I tried tapering. Like others have said here, it seems to work for a couple of days... When you wake up you feel better, but the withdrawals come sooner because the poison is being metabolized sooner.
But then after that two days or so, you say in your head: "Oh it's cool, I've only had like four beers today. I can get smashed JUST ONE MORE TIME!". Then you do something stupid a week later after being drunk for said entire week... It's just a bad deal. Detox medicine is so much easier, and frankly cheaper than drinking for a week. I spent $35 including prescription for outpatient detox. I was at doctor's office for 20 minutes... I was drinking $20 a night and blacking out for like 8 hours, so it was a no brainer for me.
Also, before someone says they don't want to get addicted to benzos, you only take them for a short amount of time. (I'm not anyone's doctor so I won't say how long, but for me it was 5 days) This was just my experience though.