quiting xanax cold turkey

[lintlicker21]

well i had a bad drinking problem about 120 beer's a week and so came anxiety so my doctor perscribes 4Mg of ativan for sleep xanax 6Mg a day for 3 month's then 3Mg a day for 2 months then 1Mg a day for 3 month's i was still drinking the whole time so when doc finally cut off the xanax i started drinking very hevialy again so i got serious stop drinking new doctor who tell's me im hooked on xanax for taking it so long and now has me down to 1.5Mg a day pretty low sometimes it's enough others no i have tried to quit cold turkey before but it was just pure hell i know it can give you sezieures or kill you but after a year of this if the xanax don't kill me the anxiety will i just want to stop and get it out the way already so what should i do? also how long are xanax withdrawls beer for me was about 7 day's for the worst of it what can i expect from the xanax?

[Kevin_Bacon]

Good advice here -- don't just stop Xanax ... and don't take it when you're drinking -- you're wasting it. Cross-addiction between alcohol and benzos is a given -- if you're a heavy drinker, you usually need more benzos than the Average Bear.

If you can really get by on a dozen pints once a week, then, as noted above, ask your doctor for a long-acting benzo, and don't take it the day before you hit the booze. If you tell him you're drinking, I'd be surprised if he gives you benzos -- they're for w/ds, short-term.

Ideally, you wouldn't be taking benzos and booze, but I've been down that road ... you're better off quitting the booze altogether and then tapering off the benzos altogether, in a perfect world.

The combination could have you going down a few flights of stairs and comatose for years -- I've seen it happen.

Oh. The doxepine (Sinequan). It's mildly sedating, and ok once you taper off the benzos. Equally good anti-d's are trazodone or amitryptyline. Trazodone will probably knock you on your *** the first few days, but get the 50mg jobs and adjust accordingly.

Best of luck.

[avisg]

Whats the worst that could happen is death !!!!!!!!! Mixing booze with benzos can cause death as well.unforuntly we have seen it happen here .

[Prospero73]

When I quit drinking, I was doing about a fifth of whiskey a day, which is about the same as your 120 beers a week (assuming you meant 12 oz. cans).  I quit cold turkey, and had no DT's, or any withdrawals except itching all over, but had a lot of trouble sleeping.  For the first week I was lucky enough to be in a place (San Francisco bay area) where there were nearly round-the-clock AA meetings, and I went to four or five a day.  Later on, when I returned home, I couldn't get to as many meetings, but a doctor prescribed doxepin, and anti-depressant, for my insomnia and general anxiety, and it worked very well.  As I recall, I started with a low dose, ramped up to about double that, then tapered down to nothing, all over a period of a couple of months.  There were no side effects and no discomfort from withdrawal.  I don't know why doxepin isn't prescribed more often -- perhaps because it's cheap and generic, and the pharmo's don't make enough to push it on doctors.  

I've found that if you're a proactive patient, and do some research on your own, the doctors will let you at least try something they hadn't thought of, to see if it works.  It's a sort of informed self-medication, which is not the same as downing a handful of pills out of someone else's medicine cabinet.  If you have DT's. though, doxepin will not work.

[lintlicker21]

thanks for advice i take so little now i feel like i could just quit i was in the same boat as moonshine at one point in time taking 15Mg of xanax a day abusing the hell out of my perscription and i did still drink 1 time a week about 12 beer's 10 times less than were i was at and stopped that last week i mean for me 1 time a week just a 12pack was not bad all things considering thanks again

[corey411]

Your right about the seizures and death. Please don't quit Xanax ct. There are some other options. Have you tried getting on an anti depressant and weaning? I know that all anti depressants aren't alike but they have really good new ones. I was on Xanax (not addicted) and my doctor said that it can cause rebound anxiety. I switched to Klonopin and only take one at night if I need it to sleep. Your anxiety may be an underlying factor for your drinking as well. We have a member SophieShine who is almost finished with a benzo taper. I'm sure she will come on and be glad to help you.

[123456m]

Are you still drinking and how much? Its more than welcome to be as honest as you can here we all know what it is to be addicted.
Peace

[moonshyne]

I was hooked on them for a few years but after my mom died, I overdosed and nearly killed myself and that was it for me. I threw them away and felt ****** for a few days. Now I'm on day 6 of getting clean from oxycontin and withdrawing from OC is way worse then the xanax was. It will be worse the first 3 days and after that get better. Oddly enough I found my anxiety got better after I go off of xanax. Strange but that's what happened. Good for you for deciding to kick those rotten little pills. And I took an insane amount (10-20 a day sometimes!!) and the withdrawals didn't kill me, I just felt really sick but got through it. I had to use xanax again recently to get off of Oxys but after day 4 when things got better I flushed the remaining pills knowing that if I kept them around I'd just trade one addiction for another. Keep posting and let us know how your doing. The people here are amazing and a big reason why I've made it this far.