Coricidin Users Read This

by C

I'm here to tell you why you should stop taking Coricidin HBP Cough and Cold. Triple C's ruined my future and it very nearly ended my life on more than one occasion. I know, you're thinking "not another 'don't take these' stories" but this is different. You may not know that these seemingly harmless pills are extremely addictive over an extended period of time/usage, but you will find out first hand the mental and physical effects of this powerful medication had on myself over the course of 7 months. Every bit of the following story is 100% true. Also, I took the time to ensure my not exaggerating on any of these accounts. I want you to see what Coricidin can do to a normal kid like myself without all of the bullshit. Here we go...

I was 18 when i joined the Air Force. I pretty much dicked around in high school and couldn't get into any good colleges so it seemed like my only option at the time. My parents were so proud of me and that made me happy. You should know I smoke weed and I drink every once in awhile, but I had no prior knowledge of Coricidin when I left for boot camp on Aug 27th, 2002. The next 6 months were like any military career would be like, it was rather uneventful. I was in technical training for my Air Force job in February of 2003. It was a weekend like all of the others, find a club or a stripclub, get a motel room and drink, or all of the above. I met with a friend who showed me these little red pills and told me they make you trip your ass off and make you feel mad good. I'd always wanted to trip at least once and when he told me they were just over-the-counter cough pills, i felt a lot more comfortable about taking them. I'll never forget...he said "All it takes is 8." I ate the 8 pills and we parted ways. When the trip hit me, it was as good as he said it would be and I loved it. I loved the way they made me feel. I had a new weekend hobbie.

This went on for a few weeks. It got worse. 8 became 12. I was tripping on school nights. But I still maintained a 98% in my class. I was happy with the way things were going. I didn't realize at the time, but the addiction was growing. It was getting to a point where I would be irritated if I didn't have any Triple C's in my possession. I would get frantic when the store was sold out of them. But more on that later.

It was a monday night like any other monday would be. I was talking to my girl back home on my phone, but I was also counting pills on my bed. I counted out 22 C's out of my stash (I still had over 60 left after that - I had stolen 6 or 7 boxes from Walmart the day before) and ate them. I don't know where I got 22 from, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I loved my pills. But it was becoming harder to achieve the same trip as the first one, which was easily the best one yet. My body was becoming tolerant to the pills so it took way more to trip. 22 seemed okay. This was the beginning of the end of my career. I tripped all night and into the next morning. I went to school tripping my ass off. Someone in my class who knew I had been taking them and had gotten really hooked on them told my instructor that I was currently on them. She wanted to get me help, which I needed. After school that day, my friend told me that Military Police were at the school house question classmates about me. I was still tripping when he told me this. I became frantic, really emotional and out of touch with reality. I was crying. My life was over. They were going to arrest me or kick me out. I wasn't sure. But I didn't want to wait around and find out. I went back to my room and took the 60 Triple C's I left and laid on my bed awaiting death. I quickly passed out.

I woke up in the hospital the next morning. I was in another reality, they'd pumped my stomach but only to prevent further damage, my body had already absorbed the dextromethorphan. I was lost in a trip that would last 2 and a half days. (Did I mention the catheter in my dick? And the activated charcoal in my stomach? Yes charcoal. I shit black and pissed fish-hooks for days. In short, O.D. = not much fun.) While I was in intensive care I spoke to a physician who told me that my urinalysis results had come back False-Positive for PCP (Angeldust, never done it once in my life), Methadone (synthetic heroin, never done it once in my life), and Amphetemines. I asked him what False-Positive meant, he told me that the results were inconclusive, that something went wrong with the test. I was relieved, I didn't want to get nailed with drugs I had never taken before. I got back to base early the next morning. I talked to someone close to me in my squadron who told me they saw me fighting cops the night before. I had no recollection of this asked him what he meant and he said he saw me in the first floor hallway fighting 3 Security Police officers in my boxers I was incoherent and obviously overdosing hardcore (60 pills!) and these cops were trying to get me into an ambulance to go to the emergency room Turns out I broke one if cop's jaw and cracked 3 ribs of another cop. It took 6 people to subdue and get me into the ambulance. I couldn't believe any of this because I just couldn't remember anything and couldn't believe I was capable of such a thing. (Turns out Dextromethorphan Hydromide in large enough doses will adversely affect your memory...in other words if you take enough to trip on, you wont remember much of your trip the next day.) It all turned out to be true, what he had told me, and I knew I had gotten myself into some seriously deep shit. They immediately sent me to Life Skills, which is a wing in the base hospital that dealt with suicidal and depressed Airmen, after I changed out of my hospital gown and back into my BDU's. I was in no position to talk these people in the state that I was currently in. Mentally, I could think straight but physically I was a vegetable. It was wierd. I was able to form normal thoughts but I wasn't able to convey them in words. Instead, I was drooling on myself and repeatedly dropping the sign-in clipboard on the waiting room floor. I was talking to 3 psychiatrists crying my ass off, trying to explain why I tried to commit suicide the night before as understandably as possible. This went on for a few hours. Lunch rolled around, but the shrinks and I discovered that I had lost my I.D. card (required by tech school students to eat meals) in the struggle the night before. They sent me back to my squadron who then, sent me alone to the personnel building to get a new card. I emphasize alone. Keep in mind that less than 12 hours prior I had ingested 60 Coricidens. I can't describe how hard I was tripping, but anyone reading this whose taken Triple C's knows how powerful they can be by just taking 8-16. On my way to the personnel building I make a decision that would change my life forever. (NOT even close to exaggerating on this one.) I decided that running was the right choice. I was tripping, my mind was going a mile a minute, and I somehow convinced myself that going AWOL (absent without leave) would be better than facing the storm that was sure to come my way. The decision made, I walked across base to my friend's squadron. We'll call him Cal, for sake of anonymity. Cal and I had known each other since October the year prior and we became really close. I saw a lot of myself in him and him in me. I still to this day consider him the brother I should have had. We both knew that we would do anything for each other, no matter what the consequences, because we were homies, really tight. Anyway, returning to the story, I went in search for Cal, who had overnight classes and I knew would be sleeping in his room this time of the day. I had decided to go to him because I had nobody else to go to, at this point I was already dis-obeying a direct order by not going to the personnel building. He would know what to do, I told myself. He had recently told me of his disapproval of me taking Triple C's at an increased rate because he saw my helpless affliction for them. He used to be pretty much a junkie and an underage multiple counts felon, so I should have taken his concerns seriously. He's been into some more serious drugs than i'd ever used in this life, all the way up to him. (Looking back I realize how much his concerns really should have meant to me, but I was too lost in my addiction to these pills to care.) I'm straying again...back to the story. I went and talked to Cal in tears, I was scared and I was tripping, and in a really emotional state. He knew I was in a pretty bad way when he saw me so he tried to calm me down and asked me what happened. I told him about the overdose, and the cops, and the idea of running. He was visibly upset, both at me and I later learned, at himself for not getting me help when he thought I needed it. He asked me if I was sure I wanted to run, that we would be fugitives and that we'd be looking over our shoulders for rest of our lives. (Don't fuck with the government, take it from me, they're serious about this kind of shit, especially when it's one of their employees/military members.) I told him it was the only option I had left. He made a decision to go with me immediately, without much thought, because as I said before we were like brothers and this kid would do anything for me. He packed some clothes, grabbed some shit, and drove me back to my squadron. I snuck up to my room unnoticed and packed some clothes and left. (I also left all of my expensive belongings out and my wall locker open, this is relevant so remember it). I grabbed my CD's, couldn't find my wallet, i'd be driving without a license, and snuck back out. I returned to Cal and his car and we left. We just drove. For the first time in the past month, I felt relieved and happy. But something was wrong. I also felt isolated, alone. I was scared. Scared to face the consequences of my actions. I couldn't tell my parents, they knew nothing of the recent occurances and the worry and dissapointment would kill them. It would kill me. It took us a day to get from Sheppard Air Force Base in north Texas to Albuquerque New Mexico. The date was now Friday, February 23rd I believe. We had been taking turns driving until this point and Cal was now driving. We didn't know where we were going, we were just driving west, maybe Mexico. I was finally no longer tripping and was clear minded. I called my mom's work line (it was around lunch time) praying to get her voice mail because I couldn't bring myself to talk to her directly. I left the most horrible message on her voice mail, the kind of message a mother never wants to hear from her first born. I told the machine that I had tried to kill myself earlier in the week unsuccessfully and was scared and was now on the run from the cops and the Air Force. I pretty much summed up the entire week in about a 30 second message to my mom. After I hung up, I imagined her reaction to my message and started crying. I knew this was the wrong thing to do. I couldn't handle anything. I had fucked up. Big time. Because of my powerful addiction to Coricidin. I turned my phone off so she couldn't call me back. I wasn't only running from the consequences, I was running from my family. I was running from any sort of future I might of had with the Air Force. Most of all, I was running from me. Running from what I had done, what I was accountable for. We remained in Albuquerque, due to my requests to Cal, because I needed some time. I turned my phone back on to see what was going on. What I really needed was to talk to my dad. (I'm going to stray again, sorry. Bear with me here, I want those reading this to fully understand what was going on in my life. I have a really good, really close relationship with my father. Not only is he my dad, he's my best friend. I tell him everything and anything, and he understands. He had me when he was relatively young, so we can relate with each other on many different levels. He used to fool around with drugs when he was my age and he knows I smoked weed in high school. I actually smoked with him on more than one occasion. We have a really special relationship that I cherish dearly and to disappoint my dad (which I had done before and it upset me greatly) would just tear me apart emotionally.) Anyway I knew it would be hard on him, but I also knew that if anyone could help me it was my father. I was about to call him when my phone rang - my mom. I answered it. Of course she was hysterical. And she had every right to be. I was killing her. I felt so bad. I tried to calm her down but I just started crying again (I've done that a lot since I started taking Coricidin) and telling her how scared I was. She told me to call my dad's cell. I called him and he of course was worried really worried about me. He's not really one to show a lot of emotion, but I could tell he was hurting. I explained to him everything that had happened and what i was currently doing. And he reasoned with me. He told me that if I were to be considered a deserter, which follows 30 days of being AWOL, i would be looking at time in Leavenworth Federal Prison. Basically, now that I was no longer under the influence, he was making a lot of sense. He talked to Cal and made him promise that we'd turn ourselves in. With a heavy heart, Cal agreed. I talked to him for a good 20 minutes and it was a real eye-opening conversation. I realized now how bad a mistake I had made and that i had to be a man and face the consequences for my own actions. I still to this day apologize to Cal for making him a part of my plight. But more on that later. I called my commander back at squadron, a full-bird colonel, the guy you see in movies who has a lot of power, only this was real life. He was pissed. He told me I had to be back on base by 1800 the following day (Saturday February 24th.) With that, we turned around and head back to Sheppard. I'm not going to lie, I had a lot of fun on my road trip with Cal, we had some good times that I will remember for a long time. Needless to say, the fun I had on this two day adventure wasn't worth the consequences I paid for it.

(I know this is story is long and you are bored. You want me to get to the point already. "Why should I stop taking Triple C's?" Please keep reading, my point will become obvious and make much sense at the end of the story.)

We got back to base with 10 minutes to spare and were arrested at the front gate by the Security Police. They had warrants out for our arrest while we were gone. (Like I said, the military doesn't fuck around with this kind of shit.) We were detained until our respective 1st Sergeants picked us up at the on-base police station. (If you didn't already know, a first sergeant is a high ranking enlisted man who deals with the legal issues of members in his squadron. He's usually there for your benefit, unless you piss him off. Then he becomes your worst enemy, because he works directly for your commander, who calls the shots and has final say on your fate.) I was split up from Cal, with a promise to get ahold of him as soon as humanly possible, and taken back to my squadron. I was put on High Risk because of my past history. High Risk meant I had to go downstairs from my room to the main lobby of the dorm every hour on the hour to sign in a log book. 24 hours a day. Effective immediately until further notice. I was literally in hell. I was looked at as a scumbag by everyone in my squadron. I had gained notoriety on the entire base. People in other squadrons i'd never met knew who I was and what happened. I wasn't happy about this. I had always liked to remain off the radar, kind of my own private world with my own private issues. This was different. I was the base scumbag. (I later found out that my notoriety had a much farther reach than I thought, some of the highest ranking officials in our United States Air Force knew who I was and the shit i'd gotten into. The trouble i'd caused. I shit you not, the men with stars on their shoulders, the ones you see on the news in press conferences and such, knew my case. These are NOT the kind of men you want knowing who you are.) My worst fears confirmed, I was in as much shit as I was afraid I would be in. Maybe in the civilian world this would be a minor misdemeanor, no jail time or anything, but it's different in the military. These are the guys protecting our country, we can't tolerate this "get fucked up on pills" bullshit from anybody. That's their mindset in general, and it makes perfect sense. (wouldn't you agree? i'm supposed to be the guy ensuring you are safe when you go to sleep at night.) Nooo...at this point, Coricidin's more important. Triple C's and the trouble I was in were the only two things I could think about.

I sat around in squadron for a couple of weeks, eventually taken off of High Risk and dropping from the radar somewhat. The familiar feeling started coming back. After everything that had happened to me, every problem these pills had caused, I had come to the realization that I still needed them. Essentially, I couldn't live without them. I hated them so much that I loved them. That's what an uncontrollable addiction does to you. I was finally allowed a relatively normal schedule once I had earned back some of the instructor's trust. This took about three weeks. I was allowed out. To see friends. To hang out...whatever. It seemed like everything was getting better and maybe I wasn't in as much trouble as I thought I was. At the time, I was of the understanding that I was waiting to be placed back into class to finish the remaining four weeks of training that I had. I would soon learn this wasn't the case. Anyway, it was my first weekend out since the shit hit the fan and I spent that friday night seeking out the very necessary Coricidin fix. I went to Walmart and stole the last two boxes they had. When I got back to my dorm, I was ecstatic, almost euphoric, just to be holding the box again. Looking back now I realize how pathetic and helpless I was. But at the time, I refused to accept the fact that I needed help. As far as I was concerned, I had my pills and I was happy with the way things were going. Sad. I tripped that weekend and it seemed like everything was back the way it was. I didn't know at the time that the following weekend, my life would once again take a turn for the worse. Following another training-less week of sitting around squadron with my thumb up my ass, I welcomed the much anticipated weekend. Time to do my thing. I emptied what little money I had left in my account to pay for a cab ride off base to Walmart, where i'd be sure to find my beloved C's. I scanned the cough/cold section that friday night and was mortified to see that they were sold out of Coricidin Cough and Cold. Frantically, I searched for a dextromethorphan substitute so that I could get my much needed trip back for the weekend. I made a horrible decision for an acceptible substitute. You see, when you're at the mercy of an uncontrollable addiction, you do things that are obviously unreasonable. Things that would obviously be rediculous to a normal person seem rational to a person who will do whatever it takes to get what they need. (Or think they need.) So it seemed rational to me that in order to recieve a worthy trip off of Tylenol Flu, i'd have to double the amount I would ingest because of the 15mg Dextromethorphan content in each pill. (Coricidin is 30mg per pill.) I didn't think about the 500mg of Acetaminophen in each Tylenol or any of the other shit in there, I only cared about getting my DXM trip. Well let's see...simple math would show that 30 Triple C's to get a decent trip (my tolerance was REALLY high after the overdose; 30 gave me a trip that paled in comparison to the 8 i'd use to have to take to get a good trip) means I would have to take 60 Tylenol to give my body a similiar DXM count as 30 C's would. 60 Tylenol...absolutely assinine right? Nope...I was getting my DXM, I was happy as shit. (And just as clueless...seems the addiction was clouding my judgement. What a surprise.) I stole the 60 Tylenol and took my cab back to base. I decided to save them for Saturday for a day-trip. So I had an otherwise normal friday night. Next day rolls around and I don't waste much time. As soon as I woke up, I ate 60 fucking Tylenol. (Now that I look back at this...I can't believe how stupid I was. I'm not saying you're all as dumb as me, or you're all as addicted as me. I'm saying I want to get the word out...people really should know what this stuff is capable of. Some helpful, and eye-opening facts are at the end of the story. Make sure you read them...and heed them.) So almost immediately after eating 60 pills, and these are pretty big fucking pills, I realize that something is different. Something didn't feel right and I realized how horrible a mistake I had made. (See a pattern here?) At this point I couldn't do much about pills I had already eaten, so I prayed to god that I would live through the day and went out. I met up with girl I was with at the time and she immediately knew I was on something. Of course, she asked. Realizing how rediculous eating 60 Tylenol was, and not wanting her to panic or flip out, I told her I had taken 5 Motrin 800's and that I was fucked up, but alright. Unfortunately, luck wasn't on my side and she took my word for it. Over the course of the afternoon I was coming apart physically and mentally. The DXM was having its desired effect, I was tripping like I intended, but the 30,000 mg of Acetaminophen in my system was literally killing me. My memory of the day ends in the early afternoon at the base cafeteria but, as I was later told, I remained conscious for about 4 hours after the memory ceases. Over the course of the evening, in the company of my friends, I was slowing slipping away. Everyone knew something was wrong, I was pale, sweating profusely, and you could see my heart beating through my shirt. I was talking incoherent babble in ensuing conversations with my friends, and was smoking an unlit cigarette. And ashing it too. I was squinting, my eyesight was obviously hindered by my downward spiral into oblivion. Then, at the crowded mall we had gone to, I finally collapsed and slipped into unconsciousness. The Acetaminophen was shutting my body down. I woke up in the hospital and I was told by doctors that I was looking at possible long-term liver damage. I lied to my parents about why I was in the hospital, told them I had food poisoning because I didn't want them to know I was still popping pills and overdosed again. Like deja-vu, I recieved another catheter, more activated charcoal in my guts, and another stomach pumping. I felt fine the next day in ICU, but mentally I was a wreck. My friends came and saw me in the hospital and I thanked them for saving my life the night before. It made me happy to know they cared enough about me to come and see how I was doing. But I was right back where I started. I was in the dog-house again.

Fast-forward three weeks. On an otherwise normal weeknight, i'm called down to the dorm lobby. One of the instructors told me to pack my shit. I was leaving for Transition Flight the next morning. I was being seperated. I had a mental break-down on the spot. Hyperventilating. What I was scared of the most was happening...I was being kicked out of the military. My life was ruined. Because of my addiction to Coricidin. In the time between the last O.D. and the night when I was informed of my pending seperation, I had thought of Triple C's little, if at all. I honestly thought I had shaken my addiction. This wasn't the case. I got to T-Flight and was informed that I was pending a military courtmartial. They told me it was for PCP, Methadone, and Amphetamine use. Now I was going to court for things I didn't actually get involved with. I was told a minimum of 3-4 months on T-Flight waiting for my case to develop and court. T-Flight is pretty much pre-trial confinement. Limited Cell Phone use. Limited personal belonging use. Little time spent outside of the building itself except for official business and the occasional trip to the base exchange.

I was in T-Flight from May 1st 2003 until September 29th 2003. In the time I spent there, I started taking Triple C's again. I got caught tripping one weekend and recieved an Article 15, which is non-judicial punishment. (Punishment dished out by your commander instead of a judge in a courtroom.) The only good things that came out of my stay in T-Flight were the fact that I met some really good, really misunderstood people. People like me. The other good thing was the fact that my courtmartial was dismissed. Dropped. On September 29th I outprocessed and departed Sheppard AFB with a General (Under Honorable Conditions) Discharge for unspecified drug use. This is will remain on record until the day I die. I have since been home working two jobs and trying to get my life back together. Overall, I served 13 months of a 6 year contract with the Air Force. So i'm home, the story must be over right? No.

Last week I come home in the morning (My one job is an 8 hour graveyard shift) and go to greet my parents, who have just gotten up. Turns out they found my Coricidin in my room the night before. Yeah, I was still taking them. After all that's happened, I was still trapped. My parents were really upset. They were worried. They asked if I wanted to go to rehab. I told them I didn't. This is where it takes a turning point: my mom went upstairs so I talked to my dad alone. After everything that's happened to me in the last 7 months, nothing had as profound an effect as seeing how hard my dad was taking this on this particular morning. He was crying. He was so hurt. So disappointed. Worried. He blamed himself, said he raised me wrong. I in turn started crying. And it was this moment that my mental (and physical) addiction to Coricidin was beat. I hated these pills. I've hated them since February. But I needed them. It took me my career in the Air Force and almost my life to realize that I don't need them. I need to beat them. I vowed that I will never take Coricidin again. Ever. Because they ruined me and almost ended my life.

If you were at all curious about what happened to my boy Cal, he too was discharged from the Air Force. I brought him down with me and it's something I have to live with for the rest of my life. To this day, he doesn't blame me for what happened to him. We remain close friends till this day.

THIS IS THE IMPORTANT SHIT!

I wrote this story so everyone who reads it can see what they may be getting themselves into before it's too late. I feel I need to spread the word about how dangerous this is before more kids turn out like me. A victim at the mercy of 'harmless cough medicine.'

After some very obsessive research, here are some quick facts that hopefully will make you think thoroughly before you decide to use Coricidin recreationally:

You want to know why Triple C's make you trip so much harder than other DXM sources? It's NOT the fact that there is 30 mg of DXM in Coricidin. This is a common misconception. Coricidin does not produce a natural DXM high/trip. This gets confusing so pay attention: Your liver processes any medication you ingest. The chlorpheniramine maleate in Coricidin is metabolized by the SAME EXACT enzyme as the dextromethorphan. This is a very limited enzyme. What does this mean? It means that it takes your body a much longer time than it should to make these drugs inert. In Lehman's terms, your body essentially malfunctions because both ingredients fight competitively for that limited liver enzyme. Why should you care? Because this causes many adverse side effects, many of which have led to death. To sum it up in a sentence: When you find yourself tripping really hard on C's, it's not really a trip! It's your body malfunctioning big-time. You THINK it's a trip because it just happens to really fuck you up. Catch one of those side effects...you'll know something's wrong.

Dextromethorphan is known to be as addictive as Heroin over extended time and use.

Coricidin not only contains 30 mg of DXM, it also contains 4 mg chlorpheniramine maleate. What does this mean to you? In large enough doses, this ingredient brain damage and instant death. The combination of both ingredients, in high enough doses, affect the brain frighteningly similiar to the way in which a heroin overdose affects the brain. (Inhibiting the brain's ability to tell the lungs to breathe.) The combo also increases your heart rate and the chances of cardiac arrest.

Known to cause seizures and/or brain damage (Even in smaller doses! Be careful with this shit, take it from me, it's not worth the trip to be mentally incompetent for the remainder of your life!)

Coricidin fucks up your heart rate giving you an irregular heartbeat (Often irreversible.) That, in itself, is very dangerous!

If you've been using abusing abusing Coricidin for an extended period of time, there's a good chance you're facing permanent liver damage and/or kidney damage. I'm not making this shit up, stop while you still have your vital organs intact!

Coricidin abuse has been linked to 5 deaths so far this year. Sure, it's a low number, but tell that to the kids who DIDN'T THINK IT COULD HAPPEN TO THEM! You're not invincible and every time you trip on Triple C's, you are more or less rolling the dice and taking a big chance. I know, it doesn't seem possible to die from them, but it has happened! 14 people died of cough medicine/dextromethorphan abuse this year. Over 60 people overdosed on Triple C's last year. Think before you act and be prepared to take responsibility for your actions!

Do NOT, under any circumstances, drive a vehicle under the influence of dextromethorphan. You may FEEL fine, but that's the idea. You trip to feel good and experience something different than your normal self. The truth is, DXM causes serious loss of coordination and impaired judgement. Driving a car while tripping on large doses of DXM would essentially have the same result as putting a loaded gun to your head and pulling the trigger. I know this sounds like opinion, but IT'S NOT WORTH RISKING YOUR LIFE TO DRIVE ON DXM.

If you think i'm bullshitting about Coricidin-related deaths, paste the following url in your browser and read the news stories: http://www.dextromethorphan.ws/moredxmdeaths.htm It can happen to anyone with any amount of C's!

I think i've made my point. It is your right to do whatever you want with these pills. But you should know what you're getting involved with before you do it! DXM is not a safe drug to use recreationally, but if you feel you have to trip on dextromethorphan, DON'T USE CORICIDIN. Be a man (or woman) and swill some fucking cough syrup! I'm not condoning DXM use in anyway, the stuff is bad news, but if you find youself looking for a DXM high, Coricidin is NOT a good source of DXM!

You will never get a pure DXM trip from Coricidin! Quit kidding yourself and look at the facts! And please, think before you act. And be prepared to reap the whirlwind...good luck and don't make the mistakes I made.

BE CAREFUL!

-C