Treatment Detox Taper

[Mikeymc]

Swim wanted to do a little fact finding, mainly because the forum has such a vast group of people from all over the world participating. Swim's question is for those have gone through in-patient treatment or detox, what kind of benzo taper was used and were you given any other medications to help ease the process? Thank for helping my curious cat.

[twotimesover]

Hi Mikeymc

In the past year swim has been through two medically supervised detoxes - the first was a week in the hospital with Ativan every two hours. It was very effective getting through those early days, although swim couldn't remember a whole lot from that period - severe amnesia plus an immediate relapse back to alcohol after getting out of the hospital.

Just lately, I was given clorazepate to help with the worst of the physical withdrawal (seems to get worse each time, this last one was particularly bad), two a day. I've tapered down to one a day now and just take one at night to help me relax enough to sleep. Insomnia has gotten horrendous without alcohol, and even though it's extremely mild it does help a bit.

Swim is now going on a week and a half without a drink and for the first time ever is feeling really great about it and much healthier. I hope thing work out for you, alcohol withdrawal can be a bitch and extremely dangerous depending on how much and how long a person has been drinking.

Wishing you all the best, 2xO

[missparkles]

In the UK it's common to use Chlordiazepoxide (Librium).
Swim isn't sure of the doses as it's generally tailored to suit each individual.
It's also given for home detox situations too.
Swim can't stress the importance of having a plan to help swiy to cope with life during detox and after. Detox meds will only help the physical dependence. Keep swiy occupied and it will make it a little easier. Swim wishes swiy all the best.

[Mithotyn]

For me it was 50MG of librium every 4 hours plus 2MG of ativan every 6 hours the first day and 50MG of librium every 4 hours for the next two days and then every 6 hours and then down to 25 every 8 hours (twice a day) and then 10 and by day 14 I was completely off.

In another inpatient place I was on phenobartital but I cant remember the dose and was only there for 6 days.