What Are The Dangers of Mixing Alcohol With Lean?
Combining alcohol with the cough syrup contained in lean is a form of drug abuse and can lead to serious side effects, including respiratory suppression, loss of consciousness, overdose, and alcohol poisoning. Repeated usage can lead to alcohol or codeine addiction.
Are you looking for a confidential treatment program that can help you overcome prescription drug addiction or get your alcohol consumption in check? Zinnia Health can help. Call our team today at (855) 430-9439 to learn more about our treatment options.
Can You Drink on Lean?
Lean is made by combining cough syrup that contains codeine and promethazine with Sprite or 7Up and pieces of hard candy, like Jolly Ranchers. While codeine is considered one of the weaker opioids, it still produces a high and has a strong potential for abuse and addiction.
The CDC warns against poly substance abuse, which includes combining alcohol with opioids like codeine, “because the effects may be stronger and more unpredictable than one drug alone, and even deadly.”
How Long After Taking Lean Can You Drink Alcohol?
You should not drink alcohol when taking lean or consuming any other substance. If you accidentally combine lean and alcohol, you should work to sober quickly by going to a safe place, hydrating, and calling someone who can come be with you until the drug is out of your system.
If you have taken lean and alcohol together in large amounts, this can cause kidney damage and other serious, irreversible side effects. Getting help from a medical professional quickly can help you avoid long-term consequences.
Why Do People Mix Alcohol With Lean?
The codeine in lean is an opioid that decreases pain perception while increasing pleasurable feelings. These effects are enhanced when the codeine is combined with alcohol, causing both drugs to interact with dopamine and serotonin transmitters to create a sense of euphoria. This causes the user to feel relaxed and happy, but it’s short-lived.
Once the drugs wear off, a person will likely feel depressed and may choose to continue drinking lean and alcohol to chase the short-lived euphoria they produce and stop any symptoms of withdrawal. This cycle can lead to addiction, opioid overdose, substance use disorder, alcohol addiction, and death.
People may also be unaware that they’re mixing alcohol with drugs since Lean can go by many names, including:
- Purple drank
- Sizzurp
- Texas tea
- Purple stuff
- Purple tonic
- Player potion
- Sip-sip oil
If someone is at a party and handed a cup of lean, they wouldn’t know from sight alone that the drink contains drugs given its bright color and the candy that’s often thrown in. Additionally, peer pressure among young people can make it harder to turn down lean, especially if a person has been drinking alcohol already.
Why Is It Dangerous to Mix Lean with Alcohol?
Lean’s glamorization in pop culture and social media leads people to believe drinking lean isn’t dangerous, when in reality, the opposite is true. In fact, the top two drugs involved in drug-related emergency department visits in 2021 were alcohol and opioids.
Fatal overdose is more likely when combining alcohol and lean because of the risk of respiratory depression, which causes the user to breathe less often, which can cause organ damage, coma, and death. Consuming opioids, such as codeine, can lead to respiratory depression. But when you mix codeine and alcohol, the chance of respiratory depression greatly increases.
It’s also important to note that when someone overdoses from combining alcohol and codeine, it’s harder for healthcare providers to treat the overdose. During a typical opioid overdose, a treatment provider will administer Naloxone or Narcan to stop the overdose symptoms.
When alcohol is thrown into the mix, these opioid reversal drugs won’t be effective. Instead, a person will need immediate medical attention, including having their stomach pumped.
People who overdose on codeine and alcohol and survive regularly experience brain damage, seizures, heart issues, and muscle deterioration. This means surviving an overdose is not without long-term complications and consequences.
What Can Happen if You Drink on Lean?
Lean users often underestimate the dangers of mixing alcohol with lean, especially since both are readily available in the club and rave environments where lean is typically consumed.
When combined with alcohol, the side effects of codeine include:
- Slowed heart rate
- Slowed breathing
- Impairment
- Confusion
- Dizziness
- Sleepiness
- Loss of coordination and balance
- Constipation
- Impaired vision
- Fainting
- Dental decay
- Weight gain
- Memory loss
- Itching
- Rashes
- Hallucinations
- Seizures
- Death
Are you worried about the risks of drug and alcohol abuse? Learn more about recovery at Zinnia Health by calling 855-430-9439 today.
What Are the Symptoms From Drinking Alcohol with Lean?
Opioids, in general, have a high potential for addiction. As tolerance and dependency build, users pour larger and larger amounts of codeine cough syrup into their lean to feel the same effects. Once a tolerance has built up, and you stop consuming lean or cut back on how much lean you consume, you will have to go through a period of withdrawal.
Someone who has been misusing lean and alcohol for some period may show signs of addiction and withdrawal, which include:
- Involuntary shaking
- Hot flashes
- Cold flashes
- Sweating
- Chills
- Aches and pains
- Flu-like symptoms
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Intense cravings
These withdrawal symptoms can make it very hard to stop using lean. That’s why it is highly recommended to seek professional addiction treatment at a center that offers medically-assisted detox to help lessen the severity of the withdrawal symptoms and help you make a full recovery.
How to Get Help For a Lean Addiction
If you’re suffering from a co-occurring addiction to lean and alcohol, you should seek help for drug addiction at a rehab center. Different treatment options and levels exist, such as inpatient and outpatient programs, detox programs, and longer-term options for therapy, sober living, and aftercare.
- During inpatient treatment, you will live at a treatment center for around-the-clock care, supervision, and treatment. Most people stay at these overnight facilities between 21 and 90 days.
- Outpatient treatment provides care, supervision, therapy, and treatment for addiction on a more flexible schedule to allow you to fulfill work, familial, school, and personal obligations while still getting the treatment you need.
Both of these options offer strong support systems with peers and addiction specialists to arm you with the skills you need to make a full recovery and navigate the challenges of everyday life in a healthy and productive way.
If you, a loved one, or a family member are struggling with alcohol and lean abuse, Zinnia Health is here to help. Give us a call at 855-430-9439 or reach out by email to learn about treatment options and how we can assist you in overcoming your addiction and reclaiming your life.
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