zopiclone addiction

Hi Keith ,sorry to hear you are having problems with zopiclone.I was addicted to this drug for over 5 years and became very ill on it resulting in going into tolerance withdrawal when i wasnt even withdrawing.I had terrible withdrawel symtoms and o ly thing that helped was to take more zopiclone.Anyway to cut a long story short i didcome off them in the end but only with the help of an organisation that deals with tranquil addiction.I had to withdrdraw by switching over to diazepam and cutting slowly.I could not have done this without the telephone advice and support of this voluntary organisation.Its been 3 years since i came off this drug but never thought i would.If you want any more advice on this feel free to contact me.Regards Anita

Hi Keith.  I had been taking Zopiclone for about 15 years, then my gp called me in for a review and said i cant have any more. When i said i was anxious about giving them up, she put me on Mitrazapine, an anti-depressant.  They are difinitely tightening up on the Zops, probably because they now realize that  poeople like us have been using them inappropriately.  I dont think incould nhave taken them during the day. Your gp will probably ofer you a similar drug to come off them. The Mitrazapine make me feel drowsy during the day and dont always work at night to put me to sleep, but better than nothing.  Hope you get on ok.

Hi Keith

I suspect at least one reason this drug will unavailable is because it's been found to be carcinogenic. This is from the wikipedia article on zopiclone:

"...Carcinogenicity[edit]

A recent analysis of both U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) data and clinical trial data shows that nonbenzodiazepine Z-drugs at prescribed doses cause an increased risk of developing cancer in humans. There have been 15 epidemiological studies, which have shown that hypnotic drugs cause increased mortality, mainly due to increased cancer deaths. The cancers included those of the brain, lung, bowel, breast, and bladder. One possible explanation for the increased cancer deaths is that the Z-drugs have an adverse effect on the immune system. The fact that clinical trial subjects taking other Z-drugs (zolpidem, zaleplon and eszopiclone) had an increased rate of infections seems to support this theory. Benzodiazepine hypnotic agents are also associated with an increased risk of cancer in humans, namely ovarian cancer. Development of malignancy has been associated with zolpidem usage, but the incidence of neoplasm in zolpidem users is as yet unknown.[49]

Indiplon, another nonbenzodiazepine drug has also shown an increased rate of cancers in clinical trials. The review author concluded by saying: "The likelihood of cancer causation is sufficiently strong now that physicians and patients should be warned that hypnotics possibly place patients at higher risk for cancer".[49]

To follow up on what Anita said -- i started taking zolpidem (Ambien, Stillnox) 20 years ago for sleep. In recent years, especially 2012, i started getting increasing tolerance and i had to take more, it wasn't working as good.  That was when i added in zopiclone, 7.5mg a night along with zolpidem.  Over the year of 2013, i continued the zopiclone, and gradually increased the zolpidem.  Taking the two together was bringing on new symptoms, which i think were caused by the zolpidem, brain symptoms. i knew this was really bad for me, and i finally got the courage to start tapering off the zopiclone, 1/4 pill starting in early January of this year.  After about 4 weeks, i cut another 1/4, so i was taking 1/2 pill, and then two weeks later i cut another 1/4 and was taking 1/4 pill, and a week later i stopped. This was much easier to do because iw as still taking the zolpidem which got me to sleep. i was very happy to get off the zopiclone, and eager to get off the zolpidem as well.  Both those drugs are short acting and that's why you will have withdrawal symptoms fairly often during the day.  Zolpidem is the most short acting, half of it is out of your blood stream in about 3 hours.  That's why i got so much tolerance to it.  I would take it at bedtime--i was stking 17mg at bedtime--and i was only sleeping about an hour and a half. Then, i would wait til about 4am and i would take another 10mg to get some more sleep. So i was up to 27mg a night. I wanted to taper off but it seemed so hard because of the frequent withdrawal symptoms and because i was taking it twice--i couldn't imagine how i could still get any sleep. i went to an addictiion doctor who speicalizes in that and he adviseed me to switch off the zolpidem onto diazapam and then taper off the diazapam. He said that would be much easier because that is a much longer acting medication, like it can be as much as 100 hours for half of it to leave your blood stream. i had misgivings, but i did it. He said to just stop the zolpidem and start 10mg of Valium, not tapering off the zolpidem but just switching, just like that, overnight, and i did and i didnt' feel anythign from stopping the zolpidem. The diazapam was stronger and for the first time in years, i slept right through the night, not waking at all, or if i did wake, then going right back to sleep. I did have a strong hangover the next day from it. I did that for about 7 days and then met with the doctor again (who also wanted me to call him and tell him what was happening). When i met with him, he said to start tapering, he was surprised at how bad my hangover was, i was not functional during the day. So, i cut down to 9mg, and i was continuing to have some hang over though not as and it got a little harder to sleep.  Then he said i could cut the diazapam 1mg every 4 days.  So, i went to 8mg, and that went fine, the first day, i had trouble sleeping but the next three, i slept well, all night, and wasn't getting the hangover though i wasn't as energetic as i'd been on the zolpidem, in spite of not sleeping much on it.  Two nights ago i cut to 7mg diazapam and i did not sleep all night,  but there was another reason for that, a worry i had, a fear of going to sleep, long story, won't go into it now, related to low blood sugar on waking and apparently going into a coma, i live alone so i don't fully know, but serious impairment on waking, which then eventually went away enough that i could move around--at first i couldn't get up, off my back, so i was scared to go to sleep, and i cut the diazapam anyway because i want to get off all these drugs ASAP, i suspect they have caused the low blood sugar problem i'm having,, my brain is not getting enough glucose.  Anyway, after no sleep at all night before last, i was tired last night and slept pretty fine on 7mg diazapam.  A couple more nights and i will go to 6mg.  This is a common approach to helping people get off short acting drugs like zopiclone and zolpidem. At least one other member here, Dave, used this method in some form.  

Good luck with getting off, these drugs are poison, seriously, i'm not being overdramatic, they are toxic, poison, dangerous, as you know from experience.  Keep in touch, it sounds like your doctor is supportive. You can google ways of getting off the zop and see what various people do. We have two people here who have used phenergan, an antihistamine, to get off, Christian and Matrix. i don't remember how high of a dose they were at.  Others, like Vivien, have used mirtazapine, one guy was Dean, haven't seen him around in a while.