Cold turkey after 4 years of intermittent ativan - questions

[[pa...]]

  As the title states, I've been prescribed 1mg ativan daily for 4 years now, but due to fears spurred by a close friend of mine who struggled with benzo addiction, I rarely let myself actually take it daily. I had personal rules for myself like never taking it more than 2 days in a row, never taking it more than 3 times a week, etc, thinking this would keep me from ever becoming addicted. Laughable to me now.

  In the first three years I took it I could often stop it for a week, two weeks at a time, sometimes even going a month or a month and a half abstaining from it. Something in this last year has shifted, and those abstinent periods gradually became impossible. I guess interdose withdrawal started to get me. It finally reached a tipping point a few weeks ago after I took it every single day for like 18 days straight, I realized right around the 24 hour mark from my last dose I HAD to take it or I would get this horrible teeming, overflowing rebound anxiety that left me unable to focus on anything at all besides turning that overflowing panic feeling off. It scared me straight and now I haven't taken any at all in 13 days. 

  It has been a godawful 13 days. I feel like my brain is getting static shocks sometimes and it makes my face screw up in a twitching grimace that I can't help and makes people look at me like I'm crazy. My focus is shot, I'm useless at home and I'm useless at work, I can feel people judging my lack of productivity and it makes it all so much worse. I've had two bad episodes of depersonalization and a handful of inexplicable crying jags, and my sleep is interrupted every hour on the hour. The panic is debilitating and comes and goes unexpectedly. 

  I recently read about the phenomenon of kindling and lowering of the seizure threshold, and it's kind of added to my hypochondria and panic every time I feel the brain zaps. It's too far down the line to have a seizure, right? If I was going to have one I'd have had it by now? If anyone else had similar focus problems, when were you able to complete long and complex tasks again? Did anything in particular help you? Lastly, is benadryl alright to use for sleep for longer than a night or two? It really helped me the last two nights but the last thing I want is to become dependent on another medication.

  Thank you for reading if you've made it this far.  This website has been a wonderful resource. 

 

[[Pa...]]

Hello @[pa...], welcome to BenzoBuddies,

I’m so sorry to hear your body became dependent on the Ativan, given all of your efforts to keep this from happening. As you’ve found out, dependence can happen taking the medication PRN. And it did.

You’re probably not going to appreciate what I’m about to suggest but it might be a good idea to reinstate the Ativan and do a slow taper from it.  What you’re feeling is likely to last awhile, getting off the drug is only the first step, recovery can take as long as a taper or longer.

The problem is, reinstatement doesn’t always solve the problem, sometimes the relief is brief and you’re back on the medication and tapering which is no picnic either.  But its the only thing we know to do in order to be able to perform our daily life tasks.  

You can recover from a cold turkey, I did.  The symptoms for me were brutal but they began to settle and I believe I started experiencing the same symptoms those who taper feel so if you can hang on, yours will probably settle too.  But they’ll still be there, no matter if you taper or continue your cold turkey.

I know I’ve painted a horrible picture but we can help you find tools to help you through this.  Oh, and I feel you’re well past the seizure threshold, they’re actually rare unless you’re prone to them.

 

[[pa...]]

On 04/02/2024 at 17:39, [[P...] said:

Hello @[pa...], welcome to BenzoBuddies,

I’m so sorry to hear your body became dependent on the Ativan, given all of your efforts to keep this from happening. As you’ve found out, dependence can happen taking the medication PRN. And it did.

You’re probably not going to appreciate what I’m about to suggest but it might be a good idea to reinstate the Ativan and do a slow taper from it.  What you’re feeling is likely to last awhile, getting off the drug is only the first step, recovery can take as long as a taper or longer.

The problem is, reinstatement doesn’t always solve the problem, sometimes the relief is brief and you’re back on the medication and tapering which is no picnic either.  But its the only thing we know to do in order to be able to perform our daily life tasks.  

You can recover from a cold turkey, I did.  The symptoms for me were brutal but they began to settle and I believe I started experiencing the same symptoms those who taper feel so if you can hang on, yours will probably settle too.  But they’ll still be there, no matter if you taper or continue your cold turkey.

I know I’ve painted a horrible picture but we can help you find tools to help you through this.  Oh, and I feel you’re well past the seizure threshold, they’re actually rare unless you’re prone to them.

Thank you very much, it is actually such a relief to hear seizures are rare. It's like I KNOW it's an irrational fear but hearing it's irrational from someone else helps solidify it in my head. I personally do not think I can reinstate as being on benzos at all makes it too easy for my brain to downplay how bad the dependency is and jeopardizes my ability to stay on any kind of taper. I simply don't trust myself with reinstatement.

About how long was it before you reached that 'settled' state of your symptoms? I'm still coming to terms with the fact it may be years. Easier to tell myself it's right around the corner.

[[Pa...]]

I fully support your decision to continue your cold turkey, you know yourself better than anyone so that's settled.  Even though I didn't know benzodiazepines needed to be tapered, I knew I wouldn't be capable of it so I pressed on.  

My acute lasted about 3 weeks and after that, I was able to go back to my full time job.  I wasn't my best and it was very difficult but it was so much better for me than sitting home with only my symptoms for company.  I actually started to hate weekends because I didn't have the distraction of work.

I'm grateful you're aware of how long it can take to recover, I hate telling new members what may lie ahead, we don't know if your recovery is years away but having hope its right around the corner works for me.