zopiclone/lunesta addiction

[Henry Chinanski]

Swim was previously serriously addictive to a certain legal plant that works on the opiod receptors (and balls it's as addictive as caffiene). Swim has been replacing his addiction with zopiclone tablets (and good ol legal booze), at first he was abusing them to get high, now he knows that they are EXTREAMLY addictive he is down to 1 to day. If he doesn't take his pill his muscles feel all tense and not himself. Has SWAM any experiance with this? Has SWAM got any advice, such as muscle relaxants that SWIM could buy over the counter or illegaly over the internet. Swim has battled various addiction's all of his life and bloody sick of it, he just want's to be normal, thank's for any advance that SWAM could give SWIM, H Chinkanski.

Henry Chinanski added 27 Minutes and 2 Seconds later...

also apparantly zopiclone/lunesta acts on the same receptors as benzo's, swim is scared if this is true as he's going to feel prettey shit for a LONG time

Henry Chinanski added 67 Minutes and 35 Seconds later...

swin just taken a second one tonight, more addicted than he thought, please help me, H Chinaski

[spacelord]

SWIM has not been using zopiclone excessively. After 1-2 weeks 7.5mg every night there wasn't a problem to stop. Yes, that's not very much, but still with benzos a similar pattern of consumption can already trigger withdrawal symptoms with normal benzos.

[BoxStar]

The supposedly lower addiction/abuse potential of the Z-drugs it’s for the most part a fabrication of the pharmaceutical companies trying to market a replacement for benzodiazepines that is not “addictive”, much in the same way as benzodiazepines were marketed to replace Barbiturates, Meprobamate and Methaqualone.

The fact is they can cause physical and/or psychological dependence just like benzodiazepines, the latest studies have shown somewhat lower dependence liability, but the original studies done when they were introduced to the market showed a “much lower” liability (non-existent in some) and every new study released seems to increase the liability.

In the particular case of Zopiclone it has been shown to be the most liable to dependence of the Z-drugs which can be explained by the fact that it’s also the one with the most similar pharmacological profile to sedative-hypnotic benzodiazepines.

It’s also worth noting that Zopiclone has been found to be carcinogenic and weakens the immune system in clinical trials causing increased rate of infections.

SWIM does not recommend quitting any GABAergic substance cold turkey if physical withdrawal symptoms are present due the risk of very harmful consequences; slowly reducing the dose over weeks or months is much safer, switching over to a long acting benzodiazepine such as diazepam makes this much easier.

Reputation Comments on this post:

thx for clarification.

[~lostgurl~]

My gurl has been addicted to both benzodiazepines and Zopiclone and she found the addictive nature of the 2 drugs very different. It took at least 6 months for her to taper off benzos and there were still mild withdrawal symptoms in this time. With Zopiclone she tapered from 3 X 7.5mg to 1 X 7.5mg over a couple of weeks then stopped cold turkey. The first night she didn't sleep very well, she woke up many times and had cold/hot sweats throughout the night, but the following night she slept like a baby, she didn't wake up once and there were no noticeable withdrawal symptoms during the day.

My gurl had been taking them for years and was extremely psychologically addicted to them, she really thought she couldn't sleep without them, but this was not the case.

Everyone is different however and many people report severe withdrawal symptoms.