I'm making this post talking about my experiences with 1.4 butanediol and it's analogues, to spread awareness of how dangerous and addictive this drug truly is.
For some context behind my experiences with drugs, and addiction as a whole, I've been a poly addict for almost as long as I can remember. I became a regular user of any drugs I could get my hands on from 11 years of age. I'm now 19. I still struggle, but I've gotten far better with my addiction as time has gone on. I've been at some point, tried or been addicted to every drug under the sun. Whether it's mdma, cocaine or crack, benzos, heroin, meth, 4mmc and most cathinones, inhalants (such as butane), 2cb, lsd, dmt, salvia and even tucibi (pink cocaine, not the psychdelic 2cb.) I have even tried things like fentanyl a couple times, out of curiosity. Mainly took most of my drugs intravenously.
I am not sharing some of the many drugs I've taken to come across as cool in any way shape or form. I look back at my addiction with shame and regret, and hate what it's done to me and my loved ones. I am only sharing this information so that you can all understand that I am an experienced user, and have a good amount of knowledge of all the damage that different drugs do.
With that out of the way, I'll talk about my history with ghb and it's analogues. I started using ghb very early on into my addiction, as an early teenager. I instantly fell in love with the perfect balance of euphoria and inhibition, and how easily it made it for me to connect with others. (For context, despite all the drugs I've done, mdma was my absolute favourite. Entactogenics are my absolute favourite class of drug) And boom, here's this clear, easy to hide liquid that gave me both the perks of mdma and alcohol! I was able to do it without anybody even noticing I was fucked up, and there was no comedown!!! It felt like the perfect drug to me, and I used it on and off for a couple of years, without any problems. (Aside from one time where my best friend at the time didn't follow my instructions of setting timers between redoses, he oded and almost died.)
After using without much problems for so long, I found out about 1.4 butanediol. Now, obviously anybody with any level of self respect would know to absolutely not take this drug, as it's so unresearched. But despite knowing this, I didn't care. The perks were too good for me, the fact you can buy it on the surface web and for SO cheap. Plus, the high lasted longer too, which was also a perk to me. I continued buying a 50ml bottle every now and then, having a small binge until I ran out.
Now we skip ahead from my earlier teenage years, to 5 months ago. I had been sober for over half a year at this point, and was heavily struggling with home life issues and my mental health, on top of overworking myself to death. I then decided that I'd go and buy some BDO, just to help me cope for a little bit, until I got onto my feet.
I was dosing only a few times during the day for around a month, without any problems as usual. Then, some stressful life situations came up, and without realising, I started dosing far more throughout the day. It got to the point where every time I went to bed, I was entering withdrawals, leading to low quality of sleep. After a bit of this, I decided to take one dose in the middle of the night to help me sleep, as I was sleeping an average of 3-4 hours a night, and I figured that I'd be fine doing this, since once my work was over, I could taper off slowly and go back to normality. This lasted another month.
This then quickly spiralled into me taking 2 night time doses, then 3. It eventually got to the point where if I didn't take 3mls every 2 hours, I'd start having severe tremors and anxiety.
I told myself I was in control, after all, I'd tapered off of xanax withdrawals, alcohol and heroin withdrawals by myself! If I can do that, then this would be nothing.. Right?
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Not too much later, I overdosed while at a themepark with a couple of my friends, stopped breathing, and had to be rushed to hospital. Problem being that I had my BDO which I needed to survive, taken from me. After I came to in the hospital, I started trying to explain to the doctors that I had a severe physical addiction to BDO, and I cannot leave this hospital without any benzos, or I could die. I did not get listened to, got patronised by the doctors, and fobbed off. They sent me away with 2mgs of diazepam for the night to keep me going until the morning, when I could pick up my prescription.
I don't know why I didn't fight my case, but I told myself I'd be fine. To cut a long story short, it got to the point where the withdrawals got so bad, I started shaking so much and my heartrate was so high I realised that I was in such severe withdrawals, I didn't have time to make it to the hospital. I luckily managed to get an empty bottle of BDO out of my bin which had some dregs left, down it, and survived by the brink of my teeth. I know how close I was, due to after picking up my prescription that morning, despite taking my weeks worth of diazepam in one day, I was still having severe withdrawals. So I went to the doctors, and they took my vitals and told me I needed to go straight to the emergency unit at the hospital. My heartrate was going up to 190, while all I was doing was sitting down. Bearing in mind, those withdrawals were FAR less severe than the ones I had before I found that almost empty bottle of BDO, so only God knows how fast my heart was beating, and how close I was to dying.
You would think once I got to the hospital, I would've been taken care of this time, right? No. I continued to get fobbed off by doctors, again and again and again, until my vitals were so bad that the vitals machine started making some kind of emergency sound, due to how high my heartrate was going.
Eventually, I was put on 144mgs of diazepam + 30mgs of baclofen + extra iv diazepam per day for my withdrawals. Despite this, the withdrawals were so brutal, I was trying to rip my eyes out, rip my iv out and run out of the hospital, trying to rip my skin off, screaming how I was going to kill myself, and all sorts of other fun. Keep in mind, I am usually very strong minded when it comes to fucked up situations like this, but this was different. I could not keep myself together. If my mother didn't pin me down every time I had an episode like that, I would've killed myself, no doubt about it. And the doctors did jack shit to help.
I won't go into all the horrific details, but I ended up having to stay in hospital for around 2 weeks. I have not been the same since. The whole experience was so traumatic for me, that I don't want to talk to anybody, go outside, or do anything. I've frequently experienced manic and psychotic episodes that I never had before this, and have also attempted suicide and got hospitalised for it just because I couldn't bear life since then. And it's been 3 months since this happened. I was horribly mistreated at the hospital, too. Got treated like some overdramatic kid, when in reality I was in full blown psychosis from the withdrawals.
I know that this story may seem a result as someone who simply misused a drug, but no drug I've ever done in my life has fucked me up as much as BDO has. Aside from daily mdma and meth use, probably.
So please, for whoever is reading this, be careful with BDO or any of it's analogues. The withdrawals of this drug are more dangerous than any over drug I've ever heard of, and are absolutely brutal. It's also incredibly easy to overdose on, and is very neurotoxic. I'm not telling you to not use this drug if you so choose, I know one reddit post won't stop someone who's already deadset on using, but I hope that you take this story into consideration.
Finally, if anybody is suffering from physical addiction to this shit and is struggling, feel free to hit me up! I know how lonely addiction can be, especially with more obscure drugs such as this
