I'm glad to see this being discussed for many a reason, but primarily my personal experience, which, i must caution, happens to fall under the devils advocate approach
And believe me, i wanted to find as much fault as possible as this screamed stupidity to me. But i've been suprised
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
....
ok, some background. .
I've been putting myself thru the GHB ringer for about 12 years, but mostly off, as i quickly progressed to 24/7 use back in 1998 when it was still being touted as addiction free and suffered some pretty severe withdrawals as a result. So, i thought I wisely learned my lesson and stayed away. But, due to events beyond my control (
), i spent some years in prison recently and the whole experience was so awful that upon my release I found my appetite for drugs had shifted a bit...suddenly those drugs (opiates, GABAergics, etc) I had routinely despised as a member of the psychedelic community were all of a sudden *so comforting* and provided the best relief from my sometimes crippling anxiety. It didnt take too long for me to find way back to GHB/GBL and needless to say I quickly found myself re-addicted to it (in a matter of days, even after an almost ten year break) and was immediately looking for a way out. Around this time I was at my local bookstore and they had a display set up for a new book, "the end of my addiction", by dr, olivier ameisen. The title and cover image made me laugh...it had a man in a lab coat with the baclofen molecule superimposed as a head. I wasn't yet familiar with baclofen but as a chemist I quickly recognized what was basically a phenibut molecule with a chloro group attached and this made sense to me, but also pretty hilarious when accompanied by "the end of my addiction":D I had recently detoxed from GHB/GBL with a high dose tapered regimen of phenibut (3 grams to zero over 7 days) and it was painless enough that I didnt quite learn my lesson and continued to fuck around. Some words on phenibut...while it does have pronounced effects on GABA-B (which makes the withdrawal from GHB *so much easier*) it also was obvious to me that it had a much broader course of action, especially at higher doses. If this is due to the broad spectrum inhibitory effect of GABA-B on other neurotransmitters or that phenethylamine group , I dont know. But anyway, i bought the book, and was immediately skeptical, especially since he glossed over the periods when he decided to come off the baclofen. I emailed him and he told me that when he came off the baclofen he would do a quick taper over the course of ten days, usually from a dose of 80-180 mg daily to zero, and that this process, save for some anxiety and insomnia, was relatively painless (?!), especially compared to detoxing from alcohol. He was still firm in that in his opinion it made a great "maintenance" drug, due to its minimal side effects compared to GABA-A agonists and alcohol. After a few pubmed searches that also alluded to its efficacy in treating other addictions i skeptically asked my doctor about it. He was only vauguely familiar with baclofens use in these situations but agreed to let me try it out, off label of course. I stopped using GHB and found that around 60-80 mg daily freed me from a huge GHB intake without really any side effects, and especially not the pleasure seeking side effects of benzodiazepines and even phenibut, which puzzled me. I took for it about a month and then tapered off over ten days, and by jove, it was a lot less painful than I anticipated. I opted to stand corrected and humbly take this good fortune, per se. Flash forward a few months....I was at the tail end of a 6 month trip to India and had developed an addiction to tramadol and benzodiazepines and remembered my experience with baclofen and the pubmed papers detailing its use in treatment with other addictions. I re-instated my baclofen regimen and it made what would have been an awful withdrawal virtually bearable. I never noticed any sort of high from baclofen, nor did I crave it. I tapered off again after two months and was spared the brunt of what would have been a loooong benzo withdrawal. I had some rebound anxiety and insomnia but nothing compared to what I would have been in for. I was, am still puzzled. My running theory is that it feels baclofen has a much "cleaner" course of action than of course GHB (GHB receptors and all), alcohol (duh), benzodiazepines (GABA-A, and the weird balance of GABA-A and GABA-B) and, most perplexingly, phenibut. That chloro group is just to enhance its ability to cross the BBB....so why does phenibut provide so much more of a high and such terrible withdrawal? I understand peoples experiences vary tremendously with baclofen but I put this down to the extreme plasticity of GABA-B and its crazy quick up and down regulation and peoples unique variability in terms of the addictive power of GABA-B agonists (see: shambles and GBL, and many others
. So, in summary, my initial knee jerk response was challenged, and looking for feedback of any sort. Sorry for the long winded post...
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