DOSE:

inhaled

Chloroform

BODY WEIGHT:

130 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.]
I've had a history of a few years with chloroform, starting when I was still in high school. I learned the synthesis of it poking around on some sketchy corners of the internet, and actually first made it to use as an extraction solvent to extract caffeine from coffee. I was pretty afraid of using it recreationally, since I've read about the toxicity and carcinogenic effects of solvent use, but ended up deciding that it wouldn't be too harmful to try once. I stored my stockpile of it (about 80 mL of filtered chloroform) under water to absorb any harmful decomposition products, and the first time I used it, I shook that bottle around to help vaporize some of the chloroform, put my nose to the bottle, and inhaled deeply. I found the sweet taste and cool heavy feel of the vapor to be very very pleasurable, and after about 3 breaths, I noticed the edges of my vision going black and a very high-pitched whine, like the sound of an airplane taking off, fading in louder and louder. After a couple more breaths, I started feeling dizzy and tired, so I capped the bottle, put it away, and went to lie down. Other than a persistent chemical taste in my mouth, the effects wore off quite quickly. The next day, I felt a little out of it, but not debilitatingly so. So I kept indulging like this once every couple weeks my senior year of school. I packed up all my chemicals and left them at home when I went off to college, so I didn't use any more after that summer.

Until a couple days ago, that is. I'm now a college sophomore visiting home for spring break, and since I've gotten a lot more experience with drugs and alcohol in the past 2 years, I decided to revisit my sweet old friend while home, since I had the materials to make it and more time on my hands than good sense. I whipped up a 30 mL batch, and while it wasn't the clearest chloroform I'd ever seen, it still smelled pure, so I decided to go on a chloroform bender. I hadn't ever used enough to deplete any significant volume of the liquid before, but this time I took the chloroform out from under water and put it in a tiny glass vial so the vapor would be much stronger. Over the course of about 5 hours, I used roughly ⅔ of the liquid, eventually stopping when I started getting a persistent headache. I figured that I would be fine, and since I was getting sick of the taste of it, I got myself a glass of water and laid down to watch some TV and rest.

I woke up horribly, urgently nauseous. My head was pounding and I was in a cold sweat, but it was time to eat dinner with my family, so I tried to pull myself together and choke down some food, hoping it would settle my stomach. I couldn't bring myself to eat anything but a couple bites of mashed potatoes, so I excused myself, went to the bathroom, and promptly liberated those mashed potatoes and everything else I'd eaten into the toilet. After that, I felt a little better. My mother got me some Gatorade to drink, and I tried to sip that, but every time I got a good amount in me, I would throw it right back up, in a cycle that lasted about an hour. After 4 hours of vomiting, my parents had gone to bed, and I was feeling significantly better, so I went outside, smoked a couple spliffs, and was feeling nice and high. This effectively got rid of my nausea, and I was able to finally sleep, around 4 AM.

I woke up at noon today, and while I'm still nauseated and shaky, I'm slowly feeling better. But this whole experience has ruined chloroform for me, I think. It made me feel nice in bursts, but what amounts to 48 hours of feeling like I've been poisoned is way more than I signed up for when I was using it. Overall, in doses of a couple mL (not more than a few in a day), chloroform is lots of fun, and provides a very discorporeal high that doesn't last too long. But binging it made me feel like I was going to die. The side effects are like a very aggressive hangover mixed with sleep deprivation, and I think I'll be sticking to weed from now on for my frequent use.

Exp Year: 2017	ExpID: 110203
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 19
Published: Jan 31, 2021	Views: 2,825
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Chloroform (250) : Alone (16), Hangover / Days After (46), Retrospective / Summary (11), General (1)