• N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | thegreenhand

The Nature of Kava "Withdrawal"

Kava tincture on pregabalin/gabapentin with me, seem to last WAY too short, and very intense.
It will last much shorter than say a a duration of time it takes to smoke a cig of tobacco.
Does anyone have other info on duration length variances?
 
I consume about 50 grams of potent root a day and have done so for a few years, and I have never felt any hint of withdrawal. I've made a few week long breaks during this time. I've never noticed any tolerance development either.

FWIW, alcohol and benzos are not remotely pleasurable for me.
 
Kava tincture on pregabalin/gabapentin with me, seem to last WAY too short, and very intense.
It will last much shorter than say a a duration of time it takes to smoke a cig of tobacco.
Does anyone have other info on duration length variances?

Don't have any duration info other than it's very short acting for me, i just sip it during the evening and the kava effects keep building. If I stop drinking it, I will be back to baseline very quickly. It's not a "one dose substance" for me, I always drink it over several hours and the effects just keeps accumulating 'til I stop.
 
I consume about 50 grams of potent root a day and have done so for a few years, and I have never felt any hint of withdrawal. I've made a few week long breaks during this time. I've never noticed any tolerance development either.

FWIW, alcohol and benzos are not remotely pleasurable for me.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing your experiences, it sounds like you avoid kavalactone extract, so maybe that is what causes the rare occurrence of dependency. :) Oh, and to clarify, I am not 100% entirely sure if kava temporarily put me back into a very minor protracted benzo w/d... it felt similar, but much more understated, but now I attribute it to a bad diet at the time and too much caffeine. I probably should have waited a week or so before I decided what was going on... haha, oh well I'm a shmuck. ;)
 
So the general consensus then is very little to no withdrawals from kava then, right??
 
So the general consensus then is very little to no withdrawals from kava then, right??

For the most part this is true. There are always going to be a few exceptions (I got withdrawals from stopping a low dose of gabapentin 8)).

Interesting that nobody's mentioned that yangonin (and its dihydro isomer) is known to be a CBD1 strong partial agonist! Probably contributes a fair amount to Kava's anxiolytic effect.
 
Unfortunately, yangonin is also hepatotoxic, and quite potently so.

There are other hepatotoxic kavalactones also, such as methysticin and some of the flavokavains.

IIRC however, the occasional cases of fulminant liver failure occurring in western users were in those who used extracts which contained not just the root but parts of the aerial portions of the stem, and cheap stem peelings, none of which are traditionally used.
 
Unfortunately, yangonin is also hepatotoxic, and quite potently so.

The issue I have with the kavalactone toxicity reports so far is that they have been simple laboratory testing, and there has not been extensive in vivo testing if any. The problem with the hepatoxic reports is it directly contradicts the observation that traditional usage does not seem hugely toxic to the liver (even *heavy* usage). There may be a case against using kava extracts, but that's it. (Not the first time traditional usage of a compound is safe but a concentrated extract is harmful, see coca... but even then, it seems like even extract usage of kava is relatively safe, for now...)

From what I remember, yangonin is not *terribly* strong of a CBD1 agonist, but it and other kavalactones may explain why kava feels a bit different than other GABA substances.

IIRC however, the occasional cases of fulminant liver failure occurring in western users were in those who used extracts which contained not just the root but parts of the aerial portions of the stem, and cheap stem peelings, none of which are traditionally used.

One problem with kava in its pill form is that as a "dietary supplement", some people will indeed overdo it more than traditional usage would have allowed. Another problem is that the data quality so far is limited, so it is pretty poor. As an example, early studies on coffee's health risks were hampered because they failed to control for cigarette smoking. Likewise, it is unclear to me whether the few kava extract reports also controlled for alcohol or other drugs that may synergistically act with kava and/or cause liver damage on their own.

What this is, is a nice puzzle to explore -- what makes traditional kava usage safe, but caused liver failure in the few supplement cases. I'm not sure the answer is the leaves and stems (although it might be, which is good, because the better extracts make sure to only use the root). At any rate, right now, any conclusion in the vein of "kava causes liver failure!" seems about as true as the "saccharin causes cancer!" debacle of old.
 
The hepatotoxicity appears to be restricted to when the above-ground parts of the plant are used.

Various cheapskate companies wishing to commercialize kava, being cheapskate sisterfucking greedy bastards, used stem peelings and other dross that is never used in traditional preparations. The users of these, experienced hepatotoxicity in many instances. I believe the ROOT itself to be free of this issue.
 
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.
 
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Ive always heard about this reverse tolerance thing among kava users in it's community but that was never the case for me. The only reason why I didnt feel it the 1st time was cause I got some shitty extract mix. The 2nd I did the traditional straining method with quality root and it was quite potent, similar to alcohol without the negatives. I dont particularly subscribe to that theory because Ive made some kava grog for someone to drink for their first time and they were quite floored like I was.
 
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