Xanax (alprazolam)

Never take more of anything than the doctor prescribes! It's good that you're talking to the psychiatrist because that's what you should do =)

 

I'm prescribed Xanax and at first she only gave me 10 0.25MG Xanax. That was funny, especially considering how severe my anxiety is. But anyways she bumped it up to 30 0.5MG Xanax but still I usually have to take about 1.5MG or 2MG. But then again I used to self-medicate my anxiety with benzodiazapanes anyhow...so be careful with how much you take, but at the same time if you don't feel that it's effecting you in the way that it should be then defiantly tell your doctor and he/she should up the dosage.

 

it is good that you can take the 2mg, i have anxiety as well and deal with it basically without medication, and i end up in the hospital urgent care needing to get something for it, i usually recieve ativan which works ok for a small attack, but keep with the therapy and keep your chin up

 

I love Xanax.

Is that wrong? I hope not. Because I have no plans to give it up. And don't you try to make me, either.

I would hardly say my usage is yet at the criminal level; when it's high stress around here (deadlines mounting; two year old channeling the devil), I tend to wake up in the night and can't get back to sleep due to the relentless, throbbing vision of my rather robust to-do list. The remedy, then: I pad into the bathroom, break a pill in half, break one of the halves in half, then use my teeth to break one of the half-halves in half because at that point hands are too big and hammy to do the job and I'm not about to go get a razor blade and a cutting board.

Then I down that tiny shaving, that dusting, that 1/8th of a low-dose pill. And within 20 minutes I'm asleep for the rest of the night. Oh sure, in the morning I have a distant, dull ache in my head as if someone had my skull in a vice grip for the night (which essentially they did), but so what? It's a small price to pay. I'm busy; I can't afford to not sleep through the night.

Of course, my inner priss-priss culls through popular culture from the 60s, 70s and 80s and hurls images at me to make me feel bad. Needless to say, scenes from the movie Valley of the Dolls ricochet around in my head. Those talented ladies and their "dolls" (translation: old-time-y sedatives like Demerol, Seconol, Nembutol), flinging their heads about and screaming as they run their lives into the ground. Next: The scene from Trainspotting where a baby dies in the crib because its basic needs are not being met by its heroin-shooting mom. Then, the line from David Sedaris's piece "Seasons Greetings," about a neighbor: "She's on pills, everyone knows that."

Well, everyone wouldn't know that about me if I didn't tell them. But I do tell them. All of them. I feel I owe them that. What kind of friend would I be if didn't help people get to sleep at night? So I not only take Xanax, I try to ensure that my loved ones do as well.

It was the mid-1990s when drugs like this first entered my consciousness (but not yet my mouth). My dear pal had procured an engagement ring for his recently ultimatum-issuing girlfriend. He loved her, he had the ring, it was time to go -- and yet, he couldn't. He walked around for weeks stuck, arrested by fear. He popped a few Ativan he had lying around from a previous panic attack, then easily popped the question. They have been married 10 happy years. The sedative is to be thanked.