Xanax is terrifying. Psychedelics I can handle.
People who take Amphetamines because they want more energy end up tired, etc.
If you're doing that, what you actually need is 8+ hours sleep, proper sunlight and exercise, a sleep apnea check, and then maybe buy adrafinil off the internet (where legal).
So I just wanna kind of correct what you said, Xanax is for people who think too much and psychedelics are for people who think too little.
Benzos are bottom of the barrel drugs as far as I'm concerned.
The fact that they are still regularly prescribed by some doctors to the elderly (for no other good reason than to get them off their face) is borderline criminal.
They are horribly addictive and withdrawal can kill, as can OD and mixing with anything else has potential to kill, so clearly they aren’t without issues. But when used in a measured way I found them to be lovely.
I’ve never taken Xanax though, it’s a lot longer lasting than the stuff I tried.
I also tried etizolam, which has a half-life around 3.5 hours, but its active metabolite has a half-life around 8, so the effect tended to hang around a bit into the next day. Apparently flutazolam also has an active metabolite that lives longer ... but it never seemed apparent.
At the time both of these were freely and legally importable into the UK where I lived. This is no longer the case, and that's probably for the best - RC benzo use was getting to epidemic levels.
(incidentally, reading up on this, I have realised that xanax is not a lot longer lasting as I initially said, it's actually pretty short acting for a benzodiazepine, around 1.5-2x as long as flutazolam AFAICT)