When I was a kid, my parents probably never suspected that I would reach for the medicine cabinet to eat the Children’s Coricidin, candy flavored chewable cold medication, because it tasted good to me. I really had no idea that I was getting high or that I was reaching for drugs. But eating Coricidin cold meds became a regular habit for me when I was a child and no one ever questioned it.
Corecidin children’s cough and cold medication is widely abused by kids today and when I think back at how people assessed me when I was a kid, during the time I was unknowingly abusing Coricidin, the pieces of the puzzle on how I later became a hard core addict begin to show.
Back then, my parents and teachers often wondered what was wrong with me, because it seemed like I was totally absent minded at times and appeared to be oblivious to my surroundings, like I was living in a dream. Yet no one ever factored in drug abuse and in my mind, what I was doing should have had no affect on any part of my life. It didn't occur to me that there was a connection that needed to be made. I thought I was just eating candy and that all the criticism I got was mean.
The reality however is, that I knew that I could find the Children’s Coricidin in my parents medicine cabinet. I also remember wondering if any of the other drugs in the cabinet tasted like candy and I also remember tasting aspirin, which I didn’t like. Had my parents locked their medicine cabinet, or had they known to do so, perhaps things would have been better for everyone.
