“Can you be addicted to anxiety medication?”

A person can get physiologically dependent on certain anxiety medications (for example, Xanax, Valium, klonopin). This is not a negative thing as long as you take the medications as prescribed by your clinician. The antidepressants that treat anxiety must be taken every day for benefit. When a clinician changes or stops them, they also taper the dose or directly change/switch with a new medication so the patient does not experience withdrawal symptoms. The key is most people with anxiety disorders do not receive necessary treatment. So, if medication is helping you and you take it as prescribed, then certainly continue the treatment.

Benzodiazepines ( Valium, Ativan, Xanax, etxc.) are well known to be addictive medications and for that reason, should not be taken for a long time. There are other non-addictive medications such as SSRIs and Buspar that can be effective to treat anxiety.

There are a quite a few medications that can treat anxiety. Surprisingly, the most commonly prescribed are benzodiazepines like Ativan, Klonopin, Valium, and Xanax. They're effective in the short term (for a few days). Probably the best use is if you're getting on an airplane and are anxious about flying. More than 1-2 weeks, these medications not only lose their efficacy, but often make anxiety WORSE because they can make you more emotional and impulsive, much like a few alcoholic drinks. And yes, they can be addicting. Benzodiazepines are one of the major drugs of abuse, especially Xanax.

Much better are other medications proven to help anxiety over the long term. Most effective are virtually any of the antidepressants like Zoloft, Prozac, etc. These can worsen anxiety for the first few days, so it's best to start with a low dose and gradually increase the dose as tolerated. Buspirone (brand name Buspar) also works well.