Okay folks, for anyone that might come across this. A. Kava from my experience works in a anxiolytic way by UPregulating gaba receptors or possibly GABA reuptake (though this would seem to result in withdrawals?). I used it while tapering and later when withdrawing from phenibut (then benzo's) to help and never had any withdrawals from going without the kava itself afterwards. My other reason for thinking it upregulates is because it has a reverse tolerance. You have to drink it a few times to really get the full effect. Drinking it once and then again 6 months later doesn't cut it. I drank it (a LOT) two nights in a row and my next phenibut dose the next day (which was enough to keep withdrawals away usually, but not felt) had me chinese eye'd. Literally, I couldn't go to my classes. That bad. I was able to reduce my phenibut by quite a bit and kept drinking the kava. You could say it potentiated it, or taking 2 benzo's will be stronger than one, but it's my experience that it very likely works by upregulation. Thats why it gets stronger and stronger for the first few weeks. Also why you don't seem to have withdrawals. Maybe you don't sleep as well. but you still fall asleep. I drink the the strongest stuff I know of too every night, so if I don't have anything significant, then it doesn't really have them. If one were to use it to taper, I'd say try to save it until the last final jump off. The last week before you stop start drinking. Use REAL root, massage the root in a bag (or shirt if you wanna bum it) in water (it's not coffee or tea), and don't order from somewhere that sells other stuff. JUST kava. Only root. Most importantly +++drink on any empty stomach++++ I can't overstate that. You have to wait at least 3 hours after a meal. You might see small root bark chips, which is because it wasn't grinded properly. It's stems and leaves though that you want to avoid. All those that think Kava is just mild, lol. Have the real thing, more than a couple times, and you might see things differently. It can knock me out like a hammer if I drink a batch in an evening. I also have fibromylagia and am very sensitive to gabaergic withdrawals. Phenibut killed me, as do any of the gabapentin and pregabalin types. Depending on the benzo, they're painful too. None of that from kava. Now I've only gone about 4 or 5 days without it, so I can't say for sure, but I would think your receptors would slowly return to the normal level. Hard to say, but at this point, I'm thinking it works in something of that sort of way. When I drank it those couple days and it made the phenibut super strong, it lasted as long as the phenibut (which lasted longer than normal) and I felt it a day and a half at the least at a strength so strong I thought I had hypothyroid. I was walking around like a zombie. A couple days before I couldn't even feel the phenibut. Kava lasts maybe 4-6 hours usually. So if it potentiated it some, okay, but you'd think it would have worn off when the kava did. Anyways, it's not an agonist. I don't think it's a reuptake inhibitor, though that's possible. For a guy who had trouble dropping off 500mg of phenibut without pain so bad I had to go back up, I dropped a gram like it was nothing. Still felt the phenibut more than I did previously. Who knows, but based on the reverse tolerance I'd go with something like a reuptake inhibitor, or it upregulates. Just my 2 cents. Oh ya, drink more than once, don't buy crap (except "instant" kava from a reputable vendor if you need it on the go and quick), drink on an empty stomach, and don't waste money on extract pills, pastes and all the others. Instant if you must, or real ground root. Some can be heady and euphoric, some heavy and physical, some a mix. I'd depends on the kavalactone chemotype profile of that particular kava. Different climates, soil, environments, and islander preference (getting rid of the kind they don't like) etc...will produce different effects.