Hellish dilemma - what would you do?

[Guest [An...]]

Way, I appreciate the latest comments that you, Quarantadu, and Andros have made putting yourselves in my aged shoes and modulating your anti-benzo stance to fit the circumstances.  To regain natural sleep I would have to stop all sleep aids and suffer as many sleepless nights as it takes to accomplish this.  The most I was able to endure at my age was 4 nights last June, at which point I went to an emergent care facility in a daze of anxiety with a systolic blood pressure of 175.  The best the doc could do was to send me home with prescriptions for 2 mg tabs of Valium and 6.25 mg tabs of Ambien and strongly suggest that I take them.  Since then I've taken 3 of the Valium and 5 of the Ambien, interspersed with doses of Unisom, Remeron (awful hangover) melatonin (ineffective) and many zero sleep nights.  So, should I keep going beyond 4 nights and not worry about the high blood pressure and whatever other damage may be occurring?  After all, I may hit paydirt after just a few more nights, right?  On the other hand I might do irrevocable harm to my health in this noble quest if it goes on indefinitely.  Should I just accede to my current sleep-aid dependent state and continue with my alternating Ambien-Unisom regimen interspersed with one or 2 sleepless nights between doses?  At the moment I'm leaning in this direction.

 

The way I've understood tapering, is that the purpose of it is to minimize the shock to the body, and the massive suffering that comes along with it. I am not a believer in the "don't take anything for 4 nights in a row" if it's someone that's been like that for months or more. I don't remember if you mentioned how long you were on these drugs, what doses, and if you attempted any tapers at all?