If you’re taking a benzo like Xanax addiction or Klonopin or thinking about taking one, it is important to understand the risks right away. So you can make an informed decision.
Trust me, taking a benzo is a serious decision, and you should be fully aware of what you’re getting into before taking the drug. And so today we’re going to be discussing the top ten reasons for xanax addiction. Many patients regretted taking benzodiazepines.
At IRC, our professionals have helped thousands of people discontinue benzodiazepine use.
Dependence: Getting Trapped on Them
The first reason is that you can become dependent on them. When you take drugs like Xanax, your brain adapts to the drug, and over time, it starts to fight against the effects of the medication, causing the benefits to wear off.
Once this happens, you can’t simply stop xanax addiction because your brain has now become dependent on it, and so if you stop it too quickly, you’ll experience withdrawal xanax addiction signs like:
- Anxiety
- Insomnia
- Physical discomfort like muscle pains and tensions.
And for many people, this creates a trap for them where they’re stuck on the medications and they’re unable to quit because to do so, they would go through withdrawal, and you end up in a situation where now you have your original problems, the anxiety and the insomnia. But on top of that, now you’re dealing with the withdrawal from the drug, and so it can become very difficult to stop these medications once you start them.
Tolerance: Diminishing Effects Over Time
So many people find that after they start xanax addiction, they wear off and they don’t work as well as they used to.
Typically, the hypnotic effects you know the effects to help you sleep sometimes wear off pretty quickly. Our professionals have seen it happen in a couple of weeks sometimes, and then the anxiety-reducing effects sometimes they see that go away after a couple of months, and so what that means is you end up taking a drug that becomes less and less effective over time.
And so you end up in a situation where you either keep on taking the drug that’s not really doing much, or you have to increase the dose. And so many people end up again in another kind of trap where the drug will work for a period of time, and then they have to raise the dose, and then they have to raise the dose again. Eventually, these patients end up on really high doses of this medication, and their lives become a lot more complicated. After that, it can be hard to get doctors to fill them, but you can also have a lot of side effects at higher doses.
Increased Anxiety in the Long Run
The next reason people regret taking these medications is that they can actually increase anxiety in some people over time. Now I’ve seen this happen in a couple of ways.
Interdose Withdrawal
One way is through a process called interdose withdrawal. Let’s say you’re taking Xanax twice a day. People may start to notice that after a while, they start to feel more irritable and moody during the day, particularly before their next dose.
Essentially, what’s happened now is they become dependent on the medication, and they’re going into periods of withdrawal between the drugs, and you can start to feel like you’re less and less in control of your emotions.
Direct Side Effects
The other way these drugs can make people worse is simply through direct side effects. Many patients have reported that, over time, they start to feel unwell and develop obsessive thoughts. In fact, while working with a large number of patients coming off benzodiazepines, it became clear that this pattern is very common. Yes, many people experience heightened anxiety when tapering off this xanax addiction, particularly strange, intrusive, obsessive thoughts they may never have had before.
And so if you’re someone who was taking this medication and over time you started becoming anxious in ways you weren’t used to, you start feeling unwell, having trouble concentrating, you might be getting worse because of the toxic effects of this medication.
Stigma and Judgment
The next reason why a lot of people regretted getting on benzos in the first place is because of the stigma associated with them. Ever since the opiate epidemic, when health agencies started focusing a lot more on controlled substances, there has been a shift in the medical community about benzodiazepines.
It’s quite common nowadays for patients to report feelings stigmatized by their doctors for taking these medications. Namely, they start to assume that they are having xanax addiction problems or that they’re addicted to the medication. And so patients have reported that they lost their medication one time, and then they went to speak with their doctor. But their doctor was very nasty to them, kind of assuming maybe they had overused it.
The people at the pharmacy were nasty to them in that way as well. These are people who have never had a history of abusing drugs. They were just taking the drugs as prescribed by their doctor, but now, all of a sudden, because of the concern about controlled substances, they’re being treated in this way, which really isn’t fair.
Another way patients commonly experience this is when their doctor retires and they go and try and find another doctor. But a lot of doctors will say. Oh, you know, we don’t prescribe benzodiazepines or we don’t take patients who are taking benzodiazepines, and this can be so frustrating.
Forced Tapering Off the Medication
People end up in situations where they get forced tapered off the medications.
Stigma and Doctors’ Approach
Because of the stigma surrounding these meds, a lot of doctors want to bring their patients off them, which is fair enough. But the issue is that the doctors really don’t know how to get them off safely.
Unsafe Tapering Timelines
It’s very often for doctors to taper patients in maybe two to three months. If that or sometimes even going to a detox, and you get taken off in two weeks, that is dangerous, and that really doesn’t work well for everyone. We know there are some people who tolerate that, but a lot of people really don’t.
Doctors’ Restrictions
And so the situation patients find themselves in often is that their doctors will say. Well, a few doctors are no longer comfortable prescribing this xanax addiction, and you’ve got to be off in two months. This is the plan, and if you don’t like it, you have to find another doctor.
But as I mentioned in the past, that’s not really an option because a lot of doctors don’t take these benzodiazepine cases. Or if they do, they force taper them as well.
Higher Risks After Age 65
Unfortunately xanax addiction, the highest risk period for this, from our professionals’ experience, has been when someone turns age 65, and that’s because there’s something called the BES criteria out there. This is a criterion that gives guidelines about the types of medications people should be on and shouldn’t be on, and after you turn 65.
It says that benzodiazepines are high risk xanax addiction because they’re associated with more sedation and falls in the elderly.
Brutal Withdrawal Symptoms
So part of the big deal about the force tapering is that withdrawal symptoms from benzodiazepines can be absolutely brutal. There is no shortage of people out there talking about this online. In fact, some people even say that coming off xanax addiction was harder than coming off heroin, and it makes sense because the withdrawal symptoms are nasty.
Common Withdrawal Symptoms
We’re talking about:
- Increased anxiety
- Insomnia
- Muscle tension and tightness
These can be some of the hardest withdrawal xanax addiction signs to bear.
The Risk of Abrupt Discontinuation
To make matters worse, if you’re someone who gets abruptly cut off from these medications, there’s even a risk of death. Out of all the substances out there, there are only two that can actually cause death from withdrawal reaction: benzodiazepines and alcohol.
The reason is that these xanax addictions are depressants. If you stop them suddenly, you can end up having a seizure. And if the seizure is severe enough, it can shut down the parts of your brain involved in your cardiac system and breathing system, essentially leading to death. However, this typically only happens if you are abruptly cut off.
Long-Term Withdrawal Issues
Now, going back to the withdrawal symptoms. A lot of these can last for many months or even longer. In fact, there is a small group of people who, when they come off these medications, develop a condition called benzodiazepine-induced neurological dysfunction (BIND).
This is a form of brain injury where people can have severe xanax addiction signs that go on for years. These people ultimately recover, but it can completely change your life and leave you quite disabled.
Silent Suffering Due to Lack of Recognition
Unfortunately, a lot of doctors don’t recognize BIND, or protracted withdrawal, which is another name for it. As a result, many patients suffer from this condition in silence, not really knowing what’s happened to them.
Traveling Becomes a Hassle
Many patients in the past have avoided traveling because traveling with controlled substances can be a risk. Sometimes people go into their bags and take them. Sometimes, hotel staff may even take their medications.
There is nothing worse than being stuck in a different state or even a different country and running out of these medications. Because it’s not like they can be mailed to you, and they are needed.
If they are not taken very quickly, the entire vacation can be derailed because of severe withdrawal. This often leads to situations where patients end up in emergency rooms, speaking with doctors in different languages.
Again, because of the stigma, they are probably treated unfairly and seen as drug addicts. So traveling with these medications just ends up introducing another headache and hassle, and people truly dislike that.
Memory Problems and Cognitive Decline
Most people regret taking drugs like Xanax because it has destroyed their memory. A lot of people who take this medication will report that they don’t consolidate their memories in the right way, and so they feel like they can’t remember large portions of their life.
Many patients have reported that they struggle to remember raising their children, having cherished memories with their parents, or going on wonderful trips with their spouse.
This has been observed again and again, and in fact, these memory problems can be so pervasive that there’s actually a lot of concern out there about benzodiazepines potentially causing Alzheimer’s disease. So it is highly recommended for anyone worried about cognitive decline, or if they are already struggling with memory, to be really cautious about taking benzos.
Dangerous Drug Interactions
Taking drugs like Xanax can make it really hard to get other important medications if you need them, particularly pain meds.
For example, if someone is in a serious accident and needs opiates afterwards for severe pain. But they are already taking benzodiazepines, it is very likely that doctors will force them off the benzodiazepines or simply refuse to prescribe the opiates. This is because of the black box warning on these medications.
If you’re not aware, there is a boxed warning that says when opiates and benzodiazepines are given together, it increases the risk of respiratory depression, which means people can essentially stop breathing. Because of this warning, it becomes really difficult to get these medications prescribed at the same time.
In addition to that, xanax addiction can also make patients more sensitive to other sedative medications or even substances like alcohol.
Dangerous Drug Interactions
Now, not for everyone, there are many people who just take them as prescribed. But we have to be honest about this. These drugs are really potent, and when taken, they can be very calming. If someone has an addictive personality and is experiencing a lot of anxiety and stress in life, it can be very easy to fall into the trap of using these medications to cover up those feelings.
The Impact of Addiction
Clearly, xanax addiction is a massive problem. It has wreaked havoc on the lives of many patients. People have lost their relationships, lost their jobs, and even gotten into car accidents where they’ve hurt others, completely changing their lives. It is a total tragedy.
The Danger of Illicit Sources
On top of that, many people who end up with xanax addiction problems start sourcing these drugs from the dark net, from other countries, or on the street. And the danger here is that you simply don’t know what’s in those drugs. You don’t know whether you’re really getting the drug or if it’s cut with some other substance like fentanyl, which can be extremely dangerous.
