Xanax addiction

[KellzBellz]

I am only 23 years old and I have been taking massive amounts of xanax for a little over 4 years now. When I got even just a day without them I have horrible panic attacks, can't sleep, eat until im sick, and just feel like I'm dying. I have tried so many times to get off of the pills but my body seems to be able to take so much withdrawls until I have to have the pills. I need to know a natural way to beat this addiction before it takes complete control of me and my family for the rest of my life.

[SophieShine]

Hi and Welcome to the forum:)

Xanax is a short acting benzo which makes it so hard to quit coz you feel the "high" that well. Benzo cannot, in any case, be stopped CT, the risk of seizure is way too high. What you should do is go see an addiction specialist who knows about benzo wd's. She/he will probably switch you to a long acting benzo so that you can get rid of the "buzz" effect, that's about standard procedure. With her/him you gonna establish a tapering plan and go from there.
The 2 secrets about tapering off benzo are time and perseverance. You need to give time to your body and the chemicals in your brain to adjust every time you lower the dosage and when you do, it's time to lower it down again.
I have been tapering off massive dosage of short and long acting benzo, believe me it's doable. If you need any information feel free to pm me.
Best of luck to you. Sophie.
P.S. There a site which is the reference in the matter, here's the link to it:
http://www.benzo.org.uk/
and here's an example of tapering plan for xanax to give you an idea of how it's done:
http://www.benzo.org.uk/manual/bzsched.htm#s1

[dominosarah]

Hi and welcome to the forum.  How much are you taking a day?  These need to be tapered down.  Stick around here and keep talking to us........sara

[allmymarbles]

You are probably trying to quit cold turkey. You have to reduce the amount you are taking very, very slowly to avoid withdrawal symptoms. Get help with this, if you can. If for some reason you don't want to, then you might try cutting back about ten per cent and stay at that level for a couple of weeks. If 10 per cent too much, try five. Once you are stabilized at that level, cut back again. The process will take a long time, but there is less chance of remission because you won't suffer badly.

[Tab57]

First of all welcome to this site and congratulations on your decision to come up with a recovery plan. There are a number of OTC items trhtaa can help you during the Withdrawl phase.

You should also check the health pages on this sites. In addition I encourage you to seek out NA as they are an exceletn resource of information as well as support for you.

I have sent you a meeage with additional information.

Goood luck and please post more questions as they come up.

[shermay]

Hi,
First of all, can you tell me how many your taking a day??