As I had planned in some other thread over here, I recently tested how potassium bromide (KBr) interacts with ethyl alcohol and how it relieves the hangover/WD afterwards. I obtained 100 grams of the salt as a photography chemical. When KBr was actually used as a human sedative and antiepileptic decades ago, the daily dose is said to have been 3 to 6 grams. It's half-life is 12 days, and based on this it can be calculated that with a 6 gram daily dose the KBr will accumulate in your body until there is a total of about 100 grams in you and then it remains stable at that amount. So a single dose of 6 g is not likely to cause much any immediate effect until you've taken that dose on several consecutive days. To cause a more immediate effect, you need a much larger "loading dose" of tens of grams, but this can't be taken all at once because that amount of KBr in your stomach at the same time can easily make you vomit. So you take few-gram doses dissolved in water every hour until the total amount is 20-30 grams or more.
Before starting my typical, extremely healthy, 7-day alcohol drinking bender, I took about 20 grams of KBr and the way how it potentiated alcohol was that it made me much more clumsy than normal drunkenness and I accidentally dropped ceramic plates and cups in the kitchen. When I ran out of booze and money, I took even more KBr, maybe even 45 grams during two days. It didn't immediately remove all the anxiety and other symptoms of hangover/alcohol WD, but that may just be because the simple dehydration and poor nutrition during a few previous days having been a factor.
After the effects really kicked in, I was feeling very sedated and couldn't walk as quickly as normal, or do anything else at normal pace either. It wasn't euphoric in the same way as benzos can be. But on the other hand benzos don't cause euphoria for more than a brief time after dosing, either, and you can't load an active dose of KBr in your body that quickly so that may be the reason for this. Also, if I tried to read something on that drug, I couldn't continue for more than a minute before I started having double vision and couldn't continue. All in all, the effect can be described in the same way how Sekio or someone said about phenobarbital: "Like having a sand bag put on your head".
These kind of effects lasted for maybe 3 days before disappearing, and the reason why they disappeared could be just acute tolerance development. If I seem to be writing in a different style than usual, then it's probably because I still have tens of grams of KBr in my system and it's affecting me.
This is not a very healthy drug, because in extended use (half a year or more, maybe?) it can cause the bromism syndrome that gets you psychotic and delirious and has to be treated in a mental institution. It's possible that if this happens, it also causes some type of irreversible damage to your brain. Bromide usage can also cause bad acne (bad enough to leave scars) and other type of skin rashes. Actually, I already noted some really faint eczema type rash on my right arm. I have had that kind of rash on that part of my body even without bromides, but that was mostly when I was a teenager and less so as an adult. It was never really bad enough to be actually diagnosed as something.
So maybe this is something like a last resort if you have to involuntarily withdraw from long term alcohol or benzo usage and there's nothing else you can do, but I wouldn't use this drug for more than 1 month during a year, and not even that every year. Also, if it's sold as a photography chemical it would be better to recrystallize it first and add EDTA to chelate any heavy metal impurities, but I didn't do that in this case because I was in a kind of a fuck-all mood state when beginning this.
Edit: I also have to mention that while on this drug, I didn't feel the usual anxiety I have almost every day at some time of the clock, and in this respect it really was as effective as diazepam, so it's use as a sedative decades ago can be understood.
