Snowdoveee & benzo WD's...

[wait2long]

I am not sure if anyone here will remember a member that was here a while ago, her name was snowdoveee. well i just heard from her personally, the first time in months.  she has not been around or able to post, so she asked me to tell all of you why and what happened to her..this is her story the best i can tell it....
she is one of the sweetest ladies i have ever met...i met her about 5-6 months ago on this very forum, at the time she was addicted to benzos...xanax if i remember correctly. she was taking an extremely high dose at the time and was trying to taper , she was trying to stop the cycle of addiction even though she had real anxiety and panic problems, i spoke to her daily for quite a while, off the forum also.  then one day i didnt hear from her, days went by,and turned into weeks, then over a month had passed, still no word from Snowdoveeee, i was getting quite worried..about 5-6 weeks later, i received an e-mail from her daughter to inform me that snowdovee had a stroke and had been in the hospital ever since the last time i spoke with her...it was caused from her tapering off benzos...she had tried to cold turkey off them once before until i warned her of the dangers, so she started taking them again because of my warnings and decided at that point to taper with a doctors help...well from what i understand,(please excuse me if i am wrong Snow) she wasnt honest with the doctor about the amount of benzos she was taking probably out of shame?, embarrassment? stigma?,..whatever the reason, it didnt matter...she had a stroke and has life long problems from this, upcoming surgeries, a lot of work ahead of her, and days upon days of nothing but sleeping just to recover,..the doctors said she would be LUCKY if she is able to recover in a years time because of the damage of trying to get off the benzos...so anyone out there with an addiction to benzos, or just messing around with benzos or just starting on benzos...please head this as a warning...this is an extremely dangerous drug to get off...do not ever lie to your doctor about your meds, always be honest, do not be in a rush to get off benzos, it must be a slow process with a doctors help...you never know what these types of meds can do to you...this is not a post to judge anyone...
if you ask why i write this?
because i just promised this sweet lady, who is having a hard time typing that i would do this for her, i would put out her story about the dangers of getting off benzos...i promised her.
she wants everyone who is having ANY issues with benzos to please. please take this as a warning and get the proper help, you could end up paying for this for the rest of your life....
PLEASE BE CAREFUL!!!!

[lostmarbles]

its up already.... ive eaten a huge packet of cereal from last night!!!

[VicUser]

The sun will be coming up there soon won't it?

[lostmarbles]

hello again!!!! I like you.... if you and the missus are ever in the uk.. look me up... icant wait for sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!! you do make me giggle lots!!

[VicUser]

Wait till you get old like me, tired by 10:00 and then up two or three times during the night. I think I would rather be up 24 hrs and then sleep well.

[lostmarbles]

funny you should say that but I am awake now 48 hours straight... it seems that i do not sleep at all for a couple of days and then by the third night im like a zombie and sleep for 12-16 hours.. i have learnt now to not drive myself mad as I only get worse!! When i was 27 i was on another benzo, tamazepam, because I suffered from insomnia.. i took that for a year and came off it with no problem.. in fact to be honest I may have had a mild cold following my coming off it but no where near as bad as the w/ds i got from the xanax.... i am now trying simply to not wallow in my lack of sleep but instead keep myself occupied by being on this site, reading, writing, eating cereal !!, anything really other than get stressed about being awake...I know how crazy lack of sleep can make us.. when the doctor put me on xanax I had no idea it was a benzo, i certainly didnt know it was addictive until it started controlling my life... i went to see the doctor because I was suffering from anxiety, stress and insomnia!!! please let me know how you get on...

you can message me anytime xx

[kimmieb]

wow, that's wonderful that  you're finally clean off the benzos.  Me?  I'm still on them.  however, I've found a GREAT doctor who knows his stuff and has a very specific plan for "chipping away" at the ativan....slowly and successfully.  He said that the biggest mistake people on benzos make when they want to taper off is that they taper off WAY too quickly (not so much a fault of their own, but caused because some of these pills don't come in very large strengths to begin with,and trying to cut down a small percentage at a time is impossible -- in reality, with a benzo, you're only supposed to cut down 2% every week or two, so you can imagine the time it would take to really do it successfully!  Anyway, I'm looking forward to one day being off of these.....but my problem is, I'll still have the same presenting problem I went in to the doctor with -- complete insomnia!!!  

How do you now feel after 11 days off?  Are you able to sleep?  Was that ever an issue for you before (like before you started on the benzo)?

Thanks.....