I have a medical condition which will be tough to treat, and it means the end of radio (for now)

[gimmick]

There could be some benefit in taking Xanax few times a week for a short time period even though you've managed without it. Your mind might know that you can have a break from anxiety for few hours if needed but your body might not comprehend it unless you do it a few times. It's a way of establishing control and that itself can lessen anxiety.

In no way can you treat Xanax like caffeine pills but you shouldn't be too afraid to use it either. Toxicity wise on it's own it's very safe. With dependency/withdrawal wise it still takes months of daily use at much higher doses. In recreational use people seek euphoria and a sense of carelessness. When looking for those tolerance grows very fast and even with no tolerance the dosage is bigger than what would be appropriate for you.

In your case all you need is disconnecting/suppressing the "fight or flight" reflex. In therapeutic use, besides taking far bigger doses, one way that can cause problems is "taking it when needed" when that's several times a day every day. Even without exceeding the recommended daily dosage, that will create a physical dependency usually with a very strong psychological component at that point.

Being aware of benzo addiction is very good, but the usual dangers apply less to you because of your personality and non existent history of drug abuse.

This exact thing was told to me by two different doctors.

However, I still don't want to do it, for two reasons:

1) I hated that lethargic feeling the next day.

2) I don't think it will do much good. I say this because I've naturally gotten "breaks" from the anxiety through unexplained short periods of time where I felt mostly better. The most recent (and longest) one was from Sunday through Thursday of last week, only to see the anxiety return on the following day (now a week ago). While the break was nice, it didn't do a lot for me long term. Same with the other (shorter) periods where symptoms waned, including the time I did take the Xanax.

So given that I don't think this is a matter of "breaks" being needed to help get better, I haven't taken anymore Xanax.

I do agree that my personality and lack of desire to take recreational drugs makes me less likely to get addicted to Xanax than the average person.

Sadly I don't think the anxiety will be gone until the LPR is gone or mostly suppressed. That's where I'm focusing right now.

That's fair. Xanax does very little to cure anxiety. It's just the knowledge you can take it and the benefits of sleep/rest.

Having natural "breaks" is obv very good since it let's you know that your body can in some circumstances handle with anxiety on it's own even if you don't yet know how to recreate those circumstances. As with medically induced "breaks" it does help you recharge batteries and for most people it makes handling bad days a bit easier.

Some of the lethargy might have been related to lack of caffeine and the rest likely would go away fairly fast. Oh and apparently PPIs could cause Xanax to metabolize slower.