[TexasDumb]

Barto, Mikiglen,

Thanks for writing. I will check out the home detox site. I need all the help I can get!

Barto, about my taper....I do not mean "I" want to rush it..Just I am sure my Doc wants me to... But there are other doctors and I have goooood insurance since I work for the Feds now.. Yep, that's right - I am a "G"man. Boy, I really like saying that, ha.
If my taper took two months or 10 months, it would be okay with me. 'Cause I never want to be pulling my hair out like the last 14 nights and days. It was hard to function and my eyesight was so blurry, worse than when with alcohol, and I normally have 20/20.
Also, my concentration came and went and for my job, I usually drive 80-180 miles a day. I skipped some days (luckily I can, as I set my own hours,) because I did not feel safe behind the wheel and I was cold sober...

But today when I got back from the Doc's and before I blasted off to work, I actually took a one hour nap on my recliner in the BRIGHT sunshine. And I ATE 3 times today....What a concept!
I did need to re-taper, huh????

You asked what lead to me wanting/needing these pills to begin with? My Divorce? Yea, kind of.

Truth be told, I really did not need anti-anxiety to begin with. I needed anti-depressants.
But it did not know, so I told the Doc my problems and asked for anti-anxiety help. She thought okay, "Which do you want..Xanax or Valium?" I did not know, so I asked her what she thought. She thought Xanax.

Wrong. For me.
For the first 3 days I could not keep my eyes open I was so sleepy - there's a clue! I even called her to say I can't do these, but she was not in for a few days...

So, after a little while and I decided I wanted off, and had found some research, with the best being the Ashton Manual, I had to beg her twice to swithch me to Valium.
She finally did, but also set up a too-fast taper (actually non-existant) - I think I had 5 Xanax left to taper from the Xanax to my new Valium under-doseage.

So I was in trouble from the git, and I could not get her to budge. I should have found a different doctor that day...
She wanted me to taper from 3mgs of Xanax a day to 20 mgs (not even equal, according to Ashton's chart) and then from the 20 mgs to 0 in less than two months...

I was doomed. DOOMED. And I knew it.

But, I hoped, it had only been 4 and 1/2 months at that time, so I thought I might be one of the "lucky" ones with minimal withdrawal symptoms. I wasn't.

I still have a "speedy little metabolism - used to drive my wife crazy cause I could eat everything I wanted and a bag of chips every day and never gain a pound, and I guess I just metabolized them demonpill funsuckers out quickly enough to be "too" empty before my brain was ready.
In my humble medical opinion, of course, I skipped that day at med school.

But back to the why did I want to try some medication to help me. Mainly, of course it was my divorce in progress.
Or more likely the shock of coming to grips with my family breaking up.

I woke up last Feb. 1 next to my wife a married man, and went to bed that night divorced...

She had all the planning, I only barely expected anything. I had actually asked two days before that was she having an affair ( because she was treating me so badly for the last little while.)
Of course, she lied and said no.

Two days later, I got home early from work to catch the daughters from the bus after school and to let my wife get a full day of work in.
At 4:30 p.m. that afternoon, after us talking periodically nicely and normally throughout the day like nothing was up, she called me. She said she was through with work and would be home in an hour.
About two hours later, I began to worry for her a little, so I called her cell. It answered but she was not on it.
I began to litsten to the background noise on her cell, and lo and behold, she was doing the adultry nasty with someone.

She answered it on purpose she told me later, because she wanted to "hurt me as bad as I had hurt her."
That person, whoever she is, is not my friend.

I was stunned and shocked. She never came home again and left the girls with me for 3 weeks until she found a place to rent. Then she began to want to share custody of our children so we did. I would never keep my girls from their momma unless she was danger to them.

From the git, she said she did not want us to try to work out anything and then the next thing out of her mouth was "Maybe."

This went on for a few months, and I held out hope, because she had done this before but for a much shorter time....
Later, I finally realized she was just keeping me around for a "security blanket" and to bury the hatchet a little deeper into my feelings..

Finally, after she "sowed her oats from here to there," she told me she had met someone and thought she really liked them.
The next week she said she thought she "loved" them - (after knowing them 1 month, yea sure.)

Anyway, this rocked on a couple of weeks, until I found out she was dragging our daughters to his house while she had her fun on overnight visits.

I told her stop taking them on those kind of trips, what she did was her business, not theirs.

I said, drop them off with me, even if it is your night with them. Then go "do the whole town, but you oughta at least be getting paid for it. Maybe we could move to Vegas, and I could watch the kids and you could support us. There's money to be made out there, I hear."

She did not seem to care for that remark of mine too much, go figure...

She kept on, so I filed for divorce to protect my daughters (they are only 9 and 7.) Get some strong restrictions in our Temporary Orders to protect my daughters....

Did you know that in our US society, 82% of all divorces are filed by women.

Two reasons - most us men ARE pigs, and Reason two, women tend to think the "grass is greener over there."

What they fail to realize is Rule number one!
It ain't greener, it's just a different kind of Hell, usually.

So, I am one of the 18% of men who filed for their divorces. And to put me an even smaller class, I did not even want a divorce!!! I never did think like everybody else. A different egg, I am.

But what hurt me so bad, besides the usual hurts that divorce and rejection bring on, is that I had truly made a Commitment to my wife, my marriage, my daughters, and our family. And when I make a commitment, I mean it.
It is hard for me to un-make/unlearn this thing.

I will, it's is just so engrained in me, that like sobriety, it takes a little while to get used to , I guess.

I read on several people's posts, a quote at the bottom that I really like and probably fits me..to paraphrase it goes something like this:
"When one door shuts, another door opens, we just may not see it because we spend to much time looking at the closed door..."

Anyway, I know this is long and rambling, and probably should have been sent to Dear Abby instead of you guys. But, Barto, you did ask, ha.
And it felt so good getting it out there and out of me....

By the way, Barto, I read the two quotes you included, and forgive me, I can't understand them for sure, I think. Remember my name, ha.
Maybe you can explain them a little for me,?

Later and thanks, y'all.
Tonight, temporarily signing off as "Texas Screwed."