If you or someone you know is addicted to or abusing both Xanax (or any other benzodiazepine) and a narcotic opioid painkiller (like oxycodone, methadone, Tramadol, and others), you can pretty much forget about having to suffer through opioid or Xanax withdrawal symptoms That’s because taking those two types of drugs together is a very deadly mix, even if you were legally prescribed both of them.
And even though deaths from taking Xanax has increased, so does benzo use and abuse. In fact, five years ago Florida saw about 1 in every 10 patients who had problems with benzodiazepines. These days it’s closer to 1 in 4.
CHICAGO — Nick was a high school junior already well-acquainted with mind-altering substances when a friend introduced him to Xanax. He was immediately smitten.
The prescription anti-anxiety medication affected him differently from booze or marijuana, he said, smothering his inner turmoil so completely he became a fugitive from his own mind.
“Whenever I would take it, I felt very at ease,” said Nick, now 26. “It made me really unproductive. I’d be able to do the schoolwork but at the same time I felt really relaxed. Half the time I’d be forgetting the stuff I was doing.”
Xanax is a benzodiazepine, a class of drugs that includes Valium and Klonopin. They are normally used to relieve anxiety and insomnia, but as they have become more commonly prescribed over the last two decades, abuse and overdoses have followed. Click Here to Continue Reading