Young People Are Tripping on Benadryl—and It’s Always a Bad Time

There’s a figure who whitethorn greet you during an aggravated Benadryl trip.

Faceless, shrouded successful achromatic with reddish eyes and a apical hat, it ominously lurks successful the corner. The Benadryl Hat Man is simply a shared and recurring hallucination that radical study witnessing erstwhile taking dozens of the antihistamine astatine a time. The figure, depicted successful Halloween costumes, POV-Benadryl travel memes, and Walmart graphic tees, has go the awesome for a caller cause inclination that sees young radical deliberately taking ample doses of the drug, not to ward disconnected allergies, but to get high.

John, a 21-year-old assemblage pupil who utilized to travel connected Benadryl, ne'er saw the Hat Man. Yet, helium says, “I could spot however that could happen. It's [Benadryl] digging successful the depths of your encephalon to find whatever's making you scared. So, if you're frightened of the Hat Man, I'm definite you're going to spot the Hat Man.” This searching for the unpleasant to uncover itself, portion sounding horrible, is, successful fact, the intent of recreational Benadryl use. (John does not privation his existent sanction utilized owed to fearfulness of friends uncovering out.)

When utilized successful precocious doses, diphenhydramine, an constituent successful Benadryl, functions arsenic a deliriant, a hallucinogenic people of drugs, which look to beryllium becoming progressively fashionable among young radical for nonmedical purposes. Unlike psychedelics oregon different hallucinogens, there’s nary existent imaginable for a bully travel connected a deliriant. According to the radical I spoke to, each travel is bad, each travel is brutal, and that’s the point.

In 2020, the “Benadryl challenge” gained traction connected TikTok, daring participants to instrumentality doses of astatine slightest 12 Benadryl pills for an aggravated trip. The trend, which resurfaces each fewer years, drew attraction to the psychoactive effects of deliriants. “I saw a video astir it connected TikTok once, truthful I knew it could beryllium utilized recreationally,” 1 idiosyncratic tells me.

With small to nary harm simplification accusation readily disposable astir precocious levels of consumption, problems began to rise. In May 2020, 3 Texas teens were treated for Benadryl overdoses successful conscionable a week, 1 of whom was conscionable 14 years aged and took 14 pills. The 14-year-old recovered and returned location the adjacent day. In August 2020, a 15-year-old died from a seizure aft overdosing connected the cause successful Oklahoma. In September 2020, the FDA issued a informing for parents to fell and fastener up their Benadryl supply, informing of the imaginable hazard of bosom problems, seizures, and, little commonly, comas and adjacent death. Despite the warning, the inclination seems to person persisted. In 2020, determination were 4,618 cases reported to US Poison Centers for Benadryl usage; that fig climbed to 5,960 successful 2023, according to a survey published successful Pediatrics Open Science successful August. Benadryl and deliriants successful wide person embedded themselves arsenic staples connected the fringes of the American youth—a inexpensive and casual mode to get fucked up. WIRED reached retired to Benadryl shaper Kenvue for comment. A spokesperson for the institution stated, “This behaviour is highly concerning and dangerous,” and encouraged consumers to “carefully work and travel the instructions connected the statement and interaction their wellness attraction nonrecreational should they person questions.”

John started taking Benadryl recreationally successful November 2024, erstwhile helium was 20, aft utilizing it to slumber and past proceeding astir the imaginable to travel online. He was depressed astatine the clip and would instrumentality 12 pills for a large trip, aggregate times a day, with each travel lasting 4 to six hours. Instead of the Hat Man, John saw eyelash mites, tiny bugs that signifier successful clusters astatine the basal of your eyelashes, alongside “shadows that would dart crossed your peripheral.” The trips were besides tactile; John would spot and consciousness spiders each implicit his body, describing feeling a “foreboding tingling.”