The reality of benzodiazepines (of which diazepam/valium is just one) is that they should NEVER be used continuously for more than 2 weeks. Even the pharma companies are very open about this, but it's the doctors who ignore the warning and will often keep prescribing these highly addictive drugs for years on end. Tolerance to these drugs is also very high, and often times people who are taking really high doses started out on very low doses originally, but because the effect wears off they needed to keep increasing their dose to get the same effect. The other reality of benzo is that they don't "fix" anything. All they will ever do is mask the symptoms.
Tapering off a benzo should never be done quickly. "Cold turkey" or rapid tapers are very dangerous and can lead to life threatening problems. A slow and steady taper (sometimes even done as a daily liquid taper) is what is always recommended.
Also, people's sensitivity to benzos can vary enormously. Some people may have no problem tapering off a benzo, but other people who are highly sensitive will need to taper off over months or even years. There have never been any studies done (apart from what Prof Heather Ashton did years ago), but it is estimated that about 30% of the population has a high sensitivity to these drugs and will need to taper very slowly.
I know all this because I became dependent on diazepam, largely because of mismanaged menopause treatment, and it took me almost 2 years to taper off just 5mg of diazepam because I am one of the unlucky highly sensitive types. Also women often have a harder time tapering because hormones (particularly progesterone) don't play well with benzos, and of course a lot women are put on benzos because of hormones.
There are a lot of sites around that will offer advice on benzo tapering, but a lot of them aren't terribly helpful and I have heard of some very bad advice being given on a lot of them. I would personally keep away from all the facebook pages, because usually there is no one monitoring the information or advice they are giving.
IMO the best site available for benzo tapering is
http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/. I used to be an "mentor" on that site, but I don't do it anymore because it just became too much for me, plus is it often difficult dealing with the mental issues of some when they are highly addicted, and not just on benzos. It also got too depressing, constantly seeing so many people joining every day suffering from benzo dependency.
Sadie - if you would like some personal advice on how you can tackle your problem I'm happy for you to send me a PM. Helping people with their diazepam problems was my specialty on BB for a long time. Tapering off your dose will not be that hard. It's entirely do-able and painless, provided you know the right way to do it.
