[smitty5000]

Ryan,

I was/ am very much in your same position. Historically, I’ve had anxiety and a tendency toward insomnia/ sleep anxiety, which got much worse over the past month due to a few significant life stressors (husband looking for/starting a new job, trying to get pregnant, moving apartments all at once). I had been taking Xanax to sleep for several weeks and had similar fears to you about dependance and addiction. Moreover, I believe that the nightly Xanax use was causing rebound anxiety and depression the next day, while making my insomnia worse in the medium-to-long- term. A few days ago, I decided to go cold turkey with the Xanax and commit headlong to the CBT-I strategies for sleep. This was a hard and scary decision that I cried about several times! But for me, I had become even more anxious about the Xanax use than about not sleeping, although it took me some time to realize that. After reading Martin’s free emails, listening to his podcast, and spending some time on this forum, I am beginning to understand how to dismantle my fear of wakefulness and sleeplessness. Think of it as some short term pain for some long term HUGE gain. I have slept (for a few hours at least!!) the past couple nights without the Xanax, through employing sleep restriction (for me, simply moving my bedtime from ~11 PM to 12:30 AM). Of course, the techniques are not an instant fix and I know I may have a long road in front of me. But I think the confidence of having an evidence-based plan and starting to change my mindset around my fear of insomnia has already done a ton of the work for me.

Writing this to give you encouragement–you know that the Klonopin is a bandaid, which in the short term is fine! But you have what it takes to get to a more solid place without it. (Listen to the Cindy episode of Martin’s podcast–it really helped me get to a turning point.)

Good luck!!!
-Sarah

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