Ditching A Demon Chance Addiction No Easier To Kick

Ten years ago, I went through one of the most torturous experiences possible: seven weeks of withdrawal from Xanax, a prescribed tranquilizer which I had taken for five years - and which had just recently proven to be dangerously addictive. Because of this, my internist told me I should no longer take ANY.

He later said I was his only patient who had gone through the awful days of withdrawal with absolutely no outside help: no hospital, no clinic, no support group. I confess to some small pride in this.

It had never occurred to me that there could be any danger in taking a medication my doctor had prescribed for me. To this day, I can hardly believe that I took a tranquilizer for five years which was so addictive that the period of withdrawal from it was close to unbearable. The first thing I did was to pour all my Xanax tablets down the toilet. It didn’t occur to me to save a few. I wasn’t at all knowledgeable about withdrawal, but I knew I wasn’t much on self-discipline and shouldn’t allow myself any temptation.

I had been taking four Xanax a day. And, after I had missed just two, I began to become another person. I just couldn’t believe that I could - so fast - become a little nauseated, a little woozy. But I certainly did. And I knew it was not my imagination.

The next morning I typed a letter. I am a good typist and speller, but when I reread the letter I found I had written “choice” instead of “chose” and “sum” instead of “some.” These were not typographical errors. They were something entirely different - something I found quite disturbing. Also, I saw that I had written flowery words I would normally never use. I remember one unlike-me thing I had written: “You and I have senses of humor that are inexplicably intertwined.”

This was my frightening introduction to the seven weeks when I didn’t know who I was. I felt as if I were two people, one somehow floating above the other. I began wondering why I was so often in a place somewhat nebulous and eerie.

If you have never gone through a period of withdrawal, you can only vaguely apprehend its horrors and devastation. How can anyone understand something that has nothing to do with either logic or reality? And where the real self can’t be found; where desolation is the ruling emotion?

My days and nights were interminable. Nothing was as it used to be. Noises were unbearably loud. Scents bothered me so much that I seldom went anywhere. Even supermarkets were hard to handle because of the scents that bombarded me. In church I had to sit by myself away from the smell of perfume. And even if I could have tolerated these, I couldn’t seem to drive without going up on someone’s curb. Just the thought or mention of food was nauseating, and for the seven weeks I ate almost nothing but oranges. I became thin and gaunt-looking, but I didn’t care. I don’t remember caring much about anything.

I simply couldn’t sleep. My body felt as if tiny knives were piercing it everywhere. During those endless-seeming nights, I would wander all over the house - in the darkness, usually playing softly a certain Perry Como tape. I didn’t know then, and don’t now, why I played that particular tape.

But, even today if I hear one of those songs, I’m instantly someplace else. Someplace I’ve never actually been. Someplace ethereal, vague and unreal. Someplace I think of as being always lonely.

I’ve been asked, “What’s withdrawal like?” And I’ve answered, “It’s absolutely frightening - it’s the most alone you’ve ever been; it’s like being in a deep fog and not being able to find your way out; it’s like aching all over; and it’s like feeling both helpless and deserted.”

The doctor said I could plan on being myself again in six weeks. So, when the fifth week began, I started analyzing myself several times a day. Did I feel even a little better? Well, maybe. I would be hopeful - even a bit excited - but I knew, too, that I was still that same stranger to myself. Then, infinitesimally, I started becoming a healthier, hungrier, more normal me. And at the end of the seventh week, in every way, I was myself again.

I’ve never had too much faith in that old saying that something good comes out of every experience … no matter how bad the experience. But perhaps, the empathy and compassion I now have for those going through withdrawal - no matter what they were addicted to - could be called something good.

I would like to think so.

MEMO: Jane Lavagetto is a free-lance writer living in Spokane.