These are just things that have helped me use this drug better this go round. I have struggled with depression before and it really can get better. Take time to wok on yourself. You really can fix your problems. After embracing the utter absurdity of existence and deconstructing first order principals I was taught defined meaning I feel better. Als not drinking to excess or doing street drugs.
Good luck. I know that you can get through it. each person has something to offer the world. Everyone matters to someone. We make the world around us. Now get some sleep and do something delightful when you get up!

I don’t have suicidel thoughts…
I don’t have night terrors…
I have some anxiety, but was a pre existing condition…

I have never increased or doubled my dose. I am hoping I can go to 5mg for a couple weeks then stop cold turkey.

Anyhow, my addiction started little over a year ago around this time when I was first introduced to ambien. Like most, I had been an insomniac for years and I wanted some relief! I knew my mother had some in the cabinet, she had been prescribed to use them for a long while and has done just fine on them. She was, however, adamant that I don’t take them from her because she needed them as she was a bad insomniac herself. I figured she wouldn’t notice if just one was gone since she never took them on the weekends. So, I took it. About thirty minutes in, there was no fatigue, but there was this… wave of utter… euphoria, I guess? And it was almost like I was having a mini acid trip. I recall talking to my girlfriend on the phone and telling her that I was on a pirate ship and these pirates were walking by me asking me to plunder with them, but I told them I couldn’t. It seemed very, VERY real to me at the time. A few weeks passed and I realized I had liked that feeling a lot and that I wanted to experience it again. So, I took another.

This continued on and off through out January until my mom approached me and told me to take her xanax if I needed to sleep. Having already dabbled in xanax during the time I started stealing her ambien, I knew it wasn’t going to affect me in the way she had hoped, but I took it as an open invitation to have as much as I liked. Still, I was careful, I didn’t really use it as much as I wanted to.

Skip to about February. I had started a highly stressful job and was trying to balance that, a social life, and school. I was beginning to have trouble sleeping again, so much so that I could go two days without it and be just fine. Finally, I took it upon myself to go to my doctor and tell him of my troubles. He prescribed me Ambien and it was an utter downward spiral from them. The first few weeks were fine, I took them as prescribed, I slept like a baby, school was good.

But then… I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t sleep, no matter how much I took. So, I began taking a xanax on the side and if in two hours I wasn’t asleep, I took another ambien. This led to a lot of times where I would be up after three weeks of having it and have to wait for a week before it could get refilled. It was utter hellish. I couldn’t sleep, all I could think was about when I got the ambien, when I could sleep again and not feel anything. Not care. I liked that when I took the ambien I felt more open and more lively, as compared to when I was sober. When I was sober I felt like I was boring and that no one was at all interested in me. I had nothing to talk about. Little did I know this was my depression that had been setting in. I hadn’t realized the signs and maybe if I had I would have stopped taking the ambien.

Finally, it just came to the point where I felt void of emotion, where I felt numb. I dropped out of school, I slept the day away, and at night, when I was awake, I couldn’t wait to take the ambien so I could sleep again. From April through August feels like an utter… grey, foggy area. I can’t remember nearly anything that had went on through those few months except that I was growing more numb, more empty, and that i just wanted something to relieve that feeling. I was abusing xanax, ambien, and darvocet. I occasionally smoked weed with my friends, I got drunk when I could. But the weed, the alcohol, it couldn’t compare to the chemical high I got from the pills. I wanted more, I need more. I began asking a close friend if there would be any way I could buy xanax or darvocet on the street and, luckily!, he said he had no idea.

I was spiraling into this empty abyss and I had no idea how to help myself, how to get out. I tried dropping hints to my mother, but she never understood and that is my fault, I realize. I should have been more open and more trusting, but it was embarrassing realizing that I was a pill addict. I was so ashamed of my behavior. I didn’t want anyone to know.

I remember there was a time where I could not feel anything. Anything at all. Not when I bumped into something or anything of that nature. As a former and recovering self harmer, there was a night where, feeling so hopeless and empty, I began cutting on my leg while on ambien. I had felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. And it frightened me. I didn’t do it again, thankfully.

I went to the doctor to ask for some antidepressants, hoping this would help. And it did, for the first month, but because my insurance wouldn’t cover the kind I had taken, my doctor completely took me off that one and switched me to another without trying to ween me off. That’s when things got bad. I couldn’t sleep at all, I was irritable and moody… I was even more numb than before.

Finally, I had hit bottom on one night in… august, I believe. I cannot remember the date, but I have the hospital bracelet saved in a box somewhere. Anyhow, my prescription had been filled for more than a week and I had taken two at the beginning of the night. Two hours later, I took two more and I was on the phone with my girlfriend (now ex) and chatting online with a close friend of mine. After the last two, everything became blurry. I remember hearing a girl crying and I realized, later, it was my ex, who was so worried about me. All in all, I ended up taking about somewhere from 19-22 pills. But not all at once, just over an extended period of time. About four hours after I finally passed out, my girlfriend had called me to woke me up. She said that I was crying on the phone with her and I was hysterical and apologizing. She asked me to call my mother and I did.

I don’t remember what happened next, but my whole family had gathered at the house while we were waiting for my mother to come home from work. I remember nothing except my cousin, who was so quiet. Now that I look back on it, I feel really ashamed. I’m a very private person and to have my family /know/ that I was a pill addict and then for them to think I had been trying to kill myself when I hadn’t been…?

I cannot stress that enough. Suicide has never entered my mind. But, both my mother and my doctor insist that I had tried, despite my efforts to tell them otherwise.

I was taken to the hospital where I confessed everything to my mother. The doctors at the ER said that a high amount of darvocet had also appeared in my system. It seems that, at one point, I had taken four or five darvocet during that night. I was mortified. I remembered nothing.

The next day, my mother took me to the doctors. I hadn’t slept at all that night. I was crying a lot, and I hurt, and I was just… so very ashamed in myself. At how weak I had become and how I had let my entire family down. I remember my doctor asking me if I remembered the past week at all and I told him no. And it was the truth. I was starting to have memory problems, everything was just so vague. It was like walking through a grey fog. Anyhow, he completely stopped my ambien prescription and switched me back to my regular antidepressant, Pristiq. Our insurance company, after both my mother and my PCP had contacted them, okayed me using Pristiq. A very big blessing, for this antidepressant has helped me loads!

Quitting cold turkey was rough, but not as rough as I thought it would be. For the first two days afterwards, I felt high, which was embarrassing. The next couple of days were hellish. I was cold all the time, I suffered from extreme nightmares (i usually never have them!), my sleeping pattern was all off. The terrible part was I had signed up to go back to school for the fall semester, but this all happened a week before school started! The first day I went back, I was still going through withdrawal symptoms. I couldn’t even go the full day. I ended up having a full blow panic attack. I sat in my car, hunched over and sobbing to myself, feeling useless and stupid for being so worried over having to face people. I had become so antisocial and awkward in the year that I had started ambien…!

I had texted a few old friends right before I went to bed the night of my overdose. One of them happened to me an old, super close friend of mine, who texted me back the day of. I told her I had an overdose and it’d be fine.

Finally, after a week, I had the balls to text her back and tell her all that had happened. We had our problems in the past which led to us no longer being friends, but I had told her that I missed her so much and we apologized and now we are closer than ever! A very small blessing. She is one of my few sober friends who knows how to handle things, which is exactly what I needed.

Two months later, I look back and feel as if a year has passed since my accident. While I am still having emotional problems, they are not as severe as they were while on pills. I am happy to say that I am content with my life and that, while I still do miss the xanax and the ambien, I know I will never touch them again. I am so lucky to have such supportive friends and family in my life. I felt like I hadn’t had that but my overdose made me realize how wrong I was.

My overdose woke me up to reality.

So, while people may say that ambien is not addictive, do not listen! It can be for some people and be very cautious if you ever choose to try it out! I wish everyone the best of luck with their endeavors, especially if you are an addict or a recovering addict like I am. Just know, you are never, ever alone.

Carl

I don’t do anything weird on Ambien but I did a couple of times when I drank wine. The first time I had about 3 glasses over a long evening with friends. It was very late and didn’t think anything would happen because I have friends who drink and take Ambien all the time. So I took one and went to bed. I woke up really late the next day – almost noon, feeling like someone scooped out part of my brain. I didn’t understand why I felt so bad. I ate the night before and while I might drink 3 glasses, I sip it slowly. It takes me an hour or two to finish a glass. I don’t chug wine. Then I noticed that some time during the night I had drank another entire bottle of wine, ate a bunch of Fritos, went into the garage and got sodas and drank them, then I noticed my camera was out. Apparently I took pictures of my bedroom. I didn’t remember any of it.

One other time I thought, well, maybe just a glass and a half won’t hurt. NOPE. It wasn’t as bad as my first episode but I woke up and saw what was left of the bottle of wine next to my bed. I thought OH NO! But luckily, I must have gotten it out of the fridge but I didn’t drink any of it. I also found a sticky note to remind myself of some incoherent crap. I couldn’t make sense of what I wrote. I don’t remember anything of that night either.

I will never drink even a sip of alcohol and touch Ambien. I am going to start weaning off of it today. These stories really scare me. I am also going to try to get off Ambien because it is no longer working for me. I get 3-4 hours of sleep. I don’t want to up the dose so I guess it’s time to tough it out.

I know that many people have had bad experiences from taking it and I really do feel for them. I have had bad and adverse responses to medication and I know what a terrible feeling it is.

and i’m sorry for all the stuff that has happened to you. one of those things you listed is awful for anyone to go through, and you have multiple. i really hope everything works out for you. =/

but yeah, basically we take ambien the same way for the same reasons, and i would drop the ambien when drinking.

—————
“first, eyesight gets slightly worsened (blurred). not enough to become alarming.

second, using your lungs feels way more burdened and heavy

thirdly, you move in a daze. your reaction times slow, and the level of which you care about things decreases

fourthly, eye sight begins to worsen – harder to focus (micro/macro)

fifthly, a calming feeling all of a sudden hits and everything doesn’t matter – the lack of motor controls, the lack of focusing, it doesn’t matter — you just want to sit and stare or sit and sleep.

sixth, hallucinations appear. slowly floating keys on keyboards, the surface of the table, medicine bottles, etc. you also begin to notice things in the corner of your eye that are not really there

seventh, not necessarily one of the last symptoms, but you feel warm and safe. nothing can or would hurt you, or at least you know for a fact that no one will break into the room and murder you, and knowing that makes everything else infinately less important – anything beyond the walls of this room is a mystery, but we don’t care. the only threat in the entire planet would be someone coming through the door or through the window. i’m sure no one will. i feel 100% safe in my room.”

—

and another one from a different night:
“feels as though some of your thoughts are real, but others have taken and given bakck

– just noticed the way it sounds, i think i wasa trying to say was that they are your ideas, but they are used from other sources. example, a slow, queit, angel” (keep in mind that the revision happened while under the influence of ambien, still)

—
1. everything gets bright
2. hear voices from random objects (ie – fan blowing)
3. the noise gets louder
4. the shadows. you look somewhere, but they’re already gone, but you feel their presense
5. eyesight degrades at immeasureable speeds – an ‘all at once’ effect
6. past memories start to play in, working with the already loud room
7. you always get the feeling that there are friends near you, even in an open house.