Anti-Anxiety Drug Dependence And Withdrawal

Anti-anxiety medications including popular benzodiazepines such as Xanax, Klonopin, Valium, and Ativan are meant for short-term use. However, many people take anti-anxiety drugs for long periods of time. This is risky because, when taken regularly, benzodiazepines quickly lead to physical dependence. Drug tolerance is also common, with increasingly larger doses needed to get the same anxiety relief as before.

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, benzodiazepines lose their therapeutic anti-anxiety effect after 4 to 6 months of regular use.Most people become addicted to their anti-anxiety drug within a couple of months, but problems may arise sooner. For some, drug dependency develops after a few short weeks. Once you’re physically dependent on an anxiety medication, it’s difficult to stop taking it. The body is used to the medication, so withdrawal symptoms occur if the dose is decreased or discontinued.

Psychological dependence can be an issue, too. If you’ve been relying on an anti-anxiety drug to keep your anxiety in check, you may lose confidence in your own abilities to deal with life’s difficulties and start to think you “need” the medication to survive.

You may be dependent on benzodiazepines if:

• You have taken benzodiazepines for four months or longer.
• You rely on your pills to cope.
• You have ever cut down or stopped taking your pills and have felt ill or anxious or experienced unusual symptoms.
• You feel your pills are not having the same effect as when you first started taking them.
• You take an extra pill during a stressful time.
• You tried cutting down or stopped taking your pills and could not sleep a wink.
• You have increased your dose.
• You have increased your alcohol intake.
• The benzodiazepines are interfering with your life in some way (sick days off work, family or relationship problems, difficulty coping, difficulty remembering things).
• You always make sure you never run out of your pills.
• You carry your pills with you “just in case.”

If you’re physically dependant on anti-anxiety medication and would like to quit, it’s important to do so under the guidance of a medical health professional. The key is to slowly decrease your dose over a period of time. If you abruptly stop taking your medication, you may experience severe withdrawal symptoms such as:

§  Increased anxiety §  Insomnia §  Confusion

§  Pounding heart §  Sweating §  Shaking

Gradually tapering off the drug will help minimize the withdrawal reaction. However, if you’ve taken anti-anxiety medication for a few months, you may still experience some withdrawal symptoms. Anxiety, insomnia, and depression may last for months after you’ve quit. Unfortunately, these persistent withdrawal symptoms are frequently mistaken for a return of the original problem, causing some people to restart the medication.