From addiction and grace (book) by gerald g may:
page 82
let's assume that you decide to quit the pills; your stress if over and you think you can get back to normal on your own. Or perhaps you ran outta pills and can't get a refill. Either way, the sedatives disappear from your brain. Cell a, now completely accustomed to large amounts of the sedative, quite literally goes crazy when it experiences none at all. It rebounds by firing up to an extreme degree, manufacturing and releasing great quantities of the 'wake-up" neurotransmitter. The neurotransmitter molecules come raging in hords across the synapse, invading cell b's receptors, which, as we have said, are now much greater in number and much more sensitive because it had to addapt to the amout of sedative and cell b was starved. The effect of cell b is cataclysmic. Its messages to other cels are berserk, unintelligible. All the millions of other neurons that had so dutifully adapted to their new normality of sleeping pills are now screaming that something is terribly wrong, and you are experienceing both backlash and the stress that constitute w/drawl symptoms.
End quote
the best thing to do is to not take them at all anymore. But if you are having a very hard time at work or at school and you job or grade depends on your performance, quitting the pills may not be best at the time. Wait until a weekend when you do not have so much to do so that you can take naps in the morning and get reaclimatized.
Good luck
rebecca
12 days sober
