Regardless of dose, physical dependency develops in an extremely short period of time and a taper is the safest approach. That you would not approach as such is frankly not very helpful and is grossly misinformed, IMO, as someone tapering off .5mg after nearly 10 yrs use. And yes, tapering is absolutely necessary for me. Please think carefully before how you would approach stopping a benzodiazepine, especially given not guided at all by the literature addressing this matter.

I was on the same .5 mg dose and when I mentioned the low dose to my doctor, he said, that is NOT a low dose. Maybe lower than most here as everyone seems to unknowingly become dependent on it and needs higher doses over time. And after just one month on .5mg it was screwing with my CNS in a major way. Now I suppose I am an anomaly perhaps but .5mg is probably the intended dosage from the manufacturer of this crap. And anyone on it for more than 2 weeks (which is what is recommended - same as proton pump inhibitors) becomes dependent on the meds. and never realize it. That's the reason why you need to do a long taper, its because without the long taper you really can get messed up. If your body wasn't dependent they wouldn't tell you that tapering was highly recommended.