Quitting phenibut journal

[negrogesic]

Well this most recent giant dose reduction has been quite abit more difficult than the first one.

The first time around I dropped an entire gram from about 4g to 3g. This most recent drop was around 3g to 2 grams even. Thus the most recent drop in terms of percentage decrease was significantly higher.

This latest drop from 3 grams to 2 grams took a few days to fully feel the withdrawal. This time around the withdrawal is much worse, a lot of physical anxiety and tension, my blood pressure has been at times alarmingly high (like in the 150/100 territory, with a high pulse), and a tightness in the chest that makes it hard to breathe.

What is especially different this time around is a significant amount of physical pain, joint and mucle pain, especially in the legs, reminiscent of opioid withdrawal. Did not expect that, and it is pretty severe. I've been mainly taking the baclofen to help me sleep at night, but I tried to see if it would help the pain or blood pressure and it didn't seem to help much. Makes sense since baclofen is mainly a GABA-B agonist and has much weaker calcium channel blocking effects than phenibut, and the pain/blood pressure spiking is the result of withdrawal from the calcium channel blocking effects. Still, I didn't expect this much pain.

Aside from the physical anxiety and pain, I feel great, less depressed and clearer minded. Physical symptoms like physical anxiety and body pain I can handle pretty well. What I can't handle so well is mental anxiety, but fortunately phenibut withdrawal doesn't have a fraction of the mental anxiety that benzo withdrawal has. This physical anxiety isn't exactly fun however, in fact at this very moment my upper body, arms in particular, and burning and my chest is tight and I sort of have to force myself to breathe in little short breaths (as a person would during panic attack). But my mind, is clear and comparatively free from anxiety. As long as I don't have a seizure, or pop from this high blood pressure/elevated heart rate, I'll be good

 

[PtahTek]

Wow.
Bro, thanks for keeping this journal. I have email notifications for this thread (only) and I immediately come to see what is going on.
The reports are kinda scary tbh. I have felt some of what you are going through (mostly the physical anxiety. BP and HR elevated and tight about the chest. Made my mental anxiety rise thinking the ol pump would pop. Couldnt pinpont the "cause" and it eventually faded off. Reading this has identified some "issues" that I have experienced in the past. At that time I had stopped phenibut for about 3 months. Low dose and taken every three days or so didnt provide me with the pains but the other symtoms are relatable.
When I feel "off" I start looking for a cause. Depression has come from many sources and is my least favorite to deal with or analyze (LOL > anal-ize).
Rootin for ya with everything I got and again thanks for the sharing; the thread has taken ahold of me.
Peace

 

[Xorkoth]

I just saw this (embarrassingly, this is my very first time venturing into the Blogs section of the site ), and I may have already said this to you, but have you ever tried skipping a day? I have been addicted to phenibut 3 times in my life, and I find it the easiest physically addictive drug to come off (aside from caffeine and nicotine which have grade school level withdrawals compared to other things, for me, anyway). Not that it is easy by any means, but it is easy to stick to a plan, even if I have a tub of it sitting next to me (contrast this to opiates where if I have them I will do them and it is impossible to stick to a taper plan, especially GHB), because of the lack of moreishness. I mention that so I can lay the backdrop for describing how I have gotten off of it each time (and also some others I know on here who have been addicted to it).

What I do is, rather than dropping the dose by a percentage*, I just drop a day suddenly... I just don't take it at all one day. Phenibut lasts so long that the withdrawal doesn't really fully set in until ~2 days anyway (for me anyway - I have talked to someone on here who had a totally different experience, though, for them, phenibut comes on fairly quickly - unlike me where it takes 4-5 hours to come on fully). The dropped day isn't pleasant by any means, but it's not too bad. I definitely will have insomnia that night, and some anxiety and social awkwardness, and a somewhat bad mood, but then the next day, I take it like normal. Then I repeat that pattern, so that my new pattern is taking it every other day - at the same dose I am used to taking. I'll hang out at this pattern until I feel normal and comfortable with it and do not experience interdose withdrawals, and then I drop another day, so it's every 3rd day, experiencing bearable withdrawals on the last day before my dose. Repeat. Every 4th day, get comfortable with that. Then every 5th day. Then every 6th day. At every 5th day, I actually still have some withdrawal, but it doesn't kick in until the 4th day, and by then, all it is, is a bit of difficulty sleeping and transience bouts of anxiety/discomfort, but I mostly feel pretty much fine. At every 6th day, I'm good, I can stop entirely without withdrawal.

It takes a while, but it works for me, and I am hoping it will work for you. There are a few good things about phenibut withdrawal:

• The urge to redose/break your pattern is low, if it's there at all, even when you're in withdrawal
• The withdrawal doesn't include the insanity-inducing RLS/akathisia aspect that makes opiate and benzo withdrawal so hellish (well, part of what makes it hellish). I might lay awake all night, but I can at least lie still and feel physically comfortable (though it sounds like this might not be true for you?)
• I get the most outrageously vivid/lucid dreams during it, once I hit the every 2-3-4 day pattern. 90% of all of my most memorable and favorite dreams of my life have been during phenibut withdrawal, they generally have a mystical/magical quality to them, including what seems like what I have heard astral projection described as. I've had dreams where I tripped and experienced ego death in the dream... dreams where I could fly or had other powers... dreams where I've encountered entities while being fairly sure I was actually awake and fully aware I was laying in bed in "real life"... and countless others. Towards the end, when it gets less anxious and less severe, around every 4th-5th day, I actually start to look forward to my nights of semi-sleeping, because the dreams are like another life almost, a second day of being awake where the laws of reality are suspended and I have many adventures. I kind of miss it just thinking about it right now, as weird as that sounds.

Anyway, I hope this helps, we may very well not respond the same to phenibut, but I know several people for whom the "skip a day" regimen was the key to success.

It's also worth noting that for me, phenibut is a very enjoyable recreational drug. I don't use it for sleep though, I use it at the beginning of the day and when I do, I have very good days, full of confidence, motivation, and a baseline great mood with a hypomanic euphoria, great music enhancement (listening and playing), and inspiration/creativity. My dose for that is 1.5 grams. It takes 4-5 hours to manifest fully... I get a slight muscle relaxation starting around 1.5 hours in, but the rest of the effects will suddenly show up at 4-5 hours. However, if I take too much, I will not get any of those positive effects, instead it will make me feel groggy and rather uncomfortable actually, and I feel a powerful urge to sleep, and will sleep like the dead. And then the next day I will feel listless and groggy. It sounds to me like you're simply taking far too much, and always have been, which is likely why you don't get positive effects from it. Of course, when you take it every day, those positive effects start to disappear after a while, anyway. The maximum sustainable rate for it is every other day in my experience. At that level, I will be able to get the positive effects every time still, but physical dependence does set in after a while. But I have been able to sustain every third day without dependence seemingly indefinitely. These days I take it a maximum of once a week because I never want to get addicted again, and although I am not sure if the kindling effect happens with gabapentinoids, I don't want to fuck around and find out.


*Phenibut is weird, at least for me, because it's like I need to cross a certain dosage threshold to really even feel anything, and also if I take too much, all the positive effects disappear and the negative effects come out. I need to hit the Goldilocks zone in order for it to do the thing. So dropping my dosage doesn't seem very effective, since phenibut's dose response curve doesn't seem to be linear... it rather seems like this:

I hope this helps you, man.