Psilocybin Therapy Sharply Reduces Excessive Drinking, Small Study Shows (nytimes.com) 89
A small study on the therapeutic effects of using psychedelics to treat alcohol use disorder found that just two doses of psilocybin magic mushrooms paired with psychotherapy led to an 83 percent decline in heavy drinking among the participants. Those given a placebo reduced their alcohol intake by 51 percent. From a report: By the end of the eight-month trial, nearly half of those who received psilocybin had stopped drinking entirely compared with about a quarter of those given the placebo, according to the researchers. The study, published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry, is the latest in a cascade of new research exploring the benefits of mind-altering compounds to treat a range of mental health problems, from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder to the existential dread experienced by the terminally ill.
Although most psychedelics remain illegal under federal law, the Food and Drug Administration is weighing potential therapeutic uses for compounds like psilocybin, LSD and MDMA, the drug better known as Ecstasy. Dr. Michael Bogenschutz, director at NYU Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine and the study's lead investigator, said the findings offered hope for the nearly 15 million Americans who struggle with excessive drinking -- roughly 5 percent of all adults. Excessive alcohol use kills an estimated 140,000 people each year.
Although most psychedelics remain illegal under federal law, the Food and Drug Administration is weighing potential therapeutic uses for compounds like psilocybin, LSD and MDMA, the drug better known as Ecstasy. Dr. Michael Bogenschutz, director at NYU Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine and the study's lead investigator, said the findings offered hope for the nearly 15 million Americans who struggle with excessive drinking -- roughly 5 percent of all adults. Excessive alcohol use kills an estimated 140,000 people each year.
So does weed, really. (Score:2)
All things considered, alcohol is a crappy drug. It's better as a cleaning agent.
Re: So does weed, really. (Score:2)
Don't forget it makes an ok fuel. Not super great because its hard on engines but better than nothing.
Re: So does weed, really. (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget it makes an ok fuel. Not super great because its hard on engines but better than nothing.
Also better than the placebo. After blind trials, they had to spend a weekend cleaning caramel out of the cylinders.
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Dupe (Score:1)
Dupe
Okay, but (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't that sort of like stating that using heroin cuts way down on your marijuana intake?
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I missed the dupe. I find that really surprising. Do we really have that many drug warriors around here?
The liberals and progressives are all for sane drug policy, as are the libertarians. That just leaves the right-wingers that are not also libertarians, and not even all of those. Very odd.
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There's a certain harumphing resigned NIMBYism in vogue with libertarians now when it comes to drug policy or sexual expression, and certainly not the full throated individual freedom aspect.
Read the comments at Reason. The libertarians of yore are not the libertarians of today.
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Libertarianism is a philosophy. People can call themselves whatever they want but if they don't follow the core philosophy of XYZ (for any value of XYZ) then by definition they are not XYZ no matter how loudly they proclaim such,
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I believe that's an example of the "No True Libertarian [wikipedia.org]" fallacy....
Libertarianism represents a philosophy of favoring individual rights over collective rights, but even under libertarian philosophy, there is still a balance that must be struck between your right to swing your fist and my right to not get hit in the nose, and different people draw that line in different places even among libertarians.
For example, although it is an unpopular view among libertarians, a few fairly influential libertarians thr
Re:Okay, but (Score:4, Interesting)
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Read the comments at Reason.
That would be one of the classic blunders.
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I missed the dupe. I find that really surprising. Do we really have that many drug warriors around here?
The liberals and progressives are all for sane drug policy, as are the libertarians. That just leaves the right-wingers that are not also libertarians, and not even all of those. Very odd.
Odd, because most liberals I know think that addictive psychoactive poisons should be given freely to anyone who wants them. You actually know know some reasonable ones?
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What "psychoactive poisons" do you believe that liberals want to be given freely to anyone who wants them? How did you come to this "conclusion"?
You actually know know some reasonable ones?
The overwhelming majority of the reasonable people I know are liberals.
Re: Okay, but (Score:2)
Psilocybin has a lower addictive profile than alcohol and heroin, and is not toxic or poisonous.
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Heroin was actually created as a cost-effective way to help people cut down on their morphine intake, and it worked very well for that.
Re:Okay, but (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't that sort of like stating that using heroin cuts way down on your marijuana intake?
It is more like saying a few puffs of mj cure heroin addiction.
Alcohol is a very destructive drug. It causes thousands of deaths from impaired driving and hundreds of thousands from overconsumption, liver disease, etc. Fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading cause of congenital disabilities.
But "magic mushrooms"? There is little evidence of any harm.
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Isn't that sort of like stating that using heroin cuts way down on your marijuana intake?
It is more like saying a few puffs of mj cure heroin addiction.
Alcohol is a very destructive drug. It causes thousands of deaths from impaired driving and hundreds of thousands from overconsumption, liver disease, etc. Fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading cause of congenital disabilities.
But "magic mushrooms"? There is little evidence of any harm.
A large part of alcohol's destructiveness comes from it's wide availability and use. I can go to most countries in the world and within 10 minutes have found myself a drink. It's not just an accepted part, but in many places a celebrated part of the local culture.
Magic mushrooms aren't anywhere near as widely or as frequently used. If it were, we'd also be seeing problems from it's use.
The thing is, not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic. Most people would never drink and drive. But the fact is that
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My concern treating alcoholism replacing alcohol with another psychotropic is that you're just swapping one substance for another
My concern treating obesity by replacing binge eating donuts everyday with eating a tiramisu every 6 months is that you're just swapping one substance for another. This is how dumb that sounds.
Re: Okay, but (Score:2)
Psilocybin therapy is not a replacement therapy where one drug is substituted for another.
It is more akin to cognitive readjustment that comes as a result of neuron pathway changes that support behavioral changes.
This is why one dose of psilocybin with accompanying therapy has long lasting, possibly even permanent, positive treatment outcomes.
Follow the science. It is abundant, and coherent, even in the prevailing atmosphere of legal restriction and prohibition.
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...My concern with treating alcoholism by replacing alcohol with another psychotropic is that you're just swapping one substance for another, the underlying cause of the abuse remains. You see it all the time with medical substitutes, people swapping one form of prescription sleeping tablet or pain killer for another.
Your concerns range from invalid downright inaccurate.
Replacing a drug that is proven to be highly addictive both mentally AND physically, with a drug that is not anywhere near as addictive or even lacking in physical addiction and/or harm, is not exactly "swapping one substance for another."
Replace any opiate or alcohol with weed, and the end result is certainly not the same. There are no emergency phone calls to 911 about a "raging" pothead beating their kids half to death. There are no phone calls to 9
Not as a substitute (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't that sort of like stating that using heroin cuts way down on your marijuana intake?
Drinking pings on the dopamine circuits on the brain (and serotonin, and a bunch of related effects). The dopamine circuit is the same circuit that causes addiction to many drugs, such as heroin.
Psilocybin isn't considered addictive, nor does it cause compulsive use ("psychological addiction"), so it probably isn't acting as a substitute for drinking.
Given the descriptions of the effects of psilocybin, it's more likely that the drug encourages your brain to sort through and resolve the underlying issues that causes heavy drinking in the first place.
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Speaking as an alcoholic who tried mushrooms a few times a few decades ago, I don't see the comparison at all.
Marijuana isn't nearly as harmful as heroin and mushrooms aren't nearly as harmful as alcohol. I'm a bit skeptical of using mushrooms to keep me from drinking, but maybe they'd work for other people. And I just started seeing a therapist too. I don't think I'll bring it up when I see her next week.
My problem is not that I can't handle a couple of drinks, it's just that I can't stop after I've had a
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Not at all (Score:2)
Lots of people report much better well being after experiencing what’s known as ego death.
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Isn't that sort of like stating that using heroin cuts way down on your marijuana intake?
No. Psilocybin isn't merely non-addictive; for most people, doing psilocybin makes them not want to do more psilocybin. It feels like going on an epic journey: that was great, but I'm glad it's over. It's not a drug that helps pass the time or makes you feel good. It is an ordeal.
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Such an ordeal that during the '70s we used to eat it and go play in the park.
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That's interesting. What kind of doses were popular for that kind of casual activity?
It's micro dosing (Score:2)
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Isn't that sort of like stating that using heroin cuts way down on your marijuana intake?
Nope, because they don't keep using the shrooms, the shrooms just have the effect of making the therapy more effective.
I heard the proposed mechanism described as the following.
If your brain is a snow covered mountain then habits are the tracks worn into the snow. Whenever you ski down the mountain it takes a lot of effort not to end up following one of the tracks which is why, even with therapy, it's hard to break bad habits.
Psilocybin and LSD wipe the mountain clear of tracks, on its own this doesn't do m
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If you could take heroin twice in an 8 month period and lose interest in marijuana as a result, it might be comparable as long as the heroin was the magic sort that doesn't make you want more heroin.
TLDR: No.
Re: Okay, but (Score:2)
Heroin does not have the neuroprotective and neurogenerative benefits of psilocybin and psilocyn.
Heroin has a vastly different (higher) adiction profile than psilocybin and psilocyn, though it is still lower than alcohol on that scale.
Heroin and alcohol are both incapable of producing higher levels of signal diversity in the brain, as psilocybin and psilocyn do.
And heroin and alcohol show no positive effects on PTSD, depression, end of life distress, connecteness, environmental consciousness, and general we
Does psilocybin cut down on dupe stories? (Score:2)
stopped drinking (Score:1)
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If you don't have a drinking problem, does it cause alcoholism
That's a bit of a trick question, since prior to the 1950s, alcoholism was not defined as a "disease".
Then we.allowed greed in insurance to define it as such...as if it's something you could "infect" someone with who walks too close to a bar or liquor store.
Greed re-defined it for the exclusive purpose of getting alcohol treatment covered under insurance. It was (and still is) a bullshit definition. It's a "disease" for insurance purposes. Plain and simple.
Yeah, it's such a shame that people with a terrible "affliction" (there. I used a different but entirely applicable term just for you) are able to get the care they need, if they choose to. Typical AC comment - inflammatory BS. Nice try, troll.
I'm not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
We really ought to end this ridiculous drug war. It's really holding back research like this.
We've been hearing anecdotes for decades about the use of mushrooms to cure depression and end addiction. What little scientific research we've seen seems to support the hippies' claims of safety and efficacy. The more we learn about psychedelics, the more they start to look like something that could be really beneficial. What was the reasoning behind banning psychedelics in the first place?
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The closing of the Narcotics Farm pretty much ended serious research into addiction in the US (and to be fair, there were abuses... The Stanford Prison Experiment wouldn't pass muster today either), with much treatment today being on par with abstinence sex education (there little mention of the Sinclair method to treat alcoholism either, even though it has a better than average success rate, but the brain trust here would equate taking naltrexone as just a different addiction... sigh).
Per a Forbes article,
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Drugs also fuck you up, and that is not anecdotal. It's a fact. Many lives have been ruined because people couldn't control the effects and their addiction. We can't end the war on drugs. We can give up and let it win at the cost of millions of lives. It's basically like a pandemic, it's inconvenient, and victory only means fewer casualties. It's possible that most people can use drugs without getting addicted or having extreme cravings. However, a significant portion of people would be unable to control th
You're trolling,right? drugs are a symptom !cause (Score:2, Insightful)
Drugs also fuck you up, and that is not anecdotal. It's a fact. Many lives have been ruined because people couldn't control the effects and their addiction. We can't end the war on drugs. We can give up and let it win at the cost of millions of lives. It's basically like a pandemic, it's inconvenient, and victory only means fewer casualties. It's possible that most people can use drugs without getting addicted or having extreme cravings. However, a significant portion of people would be unable to control themselves and die or lose their ability to function and contribute in society.
Ever hear of Portugal? The Netherlands? The places with lax drug laws do better than those with strict ones. Lower crime, lower addiction, etc.
Also, I FUCKING HATE DRUGS. I really hate them. I hate being around them. I am personally anti-drug. I have never been high and never want to be. Few things annoy me more than drunks and stoners. However, I hate paying the cost of the drug war even more. I never want drugs in my body, but I support harm reduction strategies.
Happy people don't get
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Oh fuck off with that misrepresentations. The drug war is very much alive in Portugal and the Netherlands, where selling drugs and being a drug dealer is still illegal as fuck. They decriminalized being a drug addict, not drug production and distribution. Reference: https://www.portugalresident.c... [portugalresident.com] https://nypost.com/2021/10/18/... [nypost.com] Netherlands: https://nltimes.nl/2022/04/04/... [nltimes.nl]
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The underlying disease is...
Would appreciate elaboration on quote above. Depression is derivative itself, for a boost.
Maybe you're like me and can live a life without escape and intoxication, but much of the planet cannot.
And I wish this one was approached in a scientific manner.
As to drug/alcohol course: I think some reasons of propagation are in accessibility/exposure, and only the rest is in the cause, as why it succeeds finding the void to fill.
Re:I'm not surprised (Score:4)
Drugs also fuck you up, and that is not anecdotal. It's a fact. Many lives have been ruined because people couldn't control the effects and their addiction... However, a significant portion of people would be unable to control themselves and die or lose their ability to function and contribute in society.
This is true. But have you read the study about vets returning from Vietnam with heroin addiction? The result was so stunning that initially nobody believed the what happened. Most of the vets just stopped after the war, as their lives improved. Rats and humans do the same thing: when life sucks, they are much more likely to use drugs.
Yes, drugs have some addictive properties on their own. Not nearly as much as we were taught. People having shitty lives--including the results of the war on drugs: criminal records, family members in prison, gang violence--causes addiction more strongly than the drugs themselves.
As another poster said, the countries with lax drug laws provide evidence that drugs don't tend to get out of control as a result of lax enforcement. (Pain pills might be an exception, though. We probably need better pain treatments to get people to stop getting addicted to pain pills.)
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criminal records, family members in prison, gang violence--causes addiction more strongly than the drugs themselves.
You must be making it up, fantasy story.
Fine, but don't engage with the causes.
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Pain pills might be an exception, though. We probably need better pain treatments to get people to stop getting addicted to pain pills.
A lot of things went wrong there, but make no mistake -- they intentionally created those addicts [wvnstv.com].
I have been prescribed that myself in the past. They used to hand it out like candy as it was allegedly less addictive. Lying assholes. Taking it for a week wasn't bad. You'd worry a little about not having it, but that would pass in a day or so. If that was how they were used, short-term management of acute pain, the opioid crisis would have never happened.
But that's not how they were used. My wife's doc
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However, a significant portion of people would be unable to control themselves and die or lose their ability to function and contribute in society.
Good thing that isn't currently happening.
Re:I'm not surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, the war on drugs simply does not work. Any serious evaluation based on facts give the same result: war on drugs harms far more people than it helps, destroys communities, prevents potential medical use, and brings enormous wealth and power into the hands of organized crime.
Second, this is not a dichotomy between "very strictly ban everything" (what most places have now) and "no restrictions". There are many far saner approaches than ruining people's lives over a bit of weed. Any punishment should be proportional to each substance's actual harm to society, which for several of the currently banned drugs is basically nil.
Finally, slapping the label "drugs" on all these different substances and pretending they are somehow the same is ridiculous. LSD is not heroin is not MDMA. Psychedelics, including mushrooms and LSD, are typically non-addictive, physically harmless, and often give people positive life-changing experiences. They are not without their risks, but you cannot forbid people from doing everything dangerous, or you'd have to ban most sports (adrenaline addiction is also a thing btw). On the other hand, nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known, its most common consumption method directly and significantly harms all bystanders, and has no benefits to speak of. And alcohol is a powerful addictive neurotoxin that destroys your body, and causes many people to behave very irresponsibly, leading to untold number of deaths and much other damage.
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In my understanding of the term, "war on drugs" means specifically the highly restrictive and punitive approach that is currently the status quo in most countries, not any anti-drug policy in general. And people arguing for an end to it (including the top post in this thread, in my impression) generally want a softer and more rational approach rather than complete legalization and deregulation of everything.
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Nicotine has a social PR problem. that's about it for problems with nicotine itself.
Nicotine is highly addictive - people would not keep smoking so much if it wasn't. That is what makes it the main problem in tobacco products, even though it may not be responsible for the actual physical harm.
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Lazy thinking irritates.
There are no "drugs." There is LSD, caffeine, alcohol, Marijuana, statins, chamomile tea and aspirin.
Each of these has its own separate set of dangers, value and effects. To put them all into the same mental bucket and call it "drugs" and then try to draw useful conclusions isn't going to get you useful, rational decisions.
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Drugs also fuck you up, and that is not anecdotal. It's a fact. Many lives have been ruined because people couldn't control the effects and their addiction.
Agreed. So when do you intend to start fighting back against the constant and rampant drugging of our children, along with ceasing to support the organizations who "innocently" put opium in a prescription pill bottle?
Seems you're rather confused as to who exactly is causing the majority of harm and death here. With regards to the harm caused by giving up the drug war, I can deal with addict deaths a hell of a lot easier than cartels beheading innocent children raging war for a "business".
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How would legalizing drugs eliminate the cartels? Highly addictive or degenerative drugs will have to be regulated because a thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people will become super addicted. The market for responsible recreational crack cocaine or fentanyl would be very limited, but a percent of recreational users will become super addicts that should not be supplied with the drug but will pay any price to get it.
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How would legalizing drugs eliminate the cartels? Highly addictive or degenerative drugs will have to be regulated because a thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people will become super addicted.
Cartels create that addiction by pimping the product to vulnerable "customers"...often for free at first. You eliminate the profit motive, and you severely cripple the criminal aspect.
And illegal products bring the massive violence. You sure as hell don't see that kind of blood in the streets over caffeine or alcohol.
The market for responsible recreational crack cocaine or fentanyl would be very limited, but a percent of recreational users will become super addicts that should not be supplied with the drug but will pay any price to get it.
In recent times, that "market" was created by putting opium in a prescription pill bottle, stepping aside with a purposeful blind eye to allow Greed to perpetuate pill mills to addict tens of
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We may be going too hard on addicts, but the distribution and sales of drugs needs to be stopped or slowed down. No country freely allows the sale and distribution of hard drugs like cocaine, meth etc. We can allow certain drugs like marijuana, but it would be stupid to allow something like crack or heroine to be freely available. You are frustrated by the drug war, but if we didn't fight it .. well why not freely allow homicides too? We're losing the war on homicide after all. Many drugs are highly addict
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Re: I'm not surprised (Score:2)
Concurrent with the hey day of recreational psychedelic use in the US, the US government embarked upon covert research into psychedelics as mind control agents.
I surmise that the results of those clandestine experiments led to their prohibition.
Without getting too woo, I think the government found out what many in the psychedelic community already know. Namely, that psychedelics are incompatible with mind control at a fundamental level.
They engender the opposite, at best, and empower some individuals to he
Hallucinogenics (Score:2)
Avoid them at all costs. That said, I must be both drunk and high on psilocybin since I am seeing this article twice. https://slashdot.org/story/22/... [slashdot.org]
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That would help you to not see it twice, if impactful. So far, it is about lack of.
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Avoid them at all costs.
Why?
That said, I must be both drunk and high on psilocybin since I am seeing this article twice.
This is Slashdot. You should expect a dupe.
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This is Slashdot. You should expect a dupe.
I see.
Should we also expect those posting articles to be high as fuck?
Sounds logical enough.
Side effects (Score:1)
While shrooms may reduce the use of alcohol, it tended to increase the frequency of dupes.
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Put down the crack pipe for a minute, you'll see what I mean.
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Doesnt really matter the drug at all.
The difference between psychadelics like mushrooms or LSD is remarkably different from things like amphetamines or cocaine.
Also tobacco absolutely feels good, cigarettes are refreshingly addictive.
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refreshingly addictive
Just why do they leave smells, worse than BS?
Swallowing a spider to catch a fly (Score:2)
Alcohol=poison (Score:3)
What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health | Huberman Lab Podcast #86 [youtube.com]
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Not only that (Score:2)
Maybe the editors need some LSD.
Because alcohol makes you forget you posted this article less than 24 hours ago....
This actually worked for me. (Score:3, Interesting)
I used a rehab and when I was done and still struggling, psychedelic levels of delta 8 to quit drinking entirely.... based entirely off this research that is actually a couple years old, so this is more than a dupe. I went from over a fifth a day for almost a decade and 25+ years of heavy drinking to absolutely detesting and having no desire for the stuff over the course of about a month. I had to really sit down and evaluate myself and my life and the psychedelics put me in a place to really be honest and face reality.
I'm completely clean... drug, alcohol and tobacco free a year later and I owe it to the lessons I learned in rehab and the things I learned about myself from careful and safe use for the purpose of quitting.
I don't recommend anyone do it without the help of a licensed physician, but I can attest to the fact that it does work.
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I used a rehab and when I was done and still struggling, psychedelic levels of delta 8 to quit drinking entirely.... based entirely off this research that is actually a couple years old, so this is more than a dupe. I went from over a fifth a day for almost a decade and 25+ years of heavy drinking to absolutely detesting and having no desire for the stuff over the course of about a month. I had to really sit down and evaluate myself and my life and the psychedelics put me in a place to really be honest and face reality. I'm completely clean... drug, alcohol and tobacco free a year later and I owe it to the lessons I learned in rehab and the things I learned about myself from careful and safe use for the purpose of quitting. I don't recommend anyone do it without the help of a licensed physician, but I can attest to the fact that it does work.
Yes, there's a growing body of evidence that this can work. It won't do everything for you, but it can open the door to a healthier life, and maybe provide the impetus for you to walk through that door. There's no magic elixir so we MSUT investigate anything that promotes positive outcomes and reduces harm.
Placebo (Score:2)
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No shit Sherlock (Score:2)
People drink excessively because they can't get at the good stuff.
The rednecks on Fentanyl also drink less, it's the nature of the thing.