For anyone interested, wether going through addiction / withdrawals.
I've been using phenibut daily for.. I don't know. At least 5 years. I started off with a tub of 250mg capsules.. taking 3 - 4 of them 4 or 5 days out of 7. I then moved onto the powder form. It was cheaper. I was now taking 1 x 1ml scoop of phenibut. I was told and stupidly never bothered finding out otherwise that this roughly equated to 1g. I've since weighed it and it's actually around 600 - 700mg.
Months went by using this dose, occasionally taking 2 scoops with 3 or 4 periods of about a week each of cold turkey withdrawals. The withdrawals were horrible. Depression, lack of desire, boredom, anxiety, anorexia and perhaps the worst of them all - insomnia. For 5 or 6 nights I'd get very shit sleep, if any, until 6am; when my local shop opened, i'd buy the booze i could afford - down it and get another 1 - 2 hours of worse sleep.
By the end of the week I felt considerably better.. but can't be sure that the knowledge that more was coming made the withdrawals feel almost non existent.
Throughout the next few years my dosage increased. I don't remember why or how.. or even how long it took to get there.. but i was now hooked on 22 scoops / 14.5 grams a day. I remember first discovering that a scoop or two of phenibut before sleep caused the most vivid, lucid dreams.. something I've always enjoyed. After that, i don't know. Then i started a new job.. I was always a socially anxious person (main reason i loved phenibut in the first place) and so used more phenibut to achieve, or attempt to achieve, a more comfortable if not confident state. I'm not sure how long this went on but i estimate it was around 8 - 12 months.
Within the last year I've made a real, conscious effort to lower my dose. I ended up binging on some 3-FPM for around 4 days, with a an 1 or 2mg of etizolam every now and then - and almost without noticing I'd taken significantly less phenibut. After waking up from the long recovery sleep i decided to cut my dose to 10 scoops a day. The next week or so was quite rough. Trouble sleep, extreme boredom, increased anxiety and a general apathetic bordering on depressed outlook.
After that i didn't waste much time in cutting the dose again.. I can't remember how much by but it was around 2 scoops. Went through the withdrawal period and ended up feeling fine with my new dose. I repeated this as often and by as much as i thought I could at the time.
It's been a while since I last cut down and stayed down. But I'm comfortably taking 1 and a half scoops / roughly a gram per day. My social anxiety is almost non existent and my confidence is higher than it has been for about 10 years.. although i attribute this to being in a better place financially, emotionally and mentally, rather than taking less phenibut.
This time 2 years ago I couldn't even imagine taking half as much, let alone well under 10% of my dose during that time. I'm fairly confident I can keep going though I am fully aware that each mg i cut down now will be a higher percentage of my dosage.. and eventually, the last drop will be 100%. The thought scares me a bit.. and I have been (and am) putting it off. I got enough phenibut before the umbrella ban to give me a long enough period to slowly slowly come off - but managed to do it a low quicker than anticipated.
Thought I'd share my story, so far. I've not found any experiences online relating to anywhere near my dose.. which, during times, made me feel more anxious and less hopeful about my addiction.
