It all depends on your tolerance. Most methadone clinics start everyone out at 30mg a day. They then move up from there. Go check out the narcotic conversion. With methadone, you will see 2 classes. chronic and acute. I would use the acute method. If you are opiate naive, then I would start my dose at 10mg and wait about an hour (if taken orally) it takes that long for it to hit your body. Many od's happen because the user will take Xmg' not feel anything and 20 minutes later take more, then repeat. then it hits him all at once an hour later. Also adding benzos and alcohol are pretty risky with methadone. I would recommend not doing it. If you have to, keep your benzo intake to the bare minimum. Remember, methadone is a different animal. Just have to take extra precaution if you haven't taken it before.