Does Gabapentin Make You Feel High? What to Know

Gabapentin can produce a mild euphoria, sedation, and a feeling some users describe as similar to being drunk, but the sensation is much weaker than the high from opioids or benzodiazepines. For most people taking gabapentin at prescribed doses for nerve pain or seizures, “feeling high” is not part of the experience. The story changes at higher doses and in people with a history of substance use, where gabapentin’s psychoactive effects become more pronounced and more sought after.

What the Gabapentin High Actually Feels Like

People who misuse gabapentin for its psychoactive effects tend to describe the sensation in a few recurring ways. In interviews with people who also used opioids, many compared gabapentin to a “body high” or a feeling of drunkenness. One participant described taking 2,400 mg and feeling “almost like a little drunk… like you’re wobbly.” Others emphasized the sedative quality: deep relaxation, numbness, and a strong urge to fall asleep. A smaller group noted mild euphoria, though they consistently said it was nothing close to the rush from opioids. As one person put it, “It did kind of give me somewhat of a euphoric effect, but nothing along the lines of opiates.”¹

So the “high” from gabapentin is real, but it occupies a very different space than what most people picture when they hear the word. It is not the intense rush of stimulants or the warm wave of heroin. It sits closer to the mellow, slightly dizzy feeling of having a few drinks, layered with drowsiness. For people who already use other drugs, this milder effect can still be appealing, especially for winding down, managing withdrawal symptoms, or stretching out the effects of other substances.

Why Gabapentin Has Any Psychoactive Effect at All

Gabapentin’s name suggests it works on GABA, the brain’s main calming chemical, but that is actually misleading. Despite the name, gabapentin does not bind to GABA receptors and does not affect GABA uptake systems. Instead, it latches onto a specific part of voltage-sensitive calcium channels in the brain.² By dialing down calcium channel activity, it reduces the release of excitatory neurotransmitters. The result is less nerve signaling overall, which is why gabapentin works for nerve pain and seizures, and also why higher doses can produce that sedated, wobbly feeling.

This mechanism is sometimes called “gentle” compared to drugs that directly flood the brain’s reward pathways. Gabapentin does not hit dopamine receptors the way opioids do, which is why the euphoria it produces is consistently described as mild. But “mild” does not mean “harmless,” especially when gabapentin is taken at doses far above what a doctor would prescribe, or when it is combined with substances that depress the central nervous system through other pathways.

The Dose Problem and Why People Stagger Pills

One quirk of gabapentin’s chemistry makes its abuse profile unusual. The drug is absorbed in the small intestine through a transport system that has a built-in ceiling. As the dose goes up, the body’s ability to absorb gabapentin does not keep pace. At therapeutic doses, only about 30 to 60 percent of the drug actually makes it into the bloodstream, and that percentage drops further at very high doses because those intestinal transporters get saturated.³

People who misuse gabapentin have figured this out, often through trial and error. Rather than swallowing a large dose all at once, some stagger their intake, taking a few pills every 30 to 60 minutes to keep the transporters from being overwhelmed. Others take gabapentin with fatty foods, which slows its movement through the gut and gives the transporters more time to work. Research on a related prodrug formulation found that a high-fat meal boosted gabapentin absorption by roughly 40 percent compared to taking it on an empty stomach.⁴ These workarounds are widely shared in online forums and among people in substance-using communities, which is part of why gabapentin misuse has been difficult to address through dose-limiting prescriptions alone.

Who Is Most Likely to Misuse Gabapentin

Gabapentin misuse in the general population is relatively low, estimated at somewhere between 1 and 7 percent depending on the study.⁵ But those numbers climb steeply among people who already struggle with substance use. Among people who misuse opioids specifically, studies in the U.S. and U.K. have found gabapentin misuse rates between 15 and 22 percent. And among individuals who have a gabapentin prescription and a history of drug abuse, the rate of misusing their own prescription has been estimated as high as 40 to 65 percent.⁶

The pattern is clear: gabapentin is not a drug that turns ordinary patients into people chasing a high. It is a drug that people with existing substance use disorders often find useful, whether for boosting the effects of other drugs, managing withdrawal, or getting through periods when their drug of choice is unavailable. A systematic review found that gabapentin was primarily misused for recreational purposes, self-medication, or deliberate self-harm, and that it was most often used alongside opioids, benzodiazepines, or alcohol rather than on its own.⁶ Users reported subjective experiences reminiscent of opioids, benzodiazepines, and occasionally psychedelics, across a range of doses, including some within the normal clinical range.

This creates a tricky situation for prescribers. Gabapentin is a genuinely useful medication for nerve pain, post-surgical recovery, and certain types of epilepsy. Denying it to everyone with a substance use history would leave a lot of people undertreated. But prescribing it without awareness of the misuse risk, especially alongside opioids, can be dangerous.

The Serious Risk of Mixing Gabapentin With Opioids

The single most dangerous aspect of gabapentin misuse is not the drug on its own but what happens when it is combined with opioids. A large population-based study in Ontario found that among people prescribed opioids, those who also had a recent gabapentin prescription were roughly 49 percent more likely to die an opioid-related death than those on opioids alone, even after adjusting for opioid dose and other risk factors.⁷

That finding has been echoed in surgical settings. A study of nearly four million surgical patients in the United States found that those exposed to both gabapentinoids and opioids had about double the risk of opioid-related overdose compared to patients on opioids alone. The risk of respiratory complications was also elevated by roughly 68 percent.⁸ One reason this combination is so hazardous is that gabapentinoids appear capable of reversing the body’s built-up tolerance to opioid-induced respiratory depression. In other words, someone who has adapted to a particular opioid dose and can normally breathe fine on it may find that adding gabapentin makes that same dose suppress their breathing much more than expected.⁹

This is a critical point because many people who misuse gabapentin are doing so precisely because they also use opioids. They may think gabapentin is safe because it is “just a nerve pill,” and the combination can be lethal in a way neither drug would be on its own.

How Gabapentin Compares to Pregabalin

Pregabalin (sold as Lyrica) is gabapentin’s close chemical relative, and the two are often lumped together under the label “gabapentinoids.” But they are not equally prone to misuse. A systematic review comparing the two found that pregabalin appeared to be somewhat more addictive than gabapentin, showing greater behavioral dependence, more frequent transitions from prescription use to self-administration, and more durable patterns of continued misuse.¹⁰

Part of the explanation is pharmacokinetic. Pregabalin has much more predictable absorption, with over 90 percent bioavailability regardless of dose, compared to gabapentin’s 30 to 60 percent that drops further as the dose climbs.³ Pregabalin also reaches peak blood levels faster. From a misuse standpoint, this means pregabalin delivers a more consistent, more rapid effect at higher doses, making it feel more rewarding. Gabapentin’s built-in absorption ceiling acts as a partial brake on its abuse potential, though as the staggering workarounds show, determined users can partially get around this.

Several countries, including the U.K., have classified pregabalin as a controlled substance. In the United States, pregabalin is a Schedule V controlled substance at the federal level, while gabapentin is not federally controlled at all, a gap that some researchers and state legislators have tried to close.

The Patchwork of Legal Controls

Federally, gabapentin remains an unscheduled prescription drug in the United States. The DEA has not classified it as a controlled substance, which means prescriptions can be called in by phone, refills are more flexible, and pharmacies are not required to report dispensing to prescription drug monitoring programs in most states. But growing evidence of misuse has prompted some states to act on their own. Kentucky became the first state to classify gabapentin as a Schedule V controlled substance in July 2017, and West Virginia followed in June 2018.¹¹

Early evidence from West Virginia suggests the scheduling had a measurable impact. A controlled time-series analysis found that classifying gabapentin as Schedule V was associated with an immediate decrease in gabapentin-involved fatal overdoses in the state relative to a comparison state that had not scheduled the drug.¹² Several additional states have since added gabapentin to their controlled substance lists or required it to be reported to prescription monitoring databases. The result is a confusing patchwork where the same drug is treated as a routine prescription in one state and a monitored controlled substance in the next.

Why Gabapentin Often Slips Through Drug Screening

Another factor that has contributed to gabapentin misuse flying under the radar is that standard drug tests do not look for it. The typical urine drug screen used in hospitals and clinics tests for seven to nine drug classes by immunoassay, and gabapentin is not included.¹³ Detecting gabapentin requires a specific test, such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry or a targeted immunoassay, which is not routinely ordered unless the clinician suspects gabapentin involvement.

This means someone using gabapentin recreationally, or combining it with opioids in a treatment program, can pass standard drug tests without raising a flag. In correctional settings, where drug testing is common but gabapentin-specific screening is rare, this has made the drug a currency of sorts. Research in prisons has documented gabapentin being diverted from prescribed inmates to others, with one study finding that about 13 percent of prescribed gabapentinoid medications were being passed along to other prisoners.¹⁴ The appeal in these environments is straightforward: gabapentin provides a mild buzz, it is available through the medical system, and it will not show up on a standard screen.

Off-Label Prescribing and the Sheer Volume of Gabapentin in Circulation

Part of the reason gabapentin is so widely available for misuse is that it is prescribed in enormous quantities, mostly for conditions it was never formally approved to treat. Between 2011 and 2016, gabapentin was listed on an estimated 129.6 million outpatient visits in the United States. Less than one percent of those visits involved an FDA-approved indication like epilepsy or postherpetic neuralgia. The rest were off-label, covering everything from generalized anxiety and depression to bipolar disorder and insomnia.¹⁵

Even more concerning, nearly 60 percent of those off-label gabapentin visits also involved at least one other central nervous system depressant, including opioids in about 23 percent of cases and benzodiazepines in about 17 percent.¹⁵ That overlap with opioids is exactly the combination that raises the risk of respiratory failure and overdose death, and it is happening on a vast scale, largely in primary care settings where providers may not be aware of gabapentin’s misuse potential or the added danger of the combination.

Gabapentin became popular as an off-label option partly because it seemed like a safer alternative to opioids and benzodiazepines for hard-to-treat conditions like chronic pain and anxiety. That reputation was not entirely wrong: gabapentin alone, at therapeutic doses, is far less dangerous than those drugs. But the assumption that it was essentially risk-free led to liberal prescribing without adequate monitoring, creating a massive supply that is easy to divert or accumulate.

What If You Are Taking Gabapentin as Prescribed

If you take gabapentin at normal prescribed doses for a condition like nerve pain or restless legs, the odds of experiencing anything that feels like a “high” are low. The most common side effects at standard doses are drowsiness, dizziness, and mild coordination problems, especially in the first week or two. These effects usually settle as your body adjusts. Some people notice a pleasant sense of calm or reduced anxiety, which is one reason gabapentin is sometimes prescribed off-label for anxiety disorders, but this is not the same as euphoria or intoxication.

Where things can shift is with dose escalation. If you find yourself wanting to take more gabapentin than prescribed because you like how it makes you feel, that is worth a direct conversation with your prescriber. It does not automatically mean you are developing a substance use problem, but it is one of the early patterns associated with gabapentin misuse, and your provider can help you evaluate whether the dose change is medically appropriate or whether it signals a need for closer monitoring. The risk is substantially higher if you have a personal history of alcohol or drug dependence, and being upfront about that history when gabapentin is first discussed can help your doctor weigh the benefits against the risks more accurately.

Gabapentin Withdrawal

A common misconception is that gabapentin can be stopped abruptly without consequences. While gabapentin withdrawal is generally less severe than opioid or benzodiazepine withdrawal, it does occur, particularly in people who have been taking high doses or using the drug for an extended period. Symptoms can include anxiety, insomnia, sweating, nausea, and in rare cases seizures, which is especially concerning in people who were taking gabapentin for seizure control in the first place. Tapering off under medical supervision, rather than stopping cold, is the standard recommendation.

For people who have been misusing gabapentin at very high doses, withdrawal can be more uncomfortable than prescribers sometimes anticipate. The experience tends to resemble a mild version of benzodiazepine withdrawal, with heightened anxiety, restlessness, and sleep disruption lasting anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks. Because gabapentin is not flagged as a controlled substance in most states, clinicians sometimes underestimate the need for a gradual taper, and patients may not realize that the rebound symptoms they are feeling are related to stopping the drug.