Cognitive recovery concerns

[[Ta...]]

I'm in the middle of a taper off xanax and am concerned about my memory, focus, personality and general cognitive function returning. I'm a 34 year old male and I've been taking .5 mg of xanax roughly 5 days a week for about 18 months, sometimes more sometimes less. I've been concerned about my growing dependence for the last 8 months or so and have finally started to taper off. I've been taking .25 mg every 72 hrs and it feels manageable, I'm currently on day 9 of this and it has been about 70 hrs since my last dose. I do feel better than I did in the hours leading up to my last dose which is encouraging, hopefully I'm over the hump and can extend my taper to 4 days and possibly consider stopping completely in the next few weeks. 

My biggest concern with the recovery process is the return of my mental faculties. The memory loss, inability to focus/formulate my thoughts into speech, diminished personality, vocabulary, lack of passion in my interests etc is without a doubt the personally most disconcerting effect of long term xanax use. I used to consider myself fairly eloquent, I had a good vocabulary and a decent memory, I was passionate about hobbies and life in general. These are things I really took for granted and now I am quite determined to kick this habit/addiction, get my shit together and hopefully find myself again. 

I guess I'm looking for some reassurance. I already feel quite a bit better than I did a few weeks ago since beginning to taper which is encouraging. I'm under no illusion that this will be a quick process but I hope to be 100% within 6-8 months. Is this a realistic expectation? I'm thankful I was on a pretty low dose but am concerned about the duration of my addiction, I do worry I have caused some permanent damage. Anybody who has recovered from a similar spot how did you feel after being 6-12 months clean? I appreciate anybody taking the time to read this and consider my situation.  

 

[[Pa...]]

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

I know you're concerned about your mental faculties but I can assure you that you currently seem very sound but to reassure you even more, yes, we return to our former abilities when we recover.  Its disconcerting to lose so much of our mental, emotional and physical health to these drugs but we can fully recover from this experience.

I'd like to discuss your taper strategy, its quite unique, I don't think I've seen it used here.  We typically suggest reducing your dose by about 5-10% every few weeks or whenever your symptoms feel stable enough to reduce again.  The reason we suggest a slow steady reduction is because we hope to keep a steady blood serum level of the medication in our bloodstream to hopefully keep the peaks and valleys from creating more intense symptoms.  I'll be interested to hear how you're managing, it sounds like quite well.

We're glad you found us and hope we can help you.

@[Pa...]

[[Ta...]]

@[Pa...] I really appreciate your time and insight, that is encouraging to hear and I am excited to get back to myself. Regarding my taper strategy, I probably should have mentioned in the 3-4 days leading up to my current schedule I did lower my dose to .25mg/ day. I have .5 mg pills that can be split in half, breaking them smaller is difficult so I'm trying to take days off rather than do a lower dose. Also I mentioned I was taking .5 mg 5 days a week or so, this is an estimation and hasn't been an exact schedule. In the past 6 months I've had a handful of 2-3 day periods where I was able to lower my dose or stop taking xanax, I've also had some weekends where I take 1 - 1.5 mg a day recreationally. It is difficult to say exactly how much I've been taking or gauge exactly how dependent I am. I can confidently say I haven't gone longer than 3 days without taking at least a low dose of xanax in the past year and that has probably only happened 3-4 times. Maybe I'm not as physically dependent as I worry I am?

My basic strategy has been to listen to my body really, I went into it thinking I would do every other day but towards the end of day 2 I felt uncomfortable but felt I could handle it so I pushed through another day. Day 3 was pretty rough so I took the .25 and that felt like enough. I have somewhat educated myself on the dangers of rapid cessation am sensitive to that, if I feel strong acute symptoms I will take a dose. I'm thankful I've decided to stop now rather than later and that I didn't get to a higher dose consistently. I know there are others dealing with much more serious situations, higher doses for much longer durations, that must be extremely difficult.

Also I've started taking lions mane and fish oil supplements to assist with my recovery, I'm curious if other users have had any success with these or any other supplements.

I will regularly update this thread and again thank you so much for your time and insight, I'm glad I found this site as well, it seems to be a very supportive and helpful resource. 

Edited July 18 by [Ta...]

[[Pa...]]

Hi @[Ta...], thank you for explaining your taper process to me and I hope you'll keep us posted on your progress.  I'm amazed you're doing as well as you are because of the short half life but hey, whatever works, right?  If your symptoms get too intense, we can talk about adjusting your taper, most everyone has to make adjustments from time to time.

Many of our members use supplements, some benefit from them, others are harmed so like everything else with this process, check it out with the members, then go low and slow.  You'll find more information and input from members in the Alternative Therapies group, just click join to post. Topics - Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Support (benzobuddies.org)