I deleted the thread cause I posted under the AA board and figured alot of people here would see it there. Anyway, I'm 25 days sober, but I posted here cause I'm taking alot of xanax, even more so after I stopped drinking. Not under a prescription, I averaged about 3mg a day, now after not drinking, I'm doing between 6-8 mg a day. Last year I stopped for 6 days and had a seizure, though I'm not epileptic. Was just looking for advice on how to wean myself off of it, cause cold turkey is obviously not good. Thanks for any help/advice.
thanks for coming back and cluing us in. I'm sure you'll get some help with that. All I could tell you is consult with a Dr. about backing off.
One thing that I can say it that all those things that we do (drugs, drinking...) are to relieve stress, fear, anxiety, pain... and they do it very well. So well that our bodies lose their ability to relieve stress on their own but we handicap ourselves through substance abuse and our tollerance to stress eventually falls to Zero. We can rebuild our natural ability to calm our stress, fear, worry and our program gives us many more tools to do the same. That's very much part of the process of getting clean and sober.
Then as we get a handle on relieving these stressors, we can go about getting to the root causes (issues) of them. Typically most are our reactions to old ideas that have been bouncing around unchallenged in our head since our early years. So as you prepare yourself to do without these mood altering substances, be looking for and implementing stress relief techniques (deep breathing exercises, listening to relaxing music, recreational activities, hobbies, interacting with pets, gardening, yoga, thai chi....) and moving away from stressful environments, stressful careers, toxic friends and family...learning how to drive a car again without trying to kill the other drivers
In early recovery, I had to get out of a dysfunctional marriage, leave a stressful construction management position (best job that I ever had $$$) distance myself from old friends and some family members for awhile. Great things happened as a result. I became self employed and have been loving that for 20 years now. I found ways of communicating with my parents that respected them and made them respect me. Most of my old friends had to go, but some of them I helped by example and the came into the program years later on their own. Unfortunately, the stress management task never goes away, but it gets easier. We learn to spot our stress level rising and use the tools that we have learned to dissapate it before an eruption (hopefully, none of us ever gets our halo lol) occurs.
Bottom line, I love my "new" life and don't miss my old one at all
