i doubt anyone here knows me. i don't comment much and when i do it's usually on posts relating to barbiturates or sometimes benzo's. i know a lot of people here struggle with opiates and the like. i have always felt that my addiction wasn't the same...that i didn't have the ability to understand opiate addiction because i had never experienced it. i still feel that way to some degree. this has held me back from talking about my own addiction because i feel when i do, there are only a few who can say "oh yeah, i've been where you are".....and i know that addiction is addiction no matter the drug, but i think to a degree it is true that we feel we don't fully understand unless we've 'been there' so to speak. anyway, all that aside, i think i've grown to understand that my addiction to butalbital is very much as hard to tackel as an addiction to anything else. i think i've spent too much time thinking about HOW addicting things are and too little time thinking about how to get sober. my mistake.
i wanted to make a post about the things i've learned about butalbital and a short summary of what my life has been like taking it. i wanted to do this because i feel that maybe it could help someone else in the future who is searching for information about this drug. i feel it's important because barbiturate's are drugs of the past. they are almost never prescribed anymore except for primarily butalbital. for this reason, information is hard to come by. i also don't feel that barbiturates should be compared to benzodiazepines. they are used for similar purposes, but to the addicted mind, they are very different.
so anyway, my experience with butalbital started around the age of 8 or 9. by 10 or so, i was a full blown addict. i didn't know i was becoming an addict. i didn't have any clue what that was. i just knew i HAD to have those pills and couldn't live without them. my dose from the age of 10 to around 15 was anywhere form 10 to 20 pills a day. i have no way of knowing for sure since i never counted. at around 15 i was slowly tapered off agianst my will. over the next couple years i went into a severe severe depression that i think was caused by withdrawal from the pills. i believe the depression was related to the way these types of drugs effect GABA...but since i'm not a doctor i don't know for sure. also part of it was just from normal withdrawal and being a teenager. but i got clean and stayed that way till i was around 20. at this time, i was living on my own. i got an rx for fioricet. STUPID....but i did it anyway.
it took me a few months before i even took that first pill....and when i did it was a HUGE disappointment. i wondered how i ever got addicted in the first place. but then one stressful day at work i came home and took another. it relaxed me, but again i wondered how i ever became an addict. a few more times of this over the course of a few months and i became addicted again. sadly i've been on them agian for 3 years and can't imagine life without them....but my dose has remained low. 2 a day. still, i can't stop. i hate trying. i HATE it.
anyway....my mistake was ever getting it filled agian. i hate myself for it. that aside, i've experienced major problems with anxiety. i think that most of these problems are problems i would be dealing with if i wasn't an addict....but i also think it's made far worse by the barbiturate itself. like xanax, long term use ends up doing far more harm than good. i've also experienced physical symptoms like twitching. this is a trademark of benzo withdrawal and addiction also. it feels like this drug has aged me 20 years. i feel like i might not even make it to my 30's.
anyway, enough about me. the reason i'm posting this is because i think i'm done here, but before i go i wanted information that i've found to be made available to those who don't already know it but might find it useful. many people probably already know what i know, but the reason i'm here to begin with is to share it with people who don't know it.
barbiturates fall into a few catagories...ultra short, short, intermediate, and long acting barbs. the most abused barbiturates of all time were seconal, nembutal, and amytal. i call them the big 3 in barbs. phenobarbital has been abused...but not nearly to the extent of the others, the reason being it is a long acting barb...it doesn't make for a good high and it's also not as addicting. seconal and nembutal are short acting barbs and amytal is an intermediate barb. tuinal is amytal and seconal combined. i mention these drugs because this is the difference between butalbital and phenobarbital...butalbital is in the same class as amytal and seconal....it's a short to intermediate barb. this is important because it has flown under the radar for so long, and yet it's the same type of barb as those in the 'big 3'....
i find it important to mention this because butalbital is not a controlled substance. fiorinal is...but the control is limited to fiorinal only, which is butalbital, asprin, and caffeine. it's a C-III. fioricet and all other butalbital compounds are NOT controlled, with the exception of those that contain codeine. why? no one really knows, to be honest. but it's for this reason that doctors and patients alike assume they aren't dangerous. it's for this reason that so many people really can accidentaly get addicted to them. doctors should know better, but honestly there's just too many that really don't care.
if a person does become addicted, withdrawal is very hard. i had HUGE mood swings my first time around....but going cold turkey is a TERRIBLE idea. with barbs, you REALLY CAN DIE if you go cold turkey. seizures are not uncommon. i suggest to anyone looking for info on this drug and taper plans to talk with their doctor. never try to taper on your own. why? because if your friend had the same addiction and did a very successful taper and then suggested this taper to you, you could try the same thing and end up in the hospital. the only solution is to undergo a doctor supervised taper.
anyway, i wanted to post this because for the most part it's what i say to people who post about butalbital. i don't think this will even have mattered......but i wanted to post it just in case someone were to find it useful. this will be my last post, and even though i never really talked directly to anyone or posted very much, i've grown close to this community. every day i feel entirely alone in my addiction...but when i come to this forum, i feel like it's full of people just like me...people who want desperately to get their lives back and who are trying to do so. some have succeeded and just reading their stories, even though i don't comment, gives me huge hope for myself and others here. so anyway...thats that. i've said what i have to say and i'm done. i put this in the 'social' forum because it's not really a question.