Psychedelics Help People With Alcoholism Drink Less (theverge.com) 111
A combination of psychedelics and therapy appears to help people with alcoholism cut down on the number of days per month they drink heavily, according to a new study. The Verge reports: Researchers used psilocybin, the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms, to treat patients over eight months and saw a dramatic improvement in participants' drinking habits. Using psychedelics as treatments for alcoholism was a popular idea in the 1960s and 1970s, and studies on LSD found that it reduced alcohol misuse. But the approach went quiet in the decades after, according to an editorial published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry alongside the new study.
The new research marks a "rekindling of interest," the authors of the editorial wrote. The study included 93 people with alcohol dependence. In the 12 weeks leading up to the study, the participants drank alcohol an average of around 60 days. Of those 60 drinking days, about half were heavy drinking days -- defined as five or more drinks a day for a man and four or more drinks in a day for a woman. People in the trial were randomly assigned to either take a capsule of psilocybin or an antihistamine twice over the course of the 36-week-long study. They had four sessions with therapists before the first time they took the drug, four sessions between the two drug doses, and four sessions after the second drug dose.
Everyone in the study started drinking less after the first four weeks of therapy -- the percentage of heavy drinking days dropped from around half of all drinking days to around a quarter. But that number kept falling for the people who took psilocybin. After the end of the full study, they drank heavily on around 10 percent of the days when they drank. People who took the antihistamine were still drinking heavily on around a quarter of drinking days. The effects lasted for months after the second dose of the psilocybin, study author Michael Bogenschutz, a psychiatrist and director of the NYU Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine, stressed during a press briefing. "This suggests that psilocybin is treating the underlying disorder of alcohol addiction rather than merely treating symptoms," he said.
The new research marks a "rekindling of interest," the authors of the editorial wrote. The study included 93 people with alcohol dependence. In the 12 weeks leading up to the study, the participants drank alcohol an average of around 60 days. Of those 60 drinking days, about half were heavy drinking days -- defined as five or more drinks a day for a man and four or more drinks in a day for a woman. People in the trial were randomly assigned to either take a capsule of psilocybin or an antihistamine twice over the course of the 36-week-long study. They had four sessions with therapists before the first time they took the drug, four sessions between the two drug doses, and four sessions after the second drug dose.
Everyone in the study started drinking less after the first four weeks of therapy -- the percentage of heavy drinking days dropped from around half of all drinking days to around a quarter. But that number kept falling for the people who took psilocybin. After the end of the full study, they drank heavily on around 10 percent of the days when they drank. People who took the antihistamine were still drinking heavily on around a quarter of drinking days. The effects lasted for months after the second dose of the psilocybin, study author Michael Bogenschutz, a psychiatrist and director of the NYU Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine, stressed during a press briefing. "This suggests that psilocybin is treating the underlying disorder of alcohol addiction rather than merely treating symptoms," he said.
We've known this for yonks right? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The war on drugs phrase was dumb pseudo military BS PR from IIRC Bush Jr. You might as well say war on murders or war on gang violence or war on burglars.
Re:We've known this for yonks right? (Score:5, Funny)
Given the "success" of the war on drugs, the war on terror and the war on poverty, we should maybe declare a war on common sense.
We could sure need more of that, too.
Re: We've known this for yonks right? (Score:4, Insightful)
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How? By eliminating the competition in the drugs market?
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Actually the war on poverty *was* a success (Score:3)
It's part of the "High Cost of Being Poor". Not just for the poor, but for all of us. The only ones who win out with poverty are the folks at the top who use ec
This. So much This. (Score:2)
Re:We've known this for yonks right? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:We've known this for yonks right? (Score:5, Insightful)
A cut or stab wound can be self inflicted - is it then not an ailment? (Okay, bad example - acute conditions are generally not regarded as ailments, but it is still a legitimate medical problem)
Addiction is usually a symptom of a deeper problem. Long-term successful treatment tends to either get at that problem, or at least do a *really* good job of instilling less destructive coping mechanisms.
Either way, the addiction itself tends to be like walking into tar sands - just because you got there on your own, doesn't necessarily mean you can get back out without help. And even if you can, it's not clear that's the best choice. You don't NEED a doctor to treat a broken arm, it'll probably heal on its own. But a doctor has the knowledge and experience to help it heal faster and much more completely.
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Drug use can be solved by not using the drugs, it simply requires willpower and self control
You say that like it's actually simple. Addictions are not simple.
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Quitting is fucking simple. But its easier to make excuses than just do it as millions of smokers still prove every day.
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re: getting off drugs (Score:2)
Most people who have a clue aren't saying it's easy to kick strong addictions. They're usually just pointing out that, "play stupid games - win stupid prizes".
I *really* don't see how sane people can decide it'll be great to shoot up heroin, for example. I hate needles, even for valid medical reasons. It's sure not my idea of entertainment. Yet we see it all the time. Every single time I find the signs of their addiction, it angers me. Like when my daughter tried to buy a new set of bed sheets at the local
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After smoking for 40 years, I quit cold turkey -- no patches, no gum, no drugs; I just stopped. I thought it was going to be a lot harder than it turned out to be. Haven't had a cigarette in almost 5 years now. There are so many restrictions on where and when you can smoke, it seems like more trouble than it's worth (if you can say it's worth anything at all, that is). Plus, with everything we know about the medical issues, smokers really look pretty dumb. Frankly, I don't know how the average person can af
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Frankly, I don't know how the average person can afford that habit habit at today's prices anyway.
Most of the smokers that I know tend to spend all of their discretionary income on smoking. They have shitty smelly houses, shitty smelly cars, shitty smelly clothes. They might even put off paying bills if they're low on smokes. But the freezer is always stocked with cartons, and that is really what truly matters to an addict.
Re:We've known this for yonks right? (Score:4, Informative)
Quitting is fucking simple.
Sure, you can find plenty of examples of people just walking away from lifetime addictions. My Grandma just decided one day she was done smoking and quit. But you can also find plenty of examples of people literally dying from withdrawal from one substance or another.
Saying "they should just quit" shows a wild misunderstanding of human physiology and psychology.
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Addiction is simple. Understanding human willpower is complex. Specifically why some people have it and others don't. The psyche is a complex topic but the idea of how addiction works and how to beat it is simple.
Some smokers can't quit, even with medical help.
Others can quit cold turkey by sheer willpower.
The addiction is the same in both cases.
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Drug use can be solved by not using the drugs, it simply requires willpower and self control though I realise thats not a trendy answer because everyone loves a victim.
Good luck curing cancer or covid by abstaining.
Tell me you don't understand addiction without saying you don't understand addiction.
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Oh good lord... Nancy Reagan is back from the dead.
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The War on Drugs was first used and promoted by Nixon.
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There was certainly a civil war on the English language. Col. Grammar was seriously wounded by Private Lexicon.
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The *problem perhaps was that they were often used for religious rituals to induce spiritual experiences in people who needed them to work through some other issues. It's good that we're finally getting to a point where such millennia old treatments are now ethical to explore again.
*Regarding the problem part: I hypothesize that when the Christians invaded had to be somehow vilified b
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Prohibition started because a finger-wagger honestly thought the world would be better off with less drink.
There's an interesting article [theatlantic.com] in The Atlantic about how attitudes to Prohibition changed after it was enacted.
That... didn't work.
Agreed.
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Prohibition started because a finger-wagger honestly thought the world would be better off with less drink.
J. D. Rockefeller didn't like farmers distilling grain alcohol to run their tractors.
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I think the problem part may go a little deeper than that - after all that sort of therapeutic psychedelic use appears to have been pretty much universal in ancient cultures, so it's something that was actually purged somewhere in the cultural evolution of institutional Christianity (among others)
My own theory is that the responsible use psychedelics is therapeutic in large part because it offers a very different perspective on your life. You're still working from the same data points (your memories of eve
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A fine word for it.
The war on drugs is a thinly veiled attack (Score:2)
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" I hypothesize that when the Christians invaded had to be somehow vilified by branding most if not all of those rituals and everything that is involved in them used by different religions as being sinful and blasphemous and thus to be outlawed and persecuted and burned"
Hypothesis confirmed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
After hearing of Roman Catholic Maya who continued to practice idol worship, Landa ordered an Inquisition in Mani, ending with a ceremony called auto de fé. During the ceremony on Ju
Re:We've known this for yonks right? (Score:5, Interesting)
The war on drugs was never about drugs.
It was about subversive elements and black people.
The method is extremely simple: Find out what the group of people you want to imprison does more than any other group, then make that illegal.
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Yes, AA originally started with Step 0 as an LSD trip then the 12 steps.
It would have had a higher success rate over the past 50 years but the CIA needs its blackops drug money so we have to murder hundreds of thousand of Americans every year in sacrifice to the CIA.
So they can train Osama Bin Laden and people like that.
Because you can't see God and also worship the State.
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WW(;,;)D?
So, what if you're the ONE person that is holding off, say, an entire dimension of horrific things by virtue of the fact that you refuse to believe in them and hallucinogens, even in the smallest quantities, can put a tear in that resolve and let everything out all at once?
Asking for a friend.
UNderlying disorder? (Score:2)
""This suggests that psilocybin is treating the underlying disorder of alcohol addiction rather than merely treating symptoms,"
Alhoholism is a drug addiction, nothing more, and needs to be treated as such. Whatever precipitated doesn't much matter once the brain has a craving for it and it doesn't matter what you say or do alcys don't want to know. Logic and discussion doesn't work, only treatment (and yes I'm speaking from experience of a close family member) so hopefully this'll be another tool in the bo
Re: UNderlying disorder? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:UNderlying disorder? (Score:5, Insightful)
that's only the first step, and actually the easiest. if the underlying disorder is not addressed the person will relapse or just replace alcohol with something else, which is the crucial and difficult step: if that replacement is something positive that helps the person move forward in life and relationships, then that's actually treating the underlying cause. but it can also get worse.
a good metaphor is seeing addiction as a remedy for pain. you can let go of painkillers but then you still got to deal with the pain somehow. another way is seeing the addiction as filling a spiritual/emotional hole, you can stop taking the filler but you still have a hole in you. the pain/hole and/or the inability to deal with it is the real problem. alcohol was just the circumstantial filler.
now, psilocybin has the potential of making the subject deeply and intimately aware of this issue while also providing feelings of joy and deep connection to others. it doesn't work like a substitute drug, but more like an enlightening and healing experience that can be life changing. that's huge improvement but only the first step, though. there's no magic.
the view of addiction as a mere problem of exposure to a substance is the result of years of stigmatization and police/government disinformation, but it is narrowminded and dangerous. it's never about the substance, but about the person.
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First to parent post: logic DOES work. Very successful method of Allen Carr is based exactly on thorough rational guidance trough all important aspects of alcohol as a thing. Leaving you to deal in peace with all the logic provided. I had over ten sober years, charged with this, and they have been great.
Now to your defense of alcohol, as something "valuable" - filler, healer, or whatever. Sorry, but you do not account for dual nature of alcohol impact: supplying minds with illusions, it inevitably destroys
Re:UNderlying disorder? (Score:4, Informative)
Now to your defense of alcohol, as something "valuable" - filler, healer, or whatever.
i never said such. i won't classify as poison either. every substance has its quirks, can be beneficial in a given context or can be abused. abusing a substance is not a problem with the substance, it's a problem of abuse. the substance in question is not really relevant.
I find it quite strange of an achievement, when another hallucinogen is phasing-out the one, he is replacing, Maybe I am bit rough on information provided
well, the information was in the abstract you didn't read: "the effects lasted for months after the second dose of the psilocybin" and "This suggests that psilocybin is treating the underlying disorder of alcohol addiction rather than merely treating symptoms,"
nobody is substituting anything here: one single session with psilocybin can have strong enough impact on people's minds that they suddenly can and want start dealing with the reasons of abuse.
you are fixated with the substance, you came here to underline how utterly bad alcohol is although that's not even related to what's being discussed. alcohol per-se is simply not the problem, alcohol abuse is the symptom of something not being right in your life and one single mushroom can help you figure out what that is, or even get over it.
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I am here exactly to state, that alcohol is the problem for mankind. As drugs are. They themselves. You may be in position to accept this, or not.
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You may be in position to accept this, or not.
i'm certainly in position to not give a fig if you are more interested in holding onto your beliefs than in rational understanding of reality. be my guest, just don't put your words in my mouth.
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You are not a host here. I have exactly worded my statements and your relationship to them. That cuts it fine.
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You are not a host here. I have exactly worded my statements and your relationship to them. That cuts it fine.
whatever, sir. take care. peace & love.
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you do not account for dual nature of alcohol impact: supplying minds with illusions,
What kind of illusions have you ever gotten from drinking alcohol? It's not a hallucinogen.
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What kind of illusions have you ever gotten from drinking alcohol?
Besides being handsome, a good dancer, and that saying "hold my beer!" and showing off is a good idea?
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Hard for me to know, that's how I am always.
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Hallucinogen being cause for hallucinations, right? Which is not illusions, correct?
Alcohol impacts decision making, valuation. Any kind. You are left with only illusions of great ideas, once back from your trip.
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Agreed. You don't generally see healthy, happy people with satisfying lives succumb to addiction - not even after being on a morphine drip for weeks for medical reasons.
Addiction gets started as a coping mechanism for deeper problems before growing into a problem of its own.
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Trading one addiction for another? (Score:2)
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E.g., antidepressants are mind altering substances too.
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While you are somewhat right, that alcoholics are well informed what to do with alcohol (in one way of use), it is not absolutely necessary to apply some substance as the mean of correction. Perhaps with even greater success they can be exposed to the quality information why it is not worth siding with alcohol at all. Technically, only the first week or two without it are strange, and require effort to change the course. It is new norm thereafter, and that can go long way. For me phenomena of being surround
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Long term consumption of alcohol is demonstrably bad for your health. Your liver will not thank you.
Short term consumption of small amounts of a halucinogenic substance is likely a lot less damaging.
That doesn't stop me enjoying a nice glass of wine and the class-A drug status of LSD is a barrier to use. So those substances are not playing on a level playing field.
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There is known bunch of pitfalls in longer term consumption. Even in short term enamoring. Liver is not in the forefront of concerns, I'd say.
The problem with short term, you put stake at, is this: how come, it's short term and not more intense, if it's some good stuff. Actually, this is exactly quite a rational pattern for alcoholism.
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One is addictive, the other not??
You guess which is which.
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direct control of behavior is not the intended use, but enlightenment. that in turn helps in control of behavior.
meaning: you use it only once, and it might make you deeply aware of your problem and might give you an emotional kick to remind you that joy exists in life and is something worth striving for. it literally gets the ball rolling. or it might not work at all, but definitely worth a try.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sugar and alcohols kill the effects of mushrooms (Score:2)
Of course you drink less alcohol.
Sugar and alcohols kill the effects of mushrooms.
Its the first advise you get when you want to try mushrooms.
Eat sugar to cancel the effects, and of course don't if you don't want too.
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Yeah, I have heard of that too.
Does not make sense to me too.
Maybe someone knows a little more, and can enlighten us.
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>Maybe someone knows a little more, and can enlighten us.
More of an educated guess:
Poor mental health is associated with low energy expenditure in the brain.
Sugar added to an already Western diet soaked brain promoted IR in the brain (glucose floats on through the blood brain barrier with a density ratio either side while insulin gets through the blood brain barrier by being picked up by receptors and shoved out the other side, which is a rate limited process, so at some point the insulin and glucose lev
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It's hard for the body to feel pain in multiple places at once. So if your elbow hurts and I step on your to hard enough, at least for a short period of time, the elbow won't feel like it hurts. Is that treatment? Hardly.
That's not to say that, sometimes, substituting one addiction for another wouldn't be an improvement. Heroin addicts are "treated" with suboxone under the premise that it's
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That’s how AA works. You trade drinking for religion.
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"hooked to the psychedelics"
Typical dumbfuck who refuses to learn how things work yet has an opinion. Kill yourself as humanity needs the collective IQ boost and "people" like yourself aren't capable of redemption. Fuck off to 4chan where you belong you gasworthy retarded vermin.
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"hooked to the psychedelics"
Typical dumbfuck who refuses to learn how things work yet has an opinion. Kill yourself as humanity needs the collective IQ boost and "people" like yourself aren't capable of redemption. Fuck off to 4chan where you belong you gasworthy retarded vermin.
Ah, the vaunted leftist tolerance shows up again.
Shit study. (Score:2)
Worked for me (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Worked for me (Score:4, Informative)
Similar story, I had been knocking on the door of alcoholism for a long time. And then in 2015 I participated in an ayahuasca ceremony, which was so profound and life changing, that I easily quit cold turkey immediately after. That time I went 8 months sober before relapsing. A few years later I got into the AA program, which ultimately has kept me clean for almost five years now. But I really believe that it was the ayahuasca experience that first opened my eyes that there was an alternative to just being a drunk, that I didn't have to spiral down.
The interesting thing here too is that one of founders of AA, Bill W, was on the record of saying that psychedelics could help we alcoholics. This has been somewhat swept under the rug, both inside and outside of AA. Bill believed that psychedelics could provide the spiritual experience that many of us lack, which is how (according to AA) we got in trouble in the first place. That we hadn't found a 'higher power' that we could believe in, so we came to believe that we as individuals were infallible. And when we were inevitably proved incorrect, we turned to the bottle to cope.
Point of all that is that this old news. Bill W himself claimed we should consider using psychedelics for our spiritual recovery.
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No addiction problems here but in the days after a low dose edible my mood is definitely improved.
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Instead of beer goggles (Score:1)
now people will have LSD goggles, and date people who look like a Picasso painting.
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people will have LSD goggles
"Have you seen my glasses?"
"They're right there, on top of your head. Underneath your nose and to the left of your chin."
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Druggies aren't Picky, News at 11 (Score:1)
Druggies dont care where they get their next high, if you got them hooked on crack they would probably drink even less.
Old saying (Score:1)
The old saying is: "I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy." Apparently, it would be a good idea for alcoholics to actually have a prefrontal lobotomy.
Bill W. tried LSD therapy way back when (Score:2)
I remember in AA meetings people would sometimes bring this up--If Bill W. did acid, why can't I? and the answer was "sure--if your doctor knows you're an alcoholic and they write you a prescription"
well, soon, they just might.
It's not hypocritical to use that criterion. The substance is not somehow "bad" or "good".
Each medicine has a purpose. If you're using it for that purpose it won't hurt you; if you are using it for a different purpose you will get into trouble. Doctors are supposed to be t
I believe this to be true. (Score:2)
Not indefinitely, but for some period of time. Best of luck to those wanting to escape the euphoria of alcohol.
Easier (Score:2)
If you want to go for sheer numbers for less work and less risk . . . we could stop sacrificing our livers to the ridiculous amount of stress that's loaded on us in the name of 'productivity' and not being 'lazy'.
"Work life balance" has become something we have to shame ourselves into doing and it's almost always a financial sacrifice. It's the 'we probably should stop abusing the planet' we've understood for decades but are just now clawing at the last remaining "but what about" stupid arguments as we're
With apologies to John Lee Hooker and Rudy Toombs (Score:2)
I said hey mister editor, come here
I want another article and I want it now
My karma all gone, been gone two night
I ain't get to mod since night before last
Who knew all dem points could go so fast
Wanna get drunk, get it off my mind
One bourbon, one scotch, one beer
But then that headline, came near
Tellin' 'bout a better high somehow
Drop the magic acid it go fast
Better than the liquor it do last
Wanna get high, get it off my mind
Turn On, Tune In, and Tap Out.
Flash back, flash drive, crypto coin
Do you have a news
Ooookkkkaaaayyyyâ¦. (Score:1)