I'm surprised chlormethiazole is the drug of last resort. It is wonderful stuff IMO. I don't take for alcohol related reasons, I rarely drink enough to get drunk.
I take it off-license for seizure prophylaxis and also, I get a secondary script of the same drug, for use when a seizure threatens or just beginning and I can still do something about it. A couple of those wee ethereal-fermenting overripe apple/metallic-smelling plastic-attacking eggs and bang, seizure stopped, as if hit with a .50 caliber raufoss round to the back of the head. Efficient in the extreme, and after several years of daily use as a preventative, even if I stop for several days abruptly, I am only back where I started, without seizure prophylaxis etc. No withdrawal syndrome. And it is SO fast acting. As soon as them wee grey eggs burst open in my throat (one can feel it, as a kinda warming, pleasant burn sensation, as well as when it comes on, a tingling in the back of the bridge of one's nose) then moments later, easily as fast as a shot of spirit alcohol or a spoonful of oral diethyl or diisopropyl ether, its active, and easily able to stop my seizures dead in their tracks, as if shot down.
Librium/chlordiazepoxide, yeah agreed, its possibly the most weak, shittiest benzo on the books. At least here, it is in the UK, that or the awful, awful oxazepam (I don't like benzos that produce a significant amount of oxazepam as a metabolite as the stuff is prone to causing me paradoxical reactions which are quite uncomfortable.
Ironically, reading this, I'm on 4 of those chlormethiazole gelcaps, And I'd say they are more a slightly brownish grey rather than grey. Very nice stuff. A barbiturate binding site allosteric positive modulator at GABAa, but without the memory and headfucking antiglutamatergic effects of barbs. Duration-intermediate, short-medium end of intermediate. About right, really. And as long as it isn't in overdose (and it shouldn't be consumed with any more alcohol, than a low dose combined with a beer, maybe two if your used to it and know your limits well, and are not using it for alcoholism treatment.)
Unfortunately its somewhat hard to get in the UK (I mean, if a doctor has printed you out and signed a script for it, actually translating the script into a glass bottle or pot full of heminevrin capsules can be difficult, as a lot of pharmacies do not seem to stock it. One near me tells me their supplier doesn't carry chlormethiazole, so I have to go up out of my ways to a further away pharmacy to get my scripts for chlormethiazole, morphine, oxy and nitrazepam at the same place, plus my stomach meds and tizanidine (muscle relaxer I take for nerve damage-induced muscle spasm in one leg that is really severe at times without) and clonidine (that I take to stop me getting overloads, and it does help protect me against overloading nicely too)
(the nitrazepam I only use occasionally, its having been accidentally put on a repeat, indefinite prescription after I told my doc I needed some anxiolytic, preferably nitraz, for a specific set period of time, during which I was facing some rather nasty potential events, of a kind that have left me traumatized in the past and had to do some psychedelic-catalyzed self work on PTSD a a result. It got put on repeat by accident it seems, and I've collected it ever since, but I only use it when my pain meds run low (I'm a chronic pain patient), and take about 70mg over two days or the entire 70mg over a day and night, to TRY and get a bit of sleep, what with my hips hurting as badly as they do, when the IM morphine and the oxy wear thin the night before a refill, to avoid becoming benzo dependent)
Got to say, if given the choice between a benzo and chlormethiazole, chlormethiazole beats the everloving screaming shit out of any benzo, ever, gives a nice clear headed high if used (CAREFULLY) recreationally, no morning after brainfog, kills my seizures stone fucking dead..does need storing in a glass container though. Oh and never leave the 'eggs' out on plastic either, enough vapor comes out of them if they aren't kept cold to burn holes in oh, say, computer keyboards that look just like small chlormethiazole caps, and you need to gouge out the capsule, plastic and all, cut away the plastic with a scapel if you are to save that dosage unit.
What is the experience with campral/acamprosate subjectively like? pleasant? neutral? unpleasant? Been curious about it for a while. For say glutamatergic insult, does it seem like it might be helpful?
