DOSE:

repeated

oral

Diphenhydramine

(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

140 lb

Benadryl... it's just a nice little pill used to rid of allergies, right? There's no room for it to mess with your head, make you crazy, detach you from this world. Wrong! My experience with Benadryl is probably similar to most people's, except for the fact that I was fond of using it before school. That was a mistake I can't fix.

But before I get into my time with those little devil pills, I'll explain myself a little. I'm 16 (15 at time of experience) and I was way into pot before I started on Benadryl. I'd use it almost everyday. I was also pretty into opiates and alcohol, but even with that under my belt, it didn't matter when it came to Benadryl. It kicked me in the rear so hard I still can't sit down. I just wish I did LSD or some other sort of hallucinogen so I could compare and contrast. But why do it in the first place? I like to say it was an experiment that simply turned into a habit. I was truly happy before I started using Benadryl, but the visions I saw and things I felt made me mad! There's no doubt in my mind that I saw some things while using this...

I'll just pinpoint a few of my more prominent trips with Benadryl. I used boxes upon boxes of Benadryl over a 3 or 4 month period, so going into detail with every trip would take too long. But I have to say I can't remember everything from the trips so I'll fill in what I can.

First try, 1:00 AM - 1,000 mg

This trip was ages ago, but I remember like it was yesterday because it was my first dance with Benadryl abuse. I was just sitting in my room, wondering what was around to get smashed on... I went to my local medicine cabinet and saw a box of Benadryl. I had another box from a friend's house stashed away but was unsure if I should use it or not, but now that I had more, I figured why not? More is always better I hear. So I took about half an hour getting all the pills from their cozy little homes in aluminum and plastic, and set them on my nightstand. I grabbed some milk and took around 40 or so in total (25mg each, respectively). I waited and waited, but after an hour I was just dead tired so decided to pass out. Maybe diphenhydramine just didn't work on me? I was wrong, I woke up for school the next morning (my mom wakes me up) and thought I literally saw the devil. My mom poking her head in my room just looked like a huge pixel in a sense, and the light coming from the kitchen added to the blurred delusion. I lay there for a few minutes, wondering what day it was, why I was waking up, and finally it struck me that hey! there's something called school I go to. So I got up, went out to the living room and sat on the couch staring at the tv that was off and dozing off (I sleep in my clothes, by the way, no room for screwing up in the morning).

After about 10 minutes or so I looked at my hand and I swear to goodness I saw a little black spider crawling around on it. I grabbed the spider and looked at it close - it was actually a piece of thread from my shirt. That was my first hallucination ever, and I just wanted more. I didn't discover the 'magic rule' of seeing things at this point yet, which I'll get to in my next experience. So anyways, I got on the bus, nothing spectacular happened until I got to school. I looked out the window at the ground, and saw a small man pointing up the the sky. I just kept staring, wondering what the hell he was doing there. I looked away for a minute and when I looked back it was just a fire hydrant. This was what made me love Benadryl. But the first bad effect I noticed was the drowsiness, I was tired, worn, and couldn't really talk or move all day. It basically paralyzed me. Did that bother me? Not yet...

unknown date, 5:00 AM - 750 mg

I may have or may not have taken Benadryl in between this try and my last, but if I did it didn't effect me much. This trip was two weeks after my first, again in the morning before school (BAD IDEA!!!). I just dosed up and at 6, went out for the bus. I didn't experience much of anything until I stepped out into the cold (for some reason I started all my drugs in winter seasons). When I was outside I lit up a cigarette, and it was one of the greatest things I could of done. The smoke just looked so bizarre rising into the air and morphing into different looking shapes and figures. Thing is I was done with my cigarette before I knew it - Benadryl has a way of monumentally warping time perception. A few minutes before the bus came, I was staring at the guard rail about 1/4 of a mile down the road, partially under a streetlight. When I would just stare at it, it honestly looked like it would rip off the ground and start doing somersaults toward me. Every time I looked away, though, and looked back it was normal. This is when I realized that staring for 10 seconds or so (in most cases) makes things change. So I watched the flipping guard rails until the bus came, and fell asleep until I hit school.

I'll segment this experience between school and home since it's a big one. Now at school when I woke up on the bus, I opened my eyes but it seemed like they were still closed. Everyone was moving off the bus so fast it seemed, I couldn't get up fast enough. But eventually I got up and was the last person off the bus. In homeroom I fell asleep again, and once the bell rang I had trouble getting up again. I was SO tired, so damn delirious. I couldn't tell what people were saying, who was who, anything. Alas, I got to first period, but to my surprise it was the wrong class. I got a pass from the teacher after some slurred dull speaking and went to my actual first period. When I entered the teacher asked for a pass, and I continuously gave her a pencil for a minute or so. I eventually understood and took my pass from my pocket and handed it off... she just responded with something about people being out of it on Monday's. Just my luck!

Now second period came, and I went to the right class (which was the class I tried to go to first period). I just sat there doing nothing but tripping. I would stare at the floor and it would start to wave and smoke would rise from it. There was a random picture of a pumpkin on the wall, and when I looked at it it would start blinking. But my favorite hallucination was when I would look at a cone shaped figure on the wall above the chalkboard. It seems to kind of spin when I would move my eyes, and it was the greatest thing for no reason.

After this period is when everything went wrong. I went to my locker, couldn't open it because I forgot my combination, and went back to the classroom I was just in. I thought I had another class in there for some reason... now coming to the same room 3 times in a row, the teacher caught on. He took me to the nurses and I forget what happened there. All I know is my mom came to pick me up and I slept on the way home. Thankfully she said little to nothing to me, and left back to work when I got inside my house. I slept until the next morning, probably about 20 good hours of sleep. I only got a few the last night because I wanted to take more pills before I went to school - good plan. Great plan...

unknown date, unknown time - 1,250 mg

Alright, before I start this one I want to point out that 1.25 grams of Diphenhydramine is VERY much a bad idea. I could go into a seizure, stop breathing and god knows what else. I didn't research enough before this, I just read some of the things online and figured that I could handle it. Yet again, this shows how damn smart I am.

On to my report - I can't remember for the life of me what time it was (all I know is it was light out) or the date (like most). But anyways, it wasn't a school day. That's how I figured I could take more than usual! Anyways, I dosed up on about 50 pills and just sat on my bed for a while. I remember every time I would look at my reflection in the tv my arms would start to move up and down, but I wasn't moving. That just creeped me out, and I stumbled my way out to the door of my house. I lit up a cigarette (or at least I thought) and smoked it. After an unknown amount of time I looked at the cigarette and it hadn't gone down at all. It was my imagination I suppose, but I've heard of people saying when they use diphenhydramine they smoke 'imaginary' cigarettes. I thought it was crazy talk until it happened to me. I eventually conjured up the strength to grab my cigarettes in my pocket, and had a real life smoke. There is a huge blur after the cigarette - I just remember that I ended up in my friend's room (who lived down the road). He was sitting there just listening to music. I know this was real, though, because I was there for several hours, until the delirium began to wear off.

By the by, the effects last for more than 8 hours on high doses. Well, the main effects usually wear off, but I don't come back to reality for literally about 24+ hours, sleep included. I guess that would just be the hangover afterwards, which is hell let me tell you!... back to the trip. From what I can accurately remember, my friend kept trying to talk to me, but I said nothing. I told him I was out of it and he could tell. I told him to turn off the lights, and when he did I just went mad. A small amount of light is the best tool for seeing things that aren't there. I would see shirts start to move that were on the floor, his little desk started to shake about and fly up and down. But the craziest thing I saw was a bunch of little kids running around. This was true detachment - I thought I was in a hotel room with little kids running around. For some reason there was grass growing from the hotel room floor, it's very hard to explain in words. After a good while doing this I just began to get freaked out and turned the light on. I stared at the ceiling watching it swirl around for what seemed like hours and hours, and I'm sure it was hours and hours. In this time I remember trying to grab something on my chest, but nothing was there. I just thought, for some reason, I had wires on my chest.

Then I began to hear things. People talking who I knew just weren't there. Little ants crawling around on the mattress. My friend, well at one point he just stopped trying to talk to me since it wasn't working, and his face looked like it caved in. There was just a huge hole there - and that's when I decided to hell with it. I closed my eyes and passed right out, waking up at night and walking home without saying a word to anyone. I fell asleep there and woke up at some point the next day, and the whole day I just felt dead. My brain was working fine by now, but my body just still couldn't move. I'm extremely lucky that I wasn't seriously harmed by that many pills... my liver could of just gotten fed up with it and died. Who is to say? I cheated death, and I'm glad to still be here to this day.

unknown date, 5:00 AM - 1,000 mg

I never learn! This date was before school, and I took as many as I did last time I was nearly busted. Between this experience and my last, I took lots of Benadryl but it was in such a way that I can't remember. Too close together, and nothing grand happened. I would just see things, pass out, and wake up. That was my routine for months. On to the meat of this trip.

Blackouts. On the topic of them, this particular day was terribly filled with them. There were entire periods I just forgot where I was, and ended up in the wrong class. This happened all day, and once I left the school I just blacked out the whole way home. I guess all these chemicals were getting to me in the worst way. When I got home, my mom was sitting at the table with my bottle of about 170 Benadryl (what I still had left). Oh boy was I screwed. Needless to say, I was grounded for a month. In school the Vice Principal eventually got me to confess taking drugs in school and I was expelled. It was a mess, and I swore never to take Benadryl again. There were too many bad side effects for it to be great, anyways. I had to go through rehab (my first time), and eventually got back into school. Well... this is off topic but I got really drunk the next year, later on in the year, and was yet again expelled (permanently). Had to go through rehab again, and presently I'm still there. This is why I'm making this experience report, to reflect more than anything. That just goes to show how drugs can really cloud judgment.

So in retrospect, here's the pro's and con's of Diphenhydramine:

+extremely realistic hallucinations
+more sedation than I'll ever need
+not knowing dream from reality
+complete detachment from reality and everything around me
+extreme heavy, drunken like feeling
+music is great while on this! I just hear more (only thing is, if I use Benadryl and quit then the music I listen to is horrible after. I listened to KoRn and now I can't stand them - flashbacks)

-drowsiness beyond anything ever conceived
-very uncomfortable feeling of restlessness
-can be hard to sleep on this sometimes
-wide, glassy eyes with dilated/contracted pupils (it's obvious when I'm on it)
-RLS - I feel like I need to walk but can't move, it's just a big catch 22
-memory loss, I can't remember what I did 3 seconds ago sometimes
-blackouts
-nausea occasionally
-can't talk, can't walk, can't breathe - paralysis as I've said before
-can't really think about anything
-I do stupid, stupid things on this

I was kicked out of school with short term memory loss and a rough inability to focus correctly. Using Diphenhydramine made me a different person. I learned a LOT from this. Now I've been drug free for 2 month's and simply looking back on this makes me disgusted. And all this from a simple, little pink pill I can find in most any store, right out on the shelves.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 64038
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 13, 2009	Views: 62,314
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Diphenhydramine (109) : School (35), Post Trip Problems (8), Hangover / Days After (46), Addiction & Habituation (10)