Category: benzodiazepine

Benzo Flu: Benzodiazepine Detox and Withdrawal

Today, benzodiazepines are one of the most misused prescription drugs on the market. In fact, in 2021, an estimated 3.9 million people misused prescription benzodiazepines, whether for recreational or self-medication use. Benzos are challenging for users because they are highly addictive in that they are both dependence inducing and in that they result in significant withdrawal symptoms. Someone who starts using may be forced to keep using until a point when they can afford taking up to five weeks off to be sick – and that can be extremely difficult for many.

Benzodiazepines are mostly used under close supervision with medical doctors with Risk Evaluation and Mitigation programs in place. However, if you’ve been using before those measures were put in place, slipped through the cracks, or started using recreationally, you could easily be dealing with a significant drug dependence. Quitting benzos means withdrawing from them and doing so means seeking out medical care so you can do so safely. Benzo flu is the term used to refer to withdrawal – which can be two or more weeks of significant medical side effects.

What is Benzo Flu?

Benzo flu is the street term used to refer to the withdrawal period for benzodiazepines. Benzos significantly impact large areas of the brain and change the chemical and hormonal output of the brain. This means that withdrawing from them can be significant and can be dangerous.

In most cases, benzo flu results in symptoms like:

Heavy sweating
Panic attacks
Anxiety

Nausea and vomiting
Dizziness or lightheadedness
Headaches

Insomnia or sleeplessness
Hallucinations
Psychosis

Irritability
Mood Swings
Shaking and tremors
Seizures

These symptoms typically start out fairly light and increase over the first few days. Most people start shaking and sweating and will feel like they have the flu. You may also have a runny nose and watery eyes. These typically happen as your brain re-adapts to changes in chemicals like neurotransmitters. Here, GABBA, dopamine, and serotonin are the most effected.

Here, withdrawal is often called a “flu” because you basically have to take several weeks off work. You will be too sick to work. And, you may spend the entire time coughing and vomiting, just like with the flu.

What’s the Timeline for Benzo Withdrawal?

In most cases, you can expect benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms to last for about two to five weeks or a bit longer. In some cases, you might also suffer from post-acute withdrawal symptoms, which means that withdrawal may last for up to three months. In each case, it’s important to ensure you have medical monitoring so you can get intervention and treatment if things start to go wrong.

In addition, the severity and longevity of symptoms will depend on what kind of benzos you’re taking, how heavy of a user you are, and how long you’ve been taking them. Your gender, age, body fat, and other factors will also play a role. For example, benzos are stored in body fat, which means that the withdrawal process will take longer if you have more body fat.

In most cases the withdrawal timeline look something like:

Early Withdrawal – Early withdrawal starts within about 12 hours of your last dose but as early as 6. You’ll typically start craving more of the drug. That will evolve into anxiety which will continue to escalate over the course of the day. If you normally take benzos to treat panic attacks, the lack of benzos could also trigger panic or anxiety attacks. Most people also can’t sleep.
Peak – Symptoms escalate over the first 1-5 days. This will mean that every day, symptoms are worse than the day before. This stage can last for up to 14 days if you have long-acting benzos. Here, you’ll develop extra symptoms like sweating, anxiety, panic, nausea, vomiting, general malaise, and headaches. You’ll also be at risk of hallucinations and paranoia. Most people also tremble, and you may have seizures. However, if you do, it is important to contact your doctor immediately.
Plateau – Symptoms will stop escalating and will be about the same for about 2-5 days or for up to 3 weeks for long-acting benzos. During this stage, the symptoms will remain about the same and won’t continue to escalate. Therefore, if you’re suffering from severe withdrawal effects, you may need medical treatment so that it stays safe.
Recovery – Withdrawal symptoms will start to taper off and will take 5-15 days to go away for short-acting benzos and up to 4 weeks for long-acting ones. Here, the intensity of symptoms gradually declines, and some symptoms may fall away altogether.

This extremely long and intense withdrawal is often why many doctors prefer to use a tapering schedule for benzos. This means you’ll cut your benzo dose in half every week to every few days, reducing the amount of benzos in your system slowly. You’ll still feel bad for the entire time, but you won’t be putting yourself at risk of life-threatening seizures. However, if you’re struggling with addiction and seeking behavior or self-control around benzos, this approach may not work for you.

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Risk of Seizures

Anyone who withdraws from benzodiazepines is at significant risk of seizures. Benzos interact with the GABBA receptors in the brain, which results in seizures during withdrawal in every substance known to interact with GABBA. (E.g., alcohol). In addition, some 20% of all persons withdrawing from benzodiazepines have a risk of grand mal seizures. These are significant seizures that can threaten your life and your long-term health if left untreated. For this reason, it’s extremely important that you either take a medically monitored tapering program to reduce benzo usage or that you receive anti-seizure and convulsant medication and detox under medical monitoring. Benzo withdrawal can have life threatening complications.

What is Benzodiazepine Detox?

Detox means getting medical monitoring and support during your withdrawal. Depending on your situation, you are also significantly likely to be recommended into a tapering schedule first. However, if your doctor doesn’t think you can safely manage a tapering schedule, you’ll likely be recommended into a clinic for treatment and detox instead.

Tapering – You might be asked to switch to a lighter benzodiazepine. You might also be asked to cut your dose down over about 10 weeks first. This will reduce the danger involved with detox. However, if you’re struggling with addiction, tapering programs rarely work.

Medical Monitoring – Your detox should include medical monitoring to ensure nothing goes wrong. That means checking in on your health, responding in case of alarming side effects, and giving you the medication and treatment you need to withdraw safely. Often that will mean reducing the intensity of symptoms. However, it may also mean simply responding in case of seizures or to prevent seizures.

Behavioral Health Treatment – Many detox programs integrate early behavioral health interventions to ensure you have the tools to stay off of benzos once you get clean. Of course, you’ll still need follow-up treatment for addiction and drug dependency. However, early-stage behavioral health interventions can help you to withdraw in a more comfortable fashion because you’ll have support, motivation, and help at every step.

Getting Help

If you or a loved one is struggling with benzodiazepines, it’s important to get help. That should normally start out with a visit to your primary healthcare provider – where you can talk about your usage, get input on tapering, and get a referral to a detox program and treatment program. Having medical monitoring during your benzodiazepine withdrawal can be lifesaving, so it is important that you check into a detox center to ensure you have the care you need.

Good luck getting off of benzodiazepines.

If you or your loved-one struggles from alcoholism or other substance abuse please contact us today and speak with one of our experienced and professional intake advisors about our alcohol rehab, detox, partial hospitalization, and residential treatment programs. 10 Acre Ranch also has specialty tracks like our pet friendly drug rehab and couples substance abuse treatment programs. We’re here to help you recover.

What Are the Most Addictive Prescription Medications?

More than 1/3^rd of Americans, or 66% of all adults, or 131 million people, take at least one prescription medication. Americans spend some $73 billion on prescription drugs annually, and that’s often with the expectation that those drugs will improve our health, reduce symptoms, and improve our quality of life. Unfortunately for many, prescription drugs don’t work the same for everyone and many can be habit forming and addictive. In fact, while awareness of the addictive potential of pain pills and opioids is on the rise, prescription opioid usage is still one of the leading causes of moving on to street drugs like heroin.

If you or a loved one is being prescribed a medication, you don’t have to worry. Talk to your doctor, request a Risk Evaluation and Management Strategy (REMS), and go in for your checkups. As long as you use the prescription medication as directed, you shouldn’t have problems with the drug. However, it’s important to have those discussions, to understand your risks, and to understand how prescription drugs can impact your health and your mental health.

Many drugs can be habit forming or dependence inducing, meaning they are “addictive”. However, the following are the most addictive prescription medications.

Opioids

Opioids are the most well-known class of prescription painkillers. These drugs all work in similar ways, by binding to the opiate receptors in the brain. In small doses, they can reduce your perception of pain and create a calming or sedative effect. In high doses, they can create euphoria and intense highs that can be extremely addictive.

For many people, opioids are the most addictive drug. In fact, fentanyl, an extremely strong opioid, is one of the most addictive in the world, and also takes part in some 70% of all opioid overdoses.

Common opioids include:

Oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet)
Codeine
Fentanyl
Meperidine (Demerol)

Each of these drugs has different properties and strengths. However, all of them work in the same way. All of them also cause euphoria when taking large doses. And, people abusing these drugs normally start to show long-term cold and flu symptoms, stomach problems, lethargy or drops in energy, and increased “seeking behavior”. Here, individuals think about, use, or spend time acquiring drugs for a significant portion of their day, their behavior changes, and they may prioritize drugs over anything else.

Once someone is physically dependent on an opioid medication, getting off of it will require a withdrawal phase. That can mean up to 2 weeks of severe cold and flu symptoms, anxiety, and depression, which can interfere with normal life and responsibilities. For this reason, many people using pain pills end up continuing to use them to avoid withdrawal symptoms, despite no longer needing them for pain management.

However, if you receive an opioid medication, you’ll likely only have it for a few weeks. Doctors are increasingly aware of the dangers of opioid addiction and will therefore normally take large steps to ensure you are safe while you receive your prescription.

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Benzodiazepines

Benzodiazepines are a class of central nervous system suppressants used to treat anxiety, panic attacks, and the symptoms of PTSD. Previously, they were also used for sleep issues. Today, some 30.5 million people have a prescription or use benzos illicitly. However, 17.1% of all people with a benzodiazepine prescription misuse them and a further 2% qualify as having a drug use disorder.

Benzodiazepines include:

Diazepam (Valium)
Lorazepam (Ativan)
Clonazepam (Klonopin)
Alprazolam (Xanax)
Midazolam (Versed)

Today, most doctors won’t prescribe these drugs without a co-occurring therapy requirement. It’s also unlikely that you’ll receive a prescription for longer than 5 weeks. However, many people have had benzodiazepine prescriptions for years.

Unfortunately, these drugs are highly addictive and can cause significant psychological reliance, where users might work themselves into panic attacks because they don’t have the drug in case something goes wrong.

In addition, many people experience significant withdrawal symptoms while trying to quit benzos. Often, the only safe way to get off of them is to slowly taper usage over the course of a few weeks or months. If you go cold turkey on a benzodiazepine, chances of severe symptoms like seizures are high. For this reason, it’s not recommended to quit benzodiazepines without medical supervision,

Sedatives

Sedatives or prescription sleeping pills include several classes of drugs but most of them have similar effects and a similar addiction profile. Often, these drugs are prescribed for the short term, alongside a REMS, and alongside therapy that is intended to resolve the root of the problem rather than symptoms. However, some people have been on sleeping pill prescriptions for decades. Today, we know that these drugs are addictive and dependence inducing. But, if you’ve been on one for some time, chances of dependence and possible addiction are high.

Common sleeping pills include:

Zolpidem (Ambien, Zolpimist, Edluar)
Zaleplon (Sonata)
Triazolam (Halcion)
Temazepam (Restoril)
Ramelteon (Rozerem)
Eszopiclone (Lunesta)
Doxepin (Silenor)

All of these drugs are dependence inducing. In addition, like benzos, you should not stop most of these drugs cold turkey. Instead, they should be tapered off to avoid causing major symptoms such as seizures and major paranoia. For this reason, it’s always a good idea to consult with a doctor before quitting a sleeping medication or sedative.

Amphetamines

Amphetamines are most-famous for street drugs like methamphetamine. However, they also make up a large selection of prescription medications including ADD and ADHD treatments like Ritalin, Concerta, and Adderall.

Adderall (Myadayis)
Methylphenidate (Concerta, Ritalin)

However, these amphetamines are rarely severely habit forming. Instead, most people will never have problems. At the same time, heavy abuse, especially in combination with other drugs or alcohol, can cause significant.

Getting Help

If you or a loved one is struggling with a prescription medicine, there is help. The first step should normally be to go to your doctor, who can offer insight into your prescription use, where it went wrong, and what the next steps should be. Depending on your specific case, you may benefit from therapy, tapering off the drug, or rehab and drug abuse treatment. However, in most cases, if you’re compulsively using a drug, you’ll need therapy and treatment to help you resolve the underlying causes – or your risk of relapse or changing to a different drug will remain high.

Prescription medications can be dangerous. However, they can also be lifesaving. Following the prescription, avoiding mixing drugs, and stopping drug usage when you no longer need it can all help you to stay safe when using prescription medication. However, you should always discuss your plans and their safety with your doctor before changing how you use or take a prescription medication.

If you or your loved-one struggles from substance abuse please contact us today and speak with one of our experienced and professional intake advisors about our detox, partial hospitalization, and residential treatment programs. We’re here to help you recover.

Can Couples Go to Rehab Together?

Deciding to get sober is the first step in a journey that can lead to a life better than you can imagine. However, it’s a decision that’s not always easy, and sometimes it’s complicated by your relationships. If you and your partner have been using drugs and alcohol together, you may wonder how to quit using drugs and alcohol while keeping the relationship. Your relationship may have problems that may have been caused or worsened by both of your drug use. It may all feel very overwhelming, and you may not even know if your partner has any interest in getting sober. The first step is to ask them, If your partner also wants to get sober, your next question may be can couples go to rehab together, and the answer is yes. At 10 Acre Ranch, we understand a couple wanting to get sober and have the programs in place to help you beat addiction together.

Can Couples Go to Rehab Together?

Recovering from addiction while trying to repair relationships is hard enough. It might be more complicated when you and your partner are recovering at the same time. That is why couples can go to rehab together. Couples drug rehab allows each of you to get the individual treatment you need while also working on your relationship. You will both work through your individual treatment at your own pace, but there will be opportunities to come together to do the relationship work as well. Your addictions have harmed you both as individuals and within your relationship. Going to treatment together will allow you to understand better how your relationship has been affected and how to move forward. You can work together to support each other’s recovery plans while you mend your relationship.

Pros of Couples Treatment

Successful relationships require commitment and attention. Like a neglected lawn that gets overrun by weeds, your relationship will be taken over by the issues you ignore. Adding addiction into the mix only serves to complicate the problems and create more unrest in your relationship. Going to treatment together enables you to start clearing away the debris while you are building a firm foundation for your sobriety. By attending treatment together, you will be able to work on your sobriety and your relationship in a safe, supportive environment. You will each understand the work that the other has done within rehab. Attending rehab together allows you to work on your relationship while progressing in your recovery rather than waiting until you have finished treatment. Together you can build firm foundations for your recovery and your revitalized relationship. While you are both responsible for your individual sobriety, you can support each other throughout. Couples who engage in therapy together report a significant reduction in substance use and increased satisfaction in their relationships.

Cons of Couples Treatment

We understand the value that you place on your relationship. However, we also know it’s essential you put your recovery first. Going to rehab together can make that difficult, especially if your relationship is filled with unhealthy behaviors. Many relationships that revolve around addiction are also wrought with codependency, making it very challenging to focus on your own recovery. Completing rehab together is a possibility, but you have to evaluate if it’s the best decision for you as an individual. Sometimes you have to take a step back from your relationship to work on yourself alone. Our treatment staff can help you determine the best course for you.

Get Help Today at 10 Acre Ranch

At 10 Acre Ranch, we’ve provided Southern California with expert and caring addiction treatment for over 25 years. Our mission is to rebuild lives, restore families, and improve communities. We are one of the leading rehab facilities in California. We provide a warm and welcoming environment where we tailor healing to the whole person. We are committed to helping you break the destructive cycle of isolation that many develop during active addiction.

Empowering Your Partner With Couples Addiction Recovery

a couple having deep conversation during sunset

Struggling with addiction is hard enough. Add in being in a relationship with someone who is also struggling with addiction, and it’s even more challenging. Addiction complicates even the best of relationships. It’s hard to know what problems are tied to your addiction and what problems are just the relationship itself. If your partner has no interest in getting sober, you might be facing the end of your relationship. But, if you both realize that you have a problem with drugs and alcohol, you might wonder if there’s a way forward for you together. The short answer is yes. You can get sober and support each other through couples’ addiction recovery empowerment. At 10 Acre Ranch, we understand your wanting to find your way to sobriety together, and we have programs in place to help you get on the road to recovery as partners.

What Is Couples Addiction Recovery Empowerment?

Addiction recovery is challenging and complex work. Completing this work within a relationship adds another layer. Couples addiction recovery empowerment enables you both to recognize the work that each of you must do to recover as individuals so that you can continue in your relationship. Instead of going to different treatment centers, you can attend treatment at the same facility. With individualized treatment plans, you will each progress through treatment at your own pace. However, you will also have the opportunity to go to therapy together to examine how your addictions have affected your relationship. Doing this in a safe and therapeutic setting offers you the chance to heal as individuals and as a couple.

Why Is Couples Addiction Recovery Empowerment Important?

Being in a romantic relationship can present challenges. Struggling with addiction and being in a relationship is a recipe for disaster. Seeking treatment together can enable you to heal yourselves and build a solid foundation for your future in recovery. Couples addiction recovery empowerment allows you to experience rehab similarly by being in the same treatment center while you empower your partner to heal themselves at their own individual pace. At 10 Acre Ranch, we understand how meaningful your relationship is to you, but we also know how important you work through your individual addictions. While there may be overlap in your treatment plans, there will also be room for individual needs.

You will likely both start by detoxing, and you may do this separately. Detox is not a pleasant experience. It may not serve your relationship or your recovery to go through detox together. However, you will likely reunite after detox as you both begin to do the work of building a life and a stronger relationship in recovery. We know you’re in this together, and we’re here to empower you and your relationship with treatment plans that prepare you to move forward as a sober couple. Instead of sharing your addiction, you can begin to share your recovery as a part of your relationship. Researchers have found that couples who participated in treatment and therapy together have a greater chance of remaining abstinent from using drugs. Additionally, couples who work together in recovery often have stronger and more satisfying relationships with each other and with their children. Finding your way out of addiction is a positive move for you and everyone you love.

Get Help Today With Addiction at 10 Acre Ranch

We’ve been providing Southern California with expert and caring addiction treatment for over twenty-five years. At 10 Acre Ranch, our mission is to rebuild lives, restore families, and improve communities. As one of the leading rehab facilities in California, we provide a welcoming environment for you to begin your recovery. We know how hard it is to break the destructive cycle of isolation that so often occurs in addiction. With a tailored treatment plan, we’ll partner with you to heal you holistically. Contact us today and let us help you with your addiction!

Can I Tell if Someone is on Benzos or Xanax?

benzodiazepine-Xanax-signs-of-abuse-prescription-drugs

Just like many other types of addictions, an addiction to Xanax will affect nearly every aspect of the person’s life. A typical addict will let their personal relationships deteriorate, while often isolating themselves socially. Job loss, financial hardship and legal troubles are common with those who are addicted to benzos. Developing a chemical dependence on Xanax can lead to many dangerous situations. Since benzodiazepines are sedatives, it is generally unsafe to operate an automobile, even when on a prescribed dose from a doctor.