Wanted to share mine. Ativan for 12 tears.

[[As...]]

Hi. I was prescribed Ativan for 12 years at 3mg a day for insomnia. In 2018 I no longer had access to it as my Dr retired.  I started to taper off by doing a 10% reduction every 2 weeks.     It was a year of tapering but I could have done it faster if I wanted to but I decided to keep at the pace.  It turned out that after I was completely off,  I had much better quality sleep than when I had Ativan for insomnia.    Ativan I found out later puts your to sleep but in a not very efficient sleep cycle.  Now I have REM sleep and wake up rested remembering my dreams.     

For anyone who is trying to ween off Ativan. Yes it's possible, yes you can do it.  Set your pace and stick to it.  My 10% reduction was done by taking the 1mg tablet and either sanding it down with a fine sand paper or cutting it under a magnifying class with a razor. Taking a 1mg tablet to 0.9mg tablet.  It was never perfect but it worked for me Then 2 weeks later sanding the table down to 0.8, then 0.73 and so on. 

After I was done, not only did I sleep better, I found I had far less anxiety in general. There are other better tools for managing anxiety that are war more effective.  Like counseling.  

An important fact for all of you to remember is that the people who come off of it easy,  don't post about it online.  You only hear the stories of people who had struggles.  The majory of people get off with little to no issues so they never look up and post in groups like this.  An example, you only see online people giving their bad experiences with Tylenol and yet the vast majority of people take it with no issue and never feel a meed to post about it online.  It's similar with benzos. Yeah it's possible you will have a hard time getting off of them, but it's also possible you won't have any problems if you do it properly.

I had no symptoms coming off of ativan pther than anxiety from the idea of it.   Its possible you wont either. 

Break a leg everyone!  Stay safe, have faith in your ability to adapt and over come it.

 

Edited Monday at 17:49 by [As...]

[[Ro...]]

@[As...],

    Wow, that's quite an accomplishment!  You beat 12 years of Ativan.  It's good to hear more from the other side--the ones who didn't have much of a struggle tapering off.  Good story.  I wish you continued success.

[[Co...]]

Well done, @[As...].

And thank you taking the trouble to write about your less common perspective (around here, at least).

This is something we try to hammer home to newer members who find themselves here more because of what they have heard/read, rather than what they have experienced so far. Many (the majority, probably) withdraw without too many difficulties. Unless experience informs them otherwise, they should not expect the worst. It was bad for me, and bad for most members of our self-selecting group. After all, looking for an explanation for why we feel so poorly is what drives the majority of people to BenzoBuddies. But not all. If they feel OK so far in their withdrawal of benzodiazepines, the chances are that they will continue to do so.

[[Pa...]]

Hello @[As...], thank you for sharing your story, I'm happy you found life and sleep without benzo's to be better, I've found that to be true as well. 

[[Rh...]]

So happy to hear you got off and had little to no withdrawal affects!  It’s so strange how some can come off with little to no issues, and other suffer.

But you’ve done it and are living and experiencing a better life because you stuck to it!  Congrats!

[[pi...]]

@[As...], thank you very much for sharing your story. I’m thrilled that your taper was tolerable and that you didn’t have issues once you stopped taking Ativan. It’s a great reminder that not everyone has a really difficult withdrawal and recovery. I wish you all good things!