No peace without justice?
For many immeasurably consequential years of my life, I was deeply psychologically addicted to overdosing on cough medicine.
(The active ingredient of most cough medicine is a powerful dissociative chemical [DXM] that tickled my brain into fanciful delusions of grandeur and purpose of the highest order.)
They call what I did with cough medicine "robo-tripping."
At some point in my robo-tripping addiction, I found out about a company that very clearly was doing two things:
1) Putting the most highly concentrated, potent form of DXM I'd ever heard of in an over-the-counter product
2) Blatantly marketing their product to people who robo-tripped
When I say blatant, I mean their marketing was full of cues that made it obvious to someone who robo-trips, that their product was directed at them.
People who use DXM for a long time, build a physical tolerance to it. The tolerance never goes away completely, even after years of abstinence.
That leaves one pining for the old days, using more and more of the substance in a vain attempt to re-create that original profundity.
The product I'm referring to has such a high concentration of DXM that it somehow breaks through that tolerance, at least until the body builds up a tolerance to even that.
In other words, this product was the holy grail to a DXM addict like me.
And it was absolutely evident to me that the company who made it, was doing that on purpose. Their marketing was undeniably directed at people who were using DXM for more than just cough relief.
Back in my DXM addiction, I was fascinated and enchanted by this.
I reached out to their CEO by email to try and get inside this person's head.
I was totally forthcoming with the CEO about my fixation with DXM.
Back then I didn't look at it as an addiction or even as detrimental. In those days, I genuinely looked at DXM as a tool I was using to empower myself and make positive changes in the world.
I told the CEO everything and made it no secret that I used copious amounts of the stuff.
The CEO was super-versed in legalize. He never responded in such a way that directly acknowledged my recreational use of DXM. Everything he said was carefully crafted to keep him and his company safe.
That said, we quickly came to an agreement:
I would write blog posts and eventually make YouTube videos to promote his company, and he would pay me by sending me large cases of his product.
And it happened, just like that.
We had at least three transactions of this nature. I'd link him to what I'd written or uploaded, and he'd respond with a receipt that my cases were enroute.
At the time, I was in heaven. I could hardly believe it.
Sometimes I'd email that CEO in the middle of the night while robo-tripping, and tell him the weirdest stuff. About how I mixed his product with prune juice to try and avoid constipation (a side effect of DXM abuse). About how I had a vision for the world, to destigmatize DXM use so that a lot more people could reach substance-induced "enlightenment." I am sure I got even weirder than that.
And he kept on sending it.
Ultimately, I used so much of that stuff that I had a psychotic break. Was in a psychiatric hospital for a month, misdiagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and medicated accordingly. I honestly can't remember about six months of my life; or rather trying to remember it is like trying to remember a dream.
It was hell, but going through hell was important, because I could only take so much hell before I got the hint that I needed to make different choices. That psychiatric hospital was only a small part of the twisted agony that led me to recovery.
But I survived. And I got better. I turned my life around. And I moved on.
But getting through it all wasn't just hell for me. It was hell for my family. Hell for everyone who tried to love me. Hell for the police officers and helping professionals who had to deal with my belligerence. Hell for people I don't even remember.
I am not going to blame a cough medicine company for the hell I've been through and put others through.
My choices have consequences, and I accept the gravity of my choices. I accept and respect the nature of cause-and-effect between what I do, and the outcomes that come from it.
But I am reminded of the current societal argument on guns.
The product I was using was like getting access to a high-powered automatic assault rifle. Sure, I could have ruined my life with other cough medicine, but it would have taken longer and been less of a thrill ride.
And the CEO of the company, the person who sent his product to me in mass quantities while knowing exactly what I was going to do with it...
Well, what a piece of work that fellow is.
(To put it politely.)
Ever since I got into recovery, it's been hard for me to feel at peace about this.
I've watched from afar as that company has changed their branding to a safer, less obvious protocol. Their legal team is clearly on-point.
With the term "defamation lawsuit" fresh in my mind lately, I am not eager to call the company out by name. A legal team that can keep such a brazenly unethical company alive all these years, is surely an entity that could turn me into a skidmark on the underpants of obscurity.
But surely, my story is not an isolated incident.
I had a brief email exchange with that CEO a few months ago, and it's clear that he owns no sense of responsibility for the way his strange business model impacts others.
And again. Yeah. People who are addicted to cough medicine have bigger problems than the existence of a company that gives them their best fix ever. Again, this isn't about blame.
But it just doesn't set right, does it? For someone to make such a product, market it to addicts, and even go so far as to put it in their hands for nearly nothing?
Seriously, WTF?
It bothers me. And I don't quite know what to do with it. But I can at least see what it feels like to get the conversation out of my head and into the world.