DOSE:

Inhalants

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

[Erowid Note: Our understanding of the literature is that there is no such thing as safe recreational use of volatile solvents, aerosols and other street inhalants : their psychoactive effects are inseparable from nerve and organ damage. We have chosen to include these reports to help document the real world use of inhalants, but their inclusion is not intended to imply that they are anything but dangerous.]
About a year ago a good friend of mine, who has had past issues with addiction, was staying over at my place. One day we were outside in the garage smoking and he found an old can of computer cleaner on a shelf. I never knew you could get high off the stuff so it never crossed my mind to do anything with it. He took a hit off of it just for the hell of it. At that point he had never really messed with inhalants. After feeling a little woozy and vomiting he left it alone and we both soon forgot about it.

A few days later though I saw he was actually buying the stuff just to huff it. He had gotten two cans and was sitting on my bed huffing it like crazy. He told me it gave him the craziest hallucinations he’d ever experienced (and this is someone who’d done LSD) and was also the most addictive substance he’d ever done.

I was curious so I took a can and took a hit off of it myself. The first thing I noticed was the awful taste obviously. It made me vomit and I couldn’t get the taste of the bitter agent off my mouth. For me the feeling was horrible and totally opposite from what he told me. I could hear a “woo woo” thumping in my ears and my hands and feet were numb. I didn’t have any cool visions at all. I had expected it to feel like huffing whipped cream cans but it wasn’t like that. The weird thing about it was, I was “high” but felt very aware of everything around me. I could almost see myself doing this and felt a heightened sense of anxiety about it. My chest started to hurt and in my head I thought I was going to die.

He was right about one thing though. The stuff was terribly addictive. I had to make myself stop doing it despite not enjoying the feeling. It’s very hard to explain unless you’ve done it yourself. My friend unfortunately got so hooked on it that within a few months wound up doing up to 20 cans of it a day, sometimes stealing it. He has since stopped after being told it was damaging his heart, as well as causing memory loss.

I’m so glad I never touched it again because from what I felt and from watching him it is the biggest waste of time and one of the dumbest things I've ever done. I wouldn’t advise anyone to try this.

Exp Year: 2011	ExpID: 94291
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 28
Published: Jan 19, 2021	Views: 1,525
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Inhalants (29) : Addiction & Habituation (10), Retrospective / Summary (11), Small Group (2-9) (17)