DOSE:

oral

Pharms - Alprazolam

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

175 lb

I began taking Xanax in the summer of 2003; my friend had 1mg “footballs” 2 for $5 so I tried them. I loved the way Xanax accented the high of smoking marijuana (I have smoked weed nearly everyday since 1996) the combination of weed and Xanax together was amazing to me. I felt like everything was perfect, music sounded different and more beautiful than ever before.

For the first few months two 1 mg pills a day was great, but after a while my habit got worse; so bad that 2 pills for $5 was much too expensive. So down to Tijuana I went, in the summer of 2004 I was making monthly trips to TJ picking up 270 1mg pills for $180 each time. I was now taking about 4mgs a day. On one trip down to TJ I was nearly arrested when the Policia searched me and barely missed feeling the bundle of pills tucked under my ball sack. I got the hell out of TJ and never went back.

I started looking for the best deals online; back in 2005 I was getting 180 2mg “bars” for $240 (boy how times have changed). Now that I was taking the 2mg bars I was up to 6-8mgs a day. During these years of my life I was able to hold down a few jobs and my tolerance to Xanax was so high that I could still function normally on 4mg doses; but I wasn’t feeling good like the Xanax used to make me feel. I now just felt numb to the world and was extremely depressed and had suicidal thoughts on a daily basis.

The suicidal thoughts culminated in January of 2006 when I attempted to kill myself by taking twenty-five 2mg 'bars' at once. After ingesting the 50 mg of Xanax my first thought was, “What did I do?” I became very scared and laid down on the bed, within 15 minutes I was no longer scared at all. The Xanax began to kick in rather quickly and I fell into a deep sleep while having visions of different times of my life play in my head. I woke up 12 hours later having felt like I was a sleep for only a few minutes. I was completely disoriented and didn’t know what was going on. I found out that my girlfriend (who I lived with) realized what I did and had left me. I called her cell phone and she said it was over between us. Still completely out of it I got in my car and drove to her, on the way I took my car up a curb and messed up the rim. I got to where she was and she refused to talk to me, I was still slurring my speech and very disoriented. I drove back home and when I arrived home I could remember very little about when I was driving, I wasn’t sure how I made it home. [Erowid Note: Driving while intoxicated, tripping, or extremely sleep deprived is dangerous and irresponsible because it endangers other people. Don't do it!]
I went back to sleep for another 8 hours, the second time I woke up I felt a little less hazy and I could think a little better. I did about a half gram of coke that I had and contemplated how lucky I was to be alive and wondered if I had caused any permanent damage to myself (I was later told by a doctor that if my tolerance wasn’t already so high or if I had drunk any alcohol that day then I would have almost certainly died). I went back to my normal 6-8 mg a day of Xanax and had only minor comedown symptoms from the 50 mg experience. I eventually got back together with my girlfriend.

With Xanax prices now around $349 for 90 2mg pills I cannot afford this addiction and I would like to regain control of my own mind . I have been slowly dropping my dose for the last 3 months and I am now down to 1mg per day. The comedown so far has been excruciating, I began by dropping my dose to just 4 mg per day and after two days I had severe headaches, sensitivity to sound and light, and panic attacks. These comedown symptoms lasted a few days while my brain adjusted to the new dose, then I stayed at the new dose for a few weeks and eventually dropped it by .5mg again. Even when just dropping the dose by .5mg at a time I had horrible comedown symptoms, as mentioned above, about 48 hours after the drop in dosage. Now that I am down to just 1 mg per day I will need to get .25mg pills to comedown the rest of the way. I hope to be completely off of this drug within another 2 months and I will never take it again.

I think Xanax works miracles with panic attacks and GAD (General Anxiety Disorder), but the potential for abuse is enormous because of the euphoric feelings it can give me and the ever growing tolerance that the body develops for the drug. I will never know exactly how Xanax has changed my life, but I know it has changed it for the worse. Nearly five years of my life is a blur due to my abuse of Xanax, many times while on Xanax I felt that life wasn’t worth living, I wasted countless thousands of dollars over the years on this drug. Use with caution, or better yet don’t use at all.

Exp Year: 2003-2008	ExpID: 70616
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 24, 2016	Views: 8,494
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Pharms - Alprazolam (98) : Various (28), Addiction & Habituation (10), Retrospective / Summary (11)