Little Blue Footballs: Xanax Addiction – Part 3

Xanax (1mg Tablets)

After several months, I was taking close to 8mg of Xanax a day – twice the amount recommended by Pfizer – and my psychiatrist was about to increase the dosage once again.

Finally, I voiced my concerns. Is there a limit on the dosage for Xanax? Or will I keep increasing the dosage indefinitely?

He told me not to worry; he wrote prescriptions for himself all time. After discussing the situation with him, I realized he had a Xanax dependency as well. I felt sick to my stomach and felt stupid for not asking questions sooner.

I began to secretly taper my dosage – much too rapidly – while my prescriptions for Xanax were adding up. It was a horrible period. My anxiety came back even worse than before, and I could feel new unpleasant sensations: crawling skin, rapid heartbeats, nervous tics, and I began to become extremely irritable.

Suddenly, my psychiatrist was about to retire, and he was desperate for me to start using Buspar (a non-benzodiazepine) to control my anxiety. I refused, since I was still working with Xanax and didn’t want to add yet another chemical to my body’s chemistry. (Later, I did try Buspar under a different doctor’s care – It didn’t help me at all).

Within two weeks after my psychiatrist retired, his office caught fire, burning all medical records. I will let the readers draw their own conclusions.

But now I had a new problem. I was still addicted to Xanax, both physically and psychologically, and now needed a new doctor to help me with my “habit.” I found myself to be an “accidental addict” and had to do something about it. On top of this, my father had been diagnosed with cancer and diabetes, which only made my depression worse. I began to make some very unwise decisions of which I’m not proud.

(To be continued…)

Part 4 of this topic here