First of all 4mgs of any benzo ain't jack**** once you build a tolerance which takes as little as several days. Never heard of anyone needing assisted breathing either, unless it's with liters upon liters of alcohol. When you have status epilepticus in the emergency room, the bioavailability of a benzo increases significantly if not exponentially. Considering they usually inject it in the mainline, why do more? Oral administration is a different beast.
Either way I've been down the slippery slope of benzodiazepine abuse, albeit on a much smaller scale. Keep in mind that benzos stay in your body for a very long time. The half life of most "daily anxyolytics" is around 48 hours, Xanax significantly less. So if you're still emotionless (this is a perfectly normal side effect by the way, I had that too but for a shorter time. I was back within about 2-3 months, but I was also doing stimulants and other drugs at the time) you may want to just tough it out.
The actual withdrawals don't even start until a significant portion of the dose is out of your system, so it can easily take months. I've heard some people taking a year or more to fully get off after decades of benzo use.
Clonazepam and a few other benzos also affect serotonin, dopamine and other neurotransmitters in a subtle way so that could all be a part of it.
I personally got very lucky because my body developed a TOTAL intolerance to ANY benzodiazepine agent and I'm so glad. Basically we'd all take these benzos from the same batch and my friends would say it's all good and gravy, but I'd end up basically puking up bile, mucus and all kinds of other crap for about the duration of the effect (yeah 24 hours, puke every 3-4, nice isn't it?) and it would barely feel like placebo effect-wise.
So my body basically communicated with my brain which said: "This dumb ass is gonna get hooked on benzos for good if you don't do something about it".
Sadly, my sleep patterns never really returned to normal so unless I'm out cold after exercise, sex, or a stressful day, I sleep like complete and total crap.
Either way, gettin off benzos is tough and presents tons of challenges down the road - the main one is called dealing with life without a chemical crutch, that is hard as hell, I wish you luck and all the power to ya to get off that bs.
Another thing about it is that you get "the whole nine" when it comes to side effects and getting off. Pretty much any and every negative effect possible will be there. Really, I wish you much luck because I've had former junkies telling me they'd much rather suffer heroin withdrawals for months, than a benzo withdrawal for even a couple of days.
It is possible and people have done it before so just tough up and you'll pull through. One more thing: DON'T do antidepressants, they're a short term solution and will only give you more trouble down the road.
Edited by russianBEAR, 06 August 2009 - 10:10 AM.
