Benzodiazepines?

Who here currently takes or has taken benzos in the past, and what is /has been your experience with them?

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I want them so I can take 12 xans and pass out

Lol why? Can you not sleep without benzos?

I was on Ativan. Amazing medication. No bad side effects at all. Completely prevented paranoia or could pull me out of it in around 30 mins. Stopped me from having flashbacks at night and bad anxiety related to my ptsd in general.

HOWEVER you can gain tolerance very quickly, and if you raise your dosage too high you can become physically dependent on it. I tended to become tolerant to my dosages after only 2 weeks taking it once a night before bed. Also long term use damages your brain. So really it is not a very good drug type to be used on a regular basis. If you are looking for something short term to help you adjust to anxiety as a med side effect or intend to use it only in emergencies then I feel it is a very good choice.

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I have never taken them before but I know for sure they would help me sleep

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Benzos didn’t actually make me sleepy, they just made me feel normal. Like I didn’t get anxiety and paranoia at night, so I could just fall asleep normally. Also people may think they give you some sort of high but they don’t, really just take away/prevent any form of anxiety or fear.

Then again if you took 12 who knows what would happen :unamused: You can overdose.

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Yeah unfortunately my pdoc is wary of prescribing me them because of their addictive potential. I don’t leave the house much due to anxiety and I think they could help me with that.

If you take them as prescribed, assuming you have a good doctor, you shouldn’t get addicted unless maybe you were on it for years and years. Where people get addicted is when they develop tolerance to their prescribed dose so they start taking more on their own without their doctor’s knowledge to get the same effect, and then they end up building stronger tolerance and getting on a really high dose, then addiction happens.

I was on Ativan for a year, took it as prescribed every day, and quit no problem.

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I was on Klonopin for over 25 years.
I took them as Maintenance, so I popped 0.5mg everyday for a long time.
I recently managed to taper myself off of them slowly and it’s been close to 3 months where I’ve been Benzo free.

Honestly Benzos did not help me so much because I was taking them everyday, so after a while they stopped working.

They helped me a lot better when I was taking them as needed for panic attacks only.

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I wish I could have an as-needed ativan prescription to take in times of high anxiety. I’ve been prescribed ativan and klonopin before but they were short term rx’s. They certainly work. But yeah, they become less effective over time. I wouldn’t want to take them every day for that reason. Nothing has ever worked as well on my anxiety though.

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They were the most effective meds I’ve taken for anxiety with pretty much no side effects for me. I agree with daily use you can build tolerance and have to raise dosage but I never had problems quitting personally. And if you don’t use them daily there’s not really any problem in my experience. I stopped taking them cause my doctor doesn’t like prescribing them indefinitely

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They work well for anxiety and paranoia.

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Yeah those are my worst symptoms. I think I need them.

I find it very difficult to leave my house on a planned outing without them. If I leave the house on a whim I can usually do it without, it just depends on that darned anxiety monkey in my brain.

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