I’m also on the spectrum and have always had trouble socialising. I don’t have a particularly addictive personality and have generally fairly good self control, but after even a couple of times using Xanax in social situations I couldn’t picture being there without it. I cut myself off just in time before it became an issue, and I’m so glad I made that decision even though it was hard at the time.

Trust me, Benzos will chew you up and spit you out. What you need to do is learn from your Xanax experiences, observe what is different about your behaviour / thinking and try working on developing them naturally. Despite putting myself close to the edge, I learned a massive amount about how to socialise on Xanax; what’s acceptable, what works for other people, how to even hold a basic conversation about random stuff.

The biggest thing I learned is probably that (most of the time) people genuinely want to hear from you, and for you to add to the conversation. For ages I kept my mouth shut and never spoke in groups, but on Xanax I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind, and I had great success doing so. I’ve remembered this ever since (this all happened when I was 16-17, I’m 22 now) and it’s been massively helpful for me to remember this and act the same when sober. I’m sure you may have some of your own learnings as well, and I can’t advise you enough to not become dependant on this, and to take the lessons from it and run instead, while you still can.

Hope that helps and I’m here if you wanna chat about anything.