LSD 'helps alcoholics to give up drinking'
Jeanwah
Posts: 6,363
Well, wouldn't ya know!!
LSD 'helps alcoholics to give up drinking'
One dose of the hallucinogenic drug LSD could help alcoholics give up drinking, according to an analysis of studies performed in the 1960s.
A study, presented in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, looked at data from six trials and more than 500 patients.
It said there was a "significant beneficial effect" on alcohol abuse, which lasted several months after the drug was taken.
An expert said this was "as good as anything we've got".
LSD is a class A drug in the UK and is one of the most powerful hallucinogens ever identified. It appears to work by blocking a chemical in the brain, serotonin, which controls functions including perception, behaviour, hunger and mood.
Benefit
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology analysed earlier studies on the drug between 1966 and 1970.
Patients were all taking part in alcohol treatment programmes, but some were given a single dose of LSD of between 210 and 800 micrograms.
For the group of patients taking LSD, 59% showed reduced levels of alcohol misuse compared with 38% in the other group.
This effect was maintained six months after taking the hallucinogen, but it disappeared after a year. Those taking LSD also reported higher levels of abstinence.
The report's authors, Teri Krebs and Pal-Orjan Johansen, said: "A single dose of LSD has a significant beneficial effect on alcohol misuse."
They suggested that more regular doses might lead to a sustained benefit.
"Given the evidence for a beneficial effect of LSD on alcoholism, it is puzzling why this treatment approach has been largely overlooked," they added.
Prof David Nutt, who was sacked as the UK government's drugs adviser, has previously called for the laws around illegal drugs to be relaxed to enable more research.
He said: "Curing alcohol dependency requires huge changes in the way you see yourself. That's what LSD does.
"Overall there is a big effect, show me another treatment with results as good; we've missed a trick here.
"This is probably as good as anything we've got [for treating alcoholism]."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17297714
LSD 'helps alcoholics to give up drinking'
One dose of the hallucinogenic drug LSD could help alcoholics give up drinking, according to an analysis of studies performed in the 1960s.
A study, presented in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, looked at data from six trials and more than 500 patients.
It said there was a "significant beneficial effect" on alcohol abuse, which lasted several months after the drug was taken.
An expert said this was "as good as anything we've got".
LSD is a class A drug in the UK and is one of the most powerful hallucinogens ever identified. It appears to work by blocking a chemical in the brain, serotonin, which controls functions including perception, behaviour, hunger and mood.
Benefit
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology analysed earlier studies on the drug between 1966 and 1970.
Patients were all taking part in alcohol treatment programmes, but some were given a single dose of LSD of between 210 and 800 micrograms.
For the group of patients taking LSD, 59% showed reduced levels of alcohol misuse compared with 38% in the other group.
This effect was maintained six months after taking the hallucinogen, but it disappeared after a year. Those taking LSD also reported higher levels of abstinence.
The report's authors, Teri Krebs and Pal-Orjan Johansen, said: "A single dose of LSD has a significant beneficial effect on alcohol misuse."
They suggested that more regular doses might lead to a sustained benefit.
"Given the evidence for a beneficial effect of LSD on alcoholism, it is puzzling why this treatment approach has been largely overlooked," they added.
Prof David Nutt, who was sacked as the UK government's drugs adviser, has previously called for the laws around illegal drugs to be relaxed to enable more research.
He said: "Curing alcohol dependency requires huge changes in the way you see yourself. That's what LSD does.
"Overall there is a big effect, show me another treatment with results as good; we've missed a trick here.
"This is probably as good as anything we've got [for treating alcoholism]."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17297714
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I've never done acid - kinda scared to, actually - but I've read about many benefits of its use (though none related to alcohol!)
Would be cool if this actually works.
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
And it's not just alcoholism it can help...it's shown promise in treating anxiety (particularly in terminally ill patients), OCD, and other things.....most people who have taken hallucinogens will tell you there are huge spiritual benefits as well.....It's really a shame that the government, seemingly for no reason, stepped in and made it illegal to continue..
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/scien ... nted=print
Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again
By JOHN TIERNEY
As a retired clinical psychologist, Clark Martin was well acquainted with traditional treatments for depression, but his own case seemed untreatable as he struggled through chemotherapy and other grueling regimens for kidney cancer. Counseling seemed futile to him. So did the antidepressant pills he tried.
Nothing had any lasting effect until, at the age of 65, he had his first psychedelic experience. He left his home in Vancouver, Wash., to take part in an experiment at Johns Hopkins medical school involving psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient found in certain mushrooms.
Scientists are taking a new look at hallucinogens, which became taboo among regulators after enthusiasts like Timothy Leary promoted them in the 1960s with the slogan “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Now, using rigorous protocols and safeguards, scientists have won permission to study once again the drugs’ potential for treating mental problems and illuminating the nature of consciousness.
After taking the hallucinogen, Dr. Martin put on an eye mask and headphones, and lay on a couch listening to classical music as he contemplated the universe.
“All of a sudden, everything familiar started evaporating,” he recalled. “Imagine you fall off a boat out in the open ocean, and you turn around, and the boat is gone. And then the water’s gone. And then you’re gone.”
Today, more than a year later, Dr. Martin credits that six-hour experience with helping him overcome his depression and profoundly transforming his relationships with his daughter and friends. He ranks it among the most meaningful events of his life, which makes him a fairly typical member of a growing club of experimental subjects.
Researchers from around the world are gathering this week in San Jose, Calif., for the largest conference on psychedelic science held in the United States in four decades. They plan to discuss studies of psilocybin and other psychedelics for treating depression in cancer patients, obsessive-compulsive disorder, end-of-life anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction to drugs or alcohol.
The results so far are encouraging but also preliminary, and researchers caution against reading too much into these small-scale studies. They do not want to repeat the mistakes of the 1960s, when some scientists-turned-evangelists exaggerated their understanding of the drugs’ risks and benefits.
Because reactions to hallucinogens can vary so much depending on the setting, experimenters and review boards have developed guidelines to set up a comfortable environment with expert monitors in the room to deal with adverse reactions. They have established standard protocols so that the drugs’ effects can be gauged more accurately, and they have also directly observed the drugs’ effects by scanning the brains of people under the influence of hallucinogens.
Scientists are especially intrigued by the similarities between hallucinogenic experiences and the life-changing revelations reported throughout history by religious mystics and those who meditate. These similarities have been identified in neural imaging studies conducted by Swiss researchers and in experiments led by Roland Griffiths, a professor of behavioral biology at Johns Hopkins.
In one of Dr. Griffiths’s first studies, involving 36 people with no serious physical or emotional problems, he and colleagues found that psilocybin could induce what the experimental subjects described as a profound spiritual experience with lasting positive effects for most of them. None had had any previous experience with hallucinogens, and none were even sure what drug was being administered.
To make the experiment double-blind, neither the subjects nor the two experts monitoring them knew whether the subjects were receiving a placebo, psilocybin or another drug like Ritalin, nicotine, caffeine or an amphetamine. Although veterans of the ’60s psychedelic culture may have a hard time believing it, Dr. Griffiths said that even the monitors sometimes could not tell from the reactions whether the person had taken psilocybin or Ritalin.
The monitors sometimes had to console people through periods of anxiety, Dr. Griffiths said, but these were generally short-lived, and none of the people reported any serious negative effects. In a survey conducted two months later, the people who received psilocybin reported significantly more improvements in their general feelings and behavior than did the members of the control group.
The findings were repeated in another follow-up survey, taken 14 months after the experiment. At that point most of the psilocybin subjects once again expressed more satisfaction with their lives and rated the experience as one of the five most meaningful events of their lives.
Since that study, which was published in 2008, Dr. Griffiths and his colleagues have gone on to give psilocybin to people dealing with cancer and depression, like Dr. Martin, the retired psychologist from Vancouver. Dr. Martin’s experience is fairly typical, Dr. Griffiths said: an improved outlook on life after an experience in which the boundaries between the self and others disappear.
In interviews, Dr. Martin and other subjects described their egos and bodies vanishing as they felt part of some larger state of consciousness in which their personal worries and insecurities vanished. They found themselves reviewing past relationships with lovers and relatives with a new sense of empathy.
“It was a whole personality shift for me,” Dr. Martin said. “I wasn’t any longer attached to my performance and trying to control things. I could see that the really good things in life will happen if you just show up and share your natural enthusiasms with people. You have a feeling of attunement with other people.”
The subjects’ reports mirrored so closely the accounts of religious mystical experiences, Dr. Griffiths said, that it seems likely the human brain is wired to undergo these “unitive” experiences, perhaps because of some evolutionary advantage.
“This feeling that we’re all in it together may have benefited communities by encouraging reciprocal generosity,” Dr. Griffiths said. “On the other hand, universal love isn’t always adaptive, either.”
Although federal regulators have resumed granting approval for controlled experiments with psychedelics, there has been little public money granted for the research, which is being conducted at Hopkins, the University of Arizona; Harvard; New York University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and other places.
The work has been supported by nonprofit groups like the Heffter Research Institute and MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.
“There’s this coming together of science and spirituality,” said Rick Doblin, the executive director of MAPS. “We’re hoping that the mainstream and the psychedelic community can meet in the middle and avoid another culture war. Thanks to changes over the last 40 years in the social acceptance of the hospice movement and yoga and meditation, our culture is much more receptive now, and we’re showing that these drugs can provide benefits that current treatments can’t.”
Researchers are reporting preliminary success in using psilocybin to ease the anxiety of patients with terminal illnesses. Dr. Charles S. Grob, a psychiatrist who is involved in an experiment at U.C.L.A., describes it as “existential medicine” that helps dying people overcome fear, panic and depression.
“Under the influences of hallucinogens,” Dr. Grob writes, “individuals transcend their primary identification with their bodies and experience ego-free states before the time of their actual physical demise, and return with a new perspective and profound acceptance of the life constant: change.”
(the double-blind aspect of these trials cracks me up.....hmmm....what am I feeling? Could this be a placebo, nicotine, caffeine, or.....LSD?
I saw a guy turn into a bird at an A Perfect Circle concert... Then the band came onstage. Definitely had no desire to drink... I was too busy trying to stay sane and listen to the music.
Great read, thanks.
The fact that there was even a remote chance of having to battle magical spiders was enough to sway me away from ever trying it.
Rec use of LSD can lead to some really confusing, disorienting experiences....and it can be scary as hell if you're not prepared or not in the right setting.
Most of this psychotherapy is done with a guide in a controlled environment.
It definitely opens the doors of perception, so to speak....as a side effect of questioning their own reality, and their views of spirituality, morality, and relationships, users are more open to suggestion...Which can be positive...but also negative if used with malicious intent, as I'm sure most people familar with Charles Manson's M.O. would agree....This was apparent from the start, and a reason it was part of the American MK Ultra mind control program.
Give it a try, it's pretty wonderful.
Yeah it was intense. It was my first and only time with it. The lights were pretty intense and the show was unreal... There was a lot of Red, and the songs sung were mostly anti-war.... They were standing on military crates and wearing all black... Honestly thought I was in the Vietnam Conflict.
I'm still waiting for the flash-backs that they promised me would happen years later.
Godfather.
The theory here isn't to keep people high on LSD so that they don't drink....The alcoholism treatment is more like hypno-therapy. A controlled environment, with a doctor talking you through it, helping to determine the reasons for your addiction, what you need to do to change, etc.....it's more about changing a person's thought process than about inhibiting their ability to drink, or causing physical change resulting in same.
I've found that any hallucinogen (this includes weed to a lesser extent) can really focus a person's conscience....As Bob Marley said: 'when you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself'. If you are involved in harmful or self-destructive bahavior, it can become something you fixate on while high.....I think that feeling of anxious guilt is what a lot of people label as paranoia....and the reason a lot of people say weed makes them paranoid....because they have a learned, ingrained belief that it is 'bad' to smoke it, and their conscience freaks out....which makes it hard to relax, and easy to get anxious when high. But I would think that same conscience magnification is what makes it so effective in helping people see why they need to stop drinking.
(not an alcoholic, but i wouldn't mind some treatment)
"what a long, strange trip it's been"
If you want flashbacks, have acupuncture done to treat sciatica.
I had this done, and within a few minutes of all the needles being in place, I was out of my mind. I hallucinated for a good 45 minutes, right up to the end of the session.
If no one had come in the room, I'm sure I could have keep watching the beautiful vortexes of color weave in and out of each other for hours.
I've had some short little flashbacks here and there. LSD: The gift that keeps on giving!
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
haha, it's not that if you take it you automatically grow sick of alcohol. it takes an expert shaman, psychologist, etc, to guide you through the trip to show you how alcohol is ruining you. LSD shines the lights into the attic of your brain to show you your own demons, then it is up to YOU to slay them.
LSD was the best thing that's ever happened to me, other than my son. It's no cute little fuzzy bunny and can be dangerous to the ignorant, but it is essential to me and others' personal and spiritual development.
http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/07/ ... cumentary/