Healed - Here's How

[[Mo...]]

Bump.

[Guest [...]]

This is so helpful, just the kick I need. Thank you for posting and bumping.

[[Lo...]]

Oh...and let me add this cautionary advice:

 

Let there be no mistake...making some of the changes I made to my diet and lifestyle were EXTREMELY difficult.  These things should not be taken lightly and one should always consult with their physician first before making any changes to health or lifestyle.  Coming off of gluten, alcohol, MSG, supplements, girlfriends, etc... all have a withdrawal effect of their own, that just feeds the benzo withdrawal.  Unless you really know what you're doing, and you're prepared to briefly suffer even more than you're already suffering, don't rush in to any of these things.  I gently made these changes over a period of a year, and they were still extremely difficult, and many times supremely physically uncomfortable. 

 

But...like I said, if you want to beat this monster, you've got to give it all you've got.  And as long as you're healthy enough to make these changes, you've got nothing to lose by making these changes.  Consult with your physician first!  Nothing about this is easy, but all of it's worth it.

 

What an amazing story! Thank you...I could not read every detail (hard to read a lot sometimes). I wondered if you worked through all of this? I'm working and raising my son...it's hard.

 

Glad you posted your story! 

[[Se...]]

What a wonderful and rich success story for us! Thanks for all the details and the analogies and really pointing out we have much work to do during w/d. You are very articulate!

[[So...]]

This helped me today thank you!

[[Fi...]]

I very much appreciated your very sensitive and highly self-aware analysis of your illness and healing.  I think this is the first post where I've ever seen anybody specifically mention pain in the back of their thighs.  Since this has been one of my very first withdrawal symptoms to arrive and apparently is going to be one of the last to go, I was glad to see somebody else mention it specifically.

 

Congratulations on getting through this and I hope in the two years since you posted this you've only continued to be well.

[Guest [pu...]]

Best success story thus far. 

[[dr...]]

First time I read this one....great story!

 

I am a year off and recently embarked on a similar plan to what you did. I don't even recognize who I am anymore   I gave up gluten and I already incorporated most of the other things you list.  All I have to say is I feel so much better.  I'm still having a hard go of it at times but I am so much improved in the last month.  Thanks again for such a thougthful post. 

[[il...]]

Thanks for your SS and your check in re: having a beer! I finally am at the point where, *most* of the time I believe I will heal, because it's gotten so much easier. I tend to doubt in waves, but that's normal.

 

Part of me returning to my old self and being so exciting to do so is being on the beach or poolside with a few beers. Maybe, some day, excess. Lol I've been concerned about health issues, but I know it's all w/d. Concerns regarding social stuff have been very ... Heavy. I never had an issue but certainly enjoyed adult beverages.

 

Thanks for the hope!

[[Gi...]]

I can relate to SO MUCH in this story! Starting with the reason he took benzos on the first place, and also at what age and to all symptoms and years he was on the drug and the eventual understanding and diet plans.

THANKS for bringing it up! It helped me today!! 

[[Co...]]

Dude I don't know what you do for a living but that was the best written success story I have ever read . I love the advice you shared and you listed a few I think I will look deeper into myself to make sure get resolved , even though I consider myself fully healed . Thank you so much for taking the time to detail out exactly what worked for you and sharing it with others .

 

 

[[Ni...]]

Bump

[Guest [da...]]

How do you avoid all the gluten and msg, really? Did you live on dog food? No but seriously. I'm eating organic food only for the last m 2 months, been cutting down on masturbation, no caffeine, no sugar(candy etc), no junk food and other things. Can't really say I notice any difference. Anyway great success story, I'll save this thread to favorites.

[[Mi...]]

Yes a lot to do and just starting thank you. Tired for now

[Guest [Ru...]]

Bump 

[[pr...]]

This is a great success story! I try to follow the same eating habits and so far it has helped me.

[[Wa...]]

I might just read this everyday

[[Ne...]]

INCREDIBLE and ACCURATE POST.....especially on the PVC'S, Vago Vagal symptoms we go through in Autonomic overdrive...especially parasympathetic over drive. You wrote a benzodiazapine withdrawal book as good for men as Bliss John's  is for women. Amazing maturity on every level. While you wrote it a long time ago the last comment was in 2016 and I wanted your post available again as its that good.

[[...]]

I'm still tapering but I agree this process really makes me look at myself and I've made soooo many changes and healed so many wounds and limited beliefs that have been around a long time - way before any meds. Also, changed things in my lifestyle that are just good things to do in general whether in w/d or not, whether sick or not. Still working on making some more changes, and that probably is a life long process.  Congrats on your success and happiness!

 

[[TH...]]

Hey people. 

5 years later and I find this post inspiring. I personally really need to sort my diet out. I'm living on bread and processed foods at the moment so need to cut them out and start eating more rabbit food 😁 

Definitely going to be reading this when I feel a surge of anxiety and panic flare up. 

For me personally, I've found this 'tapping' technique works well for ridding the anxiety for a brief moment. YouTube is the place for videos on 'tapping' if anyone is interested. 

Hope benzofreebuddy is doing well all these years later. 

[[or...]]

This is the best post I ever read for all the reasons not to do a cold-turkey, or too fast a taper!  Also the many things we can do to make it harder on ourselves to get off benzos, or any drugs for that matter.  I thank the OP (@benzofreebuddy) for sharing their story, Denise

[[er...]]

On 13/07/2013 at 02:18, [[b...] said:

First and foremost, this is what has worked for me.  I'm not a doctor, I'm not a dietician or a nutritionist.  I'm just a regular guy who, like many of you, got caught up in the nightmare of benzodiazepine withdrawal and, like some of you, navigated my way out of it.  Here's my account of the process:

Let me start this off by highlighting the positive, and ultimately most prominent, feature of my benzo withdrawal story.  I have my benzo dependance and subsequent withdrawal and it's many symptoms to thank for putting me into the perfect position and inspiration to force myself to search deeply within to discover not only the poor health caused by benzos, but also the poor health caused by everything else I was doing.  Had the benzo withdrawal not made my symptoms so incredibly fierce, I easily could have gone another 20 years of my life without facing and healing my problems due to their significance not being so great that I had to re-examine my life.  For this, my experience with benzos has been a form of grace, to which I am oddly and profoundly grateful.  But it took moving through this whole thing to realize this...this is the treasure at the end of your benzo withdrawal rainbow...you have to earn this realization, but trust me when I say it's true.

Had my first panic attack at age 21, in early 2005.  Triggered by a traumatic event, it was the first time in my life that I came face to face with what I believed to be my imminent death, and it caused me to fall apart into terror inside.  It was so terrifying, that I suffered a post-traumatic stress of sorts from the event.  This, eventually lead me to getting prescribed Valium short term a few months later.  I actually resisted taking the Valium at first, not wanting to use any pills to amend my situation, but the nurse encouraged it saying it could help short term.  When I got home and tried it, I loved how it muted the constant, dull vibration of anxiety that I had been experiencing for months.  Naturally, I figured it was a magic pill.  I called after I ran out of my first script and the nurse told me something I should have listened to, surprisingly.  She said, "We don't write more than one script for that here.  It is only meant to be taken in short term".  Nevertheless, I wasn't ready to handle my own anxiety then, and I really had no idea what was causing my anxiety then, so I found a new doctor who would prescribe it, and thus started my 7 year journey with Valium.

I was prescribed 10mg nightly of Valium.  On average, though, I would say that I took about 2.5 daily for those 7 years, as there were days that I didn't take it at all, and days I took more than 10mg.  My daily taking of Valium seemed to come in clusters, usually triggered by a single panic event, which would lead me to using the Valium as an internal psychiatrist for the weeks or months necessary for me to bury my anxiety under a pile of toxins in my body such to the extent that it seemed to not exist.  What I didn't know at the time, but what I believe I know now, is that those periods of time where I would begin taking Valium regularly again triggered by a panic event were ACTUALLY tolerance withdrawal effects, and that every time I would return to Valium, I was creating a multilayered cake of toxins and the chemicals that make up anxiety/panic stacked upon one another.  It was like a credit card.  I was shunning the responsibilities of my physical and emotional life and lived as though I would never have to pay these things back, and was ignorant that they were collecting interest.  I believe now that all the pain and suffering we experience in life is almost always a cleansing of sorts...and there is no escaping the responsibility of passing through these rings of fire...eventually, we must all bear the loads of life.  One never grows running from things.  One only grows moving through them.  And while i'm not religious, I believe that this is where faith comes in.  Faith in your own body, mind, and spirit.  Faith that these elements are strong enough to handle even the most daunting experiences in life. 

So...basically...I felt like shit on and off for 7 years.  And, I'm sure like many of you, for most of that time I had NO IDEA what was causing it...I had plenty of theories, and saw plenty of doctors to try and figure it out.  I went to the ER numerous times, psychiatrists and therapists, had 3 cat scans, 2 stress-test/EKG full heart tests, tons of blood and urine tests, thyroid tests, nervous system tests (can't remember the names of these), and more!  And...as I see so common here...always, eventually, was  sent home with diagnosis "perfectly healthy".  Of course, being somewhat of a hypochondriac, I never believed that I was truly healthy deep down.  But now...after healing through all of this, and learning so much about it, I have realized that it is true: I am perfectly healthy, and always was.  The symptoms I experienced through benzo withdrawal were exactly as advertised: I was in fact going through benzo withdrawal, and the strange symptoms I experienced were caused by my body's tenacious healing process to set right what had been changed through my 7 years of benzo use.  These symptoms were the result of a healthy body doing its job, not a broken body.  As the benzo withdrawal process developed, I learned to appreciate and find peace in this realization, which made the subjective experience of the symptoms far more bearable.

And the symptoms:

(First of all, a couple of facts:

*2.5mg-10mg diazepam (valium) daily or nightly on and off for 7 years

*I went through all of this while maintaining relationships, holding a full time 40-80 hr a week job that required me to show up to meetings, travel out of town by myself on airplanes a dozen times, maintaining a girlfriend, having to pay bills, having to take care of a father suffering from parkinson's disease, having no extra money, having deaths in the family.  Basically, life goes on, regardless of withdrawal, and it's your responsibility to NOT GIVE UP and to carry on business as usual as much as possible.

*Began to notice tolerence withdrawal symptoms around year 2 (although I didn't recognize them as such until year 7)

*It took me years of searching and going to many doctors to finally come to the conclusion that it was the valium I was taking that was causing me this 'mystery disease' all those years.  I have since had 2 doctors confirm this as a reality, but initially, no one in the medical community pointed me in this direction.  My own desperate searching and the internet, and forums like this, helped me to uncover the benzo beast.  ***BUT LET IT ALSO BE SAID*** that it took me going through benzo withdrawal to realize that a certain percentage of these 'mysterious benzo withdrawal symptoms' were actually poor health choices (sensitivities to gluten, to sugar, to caffeine, to alcohol, 30lbs overweight, chewing my food too fast, intake of aspartame in the form of diet sodas, etc...).  I had had these problems all those years, but didn't recognize them as such because with benzos, I could always take this 'miracle pill' that seemed to 'cure all my problems'.  I referred to valium as a 'miracle pill' many times, and for someone wishing to prolong the inevitable facing of their physical/mental problems, it IS a miracle drug.  You must always know where you stand, inform yourself, know why you do what you do, take responsibility for it, and be prepared to accept any consequences. 

*I had a short taper, only one month, decreasing my dosage from 2.5 milligrams down to .5 milligrams, then jumping on April 27, 2012

**IMPORTANT** While the first week off was rough, the first two months off weren't really that bad at all.  At the end of month 1, I thought that I was in the clear, actually! 

*At the end of month two, I took 2 rescue doses (5mg one day, 2.5mg the next). 

*Months 7-9 were BY FAR the worst for me, and new symptoms that I had never previously felt sprung up at this point.

*I made the total health makeover described below at month 11 (switching from symptomatic techniques to permanent techniques)

*Things really started to clear up by month 13, and this had a DIRECT correlation with the health change.  Getting off of alcohol (which I was consuming on average 1-3 shots of liquor daily) was huge.  Just getting off of beer and wine and switching to liquor made a huge difference.  Then getting off alcohol, while it gave me an INTENSE flare up for the first 2 weeks off of alcohol, probably delivered the most profound results in destroying the withdrawal symptoms.  Plus, about 10lbs of extra weight dropped off my body in just a few weeks from this decision.  But...I have to give some respect to alcohol.  It helped me cope before I was completely ready to face all my bodily and mental imbalances.

*At month 11, I also threw away all of my reserve stash of pills.  This seems simple, but it was a huge step for me.  I had kept a reserve stash that whole time in a freezer, 'just in case!'.  At month 11, it was really symbolic to throw away the pills.  It meant that I was really ready to jump not just on a physical leve, but a mental and spiritual one.  Its a huge relief to be able to go anywhere now, and not have to worry about making sure I have a pill in my pocket.

*No one understands really what you're going through.  Not even people on this forum, but they are as close as you'll get and this forum is a Godsend.  Don't expect others to understand your plight, and find comfort in the fact that EVERYONE on this planet has some chink in their armor somewhere.  Some have heart problems, some have lost family or loved ones to violent deaths, some have parkinson's disease, some are born in incredible impoverished conditions.  EVERYONE has something terrible they have or are or are going to go through, so in this sense, you are not alone.  Don't let your suffering get to your ego and don't exploit and take advantage of the support of your friends and family through this in times when you should be processing your emotions solo.  Take every opportunity you can to face your fears and anxieties.  Rest in the faith that this is a transient condition whose speed and duration depends on how healthy your choices are and the breadth and width of your courage and patience.  Remember...this isn't just about healing from damage caused by a drug...that is actually only a small part of it.  This is mostly about growing physically/mentally/spiritually through life's challenges that benzos allowed you to place on the back burner for a period of time.  But eventually, responsibility calls, and your soul requires that you grow, which I personally believe is in direct correlation to the timing of tolerance withdrawal and withdrawal symptoms.  There's more to this than just 'benzo withdrawal'.  Recognize that and may it give you courage, perserverance, forgiveness, and strength.  See this as a challenge; a game...not a nightmare.  Do not see yourself as a victim, but rather, as a hero unto yourself.  Now...my symptoms 

-  Depersonalization / surreal states

-  Auditory hallucinations

-  Metallic taste in my mouth

-  heightened sensitivity to sound and light

- difficulty sleeping

-  terrible nightmares

-  Erectile dysfunction.  Could orgasm, but had trouble keeping it up.  When this symptom started at 26 years of age, it was my first clue in to benzo withdrawal being the source of my mystery condition, just because it was so unusual.  I wasn't 18 anymore, but I was friggen' 26!!!  Since I had never had issues in this department before, it struck me as highly unusual.  But...I didn't fully realize benzos were to blame for this until years later at age 28.  Also, refraining from orgasm and sexual arousal as much as possible these past few months has greatly increased circulation and sensation of my sexual organ.  So  you see, this is a theme that plays out heavily in my story...benzos were causing percentages of my problems, but I was also engaging in behaviors that were causing the other percentages of my problems.

-  strange pulling and tightening sensations in varying spots on my body, some spots staying active for weeks, some just for a moment.  Felt this most commonly in the bottom right side of my abdomen, top left of my chest near heart and armpit, and on the front of my neck (like a midget was strangling me for weeks)

-  had this weird jiggly sensation like my veins were shivering/jumping/spasming in the veins in my head that would come on and off every 5 seconds for days (there's a medical term for this, i just can't think of it). 

-  Strange sensation of burning, weakness, fatigue, achyness, anxiety stuff all over my body that would just come and go, sometimes lasting days on end, sometimes lasting only an hour.  It was a dull, constant burn.  In the early stages, I just categorized this as generally feeling like shit, and it almost always brought on agoraphobia and panic.

-  The DREADED TOXIC NAPS!  I would take a nap, and wake up feeling incredible weak, disoriented, filled with anxiety that would sometimes break out into a full blown panic attack. 

***And the 2 most prominent symptoms, and therefore most unbearable, for me***

1.  Pain in my legs...I believe this is the same thing as 'restless leg syndrome', but since I was never officially diagnosed with this condition, 'restless leg syndrome' may have just been the closest term I was able to use to describe this symptom.  Sometimes for an entire month, I would have this super tight, dull pain (sometimes moderate pain) in my legs (particularly back of my thighs) that would last all day and night.  This is what made it hardest to sleep at times.  I would just lay there with my legs hurting, burning, aching...ugh...warm baths would calm it down, but sometimes warm baths would then leave me with a faster heart rate and more anxiety.  This benzo beast was a picky little devil.

2.  PVCS (premature ventricular contractions) / a form of heart palpitation.  My most nightmarish symptom.  It started about 7 months in, and came on and off till about the 12th month.  Some days, I would have a PVC every other heart beat...and this would last for days...so I would be having a heart flutter, which I could feel, up to 10,000 times a day!!!  Talk about SERIOUS TRAINING on how to cope with anxiety and panic triggers!  One of the worst aspects of these PVCs is that sometimes they would be precipitated by a feeling like I was about to faint...a vertigo type feeling...and then THWUMP!  I'd get hit with a massive PVC, then maybe a few other big ones, then within a day or two, would be having tiny regular PVCs every other heart beat for days, and sometimes, weeks on end.  This is the stuff that pure terror is manufactured from.

It was hard to see at the time, but I now recognize all these symptoms as my body learning to live naturally again.  Learning to manage my life in spite of these symptoms, was, ironically, exactly the training I needed to stand on my 2 feet again.  It all kind of reminds me of the proverb: "Don't make friends with an elephant trainer unless you have room for an elephant in your house".  The bottom line is this: you want to heal?  You want to be normal again?  It's possible...but just remember that something has been eating away at you so strong that you've had to rely on a pill for years to mask it and make it appear to go away...so it's going to take everything you've got, and a complete paradigm shift in how you live your life and think in order for you to process all of your shadow material.

Which brings me to the techniques involved in healing.  My biggest mistake early on was assuming that 100% of what I was experiencing was benzo withdrawal.  What it was, actually, was the physical and mental health issues that benzos had been treating SYMPTOMATICALLY for years now uncovered, raw, and completely flamed up.  In reality, the benzo withdrawal was merely a spark, and the issues my benzo use had been treating were a big ass pool of flammable material.  Benzo withdrawal was simply causing a FLARE UP of problems that existed within me independant of the benzos.  So...

Early on, the techniques I was using were simply substitutes for benzos, treating the symptoms of benzo withdrawal rather than the cause of the suffering I was going through.  This involved:

-alcohol

-sugar

-unhealthy foods

-masturbation

-the occasional cigarette or chewing tobacco

-VITAMIN SUPPLEMENTS (vitamin b complex at first then vitamin b12, magnesium, calcium (early on, but this ended up causing me to develop a kidney stone because I already was getting plenty of calcium from my diet), iodine, fish oil supplements, and the occasional cornucopia of various other supplements like melatonin/valerian/L-tryptophan)

-A girlfriend telling me that everything was going to be ok

-My parents telling me that everything was going to be ok

While these techniques would, in most cases, relieve the withdrawal symptoms, I found myself at 10 months off still having TREMENDOUSLY powerful flare ups!  It got to the point where I was wearing out the ears and altruism of my parents and then girlfriend, where I was relying on my morning supplements like they were Valium, drinking alcohol beyond therapeutic measures (particularly one stressful work week where I found myself needing interminttant shots of gin to get me through the day), and gaining weight to an unhealthy level (clothes were starting to not fit me). 

So...around March of this year, I was suffering so much from my PVCs, and leg pains, along with all the other symptoms, that I was willing do to anything to feel better.  I came within a milimeter of getting on an anti-depressant, but decided that I should first take the most healthy route my mind could conceive of just to make sure that there wasn't something that I might still be doing to contribute to protracted withdrawal symptoms I was experiencing.  Thank heavens I chose this route.

These are the techniques which caused my symptoms to eventually vanish:

-  No gluten

-  No msg

-  No alcohol

-  No nicotine in any form

-  Nearly 0 orgasms (only about 1-4 times a month)

-  no processed foods

-  regular schedule with regular sleep

-  ice packs (applied to forehead to calm anxiety when it strikes)

-  warm baths, occasionally with epsom salts

-  ASMR videos to relax during work and sleep (look them up on youtube, highly recommend)

-  regular exercise (started by walking slowly 15-30 minutes a day, to now jogging 2-5 miles a day), also mild strength training

-  yoga (though I had to take a break due to a rotater cuff injury that is now healing)

-  pranayama (VERY important...breathing exercises.  Some pranayama can really excite you, but I stayed away from these exercises early on.  shoot for calming, diaphgragmatic breathing exercises early on.  Saved my friggen life!)

-  occassional, but rarely prayer...everyone is different on this issue...for me, I wanted to first get through this problem as alone as possible...i figured God and I could throw a party and catch up once I started to really get through the worst of it.  Figured he's busy with more serious problems on the planet for now.  But don't get me wrong...sometimes prayer is ALL YOU'VE GOT!

-  Taking a keen interest in other peoples points of view, rather than saturating them day and night with my frightening point of view! 

-  For me, breaking up with the girl I was dating.  It wasn't meant to be ultimately, and it got to the point that the only reason I was afraid to leave her, was that I was afraid to lose the support for my benzo withdrawal.  This wasn't fair to her, and it wasn't good for me.  I had to learn how to stand on my own 2 feet.  It was extremely difficult, but expedited the healing process in the end.  What was first my savior, having a lover who would listen to my every symptom related lament, actually became a hinderance to me permanently developing strategies to handle stress and anxiety on my own.

- no chocolate

- no sweets (other than fruit)

-  nothing to drink other than water (and lots of it, and many times with lemon), natural sparkling mineral water (like San Pellegrino, also many times with lemon), and herbal tea (Roobis tea with ginger root and turmeric root simmered in the water for the first 20 minutes IN THE DAY, and chamomile with lemon tea at night), and occasionally cranberry juice, kombucha, coconut water, and orange juice.

-  Saving my money AND PAYING OFF DEBTS, only spending on what I need to survive, and if I had a little leftover, I'd maybe buy a new yoga mat, or some fancy ingredients to make food at home

-  Oh...and cooking for myself for nearly every meal, and when I had to go out for a business lunch or something, ordering unseasoned meat with salad (like a chicken salad)

If anyone would like a more detailed explanation of anything I've written above, just private message me and we can talk.  But basically, I made the above changes to my life back in March (which was a year off of benzos), and was symptom free by May.  May, I got comfortable, and drank alcohol one night to excess and took some hydrocodone the next week for a few days.  This brought back the leg pain symptom for a month!  The analogy I make to this is gluing a model airplane together.  Once the glue sets, the structure is very strong...but until it sets, it's fragile, and if you put too much pressure on it, you have to start all over again and reglue it.  I am healed for sure, but I can tell that my glue is still drying...so it's best that I still not re-introduce anything that I've abstained from just yet.  I plan to introduce the occasional drink, sex and masturbation, and chocolate back into my life at some point when I feel my glue has dried.

So what's the payoff?  Well...I've lost 30lbs in an extremely healthy manner, which has caused much physical and mental well-being for me (I look and feel great in public!), I've paid off all credit card debt (I was $12,000 in credit card debt when withdrawal started, paying up to $200 in interest alone each month!!!), I've paid off an $10000 student loan, I've paid off a $10000 car loan, I've kept my full time job and have received 2 $5000 raises and one $5000 bonus, I can jog 5 miles and feel great, I can get through every day feeling normal without taking ANYTHING, I go to sleep regularly every night without taking anything, my memory is better, my will power is better, my motivation and hope has been restored, I have accomplished so much and I have slain the SHIT out of the demons my Valium was keeping locked up all of those years! 

I can assure you that there were many times that I was one of those folks that seriously entertained the idea that I might not EVER heal from Valium withdrawal. In fact, there were many times that I was convinced that all of you were lucky to just be experiencing a prolonged withdrawal, and that I was ACTUALLY suffering from a serious disease like MS or early onset Parkinsons, or Cancer and that this was what was truly causing my symptoms.  None of them were true, I was indeed experiencing Valium withdrawal, but MOST IMPORTANTLY, I was experiencing all of the things that Valium was holding back: my sensitivities to certain unhealthy foods, my quick temper, my jealously, my lack of self confidence, my obesity, my procrastination, my addictiveness, etc...

Now I know there are some of you out there trying to do everything you can, and just hold on...it will get better.  But I am willing to bet, that there is a percentage of those of you 1, 2, even 3 years off benzos, who are still suffering protracted withdrawal symptoms, who are still living your life the same as you did while on benzos, but now just without benzos.  If you fall into this category, I urge you to take a SERIOUS look at my healing techniques (not the symptomatic techniques I listed first) and see if they work for you.  Mostly, take a look at yourself: if there are positive changes that deep down, your jiminy cricket conscience has been urging you to make for some time, that you have put on the back burner to focus on more important things like benzo withdrawal, you might want to take a look at them and fix them now, because they very well could be what's causing your protracted symptoms.  If you want a problem of the magnitude of benzo withdrawal to go away, you're going to have to hit it with an equal level of courage and discipline to revolutionize your entire physical/mental/spiritual system so that you can be reborn into the realization of the hopes and dreams that benzos have muted all this time.

I wish all of you the strength, courage, patience, and auspicious circumstances necessary to climb your way up and out of this.  May I be a flagpost as you find your way.  I'm rarely on the forum, but send me a private message if you have a question, and I'll try to get back to you.  Thanks for reading.

Thank you so much for taking your time to write this... I'm 4 months off and I'm really looking forward to see if this also works for me.. at least I will try to do as much of the list you have as possible.. thank again

[[Di...]]

I am so glad I came upon this post.  The 22 months I have been tapering I would get these awful pains in my legs, exactly how he described them.  I even had a test to make sure the circulation was okay in my legs.

It has been 11 years now since he posted, and I hope he is living a successful and healthy life.