Posted by Alexander on December 31, 2003, at 16:34:31
In reply to Re: is Xanax more addictive than alcohol?, posted by dragonfly25 on December 30, 2003, at 23:47:59
> benzodiazapines can be quite dangerous if stopped suddenly- just thought i'd add that. but alcohol has the most dangerous withdrawal for sure
>
> > I suspect xanax is more addictive then alcohol, in the sense that tolerance and dependence could develop quicker then with alcohol, and the withdrawal could be more dangerous to a long time user. However, if i was forced to choose between which drug to be actively addicted to, i would choose xanax, simply cuz it would do a lot less harm to the body. Alcohol is really hard on the system, its one of the most physiologically damaging drugs there is, if used heavily. Heroin is even less damaging then alcohol, in that respect (although since heroin is illegal, you can't be sure of its purity, it can have nasty contaminants)
>
>--> much safer than alcohol???
well in pursuit of an anxiolytic that will do the best job for me I did also mention Xanax to my MD, who said that he no longer Rxes it, due to his negative experience. He said that when it became available they thought they had the "wonder drug" only to find themselves in a much greater dilemma for most patients than they were before having started Xanax.
But then he said that everybody is different and that he may be biased.
He took a book of the rack written by MDs for MDs on psychotropics, including narcotics, and he told me to watch out for "bold printed" stuff, while he will flip through the pages.
There was ONE paragraph, consisting of three or so lines in bold in this entire book and it was in reference to Xanax and said something like:
Highly addictive;
Must NEVER be stopped abruptly, nor substituted for by other benzos when attempting to withdraw but tampered off slowly, otherwise it may be deadly.I think the message here was that Xanax withdrawal is the most dangerous and Xanax dependence the most stubborn dependence to break. When I asked him about opioids he 'waived me off' saying "that's easy". When I asked him "what about cigarettes", he said that I got him there.
In his experience, he said, Xanax is the most difficult habit to break, second only to smoking cigarettes. On the other hand Xanax "cold turkey" is something that is more "deadly" than anything he knows of.
poster:Alexander
thread:294899
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031231/msgs/295189.html