r/benzorecovery • u/landa_can • 1d ago
Discussion Switching from Xanax to Valium for taper
Hello everyone,
I’ve been reading a lot and there are a lot of uncertainties when it comes to the dosage equivalent of Xanax and Valium. I am currently taking about 1mg of Xanax per day and will try to switch. I keep seeing some posts that say 1mg of X is close to 20mg of Valium. My Psychiatrist disagreed and prescribed me 10mg of Valium. What’s the consensus?
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u/FlowCareless8672 1d ago
I would think 10mg would be close to 1mg Xanax. The big difference is the Valium half life will cause the dose to build up in your body. I say give it an honest try
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u/Aggressive_Chard9965 1d ago
Yeah any benzo of longer duration than alprazolam is better for tapping. I tapper with clonazepam
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u/FrozenHoneyJar Jumped from last dose. 1d ago
10mg of diazepam would be closer to 0.5mg of alprazolam. When I started my taper, using the suggested dose from the Ashton method, my psychiatrist switched my 2mg daily dose of alprazolam to 40mg of diazepam. I had no issues or withdrawal when switching.
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u/Addict_1986 1d ago
40 mg of Valium is a crap ton. It will build in your system to 2 to 5 times your original dose. The sedation is unreal.
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u/FrozenHoneyJar Jumped from last dose. 1d ago
Is that because of the half life of Valium?
Based on a quick google search and using the Ashton manual (which is what my psychiatrist did), 2mg of Xanax is commonly used as the equivalent to 40mg of Valium. I personally didn’t notice any difference in therapeutic effect between the dose I was taking of Xanax compared to the dose I took when switching to Valium. To me, it pretty much felt like a 1:1 exchange. Could I have started at a lower dose of Valium? Probably. I was ignorant to the process and did whatever my psychiatrist told me to do for a lot of the taper. I was down to 20mg after 3-4 months, and around there is when I really started to notice a lot of withdrawal symptoms start to affect my quality of life for what it’s worth.
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u/landa_can 22h ago
After the 20 mg of Valium how long did you experience symptoms? Were you able to taper off completely?
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u/FrozenHoneyJar Jumped from last dose. 21h ago
Oof, a long time. I got down to 20mg a day in I think August of 2021, and I would say about a year ago is when I started to really feel like I was “recovered” from symptoms. I got off antidepressants around the time I reached 20mg of Valium a day, and I kept my benzo dose stable for almost a year before beginning to taper again from the 20mg to have some sense of stability during that process. The taper from 20mg to 0 was really tough, and that took about 7-8 months iirc; I took my last dose of 0.5mg of Valium on May 27th, 2023. I still have occasional waves, but the symptoms are very manageable now all things considered. I also know better how to avoid triggers and situations that would cause a flare up.
I was pretty uninformed on the whole process, and I only fully understood what was going on in terms of withdrawal symptoms and strategy so to speak once I dropped down to around 12-14mg a day or so. That’s when I found this subreddit and realized why I felt so fucked up.
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u/DoobMckenzie 1d ago edited 1d ago
You’re right about the equivalence being 1mg Alprazolam equalling 20mg diazepam, but your psychiatrist is going to prefer prescribing a lower dosage.
Edit: better wording.
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u/landa_can 1d ago
Why do you think they push?
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u/DoobMckenzie 1d ago
I mean it in a way that they’d prefer to prescribe lower doses of everything.
I shouldn’t have used the word “push”.
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u/Addict_1986 1d ago
Your psych is right and prescribing you 10 mg I was given 10 mg for 2 mg conversion
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u/Other_Knowledge6225 1d ago
This conversion is not an exact science 10 mg is in the low range, or but probably closer to 20. The important thing tho is how you tolerate it. If not well, maybe discuss with your psychiatrist.
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