Want to help my friend

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My friend needs help. Badly. I feel I must step on this since nobody else sees how much he needs help and if not anyone intervenes it might be too late for him then. I believe my friend needs to detox at some sleeping center or whatever other places help with ambien withdrawal. His addiction is pretty bad, he's been using it for years. For nearly the past half year he's been taking 40mg daily, every 4 hours through the day. He has his first ambien just 2 hours after waking up because of addiction and "being the only thing that helps him control his extreme anxiety". I'm his confident, so he tells me all of this, has been doing so for years. I thought he'd eventually get help sooner or later but I see nothing happening and really fear for his life. What's he doing to himself? He's destroying his body everyday! Can't he see that? His family is well intended but negligent on this matter, I don't think they will ever get help for him because they feel like he has the last call in the end. But I think that doing as badly as he's been they should take some action. We live in different countries so this might be a long shot. Also I know this forum is mostly compromised of american people (we live in Europe). But I hope you can help me. My friend also happens to be an agoraphobe, I'd say rather extreme for his age. He hasn't left the house other than once last year. And that was for yet another meaningless psychiatrist appointment. He said he's had enough with them failing to give coherent diagnosis and trying to feed him incorrect poison. So basically he won't go out to get help for himself and clearly doesn't trust psychiatrists anymore. He has not been thinking clearly for some time now, he changed so much compared to what he used to be. I wish I could have done something earlier about him, he always gave me signs of needing help but I never know how to do that...

The last psychiatrist gave him a taper plan, which included taking some clonazepam at night before sleep in an attempt to reduce his ambien intake. He never took this medicine, he claims he saw many negative reports about it and some even linked with epilepsy. He had a convulsion has a child so he fears to take the medication. Last month he told me he tried to cut clean for a week by reducing to 30mg but I don't think that went well at all. He says he feels like he has no one to support him trough the withdrawal, that he needs some sort of supervision. I would agree because from what I know withdrawing this way is dangerous.

 

So I feel like his only option is to go to one of these sleeping centers or places alike for detox before it's too late. Sometimes he writes to me that he has a hard time breathing...I don't know what to say when he writes that, I just feel so awful for him. Can't anybody see it? But there's another problem. He hates the place he is from and due to many years of visiting local psychiatrists who didn't help him I'm sure he would refuse to do anything around there, unless there are sleeping centers in his country, which I doubt. My country is a little better when it comes to treatment of people with addictions but I also don't know if we have these sleeping centers. What I know is that he absolutely hates doing outdoors life around where he lives and completely stopped even. But when in my country he would do it. He even lived around here twice for short periods of time. I sense that he feels like his life should be around here isntead and sometimes speaks as if he includes me as a key person to support him through his recovery process. But I don't want to give him false hopes by making him move in here again when I know I can't be around for him as much as he might need and the thought of him being all by himself scares me. Another option would do the detox in America or places he can get around with english (I wonder how's the intake of foreigners into rehab centers when they can't speak the language of the center, that could probably be a problem if he wanted to try it around here?) but that would leave him in an extremely alone position unless some of his family members can follow him, which doesn't sound likely. I know that he has the enough money to get rid of this stupid addiction, so please let me know how can I help him...by letting me know if there are sleeping centers/places that focus exclusively on ambien withdrawal around my country or then again by telling me what are the best sleeping centers in Europe or in the world that you could recommend me to show to him. Lastly, I'd like to know if he can do psychoanalysis at the same time the detox occurs? Because he has this extreme need to over analyze everything and talk out and one of the reasons he told me he didn't consider this option before was because he said he feared he might do something crazy or feel bad if he's just locked up in a place waiting for time to go by.

 

So if you are able to help me, please PM me and I will give the missing details I don't want to give out here in public. Hope that in some days I can be contacting professional help center in order for him to move forward in life...and that he reacts well to this "intervention" of sorts, forgiving all necessary details I felt that were necessary to share! Thanks for reading.

[[Be...]]

You are so kind to want to help your friend with his Ambien addiction.  You probably haven't had time to read the forum guidelines but it is against forum policy to provide taper advice through the PM system.

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=20448.msg309706#msg309706

 

If there are more details pertinent to his situation, you will need to post them on the open forum.

 

I think you are right to encourage him to get help.  I'm guessing that since he is abusing them and taking them in quantities no reputable doctor would prescribe, he is getting them illegally.  Obviously, if he behaves in an impaired manner out in public or drives while under the influence, he risks being arrested and even going to jail.

 

It would be best if you could encourage your friend to join the forum himself for direct support.  I have had family members with various prescription drug addictions and there was nothing anyone could do to get them to stop, even though we could see that it was ruining their lives.  He has to want to quit.  Once he really wants to quit, we can probably help him.  It might be that a detox center could help in the short-run but people often end up in trouble once they are discharged because they've been weaned off too fast.  Of course, if you can get him to go to detox, that would at least demonstrate that he was serious about kicking this addiction.  Good luck.