What made you decide to quit taking benzos?

[[ro...]]

Just curious:  What made you decide to quit taking benzos?

[[...]]

My husband and I decided to start a family. My dr. told us we could start trying after I got down to 2mg…how crazy is that?! I've since learned better and switched to botox injections to control my spasmodic torticollis (why I was on Klonopin in the first place). Now impatiently waiting to be completely off!

[[Wi...]]

Primarily severe interdose w/d, but added to that a great desire to be out from under the thumb of unnecessary medication and  those who prescribe it to me.

[[ma...]]

Vertigo...

[[cn...]]

I believe I was gaining tolerance w/d or some sort of a w/d.

 

I've taken ativan on and off for close to 4 years almost. I was put on it for high anxiety in the beginning, and it did help. But as the years went on my anxiety was getting worse, and more bizarre. More physical symptoms... scary stuff. It always got written off as anxiety... which would turn into my Dr. telling me to take more ativan when needed. yada yada.

 

Summer of last year, I started getting tingling in my left hand, flushed face, sore muscles, heart palps... then followed by 2 weeks of non stop vertigo, high anxiety, it was terrible... i was taking ativan at this point for several days. I then asked my Dr. if i could temperarily take klonopin instead, he said sure.

 

I think thats when it got worse. I don't know if it was somewhat of an ativan cold turkey when I directly switched to klonopin? Or if I was just going through benzo tolerance w/d.

 

But at this point my vertigo was staying bad, my balance was way off, nausea was bad, diarhea, and then the body shocks and scary derealization/depersonalization. Then the uncontrollable crying that literally scared me b/c it took the breath out of me.

 

I put 2 and 2 together after looking in 4 journals ive kept over the years... and my eyes finally OPENED. I saw that what was being written off as anxiety the past 4 years... was CLEARLY ativan w/d. I've been going through ativan w/d many many times in my life I believe... b/c I even documented in my journal when I'd take ativan and when I'd stop... then I could see a pattern of weird symptoms... which always lead me to taking more ativan... and back then I was blind... I thought it was just anxiety I was experiencing.

 

Now I'm 4.5 months clean... still having some flare up things go on... but I'm a TOTALLY different person than I was the past 4 years. It's such a drastic change! Praise God for me having those journals... otherwise who knows... I may have still been on benzos today. =/

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cnotr - I have also had some debilitating symptoms in the last 5 or 6 years that I now know was from the Klonopin. Despite going through w/d, I feel SO much better overall…starting to feel like myself again. Like you said, a totally different person. I hadn't realized just how bad things had gotten. So happy you were able to figure out the pattern and get off!

[[cn...]]

Same to you Ally!

[[Ha...]]

My doctor retired and I was tired of finding another doctor and hoping they would renew my prescription.  I knew I was dependent because I would feel like hell if I skipped a dose, but I wasn't thinking about the consequences.  In fact, I was in tolerance w/d already and I didn't know it.  If my doc didn't retire, I would probably still be refilling and still be benzo ignorant.

[[os...]]

I got to AA and realized i may have been dry but i was chewing my booze and i felt like a fraud...

 

I want TRUE sobriety and on top of that, i started to realize that my emotions/libido/energy was going down hill and i was unhappy much of the time... i knew there was something wrong with me and after i got "sober" i knew the pills were hampering a real recovery.

 

Oscar

[[ro...]]

Definitely a wide variety of reasons.

[[ve...]]

Tolerance withdrawal after a few months on valium.  Had to updose a bit and realized it wasn't worth continuing to have to do.

[[Ni...]]

A few reasons, primarily that I was starting to do decompression/cave diving and didn't know (still don't) what effects heavy absorption of nitrogen plus using high concentrations of oxygen would have on benzos. Add in wanting a family, chained to a #$%&!!?! pill several times daily and that pretty much did it for me.

 

[[Le...]]

Two hospital stays in intensive care and a gnawing gut feeling that my doctors did not know what the hell they were talking about when they said I had to take psychiatric drugs for the rest of my life even when the pills were killing me. Then I thought, "Why would they lie?" and I know two reasons people lie-ignorance or money-I don't know which was the doctors case (maybe both) but something told me not to trust someone just because they wore a white coat. Got off and tests came back completely recovered after being off for a couple of weeks.

[[Re...]]

 

Interdose withdrawal and feeling alot of withdrawal symptoms but not feeling anxious. Hating the physical dependence of a medication

 

Recover

[[AN...]]

I was jonesing for lorazepam more and more as time passed--habituation, I guess.  I think in the end it caused me more anxiety than it cured.  I am going off it tomorrow, and I am scared, but I know I will be better in the long run.

[[su...]]

Mysterious symptoms that kept getting worse.  I also was told it was from anxiety and to take more ativan.  I also had kept a journal, and FINALLY saw the patterns.

[[dr...]]

I was experimenting with a new asthma medication and became pretty agitated.  I took an extra.25 of Klonopin to bring the agitation down and it didn't work.  In that moment, I kind of said to myself "gee i just took extra K and it didn't work, what am I going to do in the long term?  I then looked up info on Wikipedia.  There was updated information I had not seen before that shocked me.  From that point on there was no looking back.

 

Draftsman

[[fl...]]

My doctor had his liscense suspended, when I went to pick up my last script of k the pharamacist told me that I couldn't just 'stop' taking this medication.  Came home and looked it up ..blew me up out of the water that I had been taking a benzo for almost 6 years daily, just to help me sleep.  Cold turkey'd off for 6 days and had to reinstate (didn't believe anything I read nor the nice pharamacist that gave me a heads up). 

If it had not been for former 'said' doctor getting pulled from the circuit, I would still be taking 3mg a night and STILL be clueless. 

Now looking back over the years and experiencing what I have the last few months ...I see that K has been the root to a few false health issuses.  I went from a comfortable 120 straight to 92 lbs. in less than 3 months and stayed that small.  Now I'm gaining weight back (Thank God).  Trips to E.R. thinking that I was having a heart attack, paramedics called once while I was out to eat (sudden chest pain, tightness, rapid heart rate, sweating) ...was going through withdrawals then and didn't even know it.  All tests came back clean but I was certain the doctors were missing something because of how my heart would flip flop around.  It's doing it now that I'm tapering and realize that it's withdrawal. 

[[cn...]]

sunnyside, I sent you a PM asking you what were some of your "mystery symptoms" you had throughout the years. That's crazy we had an almost exact same experience. Thank God for journals right?

[[ro...]]

Anyone else want to add their story?

[[li...]]

I realized I didn't want to be dependent on the goodwill of a doctor to keep writing my prescriptions and I didn't want to be dependent on a medication that I could be separated from in an emergency. Just the thought of being in a situation where I might have to beg for medication I was addicted to gave me the impetus to go ahead and begin w/d.  So glad I did.

 

[[Sp...]]

They made me feel awful. I got 2 hours of good for 10 hours of awful. Not worth it.

[[to...]]

Depression.  And I no longer feel like myself.  I lost interest in everyything I use to enjoy.  I miss me.  I want a life back.

[[no...]]

Same reasons as cnotr (exactly). Wow-this drug is scary.

[[ro...]]

Very interesting array of reasons.  Would anyone else like to chime in?