Originally Posted by
sandrawg 
Bleck. I was on benzos for a while for anxiety and got addicted. They can be h*** to get off of.
To me, benzos aren't much different than alcohol. They work in a similar fashion on your GABA receptors and in fact, when I was on Xanax, I felt like I was drunk.
NO wonder they are so heavily abused.
Frankly I am skeptical of drs-all they want to do is prescribe drugs. NOt sure how adding another drug to the mix, helps people with the spiritual deficits that cause them to numb their problems with drinking.
OP, your friend has a much better chance of being sober altogether if he gets into a program, but there is literally nothing you can do to get him in one. He won't go til he's ready.
Pot, alcohol, benzos..IMO they're all the same...ways to escape emotions and self-medicate spiritual pain.
I can't tell you how much I agree. The Dr. that put him on them was young, but the head of the Psyc dept didn't take him off them immediately because our friend threw a fit! What? The Dr. knew better and was going to take him off, but our friend knew what he was getting and was psyched so he got maniputlative (of course). Even I can see that!
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He tried to get back in to a program (he did it for about a month last fall) at the local VA; he's a vet, lives nearby, volunteers there, his claim is through them etc., but they won't take him because he intimidates the other patients. They talked about sending him to another one, but because he got rejected and he's found a new drug of choice, he doesn't want to go anymore. Just talking about this is good, yet tiring.