In the teen years and early adulthood, one mature activity that too many young people mirror is alcohol consumption. Recently, young people have started making dangerous cocktails. One popular cocktail is lean drink, also known as sizzurp or purple drank. So what is lean and why is it so dangerous?
What is Lean?
The trick for any teen wanting to create their own high is to use products and ingredients they can easily get their hands on. Lean fits this bill as a beverage that teens can make from several ingredients commonly found in the kitchen and medicine cabinet.
Lean contains soft drinks, fruit-flavored hard candies, and prescription-strength cough syrup. While it sounds almost harmless, this mixture is actually deadly.
The cough syrup contains codeine as well as the sedative, promethazine. Too much of these two drugs can cause coma, seizures and even death. Rap star Lil Wayne almost died after a week of seizures brought on by lean use.
Lean Is Highly Dangerous
Most parents aren’t as worried about lean as they are about drugs like heroin. However, lean contains codeine, an addictive opioid in the prescription painkiller and heroin family. Whether someone consumes lean on its own or the drug serves as a gateway to other opioids is a matter of chance. Of course, as Li’l Wayne can attest, the deadly nature of lean is a matter of chance, too.
Because lean is a liquid, people using it tend to drink more than they realize. There’s also no exact formula on how much cough syrup people use for the mixture. Many times, people consume several times the amount of codeine in one situation versus a lesser amount in others.
Warning signs that your adolescent or someone else you love may be using lean include:
- Missing household cough medications
- Nausea and dizziness
- Sleep problems and excessive yawning
- Weight gain and constipation
- Memory and mood problems
Lean May Be the Beginning of Lifelong Problems Unless You Get Help Now
What is lean doing to your child’s life? It’s important to recognize a young person’s lean use as the problem it is, a dangerous drug addiction. You shouldn’t expect this to go away on its own. Your young person needs the therapies and education available through a quality rehab program. At Crestview Recovery, we know that an integral part of your loved one’s recovery is the therapy they receive. Therefore, we offer a variety of addiction therapy programs, including:
At Crestview Recovery in Portland, Oregon, our dual-diagnosis treatment helps patients get to the root of their substance use. We provide a wide range of substance use treatments in our addiction recovery programs that include:
- Intensive outpatient
- Partial hospitalization
- Outpatient
- Aftercare
It’s never easy to accept that someone you love may have problems with addictive substances. But you can help them solve their problem at Crestview Recovery. Call Crestview Recovery now at 866.262.0531 for more information. Don’t wait to call, as lean is a gamble you shouldn’t take.
Since 2016, Dr. Merle Williamson, a graduate of Oregon Health Sciences University, has been the Medical Director at Crestview Recovery, bringing a rich background in addiction medicine from his time at Hazelden Treatment Center. He oversees outpatient drug and alcohol treatments, providing medical care, setting policies, detox protocols, and quality assurance measures. Before specializing in addiction medicine, he spent 25 years in anesthesiology, serving as Chair of Hospital Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and Chief of Anesthesia at Kaiser Permanente. This experience gives him a unique perspective on treating prescription drug addiction.
