Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

[GolfMonster]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

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[GolfMonster]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

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[GolfMonster]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

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[Xadrian]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

GolfMonster;1477467 wrote: There was even one woman on this forum who we later learnt took her own life - not long after stopping baclofen abruptly. Was baclofen a factor? Maybe, maybe not, but it probably was because we all know that baclofen withdrawal is strongly associated with anxiety/depression.

Yes, I "knew" that woman you are talking about. She was doing very fine and with good results until she went over 150 mg and rushed her dose up. Then she got severe anxiety attacks in combination with other medications.

Before she went over 150 mg she was full of life and optimistic. She finally had decided to quit her boring job and go study osteopathy. She was admitted to the study and was making serious plans her future.

So no one tells me that she suddenly became suicidal without a reason.
I'm pretty sure the abrubt stopping on advice of the psychiatric clinic has been a major contribution to the fact she decided to end her life.
A lot of people here warned her not to stop abruply, because that IS dangerous. But in contrary what she did before, she took the advice of the so-called doctors (who in my opinion are guilty of manslaughter).

In addition to your warning about starting baclofen, I would warn people who start baclofen (and I would encourage alcoholics to do that) that it's not candy and it can not be stopped abruptly. So keep that in mind.

[Xadrian]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

@ GolfMonster

Your last three posts seem to be reasonable and well-considered.

We have to listen to all the different experiences, both positive and negative, and base our posts on that. Not on what people think that other people should do and quarreling about if baclofen works or not.
Fact is that for some people it works, for some it doesn't.
In my opinion that is enough reason to try if it works for them.

I don't consider you a troll, just because your experience is different than mine.
So keep posting.

[Otter]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

GolfMonster;1477467 wrote: Re, "message to the trolls", Again happy to hear people have found a successful treatment, whatever that treatment may be. I had to look up the meaning of troll, but I am assuming I'm one of the guilty.

Fact is, many people have tried baclofen, and it did nothing for their alcohol problem. I suspect most of these people lose interest in this forum and don't post. Many of these people would have suffered dangerous side effects (possibly leading to loss of job or a MVA). There was even one woman on this forum who we later learnt took her own life - not long after stopping baclofen abruptly. Was baclofen a factor? Maybe, maybe not, but it probably was because we all know that baclofen withdrawal is strongly associated with anxiety/depression.

Just be careful with this stuff.

We/I assumed you were an old troll from the past and I am not sure you aren't... b?

I don't agree with your assessment of the situation. Your remarks are very casual, "many people", who?, you "suspect", but you don't "know", "many would have", would they?, "maybe, maybe not", "we all know", do we?.

We are all trying to find a way out of this hellish condition for ourselves or loved ones and friends. It is a serious business and coming out with what you now put forward as largely uninformed throw away comments could result in someone giving up on a good treatment or becoming distressed. I know I myself have been picked up for upsetting people.

Obviously this treatment needs proper medical support so why don't you think about what you can do to help.

Take that as a challenge.

[On.Bac]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

GolfMonster;1463142 wrote: Hi

Just think that I should put a little bit of balance to this alcohol drug treatment forum. BACLOFEN NEARLY DESTROYED MY LIFE. I followed the titration schedule and got up to about 250 mg/day. Problem is, I nearly lost my job as a result of the side effects: falling asleep at work, dizziness (tripping over), unable to think properly etc and general poor performance. As a result of that (and probably also a direct baclofen brain effect), I developed a serious anxiety problem when titrating down and I'm still plagued by it. Admittedly, this new anxiety/depression may have been a progression of my alcoholism, but I don't think so.

I stopped baclofen and decided to stop messing around with any of these drugs. Since April, about 6 drinking days and none since September. I still take baclofen 20 mg as required, but I would love to get off it but I still need it for anxiety. In an attempt at getting off it, my psych has started an SSRI. I am hoping.....

Baclofen is a gabaergic drug. Gaba is your calming system. One you agonize your gaba receptor, replinishing it back to normal levels takes a very long time. Which is one reason why alcohol and benzo recovery is so hard. If you had a chemical inbalance to gaba to begin with which lead to your drinking, chances are, you will experience anxiety for a veerrry long time as gaba is one of the hardest neurotransmitters to recover. SSRI's are just going to make things worse, once you feel ok and are ready to come off from them, your serotonin will be out of balance and you'll feel depression and mood shifts. There are things you can eat, vitamins and supplements to improve the recovery time. Anyway you go though, you're going to suffer when you mess with gabaergic drugs and have a gaba deficiency, whether it be alcohol or drug induced (benzos or other gabaergics).


P.S. i'm not a regular, i have no bias other than educational standpoints. When you mess with gaba, you mess with all your neurotransmitters as they slow down or speed up to compensate for the increase in gaba. Sometimes it takes up to a year to fully recover from gabaergics, and that includes weird thoughts, nightmares, insomnia, thoughts of doom and death, a poor sense of safety and well being, paranoia and extreme anxiety.

Gaba = your sense of well being. It's easy to switch from alcohol (one gabaergic) to baclofen (another) which is why there is no withdrawal. The regulars will hate me for this too, but its just swapping addictions, and one is safer less toxic. The science can back that up with both drugs primary action, albiet, alcohol effects much more than gaba, but gaba defiency is the longest and worst withdrawal you can possibly go through. Other neurotransmitters heal and return to natural levels much quicker. Anxiety keeps you alive, gaba is the most important and has the ability to control other neurotransmitters in your brain.

GL and i suggest healthy eating, switching permently to another gabaergic drug for anxiety (they all work for anxiety, alcohol, barbituates, ethanol, benzos, etc), or toughing it out and healing naturally.

EDIT: I will say this, if you were an alcoholic, you have already deplinished your gaba levels, how much i can't say because i don't know how long you drank for. So you cannot entirely blame the anxiety on baclofen. Alcohol is a quick cure for anxiety, but the action in which is works is by releasing greater amounts of gaba into your brain. Crack is a good example, dopamine is the pleasure center, smoking crack is not magic, it releases nearly all the dopamine your body has created at once. Meaning you can't get high from crack over and over again in one day because the high comes from the neurotransmitter dopamine. Once that dopamine is gone, crackheads chase the first high they got that day and keep smoking crack, but there body doesn't have the dopamine to supply that rush or feeling of pleasure. Alcohol tolerance builds in the same way, and leaves an after effect but for much longer than crack. Once crack use is ceased, life seems doesn't offer the joy it used too. Prolonged use of cocaine or crack can cause your mind to never heal to the full amount of dopamine you once had. Meaning you wont get excited from getting a new car or a christmas present. Research shows long term cocain users only heal up to 80% of the dopamine a normal person who never used crack has. If that makes any sense. My point is, drugs don't get you high, your body does, drugs just cause your body to over release chemicals it already has in it. Which is why for a drug to work it has to bind to a receptor your brain already has. Did you know our body has natural opiates in it. k1 and k2 receptor, which is what morphine and painkillers bind too. Without our body already having endorphins and a natural pain killer which releases when we are severely hurt, those drugs would never work.

Hope i made some sense. you've fucked your sense of well being up and its not baclofens fault entirely, its your use of gabaergics and depleting your bodys natural calming station.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

Hello again, On.Bac.

Your post is interesting but it's also full of a bunch of factual errors. There are plenty of threads around here where you can acquaint yourself about the way baclofen actually works, the differences between baclofen and benzos and booze and much more, so I won't belabor the point. I'm going to guess it's rather moot anyway. I say that because you came here to tell us all about baclofen without (apparently) any interest in participating or learning.

Since you seem to know the general gist of this stuff (that messing with your gaba can really mess you up if you're not conscientious) I wonder why on earth you would titrate down so dramatically, even though you had a doctor's prescription, and even though it was working for you.

It doesn't surprise me at all that you continue to insist that baclofen is addictive, though we know, and the doctors know, and the researchers have proved that baclofen is not addictive. It seems like everything you write about it--from scoring it to having enough of it to stay at a certain level of it forever, is based on the kind of thinking that used to keep me drunk and miserable.

Most of us here titrate down after we have successfully treated our own addictions. Some people, myself included, found therapy/meditation/exercise/nutrition etc. a good adjunct to that so that we could remain healthy and happy without the crutch of addiction.

Might I suggest that you start there?

Regardless of what you do to take care of yourself, continuing to spread information that isn't actually factual, but is written in a way that might indicate that you have some special knowledge, may actually harm other human beings. Why would you do that?

EDIT: For those reading this at a later date, please note On.Bac's other posts regarding his titration, the amounts and reasons he takes baclofen and other medications, the erroneous information he shares regarding the way baclofen works and why we take it.

[Littlebluebird]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

I must say I'm a little freaked out with the back and forth posts in this thread since I just started bac yesterday. I'm wondering if my choice was a sound one. I hope so because I just need for something to work. I'm just afraid of medications ( funny seeing as I certainly didn't mind self medicating with Al) I'm afraid of SE's and dosing correctly. Sorry I just saw all this and thought oh no what am I doing!

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

Littlebluebird;1526815 wrote: I must say I'm a little freaked out with the back and forth posts in this thread since I just started bac yesterday. I'm wondering if my choice was a sound one. I hope so because I just need for something to work. I'm just afraid of medications ( funny seeing as I certainly didn't mind self medicating with Al) I'm afraid of SE's and dosing correctly. Sorry I just saw all this and thought oh no what am I doing!

Honestly that's what concerns me and the only reason I respond to things like On.Bac's posts.

Baclofen is not candy, and shouldn't be treated like it is. But it's safe and effective. Like every other medication (or supplement) it has side effects and risks. Unlike almost all medications that are currently being used to treat alcoholism (as though it's that many!) it is not addictive and very difficult to abuse.

If you're confused and you really want to get to the bottom of what seems like a lot of scary and contradictory information, you'll want to follow people around by searching out their posts. Search them all out. Don't do what people did if they ended up in a bad place. Do follow the people who are relatively happy and sober. Avoid the most contentious (though I would certainly fall into this category at different periods of time and for different reasons) and look for those who have a decent sense of humor (though I am not one of those, either. )

It works, bird. It's safe. Hang in there.

[LostSoul33]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

I blacked out on Baclofen, had the worst nightmares of my life and suffered severe headaches and anxiety when I slowly stopped it. Drugs affect everyone differently, just like alcohol does. I do believe it works for some, but like anything, you have to try it to see and figure out if the benefits outweigh the risks.

[kronkcarr]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

So this thread is pulled up from mid March of this year and I don't see much reason for it. I know I should just pass it by and control myself, but it just chaps my ass. LBB, fear not. Nice answer, Ne.

[COSGringo]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

Well it's not all trolling but there are trolls on this board now. I think you will notice some of us old timers are on here less. Well at least I am because of it.

I think if you really need help this is a great board still. You have to weed out the legit posts from the scare tactics.

@Littlebluebird Don't let it dissuade you. Do, though, know the side effects and they can be very real. They will pass. Life will get better and you will be able to post here about how much better your life is.

[Littlebluebird]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

Thanks for the input and support. I will continue, hell it's got to be better than where I'm at.
Although I have a bit of a headache right now. My friend here at work said go in the drawer over there and eat some chocolate... Always works for me! So I did

[COSGringo]

Baclofen nearly destroyed my life

It will be better. Stick with it. Just not having hangovers ever again is worth the trip there.

Just don't reach for the bottle to cure it. That was my cure and it always made it worse. Funny thing is that I knew it would, still did it.