Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
- Joined
- Nov 3, 1999
- Messages
- 84,998
Considering that there seems to be more awareness of dextromethorphan?€™s (DXM) utility in combating acute withdrawal kicking opioids, I wanted to share my rather extensive experience using this substance and my relationship to it.
I first stumbled upon the value of DXM when I was forced to kick heroin again living in San Diego rather unexpectedly. I was getting beaten down by my habit and what I was forced to do to maintain it. Though my habit at the time was relatively meager, it was longstanding enough to cause a nasty enough withdrawal syndrome.
One day I simply wasn?€™t able to hustle up enough for my fix. Feeling dejected and rather melancholy, I remembered back to the warm fuzzy experiences I had experimenting with DXM when I was in college and decided to pick up some on the way home. I got home and downed half a bottle of DXM HBr, approximately 175mg. I popped out back - planting myself in a chair - not expecting much other than the expected symptoms of opioid withdrawal that had started to present a few hours earlier.
I had just downloaded one of Kid Cudi?€™s albums and had started listening to it when I realized that I was feeling really nice. Not high or euphoric, simply okay. Okay to just sit there. The music sounded really crisp and clear on my beat up old Sony headphones. A gentle breeze that had picked up in the canyon below the porch of the house I was staying at felt oh so calming and peaceful against my skin. So mellow, so relaxed; So fresh, so clean.
But wait a tic, wasn?€™t I supposed to be in withdrawals?! Why wasn?€™t I feeling shitty? I wasn?€™t just feeling okay; I was feeling none of the symptoms of acute opioid withdrawal that had begun to manifest just hours earlier. I realized, this was the DXM! I immediately went back in and downed the rest of the bottle, although it didn?€™t really increase any of the subjective effects.
For the next six days I would ingest 350mg of DXM HBr in the morning and 350mg of DXM HBr in the afternoon or evening. To my great amazement and joy, the only effects of acute withdrawal I experienced was some slight insomnia, only getting about three to five hours of sleep a night. But I was able to function just fine, doing chores and tasks around the house, going out for walks, eating relatively normally, even producing relatively firm bowel movements ?€“ a particular delight considering the GI distress of acute withdrawal is my least favorite aspect of kicking. At night I only had minor RLS, the cause of my slight insomnia, but other than some truly fetid smelling farts, undoubtedly caused by my DXM use coupled with the acute withdrawal, I experienced none of the normal malaise, depression, anxiety, or any of the other classical symptoms of acute opioid withdrawal.
Me being who I am, I immediately got on BL to ask about what the hell was going on, because I was very pleasantly confused. I mean, no one gets a free pass kicking heroin, right? I ended up finding an amazing thread on NMDA receptor antagonists[/url] being used to reduce, or rather prevent, the normal development of tolerance with opioids, alcohol, amphetamines and nicotine. Turns out it was the DXM.
I also noticed that the DXM totally overpowered and eliminated cravings for nicotine. I had a really significant addiction to cigarettes at the time, easily smoking a pack a day. I was able to cut back to only one cigarette in the morning literally overnight. It didn?€™t hurt that I couldn?€™t afford to buy cigarettes at the time, but normally I would have just gone out sniping. But that kind of behavior wasn?€™t necessary.
Thanks to the action of DXM on my brain I was able to make the decision to actually suppress the cravings for nicotine I was experiencing. Of course it wasn?€™t that simple. I also distracted myself by paying attention to how beautiful the weather was, how amazing it was to kick heroin without feelings like death, listening to music, and making myself busy with chores around the house.
This is serious shit though, like you didn?€™t already know
DXM seriously limited my cognitive function and ability to socially interact while under the influence. While under its influence, it basically turned me into what I imagine it would be like to have a severe learning disability or moderate-to-severe autism. As the afterglow wore off my intellect would slowly re-crystalized and return to the same efficacious sharpness that was prior to ingesting the substance.
At the time, it felt like DXM literally saved my life. DXM allowed me to function while kicking my heroin habit. It also allowed me to maintain abstinence after the cessation of DXM use on day seven off heroin until I was able to get into a buprenorphine maintenance program for opioid users. Unfortunately, I didn?€™t have the resources or the tools that could enable me to effectively manage my ongoing recovery at the time. So, you probably know where this goes. . .
Addiction being what it is, I wasn?€™t very long before I was unable to regulate my mood without the help of opioids. I maintained abstinence for about six months while on buprenorphine, then began chipping for about another year while I continued to take it. After being on buprenorphine at doses as high as 16mg, I detoxed myself from my final dosage of 4mg. It wasn?€™t a particular bad detox, though it was a certain shit-show.
I just wasn?€™t as comfortable coming off buprenorphine as I was when I used DXM to kick dope back in San Diego. I ended up going inpatient after overdosing on baclofen a month after getting off buprenorphine (in a nutshell: I blacked out after taking 60mg and ended up drinking a bunch of this special sake and smoking a Cuban cigar I had been saving for a special occasion. I then proceeded to take somewhere around 200mg of baclofen until I became non-responsive. This was the result of detoxing from opioids the modern medical way. . .
And, again addiction being what it is, I ended up relapsing on hydrocodone relatively quickly after my forced stint of inpatient treatment. I think I lasted about three or four days. Eventually I went right back to IMing tar, because of the exorbitant price of black market pain medication and a sharp return of tolerance to opioids. After getting arrested a few times for possession, and finally having one of the charges stick, I got on methadone and entered a deferred entry of judgement program to avoid jail time.
Getting into a methadone clinic was probably the best thing I had done for myself up until that point as far as my recovery was concerned. It was the first decision regarding my treatment that I made entirely on my own for myself. In fact, it was what I had originally wanted to do when I first came out about my heroin use a few years earlier and asked my family for help. I had been prevented from going on it first because a fascist twelve step addiction counselor manipulated my family into sending me to a string of twelve step so-called treatment centers. Frankly, I probably wouldn?€™t have been able to get on methadone from the get go simply because I hadn?€™t fucked my shit up enough to qualify or been through ?€œenough?€ abstinent-only treatment programs. Nonetheless, buprenorphine would still have been far more appropriate than what I had to suffer through in the earliest days of my road to recovery. But I digress. . .
Methadone saved my life, allowing me to stay out of trouble and get my charge expunged after completing the DEJ program. I began to piece my life back together, entering a truly amazing program at UCLA?€™s Semel Institute for Neuroscience. I was able to rebuild my relationship with my family and gain a healthy new found sense of self. I started volunteering at the methadone clinic teaching what were essentially mindfulness-based-stress-reduction-lite groups.
I was able to stay away from illegal opioids, remaining abstinent from heroin. Towards the end of my second year on methadone I began experimenting with DXM use again. I had become severely depressed, utterly dissatisfied with my status in life. I couldn?€™t help but compare myself with my peers that I had gone to college with.
Accurately or not, I imagined that all my peers were years ahead of me in terms of their personal and professional lives. The management of the methadone clinic I went to had changed. Tolerating the clinic bullshit started to become intolerable. I was depressed, and starting to feel desperate.
I remembered the research I had found on DXM?€™s little brother ketamine, another NMDA receptor antagonist, where it was successfully being used to treat treatment resistant depression. I thought back to how the DXM had overpowered the malaise and depression normally associated with kicking heroin and was desperate enough again to give it a try, hoping it would break through my depression.
Low and behold, it worked marvelously! At first 350mg of DXM HBr was more than enough, producing a familiar pleasant sensation, although now, I imagine since I wasn?€™t in withdrawal at the time, it also produced a delightful euphoria and peacefulness that was much more pronounced than before. It reinvigorated my mindfulness and vipassana-metta meditation practice and eventually led me to make the decision to finally finish the taper off methadone I had started nine months prior.
My DXM use facilitated an awareness of how I had reached my limit dealing with the methadone clinic. When it comes to methadone and how it is prescribed in the US, there was so much bullshit and humiliation involved in the treatment protocol that I decided it was time to move on. I used codeine for three days to transition from the methadone to buprenorphine. Then I switched to 2mg of buprenorphine in the morning and evening. My doses of buprenorphine were accompanied by 0.1mg clonidine, 400mg gabapentin and 10mg diazepam.
Getting off methadone was actually a lot less crazy than all the shit people make it out to be. It was far from a perfect transition. The mistakes I made while transitioning off methadone, though few and far between, had nothing to do with the methadone itself. DXM served as an invaluable asset during the detox process. It has since facilitated some valuable insight, though its role in my life is getting old fast. It might have once been a wonderful ally, but after becoming more aware of its consequences on my ability to function socially and on my memory, well, it is time to blaze a new trail.
In closing, there is one thing I will say about dextromethorphan. That is, DXM forced me to become much more adapt with my procedural memory. It slowed me down a bit, which is difficult in fast paced American society. However, in a funny kind of way, slowing down has allowed me to accelerate developmentally in other areas of my life. We human beings are amazing creatures indeed! I can only hope that the long term side effects of my DXM use will not render me what I shall refer to as, essentially, ?€œdeaf and dumb.?€ Rather, just a piece of meat.
That said, if I am able to continue making healthier and healthier decisions, I am confident that the worst will not come to pass. DXM, helpful, harmful? You decide. I wouldn?€™t wish this shit [opioid use; addiction; the value of DXM] on anyone though. . .
Tagged by Xorkoth
substancecode_dxm
substancecode_dissociatives
explevel_experienced
explevel_retrospective
exptype_positive
exptype_glowing
roacode_oral
I first stumbled upon the value of DXM when I was forced to kick heroin again living in San Diego rather unexpectedly. I was getting beaten down by my habit and what I was forced to do to maintain it. Though my habit at the time was relatively meager, it was longstanding enough to cause a nasty enough withdrawal syndrome.
One day I simply wasn?€™t able to hustle up enough for my fix. Feeling dejected and rather melancholy, I remembered back to the warm fuzzy experiences I had experimenting with DXM when I was in college and decided to pick up some on the way home. I got home and downed half a bottle of DXM HBr, approximately 175mg. I popped out back - planting myself in a chair - not expecting much other than the expected symptoms of opioid withdrawal that had started to present a few hours earlier.
I had just downloaded one of Kid Cudi?€™s albums and had started listening to it when I realized that I was feeling really nice. Not high or euphoric, simply okay. Okay to just sit there. The music sounded really crisp and clear on my beat up old Sony headphones. A gentle breeze that had picked up in the canyon below the porch of the house I was staying at felt oh so calming and peaceful against my skin. So mellow, so relaxed; So fresh, so clean.
But wait a tic, wasn?€™t I supposed to be in withdrawals?! Why wasn?€™t I feeling shitty? I wasn?€™t just feeling okay; I was feeling none of the symptoms of acute opioid withdrawal that had begun to manifest just hours earlier. I realized, this was the DXM! I immediately went back in and downed the rest of the bottle, although it didn?€™t really increase any of the subjective effects.
For the next six days I would ingest 350mg of DXM HBr in the morning and 350mg of DXM HBr in the afternoon or evening. To my great amazement and joy, the only effects of acute withdrawal I experienced was some slight insomnia, only getting about three to five hours of sleep a night. But I was able to function just fine, doing chores and tasks around the house, going out for walks, eating relatively normally, even producing relatively firm bowel movements ?€“ a particular delight considering the GI distress of acute withdrawal is my least favorite aspect of kicking. At night I only had minor RLS, the cause of my slight insomnia, but other than some truly fetid smelling farts, undoubtedly caused by my DXM use coupled with the acute withdrawal, I experienced none of the normal malaise, depression, anxiety, or any of the other classical symptoms of acute opioid withdrawal.
Me being who I am, I immediately got on BL to ask about what the hell was going on, because I was very pleasantly confused. I mean, no one gets a free pass kicking heroin, right? I ended up finding an amazing thread on NMDA receptor antagonists[/url] being used to reduce, or rather prevent, the normal development of tolerance with opioids, alcohol, amphetamines and nicotine. Turns out it was the DXM.
I also noticed that the DXM totally overpowered and eliminated cravings for nicotine. I had a really significant addiction to cigarettes at the time, easily smoking a pack a day. I was able to cut back to only one cigarette in the morning literally overnight. It didn?€™t hurt that I couldn?€™t afford to buy cigarettes at the time, but normally I would have just gone out sniping. But that kind of behavior wasn?€™t necessary.
Thanks to the action of DXM on my brain I was able to make the decision to actually suppress the cravings for nicotine I was experiencing. Of course it wasn?€™t that simple. I also distracted myself by paying attention to how beautiful the weather was, how amazing it was to kick heroin without feelings like death, listening to music, and making myself busy with chores around the house.
This is serious shit though, like you didn?€™t already know
DXM seriously limited my cognitive function and ability to socially interact while under the influence. While under its influence, it basically turned me into what I imagine it would be like to have a severe learning disability or moderate-to-severe autism. As the afterglow wore off my intellect would slowly re-crystalized and return to the same efficacious sharpness that was prior to ingesting the substance. At the time, it felt like DXM literally saved my life. DXM allowed me to function while kicking my heroin habit. It also allowed me to maintain abstinence after the cessation of DXM use on day seven off heroin until I was able to get into a buprenorphine maintenance program for opioid users. Unfortunately, I didn?€™t have the resources or the tools that could enable me to effectively manage my ongoing recovery at the time. So, you probably know where this goes. . .
Addiction being what it is, I wasn?€™t very long before I was unable to regulate my mood without the help of opioids. I maintained abstinence for about six months while on buprenorphine, then began chipping for about another year while I continued to take it. After being on buprenorphine at doses as high as 16mg, I detoxed myself from my final dosage of 4mg. It wasn?€™t a particular bad detox, though it was a certain shit-show.
I just wasn?€™t as comfortable coming off buprenorphine as I was when I used DXM to kick dope back in San Diego. I ended up going inpatient after overdosing on baclofen a month after getting off buprenorphine (in a nutshell: I blacked out after taking 60mg and ended up drinking a bunch of this special sake and smoking a Cuban cigar I had been saving for a special occasion. I then proceeded to take somewhere around 200mg of baclofen until I became non-responsive. This was the result of detoxing from opioids the modern medical way. . .
And, again addiction being what it is, I ended up relapsing on hydrocodone relatively quickly after my forced stint of inpatient treatment. I think I lasted about three or four days. Eventually I went right back to IMing tar, because of the exorbitant price of black market pain medication and a sharp return of tolerance to opioids. After getting arrested a few times for possession, and finally having one of the charges stick, I got on methadone and entered a deferred entry of judgement program to avoid jail time.
Getting into a methadone clinic was probably the best thing I had done for myself up until that point as far as my recovery was concerned. It was the first decision regarding my treatment that I made entirely on my own for myself. In fact, it was what I had originally wanted to do when I first came out about my heroin use a few years earlier and asked my family for help. I had been prevented from going on it first because a fascist twelve step addiction counselor manipulated my family into sending me to a string of twelve step so-called treatment centers. Frankly, I probably wouldn?€™t have been able to get on methadone from the get go simply because I hadn?€™t fucked my shit up enough to qualify or been through ?€œenough?€ abstinent-only treatment programs. Nonetheless, buprenorphine would still have been far more appropriate than what I had to suffer through in the earliest days of my road to recovery. But I digress. . .
Methadone saved my life, allowing me to stay out of trouble and get my charge expunged after completing the DEJ program. I began to piece my life back together, entering a truly amazing program at UCLA?€™s Semel Institute for Neuroscience. I was able to rebuild my relationship with my family and gain a healthy new found sense of self. I started volunteering at the methadone clinic teaching what were essentially mindfulness-based-stress-reduction-lite groups.
I was able to stay away from illegal opioids, remaining abstinent from heroin. Towards the end of my second year on methadone I began experimenting with DXM use again. I had become severely depressed, utterly dissatisfied with my status in life. I couldn?€™t help but compare myself with my peers that I had gone to college with.
Accurately or not, I imagined that all my peers were years ahead of me in terms of their personal and professional lives. The management of the methadone clinic I went to had changed. Tolerating the clinic bullshit started to become intolerable. I was depressed, and starting to feel desperate.
I remembered the research I had found on DXM?€™s little brother ketamine, another NMDA receptor antagonist, where it was successfully being used to treat treatment resistant depression. I thought back to how the DXM had overpowered the malaise and depression normally associated with kicking heroin and was desperate enough again to give it a try, hoping it would break through my depression.
Low and behold, it worked marvelously! At first 350mg of DXM HBr was more than enough, producing a familiar pleasant sensation, although now, I imagine since I wasn?€™t in withdrawal at the time, it also produced a delightful euphoria and peacefulness that was much more pronounced than before. It reinvigorated my mindfulness and vipassana-metta meditation practice and eventually led me to make the decision to finally finish the taper off methadone I had started nine months prior.
My DXM use facilitated an awareness of how I had reached my limit dealing with the methadone clinic. When it comes to methadone and how it is prescribed in the US, there was so much bullshit and humiliation involved in the treatment protocol that I decided it was time to move on. I used codeine for three days to transition from the methadone to buprenorphine. Then I switched to 2mg of buprenorphine in the morning and evening. My doses of buprenorphine were accompanied by 0.1mg clonidine, 400mg gabapentin and 10mg diazepam.
Getting off methadone was actually a lot less crazy than all the shit people make it out to be. It was far from a perfect transition. The mistakes I made while transitioning off methadone, though few and far between, had nothing to do with the methadone itself. DXM served as an invaluable asset during the detox process. It has since facilitated some valuable insight, though its role in my life is getting old fast. It might have once been a wonderful ally, but after becoming more aware of its consequences on my ability to function socially and on my memory, well, it is time to blaze a new trail.
In closing, there is one thing I will say about dextromethorphan. That is, DXM forced me to become much more adapt with my procedural memory. It slowed me down a bit, which is difficult in fast paced American society. However, in a funny kind of way, slowing down has allowed me to accelerate developmentally in other areas of my life. We human beings are amazing creatures indeed! I can only hope that the long term side effects of my DXM use will not render me what I shall refer to as, essentially, ?€œdeaf and dumb.?€ Rather, just a piece of meat.
That said, if I am able to continue making healthier and healthier decisions, I am confident that the worst will not come to pass. DXM, helpful, harmful? You decide. I wouldn?€™t wish this shit [opioid use; addiction; the value of DXM] on anyone though. . .
Tagged by Xorkoth
substancecode_dxm
substancecode_dissociatives
explevel_experienced
explevel_retrospective
exptype_positive
exptype_glowing
roacode_oral
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