Jenna woke upwardly on her kitchen floor. Dimly, the California teacher remembered bending over the sink, trying to swallow water. Co-ordinate to the clock, that had been more than an hr ago. She fumbled for her phone simply couldn't think clearly enough to text for help.

"I felt these horrible jolts running through my head and body; I couldn't stop jerking," she recalled. "And then I began seeing stuff that wasn't in that location, creepy-crawly things. I didn't know what was happening, only I worried I might exist dying."

The previous morn Jenna, and then 33, had inexplicably woken up shaking.

"I'one thousand usually pretty confident and outgoing, but I felt like I couldn't leave my apartment," she said. "Somehow I made it to schoolhouse. My boss noticed the shaking and was concerned; I told him I wasn't sure what it was and I went dwelling early on."

There, things got worse. Her twitching intensified, and she grew increasingly confused. Then she passed out.

In one case Jenna regained consciousness, she hauled herself to her sofa. Over the adjacent two days she couldn't eat or drink, and her heed drifted in and out. Finally, Jenna'due south female parent stopped by—and establish her daughter curled upward in a fetal position on the floor, clutching her cell phone, twitching uncontrollably.

"My mom dragged me to the car and got me to the emergency room," Jenna said. "The ER staff asked if I'd taken any drugs or alcohol, and I told them I hadn't."

When a nurse wanted to know what prescriptions she was on, Jenna told them generic Xanax, noting that two nights before she passed out, she'd run out of the pills she'd been using for anxiety.

Later on testing her blood and urine, staffers administered some other drug that, like Xanax, is in the benzodiazepine family.

"Virtually immediately, I stopped shaking and felt totally normal," Jenna said. "It was as though nil had e'er happened. Nobody there told me, just I put information technology together: I'd been in withdrawal. I was dependent on Xanax."

Jenna had first gotten a prescription eight years earlier when she was a student and saw a physician, complaining of insomnia. After discussing her trouble, "he decided I was anxious," she said. "I had a busier life than some, but I didn't call up I was peculiarly anxious. He told me there was this bully drug I could take. He prescribed a milligram per day of the generic form."

At showtime, she loved it.

"Information technology was amazing," she said. "I could sleep anywhere, on the spot."

A few months afterward, though, her insomnia returned, along with a new sense of nervousness that struck between pills. Over the next couple of years, her doctor upped the dosage until it reached 6 mg per twenty-four hours, an unusually high level.

Jenna's experience—extreme every bit information technology is—shows that this drug, which more than and more than women today are using, may comport severe risks.

"Dependence on benzodiazepines similar Xanax is a serious problem, specially among young women," said Harris Stratyner, cochairman of the medical scientific subcommittee of the nonprofit group National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. "Frequently, it's not because they've been abusing the drugs; it can be caused by following the prescription their doc gave them."

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A tranquilizer, Xanax has many close cousins, including familiar names Valium, Klonopin and Ativan. Alprazolam (Xanax'south generic grade) is the most prescribed psychiatric drug in the U.s., reports health intendance technology and data visitor IMS Wellness. In that location'due south proficient reason: Used properly and nether the correct circumstances, Xanax works fast and safely to salvage symptoms of feet and panic disorders, every bit both clinical studies and patient feel testify.

Benzos actuate the encephalon's GABA receptors, inhibiting neuron activity and leaving you more relaxed and oft sleepier.

"With Xanax, you typically experience the effects within 15 to 20 minutes of taking it, and they vesture off within six hours," said Jennifer A. Reinhold, assistant professor of clinical chemist's at the Philadelphia Higher of Chemist's. "In contrast, with SSRI [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor]antidepressants—which are also prescribed for anxiety disorders—patients generally experience a lag time of four to six weeks earlier they commencement working."

Doctors besides ofttimes prescribe Xanax equally a brusk-term fix for moments of acute anxiety or to help manage specific phobias.

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"I'm not a fan of Xanax, but I might prescribe just a few pills on occasion for patients with fear of flying; it works," said Dr. Catherine Birndorf, a New York Urban center psychiatrist and a self contributing skillful.

Yet its cred as a highly constructive drug also makes it a often abused ane: Experts say that benzos are then widely available and sometimes used so casually that they can seem benign.

"The civilisation in which we alive sends messages that there is no reason to tolerate discomfort," said Susan Foster, vice president and director of policy research and analysis at the substance apply and addiction nonprofit CASAColumbia, adding, "That fuels misuse of prescription medications."

Consumed daily in high doses, even for a month, Xanax can lead to concrete dependence. Only just accepting pills (hashtag: #Xannies) from friends here and there is risky—and non only because information technology's against the law. It puts users at take chances for a psychological dependence, in which they believe they tin can't get through life without assist from a pill.

"I know from a dispensary where I work that even people who aren't physically dependent on benzos can go desperate for them," Reinhold said.

The more people regularly have these piffling pills to soothe themselves, the more their minds may start to crave them.

As she notes: "Maybe they tin can't get through a chore interview or a big date unless they have one. They enquire friends for them, they get to multiple doctors or they may even endeavour online pharmacies that illegally hand out pills without prescriptions."

An estimated fourteen.7 pct of Americans ages 21 to 34 have taken tranquilizers without a prescription or even recreationally, according to 2012 data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Meanwhile, the number of ER visits from people misusing or abusing alprazolam skyrocketed 172 percent from 2004 to 2011, the near recent federal statistics bachelor.

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The drug can be particularly dangerous when taken in combination with other substances.

"If you mix a benzo with some other drug that subdues your nervous organisation—painkillers, alcohol, antihistamines—the effects can be dangerous or deadly," Reinhold said. "Remember Heath Ledger?"

Even when used as prescribed, Xanax can become habit-forming, Birndorf said.

"Every bit your body acclimates to it, you could end upwardly needing more of it, and sooner, to get the same response."

If that happens and you lot abruptly stop taking the drug, you might go into withdrawal. This can lead to muscle twitches, depression, anxiety and, in its severest form, seizures. Says Dr. Stuart Gitlow, an habit psychiatrist and president of the American Guild of Addiction Medicine, "Withdrawal from benzos can be more dangerous than withdrawal from heroin."

Those risks are very existent for women; an estimated 32.5 million alprazolam prescriptions were written for women in 2012 versus 15.3 million for men, co-ordinate to IMS Health.

"Women now are more aware of just how bad stress is for them, and they are more likely to seek out remedies," Birndorf said. "They may believe that taking Xanax to relieve those feelings is beneficial. Just information technology doesn't address any was causing their stress to begin with."

However, the fact is that some doctors—who more than anyone should be aware of the risks—are doling out Xanax in irresponsible and harmful ways. Though Xanax's prescribing information has long included clear diction about potential dangers and warnings against overprescribing, and medical organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association echo these in their guidelines, some doctors aren't paying attending.

Benzos are now and so mainstream that "psychiatric problems are sometimes being treated by main-care physicians, who may not accept enough training in or understanding of these drugs," Gitlow said.

More than half of all benzo prescriptions are written past primary-care physicians, not psychiatrists, according to one study published in the journal Psychiatry.

"Doctors who don't empathize these drugs oftentimes up the dosage—to treat symptoms that the drug itself may be causing," he added.

The lack of awareness is complicated by the fact that many patients self-diagnose and enquire for the drugs past proper noun.

"It's not that there are a lot of doctors just saying, 'Oh, I'll hand this stuff out similar gummi bears,'" Gitlow said. "Merely people are in distress, and they desire an instant cure—and so information technology'due south hard for some physicians to withhold information technology, particularly when they know they'll merely get it elsewhere."

Fifty-fifty psychiatrists can feel trapped by a system that pushes them to opt for a quick fix rather than a long-term solution.

"Physicians accept less and less time to spend with patients or may see them only occasionally, when their talk therapist sends them in for drugs," noted Dr. Harold J. Bursztajn, a forensic psychiatrist and an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

"Feet tin can almost ever exist treated in other ways, but also many doctors are also rushed to search for the root of a patient'south problem when there's a supposed solution that seems quick, like shooting fish in a barrel and effective."

Once a dr. prescribes the drug, follow-upwards care may be defective, every bit Kim in Pennsylvania discovered. The energetic and then-20-year-old higher student started having frequent anxiety attacks and visited a dr., who had previously prescribed generic Xanax for her to utilize as needed for occasional feet. This time, he put her on information technology daily.

The drug soothed her panic just made her so drowsy that she began to oversleep and miss classes. Her GPA dropped, and she took to avoiding her friends. Afterwards a month, the anxiety returned in between doses.

"I was taking it religiously, but the feelings were three times every bit strong," she said.

The side by side semester, she took a medical leave of absenteeism from schoolhouse and holed up in her room at her parents' firm.

Kim discussed her situation with the medico. He suggested increasing the dosage, only she refused. She'd become concerned most her reaction to the drug.

"Between doses, information technology felt like my spine was hooked up to an electrical socket and there was a chemic tempest within my head," she said.

The symptoms were worst when she woke upwardly: "I had to go along my pills beside my bed and then that earlier I even opened my eyes, I'd be melting 1 under my natural language. I'd dry heave and cry until it kicked in."

Then one morning time, she experienced what's known equally a paradoxical agin reaction—a rare, unexpected response to a drug that can't be explained. She had popped her pill and was lying there waiting for it to have hold, except null happened. She felt so scared and shaky that she took some other. And so, in a one-half hour, one more—followed by a 4th one xxx minutes later on. Within minutes of downing the last pill, her legs began shaking violently. The toes on her left foot curled up, and her tongue stiffened.

"The side by side affair I think is the paramedics running in," she said. "I'd had a seizure."

The debilitating pangs of interdose withdrawal had been awful plenty. At present, Kim started to worry about how she would ever become off the drug.

What makes it even rougher for women who become dependent on benzos is that many physicians do not fully understand how to wean them off the medication.

"While most doctors should know how to taper properly, not anybody does," Birndorf said.

Few women are more than aware of that than Emily, who lives in Indiana. She was prescribed generic Xanax at historic period 25, a few months after she'd had a infant. She was filled with anxiety, frequently irrational.

"I worried that someone would feed her something she might choke on," she recalled.

When the drug didn't aid and she became desperate, she admitted herself to a psychiatric ward; during the week she was there, relatives cared for her little girl.

Emily was taken off alprazolam and put on the generic form of Klonopin, which is slower-acting. After being released, she followed upward with her physician, who connected her on that drug, simply Emily didn't experience much better on it. Her anxiety attacks persisted.

"Every day was a struggle," she said.

After several months, she started looking for other doctors to become her off the pills. Ane wanted her to get cold turkey, merely she'd been reading up online and knew the dangers of benzo withdrawal.

"Once you've been on Xanax or similar drugs for a calendar month or more, you may demand to taper off them gradually," Birndorf explained.

Tapering is a stepladder arroyo that involves slowly decreasing your dose past tiny increments. Information technology may also include switching from a faster-acting benzo like Xanax to a slower one, such as Klonopin, as the hospital had Emily do.

"If you've been on a loftier dose for years, tapering from benzos can possibly have much longer than with other drugs, similar SSRIs—perchance even a full year," Birndorf said.

Sometimes, she points out, patients don't comply with the tapering process because they don't realize how dependent on the medication they may have become.

Unfortunately, relatively little is existence washed in this country to increase sensation of benzo pitfalls—and for now, likewise many women are learning the hard fashion. Although the Centers for Disease Command and Prevention supports more teaching of health intendance professionals most benzo misuse, along with increased monitoring of prescription drugs such as these, for the most part, painkillers get more attention in the medical community.

After contacting doctor after physician, last twelvemonth Emily found a nurse-practitioner knowledgeable most benzo tapering who helped her cantankerous over to generic Valium. She's however going through the process, with bouts of anxiety when she cuts a dose.

"Simply at least now I know why," she said. "And I'm getting better." She hopes to exist off benzos altogether within the year.

At present living with her fiancé, Kim is also working with a nurse-practitioner to taper off benzos. She has reenrolled in school but at times nevertheless struggles to become by.

"My body and my brain have to acquire how to handle fifty-fifty the nearly minor stresses on their own all over once again, like driving on busy roads," she said.

And then far, Jenna is the only one of the women in these cases who has made information technology completely off benzos. About a year afterward her trip to the ER, she married and discovered that she was significant. She'd been trying to taper on her own, but knowing that the drug could potentially hurt the fetus, she managed to discover a benzo specialist a 3 hours' drive abroad. Because of her pregnancy, she chose to taper faster than commonly recommended.

"I had some withdrawal symptoms—shakiness and feeling scared all the time," she said. "Just information technology was a compromise I had to make for the sake of my baby." She had a healthy girl.

Jenna has cofounded an online support group; it at present has more than 500 members. "What I detest is how Xanax has go known as such a cool pill," she says.

"You picket a sitcom and someone says, 'Oh, I can't get to sleep without white wine and a Xanax!' and all I tin think is, Wow, that's not funny after you've lived through it."

This article originally appeared on Self.com.