My daughter is a recovering herion addict, clean 5 yrs from herion. About 9 yrs ago she was raped at gun point. Since then the dr put her on xanax for anxiety and to sleep. Between then and now she has gone from taking 2- .25mg/ day to 3-1mg each night to sleep. About a yr ago she started drinking. As with us addicts, it was pretty hard core, straight rum and a couple mon. ago she switched to vodka. The dr gave her Librium 10 mg 3 x's /day to quit drinking. For a while she lied and was still drinking but blaming it on the librium. She recently, about 3 weeks ago, quit drinking and is trying to come off the xanax and librium. She started cutting back on the xanax about 6 weeks ago and is down to 1- 1mg at night for about a week now. The Librium is kicking her butt though. Today she tried lowering my only taking a half and has been sick all day. She said she can barely see, is very anxious, eyes are twitching and is sick to her stomach. Should she only try to get off 1 drug at a time? Can't believe the dr would prescribe this when she asked him directly if there was any withdraw with this and he said no. Please, anyone with some exp. with multible addiction, we can use some help here. Afraid she's goint to have siezures while I'm at work. She has 4 kids, ages 11-3 and the youngest has Autism. Thanks for any help
She needs to go back to the doctor and ask for a taper plan for the Librium. She should use that to cover herself from the alcohol detox and not taper until she's detoxed. Ask the doctor if she can just drop the Xanax all together. The Librium can cover that as well. The thing is: This sort of detox is tricky at home. You have to be completely compliant. She's using three different drugs here but all of them hit the same brain receeptors. As long as she has something on board(xanax.librium,alcohol) she shouldn't have a seizure. But,again,she needs to get her doctor in on this and have his/her help. It's hard to believe a doctor would tell her there is no withdrawal from the two drugs...maybe if she hardly ever took them but not this way.
Good luck to you!