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Alcoholism as a biochemical disease
In the early 1950s, clinical researchers exploring the therapeutic value of the psychedelic drug d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) achieved intriguing results with subjects suffering from alcoholism. Spiritual or transcendental experiences produced by LSD were a powerful adjunct to rehabilitative psychotherapy for alcoholics. They provided a profound and chemically-induced awakening or enlightenment that often led to sobriety. This article investigates LSD as a treatment for alcoholism. The increased focus on drug therapies brought changes in treatment options and ushered in new theoretical explanations for the causation of alcohol abuse as a disease.
The psychiatrist Humphry Osmond was one of the key figures in the development of LSD treatments for alcoholism. Osmond was a Senior Registrar at the psychiatric unit at St George’s Hospital in London, England in 1950, where he worked closely with his colleague John Smythies and cultivated a keen interest in chemically induced reactions in the human body. Smythies and Osmond examined the properties of mescaline, the active agent in the peyote cactus. Nearly 2 years of research led them to conclude that mescaline produced reactions in volunteers that resembled the symptoms of schizophrenia, including hallucinations, delusions, disorganised thoughts and behaviour.
Further work suggested that mescaline’s chemical structure was remarkably similar to adrenaline. These findings led to the theory that schizophrenia resulted from a biochemical ‘imbalance’ in the sufferer. These findings led to the theory that schizophrenia resulted from a biochemical ‘imbalance’ in the sufferer. This tantalizing hypothesis captivated Osmond’s interest for the next 2 decades and inspired him to embark on a variety of experiments.
Osmond and Smythies’ colleagues at St George’s Hospital were not particularly interested in their biochemical research, but Osmond was intent on continuing the work. After responding to an advertisement for a deputy director of psychiatry at a Canadian Mental Hospital in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, he and his family moved to Canada in October 1951. In the prairie province of Saskatchewan he established a biochemical research programme. Within a year, Osmond met Abram Hoffer. Hoffer had graduated from the provincial university in Saskatoon with a Bachelor of Sciences degree in agricultural chemistry. He later graduated with a Ph.D. in agriculture before beginning a medical degree the following year. In medical school, Hoffer developed a particular interest in psychiatry. On 1 July 1950, the Saskatchewan Department of Public Health hired the recently graduated Hoffer to establish a provincial research programme in psychiatry.
Hoffer and Osmond soon joined forces and began collaborating on their mutual research interests in biochemical experimentation. Osmond’s curiosity about mescaline soon introduced him to d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), which, he discovered, produced similar reactions to those observed with mescaline. However, LSD was a much more powerful drug. As in the case of mescaline, early trials with LSD, too, seemed to substantiate their theory that mental illness had biochemical roots.
During their initial LSD experiments, Hoffer and Osmond hypothesised that the drug might possess therapeutic benefits. In 1953 they began introducing the drug to a new set of subjects: diagnosed alcoholics. They wanted to test its curative effects on individuals for whom temperance reformers advocated the development of more will power and self-actualisation. Perhaps, they reasoned, the LSD reaction would cultivate precisely that kind of strength and insight. Early trials with LSD seemed to substantiate their theory that mental illness had biochemical roots. Osmond reasoned that it would not be difficult to convince lay people that excessive drinking or alcoholism, as a disease, constituted a meaningful concept.
In Saskatchewan in the 1950s, LSD played a prominent role in reconstructing alcoholism as a disease. The growing public perception of drunkenness as a physiological condition reinforced the need for medical attention and, moreover, redefined problem drinking behaviour as something that could be cured.
Condensed from the study found here: Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...
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Ayahuasca, a cure for alcoholism
By Pablo Noguiera
Jorge* is around 60 years old, works a white collar job, has gray hair, married children, and grown grandchildren. People who work with him would never imagine that he participates in religious rituals using a mind altering tea. Yet thanks to ayahuasca, Jorge renounced his alcoholism - a big change for someone who, when he was younger, would buy a few cases of whiskey at once. "I opened the boxes and started emptying the bottles in the kitchen sink. My wife was shocked," he told me.
He's not the only alcoholic to renounce booze after an experience with ayahuasca. In 2010, after a decade of failed treatments, Robert Rhatigan took a trip to the Peruvian Amazon, where he participated in 4 rituals conducted by a shaman. During a speech at a TEDx event, he recounted how he "saw several components from his mind floating in space, as if they were pieces of a puzzle" while under the effects of ayahuasca. The experience lasted two hours and by the end of the ceremony, he "saw" the pieces returning to his head. The one that corresponded to his alcohol addiction no longer fit in. There he knew that he was cured. "My transformation is something far from understood in Western medicine," he says.
There are some hospitals, universities, and research institutes around the world that are experimenting with powerful psychoactive substances, such as psilocybin, ibogaine and even LSD are being analyzed in hospitals and research institutes all around the world.
"Regarding ayahuasca studies, Brazil is at the forefront of research," said Luis Fernando Tófoli, professor of the medical psychology and psychiatry department of Unicamp and coordinator of the Laboratory of Interdisciplinary Studies of psychoactive drugs, in Portuguese.
This year, a study conducted by Brazilian researchers was published in Nature. The piece examined the effects of the drink on two men and four women who showed symptoms of depression, ranging from moderate to severe. The participants consumed ayahuasca only once in doses that ranged between 120ml to 200ml prepared by a church of Santo Daime. They then had their mental health monitored through three questionnaires repeated eight times, the first one 40 minutes after intake and the last one three weeks later.
The results showed that there were improvements shown by every participant, disregarding the levels of depression they displayed. According to one of the surveys, one day after the experiment, there had been a reduction of 62 percent in symptoms. One week later, the efficacy kept going up, getting up to 72 percent. According to another survey, depression symptoms such as sadness, difficulty concentrating, suicidal and negative thoughts, had been reduced by 82 percent. Side effects were not detected, although half of the subjects had vomited under influence of the tea.
The results impressed the researchers. "We observed antidepressant effects the first hours after administering ayahuasca, and they remained significant for two to three weeks," Flávia de Lima Osório and Rafael Guimarães dos Santos, two of the authors, said in an email in Portuguese. She's a lecturer in the department of neurosciences and behavioral sciences of the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) Medical School in Ribeirão Preto and he is a postdoctoral researcher in the same department. "Besides, ayahuasca was tolerated quite well by the patients. The majority described the experience as positive, even if there was vomiting and nausea."
The results are good news for those needing quick-acting treatments. "Antidepressants that are currently available take weeks to produce therapeutic effects, in addition to having significant side effects, such as sexual dysfunction and weight gain," Flávia wrote. "Many patients don't get an effective therapeutic response. New pharmaceuticals, that act faster and more efficiently with less side effects, are necessary."
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Beneficial effect of LSD on alcoholism
By Nick Collins
In the 60s and 70s several clinics ran trials to determine whether lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, could help alcoholics overcome their dependence with varying degrees of success. The supervisors of one trial noted: "It was rather common for patients to claim significant insights into their problems, and to feel that they had been given a new lease on life, and to make a strong resolution to discontinue their drinking."
None of the experiments featured enough patients to draw any firm conclusions, but now a reanalysis of all the data taken together, totalling 536 patients, suggests the treatment could have potential after all. The new study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology found that LSD had a positive effect on alcohol misuse in each of the trials, with 59 per cent of patients who took the drug having improved at follow-up, compared with 38 per cent who took a placebo. A single dose of LSD produces benefits which last between six and 12 months, and repeated doses along with modern treatments could ensure longer term results, the researchers said.
The drug, which causes hallucinations that make users experience the world in a distorted way, is not physically addictive but some experte believe users can become dependant on its effects, for example from a need to distance themselves from reality.
Pål-Ørjan Johansen, Norwegian researcher and fellow of Harvard Medical School, who led the research, said: "Given the evidence for a beneficial effect of LSD on alcoholism, it is puzzling why this treatment approach has been largely overlooked."
Dr David Nutt, former advisor on drugs to the government, said: "I think this study is very interesting and it is a shame the last of these studies were done in the 1960s. I think these drugs might help people switch out of a mindset which is locked into addiction or depression and be a way of helping the brain switch back to where it should be, in a similar way that Alcoholics Anonymous programs do."
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PSILOCYBIN: A radical new approach to beating alcohol addiction
By Jennifer Bleyer
Jason didn't fit the stereotype of an alcoholic. A 39-year-old marketing executive with a master's degree, he never blacked out or erupted in a stormy rage. His family's home in Albuquerque wasn't strewn with empty liquor bottles. He had never crashed his car. Yet Jason had been drawn to alcohol ever since his first sip of beer at age 8, and it was typical for him to have half a dozen drinks after work. He was crushed but not entirely shocked on the spring afternoon in 2015 when his wife announced that she couldn't tolerate his inebriation anymore, packed up their kids, and moved out.
The next day Jason saw a notice in the alternative weekly newspaper: "Concerned about your drinking? Interested in alternatives to the treatments that are currently available?" The ad announced that University of New Mexico researchers were seeking participants for a new trial involving an experimental medication that might help curb alcohol abuse. Jason dialed the phone number on the ad and was surprised to learn that the experimental medicine was psilocybin*.
Jason was accepted into the second trial, which included 12 weeks of psychotherapy. After four weeks of psychotherapy, he arrived in a clinical room that had been appointed with art, homey furniture, and soft lighting and was given a pill of synthetic psilocybin. He lay down on a couch and donned eyeshades and headphones that piped in a programmed selection of music. Sitting nearby throughout the session were male and female co-therapists, who did little more than direct Jason to focus his attention internally and go where his mind took him. Within minutes, he burst into tears.
"I wept for almost six hours. It was a really heavy purging, as if I had just needed an excuse to stop the world and take this emotional ride." He saw that his alcoholism was a major stressor in his family's life and gazed with unalloyed clarity at his own lack of commitment to the most important thing in his life—his marriage and kids. "I believed that I had screwed up in every way," he says. "There was so much internal guilt bottled up." After several hours, the emotional tempest settled, and Jason was left with an incandescent feeling of love for his family, and forgiveness of himself.
Four weeks later, he arrived for the second psilocybin session, which he described afterward in a journal. "The initial fall was swift and intense," he wrote. "I wanted to immerse myself in the sounds from every corner and crevice of the room. Fully aware that I had no control over any circumstance or train of thought, I simply took the ride. There came a point where I realized I could in fact navigate."
With a greater sense of control this time, he focused his attention again on his life and aspects of himself that felt broken. He saw himself and his wife far in the future, happy and profoundly connected, and envisioned his stepdaughter and the couple's then 4-year-old daughter both as strong women that he and his wife had lovingly guided into adulthood. Jason's attention barely drifted toward his relationship with alcohol. It was all about his relationship to himself and his loved ones.
Even though there was little explicit content about drinking in his two psilocybin sessions, Jason was effortlessly abstinent after their completion. He eventually drank again, but moderately, with a conscientiousness he'd never experienced with alcohol before.
Two years after completing the UNM study, Jason's drinking remains limited and under control. He may have a couple beers or glasses of wine after work, but, he says, "I'm not using it to medicate myself anymore. I've come to see drinking as an individual decision—one I can decide against."
His wife took him back and moved home with their kids. They entered marriage counseling, and Jason credits the "inner peace" he found in the sessions as one of the most important factors in his success. The couple strengthened their communication and renewed their bond. Their family life now feels harmonious and connected. And although the psilocybin trial seldom crosses his mind, the insights it catalyzed reverberate in his life daily.
"I think alcohol was a way for me to disassociate from the here and now," he says. "The sessions taught me to hit the 'Pause' button and take time for things that actually matter. I learned the importance of really being present."
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Forever grateful
By Daniel Wilby
My first LSD trip pretty much cured my alcoholism. The second and third put me well on my way to working through my four year-long depression. I was utterly astounded by the miraculous effects, so of course I had to google it.
A few clicks and I had, among other things, learned that:
* LSD had, before being criminalized, been used with fantastic results to cure addiction problems, such as alcoholism, where it often took only one trip to cure the person.
* One of the founders of AA was a strong advocate of LSD and was actually well on his way to start a program to distribute it throughout AA.
* LSD had a far greater success rate in curing alcoholism, than the AA 12 step program has ever had.
* LSD has also been used with great success to cure depression.
* Albert Hofmann’s 100th birthday was right around the corner and he was alive and kicking.
* In his honour there was a LSD conference being arranged in Basel, Switzerland, and everyone who was somebody in the psychedelic community would be there, along with the guest of honour, Albert Hofmann himself.
I had to go.
I was flat broke, but there are moments in life that are just too important to miss. This was one of them. I was probably the most inexperienced of the whole crowd, having taken LSD four or five times by then. The lectures were absolutely amazing and confirmed scientifically the effects and experiences that I was trying to describe to friends and family.
On the final night, after listening to Albert Hofmann tell about his first experience, there was a wonderful party on a boat. It was full of psychedelic explorers, psychonauts of all generations. There were academics and hippies mixed up with ravers and artists. And of course the best LSD I have ever encountered.
I had never been to a rave before. My first encounter was on two drops of LSD and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Everyone on the dance floor was dancing in the same direction and they were rediscovering and reinventing what dance, body language and social interaction was. It was as if they had taken out social programming A, and were busy programming social programming B. People were friendly and caring, not at all the type of interaction that I was used to from night clubs.
Today is the 19th of April. It is Bicycle day. Today it is 71 years ago (1943) that Albert Hofmann first took his first intentional LSD trip to try to determine the effects of the peculiar substance that he had synthesized, while looking for a migraine cure. He took 250 micrograms, which he thought would be a threshold dose. It turned out that LSD was really potent. A threshold dose is approximately 20 micrograms. 250 micrograms is a powerful trip and feeling uneasy Hofmann early on decided to go home. Due to war time restrictions he took his bike and it was under that
bike trip that the LSD really came to full effect.
Thank you, Albert Hofmann, for this truly miraculous substance. And thank you, LSD, for saving my life. In honor of you, I have named my son Albert. I am forever grateful.
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LSD as a treatment for alcoholism
By Arran Frood
The powerful hallucinogen LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) has potential as a treatment for alcoholism, according to a retrospective analysis of studies published in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The study, by neuroscientist Teri Krebs and clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, is the first-ever quantitative meta-analysis of LSD-alcoholism clinical trials. The researchers sifted through thousands of records to collect data from randomized, double-blind trials that compared one dose of LSD to a placebo.
Of 536 participants in six trials, 59% of people receiving LSD reported lower levels of alcohol misuse, compared to 38% of people who received a placebo. "We were surprised that the effect was so clear and consistent," says Krebs. She says that the problem with most studies done at that time was that there were too few participants, which limited statistical power. "But when you combine the data in a meta-analysis, we have more than 500 patients and there is definitely an effect," she says. In general, the reported benefits lasted three to six months. Their findings are published today in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Psychedelics were promoted by psychiatrists in the 1950s as having a range of medical uses -- to treat conditions such as schizophrenia, for example -- before political pressures in the United States and elsewhere largely ended the work. "Alcoholism was considered one of the most promising clinical applications for LSD," says Johansen. Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson is said to have espoused the benefits of LSD in the book Pass It On: The Story of Bill Wilson and How the AA Message Reached the World.
In the last decade or so, however, a new generation of researchers have been interested in harnessing the therapeutic benefits of illicit drugs -- such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or ecstasy) for post-traumatic stress disorder, ayahuasca for drug and alcohol dependency, and psilocybin, the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms, for smoking cessation.
How psychedelics exert such effects, especially after a single dose, remains unclear. LSD and its chemical cousins share structural similarities with the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is linked to many aspects of mood, memory and pleasure. These psychedelics also bind the same receptor sites in the brain as serotonin, but there the similarity may end -- studies have shown that the hallucinogens elicit chemical cascades different from other compounds that bind at the same receptor. To complicate matters further, LSD also acts at other receptors.
For the moment, studying human behavioural responses rather than brain chemistry may be more helpful in understanding how the drugs work. Robin Carhart-Harris, a psychopharmacologist at Imperial College London who has researched how psilocybin could treat depression, says that psychedelics must work at both biological and psychological levels. "Psychedelics probably work in addiction by making the brain function more chaotically for a period -- a bit like shaking up a snow globe -- weakening reinforced brain connections and dynamics," he says.
Roland Griffiths, a behavioural biologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, is investigating the influence of psilocybin on smoking cessation, and says that psychedelics sometimes give rise to distinctive, insightful experiences that can produce enduring positive changes in attitude, mood and behaviour.
"This is impressive and important work," says Matthew Johnson, a psychiatrist also at Johns Hopkins University who is now running a small trial looking at the effectiveness of psilocybin to treat nicotine addiction. "Although this meta-analysis does not replace the need to test the approach in new, well-designed and rigorous clinical trials, it puts some more muscle behind the interpretation that the older literature shows hints that psychedelic therapy might really help addiction."
However, Ken Checinski, a consultant addiction psychiatrist and independent researcher based in London, says that although the results are exciting, no pharmacological treatment should be seen as a magic bullet and that modern therapeutic techniques have improved. "The included LSD trials pre-date the use of psychological techniques such as motivational interviewing and cognitive behaviour therapy," he says.
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How ibogaine reverses alcohol addiction
By Biotech Daily
Researchers using rodent models have found that the controversial drug ibogaine reverses alcohol addiction by increasing the level of the protein GDNF (glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor) in the ventral tegmental area of the brain.
Ibogaine, which is extracted from a West African shrub, has been shown to reverse addiction to alcohol and some drugs, but potentially serious side effects have prevented its widespread acceptance.
In a paper published in The Journal of Neuroscience, investigators at UCSF showed that ibogaine acted specifically on the ventral tegmental area of the brain. After injecting the drug into the brains of rats, the investigators found that loss of craving for alcohol was accompanied by an increase in the level of GDNF expressed by cells in the ventral tegmental area. Treating the animals with specific antibodies to prevent GDNF expression reversed the anti-addictive action of ibogaine, and direct injection of GDNF prevented addiction in the same manner as injection of ibogaine.
"By identifying the brain protein that ibogaine regulates to reduce alcohol consumption in rats, we have established a link between GDNF and reversal of addiction--knowledge of a molecular mechanism that should allow development of a new class of drugs to treat addiction without ibogaine's side effects,” said senior author Dr. Dorit Ron, associate professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. "If we can alter the GDNF pathway, we may well have a new treatment against alcohol and drug addiction without the unwanted side effects of ibogaine.”
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Depression, Alcoholism and Ayahuasca
By Erica Baran Fasano
The day of my ayahuasca ceremony finally arrived. I’d never been so excited to get there, get started, and get it over with. The two months leading up to this day had been like the 12 days of Christmas. I was dying to open up my beautifully wrapped presents under the tree. Except, this was a different type of unwrapping altogether. As my friends and I arrived to the ceremonial space, we were greeted by other participants sitting on their beds on the floor alongside their buckets facing the shaman’s alter. My friends and I turned towards each other as I said, “What the hell did I get us into?” But, there was no turning back now. It was go time. We set up our beds and buckets at our assigned seats. The ceremony started promptly at 5pm.
The shaman sat down, welcomed the newcomers as there had been a ceremony the evening prior. He briefly explained how he was going to dose and serve the Ayahuasca over the course of the ceremony. We are asked to state our intentions before our first serving of the medicine. Then, we begin. I sat in between by friends as we prepare to to take our doses. I’ve never been so terrified. Little did I realize that this night was about to change the rest of my life forever. After everyone received their serving, we now wait for the medicine to take effect. The shaman begins chanting and singing Icaros. These are songs sung in Spanish to the spirits of plants to help them start taking effect.
About 30-40 minutes into the ceremony, I feel the presence of the Mother inside of every cell of my body. She has come to sit with me. I felt her gently coursing through my veins, my stomach, and my mind. I felt an ultimate surrender and laid down on my bed. Then, I felt the most intense wave of nausea hit me and began to purge into my bucket. It felt amazing to throw up and I continued to do so for about an hour. I felt all of my fears, insecurities, traumas, depression, doubts, anxieties, and addictions being flung out of my body mercilessly into the bottom my bucket. I felt freedom from it all! I looked at all of the demons in my bucket and said goodbye forever. After my hour of purging came to end, I began to sob uncontrollably for another hour. I had been filled with intense gratitude, compassion and love. I felt myself as a child being held in my mothers arms rocking me back and forth hearing the words, “It’s ok. I’m with you and I’m not leaving your side. You take as much time as you need to cry. You need this.”
The Mother was consoling me as I was being shown my life in chronological order, it’s geneaology, down to the roots of each generation. I was shown the pain and it’s origins in my family tree and kept saying “Thank you” repeatedly. I felt like I was wrapped in a blanket of unconditional love, so safe, so grateful. I clung to my blanket and pillow like they were my only possessions and felt immense gratitude for having them to hold. I felt myself going from repeatedly saying thank you to “I’m sorry”. I felt all the pain inside of myself, my family, my past choices and the pain they caused others, and the pain that my family carries unknowingly. I felt one with it all. I was seeing it through compassionate, loving, and truthful eyes for the first time in my life.
I finally understood the root cause of it all. I suddenly felt touched by a blissful feeling I had never experienced but always knew existed. I tuned back into the beautiful Icaros permeating the room, connecting me deeper to my Mother. I sat up and began to rock back and forth in delight. The sun was setting and the fire was radiating a glowing warmth throughout the room. I felt in love. I felt loved. I felt safe. I felt free. I felt so grateful. I felt forgiven. I felt whole again. For the next several hours of the ceremony, I was in conversation with the Mother. It was like a Q & A session, hearing her give me answers to questions I’ve been seeking out for what felt like an eternity. It was like I was being rewarded for all the hard work and preparation leading up to this moment. I continued to unwrap my gifts one at a time slowly, savoring each second. I was so in each moment that it was almost impossible to think of anything else. She wouldn’t allow for it. She had my commanded my undivided attention in such a seductive way, like a snake slithering rhythmically through the jungle that resides inside my body.
I felt her presence starting to fade slowly, not wanting to part with her yet. I could’ve stayed there with her forever. Before she slipped away for the evening, I heard her say to me, “We are just getting started. I’ll be here when you are ready to come back. We have more to do.” I felt like I was just made love to and couldn’t wait for it to happen again. It was the most amazing and most profound experience of my life. It was difficult to sleep that night as I was overloaded on processing all the new information I had just been gifted. I went outside and looked up at the stars in the night sky and cried. I felt overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment. That I had just done something so important and life changing. My life was forever changed this night. I looked up, understanding everything, but not sure how to use this new set of vocabulary and context. I knew I had my work cut out for me in the life that was waiting for me back home.
The next 3 months ahead of me, post-ceremony, packed a brutal punch. It was the transition and integration that proved to be the toughest part of it all. The ceremony seemed like a walk in the park in hindsight. I found that the plant medicine was continuing its work within the real world. I had some hard times, profound shifts, hard conversations, and found myself retreating inward to make sense of what I just did to my life. I turned it completely upside down, inside out, sideways and every which way. I felt alive again. I felt in love again with myself and my life. My consciousness was completely shifted. I was able to see all the same things with a new set of eyes, perspective and a whole new vocabulary to describe them. My depression was non-existent. I had developed a physical aversion to alcohol anytime I saw it. Remembering the part of the ceremony where the Mother showed why I do not need alcohol anymore. She explained that I used it as a coping method as well as self-medication for a very long time. I no longer needed that as I’m entering a new frontier of my life that doesn’t have room for that.
It’s been 13 months since to took my last drink as well as being off anti-depressants. And, I’ve lost over 30 pounds. Talk about a snake shedding it’s old skin! My love affair with alcohol, deep in the throes of depression, seems like a lifetime ago. I’ve been given a true gift of living a life in transformation. I have absolutely no cravings for alcohol. My creativity is off the charts. I’ve been gifted with a profound and prolific time of creativity in my life. It’s bubbling over with a new joy, meaning, and application. I’ve found a new love for my life, my art, my music, my wife, my family, and my friends. I’m in love again for the first time as I found a new relationship in my life. This new relationship has removed the veil that was once shrouded with guilt, unworthiness, self- loathing, suffering and death. I have a new life filled with unconditional love, endless support, prolific creativity, deeper meaning and purpose in my relationships and a new found self-love and a relentless self-worth. I am truly grateful for having been given another chance at my life. I’m beyond humbled to share my story with others in that it may reach those who are in need of a new perspective on how to live again. You are not limited to your diagnosis. You can see it as a life sentence as I once did. Or, you can see it as a shiny new gift placed at the center of your heart, awaiting it’s opening.
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Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for alcoholism
Ketamine is a prescription drug used for general anesthesia. In subanesthetic doses, it induces profound psychedelic experiences and hallucinations. The subanesthetic effect of ketamine was the hypothesized therapeutic mechanism in the authors' use of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for alcoholism. The results of a controlled clinical trial demonstrated a considerable increase in efficacy of the authors' standard alcoholism treatment when supplemented by ketamine psychedelic therapy (KPT). Total abstinence for more than one year was observed in 65.8 percent of alcoholic patients in the KPT group, as compared to 24 percent of the conventional treatment control group (p<0.01). The authors' studies of the underlying psychological mechanisms of KPT have indicated that ketamine-assisted psychedelic therapy of alcoholic patients induces a harmonization of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) personality profile, positive transformation of nonverbalized (mostly unconscious) self-concept and emotional attitudes to various aspects of self and other people, positive changes in life values and purposes. important insights into the meaning of life and anincrease in the level of spiritual development. Most importantly, these psychological changes were shown to favor a sober lifestyle. The data from biochemical investigations showed that the phannacological action of KPT affects both monoaminergic and opioidergic neurotransmitter metabolism, i.e., those neurochemical systems which are involved in the pathogenesis of alcohol dependence. The data from EEG computer-assisted analysis demonstrated that ketamine increases theta activity in cerebrocortical regions of alcoholic patients. This is evidence of the reinforcement of limbic cortex interaction during the KPT session.
-Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
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Ketamine for the treatment of alcoholism
Evgeny Krupitsky, MD, PhD, chief of the research laboratory at St. Petersburg Regional Center of Addictions and Psychopharmacology, has been researching the treatment of alcoholism and addiction with ketamine since the 1980s and hopes to extend his research to encompass post-traumatic stress disorder in the near future. In 1985, he developed ketamine psychedelic therapy - which was initially merely a method for increasing suggestibility and enhancing aversive treatment for alcoholism - publishing his first report on the method in 1992.
He found that ketamine induced total abstinence in 66 percent of his alcoholic patients (versus 24 percent of the non-psychedelic control group) for as long as a year. He observed improvement in personality profile, positive transformation of self-concept and emotional attitudes to various aspects of self, positive changes in life values, and improved spiritual development in the ketamine group. What is the contribution of the psychedelic experience to this improvement? Krupitsky posited nine factors:
1. Stable, positive psychological changes.
2. Personality growth and self-cognition.
3. Important insights into existential problems and the meaning of life.
4. Transformation of one’s “life value system.”
5. A change of view of one’s self and the world around.
6. Insight into life and death.
7. A rise of creative energies.
8. Broadening of spiritual horizons.
9. Harmonization of a person’s relationships with the world and with other people.
In 1991, another Soviet psychiatrist, Igor Kungurtsev MD, who initially worked with Krupitsky and later immigrated to the United States, published a summary of his own experiences treating alcoholism with ketamine.
Although, like Krupitsky, he initially felt that ketamine simply made alcohol aversive in a purely behavioral way, he radically changed his approach following a series of ketamine self-administrations and instead It is gratifying to see that NIMH is following MAPS’ lead in supporting the treatment of psychiatric disorders with psychedelic drugs adopted a transpersonal model for therapy in order to better utilize the profound mystical experiences induced by ketamine. He found that successful treatment of alcoholism with ketamine was correlated with a changed spiritual outlook.
-ABSC
Alcoholism as a biochemical disease
In the early 1950s, clinical researchers exploring the therapeutic value of the psychedelic drug d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) achieved intriguing results with subjects suffering from alcoholism. Spiritual or transcendental experiences produced by LSD were a powerful adjunct to rehabilitative psychotherapy for alcoholics. They provided a profound and chemically-induced awakening or enlightenment that often led to sobriety. This article investigates LSD as a treatment for alcoholism. The increased focus on drug therapies brought changes in treatment options and ushered in new theoretical explanations for the causation of alcohol abuse as a disease.
The psychiatrist Humphry Osmond was one of the key figures in the development of LSD treatments for alcoholism. Osmond was a Senior Registrar at the psychiatric unit at St George’s Hospital in London, England in 1950, where he worked closely with his colleague John Smythies and cultivated a keen interest in chemically induced reactions in the human body. Smythies and Osmond examined the properties of mescaline, the active agent in the peyote cactus. Nearly 2 years of research led them to conclude that mescaline produced reactions in volunteers that resembled the symptoms of schizophrenia, including hallucinations, delusions, disorganised thoughts and behaviour.
Further work suggested that mescaline’s chemical structure was remarkably similar to adrenaline. These findings led to the theory that schizophrenia resulted from a biochemical ‘imbalance’ in the sufferer. These findings led to the theory that schizophrenia resulted from a biochemical ‘imbalance’ in the sufferer. This tantalizing hypothesis captivated Osmond’s interest for the next 2 decades and inspired him to embark on a variety of experiments.
Osmond and Smythies’ colleagues at St George’s Hospital were not particularly interested in their biochemical research, but Osmond was intent on continuing the work. After responding to an advertisement for a deputy director of psychiatry at a Canadian Mental Hospital in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, he and his family moved to Canada in October 1951. In the prairie province of Saskatchewan he established a biochemical research programme. Within a year, Osmond met Abram Hoffer. Hoffer had graduated from the provincial university in Saskatoon with a Bachelor of Sciences degree in agricultural chemistry. He later graduated with a Ph.D. in agriculture before beginning a medical degree the following year. In medical school, Hoffer developed a particular interest in psychiatry. On 1 July 1950, the Saskatchewan Department of Public Health hired the recently graduated Hoffer to establish a provincial research programme in psychiatry.
Hoffer and Osmond soon joined forces and began collaborating on their mutual research interests in biochemical experimentation. Osmond’s curiosity about mescaline soon introduced him to d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), which, he discovered, produced similar reactions to those observed with mescaline. However, LSD was a much more powerful drug. As in the case of mescaline, early trials with LSD, too, seemed to substantiate their theory that mental illness had biochemical roots.
During their initial LSD experiments, Hoffer and Osmond hypothesised that the drug might possess therapeutic benefits. In 1953 they began introducing the drug to a new set of subjects: diagnosed alcoholics. They wanted to test its curative effects on individuals for whom temperance reformers advocated the development of more will power and self-actualisation. Perhaps, they reasoned, the LSD reaction would cultivate precisely that kind of strength and insight. Early trials with LSD seemed to substantiate their theory that mental illness had biochemical roots. Osmond reasoned that it would not be difficult to convince lay people that excessive drinking or alcoholism, as a disease, constituted a meaningful concept.
In Saskatchewan in the 1950s, LSD played a prominent role in reconstructing alcoholism as a disease. The growing public perception of drunkenness as a physiological condition reinforced the need for medical attention and, moreover, redefined problem drinking behaviour as something that could be cured.
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Ayahuasca, a cure for alcoholism
By Pablo Noguiera
Jorge* is around 60 years old, works a white collar job, has gray hair, married children, and grown grandchildren. People who work with him would never imagine that he participates in religious rituals using a mind altering tea. Yet thanks to ayahuasca, Jorge renounced his alcoholism - a big change for someone who, when he was younger, would buy a few cases of whiskey at once. "I opened the boxes and started emptying the bottles in the kitchen sink. My wife was shocked," he told me.
He's not the only alcoholic to renounce booze after an experience with ayahuasca. In 2010, after a decade of failed treatments, Robert Rhatigan took a trip to the Peruvian Amazon, where he participated in 4 rituals conducted by a shaman. During a speech at a TEDx event, he recounted how he "saw several components from his mind floating in space, as if they were pieces of a puzzle" while under the effects of ayahuasca. The experience lasted two hours and by the end of the ceremony, he "saw" the pieces returning to his head. The one that corresponded to his alcohol addiction no longer fit in. There he knew that he was cured. "My transformation is something far from understood in Western medicine," he says.
There are some hospitals, universities, and research institutes around the world that are experimenting with powerful psychoactive substances, such as psilocybin, ibogaine and even LSD are being analyzed in hospitals and research institutes all around the world.
"Regarding ayahuasca studies, Brazil is at the forefront of research," said Luis Fernando Tófoli, professor of the medical psychology and psychiatry department of Unicamp and coordinator of the Laboratory of Interdisciplinary Studies of psychoactive drugs, in Portuguese.
This year, a study conducted by Brazilian researchers was published in Nature. The piece examined the effects of the drink on two men and four women who showed symptoms of depression, ranging from moderate to severe. The participants consumed ayahuasca only once in doses that ranged between 120ml to 200ml prepared by a church of Santo Daime. They then had their mental health monitored through three questionnaires repeated eight times, the first one 40 minutes after intake and the last one three weeks later.
The results showed that there were improvements shown by every participant, disregarding the levels of depression they displayed. According to one of the surveys, one day after the experiment, there had been a reduction of 62 percent in symptoms. One week later, the efficacy kept going up, getting up to 72 percent. According to another survey, depression symptoms such as sadness, difficulty concentrating, suicidal and negative thoughts, had been reduced by 82 percent. Side effects were not detected, although half of the subjects had vomited under influence of the tea.
The results impressed the researchers. "We observed antidepressant effects the first hours after administering ayahuasca, and they remained significant for two to three weeks," Flávia de Lima Osório and Rafael Guimarães dos Santos, two of the authors, said in an email in Portuguese. She's a lecturer in the department of neurosciences and behavioral sciences of the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) Medical School in Ribeirão Preto and he is a postdoctoral researcher in the same department. "Besides, ayahuasca was tolerated quite well by the patients. The majority described the experience as positive, even if there was vomiting and nausea."
The results are good news for those needing quick-acting treatments. "Antidepressants that are currently available take weeks to produce therapeutic effects, in addition to having significant side effects, such as sexual dysfunction and weight gain," Flávia wrote. "Many patients don't get an effective therapeutic response. New pharmaceuticals, that act faster and more efficiently with less side effects, are necessary."
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Beneficial effect of LSD on alcoholism
By Nick Collins
In the 60s and 70s several clinics ran trials to determine whether lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, could help alcoholics overcome their dependence with varying degrees of success. The supervisors of one trial noted: "It was rather common for patients to claim significant insights into their problems, and to feel that they had been given a new lease on life, and to make a strong resolution to discontinue their drinking."
None of the experiments featured enough patients to draw any firm conclusions, but now a reanalysis of all the data taken together, totalling 536 patients, suggests the treatment could have potential after all. The new study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology found that LSD had a positive effect on alcohol misuse in each of the trials, with 59 per cent of patients who took the drug having improved at follow-up, compared with 38 per cent who took a placebo. A single dose of LSD produces benefits which last between six and 12 months, and repeated doses along with modern treatments could ensure longer term results, the researchers said.
The drug, which causes hallucinations that make users experience the world in a distorted way, is not physically addictive but some experte believe users can become dependant on its effects, for example from a need to distance themselves from reality.
Pål-Ørjan Johansen, Norwegian researcher and fellow of Harvard Medical School, who led the research, said: "Given the evidence for a beneficial effect of LSD on alcoholism, it is puzzling why this treatment approach has been largely overlooked."
Dr David Nutt, former advisor on drugs to the government, said: "I think this study is very interesting and it is a shame the last of these studies were done in the 1960s. I think these drugs might help people switch out of a mindset which is locked into addiction or depression and be a way of helping the brain switch back to where it should be, in a similar way that Alcoholics Anonymous programs do."
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PSILOCYBIN: A radical new approach to beating alcohol addiction
By Jennifer Bleyer
Jason didn't fit the stereotype of an alcoholic. A 39-year-old marketing executive with a master's degree, he never blacked out or erupted in a stormy rage. His family's home in Albuquerque wasn't strewn with empty liquor bottles. He had never crashed his car. Yet Jason had been drawn to alcohol ever since his first sip of beer at age 8, and it was typical for him to have half a dozen drinks after work. He was crushed but not entirely shocked on the spring afternoon in 2015 when his wife announced that she couldn't tolerate his inebriation anymore, packed up their kids, and moved out.
The next day Jason saw a notice in the alternative weekly newspaper: "Concerned about your drinking? Interested in alternatives to the treatments that are currently available?" The ad announced that University of New Mexico researchers were seeking participants for a new trial involving an experimental medication that might help curb alcohol abuse. Jason dialed the phone number on the ad and was surprised to learn that the experimental medicine was psilocybin*.
Jason was accepted into the second trial, which included 12 weeks of psychotherapy. After four weeks of psychotherapy, he arrived in a clinical room that had been appointed with art, homey furniture, and soft lighting and was given a pill of synthetic psilocybin. He lay down on a couch and donned eyeshades and headphones that piped in a programmed selection of music. Sitting nearby throughout the session were male and female co-therapists, who did little more than direct Jason to focus his attention internally and go where his mind took him. Within minutes, he burst into tears.
"I wept for almost six hours. It was a really heavy purging, as if I had just needed an excuse to stop the world and take this emotional ride." He saw that his alcoholism was a major stressor in his family's life and gazed with unalloyed clarity at his own lack of commitment to the most important thing in his life—his marriage and kids. "I believed that I had screwed up in every way," he says. "There was so much internal guilt bottled up." After several hours, the emotional tempest settled, and Jason was left with an incandescent feeling of love for his family, and forgiveness of himself.
Four weeks later, he arrived for the second psilocybin session, which he described afterward in a journal. "The initial fall was swift and intense," he wrote. "I wanted to immerse myself in the sounds from every corner and crevice of the room. Fully aware that I had no control over any circumstance or train of thought, I simply took the ride. There came a point where I realized I could in fact navigate."
With a greater sense of control this time, he focused his attention again on his life and aspects of himself that felt broken. He saw himself and his wife far in the future, happy and profoundly connected, and envisioned his stepdaughter and the couple's then 4-year-old daughter both as strong women that he and his wife had lovingly guided into adulthood. Jason's attention barely drifted toward his relationship with alcohol. It was all about his relationship to himself and his loved ones.
Even though there was little explicit content about drinking in his two psilocybin sessions, Jason was effortlessly abstinent after their completion. He eventually drank again, but moderately, with a conscientiousness he'd never experienced with alcohol before.
Two years after completing the UNM study, Jason's drinking remains limited and under control. He may have a couple beers or glasses of wine after work, but, he says, "I'm not using it to medicate myself anymore. I've come to see drinking as an individual decision—one I can decide against."
His wife took him back and moved home with their kids. They entered marriage counseling, and Jason credits the "inner peace" he found in the sessions as one of the most important factors in his success. The couple strengthened their communication and renewed their bond. Their family life now feels harmonious and connected. And although the psilocybin trial seldom crosses his mind, the insights it catalyzed reverberate in his life daily.
"I think alcohol was a way for me to disassociate from the here and now," he says. "The sessions taught me to hit the 'Pause' button and take time for things that actually matter. I learned the importance of really being present."
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Forever grateful
By Daniel Wilby
My first LSD trip pretty much cured my alcoholism. The second and third put me well on my way to working through my four year-long depression. I was utterly astounded by the miraculous effects, so of course I had to google it.
A few clicks and I had, among other things, learned that:
* LSD had, before being criminalized, been used with fantastic results to cure addiction problems, such as alcoholism, where it often took only one trip to cure the person.
* One of the founders of AA was a strong advocate of LSD and was actually well on his way to start a program to distribute it throughout AA.
* LSD had a far greater success rate in curing alcoholism, than the AA 12 step program has ever had.
* LSD has also been used with great success to cure depression.
* Albert Hofmann’s 100th birthday was right around the corner and he was alive and kicking.
* In his honour there was a LSD conference being arranged in Basel, Switzerland, and everyone who was somebody in the psychedelic community would be there, along with the guest of honour, Albert Hofmann himself.
I had to go.
I was flat broke, but there are moments in life that are just too important to miss. This was one of them. I was probably the most inexperienced of the whole crowd, having taken LSD four or five times by then. The lectures were absolutely amazing and confirmed scientifically the effects and experiences that I was trying to describe to friends and family.
On the final night, after listening to Albert Hofmann tell about his first experience, there was a wonderful party on a boat. It was full of psychedelic explorers, psychonauts of all generations. There were academics and hippies mixed up with ravers and artists. And of course the best LSD I have ever encountered.
I had never been to a rave before. My first encounter was on two drops of LSD and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Everyone on the dance floor was dancing in the same direction and they were rediscovering and reinventing what dance, body language and social interaction was. It was as if they had taken out social programming A, and were busy programming social programming B. People were friendly and caring, not at all the type of interaction that I was used to from night clubs.
Today is the 19th of April. It is Bicycle day. Today it is 71 years ago (1943) that Albert Hofmann first took his first intentional LSD trip to try to determine the effects of the peculiar substance that he had synthesized, while looking for a migraine cure. He took 250 micrograms, which he thought would be a threshold dose. It turned out that LSD was really potent. A threshold dose is approximately 20 micrograms. 250 micrograms is a powerful trip and feeling uneasy Hofmann early on decided to go home. Due to war time restrictions he took his bike and it was under that
bike trip that the LSD really came to full effect.
Thank you, Albert Hofmann, for this truly miraculous substance. And thank you, LSD, for saving my life. In honor of you, I have named my son Albert. I am forever grateful.
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LSD as a treatment for alcoholism
By Arran Frood
The powerful hallucinogen LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) has potential as a treatment for alcoholism, according to a retrospective analysis of studies published in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The study, by neuroscientist Teri Krebs and clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, is the first-ever quantitative meta-analysis of LSD-alcoholism clinical trials. The researchers sifted through thousands of records to collect data from randomized, double-blind trials that compared one dose of LSD to a placebo.
Of 536 participants in six trials, 59% of people receiving LSD reported lower levels of alcohol misuse, compared to 38% of people who received a placebo. "We were surprised that the effect was so clear and consistent," says Krebs. She says that the problem with most studies done at that time was that there were too few participants, which limited statistical power. "But when you combine the data in a meta-analysis, we have more than 500 patients and there is definitely an effect," she says. In general, the reported benefits lasted three to six months. Their findings are published today in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Psychedelics were promoted by psychiatrists in the 1950s as having a range of medical uses -- to treat conditions such as schizophrenia, for example -- before political pressures in the United States and elsewhere largely ended the work. "Alcoholism was considered one of the most promising clinical applications for LSD," says Johansen. Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson is said to have espoused the benefits of LSD in the book Pass It On: The Story of Bill Wilson and How the AA Message Reached the World.
In the last decade or so, however, a new generation of researchers have been interested in harnessing the therapeutic benefits of illicit drugs -- such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or ecstasy) for post-traumatic stress disorder, ayahuasca for drug and alcohol dependency, and psilocybin, the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms, for smoking cessation.
How psychedelics exert such effects, especially after a single dose, remains unclear. LSD and its chemical cousins share structural similarities with the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is linked to many aspects of mood, memory and pleasure. These psychedelics also bind the same receptor sites in the brain as serotonin, but there the similarity may end -- studies have shown that the hallucinogens elicit chemical cascades different from other compounds that bind at the same receptor. To complicate matters further, LSD also acts at other receptors.
For the moment, studying human behavioural responses rather than brain chemistry may be more helpful in understanding how the drugs work. Robin Carhart-Harris, a psychopharmacologist at Imperial College London who has researched how psilocybin could treat depression, says that psychedelics must work at both biological and psychological levels. "Psychedelics probably work in addiction by making the brain function more chaotically for a period -- a bit like shaking up a snow globe -- weakening reinforced brain connections and dynamics," he says.
Roland Griffiths, a behavioural biologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, is investigating the influence of psilocybin on smoking cessation, and says that psychedelics sometimes give rise to distinctive, insightful experiences that can produce enduring positive changes in attitude, mood and behaviour.
"This is impressive and important work," says Matthew Johnson, a psychiatrist also at Johns Hopkins University who is now running a small trial looking at the effectiveness of psilocybin to treat nicotine addiction. "Although this meta-analysis does not replace the need to test the approach in new, well-designed and rigorous clinical trials, it puts some more muscle behind the interpretation that the older literature shows hints that psychedelic therapy might really help addiction."
However, Ken Checinski, a consultant addiction psychiatrist and independent researcher based in London, says that although the results are exciting, no pharmacological treatment should be seen as a magic bullet and that modern therapeutic techniques have improved. "The included LSD trials pre-date the use of psychological techniques such as motivational interviewing and cognitive behaviour therapy," he says.
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How ibogaine reverses alcohol addiction
By Biotech Daily
Researchers using rodent models have found that the controversial drug ibogaine reverses alcohol addiction by increasing the level of the protein GDNF (glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor) in the ventral tegmental area of the brain.
Ibogaine, which is extracted from a West African shrub, has been shown to reverse addiction to alcohol and some drugs, but potentially serious side effects have prevented its widespread acceptance.
In a paper published in The Journal of Neuroscience, investigators at UCSF showed that ibogaine acted specifically on the ventral tegmental area of the brain. After injecting the drug into the brains of rats, the investigators found that loss of craving for alcohol was accompanied by an increase in the level of GDNF expressed by cells in the ventral tegmental area. Treating the animals with specific antibodies to prevent GDNF expression reversed the anti-addictive action of ibogaine, and direct injection of GDNF prevented addiction in the same manner as injection of ibogaine.
"By identifying the brain protein that ibogaine regulates to reduce alcohol consumption in rats, we have established a link between GDNF and reversal of addiction--knowledge of a molecular mechanism that should allow development of a new class of drugs to treat addiction without ibogaine's side effects,” said senior author Dr. Dorit Ron, associate professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. "If we can alter the GDNF pathway, we may well have a new treatment against alcohol and drug addiction without the unwanted side effects of ibogaine.”
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Depression, Alcoholism and Ayahuasca
By Erica Baran Fasano
The day of my ayahuasca ceremony finally arrived. I’d never been so excited to get there, get started, and get it over with. The two months leading up to this day had been like the 12 days of Christmas. I was dying to open up my beautifully wrapped presents under the tree. Except, this was a different type of unwrapping altogether. As my friends and I arrived to the ceremonial space, we were greeted by other participants sitting on their beds on the floor alongside their buckets facing the shaman’s alter. My friends and I turned towards each other as I said, “What the hell did I get us into?” But, there was no turning back now. It was go time. We set up our beds and buckets at our assigned seats. The ceremony started promptly at 5pm.
The shaman sat down, welcomed the newcomers as there had been a ceremony the evening prior. He briefly explained how he was going to dose and serve the Ayahuasca over the course of the ceremony. We are asked to state our intentions before our first serving of the medicine. Then, we begin. I sat in between by friends as we prepare to to take our doses. I’ve never been so terrified. Little did I realize that this night was about to change the rest of my life forever. After everyone received their serving, we now wait for the medicine to take effect. The shaman begins chanting and singing Icaros. These are songs sung in Spanish to the spirits of plants to help them start taking effect.
About 30-40 minutes into the ceremony, I feel the presence of the Mother inside of every cell of my body. She has come to sit with me. I felt her gently coursing through my veins, my stomach, and my mind. I felt an ultimate surrender and laid down on my bed. Then, I felt the most intense wave of nausea hit me and began to purge into my bucket. It felt amazing to throw up and I continued to do so for about an hour. I felt all of my fears, insecurities, traumas, depression, doubts, anxieties, and addictions being flung out of my body mercilessly into the bottom my bucket. I felt freedom from it all! I looked at all of the demons in my bucket and said goodbye forever. After my hour of purging came to end, I began to sob uncontrollably for another hour. I had been filled with intense gratitude, compassion and love. I felt myself as a child being held in my mothers arms rocking me back and forth hearing the words, “It’s ok. I’m with you and I’m not leaving your side. You take as much time as you need to cry. You need this.”
The Mother was consoling me as I was being shown my life in chronological order, it’s geneaology, down to the roots of each generation. I was shown the pain and it’s origins in my family tree and kept saying “Thank you” repeatedly. I felt like I was wrapped in a blanket of unconditional love, so safe, so grateful. I clung to my blanket and pillow like they were my only possessions and felt immense gratitude for having them to hold. I felt myself going from repeatedly saying thank you to “I’m sorry”. I felt all the pain inside of myself, my family, my past choices and the pain they caused others, and the pain that my family carries unknowingly. I felt one with it all. I was seeing it through compassionate, loving, and truthful eyes for the first time in my life.
I finally understood the root cause of it all. I suddenly felt touched by a blissful feeling I had never experienced but always knew existed. I tuned back into the beautiful Icaros permeating the room, connecting me deeper to my Mother. I sat up and began to rock back and forth in delight. The sun was setting and the fire was radiating a glowing warmth throughout the room. I felt in love. I felt loved. I felt safe. I felt free. I felt so grateful. I felt forgiven. I felt whole again. For the next several hours of the ceremony, I was in conversation with the Mother. It was like a Q & A session, hearing her give me answers to questions I’ve been seeking out for what felt like an eternity. It was like I was being rewarded for all the hard work and preparation leading up to this moment. I continued to unwrap my gifts one at a time slowly, savoring each second. I was so in each moment that it was almost impossible to think of anything else. She wouldn’t allow for it. She had my commanded my undivided attention in such a seductive way, like a snake slithering rhythmically through the jungle that resides inside my body.
I felt her presence starting to fade slowly, not wanting to part with her yet. I could’ve stayed there with her forever. Before she slipped away for the evening, I heard her say to me, “We are just getting started. I’ll be here when you are ready to come back. We have more to do.” I felt like I was just made love to and couldn’t wait for it to happen again. It was the most amazing and most profound experience of my life. It was difficult to sleep that night as I was overloaded on processing all the new information I had just been gifted. I went outside and looked up at the stars in the night sky and cried. I felt overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment. That I had just done something so important and life changing. My life was forever changed this night. I looked up, understanding everything, but not sure how to use this new set of vocabulary and context. I knew I had my work cut out for me in the life that was waiting for me back home.
The next 3 months ahead of me, post-ceremony, packed a brutal punch. It was the transition and integration that proved to be the toughest part of it all. The ceremony seemed like a walk in the park in hindsight. I found that the plant medicine was continuing its work within the real world. I had some hard times, profound shifts, hard conversations, and found myself retreating inward to make sense of what I just did to my life. I turned it completely upside down, inside out, sideways and every which way. I felt alive again. I felt in love again with myself and my life. My consciousness was completely shifted. I was able to see all the same things with a new set of eyes, perspective and a whole new vocabulary to describe them. My depression was non-existent. I had developed a physical aversion to alcohol anytime I saw it. Remembering the part of the ceremony where the Mother showed why I do not need alcohol anymore. She explained that I used it as a coping method as well as self-medication for a very long time. I no longer needed that as I’m entering a new frontier of my life that doesn’t have room for that.
It’s been 13 months since to took my last drink as well as being off anti-depressants. And, I’ve lost over 30 pounds. Talk about a snake shedding it’s old skin! My love affair with alcohol, deep in the throes of depression, seems like a lifetime ago. I’ve been given a true gift of living a life in transformation. I have absolutely no cravings for alcohol. My creativity is off the charts. I’ve been gifted with a profound and prolific time of creativity in my life. It’s bubbling over with a new joy, meaning, and application. I’ve found a new love for my life, my art, my music, my wife, my family, and my friends. I’m in love again for the first time as I found a new relationship in my life. This new relationship has removed the veil that was once shrouded with guilt, unworthiness, self- loathing, suffering and death. I have a new life filled with unconditional love, endless support, prolific creativity, deeper meaning and purpose in my relationships and a new found self-love and a relentless self-worth. I am truly grateful for having been given another chance at my life. I’m beyond humbled to share my story with others in that it may reach those who are in need of a new perspective on how to live again. You are not limited to your diagnosis. You can see it as a life sentence as I once did. Or, you can see it as a shiny new gift placed at the center of your heart, awaiting it’s opening.
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Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for alcoholism
Ketamine is a prescription drug used for general anesthesia. In subanesthetic doses, it induces profound psychedelic experiences and hallucinations. The subanesthetic effect of ketamine was the hypothesized therapeutic mechanism in the authors' use of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for alcoholism. The results of a controlled clinical trial demonstrated a considerable increase in efficacy of the authors' standard alcoholism treatment when supplemented by ketamine psychedelic therapy (KPT). Total abstinence for more than one year was observed in 65.8 percent of alcoholic patients in the KPT group, as compared to 24 percent of the conventional treatment control group (p<0.01). The authors' studies of the underlying psychological mechanisms of KPT have indicated that ketamine-assisted psychedelic therapy of alcoholic patients induces a harmonization of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) personality profile, positive transformation of nonverbalized (mostly unconscious) self-concept and emotional attitudes to various aspects of self and other people, positive changes in life values and purposes. important insights into the meaning of life and anincrease in the level of spiritual development. Most importantly, these psychological changes were shown to favor a sober lifestyle. The data from biochemical investigations showed that the phannacological action of KPT affects both monoaminergic and opioidergic neurotransmitter metabolism, i.e., those neurochemical systems which are involved in the pathogenesis of alcohol dependence. The data from EEG computer-assisted analysis demonstrated that ketamine increases theta activity in cerebrocortical regions of alcoholic patients. This is evidence of the reinforcement of limbic cortex interaction during the KPT session.
-Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
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Ketamine for the treatment of alcoholism
Evgeny Krupitsky, MD, PhD, chief of the research laboratory at St. Petersburg Regional Center of Addictions and Psychopharmacology, has been researching the treatment of alcoholism and addiction with ketamine since the 1980s and hopes to extend his research to encompass post-traumatic stress disorder in the near future. In 1985, he developed ketamine psychedelic therapy - which was initially merely a method for increasing suggestibility and enhancing aversive treatment for alcoholism - publishing his first report on the method in 1992.
He found that ketamine induced total abstinence in 66 percent of his alcoholic patients (versus 24 percent of the non-psychedelic control group) for as long as a year. He observed improvement in personality profile, positive transformation of self-concept and emotional attitudes to various aspects of self, positive changes in life values, and improved spiritual development in the ketamine group. What is the contribution of the psychedelic experience to this improvement? Krupitsky posited nine factors:
1. Stable, positive psychological changes.
2. Personality growth and self-cognition.
3. Important insights into existential problems and the meaning of life.
4. Transformation of one’s “life value system.”
5. A change of view of one’s self and the world around.
6. Insight into life and death.
7. A rise of creative energies.
8. Broadening of spiritual horizons.
9. Harmonization of a person’s relationships with the world and with other people.
In 1991, another Soviet psychiatrist, Igor Kungurtsev MD, who initially worked with Krupitsky and later immigrated to the United States, published a summary of his own experiences treating alcoholism with ketamine.
Although, like Krupitsky, he initially felt that ketamine simply made alcohol aversive in a purely behavioral way, he radically changed his approach following a series of ketamine self-administrations and instead It is gratifying to see that NIMH is following MAPS’ lead in supporting the treatment of psychiatric disorders with psychedelic drugs adopted a transpersonal model for therapy in order to better utilize the profound mystical experiences induced by ketamine. He found that successful treatment of alcoholism with ketamine was correlated with a changed spiritual outlook.
-ABSC
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