This is how my stop drinking story goes. I realized that these past two months since getting off ativan is pretty much the longest I've been without any medication since I quit drinking. When I quit drinking in June of 2012, my doc put me on zoloft and ativan. I was on that for ten months or so, then quit cold turkey.
Then have tried other SSRIs but the only one I stayed on was prozac for three weeks and that was when I started the ativan again. Once I stopped the prozac, I continued on the ativan from October, 2013 until January 15... so in my whole sobriety of a year and nine months, I spent at least 3/4 of it on one drug or another.
Being on the ativan and then tapering off cause a lot of post side effects such as anxiety/depression/ etc. So, I feel that after I finish with my post withdrawal of being off ativan which should subside after four months or so, I will know what the heck I really feel like instead of medicated feelings of me. This realization came through therapy and it's been a tough one to wrap my head around.
Wanted to see if others have had medication pretty much since day one of sobriety. Sober one year and nine months now. Been off ativan now over two months and no other medications now.
I'm sorry I cannot help you. Have you tried searching on the internet for withdrawal symptoms/side effects. I was on prozac a while before I got sober. I was taking that while I was drinking though. I don't remember much about that period of time at all for some reason.
Good luck to you.
Welcome to MIP Habbyback, ... glad you found us ...
We have a guy here named PinkChip that may be able to enlighten you some here ... he's in the profession ... sorry I have no experience with what you're asking either ...
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'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Thanks for the welcome guys. As I said, was just trying to see if anyone else quit drinking with the use of zoloft and ativan like I did. Hopefully PinkChip will see my post and be of some help.
Welcome happyback.....While I don't have experience with getting sober with drugs...I do have experience with being fed meds from a Doc while I was still drinking...For what? Anxiety and depression. He gave me some form of generic xanax...Can't remember the name...It didn't help...And I drank with it. I don't know what your affiliation is with Alcoholics Anonymous...But I came to find out that I had a problem that needed a spiritual solution to solve....That being the 12 steps of AA. I'm currently a little over 2 and a half years sober...No drugs involved and rather than suffering through the anxiety and depression...I'm more along the lines of happy, joyous and free. Life is good....No fighting alcohol anymore. Are you familiar with this suggested program of recovery?
Yes. In Jan 06 I was prescribed Prozac and was still on them went I got sober. I knew what being a drunk on Prozac was so I knew what being sober on Prozac was.
I came off the Prozac cold turkey in June 07 and wasn't well. So I knew what sobriety was like on withdrawal with a mad head and irrational behaviour.
After a few weeks the mad head slowed down and the irrationality faded, so I knew what being sober felt like drug free.
In around april2011 I was back on the Prozac (every time as prescribed), so I knew how Prozac on sobriety was. I came off Prozac in a controlled manner after 18 months, so again I'm sober and drug free. I won't hesitate to take professional help as required. I don't like being on Prozac long term and I don't like short term chemical assistance, but if required i'll do it.
So what am I saying? Well the earthlings out there will use Prozac to help them over a hump, so will I. They also use alcohol to get them over a hump. I cannot do that.
As far as I'm concerned my sobriety date of 17th October 06 is valid. so is yours. Prescription drugs has nowt to do with it.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
If you're prscribed drugs and they are working for you...And your motives are right. That shouldn't affect your sobriety date...Never....I see my fair share of people in AA getting prescribed pain pills for the sole purpose of getting high. I know a few. That's their sobriety....Not mine. I get the impression here that happyjack is getting off of them....Not sure if he's doing that on his own or doctor's orders....I just quit them on my own...Before getting sober.
It isn't the case of the prescribed drugs affecting the true start date of my sobriety or making it invalid because of the prescribed drugs.
It was the case of being put on them when I wanted to get sober by my doctor.
So, my initial question was if any others have been given zoloft and ativan from day one of sobriety. There's got to be somebody else I would think. I don't know.
I wasn't aware at the time that I would have a dependance on ativan and paid the consequences, thank God I am off of it now. It affected me with withdrawal side effects that I still am struggling with after being off of it for two months now.
So, yes I've been sober for one year and nine months. It was from day one of being sober that I knew when taking the zoloft and ativan that I didn't want to even mix those drugs with any alcohol and stopped drinking. I was a two pint almost every day vodka man for at least three years and had been drinking one thing or another for 25 years before that. With the help of a higher power, AA meetings, my partner and a support group of friends I have continued sobriety.
Good for you happyjack...Glad to hear it. Lack of power was our dilemma. I'm sure you aren't alone in this situation....Someone should have experience..Or know someone that does...Welcome to the site.
I might add that there have been a very few people who come to meetings. Although they don't seem to be "drunk"....I have wondered if they were on some kind of prescribed medication because they behavior was just strange to me. Then again, my behavior when I am sober is probably strange as well.
Aloha Happyback and welcome to the board. When I got into sobriety, recovery from the affects of alcoholism in all my affairs I didn't even know how to spell alcohol or alcoholism or alcoholic and there were tons of other things I didn't know either which would have been great for me to know. I was put on drugs when I was drinking because of a head-on accident which damaged my spine...I didn't know I was alcoholic and I couldn't feel the results of the medications...darvon, darvoset, and several others...percodan and percoset and valium. I drank over these and had no information at all about what was going on in my body. Eventually I met a neurosurgeon who pulled me off of all of my drugs because he discovered I was very chemically tolerant and as he told me "most normal people cannot even stand up under the load you're on. I still didn't know and yet that registered some with me because I drank alot and rarely got drunk. I would get rageful and out of control and not fall down woozie blabbering stupid drunk. I didn't understand and neither did my family and so I was the relative that could drink and drink and not fall down drunk. I turned greenish instead.
I went to college on drugs and alcohol...really. I had to come to understand from the halls of education and one of the things I found out was that alcohol was a chemical depressant...also a mind and mood altering chemical...also an anesthetic and solvent. Being drunk is called intoxication and intoxication means poisoned so simply for me I was chemically altering and the consequences were and are wide. Because I am chemically tolerant specifically the MDs have to prescribe over dose in order to see the same results they get from others who are not tolerant. Learning about myself thru the investigation process of this program has helped me to self manage much better.
The last time I consented to being drugged it was for psychological trauma which was causing me to consider homicide strongly and which frightened me badly. I consented because there was no behaviorist I could work with...only a prescriber. He only used chemicals and I took this as an only chance. Both prescriptions were system depressants...the second one Prozac neither worked except to bringing me to the point where I actually was walking around my home in drunk fashion without knowing it. My wife brought it to my attention and I flushed the prescription and went "cold" against advice. I had three-four days of withdrawals including hallucinations with the awareness that it wouldn't kill me and I could wait it out without reacting. During those 4 days I program focused...mind, body, spirit and emotions and when it was done the only compulsion that remains is the compulsion of alcohol. I do the same with that...I program focus...of course I don't drink or entertain possibilities of engaging alcohol in my life again. I have the proof that I am allergic while also being tolerant. I have had 3 toxic shock events which are overdoses with alcohol which are apart of the clear and highly contrasted memory of what it was like before I found recovery. I am powerless...completely and the higher/greater power I need in my life has never been written up till this time on a prescription pad. I cannot get enough of my Higher Power so there is no possibility of negative overdose and my wife has never called my attention to the condition of acting drunk.
I resist chemical altering today as long as I have experienced healing from this program and what the fellowship has led me to with its ESH.
My issues with depression have predated my alcoholism. I have a greater family history of depression and other mood disorders than I do addiction. Having gone off my meds like 5 times in life before and ALWAYS winding up having a horrid depressive episode as a result, I have learned to just stay on my meds because those allow me to be much closer to my real feelings. Am I addicted to the meds I take? Dunno, but they do not harm me like my drinking did. When I drank, my meds didn't work and I took them in excess of prescribed. So yes - I have taken psychotropics through my entire sobriety out of necessity.
The reason they do not prescribe benzos (drugs which include Ativan, Xanax, Klonipin, Valium) to alcoholics is typically not so much because you grow dependent on them, but it's because they have abuse potential that is high and many alcoholics will abuse those meds (meaning taking way more than you are supposed to). Zoloft...well that is an SSRI and I think, if you took an honest poll of folks in the rooms about a quarter to half have taken or are taking an antidepressant of some sort. Some of the same folks that will harp on this topic of "mind altering meds" will slurp coffee and smoke cigarettes one after another and both of those are addictive and mind altering.
So - This is YOUR sobriety journey. I hope you can function and don't have anxiety and depression issues that are "stand alone".....meaning independent of alcoholism. The task is to find this out so you might be doing some worthwhile research. I wouldn't want anyone to "need' to take meds for what is really just remnants of alcoholism and a coping skills deficiency. For me, I have depression that needs to be treated even sober and I was taking antidepressants 17 years ago and have been sober 5. My drinking probably transcended from binging into alcoholic drinking about 10 years ago. There was a giant self-medicating component to my drinking (as it the case for many drunks) but I never realized my depression was very treatable and how much worse I was making it with drinking the way I did.
For me, I would only change the sobriety date if you took those meds beyond what you were prescribed.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
I'm a coffee slurper and a cig. smoker...I guess I am naive in that I didn't realize either are mind altering. I need to do research on that. However, having been on different medications in the past for depression, I would never criticize anyone for taking them. Also eat way too much sugar and I know that is addictive as well. I suspect all of these things are dealing with as pinkchip said "remnants" of my drinking and the messes I am trying to clean up since being sober.
P.S. - I drink plenty of coffee and smoked up til I had 1 and 1/2 years sober. My point is not that smokers and coffee drinkers are relapsing or "not sober" so much as that it's an outside issue just like someone's psychiatric treatment. What anyone decides about these things nay be relevant to their individual program but not my place to cite what ""AA thinks" because AA has no opinion on outside issues. All I have are personal and professional opinions on this...same as smoking and coffee drinking in recovery.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Thank you for your letter. The good news is I never took any additional meds then were prescribed, so my June 10, 2012 sobriety date stays. I am suffering from anxiety and depression now and hoping that it is residual side effects of quitting the ativan on January 15 of this year. These physical and emotional feelings have never been a day to day part of my sobriety. Only when I quit the ativan did they hit me to such a degree. Hence, it's just that ativan effected my central nervous system in many negative ways.
Even though some people can stop taking ativan without any problems, when I tapered the drug and stopped I went through horrible morning anxiety, low depression and loss of cognitive ability... It has lessened over the past two months but it is still a daily problem with me. So, right now, "anxiety and depression" are challenges I'm facing that I am working on. Sobriety is the base core that enables me to face this challenge.
My recovery began in The Brentwood Recovery Home in Windsor, On in 1989. I had been a raging alcoholic since 1960 and relied on my scrip for Valium since 1973.
I had roughly 30 yrs drinking and smoking .. and 15 yrs on Valium. The Brentwood program is a spiritual based program and drugs weren't allowed. I remember thinking many times in the beginning "I don't want to drink but give me my f---ing pills !". Nope !! ...
Fast forward to today and I'm alcohol/drug/smoke free and very good with it. It shows I didn't really "need" the Valium, I just had to begin to live with and deal with my thoughts/feelings/emotions which I had never done before. Thank God for God, the program and the oldtimers !!
The most important words that I heard in the beginning (for me) was in HOW IT WORKS where it says: "There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional
and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest." They were talking to MEEEEEE ! Drinking/Valium wasn't my problem, it was the medication for my problem.
I decided to try to be as honest as I could be in 1989 and it has brought me this far .. it feels like The Promises are coming true on a regular basis.
I am discovering what I need and going out and getting it ... "God could, and would, if HE were sought"
Many therapists (Drs, Priests, counsellors, religious leaders etc) state that once we begin to treat the symptoms of disorders with drugs they can't be fully addressed and treated.
I subscribe to that approach. It has proven to be true in my case. Just my $0.02
Welcome Happyback! I took a whole lot of drugs (along with my booze) Before I got clean and sober and had an incredibly hard time detoxing. I was messed up for months, probably 6. Horribly depressed much of that time. This was my brain's reaction to detoxing and trying to return to healthy brain chemistry. I believe that this took a year or two. Thank God I was able to hang in long enough.
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Saturday 29th of March 2014 02:49:16 PM
Thank you 2granddaughters. Your message has a lot of strong points which are very worthwhile during this time and going forward. Very inspirational, so thank you.
Hi StPeteDean, I will hang in there with continued hope and work that the anxiety/depression I have will disappear with more healing time under my belt.
Will do. I didn't mean to infer anxiety/depression would go away on their own. I'm still dealing with withdrawal symptoms from ativan and that will hopefully lessen. I am also seeing a therapist and starting to see a pyschiatrist in April. I will re-read "AA How it Works" as well. I have been to many meetings and have a friend who has been through this with me. He's not a sponsor persay but has been very beneficial in my sobriety.
Stepchild, I haven't found a sponsor yet. I have been working on the steps with other alcoholics who have been sober longer than I have and working on them by myself through my sobriety. I know this has been of great help so far. I was under the impression that to have a sponsor was an individual decision for each person. Is that not right?
This is my experience happyback. My individual decisions are what got me into the mess I was in to begin with. My way simply wasn't working. This was about humbling myself and starting to learn to take suggestions from people that had what I wanted.....Basically living happy, joyous and free without alcohol in my life. I found that most...If not all of the people I've met in AA that had that...Had a sponsor guide them through this process. It only made sense to me...To take that same path. I had trust problems...This not only taught me to trust God.....It taught me to trust another human being.....For me.....It worked.
-- Edited by Stepchild on Saturday 29th of March 2014 11:07:30 PM
No Happyback, I know there's no issue with sobreiety date, just sharing what it was for me, trying to say that irrespctive of what meds you or I have been on, there's a big difference between meds and booze and meds without booze.
you and I both really do know what sober life is 'cos we're doing it.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
@Stepchild - Thank you for sharing that. I'm glad that it has been an important and ultimately rewarding part of your sober life. I haven't disregarded having a sponsor... just don't have one now.
@bikerbill - I do find comfort in my sobriety and some days when I do wake up with anxiety or depression and am trying to just get myself together, I think, "one day at a time." I know that I have accomplished something very important in my life in being sober. But the work doesn't stop there in the accomplishment and I understand that as well. I am moving in the right direction to discover if I need medication for anxiety (and that will definitely not be a benzo) and have been proactive and as with all things, it takes time, patience, and positive thoughts and most definitely a higher power. I know that I will heal from the effects of being on ativan and it will get better.
I hated the drug ativan that they gave me in the nut farm, and refused to take it on the third day, when I realised what it was doing to me.
I have heard others with more experience talk about this, and there seems to be a thread, a series of connections. This was NOT about people with serious mental health problems who needed medication, let's be clear on that. It was more about the type of alcoholic who is not honest with himself or his doctor and tries to avoid the emotional pain and anxiety that goes with early recovery.
Remember, this is a spiritual program of recovery, and the pain is the touchstone of all spritual growth. Therefore the medication can get between the alcoholic and his spritual growth and block his recovery.
Without exception, those that I have heard talk about this state that when they stopped their drug use, they copped all the usual anxiety, depression etc that is normal for someone in early recovery. The use of the drug did not prevent this suffering, it only delayed it. Early sobriety it seems, cannot be avoided.
There is another paralell I sometimes think of. When my late wife was diagnosed, the doctors talked about "palliative" care. At the time we did not understand that it meant they would medicate and nurse her in a way that minimised her suffering, but that her condition was terminal and there was nothing to be done to cure her.
In some cases, with the willing cooperation of the alcoholic, the practice of medicating the dry alcoholic in order to reduce the pain and suffering of untreated alcoholism (at least he's not drinking!) knowing that it offers no hope of a cure, just a less painful journey to the end, seems very like palliative care. An absolutely second rate substitute for what AA has to offer.
I understand what you're saying about medications blocking the emotional recovery and that the pain of early sobriety cannot be avoided. I have continued sobriety after a year and nine months. I do not believe though that I am still feeling anxiety and depression just because of sobriety at this point. I am still working on that.
I was never trying to avoid any emotional pain and anxiety that goes hand in hand when quitting or looking for the easy way out, when I decided to quit drinking. Not drinking alcohol was the most important thing. The medication was the plan my doctor prescribed and whether or not it was the best thing to do, I did follow it and am proud to be sober now and not on any medication.
If I have to take medication again for anxiety or depression because it helps me get rid of it, I will and don't believe that makes me less of a sober person. I don't think you meant to infer that. As in my first post about this, I just wanted to know if others started their sober journey with medication as I did.
