— Begin quote from “MikaelHS”
This is not from “demonizers”; the demonizers says its worse than heroin to come off. I havent quoted anything saying that.
This information is from benzowithdrawal.com and a doctor + professor (who has seen many many “cases”), and also from people at the mdds site who simply have found it impossible to stop taking it. They were on less than 1,5mg a day… Are you implying that they are lying?
Crazymeds are full of ppl with usually more than 3 diagnoses; MDD, ADD, Bipolar disorder, general anxiety disorder, epilepsy… The list goes on. I wouldnt consider them a normal controlgroup, would you? Most of them take not only a benzo but 4-5 other meds including other gaba-analogues.
Of course there will be those that are in the lower extreme in terms of withdrawal. The question is what its like for most people… Taking a drug that causes physical dependency for over a year is quite some time. Didnt you have your own experience with a benzo after only a month of it?
Lets put it this way, if you had questions about tapering off an addictive medication. Would you go to crazymeds where they pop more pills than your 90year old grandma with alzheimers, or would you go to a doctor and professor who has seen hundreds/thousands of these cases?
— End quote
Where was I implying that the mdds people are lying?? I did explain that: only people who find it hard come out and say so. Why would anyone want to post about how easy it was to quit a drug? Some do, but it’s WAY more rare than people posting about their difficulties.
My point is that Ashton has seen all those tough cases because they couldn’t quit on their own. Not everyone who needs to quit a benzo go to a withdrawal clinic, only those who really, really can’t quit on their own do. As such, all the worst cases end up there, and none of the “well, this was a breeze” people do. They’re already off.
And yup, I had 2-4 days of pretty bad withdrawal (the first day naturally being the worst) after three weeks on xanax, one of if not the most addictive benzo, but I was on a high dose (2 mg/day) and quit 1 mg cold turkey (after 1 week on 1 mg) on doctor’s orders, since I had only been taking it such a short time it shouldn’t pose any danger).
To put it into perspective, that dose was enough to move me from a complete WRECK who just barely got out of bed due to a 2-week-long panic attack with extreme insomnia, to sleeping 11 hours a night and just some slight daytime anxiety.
Edit: Not only that, but the feelings I had afterwards were similar to what I experienced before the xanax, which with 99% certainty were because of the SSRI I started 1-2 weeks earlier (which was what made me bedridden etc. in the first place, from day one).
