, but with appropriate information, people can get a sense of what they are likely to expect.  So with my heart stent that I got placed 7 years ago, if I read anecdotal stories, I would be confused as to what to expect.  One person might write "I had my stent placed and have been fine for 20 years."  Another says "I had a problem three weeks later but I continued to eat a high-fat diet"  And another writes "I smoked before and I smoked after, but was good with my stent for 10 years."  They gives me little helpful info.  But if I ask my doctor, he will tell me that over a 10-year period, 10-15% of people have a problem with their stent irrespective of other factors and the rest do fine.

So too with benzos, there are some things we know.  Some people can jump off cold-turkey with no problem, but a high percentage cannot (we don't know the percent, but it is significant); most people heal in waves and windows, the longer one is one the longer healing seems to take but only to a point; windows tend to get longer and waves tend to get weaker but often with some exceptions along the way etc.

The point that I think the originator of the blog makes is that people sometimes drive themselves crazy looking for an answer that is not going to be contained here, and try to read into various posts in order to try to figure out exactly what happened.  That is counterproductive.  My call for a pure information category would be helpful, I think, in providing some sense of what is and is not known among the members of the community here based on their experiences.  So one could scan and see:  There are 150 long-term users who have posted.  Of those who tapered like I did and who have used amounts of drug in the range I did:  half were 100% after one year, about 1/4 were 100% after 6 months, and the other 25% were all over the map  -- some were still less than 100% after a year, some were fine after 2 days etc.  Then the person can say, OK, this is what I can know, and this is what I cannot know -- the information is all here; I don't have to try to read into posts etc

Pfeff,

  What you posted was very thorough, maybe that is somewhat what I meant. I do the same as you, I don't read all the post. I do look at each persons success story to see any similarities in mine. But reading the success stories do help and some do put timelines, which help a great deal.

  I was not chastising Cupcake's friend, just mentioning that we do need the support from a good forum.

Things that happen to each person does make a differance in what happens in their taper. I have had many variables, that are unique to me. So, I doubt I will find many people that have been in my situation.

Thank you for your opinion.

PS

Cupcake I hope you did not take offence to my post. Your friend said what she felt and we all have that right, I respect that. I am gald she is doing well.

Love,

S