How to quit benzodiazapines after 22 years of usage?

[angst]

I have PTSD and borderline personality d/o.  I am not a strong borderline.  I hold down jobs for long periods and I'm not sexually overactive.  I've been in therapy for 7 years with a PhD in psychology.  All my doctors, since I was 14 years old have placed me on one or another benzo.  I've tried SSRI's and the new neuroleptics.  I've tried all the new anticonvulsants.  I am a nurse without a license because of my addiction to opiates.  I live in a state where methadone is illegal for treatment.  I travel across state line to obtain it.  This time it saved my life.  I do not misuse the xanax or whatever benzo I am taking at the time.  I know one of the side effects is memory loss.  I cannot function without it.  I am home bound.  I cannot work, take my child for outings, or drive.  Will I ever be able to get off the benzodiazapines like the licensure board wants.  I do not want to practice nursing right now.  I do not want to be around the drugs.  I am changing my career.  Do I need a good psychiatrist instead of my internist who treats me for asthma.
Asthma is another reason I take the benzodiazapines.  A SL xanax will help stop a broncospasm after I've had my albuterol inhaler much quicker than without the xanax.  What are your thoughts?  I always tell my doctors that I am an opiate addict on methadone.  I give them a list of all my meds.  I take trazadone to help sleep.  But I usually get less than 18 hours of sleep anyway.  Can you help?

[angst]

It takes one who has suffered to understand someone like me.  I appreciate you so much.  I have taken grief over the xanax.  I do not over use it.  My doctor would cut me off in a hurry.  He keeps my asthma under control.  Right now, i'm battling bronchitis and sinusitis.  Not a big deal, unless you have asthma.  The meds make me so shaky.  So forgive the typo's and half sentences.  In the back of my mind, I still worry about the day my doctor retires or something.  
That is sick thinking.  I need to stay in the here and now.  I have plenty to think about and do.  I think I will call on one of my affluent older contacts to try to get a job.  With my ex-husband being the fire chief you'd think I could get a job.  I have a person who tries to sabotoge everything in my life.  i hope she is not interested in me these days, but I got a call last thursday.  I picked up on the  5th ring.  I heard her tell another person, "i let it ring and ring, she's not there.".  I hurt this person, tried to make amends, but she is obsessed with me hurting every day of life.  I did a terrible thing to her, but it is over.  Maybe not with her other half, he would bring me up just to make her feel low.  He is an M.D. and the most narcistic person i've ever met.  He is brillant, but he has issues, and i mean issues.  I hope she leaves me along.  She is old enough to be my mother.  I'm truly sorry that I hurt her.  What else can I do?

[Seamstress]

Yes, the docs will sometimes make you worse than you were before you started.  That's why it's important to find a good one. Someone, I think it was Jafco, posted a link to ASAM which is a good place to start looking.  It sounds like you're doing much better.  And if you need to take a med for whatever reason, there's nothing wrong with that. Benzos are real life savers for many people.

[angst]

Thanks.  I did have the affair with the woman's husband.  Mother had just died and even though I was married, I needed this man.  If for nothing else, to help me forget the pain of losing her.  He had affairs before me and probably after me, but I really scared her.  He loved me, and rubbed her face in it too many times.  She was an administrator where I worked.  She had me transferred to all kinds of floors for a month or two.  I loved my job until she made it a living hell.  I asked for it.  I should have left her man alone.  If mother had been alive, she would have told me so.  I lost my man in that respect.  He is still good to me, but he will never trust me again.  I accept responsibility for of all of it, even the doctor's part.  We were together 3 years.  It has been over for 2 years and she still calls here.  I will not move and leave my child.  That is why he and I never got together.  He wanted to leave together, relocate so she could not fool with his practice and life.  Never ask your lover to choose between you and her child.  I could not.  It caused a lot of heart ache.  I'm almost over it.

[Seamstress]

Protracted withdrawl is a syndrome in which withdrawl symptoms persist long after the drug is discontinued.  Sometimes up to a year.  It is caused by the length of time it takes brain receptors to heal.  Detoxing too quickly seems to cause it for some reason while a slow taper has better results. My friend had symptoms for several months following her one week detox which apparently is average for the syndrome. As for me, I'm at the end of my taper and no anxiety or shakiness.  Some insomnia but I had that before I started the benzos..it was one of the reasons I took them, so it probably is just the reemergence of an underlying condition.

[angst]

I know what word salad is.  My sister is a bad epileptic.  Man, we are blessed without that diagnosis.  I am okay for now.  I gotta go for a job interview and to check on my sister.  Her phone is disconnected.  Money only goes so far, especially with her bunch of beer drinkers and pot smokers.  I love them all though.  I will not subject myself to another rehab without knowing EXACTLY what i'm gettng myself into unless I'm beyond the point of knowing.  I hope never to get there again.  Thanks for all the advice.  I posted a note about buprenex on one of the other forums.  It is from my nursing experience.  Just a thought.  No harm intended.  We all need to get well.

[cindi]

they detoxed me from barbs when I did the treatment thing in 89  i think i was using nembutal,,seconal  somthing along those lines  I actually can't remember  i was stealing so much i actually forget the drugs i used but that is when i got off the demerol etc..so i had to be detoxed from benzos,,(valium etc) opiates and barbiturates I don't know which wd was worse since I did it all at the same time...love cin