mstevens wrote:
If you're using a medication appropriately as prescribed and are not experiencing any harm from using it, you are not addicted to it no matter how physically dependent upon it you may be.
Well, yeah! No kidding. The bottom line is what happens if you stop taking the stuff? In this case, you will experience severe withdrawal symptoms. Yes, I have actually known benzodiazepine addicts in my life - people who will down a whole bottle of Xanax if they thought they could get away with it. Most people taking these meds are just physiologically dependent. This is all just semantics as we are talking a big problem should you not want to take these drugs anymore.
Many Dr's
love to prescribe Klonopin because they are taught that it's not "abusable." Basically it can't really make you "high" - whereas certain benzodiazepines like Xanax can give you a sort of "high." The sad part is these Dr's really think they are doing you a favor by giving you something that is not easily abused (i.e. - Klonopin) - but you end up dependent regardless. Klonopin is actually worse because larger equivalent doses are given. A 0.5 mg dose of Klonopin is roughly equivalent to 10mg of Valium. So, often people are given these whopping 2mg doses to take. That's like taking 40mg of Valium or 2mg Xanax. Or they are prescribed even more!
Then the Dr's get really stupid. Since they are taught that Klonopin is "not addictive" - they just take you off the stuff. They say, "just stop taking it" or "taper off over the course of a week". Well, as lots of us have found out the hard way - this is not very easy to do (at 2-4mg of Klonopin, try months!). It can make you totally sick and crazy! In fact, it is commonly said that getting off of benzodiazepines is a lot harder than getting off of opiates. So the moral of the story here is don't listen to these Dr's at all and take the stuff to begin with - unless you find out what you will be dealing with later. I listened to a Dr like this 20 years ago, and it took me a very very long time to deal with the problem. I will never trust a Dr. again without first checking out the issues with a medicine beforehand.
I'm not saying that these drugs can't be helpful, but they are going to make you physically dependent irregardless. You will have to taper off slowly - over months or even years. Just make sure if a Dr. gives you some for a while, and that he or she will continue to prescribe them until you want and can get off them. If not, you're talking about a whole lot more than a bad weekend.
Another silly thing about Klonopin is that it has such a long half life that if you take it at night to sleep, you will still be tired the next day. If you do this every night - then you will be tired every day. There are a lot of people running around tired every day not realizing it is because of all the Klonopin they took to get to sleep. Now Xanax is the total opposite. You get sedated after taking it, but it has a relatively short half life. When you become physically dependent - you start to go into withdrawal about 12 hours after taking it at night. So you are in withdrawal by noon the next day. You limp along in a semi -panic attack until evening and take it again - then you feel calmer and can sleep. And so on.
I really hate scaring people who take these meds. But I have seen way too many friends (myself included) told by ignorant Dr.'s that they are not a problem. Too many Dr's give them to you for 6 months and then tell you to taper off over the weekend.
EricinNC is totally correct. I have never heard of any medical help (short-term detox) that has worked for these drugs. All I have ever heard of are slow tapers which require the cooperation of a Dr to slowly wean you off the stuff.