Hospitalize if there are medical or psychiatric indications (including history of seizures and/or abuse of other drugs/alcohol), poor social supports, or polysubstance dependence or the patient is unreliable.

Some clinicians recommend switching to longer-acting benzodiazepine for withdrawal (e.g., diazepam, clonazepam); others recommend stabilizing on the drug that the patient was taking.

After stabilization reduce dosage by 30% on the second or third day and evaluate the response, keeping in mind that symptoms that occur after decreases in benzodiazepines with short elimination half-lives (e.g., lorazepam) appear sooner than with those with longer elimination half-lives (e.g., diazepam).