No, this is not a thread offering free Xanax. 
“Benzodiazepine-free” means that I am now (as of February of this year) no longer taking any benzos whatsoever. And I’m fully past the lengthy withdrawal period!
The story of my addiction and recovery is looooong and painful, and better suited as a blog post than a thread in MPSIMS here at the SDMB. But I thought I’d share with my new Doper friends the joyously good news that I’m finally starting to get my life back. I’m clean, and no longer have any ongoing cravings for that junk, at all. And no more access to it.
And I wanted to make a few quick observations about prescription drug abuse/addiction…
It ain’t a joke. I always thought that being “addicted” to prescription drugs was really just hyperbole…you know, nobody could REALLY get ADDICTED to them, and those who were “addicted” were just rich, idle housewives stuck in bad marriages, who took on the persona of an addict because it was fashionable, or something. Or fat, hot-aired, right-wing radio hosts, who have nothing better to do. 
Uh-uh. Addiction is addiction is addiction. You can be just as hooked, can commit crimes just as felonious, get sent to prisons just as real and for just as long, suffer withdrawals just as horribly nightmarish, as you can with “real drugs” (street drugs). You can lose your job, your family, your freedom, just like with heroin or meth or cocaine… And you can wind up just as dead. Witness Heath Ledger and Corey Haim.
Some folks think (and I was one of them) that if it’s a prescription medication, it’s “safe”. Well, yeah, very generally, statistically speaking, or else the FDA wouldn’t have approved it. But there’s a reason why it takes a doctor’s scrip to get this stuff: it’s too dangerous to let even adults buy it OTC. Thnk about that. Drug abuse is drug abuse, and some Rx substances are just as lethal as street drugs, if misused.
As horrific as these past five years have been, I’m not an anti-benzo crusader now, or anything. But I will say, if any of y’all are on benzos, please be careful. I’m NOT ABOUT to tell you that taking them is a bad idea. In the first place, I’m not a doctor. In the second place, I don’t know y’all. Finally, benzos have proven very helpful to people who struggle with severe pathological anxiety conditions, and I will always support their carefully professionally-supervised, legal prescription.
But if you’re on more than one benzo at a time, or have been taking them for more than a few months, please just be careful. Their addiction potential really is quite high (it varies from person to person, obviously), and it’s a type of addiction whose withdrawal and recovery period is worse than anything I’ve ever experienced. (Sadly, I’m no stranger to addictions; had a very serious struggle with opiates during many years, too–but benzo recovery was worse, by an order of magnitude, even! But that’s another story.)
I’m sober now, and ironically (but perhaps not surprisingly) much, much happier. 
