Possible brain damage from past valium addiction and abuse?

[Burst]

Basically, I am looking for legit advice. 5 years ago, I became addicted to valium for about a year and a half. It started out as self medicating, in conjunction with smoking absurd amounts of weed. It started out from 20mgs a day, and at the peak of it about 200mgs a day. I would also go on sppradi, binges, some being as high as 600mgs, which landed me in a psych qard because they thought it was attempted suicide. Ive always had bad anxiety regardless. Either way, I quit cold turkey, then stopped smioking weed cold turkey because I would get too paranoid. In the past 4 years ive used valium 6 times recreationally, and a handful of times for panic attacks, as well as one minor relapse. My concerns are: I dont feel as intelligent as I usedto. My memory is shot. I barely remember being 16. The withdrawal was pretty awful. I still get urges and cravings to this day, but choose not to act on them. Do the.urges ever go away? What about my memory? I know I have some sort of decreased brain function from all of this. Is there anything I can do? Advice is greatly apprecuared.

[reef88]

Originally Posted by Burst

Basically, I am looking for legit advice. 5 years ago, I became addicted to valium for about a year and a half. It started out as self medicating, in conjunction with smoking absurd amounts of weed. It started out from 20mgs a day, and at the peak of it about 200mgs a day. I would also go on sppradi, binges, some being as high as 600mgs, which landed me in a psych qard because they thought it was attempted suicide. Ive always had bad anxiety regardless. Either way, I quit cold turkey, then stopped smioking weed cold turkey because I would get too paranoid. In the past 4 years ive used valium 6 times recreationally, and a handful of times for panic attacks, as well as one minor relapse. My concerns are: I dont feel as intelligent as I usedto. My memory is shot. I barely remember being 16. The withdrawal was pretty awful. I still get urges and cravings to this day, but choose not to act on them. Do the.urges ever go away? What about my memory? I know I have some sort of decreased brain function from all of this. Is there anything I can do? Advice is greatly apprecuared.

I've lost a lot of memories too. I remember talking to my friends about our childhoods when we would gather and drink a few beers and just talk, and I couldn't remember most of those moments until they put so much detail on them that I felt like I remembered them but I'm not sure. I think back to highschool, I only have a handful of times that I can say that happened, with detail. The rest is just gone.

Reputation Comments on this Post:

The post you've answered is about possible neurological damage done by extensive benzodiazepine abuse and cannabis. Alcohol wasn't mentioned in the combination. Also there's no need to quote entire posts when replying.