I'm in the process of tapering of clonazepam, after being on it at a fairly high dose, for about 20 years.


The secret is to go really slow, and make small decreases. I started at 3.5 mg, and am now down to 1 mg, but that's taken about 18 months. It shouldn't have taken that long, but I had a bad fall and concussion and I had to stop the taper for about 8 months. My psychiatrist agreed when I started that it would take 10 to 12 months but that there was no deadline.

I don't know what benzo you're on but the best, in my opinion, way to taper is to cross taper onto diazepam, so that while you're reducing your main benzo, you're total benzo amount goes down more slowly. Then you very slowly taper of the diazepam. This is the protocol outlined in the Ashton manual, and it's what a lot of addictions specialists recommend.

You can find out a lot more about it, and other taper methods, as well as support at benzobuddies.org I've found their forums to be really helpful.

I honestly haven't had too many problems with my taper. I'm usually ok for about 2-3 days after making a decrease then have about 5 days where I feel like I have the flu and earaches, and then I'm ok. I decrease every couple of months.


I think that the most important thing is that you and your Dr., are on the same page about going slow, and that your Dr. lets you control the pace of the taper.

Good luck with it.
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