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Ambien addiction
by MandyDL, Mar 23, 2003 12:00AM
I have been treated for depression since 1991 and am on lexapro and just started gabitril. The problem is that I never sleep well and have become addicted to ambien but do not know how to tell my psych this. I get the ambien over the internet and sometimes take 100mg or more at a time. How do I stop on my own? I cannot afford a clinic and I know my psych will make me go to the hospital if I tell her.
Tell me, did you gradually ramp up to that dosage? And does the Ambien get you high before you sleep? Do you ever take it when you don't intend to sleep? Just curious. I've tried it a few times, and it always put me out before I knew what hit me.
Ambien is a schedule IV controlled substance, so your doc is bound to do something. Do you really think your doc would hospitalize you for this? Perhaps you could taper down over a few weeks. It seems to me that using a sleep aid over time would deprive you of your natural ability to fall asleep.
Thomas
Don't forget all of the others, and the lurkers that have been wondering and CARE as well.
Mandy,
I was wondering. Is you current intake 100mg? In other words, as Thomas pointed out 10x the normal dose? Nothing to be ashamed of or anything. Just wondering so it is easier for people to see where you are coming from and possible help with a way to detox via a taper.
As you might already know, Ambien isn't "technically" a regular benzo. At least from the literature that I have read. So I not sure if it will have the same titration rate necessary as will something like Zanax or one of the other "real" and extremely hard to detox off of benzodiazapines.
Just wondering. I hope you are doing alright. There are a lot of people here that are caring and will do what we can to help you get through this.
You just have to keep on posting and let us know how you are doing.
Regards,
Chad
the 100 mgs does seem extreamly high, but the body can handle tremendous things - at least for a while - and that has been proven by many of people's experiences on this board with other drugs. like i said, i don't know if there is a significant withdrawal from high doses of ambien. at lower doses some have been known to not be able to sleep for a while though. sedativist, my experiences seem much like yours. i too have been on celexa and the ambien helped me sleep. once most of the 'post acute withdrawal' symptoms went away i seemed to be able to sleep much better and somewhat tapered, but basically just stopped without any problems. mandy, the reason i flipped at such a high dose of ambein is two fold. one, i have never heard of that high a dosage and due to the fact that they are sleeping pills - tolerence or not - i suspected that might be tremendously dangerous. two, and i have experienced this once, in many people ambien has a side effect of amnesia, especially but not only due to it being mixed with alcohol. for instance you take an ambien to sleep, realize you forgot to do something - take out trash, respond to an email, get something from the store etc... so you go do it. and when you wake up in the morning you find out you don't remember that at all or worse, you did something else while you were up or out that is either harmless or even possibly something you shouldn't have done. i know this both from experience and hearing about other cases from my doctor after i brought mine up to him. one time i took an ambien, stayed up on the computer, and realized two days later when i got the package that i had ordered 90 ultram on line(right now it is not a controlled substance, but probably should be, and can easily be ordered this way) - a former drug of choice for me and i had been clean several months. needless to say it took me a while to figure out what the hell happened and after speaking with my dr. we both agreed that if i do take ambien again, which i have, i should only do so while in bed right before sleep. this is just my experience and i don't want to alarm others because i think ambien's addictive potentil is extreamly low in most cases and at proper dosages and that it is wonderful in helping restore sleeping habits for former addicts who are having real problems getting a good nights sleep due to rls or other symptoms of withdrawal or their former addiction. the reason i mention this too you mandy is i was thinking at such high doses, maybe you have had more of an experience with this. but like i said i take ambien once a month, if that, do not mix it with alcohol, and haven't had a problem since. like most drugs, they can really help if taken correctly in the right situations. it is just as former addicts, many of us - myself included - have had problems doing that at times.
so ALL of us on this board wish you well mandy, and keep posting. take care sedavist, chezz and thomas. stay strong.
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