Hi, Jim is right. Living your best life is the goal of any treatment. If you read the studies done on benzos and dementia you will find that at this time, they don't have any concrete evidence that they cause dementia. There is no direct link because there is a missing piece about the question of whether people started on the benzos later in life because they were already in the beginning stages of dementia. For example, ten years ago my mom started having anxiety issues at age 73. Her doctor put her on xanax .25 3 times a day. This is a very low dose and she usually only took it twice a day. In hindsight, the anxiety was being caused by the onset of dementia/alzheimers and the xanax was added to combat those symptoms. At age 73, the xanax did not cause the dementia. The studies they are currently referring too are having the same difficulty...what came first the chicken or the egg? In the future, they may prove that there is a connection to some of these medications ie: benzos, statins, beta blockers, but for now there is a lot of speculation. I hope you ultimately live your best life in this moment. I have been taking Klonopin for about 15 years 1 mg at bedtime. It has really helped and I too have occasionally tried a slow wean thinking that being off of them is better for me. I always end up back on my 1 mg and am comfortable there, no side effect and no panic attacks at night.