Why Teens Are Sticking Cough Syrup Up Their Butts To Get High
It's called butt-chugging and it's a real (dangerous) thing.
Getty Images As if butt-chugging or anal enemas weren't scary enough, the disturbing and disgusting trend among teens today is butt-chugging ... cough syrup.
The practice of putting things in the rectum has been around for as long as there's been rear ends and things to put in them.
Butt-chugging or alcohol enemas involve putting some kind of intoxicating fluid into the by way of a tube or hose.
The number one job of the intestines is to take in nutrients into the body, so if you put alcohol straight into your colon it will be absorbed much faster than if you ingested it orally.
Butt-chugging lets the alcohol bypass the liver's filtering and metabolic process so the ethanol goes straight into the bloodstream, short-circuiting the body's poison defense system and giving you an intense and almost immediate high.
But the problem is that once something is in your bloodstream, you can't get it out.
Alcohol poisoning can happen no matter which end it enters the body, and you can also get horrible cramping from an alcohol enema since it can inflame your intestines.
While you might think that kids are using cough medicine for its alcohol content, what they really want it for is the dextromethorphan (DXM).
DXM is a cough suppressant found in more than 125 drugs for cough, cold and flu, including Dimetapp, Nyquil, Robitussin, and Delsym — medicines you probably have in your medicine cabinet right now.
When you take a large dose of DXM, which is 10 to 50 times more than the suggested amount, it can cause the same hallucinatory and dissociative effects as PCP or ketamine.
The not-so-fun effects include increased and irregular heart rate and blood pressure, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness, loss of motor control, and impaired judgment.
Even more serious, if you butt-chug cough medicine, you can do some serious damage to your liver, over-sedate yourself into a coma, and even die.
Butt chugging cough syrup is an extremely dangerous way to get high. Plus, it looks way too stupid to ever be cool.
Christine Schoenwald is a love and entertainment writer.
Editor's Note: This article was originally posted on December 28, 2015 and was updated with the latest information.