Mental Health Combatting adderall/phenibut addiction

MrBrightside614

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Jan 25, 2015
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Hey everyone, just want to start off saying I appreciate all this site does in the way of mental health support and drug education. I decided to post for the first time after being a long a time reader, because I believe my case is somewhat unique, but still covers topics I'm sure many of you are more well-read in than myself. My slow decline into full blown addiction started with a back injury (herniated disc, dural adhesion, facet joint issues). I was in constant pain for the better part of a year- not being able to comfortably sit in a chair/couch, drive, work, lift, have sex, etc. I'm normally a very able-bodied and happy person and I was also going through a terrible emotional roller coasters with a girl I had planned to marry (won't go into it, but its about as bad as you can get). Within about 2 months of each other, I lost everything I loved. My sports, my love, my life. Enter: major depression. As if the constant pain weren't enough, I had to now dwell on everything I had subsequently lost, and being an independent person, I told absolutely no one about everything I was going through. I hate pity, and I hate weakness, so I tried best as I could to cope and mask all these symptoms with drugs. Looking back on it now, I can't say that I even regret it. Literal hell on earth, every second of every day. Had to turn to something to keep my job as a server and what interrelationships I had, in tact. Now, I hate how painkillers made me feel and I had weight room numbers to live up to, so I started taking adderall with way more consistency than I knew was safe (~60mg 3-4x/week). I always killed the comedowns I got with a nice dose (1.6g-2g) of phenibut (which is an awesome comedown cure if you take it as directed, and don't get addicted). What I didn't expect was the pain relief that phenibut gave me. Absolutely destroyed all pain when standing and moving, most of the pain that came with sitting and laying for too long. So, I started taking it on my off days as well (800mg-1.2g max when not taken to evade added all comedown), and it kept me away from all the negativity that would creep in, with both my constant pain, and my actual depression and anxiety. It was a life saver at the time. But now, after 8 months of heavy use of each, I know I'm down regulated to hell. I now suffer from pretty bad anhedonia, decreased libido, low energy, lack of focus, and major tolerances to each drug.

MY GOAL is to make my anxiolytic/nootropic regiment strong enough that it keeps me to taking adderall to 1-2x/week, at most, so that my resting dopamine levels are sufficient enough to not find simple tasks like paying bills, cleaning, and exercising, completely exhaustive and anxiety-worsening. I had been taking triacetyluridine on my off-days with sulbutiamine and alcar to uoregulate d-2 receptors and encourage dendritic growth, to limited success. Really all I was doing was partially off-setting the steady decline in my receptors.. nothing in the way of tolerance reversal or anything like that, so I still very much remain even physically dependent on each drug. I'm probably mostly psychologically dependent on the added all, as I take it when I have my "big lifts" (I.e. 300+ bench press days), because I'm not even sure it does anything in the way of convincing me that I'll beat the weight (like it used to), but instead is just taken because "well I probably can't do it without it.."

I now have my hands on some memantine (clarity, tolerance reversal) and tianeptine (anxiolytic). Still have the triacetyluridine/alcar/sulbutiamine. Thinking about getting buproprion (for NDRI effects), selegilene (clarity), and pramiprexole (sexual indifference). I'm thinking if I take all of these in the correct dosages, it will keep my withdrawal symptoms and addiction at bay, while slowly up regulating my receptors, leading to more fulfilling "sober" days, and more of a bang from the days I take adderall. Can anyone shed some light on how exactly I should go about this dosing regimen? I don't have to take it all, but I've done enough research to see that these compounds will bring everything back up to working order as quickly and as safely as possible. I just want to be happy again.

Thanks so much,
Brightside
 
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Worth noting is: I also picked up smoking consistently, and drinking much more than I had previously (maybe 3x/week), to deal with the gaba and dopamine decline symptoms, and both habits make me sick. I used to only smoke after adderall 1-2x/week, which I deemed permissible, but it has gone to far. It's all gone too far, and I'm ready to live without this shit anymore.
 
I've just got to relate my experience quickly, recently. I have been on benzos, 'therapeutically' for 16 years with no dosage change. Tired of having just old faded polaroid memories and forgetting the smell of flowers, I had been working on a taper, a very, very, very slow taper.. and it was working out, so I did my research as we all do (I'm really serious about pharmacology/toxicology) and I figured it couldn't hurt to try it as a supplement like baclofen has similarly been applied.

WRONG. Within 4 days of 250-750mg / day use I started getting rebound panic attacks from it, about in the same time frame as I would with xanax (which is why I take clonazepam). I would wake up every time I went to sleep in sheer terror, the state beyond panic. I lost touch with what was going on and kept trying to use it to correct itself, which is not straight thinking. I ended up frankly psychotic, so dissociated that I couldn't feel my body at all (could have slammed my hands in a car door and felt nothing, no shit), felt my ego boundaries melting away and just -barely- had enough energy to crawl to my psychiatrist, who we got straightened out right away. I have never been so terrified and drifting between frank psychosis and such severe depersonalization that it was a state of constant panic.

I .. REEEEEEALLY don't think people should fuck around with phenibut, at all. If you need GABAB supplementation, find some way to get a baclofen prescription (which also has the side effects I mentioned, psychosis etc). because it will be kitchen clean and regulated. You can't tell if these nootropic places are selling you have mannitol or what.

There is good news. I stopped, because I said fuck this, I'm not going to get over this for a few days so one less poison. No withdrawal effects at all after 13 days of use.

It sucked anyway. For me, anxiolytic my ass.. the opposite. I could recommend it if you want to get really dizzy for awhile.
 
Good look on the response. Sounds really shitty but I'm reasonably certain xanax has more difficult sides than phenibut when abused? Not sure since I've never taken them.. but yeah I honestly think I respond really well to it, and like I said, think it saved my ass in one way or another. The withdrawal is manageable- I don't get the twitches and the anxiety really isn't horrible now that I'm out of pain and everything. But I can see what you mean. I know a lot of people think that GABA withdrawals can be worse than dops
 
i understand the adderall stuff and the anxiety and pain problems.

this may be totally opposite of what you're looking for but have you read into kratom? energy, pain relief, mood enhancing... for me.

wish i had more to offer but it seems like you really know your shit and that's impressive. you've prob got it all figured out so don't worry or second guess yourself with whatvyou think about the regimen. you're smart. i hope you get a good routine going that helps you and gets you feeling better.

phenibut sounds totally fucking scary from stuff i have read here. people seem to have a really tough time with that after taking it a while. scares me a lot for sure.

wish i had more to offer but anyway thanks for posting and sharing your story. i like your post and you have good, useful info. i need these nootropic things you've described... the tolerance one and ummm everything else. keep us posted.
 
When you think of the fact the phenibut is just a little less lethal than GHB in overdose -

that's how similar they are, that opens my eyes a lot. I remember taking like 3 or 4 grams because I was in hell, and I just lay down and the respiratory depression was real. I couldn't breathe without consciously working at it. I'm not going to say it was stupid because I was essentially delirious, but that scared the fuck out of me.

I can't see how anyone could really get hurt by experiencing a few times, but don't buy 100 gram bags of it, you know? It's only NOT a 'substance of concern' for the DE-gofuckyourselves because it's a successful prescription med in Russia, but again that's clean pharmaceutical grade and measured by the milligram dose..

eh.. wtf right
 
I've always gotten clean phen AFAIK. Nutraplanet offers theirs with a certificate of purity.. I know certs are only as legit as the company that tests them, but nutra has always had the potent phen. And by no means am I telling people to give it a shot, but it seems like I tolerate the sides pretty well, all things considered. Day 2 of both amp and phen withdrawal ATM, planning on receiving the memantine and the tianeptine tomorrow. I'll follow up with initial impressions at that time.
 
i understand the adderall stuff and the anxiety and pain problems.

this may be totally opposite of what you're looking for but have you read into kratom? energy, pain relief, mood enhancing... for me.

wish i had more to offer but it seems like you really know your shit and that's impressive. you've prob got it all figured out so don't worry or second guess yourself with whatvyou think about the regimen. you're smart. i hope you get a good routine going that helps you and gets you feeling better.

phenibut sounds totally fucking scary from stuff i have read here. people seem to have a really tough time with that after taking it a while. scares me a lot for sure.

wish i had more to offer but anyway thanks for posting and sharing your story. i like your post and you have good, useful info. i need these nootropic things you've described... the tolerance one and ummm everything else. keep us posted.

Thanks man, I appreciate the kind words. I'm happy with my "destructive" regimen, for lack of a better term, because I'm familiar with the systems in which they operate. Maybe I'll give kratom a try sometime, but it'll be down the road once I get a handle on the rest of this first. I'll keep you posted on my results.
 
Just a quick update to whoever's following this thread anymore: I have received and have dosed my memantine (10mg) and tianeptine (~20mg). At first the memantine made me feel foggy, like I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say or think initially when talking and reflecting. Hard to say if it wore off by itself, or rather the tianeptine attenuated the mental fog, but after dosing the tianeptine I feel pretty normal. Not anything miraculous, just normal. I don't crave to redose my phenibut and added all currently and the creeping negativity that so often clouds my thoughts is absent. It feels like I'm taking the world at face value; no more, no less. No added clarity or motivation like some have reported with tianeptine, but it's only day 1, after all.
 
Hi, I'm glad you are doing better. I used to be addicted to Adderall, 90 mg a day.it was all prescribed by a psychiatrist so it seemed legit in my mind. That was 2 1/2 years ago. I have just discovered phenibut and at .7- to 1g day, It has been a god send. Most of the negative stories I read on phenibut have involved grams of doses each time. I have owned a few positive reviews of people taking it therapeutically four years.… Always at a low dose. It has been the closest thing to Adderall I have found. It has killed my depression and anxiety and increased energy and motivation. All has been good so far.has anyone else out there found a similar experience with phenibut?
 
I was addicted to Phenibut on 2013 (2-4 grams daily). I never tried Adderall, but I think it could be positive for me. I have a lot health issues and the only thing which seems to improve my overall condition is Phenibut or anything related with methylphenidate.

Here in my country Ritalin and Adderall are not available, so I can't test them. Phenibut seems to be my only option. I used Baclofen a lot, but it doesn't have the same Phenibut profile and it did almost nothing for me, apart some weird feeling of daze and a little relaxant effect on my painful colon.

The withdrawal from my Phenibut addiction was HELL. After 1 year without Phenibut I'm still paying with a chronic depression, dissociation, apathy. Moreover my GI issues are more and more difficult to manage in my daily routine.
Please, consider that I did a very slow taper, about 3 months gradual taper.

I would like to regain my old sanity using Phenibut therapeutically at low dosages (500 mg daily max). But I'm very afraid to become addicted to it once again. I could not tolerate another taper off. I think I would die. At that time, I felt almost dead every single day. But without it, I feel almost dead anyway.

Do you know if it's possible to use it at these low dosages (max 500 mg daily) without tolerance problems?
 
I've just got to relate my experience quickly, recently. I have been on benzos, 'therapeutically' for 16 years with no dosage change. Tired of having just old faded polaroid memories and forgetting the smell of flowers, I had been working on a taper, a very, very, very slow taper.. and it was working out, so I did my research as we all do (I'm really serious about pharmacology/toxicology) and I figured it couldn't hurt to try it as a supplement like baclofen has similarly been applied.

WRONG. Within 4 days of 250-750mg / day use I started getting rebound panic attacks from it, about in the same time frame as I would with xanax (which is why I take clonazepam). I would wake up every time I went to sleep in sheer terror, the state beyond panic. I lost touch with what was going on and kept trying to use it to correct itself, which is not straight thinking. I ended up frankly psychotic, so dissociated that I couldn't feel my body at all (could have slammed my hands in a car door and felt nothing, no shit), felt my ego boundaries melting away and just -barely- had enough energy to crawl to my psychiatrist, who we got straightened out right away. I have never been so terrified and drifting between frank psychosis and such severe depersonalization that it was a state of constant panic.


I .. REEEEEEALLY don't think people should fuck around with phenibut, at all. If you need GABAB supplementation, find some way to get a baclofen prescription (which also has the side effects I mentioned, psychosis etc). because it will be kitchen clean and regulated. You can't tell if these nootropic places are selling you have mannitol or what.

There is good news. I stopped, because I said fuck this, I'm not going to get over this for a few days so one less poison. No withdrawal effects at all after 13 days of use.

It sucked anyway. For me, anxiolytic my ass.. the opposite. I could recommend it if you want to get really dizzy for awhile.

I get where you are coming from with the phenibut, I don't trust that stuff at all. I was taking it no more than 2 times a week for a couple months and got a withdrawal from it that really set my other withdrawal back. I don't know something just doesn't add up with it for me. I thought it was fine, I can't really put my finger on it, but I just find it strange for some reason. How the fuck do you get a dependency taking something twice a week several days apart? I also have cold turkeyed off of benzos before though, so that may have played a part.

Something about quitting gaba drugs, esp too quickly, can mess with you for a long time. I would say leave them alone if you have been dependent before.
 
i would switch it up as far as your choice of anxiolytic. Maybe phenibut one day, next time Kava, then kratom. also L-theanine, Calcium & Magnesium (good for pain as well) , and B1 help relaxation. Also etizolam is good for a benzo substitute for short term tapering.

Are you still off of adderall completely? If so how is your anhedonia??
 
I'm new here, but I do have a lot of knowledge about recovery and addiction. Your situation is complicated. If I were you, I would find a good addiction specialist. But really do your research and find the best addiction doctor in your area. A good addiction doctor will listen to you and help you balance out all the meds, and he will do his best to keep you from experiencing discomfort and anxiety, and avoid any drug interaction disasters. I hope this isn't sounding preachy or anything, I only want to help. It appears that you know a lot about pharmaceuticals, but addiction is best overcome when you have people to help you, advise you, support you and hold you accountable.
 
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