Hydrocodone withdrawal? Can you elaborate on this? I have been in withdrawal from many different compounds, but have never have been able to draw a parallel between opiate withdrawal and depressant withdrawal (aside from nitrous oxide, which is opioidergic). Opioid Withdrawal has a very distinct feel, taste and set of symptoms that i find very unique.
Personally after taking phenibut for a month or so daily, and I did not notice signficant withdrawal. Then again i was rcently taking carisoprodol for almost 3 months at an average of 2800mg in one single evening dose (some days as high as 4,200mg; 12 350mg tabs) and only had very minor withdrawal. Yes there was a little withdrawal, insomnia etc, but no anxiety or any major physiological discomfort. I literally stopped the carisoprodol cold turkey, and was expecting to enter significant withdrawal. High doses of carisoprodol had profound hypnotic and anxiolytic effects, and i was bracing for a proportional withdrawal. I waited, but it never came. I waited a month or so, and took 3 350mg tablets (a low dose to me), and it put me to sleep.
Interestingly, I am highly sensitive to benzo withdrawal; if i take benzos for 3 weeks i experience significant withdrawal.
The closest insight I have is NaGHB withdrawal, which was intense, but compared to benzo withdrawal, much shorter in duration, and not nearly as upsetting.
Again i said to look at some baclofen studies simply because of their various similarities and large amount of data. I have taken both, and found baclofen far more "effective" and much less tricky, but subjectively i felt many similarities.
The bottom line; i would avoid taking this compound for extended perioids of time given the nasty nature of the withdrawal from gabaergic drugs. It doesn't take much data or scholarly study to come at this very fundamental conclusion. That said, i'd trade a phenibut or GHB dependency over a benzo-barb dependence. The long term toxicity of phenibut in particular is truly anyones guess, but I would personally avoid a" wait and see" approach.