I created this blog to help anyone in need. I am cataloging my experience with DXM, both the addiction and the recovery sides. I was addicted both to Robitussin Maximum Strength Cough Syrup and Mucinex DM. When I was in my addiction I wish there were more testimonies, more stories. I hope this helps someone in need. This is what I wish I would have had.
https://20somethingdrugaddict.wordpress.com/
Here is the first post on my blog.
This Is Me.
I am 20-something year old. A caucasian female. A college student. A camp counselor. A best friend. A residence life worker. A daughter. A drug addict.
I don't fit the mold. I'm middle class, was raised in a two parent functional house hold. I never had to worry about money, but also had to work for the money I got. I had a near 4.0 in high school, started my own environmental club, was well-liked for the most part. I was a drama geek, a piano student, a Sunday school teacher. I got a full ride to college, I'm an only child, and I'm not in a particularly stressful degree program. I statistically shouldn't be addicted to drugs. Statistically I am an anomaly. But here I am. Only 2 weeks clean from my last relapse that led me to collapse, twice, in a Coldstone ice cream shop. My best friend had to carry me to the car because I was so out of it I couldn't walk. It felt like a dream. It still does. It always will.
I attended my first Narcotics Anonymous meeting two weeks ago. I shouldn't be there. I don't fit. I sit with people who have lost everything, been to prison, did much more hard-core drugs than I. I'm addicted to a drug called DXM, dextromethorphan. What's it found in? Cough syrup. Mucinex pills. Yep. Things that scream young, naive, white, middle class addiction. I'm a 20-something. I could just as easily drink alcohol and get drunk every night rather than buy bottles of cough syrup or boxes of pills. But I didn't. For some reason getting drunk was 'sloppy' to me, it was frowned upon, people judged you. And for some reason overdosing on legal, over-the-counter drugs made sense. I got really good at hiding my highs. So much so that I could be at work, interacting with people, and no one suspected a thing. I was living my addiction and it was working for me.
Yet of course in any addiction my perception was not reality. To my friends I was pushing them away, my attitude changed. I knew that if my friends knew about my addiction they'd make me stop, they're good people like that. But I didn't want to stop. An addict can't get help unless they want help and for the longest time I pushed people away and distanced myself because I was afraid of their caring, their support. I thought I was fine. My grades were fine, my job was the same, I had no reason to quit. Thoughout this year things have happened, I hurt a lot of people I care very deeply about, and I almost died in front of my best friend, if not from the overdose then from of the concussions I got with the crash to the ground. But here I am. 2 weeks clean. I have a long way to go. But I finally want to quit. And that's the first step to recovery.
This Is Me.
I am 20-something year old. A caucasian female. A college student. A camp counselor. A best friend. A residence life worker. A daughter. A drug addict.
I don't fit the mold. I'm middle class, was raised in a two parent functional house hold. I never had to worry about money, but also had to work for the money I got. I had a near 4.0 in high school, started my own environmental club, was well-liked for the most part. I was a drama geek, a piano student, a Sunday school teacher. I got a full ride to college, I'm an only child, and I'm not in a particularly stressful degree program. I statistically shouldn't be addicted to drugs. Statistically I am an anomaly. But here I am. Only 2 weeks clean from my last relapse that led me to collapse, twice, in a Coldstone ice cream shop. My best friend had to carry me to the car because I was so out of it I couldn't walk. It felt like a dream. It still does. It always will.
I attended my first Narcotics Anonymous meeting two weeks ago. I shouldn't be there. I don't fit. I sit with people who have lost everything, been to prison, did much more hard-core drugs than I. I'm addicted to a drug called DXM, dextromethorphan. What's it found in? Cough syrup. Mucinex pills. Yep. Things that scream young, naive, white, middle class addiction. I'm a 20-something. I could just as easily drink alcohol and get drunk every night rather than buy bottles of cough syrup or boxes of pills. But I didn't. For some reason getting drunk was 'sloppy' to me, it was frowned upon, people judged you. And for some reason overdosing on legal, over-the-counter drugs made sense. I got really good at hiding my highs. So much so that I could be at work, interacting with people, and no one suspected a thing. I was living my addiction and it was working for me.
Yet of course in any addiction my perception was not reality. To my friends I was pushing them away, my attitude changed. I knew that if my friends knew about my addiction they'd make me stop, they're good people like that. But I didn't want to stop. An addict can't get help unless they want help and for the longest time I pushed people away and distanced myself because I was afraid of their caring, their support. I thought I was fine. My grades were fine, my job was the same, I had no reason to quit. Thoughout this year things have happened, I hurt a lot of people I care very deeply about, and I almost died in front of my best friend, if not from the overdose then from of the concussions I got with the crash to the ground. But here I am. 2 weeks clean. I have a long way to go. But I finally want to quit. And that's the first step to recovery.
Try to "identify" with the other addicts, don't "compare".
You just haven't lost everything "YET"
Get a sponsor, get active, get teachable. The 12 Steps will save your life.
If you are like me it will take a while before you see the real truth.
Listen to the good oldtimers.
The highest functioning addict/alcoholics are the hardest to get clean/sober.
We keep thinking we know better than others .. a deadly prejudice.
The program really began to work for me when I realized and admitted that I'm just a garden variety addict/alcoholic.
All the best.
Bob R
You just haven't lost everything "YET"
Get a sponsor, get active, get teachable. The 12 Steps will save your life.
If you are like me it will take a while before you see the real truth.
Listen to the good oldtimers.
The highest functioning addict/alcoholics are the hardest to get clean/sober.
We keep thinking we know better than others .. a deadly prejudice.
The program really began to work for me when I realized and admitted that I'm just a garden variety addict/alcoholic.
All the best.
Bob R
The High.
I'm an unconventional drug addict. I did my research well in advance. I needed to know exactly what I was getting myself into. I needed to feel like I could control it. And I could, for a while. But addiction is sneaky. When you least expect it you one day realize you can't control anything, your addiction was controlling you.
I knew I wouldn't know where to get things like heroin, ecstacy, or even weed...I'm a pretty sheltered and naive person. So I knew my fix would come from the store. I knew it had to be something that I could easily get my hands on without suspicion. Enter cough syrup. One 8oz bottle is roughly $9. In an 8oz bottle there is roughly 236mL of syrup. In every 10mL dose the maximum strength syrup gives me 30mg of DXM. To achieve a calm high, one that just makes me relaxed, I would need to ingest around 200mg of DXM. So roughly 60mL of syrup, or 2oz. So in one bottle I could achieve four highs.
That got old pretty quickly. So I amped it up to half a bottle, 4oz, 120mL, 400mg of DXM. Now I'm spacey a bit, I equate it to a low drunkiness. Words take more thought, staying focused becomes more difficult. At this dose my pupils dialated the first few times, but as I grew my tolerance, they went back to normal. Now I had a problem though. I was spending $9 to get two highs. That's a steep price. So I began experimenting.
Mucinex. A 14-pack of pills was $20. Each pill contains 60mg of DXM. So now, instead of drinking half of a bottle of cherry flavored sugar syrup-yes it did get old and gross very quickly-I could take 4 pills and get the same effect. In one pack I could get 3.5 highs. If I was smart I would buy the 28-packs because then for $30, I could get 7 highs. At this point pills were just as expensive as the syrup, but they were still better tasting than the syrup.
One main difference between the two methods is time. Cough syrup is fast-acting. It took about an hour for the high to set in. The pills were slow-release, meaning it took sometimes 3-4 hours before the peak of the high came. There were a lot of times that I would take pills, drive somewhere and back, before I felt the high distort my vision or depth perception. Looking back was this a smart idea, no. I put not only myself in danger but my friends who were frequently in the vehicle with me.
At this point I know everything about my drug. Exactly how much of what should be taken when to achieve what kind of high and at what cost. Knowledge is power, but often addiction takes that knowledge and extorts that power.
I'm an unconventional drug addict. I did my research well in advance. I needed to know exactly what I was getting myself into. I needed to feel like I could control it. And I could, for a while. But addiction is sneaky. When you least expect it you one day realize you can't control anything, your addiction was controlling you.
I knew I wouldn't know where to get things like heroin, ecstacy, or even weed...I'm a pretty sheltered and naive person. So I knew my fix would come from the store. I knew it had to be something that I could easily get my hands on without suspicion. Enter cough syrup. One 8oz bottle is roughly $9. In an 8oz bottle there is roughly 236mL of syrup. In every 10mL dose the maximum strength syrup gives me 30mg of DXM. To achieve a calm high, one that just makes me relaxed, I would need to ingest around 200mg of DXM. So roughly 60mL of syrup, or 2oz. So in one bottle I could achieve four highs.
That got old pretty quickly. So I amped it up to half a bottle, 4oz, 120mL, 400mg of DXM. Now I'm spacey a bit, I equate it to a low drunkiness. Words take more thought, staying focused becomes more difficult. At this dose my pupils dialated the first few times, but as I grew my tolerance, they went back to normal. Now I had a problem though. I was spending $9 to get two highs. That's a steep price. So I began experimenting.
Mucinex. A 14-pack of pills was $20. Each pill contains 60mg of DXM. So now, instead of drinking half of a bottle of cherry flavored sugar syrup-yes it did get old and gross very quickly-I could take 4 pills and get the same effect. In one pack I could get 3.5 highs. If I was smart I would buy the 28-packs because then for $30, I could get 7 highs. At this point pills were just as expensive as the syrup, but they were still better tasting than the syrup.
One main difference between the two methods is time. Cough syrup is fast-acting. It took about an hour for the high to set in. The pills were slow-release, meaning it took sometimes 3-4 hours before the peak of the high came. There were a lot of times that I would take pills, drive somewhere and back, before I felt the high distort my vision or depth perception. Looking back was this a smart idea, no. I put not only myself in danger but my friends who were frequently in the vehicle with me.
At this point I know everything about my drug. Exactly how much of what should be taken when to achieve what kind of high and at what cost. Knowledge is power, but often addiction takes that knowledge and extorts that power.
I was an AA hater until today. I read lots of Bob R's posts and just had to agree that the program can be a life-saver.
Okay, to the point. I used DXM several times. I called it "down tripping". It felt like LSD but my mind went to negative things like death and dying. LSD always made me feel alive. I am the type of person who would try anything to get high. I didn't get hooked on DXM, but I tripped on it plenty of times. I was in a residential rehab institution when I met a girl who was there for DXM addiction. I didn't even know it was addictive. But obviously it is. And in the USA, there is not much information on this kind of addiction.
As citizens of the USA, we are supposed to be able to contact our congressman or senator and ask him/her to vote for or propose a bill to make treatment available. But as all Americans know now, our government just doesn't give a flip. My SUGGESTION to you is that you go into treatment for opiate/opioid addiction if you live in the USA. They seem to treat DXM addicts "off label" with Baclofen and/or Clonodine. It might be worth a try.
Sorry again to everybody for my ramblings tonight. Thanks for understanding and I hope I'll be more 'with it' tomorrow.
Okay, to the point. I used DXM several times. I called it "down tripping". It felt like LSD but my mind went to negative things like death and dying. LSD always made me feel alive. I am the type of person who would try anything to get high. I didn't get hooked on DXM, but I tripped on it plenty of times. I was in a residential rehab institution when I met a girl who was there for DXM addiction. I didn't even know it was addictive. But obviously it is. And in the USA, there is not much information on this kind of addiction.
As citizens of the USA, we are supposed to be able to contact our congressman or senator and ask him/her to vote for or propose a bill to make treatment available. But as all Americans know now, our government just doesn't give a flip. My SUGGESTION to you is that you go into treatment for opiate/opioid addiction if you live in the USA. They seem to treat DXM addicts "off label" with Baclofen and/or Clonodine. It might be worth a try.
Sorry again to everybody for my ramblings tonight. Thanks for understanding and I hope I'll be more 'with it' tomorrow.
I am now 92 days clean from dxm. It's still extremely difficult to not think about how awesome it would be to get high on this stuff again. The way it made me feel and the things I would accomplish at home make me crave it. My life feels dull and boring now at times when I'd rather be on dxm. However, there are far too many negatives that go along with using this s***. I have a lot of knowledge and experience with this drug and also with now staying away from it. If anyone needs to talk, message me, or post back. I'll do my best to lead you into the right direction.
