Another BENZO withdrawal/DP/DR question

I am admitedly ignorant of benzo withdrawal but am confused.
I was on xanax for many years at 2 mgs per day and later at 3mgs per day and decided on my own to quit, which I did in two weeks with slow tapering and had some discomfort, but nothing like you guys speak of. The list one of you put up of symptoms all sounded like anxiety symptoms relived after not having them for awhile. But I am ignorant.
I know we are all different, but your experience is not mine. I seem to remember that true nasty withdrawal does not occur unless the dose is higher...over the 3mg level. Is this not true?
I write this becasue I think benzoes get bad raps for those peeps that really need them. Added to this is the abuse that occurs with booze and recreational use and this makes them bad bets by docs trying to avoid the lawsuit. But I think sometimes some folks with very legimate needs are denied these meds, even long term, becasue of bad reporting and other issues.
I keep a bottle of xanax with me always and use as needed, which amounts to about three pills a month. I am one who went five years heavily into recreational drug use including heroin and other opiates. I was also labeled by my chemical dependency doc as the classic "drug prone" personality. Benzoes never ever approached addiction for me in the dose I was prescribed.
I am not at all denying anything you guys are saying, I am ignorant and it jsut does not jive with my experience.
jft

Thanks ya all. I am learning. I had a feeling I would get a tweaking for my post. And I respect everthing you said.

I liked the illustration Rula about recreational drugs and how we don't know who and how many who wind up with problems...it is indeed a crap shoot. And we all of course tell everyone...everyone....to stay away from illegal drug use. And that is sound advice.

I want to say "ya but" here, but don't know if I dare. Allow me just one thought. At a time when I was having alot of stress along with everything else, I went in for a script from my doc (who was my prescriber for years)..He admitted denying me becasue of possible lawsuit, said he had to follow guidelines even though my xanax past was sound. So I went to another doctor who knew me and knew my propensity to use alcohol as medicine and his comment was "I would rather see you in a possible addiction to xanax than to have you rot your organs out with booze and whatever else might occur on the journey". So he offered me a full script and I said no..I only need a lighter dose and one refill.

I wonder how many people who start out on this journey of dp/dr/panic/anxiety/fear of flipping out/fear upon fear would have benefitted from a short term script that was witheld by their doc. Common knowledge here seems to say that the earlier the intervention of this the better ones prognosis is. The fears jsut seem to blow this out of the water and, as maybe in my case, possibly entrench it into chronicity...I do not know. I do know that an awful lot of folks find booze in a real hurry and begin a relationship with it that eventually will sneak up and bite em hard. Others are in such discomfort they even think of offing themselves. Others go to docs who will not allow them benzoes, but are quick to give them meds like powerful antipsychotics that many times jsut screw us up worse and the patient gives up. Or a trial and error that goes on for years of ssri's and seizure meds and it might fail and then one gives up. I know, all of the above has happened to me

I am sure you all have argued this whole thing into the ground before. And I know it is a risk issue. And I know many get burned. But it is a risk issue both ways, as I mentioned above. I wonder what I would do if I was a doc...this is a good question for me.

I will error on the side of caution and believe what the "anti's" are saying here, every word of it. But I guess I will still carry my little tin of xanax.