Mainly, if you don't take valium much, on the rare occasions you use it, you pass out within minutes. And it feels like you go from stone sober to completely lit in those few minutes, which is quite pleasant. For one to a few hours you will sleep like the dead. With luck you'll sleep through the flight, or through the night, or whatever.

The next time, it won't work so well.

The next time, it won't work so well.

The next time, it won't work so well.

And down the path you go. Up the dose, etc, etc.

Don't use valium unless you have a real and only very occasional use for it. And try to keep that in mind: it's a use case. Not a need. You never need valium. You need food, and shelter from weather. But you don't need valium.

I fly long-haul more than most people, albeit mostly in business. I started taking valium for flying 7 years ago for a fear of flying when I was flying mostly economy. I started with 2mg, which was completely ineffective for anything, and then went to 15mg.

At the higher I didn't notice any effect, until the plane started bouncing, and then I realized I didn't care, which was perfect. I didn't notice any drowsiness at that level, which may have been due to adrenaline.

Over the course of 6 years, my regular dosage approached 50mg as I kept upping it whenever I started to get nervous flying. If taking it while I got on a plane, I didn't feel drowsy. It became not always effective.

About a year ago I made a conscious effort to wean myself off it over the course of 12 weeks, by flying a return business long-haul flight every week, and taking a little less each time, practicing the principles in Dr Claire Weekes "Freedom from Nervous Suffering" (essentially breathing exercises, although it's a little more nuanced), which is in fact a book for agoraphobics which someone had suggested to me. I got down to zero, but found under 10mg then turbulence still had fairly heavy emotional and physical effects on me.

Now I take 0-10mg when I fly. I don't notice any effects, other than I am less sensitive to turbluence. However, I exclusively fly business class rather than economy, which I suspect helps a massive amount.

During this time I also tried Propanalol at some high doses. I found it ineffective for fear of flying, but very very effective for giving presentations. However it started to make me short of breath, so I ditched it.

In terms of intoxicating yourself for flying, I have found Ambien to be highly effective. However, it seems many many people have bad side-effects from it - sleep-walking, etc - so unless you're totally certain you can handle it well, I don't know that I would recommend it. These days I'll settle for 10mg of valium and some alcohol.

Depends, different people respond differently to benzodiazepines. For myself, a 5mg valium relaxes me but does not induce sleep. Similar to having a glass or two of wine, really. For others, they'll basically be knocked out. I'm not convinced it's necessary for flying myself, but if you have any sort of flight anxiety it can be a game-changer.