My original prescription, the one I was on for nine years, was 300 mg Wellbutrin in the morning, 150 mg in the afternoon. 1 mg Xanax four times a day. I took it in the morning and then every four hours.

After the “script writer” was out of the picture, I saw the quack. At that point I thought I just needed something longer lasting. He gave me a script of 1 mg Klonopin to take *with* the Xanax. He also added 50 mg Zoloft, which I could bump up to 100 mg if I didn’t feel well after two weeks. After a month we would start tapering the Xanax, then we would taper the Klonopin. So his plan was 300 mg Wellbutrin, 50 mg Zoloft, 1 mg Xanax, 1 mg Klonpin in the morning, then 150 mg Wellbutrin in the afternoon and 1 mg Xanax, 1 mg Klonopin every four hours.

I came up with a bizarre schedule on my own to taper in the Klonopin and taper out the Xanax. This was based on information from benzobuddies.com, a site that worships the Ashton method.

Then I finally saw the specialist who called everything above crazy. He has me at 300 mg, 100 mg Zoloft in the morning. 300 mg mg and 25 mg Librium four times a day (so in the morning, then every four hours.) Every five days I have taken one less Librium. Tomorrow will be my last one. I had them call in a script for ten more pills just in case I completely wig out on this final step.

So I’m on a 20 day taper. I understand that Librium is a benzo. Everything you mentioned in your reply was covered in my appointment with the specialist. Shorter half-life & faster acting = more addicting. He also said it was ridiculous to try to get someone off a drug by using the same drug. Relapse was too tempting. Thus the benzo switch. He said to only extend a step in the taper if I had severe physical withdrawal and not just a desire to quell the craving.

The doctor said he’s gotten people on higher doses off benzos using this method. I looked it up online and could only find an abstract, but there is a study out there of an in-patient version of this treatment plan (switch Xanax for Librium immediately) but with a daily taper of Librium. That study successfully got patients off benzos in 14 days.