Xanax for alcohol withdrawal symptoms?
Friday, August 6th, 2010 at
10:29 am
My doctor prescribed Xanax to treat alcohol withdrawal symptoms and to also reduce panic, as I just quit drinking. Does anyone have experience with using Xanax for this purpose? If so, any suggestions on how long it took before the withdrawal symptoms of alcohol went away, etc, etc. Any info is much appreciated. Thanks so much!
Tagged with: Alcohol • Symptoms • Withdrawal • Xanax
Filed under: Alcohol Withdrawal
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I’ve been using xanax for 8 years now. It’s mild stuff and just helps calm and settle a person. It really is the best sleeping pill around, but isn’t prescribed as one. Wanting alcohol I think is much like wanting many other things that ease the burden of living in our world. I quit smoking 9 months ago because I was so digusted by it. All these little addictions are just things we use to help us feel better. Obviously you have decided you don’t want to drink cause it’s not helping you. Stay strong and stay distracted. Keep busy, drink lots of water, and find things that make you feel good. You don’t want to become depressed, so find things that stimulate you and that you love to replace that desire to use alcohol to improve your mood. All these addictions are an emotional game, and distraction is the key. Sometimes after too many xanax when I wake up I think my body is going through some withdrawl symptoms, but generally it should relax you. I tried like 11 different meds like anti depressants etc and the xanax is the only one that helps me. If I get really upset it will calm me down in an instant. I can see how it would help you stop drinking. It’s a very mild calming sedative that I find is effective.
It’s important to take the Xanax as prescribed to avoid any dependence issues.
The purpose isn’t to switch addictions… taking Xanax will aid the poster to deal with the alcohol withdrawal, which can actually become dangerous to your health (obviously in the long-run, alcohol is bad for your health, but in the short-term, alcohol withdrawal can actually kill you if it’s severe enough). Sometimes, adding a drug is necessary to get the person off an abused drug, for their safety. Otherwise, he would need to take small amounts of alcohol every day and slowly drink less and less, and this practice is unlikely to result in successful abstinence from alcohol.
You’re just replacing one addiction with another. That’s not good. I can’t believe your doctor recommended this.