Posted by Ame Sans Vie on September 19, 2003, at 22:48:39
This morning a friend and I made a visit to our local headshop -- they always get shipments of new, innovative things on Fridays and we wanted to check it out.
Anyway, in the section of "GHB Alternatives" was a product I had only seen online before called "Liquid Relaxation". The ingredients:
triple filtered purified water, Suntheanine (110mg/fl. oz.), valeric acid, anterior pituitary peptides, aminotrope-7, novel polyose complex, l-glutamine, l-arginine, l-pyroglutamate, GABA, l-glycine, l-lucine, l-tyrosine, high fructose corn syrup, natural and artificial flavoring, vitamins & minerals, citric acid, sodium benzoate (as a preservative)
Online I've seen it sold for around $50 per 32oz. bottle, but it was only $15 here so we bought some. The suggested dose is 1-2oz. (capfuls), so we each took two caps (nice orangey flavor) and the effects started off very, *very* nice, but then we both started feeling a bit of excess stimulation -- not unpleasant really, but an effect we weren't looking for. I read the ingredient list again and deduced that the l-pyroglutamate, being a CNS stimulant, must have been causing this. So when the effects wore off, we tried one cap each. MUCH better. The effects of the l-theanine were certainly intensified and "clarified". Though its effects are certainly got the same, I would rate this stuff as being the best commercially available GHB/GBL/BDO alternative.
Only one question I have: the "valeric acid" listed in the ingredients is probably one of two things -- the valeric acid that is active in valerian root *or* a shortened form of gamma-hydroxyvaleric acid (a.k.a. 4-methyl-GHB). I'm inclined to believe it's the latter, though it may be neither of these... hmm. The main reason I am so interested in finding this out is because I believe that this is the ingredient that is so greatly enhancing the effects of the Suntheanine. I also wouldn't mind knowing what's in that "novel polyose complex". :-\ I guess I'll try getting in touch with the manufacturer.
Also thought I'd mention there were a few other G-alternatives there that we picked up and all of them were really good in their own way. This one product, "Invigorate II", didn't have much of a recreational effect, but it was the after-effects that seem promising -- my friend Nick just passed out on it and after sleeping very heavily for six hours he claims he really did feel, well, "invigorated", lol. He said he wouldn't be able to discern the feelings of dopamine release from GHB from the rush he felt waking up (and is still sitting here feeling, five hours after waking). Its ingredients:
400mg Kryukova (Patent Pending) per 2 tablespoons, natural fruit flavor, citric acid, acesulfame potassium, FD&C Red
Now this is really an enigma -- no one seems to know for sure what this kryukova stuff is. I've run multiple web searches and found nothing. On alt.drugs and alt.drugs.ghb there are tons of posts debating what the hell it is. Some are suggesting it's some schisandra root extract... who knows.
We also got a bottle each of "Renew G" and "Renew G PM" -- we both were really crazy about the PM formula, but I may start taking both of these on a fairly regular basis. Ingredients:
Renew G: 5-MeOT (melatonin), dextromethorphan HBr, kavalactones, l-phenylephrine, GABA*, 5-HTP, l-phenylalanine
*The only reason I'm not flaming these products for containing GABA is because their advertising actually admits that the GABA is purely intended as a hGH supplement -- the companies that try to pass it off as a "substitute for Valium" and such just really irk me.
Renew G PM: filtered water, fura-hyplex blend: (Hyoscyamus niger 3x; Ignatia amara 3x; Kali phosphoricum 3x), valeric acid, aminotrope, GABA, stevia extract, sodium benzoate (as a preservative)
Renew G contains DXM, which I already take regularly as an NMDA-antagonist to prevent tolerance to any drugs I'm on, so I'd no longer have to gag down spoonful after spoonful of Vicks 44 every day. The Renew G formula in general just had some very "euthymizing" effects. The kava feeling was actually quite present, and I normally find kava that isn't bought in root form from Oceania or Hawai'i to be absolutely worthless. I only needed 5mg per dose of my DextroStat instead of the usual 15mg, probably due to the l-phenylephrine, and perhaps the l-phenylalanine in part.
I would actually consider the PM formulation of this stuff to be, after Liquid Relaxation, the second-best G-alternative commercially available. I realized this also contained valeric acid when I was typing out the ingredients, and now I'm more than sure this is no coincidence. I've taken Tranquili-G before and found it to be pretty effective for a while, but tolerance developed quite quickly as I used it on a five-times daily basis. I bet it would provide a decent effect once again for me now, months later, but I don't feel like spending the $50 for it on the chance that I may be let down. But what I was getting at is that Tranquili-G's active ingredient is 4-pentanolide (a.k.a. gamma-valerolactone; GVL). Just like GBL (gamma-butyrolactone) rapidly forms GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyric acid) when ingested, GVL becomes gamma-hydroxyvaleric acid (a.k.a. GHV; 4-methyl-GHB). As mentioned above, I now strongly believe that the valeric acid in both Renew G PM and Liquid Relaxation is gamma-hydroxyvaleric acid -- just a euphemistic way of saying it so that the DEA will take longer to catch on (the same reason Tranquili-G is labeled as containing "4-pentanolide" instead of "gamma-valerolactone"). For the most part, any three-letter acronym that begins with G and ends with B or L raises a red flag.
There's a problem with GVL, though -- only so much of it can cross the blood-brain barrier at one time, and thus reaping the full benefit of it is impossible without converting it to GHV exogenously (which is a very simple task, btw -- simple kitchen chemistry, using the same method that's used to convert GBL to GHB). GHV itself does not have this self-limiting property, and so if this "valeric acid" in these products really is GHV, that very well explains the similarities to GHB. GHV is actually 15% more potent, as far as stimulating GHB receptors, than GHB itself. GHB does possess other actions though, such as GABA-A and -B stimulation and dopamine blockade with an eventual massive dopamine release. I thereby hyptothesize that combining either Liquid Relaxation or Renew G PM (which have the affinity for GHB receptors) with Invigorate II (seems to have the same effect on dopamine as GHB), baclofen (a GABA-B agonist), and either a benzo that's selective for GABA-A or ethanol could quite closely replicate the GHB-experience. I plan to explore this idea as soon as I get some baclofen. Right now, I'm going to give Invigorate II + Liquid Relaxation + vodka a try.
Finally, I bought a bottle of this stuff that's actually called "Happy Pills", lol. Inexpensive ($20/96 pills). The suggested dosing is two capsules twice daily on an empty stomach, once upon waking and then again four hours later. They also suggest taking them three weeks on, one week off. Each four pills contains 500mg 5-HTP, plus some unknown amount of rhodiola rosea, l-theanine, l-dopa, hypericin 4%, kavalactones, l-tyrosine, l-phenylalanine, kola nut, naringen, damiana, and inositol hexonicotinate. I'll start taking these tomorrow and report back after I've given them a few weeks, even though many of the ingredients should work from the first dose.
poster:Ame Sans Vie
thread:261814
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20030903/msgs/261814.html