Benzo Withdrawal Duration: Signs, Causes & What to Expect

Researched, fact-checked and transparent articles and guides that offer addiction and mental health insight from experts and treatment professionals. If you experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms during your taper, your care team can help you explore options to address those symptoms and get relief. If you take away the blockades gradually, your brain can reduce its chemical traffic to match. But if you remove the drug all at once, your brain doesn’t have enough time to prepare, and you can develop life-threatening symptoms like seizures. But when you start removing benzodiazepines from your system, suddenly your clogged neurons become an open freeway with no traffic lanes.

• If you were using benzodiazepines for psychiatric reasons, it’s vital to create a new plan to manage your mental health.
• Recognizing the signs of withdrawal and understanding how to manage this phase is essential for easier and smoother recovery.
• This approach helps you learn to tolerate discomfort and distress, instead of avoiding it, and choose to live according to your values.
• This suppression causes what is often referred to as a rebound effect when benzos are suddenly stopped.

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• Benzodiazepines inhibit both dreaming sleep (rapid eye movement sleep, REMS) and deep sleep (slow wave sleep, SWS).
• These drugs mimic the effects of a neurotransmitter called gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA).
• Benzodiazepines, like opioids and alcohol, have the potential to cause physical dependence.
• A third factor may operate in people who have had frightening experiences during withdrawal.

In contrast, longer-acting benzos typically result in less severe withdrawal symptoms, and it takes longer for these symptoms to manifest. Benzodiazepines, like opioids and alcohol, have the potential to cause physical dependence. This occurs when your body becomes accustomed to the presence of benzos, relying on them for normal functioning. Experiencing benzo withdrawal symptoms is a clear sign that dependence has formed.

What Should I Do if I’m Experiencing Benzo Withdrawal?

Instead of quitting cold turkey, many doctors recommend a tapering strategy, where the benzo dose is slowly reduced over time. This helps the brain adjust gradually and minimizes severe withdrawal effects. Understanding the benzo withdrawal timeline is essential for anyone preparing to detox, whether for themselves or a loved one. Many providers across disciplines struggle with helping patients taper or even broaching the subject. One patient who has been taking BZDs for years may have little trouble tapering at a rate of 25% every 2-4 weeks.

The tapering process helps the body adjust to having less of the drug in its system and allows the brain to produce natural levels of chemicals on its own. It also helps reduce the possibility of experiencing extreme withdrawal symptoms and the amount of time the withdrawal process takes overall. Benzodiazepines are useful for short-term treatment of mental health issues, but misusing the drugs can lead to addiction and intense withdrawal symptoms whenever you try quitting.

• Clonidine is a blood pressure medication that has shown promise for treating benzo addiction.
• Depression may be caused or aggravated by chronic benzodiazepine use, but is also a feature of the withdrawal syndrome.
• For this option, you attend treatment sessions about five to seven days a week and head home in the evening.
• With proper support and supervised interventions, individuals can overcome withdrawal and regain control of their health, paving the way for a successful and lasting recovery.

Medication-assisted management

These findings have been repeated in several other studies of elderly patients taking benzodiazepines long-term. A third important practical factor is the available dosage formulations of the various benzodiazepines. In withdrawal you need a long-acting drug which can be reduced in very small steps. Diazepam (Valium) is the only benzodiazepine that is ideal for this purpose since it comes in 2mg tablets, which are scored down the middle and easily halved into 1 mg doses. Even by halving these tablets marijuana addiction the smallest reduction one could easily make is the equivalent of 2.5mg diazepam.

Very occasionally, they may persist (see section on protracted symptoms). Meanwhile, the same measures suggested under muscle symptoms (above) can do much to alleviate them, and they usually disappear after withdrawal. Of the complementary medicine techniques, all can help with relaxation during the procedure but the effects tend to be short-lived. The choice of, and response to, each of these measures depends very much on the individual. The various psychological techniques have been formally tested and give the best long-term results. However, the outcome depends largely on the skill of the therapist, including his/her knowledge of benzodiazepines, and the rapport between therapist and client.

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Experiencing rebound symptoms means the symptoms you had before taking benzodiazepines come back even stronger than before. Poster with engaging graphics and key guideline takeaways to increase awareness and understanding among patients on safe tapering of benzodiazepines. A concise six-page guide that provides evidence-based strategies for safely tapering patients from benzodiazepines. Finally, your doctor may appreciate receiving some literature on benzodiazepine withdrawal, for example the articles mentioned under Further Reading at the end of Chapters 1 & 3 and of this chapter. It is a good idea to make out a dosage reduction schedule for the initial stages (see below) and to give your doctor a copy.

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If you’re predisposed to seizures, your risk of having a seizure may also increase during the withdrawal period. A free, quick-reference digital tool to provide healthcare providers with instant access to current guidelines in a clear concise format. Anyone experiencing troubling symptoms from withdrawal, such as suicidal thoughts or tendencies, should seek immediate medical care. Some symptoms may appear without warning and can be a significant source of distress. Depending on your situation, your doctor may think it best to prescribe very small amounts of medication at a time.

Though therapy generally can’t address withdrawal symptoms specifically, it can help improve some symptoms, like anxiety and insomnia. In addition, over half of the survey respondents said benzodiazepines’ side effects or withdrawal symptoms caused them to consider suicide. That’s what makes it essential to stop taking benzodiazepines slowly, with support from a medical professional.

Once started on an antidepressant for depression, the treatment should be continued for some months (usually about 6 months) to avoid recurrence of the depression. Benzodiazepine tapering can continue during this time, and the antidepressant will sometimes act as a welcome umbrella during the last stages of withdrawal. It is important to finish the benzodiazepine withdrawal before starting to withdraw the antidepressant. Quite often, people taking long-term benzodiazepines are already taking an antidepressant as well. In this case they should stay on the antidepressant until the benzodiazepine withdrawal is complete. Such experiences probably represent a normal defensive reaction evolved as a protection against intolerable suffering.

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Symptoms can begin within hours or days and may last from a few weeks to several months. Some individuals may experience protracted withdrawal symptoms that linger for much longer. At West Georgia Wellness Center in Atlanta, GA, we offer comprehensive care to help you navigate the challenges of benzodiazepine withdrawal and recovery. We understand that benzo withdrawal can be both physically and emotionally demanding, which is why we create personalized treatment plans tailored to your specific needs. Our approach addresses the psychological and emotional impacts of benzo addiction, incorporating individual therapy, group sessions, and family counseling to provide a strong support system. Short-acting benzos are known for causing more intense and serious benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms upon cessation.