From: "Lynn" <lynnerzs@y...>

Date: Fri Nov 29, 2002 7:24 pm

Subject: 2 yrs off Ativan&Librium/ Msg. to Gloria and all re AMBIEN...

Dear Group,

It's been a couple of years since I have posted.

I check-in to read the posts from time to time

and will always be grateful to this site while

I was doing a 10 month taper off of Ativan &

Librium. The knowledge and reassurance from the

Old Timers and the support of others who were

going through the withdrawals and understood,

helped me beyond words...

2 yrs/2mos later, I'm feeling pretty good these

days. I remember asking over and over again -

will I ever be normal again...will it get

easier!? The fear of being not being able to

function and wondering if I could cope with

life again was overwhelming at times. Seeing

posts from others who got through it and were

*back at life* again was a great support.

I'm grateful to say that the only symptom I'm

challenged with at this point is some insomnia.

I'm not even sure that the insomnia is due to

the previous benzo usage at this point as

I'm 46 and it may very well be perimenopausal

issues.

Gloria had posted earlier today about using

Ambien for sleep assistance. I wanted to share

my experience with Ambien as this medicine

acts very much like a Benzo in our systems.

I knew that Ambien was similar to benzos and

(STUPIDLY) used it to help me sleep about a

year after I had finished my taper. I developed

toleranceto it within 3 mos. and suffered

benzo-like withdrawals after discontinuance.

I had to use Librium for several weeks to stop

help the withdrawal symptoms from the Ambien.

Please be very, very careful using this medicine.

It's dangerous stuff, too!

Here is a brief synopsis on how Ambien is

similar to benzos. This information was written

by a chemist.

Love and blessings to all,

Lynn in Arizona

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Is Ambien a Benzodiazapine?

April 8, 2002, at 9:22:22

Is Ambien a Benzodiazapine?

The whole argument turns on semantics and your

definition of what is or is not a benzodiazepine.

If you define a benzo by it's chemical structure,

a benzene ring attached to a seven-sided

diazepine nucleus, well then, no, Ambien

is not a benzo.

But that strikes me as a rather transparent

linguistic maneuver. Think about this example.

You tell a child not to walk over a line. He

subsequently jumps over the line, and then

insists that he didn't break your rule because

he did not in fact walk over the line, he

jumped over it. In a literal sense he is correct.

But we feel that he is attempting to deceive us,

and we can see right through it. He has ended

up on the other side of the line, regardless

of how he got there.

I think the analogy is fairly clear with

Ambien and the benzodiazepines. No, Ambien

does not literally have a benzene ring and

a diazepine nucleus. But it does act at the

GABA BZD1 receptor complex just like a

classical benzodiazepine. It gets to the

same place, so to speak, albeit with a

different chemical structure.

So, from the standpoint of a chemist Ambien

is not a benzodiazepine, but from the

standpoint of a patient's nervous system

it is a benzodiazepine.

It is particularly annoying to me that the

marketing folks at Searle have leveraged this

little word game to make Ambien seem more

innocuous to prescribing physicians and sleep

disturbed consumers.