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DXM abuse, recovery suggestions [kind of long]

PinK~cloud

Bluelighter
Joined
Jun 5, 2009
Messages
681
Location
NW USA
Hello all. I'm looking for a little advice regarding DXM abuse and mostly recovery. If this thread belongs in healthy living or something, please feel free to move it.

Anyway, I had my first DXM trip when I was about 16 or 17, can't remember. I took a ton of robotussin and tripped balls. I had a good time, but didn't take it again for another 3 years or so. In the summer of 2010 I got back into it with my brother and a friend, who had never done it but were into weed, so I introduced them. At the time I was into feel good drugs, mostly opiates and benzos (due to being an anxious person). I remember I'd drink about half a bottle, or like 13 gel caps, so an average of 200 mg or so. It'd get me so fucked up, it'd freak me out sometimes. Anyway, by the end of that summer we had all given it up.

Fast forward to spring 2012. I started taking it again for a few reasons. One was that I was in a treatment program still (part of being prescribed subs) and being the addict I am, wanted to be able to get fucked up here and there. A second reason was that I found DXM to help IMMENSELY with opiate withdrawal between refills of my suboxone. I'd sometimes run out anywhere from 3 to 5 days early, and would typically dose DXM in the ~200 mg range almost daily to help with the withdrawal. The third reason was that I found it helped me "recover" from vyvanse/adderall withdrawal between refills too. Each time I'd take the DXM I felt like my amp recovery time was much quicker. I would do this every 3 weeks or so.

As with most DXM abuse stories you hear, I started developing tolerance issues. By the summer time I would take 300 mg to feel that amazing effect. I literally LOVED laying in bed at night (after my brother or friends would go to sleep), listening to sigur ros with my eyes closed, seeing some of the most amazing things of my life. It sounds cliche, but I would experience spiritual "rebirth", and reach such high levels of meditation that I felt like I discovered a whole new aspect of life.

At the end of the summer I finally got to the point of quitting suboxone. I hated feeling completely lethargic every 3 weeks when I'd run out of vyvanse early, so I quit that too. Being on suboxone for 3 years, and going from ~8 (sometimes 16mg) mg of suboxone a day down to 0 in a 3 week taper, the withdrawal lasted "forever." At least 3 weeks, hell, I still feel it now. Anyway, I rationalized that I should take the DXM daily during that period (because it literally helped so much, completely disconnecting my mind from the painful body withdrawal), so I would take on average 300-400mg during the day, and another 300 or more at night. Anyway, I came to start noticing side effects like subtle visual snow, some trouble forming complex sentences and word recall, etc. Additionally, I no longer get CEVs, at all. I'm sure that may come back with really high doses, but NDMA tolerance is a bitch and lasts for so long.


TLDR; I've realized that DXM has really come to mess with my head. Doing psychedelics like mushrooms have really made me realize that DXM is rather "dirty" if done a lot. I feel a little more "stupid," and overall emotionally flat. I can really say that I've had amazing times on DXM, and I attribute being able to quit a long time suboxone addiction due to it. However, I need some advice on recovery. Hopefully there are a few others of you out there who can offer my some advice on ways to recover my mind. I have some ideas for supplements and such. These include:
Omega 3 fatty acids (lots of it)
alpha lipoic acid
5-htp
l-tyrosine
acetyl l-carnatine
and hopefully piracetam when I get my next pay check

I'm hoping that all these supplements, along with adequate exercise, will hope clear my brain of some of the "mental fog" that I've been dealing with. If anyone else has stories about their recovery from DXM use/"addiction", and what helped in that endeavor, I would really appreciate that advice.

Thanks BL for all the help, and I apologize for the long ass post
 
i know for sure that time will heal it, DXM has that distinct effect of making you feel extremely mentally impaired but it goes away after a couple of weeks/month. Good job with the suboxone! How long has it been since you stopped taking DXM? Sorry don't know how much supplements will help, i'd also look into piracetam and others like that but for me i just recovered after a few weeks but that was from a summer of heavy 3rd plateau doses.
 
To be honest I haven't completely been able to stop yet. I took it last Wednesday at 350 mg. the side effects have gotten sooo much better even cutting down on use. I'm not sure I've ever even been to the 3rd plateau. Mostly 2nd plateau doses, then eventually first as time went on and tolerance developed.

I'm glad to see you recovered so well in a couple of weeks. I've noticed when I don't take it for a week or so a lot of the visual snow becomes unnoticeable, and stuff starts to improve. Unfortunately I drink fairly regularly, so I'm sure that hampers recovery. Thanks for your input
 
get some weed for the cravings and start lowering your weed intace slowly
take suplements like omega3, magnesium+calcium, brahmi(bacopa monieri), l-theanin, green tea(japanies is so much better in imo), vitamin b-6, b-12 all the vitamins you can think of.
they do wonders for your mood. and you could start reading books on the subject of altered states of consiusness to help you
feel conected to this part of you without taking the drug.it has helped me alot!
doing something creative to express your former experiaces is a good idea too, like making some music or writing an essay or what ever..
Stoping disociatives is very hard and i haven't stoped them entierly at all but going from every day to 2-3times a month isn't that hard it just needs time and in the end its very rewarding as your tolerance goes down a bit(a tiny bit) and experances get much more special and you have so much more time to analise them when sober!
good luck!
 
Treat yourself as a SNRI casualty; low dose DXM is not as permanently damaging as you may think. Nobody's ever produced any evidence of permanent cognitive impairment.

The best option is to titrate off gradually. Lower your dose 15-30mg a week. The brain fog clears right out with a few months of being active & avoiding dissociative drugs... don't overuse cannabis as it won't help the fog in your head. Titration downwards will help your body adjust to having less drug in your system and will minimise side effects.

Since you're on a relatively light daily dose of DXM you could try cutting your dose to <100mg a day for a week, see if you have any bad side effects, and if you're OK just discontinue it entirely. The worst is usually a week or so of feeling like your head is full of cotton wool. Some people do end up with the typical SNRI discontinuation syndrome of moodswings and brainzaps though, so be cautious.

Supplements are mostly just security blankets to make you feel better, if you're eating a balanced diet with a good amount of protien and green/colored veggies. Caffeine helps a lot too if you don't overdo it.

Honestly though, DXM is a pretty good replacement for SNRI drugs in terms of efficacy. It does work great as an anti-depressant...

So in summary: eat well, get the blood flowing to your brain, and slowly lower your dose, and you'll be back to normality in no time.
 
Aniracetam. I believe in a nutshell it has the opposite effect of a dissociative. It can help fill in those holes so to speak, I think it may thicken NMDA receptors.
 
Vitamins B6 especially, B12 is good. A wee bit of nicotine when you're really shit can hit the spot. Caffeine often back fires for me! Supplements: Inositol/lecithin is helpful before bed.

DXM damage is almost always psychological -- you can work through it dude!

I'm stiill addicted, and will always be probably. Brain fog clears in like 2 days for me, but when I first started on the shit, brain fog would last up to two months. Stay positive! You haven't broken yourself!
 
Hey guys, sorry to take so Long to respond. Thanks for all the info, it's much appreciated. I have bought a lot of those supplements and they help tremendously. Thanks for all the input.

Sincerely,
Pink Cloud

Edit: just to clarify, would my doses be considered pretty low dose (in comparison to most recreational mg doses). I can really only think of one time I even had a "slightly anesthetic" high.
 
~600mg a day is nothing to scoff at, but it's not incredibly high, generally I would consider "low dose" as less than 300mg/d, and "high dose" as 1200mg/day or more.

At that dosage level its a really potent SNRI as well as a mild dissociative, especially from metabolism to DXO.
 
Yeah you should be fine man. I used 500-700mg (moderate dosage) per day for a while and definitely noticed my vocabulary had a whole bunch of holes in it for a while but it comes back. 200-300 is barely threshold for me, so it seems low.
 
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