Yes, it's been a long process. It's worth mentioning that the initial reduction of the Xanax (from 1mg tid to .5 tid) was done on my own. As in, I didn't tell my doctor I was planning on trying to discontinue the medication. Or even reduce it. This was a very conscious decision on my part because I didn't want anyone putting any pressure on me. My prescription was always written as "3mg tid, as needed". So I quietly and slowly set out to need less. My biggest fear (for years and years) was of a high speed, forced titration. I finally had to enlist my doctor's help when it came to switching to Valium. She was not comfortable with the idea at all! She went to medical school not too long after decades of over-prescription of Valium by the medical community. So it had (and has) a terrible reputation. The fact is it is no more or less addictive than any of the other benzodiazepines. You'll get physically dependent on any of them if you take them daily. Had I asked my doctor to treat my anxiety with Valium instead of Xanax, I'm sure she would have said "no way". Instead, I asked her to use Valium as a titration tool. And that she was amenable to. The beauty of using Valium is that there is no between-dose withdrawal symptoms because of the long half-life.