Benzodiazepine support

Because unlike opioid withdrawal, benzodiazepine withdrawal can kill you. Abrupt cessation after regular use can cause seizures, severe confusion and delirium requiring hospital care.

This is the one part of substance use treatment where doing it yourself, quickly, is genuinely dangerous rather than merely unpleasant. If you have been using benzodiazepines regularly and want to stop, please talk to us before you reduce anything.

You often cannot tell from the drug itself, but the pattern gives it away. Blackouts, hours you cannot account for, coming round confused after an overdose reversal, and severe anxiety or insomnia between uses all point toward it.

The clearest sign shows up once opioid treatment is working. If your methadone or Suboxone dose is clearly adequate and you still feel awful, benzodiazepine withdrawal is a likely explanation. Drug checking services in British Columbia can test a sample, and a urine screen at the clinic can confirm it.

Months, usually. A common approach reduces by roughly five to ten percent of the current dose every one to four weeks, which for someone on a substantial dose means six months to a year or more.

It sounds slow, and it is. It is also the approach with the best chance of working, because fast tapers overwhelmingly end in a return to use. The taper is yours to pace, and we would far rather take eighteen months and succeed than six months and start again.

Sometimes, in the context of a structured taper and with clear monitoring. It is not something we do casually, because the combination carries real overdose risk.

The alternative is usually worse. Someone dependent on benzodiazepines who cannot get a prescribed, measured supply returns to a street supply of unknown strength. A supervised taper is safer than that, and we make the decision case by case rather than by blanket policy.

For some people, yes. A minority experience lingering anxiety, sleep disturbance and sensory sensitivity for weeks or months after the last dose. It is recognised, it is not imagined, and it does resolve.

Knowing it can happen matters, because people who are not warned often assume something is permanently wrong and go back to using. Stay in contact with us through that period rather than disappearing at the end of the taper.

No. Naloxone reverses opioids only. It has no effect on benzodiazepines.

This matters a great deal with today drug supply. When someone overdoses on a mixture, naloxone will restore their breathing but they may remain heavily sedated and can deteriorate again. Always call 911, always stay with the person, and be ready to give further doses. The Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act gives legal protection from simple drug possession charges to people who call for help at an overdose.

The dependence is the same, and so is the taper. What differs is the circumstances, and it is worth saying plainly that long term prescribed benzodiazepine dependence is not a moral failure. It was standard practice for decades.

People who came to it through a prescription often taper more predictably, because the dose is known and consistent. The principles are unchanged: slowly, with support, at a pace you set.