DOSE:	repeated	oral	DXM
		oral	Alcohol
		smoked	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

My experiences with DXM all took place in under a month's worth of time. After the last time I did DXM, or dex, or dexter, as I many times so lovingly referred to it, I won't be able to do DXM again. I find myself frightened at the idea of having any more of it, and I get goosebumps whenever my friends take any.

[Erowid Note: Most Coricidin contains CPM (Chlorpheniramine Maleate) which can be dangerous in high doses. See DXM Brand Warnings for more info.]

My first experience with DXM came from a few boxes of Coricidin. After a particularly depressing/distressing week of classes at my university, and with no alcohol readily available, and my mood not being one in which I could enjoy one of the frat or house parties nearby, I called up a friend of mine who had told me a little bit about Coricidin. Neither one of us had actually tried it before, so we talked to an acquantaince of ours who did (and still does) Cor on a pretty regular basis, usually 2 or 3 times a week. He swore by it and then told us how much he normally took. He said the most he normally took was about half a box of Cor, but a girl he knew had an entire box once and she didn't have any problems.

My friend and I, with this information, went to a nearby Rite Aid, where I proceeded to purchase two boxes of Cor. My friend didn't have any money at the time, but I told him I'd spot him some. After a bit, I decided that since I have a higher tolerance than most (if not all) the people I know, I would take a box and a half of Cor and my friend could take the other box. 33 Cor later, I was ready to have what I figured would be a very enjoyable night.

It took almost two hours before I began to feel anything, but what I did feel was incredible. I didn't have any visual effects, which didn't surprise me since I rarely have any visual effects, even with large quantities of acid. I did, however, feel incredibly warm, and beyond that, comfortable. The word doesn't quite do it justice, but that's exactly what I felt -- an incredible sense of comfort. This was strange, as I'd never had any such feeling like that with any other drugs I'd had before. My friend reported a similar feeling, although obviously much less potent due to his substantially smaller dose.

A week and a half later, my friend bought two 8 oz. bottle of Tussin from Rite Aid and we went back to my room to enjoy them. It took me about 20-25 minutes to gag down the Tussin, which I found to be incredibly repulsive. My friend held back from having his bottle, for a few reasons: he had to walk back to his place later, he has a lower tolerance than me and so didn't need as much, and he hated the taste even more than me. I ended up vomiting about 30-40 minutes after I finished the last of the bottle, but by that point I felt so well that I didn't even mind the vomiting. The feeling was truly incredible, and it lasted for several hours before I finally went to sleep. My friend went home about an hour after I vomited, and he felt quite good from the third of a bottle he had himself.

Several days later, finals were over and my friend and I decided to do some celebrating. We bought two bottles of Tussin early in the day, and after my final that afternoon we went for a little walk to nearby park. My friend had recently bought an eighth of some of the greatest nugs I've had in my life, that being a considerable statement considering how many years I've been smoking weed for. We split 8 or 9 bowls of this, which was enough that I could have had one of the better nights of my life without adding on to this quantity.

However, my friend and I decided to pick up some more Tussin, which must've been a site for the folk in Rite Aid, considering how much we reeked of weed and how stoned we were. We bought two more bottles, then headed back to my place again. My roommate was home at this point, and he was well on his way to getting quite drunk. Having told him earlier about my previous Tussin trip, he bought one of the bottles off my friend, to which my friend hardly objected, realizing it would be hard enough for him to choke down one bottle, let alone a second. My roommate then drank about 2/3 of the bottle in a span of an hour or so, while my friend drank his entire bottle and I drank a bottle and a half of my two bottle supply. We smoked a bit more weed, had a couple more drinks, and then proceeded to communicate with a higher plane.

Or at least, that's what it seemed like. My roommate later told me it had been the best night of his life, without even a comparably close runner-up. My friend was almost equally impressed, and it seemed like this would make a great new hobby. And a cheap one, considering the cost of Tussin. My roommate attempted to write down some of his thoughts that night, and had I not experienced exactly what he wrote of, I would've thought it was fake, after all, how could someone truly feel that good? But it was true. Music was incredible, Clint Mansell's Requiem for a Dream soundtrack played on a loop made an almost orgasmic experience. I plugged in my police light and the alternating red and blue lights were so brilliant that I swore I could feel the physical presence of the light as it swooped over me.

The next day, I was able to find a site online that sold pure Dex, and I ordered some. I fully expected it to be a few weeks before I would see my package arrive, but figured I could make do with a few more robo-trips in the meantime.

Much to my surprise, the package arrived at my place only five days later. Within an hour of it's arrival, I had taken about 600 mg of Dex by dissolving it into shots of vodka and drinking that. My friend came over shortly thereafter with one gram gelcaps, and we both had one. He also had about 450 mg dissolved into some cider. About twenty to thirty minutes later, I began to feel the first effects, most like from what I had taken in the vodka. Although it's not as strong when you mix it into a drink, the Dex certainly kicks in faster using this method. About an hour after that, the pill began to kick in.

This was certainly a strong trip. I was unwilling to stand for quite a long time, instead choosing to simply lie on my couch and wonder at the feelings and thoughts I was having. Once again, I felt incredibly warm and loved, much like with the Coricidin. But this time I was having visual effects as well, trailers, especially on lights and other bright objects, colors were brighter but overall everything had a soft hazy feeling to it. Reds especially were brighter, to an extreme that even colors that weren't red seemed to be shifted slightly towards the red. I always seemed to have a sense of delay, if I turned my head quickly from left to right, I would see what was to the left for a few milliseconds after I turned my head, and there was no visual aspect of turning, simply a quick break from seeing what was to my left and what was to my right. This was true in the opposite direction also, as well as vertically. At almost the peak of my trip, my thoughts became so unusual that I'm still amazed that I could think some of the things I did. I wrote several of them down, and one in particular was along the lines that all of matter, space, time, and indeed all of existence was in fact a part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

My friend, having a lower tolerance and more prone to visual hallucinations, had a trip much more noteworthy than my own, however. At various points throughout the evening, he variously believed that he was a shaman, that he was talking to a shaman, that he was talking to the Devil, that the Devil gave him telekinetic powers in exchange for his soul, that I was the Devil, that the shadows on my ceiling were ghosts, that the shadows on my ceiling were monsters come to eat him alive, that they were regular shadows that had been possessed and come to life, that he was in a prison, and a few other disturbing ideas. Strangely, however, my friend swears that he enjoyed the trip, even though he was incredibly frightened during certain parts of it.

I took another gram two days later, then went to see The Lord of the Rings, an experience which was certainly interesting. Throughout most of the movie, my eyes were open further than I believe possible, and a friend who had gone with me, but without tripping, as he had to drive us both home afterwards and I had explained to him just how impossible that would be while on Dex, made several comments to the effect that it looked like if I opened my eyes any further, the eyeballs would pop right out of my sockets.

It was another five days before I had Dex again, this time at a dose of 1.5 grams, measured out into two one gram capsules. Once again an excellent trip. My friend believed he turned into Shakira and that Shakira had turned into Freddie Prince Jr. along with some other things, but I'll leave those out for the sake of brevity. Needless to say, I enjoyed myself quite well.

Two days later, another trip, again one point five grams.

Four days later, I had another one point five grams, along with a bit of weed.

Two days after that, I followed up with two grams, 6 or 7 bowls of great nugs, and 10 or 11 shots of 100 proof vodka.

Two days later, it was back to 1.5 grams with a few bowls.

Two days, another 2 grams, another 8 or 9 bowls, along with a few more shots.

Then came my final experience with DXM, Dex, Dexter, whatever you wish to call it. Having run out of one gram gelcaps at this point, my roommate gave me some gelcaps which he believed to be one gram. I took his word on this and filled two of them. I took them both, Smoked 5 or 6 bowls, and drank a bottle of Bacardi Limon. I took the Dex at about 10:30, but between 11 and around 2:30 all that exists in my memory is a large black gap. What I do remember is that around 2:30 I realized that the world did indeed exist, and I began talking to a few friends of mine on AIM. At this point, a friend of mine asked if I was feeling better because I hadn't looked too well before. I asked him what he meant and he said when he had been at my place a couple hours earlier he wasn't sure that I was going to live, especially after how much I had taken. This was when I realized that about 3 and a half hours had past that I couldn't account for, and realized I should probably wait at least a few days before I had any more.

Around this point, I made a comment to my friend along the lines that 2 grams wasn't a whole lot and probably the problem was that I had so much in only a week. My friend corrected me, explaining that the pills my roommate had given me had not actually been one gram pills. Actually, he said, they were either 1.75 or 2 gram pills, but no one knew for sure, All he could say that the original ingredients in them added up to about 1.7 grams each and that they were very loosely packed, suggesting they were either 1.7 or 2 grams each. This meant I'd taken between 3.5 and 4 grams.

[Erowid Note: Two samples of powder (even of the same chemical) with equivalent volumes won't necessarily weigh the same. For this reason, eyeballing is an inaccurate and potentially dangerous method of measuring, particularly for substances that are active in very small amounts. See this article on The Importance of Measured Doses.]

Even as fucked up as I still was, I recognized that this was well over the safe limits. My friend then brought up the Bacardi, saying that it probably didn't help any. I of course had no idea what he was talking about -- the last I remembered, I had only had 3 drinks. I moved to the frig (which was no easy task at this point) and looked inside. Indeed, there it sat, an empty bottle of Bacardi. Looking around, I found a few I-Zone pictures my roommates had taken in which I could clearly see the Bacardi in my hand. I remembered the fact that I had smoked weed, but couldn't remember how much or how I had even managed to do so, only little images in my memory of the bowl in my hand with the lit lighter in my other hand.

After talking to my roommates and my friend a bit more, it became apparent to me that I had had a low to mid grade overdose. My pulse had been well over 110 beats per minute and I had been feverish. I had been dry heaving for quite a while, but never actually vomited.

The next day, I found myself with a mid grade trip until almost 20 hours after I had initially taken the Dex. It has now been 5 days since my last trip, and I gave my friend my supply of Dex, extracting a solemn promise from him that he won't let me have any more if I ask him for any. Not that I think I will. I still occasionally get a tingling sensation over my entire body (one of the feelings I would get while tripping) which sometimes last upwards of an hour. I have had excruciating stomach pains, to the point where I feel like I could vomit. Several times when I've tried to eat I've had horrible stomach pains within minutes of eating one bite. Several times I have had some uncontrollable muscle spasms which I am certain are after effects.

Worse than all that, however, are the headaches. When I was younger, I used to get migraines -- some of these headaches have been worse. They strike without warning, and until they clear I'm unable to focus on anything. I've had them occur during class, and I'm unable to write or think during them, instead I am forced to lower my head, close my eyes, and grip my head. The pain is excruciating, beyond almost any pain I've felt. When I was in tenth grade, I intentionally burned myself in chemistry lab, leaving a scar on my hand to this day. The pain of that burn in no way compares to the pain I feel from these headaches. Like migraines, I sometimes see spots of light along with the pain. I hope that these headaches aren't a sign of any permanent damage to my brain, but I can't be certain unless they eventually go away. I can't stand the thought that I might have to deal with these headaches for the rest of my life just because of the idiocy of my youth.

I don't mean this story to frighten anyone away from trying DXM. Certainly, almost every time I had it, I enjoyed myself. In fact, my friend and my roommates say that I seemed to enjoy myself for quite a bit of the last time I had it. But I will not be having it again. I won't openly condone it or condemn it. I enjoyed it immensely.

Exp Year: 1999	ExpID: 11937
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 23, 2008	Views: 40,247
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DXM (22) : Not Applicable (38), Multi-Day Experience (13), Post Trip Problems (8), Hangover / Days After (46), Overdose (29), Health Problems (27), Bad Trips (6), Retrospective / Summary (11)