Making a different type of guide this time. My progress on the gabapentinoid guide has slowed down, they’re such complex drugs that the guide on them is going to be more involved than any of the guides I’ve written before. Anyways, magnesium. If you use anything harder than weed, you should take magnesium. You should probably take magnesium if you’re sober too, but magnesium has special benefits for drug users. Magnesium is an interesting mineral, acting as a central nervous system depressant and muscle relaxer. If you’ve ever used epsom salt, that’s just magnesium. But in this guide, I’ll write about how it helps with hangovers, potentiation, and the addiction impacts of it.

Hangovers

This is an area where magnesium really shines. I find magnesium to be helpful for hangovers of all sorts, preloading magnesium before taking MDMA or another stimulant greatly reduces how bad the comedown/hangover is. It’s less effective with alcohol, but still is greatly helpful, especially with tension headaches and migranes caused by it. If you are a stimulant user though, I honestly do not know how you live without magnesium. As you all know, I’m not much of a stimulant person, but the few times I’ve taken meth (unintentionally each time, my luck) the hangover has always been crazy bad. But magnesium and 5atp before an MDMA roll is enough to give the substance an afterglow.

Potentiation

Yeah, magnesium will potentiate pretty much whatever you throw at it. It makes opiates (including DXM and kratom) hit harder, it’ll restart your coke or adderall dose if you take it at the right time and give you a psudo-speedball, it makes benzos feel smoother, increases absorption of gabapentinoids, there is not a single drug I can think of that isn’t made better by magnesium. If you don’t care about your personal health, you’re too broke to invest in your own health, whatever it is, pick up magnesium to save money on drugs and to get higher.

Addiction

I’m putting these together because I question the results of the hypothesis I’ve read based on personal experience, but also understand from personal experience what they’re saying. Here’s the page I’m talking about. To sum up the important bits

• Many popular drugs result in a natural deficiency of magnesium
• Magnesium has a moderating effect on the reward system of our brains, making drugs less addictive
• Magnesium is shown to greatly reduce self-administration of drugs
• Magnesium substantially helps with withdrawals

I am split on this path. Because like I said, magnesium makes drugs hit harder, however I also got off opiates after I started using magnesium to potentiate so I can’t say that didn’t have an effect. I also used it to get through withdrawal. At minimum, it helped me take less by potentiating what I did take, making my doses much lower. This is one where my anecdotal experience backs up the article, but I question how accurate it is since it’s less of a study and more of a list of hypothesis.

Edit

@GaveUp@hexbear.net wanted me to add a few extra bits, which I definitely agree with from lived experience. So I’ll add a few more bits to it, but this next section belongs mostly to loves.

Vasoconstriction

Fellow mod Gaveup said: For certain drugs such as LSD which may give you vasoconstriction, which is already uncomfortable by itself but tenfold while tripping, magnesium can help lessen or prevent it from happening. Best to take a few days daily beforehand

Addition by Leyla: I strongly vouch for this as someone that gets very uncomfortable from LSD vasoconstriction. To the point that I almost need a downer every time I’ve taken LSD. Gabapentinoids (including alcohol, which isn’t classified as a gabapentinoid, but pretty much is) are a great way to kill physical trip anxiety if you want something “extra” to your trip, although they really are very neutral on LSD so they’d also work for the following purposes. If you just want to even out your acid, I personally find that taking a low dose of benedryl (or any 1st gen anti-histamine) a few hours before the trip also really helps with the bodily discomfort. Pretty much, if LSD always makes you anxious and uncomfortable, try these things in this order.

1. Magnesium a couple times a day a few days before your dose, or a few hours before your dose will still help
2. Magnesium a couple times a day a dew days before your dose, and a first gen anti-histamine (benedryl, hydroxizine, promethazine, ect.)
3. All of the above, plus a gabapentinoid, such as Baclofen, Lyrica, or Gabapentin (do not suggest phenibut, if you want phenibut just get Baclofen for the love of god it’s so much safer and stronger)

Stimulant Muscle Twitching

For stronger stimulants like meth or MDMA which often causes your mouth to tense up so bad you can chew your cheek up or grind your teeth down, magnesium can also help reduce this effect. Best to take a few days daily beforehand

Addition by Leyla: Also strongly vouch for this, but would also add this to other spontaneous muscle movements on stimulants. Personally, not a stimulant person, there are very few that I’m willing to take if I’m not speedballing because the side effects are just too horrible for me. Magnesium really helped with all the weird stimulant muscle twitches that made me sore, including teeth grinding (which ouchie, as someone with TMJ I get it so easily and it hurts so much). Generally helps with the “feeling like shit” aspect of MDMA or meth hangovers, but more supplements would be required to turn it into an afterglow

Conclusion

Magnesium is one I’d suggest to anybody reading this, drug user or not. I have another post going into detail about magnesium for neurodivergent people and it helps with that too. Magnesium is such a good mineral, and one that should be in your arsenal for drug use.