DOSE:

repeated

oral

GBL

(liquid)

BODY WEIGHT:

92 kg

When I first started taking GBL I thought it was a completely harmless health supplement/healthy alcohol replacement. Before taking GBL I had little experience with other drugs except cannabis which I used to smoke daily and very heavily until I changed countries and lost my suppliers. I was also pretty broke at the time and was starting to drink alcohol heavily more than once per week which was getting expensive. First time I used GBL I loved it, great high, cheap and readily available, and no hangover. I took GBL caps like I smoked weed. I would take as much as I could take in the evening while still remaining awake in a sort of euphoric comatose state. The first few days I woke up absolutely fine and refreshed from my 'sleeps' affected by big doses at 2am and 6am.

On the fourth night the next morning I felt hot and anxious also now and then I felt like needles were slightly poking my skin, not like pins and needles but actual needles. I thought I was coming down with the flu so at 6pm I started my daily ritual as usual, it really helped with the flu symptoms but even with my knockout doses I only got 2 hours of bad sleep (sleep maybe OK but unpleasant weird dreams). Next day I really felt bad, I thought I had bad flu and I stayed home all day. I started really getting into another serious G binge at 3pm. Funny thing was this time all my flu symptoms disappeared soon after I started taking it, that night I had no sleep at all.

As the night before changed to the morning after with no sleep in between I began to feel really terrible. My eyes were uncontrollably wide open and completely bloodshot and stinging; my heart rate was irregular and over 100bbm. Those needles were back with a vengeance and I even felt light ones on my eyes. My skin felt strange as well all over, kind of clammy and cold. My lips felt really weird and the inside of my mouth felt strange, my teeth as well, it was like my saliva had been replaced with something else. I really thought and wanted to believe it was just flu so I could continue using this euphoric miracle drug. But I realised something was wrong, this was not flu.

I did some research online and read about not using more than one consecutive day at a time and also read about the GHB hangover and the horror stories of GHB withdrawals. I was pretty scared; my dosing regime was to take as much as possible whilst being able to stay awake to watch TV, and I had one hell of a tolerance. I decided I had taken my last dose, I hated GBL and I felt so scared and alone, I expected the withdrawal to last a week. Lucky for me I decided not to chuck my stash. I felt like I described above for the next two days and nights, absolutely no sleep, no appetite (but I did drink fruit juice). Eyes wide open and my entire body completely full, energy and fear 24 hours a day. The only thing that got me through was 2ml doses of GBL [concentration unknown] every 5 hours for the first day.

On the 3rd night I smoked some very bad low grade weed and dozed off at 2am, at least that’s what I thought. I 'slept' through the night but I was more awake than I'd ever been before, these were not like normal dreams. The night ended when I found myself running through a long corridor (last one of hundreds, I needed to escape) with 1 metre to go, I dove through a one metre square door, rolled down a flight of stairs and found myself in a high level city apartment during the afternoon. I had never been here before; I had no idea where I was. I went into each room observing my surroundings, maybe this is my house I thought(it was NOTHING like my house). Next I heard the front door open, I just ran straight to the 1metre door and dove through. I tumbled into the room of my actual bedroom. I was completely awake but not in bed, and judging by the light of the bright sun shining through the window it was about 1pm. I was standing in the middle of my room and looking at something I will never forget.

While 'asleep' I had arranged all the things in my room into circles based loosely on the size of the objects. Everything excluding the furniture was arranged but I have a big room and there were so many things. Then I saw DVDs and a set of cutlery, stuff from other rooms was also there. A wave of intense fear swept over me, what the hell had I done, how can I possibly explain this to my flatmates, I thought everything would be OK once I slept. It was the worst and most terrible fear of my life, and it was getting worse by the second. As the fear grew panic took over my head slouched down and I focused on a small circle of small objects from a draw downstairs. About 30 seconds had passed since I entered the room and I just stood there, paralysed with dread, I squeezed my hands to my head and began to stare intensely at the small circle.

And then what happened next I can absolutely say was the nicest and most completely unexpected surprise of my life. You probably already guessed but I can assure you I 1000% had not. I woke up in my bed; I was lying still in my usual sleeping posture with the covers tucked nicely around me. I felt a huge smile come over my face, then I got my second nice surprise, I had no more GBL hangover symptoms, everything was going to be OK. I felt so happy I drifted off to sleep still smiling. More intense dreams followed but I knew they were just intense dreams. Next night bad sleep no intense dreams, 1 week later everything completely normal.

Since this experience I have done some research to try to explain what happened here is something interesting I found.

Kindling from wikipedia:

Kindling is the phenomenon where repeated alcohol detoxifications leads to an increased severity of the withdrawal syndrome. For example binge drinkers may initially experience no withdrawal symptoms but with each period of resumption of drinking followed by abstinence their withdrawal symptoms intensify in severity and may eventually result in full blown delirium tremens with convulsive seizures.

Every night I binged heavier than before, on the last night I hit over (possibly way over) 20ml of GBL [concentration unknown] over the space between 3pm and 6am that is a big increase in dosage. The first time I used, six days before, 1.5ml almost sent me to sleep. By the end of that first night I took 3ml to sleep. During the first few days I had absolutely no side effects during the day.

Maybe the way I took was the worst possible way but I think people should know how messed up you can get in a week. lots of bad things that happen with alcohol happen with GHB. Moving down a list of alcohol withdrawal symptoms I can put a tick next to many less serious ones that I had with GHB. I put the dream down to hallucinations which is on the list. When you don’t expect hallucinations they become your reality. I consider myself extremely lucky I didn’t have a bad hallucination, well I had a horrible terrifying one but it just turned out so great. In fact waking up was the best feeling I ever had in my life and I still feel happy and peaceful when I think about it 6 months later. Oh yeah, now when I take GBL I take 2ml when I cant sleep which is maybe 1 or 2 times a week, I never had another hangover and half the time I sleep the whole night through.--------

Exp Year: 2007	ExpID: 76111
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 28, 2009	Views: 36,047
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GBL (89) : Post Trip Problems (8), General (1), Unknown Context (20)