I’m so sorry to hear about your struggle to stop these highly addictive drugs. It’s very difficult to get away from them especially when you’re in your seventies as I am. I too have an addiction to the same drugs and I know the withdrawal is profound. It’s very important that you go slow in reducing your dose, anything else will be too stressful for you. I think you’re right, at our age why not just leave us alone, it’s not as though you’re abusing them. I was wondering why my doctor started putting more pressure on me during a pandemic and also after getting cancer and then it hit me, I think with all the publicity about opioid addiction and knowing that benzodiazepine taken with opioids is a lethal dose. I even feel that I’ve become an inconvenience to him. I now must try and find a doctor who understands these drugs and all my other needs, wow that’s a tall order but who knows, my mother always said where there’s life, there’s hope, don’t worry too much because it’s not your fault.