"Also anecdote: the easiest way to quit alcohol is with xanax."
Ugh. Replacing addiction with addiction. Go this route if you have extreme medical conditions requiring it. EG. You are an alcoholic with serious liver issues, then by all means substitue xanax. Rehabs are full of people with xanax issues.
But we seem to have no issue, with Suboxone. That is, quite literally, replacing one addiction with another.
Opiate/oid withdrawal is pretty awful. You feel like you will die, but that seldom happens (unless you have other issues).
Withdrawal from alcohol, on the other hand, is, quite frequently, deadly (that's why medical alcohol detox is recommended).
Benzo withdrawals make alcohol withdrawals look like a case of the sniffles.
I think that we are best off, with no addiction to anything, but I also know that many folks can't seem to achieve that.
But deliberately addicting to benzos is crazy. They do use drugs like Librium to medically detox folks from alcohol, but that is quite short term, and is meant to keep you from dying.
Benzos are often given short term- 3-5 days on a taper schedule to someone in detox. It is not recommended to give a script to an alky. Benzos are not as dangerous to withdraw from as alcohol but are horrible to detox from as they are fat soluble.
Not sure if you are asking a question or not.
To clarify, my understanding is that there is a greater risk of death when detoxing from alcohol,although it is possible to die from benzo withdrawal it is not as common. My information comes from registered nurses who worked in Rehabs, and years of interaction with a lot of ex-drunks. I did a very light search last night, but did not find anything that gave good comparisons.
Well, I've known a lot of ex-everythings (over the last 40 years). I have never personally known anyone that has died from detox of alcohol, or anything else.
However, I have listened to many, many horror stories (and seen them, acted out, in front of me). In all cases, the benzo withdrawals took forever (like months and years), and included seizures, hallucinations, and neverending insomnia.
Ok. I think we are on the same page. I have never seen a detox death either. I have heard that benzo's are the hardest to withdraw from, and it does sound pretty frightening. For a lot of alcoholics the hardest thing to quit is nicotine. The really scary cases are the folks who start taking Valium to keep from shaking until they start drinking.
Ugh. Replacing addiction with addiction. Go this route if you have extreme medical conditions requiring it. EG. You are an alcoholic with serious liver issues, then by all means substitue xanax. Rehabs are full of people with xanax issues.