That sounds pretty similar to my tapering method. I've never used gabapentin though. What does it help with and how much does it help?
In my experience, gabapentin helps with the physical symptoms of opiate WD by way of it helping with the mental symptoms of WD. You know all of those people who like to say things like "WD is X% mental" or "the physical part of WD is only as bad as your mind lets it be...."? I think that taking gabapentin kind of puts their outlooks into good perspective (and gives it to you in pill form). No, it does not take the pain away like Suboxone could, but, for whatever reason, it just helps you get out of bed and get through days 2-4 when you otherwise just would have been a worthless piece of shit lying around doing nothing but feeling apathetic and full of despair.
The more times I withdraw, the worse the mental part gets (but in turn, and only to an extent, the more I am ready for the physical - I mean who's
really ever ready?). When I say that each WD gets worse mentally, I mean it's that feeling of total emptiness and despair, that hollow sense of who I am. That realisation that I finally now understand how homeless addicts could have ever looked just
that bad to me when I was a kid. They did so because it is just that miserable, and I got way closer than I ever expected to knowing just what it's like to sit on the streetcorner without any hope of a better future left, only hoping to one day be able to afford a sure-thing last dose until the next life. Every time I releapse, all of these feelings flood my mind on days 2 and 3, lingering on into 4, as I do little more but hang out in bed with one voice telling me that it always turns around on day 4 or 5, and another voice telling me that something feels ultimately worse about this particular relapse and subsequent withdrawal. Anyway, the gabapentin seems to largely medicate this all away and allow me to move forward with just the classical dopesick symptoms and the desire to get out of bed and try and treat them one-by-one. It might not be the best drug for anxiety or depression, or for any of the physical shit, but it's the perfect drug for medicating despair away and instilling a sense of hope and a desire to continue the fight to get clean and healthy again real soon.
And then if you have time, use the search engine to find an AdvDD thread about staggering gabapentin doses and how this maximises bioavailability (basically you pace your doses out every 30, 45, etc minutes across the day to let the drug built up best in your system (way better than throwing a monster dose back all at once). And gabapentin's one of the drugs that actually does work with white grapefruit juice, so check that out too.
I love gabapentin. Everyone I've introduced it to (as well as how to best take it) loves it too. If you can't get gabapentin, then Lyrica(pregabalin) works almost identically. I've used it to get through the first few days of cold-turkey opiate detox, I've used it as my primary source of fun for a Saturday night, I've found that it quelled my alcohol cravings when I liked to drink too much back years ago, that it stimulates appetite (also great side-effect for opiate WD) and that it makes coffee/espresso taste AMAZING.
The only downside is that tolerance is a bitch. And WDs can develop in extreme cases (which do seem downright silly and unrealistic).
Anyway, trying to wind down:
60mg DXM - oral
25mg Doxylamine Succinate - oral
.2g "gunpowder" H - nasal
I get the trippiest/strangest nods on this gunpowder H that's replacing the higher-quality BTH in my area. They're less like normal dope nods and almost more like some type of a dissociation mental state. Don't mind as the H is absolute fire. It's just not ideal H for right before bed.
