Originally Posted by
sleepie 
That's ok otter I am gonna stick with this benzo taper thing, at least this guy seems to understand the relationship between benzoes and alcohol and how easy it is to rely on one when discomfort from living without the other is.
Hey Sleepie, I always tend to forget to mention the benzos when I talk about getting sober. I really shouldn't do that. In my country benzos are a real plague, they used to be subscribed when you twitched your finger so to speak.
I used the xanax in the morning to combat the hangover from drinking. That worked for a long time and I even thought I was "beating the system". After a while it became clear that was an illusion, as I was withdrawing from benzos in the evening and booze in the morning.
Benzos are a plague, and the folks at the rehab said as much: they found that many people who came in for alcohol also were addicted to benzos, and that it's very hard (almost impossible) to become sober from just one of them.
I don't want to share how they treated this double addiction during detox, as that would be too close to medical "advice", but it worked very well with very few side effects. Have not longed for a xanax or equivalent since.
In short: benzo and alcohol abuse are often closely linked, and have a weird and dangerous cross-effect, but you can stop both at the same time, it can be done, but to be safe (and I really want to stress this), not without medical supervision.