Another blog I shouldn’t write: Let me first stress… I take my medication as the doctor prescribes. The times of the day may vary but for the best part of the time I take the correct doses and try my best to take as few PRN’s (Pro Re Nata) which means to take meds as needed as possible. When I become unwell, it’s so important to have my correct meds so I need to ration these out over the length of the script so I don’t find myself in the depths of despair. There’s nothing worse than one of these attacks without medical aid. Now we have that out of the way, let me tell you of my benzodiazepine abuse back in my drinking days (the dark days).
The two substances you can die from during withdrawal is coming off alcohol and coming off benzos. This is different for each person. Also to take into account is how long one has been drinking or popping benzos and quantities. If you take the occasional 5mg - 10mg it is unlikely you will have anything to worry about. No different to drinking a couple of beers over the weekend. You have to continuously take a lot to run into trouble. I’m not a doctor so don’t listen to me. I’m just an average idiot who takes this occasional med but this is what I have come to learn…
The other danger is mixing the two. This is an absolute no no! I count my lucky stars I didn’t kill myself playing around with these two highly addictive drugs (Yes, I call alcohol a drug) and I’m lucky to be here to tell my story. I’m a little upset that my doctors who knew I had issues with the booze and yet prescribed me benzos without telling me of the dangers. At least I would have expected them to warn me. Never was the fact brought up that they are highly addictive either.
I never took my benzos as I should have. My pattern was to take a few days off swallowing them and then take a large dose so I would get a high from them because of my weakened tolerance. I would usually take a bar (10 pills) off diazepam (Valium) or half a dozen nitrazepams (Morgadone) and then drink beer. It wasn’t uncommon for me to take more once I started drinking that poisonous brew. Guys, I cannot stress enough how dangerous this was. Do not follow in my footsteps. I came out the other side unharmed but there was a lot of luck involved and a lot don’t make it. Ahh.. so stupid, but like I said, I didn’t know of the risks I was taking.
By the way, if you want to wipe your memory out completely, the combination of these two substances will deliver. If you have ever been black out drunk and wake up the following morning with only vague recollections of the night before, times this by ten. I only hope I didn’t do too much damage to my poor brain. I must have wiped out a trillion braincells.
I don’t drink anymore and I take my benzos as I’m directed. I don’t take them every day. I take them as PRN’s. They are worth their weight in gold when I’m suffering a severe panic attack or for the occasions where my anxiety gets on top of me. I’m basically taking them as they’re meant to be taken. A script can last me a few months.
When I was in rehab, Valium was widely used for the people who were detoxing. They would hand them out like candy without even questioning why they were needed. I have a conspiritual thought that by dosing patients which was to chill people out so they were easier to keep calm and chilled to get out of the nurses hair. People may have recovered from alcohol but I’m sure there was a healthy percentage of people who walked out of the hospital with a benzo addiction. This is something else I noticed, when I took the pills and got a slight high, I would crave beer more than ever. It was prescribed to me to help with the wanting of alcohol but for me it only made the situation and the desire to drink even worse.
I dodged this bullet and I thank the lord for looking over me during this two decade long roll of the dice. Once again, this is probably another one of those blogs I shouldn't have created but it’s all a part of my story. Who knows… maybe this may help someone!