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MyHealthNewsDaily
The mind-altering drug LSD could be used to treat alcoholism, a new report says.
LSD prevented alcoholics from relapsing during treatment, according to researchers in Norway who analyzed six previous studies of alcoholism treatment.
The studies involved 536 heavy drinkers in all, two-thirds of whom were given LSD while others received comparison treatments. Fifty-nine percent of the LSD users avoided relapsing into alcohol abuse, compared with 38 percent of the others, the new study noted.
"LSD worked in an entirely different way than any current psychiatric drugs," said study researcher Teri Krebs of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. "Many patients said they had gained a new appreciation for their alcohol problem and new motivation to address it."
The study appeared Thursday (Mar. 8) in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
One scientist who was not involved in the research, Dr. Richard Ries, said the study "shakes the foundations of typical addiction treatments." But Ries, an addiction psychiatrist at the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry, cautioned that little is known about LSD's effects.
Using one drug to fight another
Study researcher Pål-Ørjan Johansen, a clinical psychologist at the university in Trondheim, Norway, said: "Alcoholism is serious and often deadly. We need new treatment options."
LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) can distort perceptions of reality and produce hallucinations. In large doses, the drug can cause some people to panic or become anxious, increasing their body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse.
Ries told MyHealthNewsDaily that using one drug to fight addiction to another drug isn't uncommon. "We already use drugs to fight drugs," he said. "Look at heroin addiction — we use methadone, another type of opiate, and give it to people to prevent them from overdosing."
Ries added there hasn't been enough research on LSD for its role as a treatment to be well-understood. "We don't know the effects of LSD, because these medicines carry all the baggage of illegality and biases," he said. "So the chance of them being evaluated fairly can be pretty low."
Alcohol drinkers less likely to relapse when taking LSD
The studies in the new analysis involved people, mostly men, who were admitted for treatment for alcohol abuse.
A total of 325 people received a single dose of LSD ranging from 210 to 800 micrograms, while the comparison group, 211 people, received either a much lower dose of LSD ― 25 or 50 micrograms ― or other alcohol treatment medications.
People who received the larger dose of LSD were less likely to relapse and had higher levels of abstinence than the others, the researchers said.
The most improvement was seen during the first few months of treatment, but the change gradually decreased as the months passed.
"It is unusual for psychiatric drugs to have an effect that lasts for several months after a single dose," Johansen said. "We now better understand that alcoholism is a chronic, relapsing disorder that typically requires ongoing treatment."
The LSD was administered as part of the alcoholism treatment program. Some of the LSD users acted bizarrely, experiencing anxiety and confusion, the researchers reported. One person had a seizure, but that person had a history of alcohol withdrawal seizures and had been sober only a few days.
When treating addiction, Ries said, medication works only if given as part of a treatment program.
"If you try to use these drugs out of these contexts, you get no effect," he said. "They are meant to be part of an addiction treatment program, not to replace it."
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considering that alcoholics already can't deal with their emotions, tripping on LSD is only a novel approach that could never be widely used on alcoholics.
I can't see this being very helpful. It may prevent alcoholism, but how could you function if you're continually tripped out on LSD? Is the cure any better than the disease?
It is one acid trip to achieve this result. If you're going to comment, read the story. Your posting wastes our time. I'm flagging it.
Clearly neither of you are familiar with the research, or similar research done with pscilocybe mushrooms. The trips cause a pradigm shift in the perception and rationality of the subject. It doesn't need to be taken constantly.
TYFYBS Mr All wise and knowing
LSD is a mind-altering, often life-changing drug that can create new perceptions in subjects after a single dose. You do not need to be constantly on the drug to benefit from these new perceptions. LSD often creates intense introspection during the "trip" that causes one to reevaluate life, your role in it, and the roles of others around you. This is one reason why it has been called "Enlightenment in a bottle." It can have a very profound effect on one's psychology-- taken correctly (i.e. clinically) it can have great benefits for overcoming phobias, past trauma, and addiction, however, if abused, it can have some nasty effects on one's sanity (luckily, it's risk of abuse is very low, for a variety of reasons). For anyone who is really interested in LSD and its history, effects and uses, I would encourage you to watch the documentary "Hoffman's Potion." (Albert Hoffman is the discoverer of LSD).
You can watch it for free here:
Hoffman's Potion (You Tube Link)
interesting...
This study should be repeated with a larger batch of patients. If the results are confirmed then this treatment should be taken seriously and in-depth research performed. This may open up a new treatment option for alcoholics and perhaps other addicts. Of course, it may also be a fluke. Unforeseen complications could arise as well. This is why any and all studies should be independently confirmed.
Coming from the Substance Abuse field and having worked with both alcoholics and narcotic addicts. I am not a supporter of replacing one addiction with another. Unfortunately, alcoholism is a very tough addiction to over come and many do relapse, and so is opiate, hense the methodone. But methodone and LSD are just as addictive as the opiate and alcohol. Treating the addict cognitively to help them address behaviors that lead them to their addictions is the best way to help them over come their problems. Relapse will occur but replacing a drug with a drug just prolongs the addiction.
LSD is generally considered to be non-addictive. In any regard it is orders of magnitude less addictive than alcohol. That is why it is considered for treatment of alcoholism.
I will agree that replacing one addiction with another is rather pointless. Back in the day doctors thought the "new miracle drug" heroin was the perfect cure for morphine addiction. That obviously did not go over well.
"But methodone and LSD are just as addictive as the opiate and alcohol."
Not true. Methadone yes, but LSD is nowhere near as addictive as alcohol or opioids. There is no physical withdrawal associated with hallucinogens. You'll be hard pressed to find someone who uses hallucinogens on a weekly, let alone daily, basis. Most who use these drugs do so only occasionally and many, if not most, users quit altogether at some point because they start to find the experience too intense.
Addiction to LSD would require real commitment! It's half a day with your mind racing while your world melts around you, then your brain is fogged and you need to take a break unless your goal is to become a zombie. Psychedelics in general have vast potential for humanity, it's just not compatible with a regular daily schedule.
Actually, LSD is not a narcotic, it's a hallucinogen. And while anything can be psychologically addicting (shopping, sex, etc.) I've never seen any evidence that it's physically addicting, like narcotics are. That being said, it's much easier to function on alchohol than on Acid.
LSD is a non-addictive non-narcotic hallucinogen. The fact that you didn't know that would be grounds for you not to speak so confidently against one approach over another without doing appropriate research. Appropriate research would mean keeping abreast of related events, like this study and basing your opinion on the amalgmation of that research.
People this treatment is drug enhanced therapy, taken every few months. Why not let these folks take an LSD weekend every few months while talking with a therapist ? Maybe they woud benefit by 'seeing God' and trying to evaluate why their lives are so dominated by a substance.
Besides LSD is a drug. Alcohol is a SOLVENT, not much different than huffing. Maybe these folks need to try drugs instead.
This is precisely the ignorance which perpetuates (for some, profitable) the war on drugs. The refusal to recognize that there are differences between drugs and complete rejection of any information which counters the preconceived notion "Drugs R Bad...MMmmkay?".
If you look throughout history you will find ample evidence of towering figures who embraced the usage of drugs. From George Washington (marijuana) to Shakespeare.
Some drugs are dangerous. Others are not.
Pot, for instance, is far less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Far less addictive.
Yet our society demonizes it. Out of ignorance.
Perhaps a modicum of rationality is called for when formulating a viewpoint on "Drugs".
Much like methadone, however we are talking one dose every 6 months.
No profit there as LSD is cheap to make so big pharma will never allow it..
COPSwife-LSD isn't a narcotic and isn't physically addicting. LSD has been in major research studies showing its medical applications. Unbearable cluster headaches are one major disease that is treated by LSD.
The problem with those who earn a living from substance abuse or law enforcement is they have no distinction between use and abuse whether medical or recreational. The motivations to see the nuance isn't there. Addiction requires a physical response from lack the the drug which many "illegal" drugs do not have.
Anyone who opposed this is just spouting off unfactual DARE nonsense.
"Timothy Leary's dead. No, no, no, no, he's outside looking in."
--Moody Blues
Officers wife-
LSD is far from addictive.
Nonsense. Bill Wilson, the AA founder, likewise espoused LSD as a viable treatment for alcoholism (in addition to co-opting Buchmanism as the basis for the program). The entire addiction industry is a boondoggle, with efficacies of purported therapies being "massaged" at best and entirely misreported at worst. There is no effective treatment for alcoholism. Period. And the treatment industry knows that (isn't that right, Officer'sWife?). But return customers make plenty of cash for these centers. Multiple peer-reviewed studies confirm that relapse and recovery rates for treatment (of any model, 12-step, behavorial, etc.) are the same or worse than no treatment. The village drunk has always been around. And he/she quits (or doesn't quit) when they are ready - with or without therapy. Dosing an alcoholic with LSD is flat bizzare. And any purported insight will be as fleeting as the unifying "connectedness" felt by hippies in the parking lot of a Phish concert whilst under the drug's influence.
Invoking "hippies at a Phish concert" as evidence for an argument is a sure sign that you cannot be taken seriously. You seem to be unable consider the uses of LSD outside of a narrow (and extremely cliched) cultural setting.
Clearly these studies are being done with alcoholics who do want to quit and "are ready." Suggesting that no means of therapy could help them along this path is just downright foolish. You probably consider yourself a skeptic, but you come across as a cynic with nothing to offer to the discussion except for your own bitter negativity.
You've apparently never tried LSD, it's a life modifying experience that goes FAR beyond a rock concert.
I honestly believe NONE of you have the standing to comment unless you've first become 'experienced'
I dropped SO much acid when I was a kid. LOVED IT! I don't really see how it can help a fellow Alcoholic but hey, stranger things have happened.
From the article: "The most improvement was seen during the first few months of treatment, but the change gradually decreased as the months passed." If the "change" is defined as "not relapsing," then the insight provided by the LSD dose was not permanent, or, at least, did not result in permanent behavorial changes for the alcoholic. Invoking the hippy-trip metaphor illustrates this. As one who is "experienced" and as verified by psychadelic researchers, the ecstatic states created by the drug do not last and do not result in long-term change. So, is the answer another dose? Sounds like trading one substance for another, so why not just smoke pot regualrly if the alcoholic needs regular, mind-altering substances in order to abstain from alcohol? Nevertheless, there is room for these "empathogens" in clinical settings - just not for alcoholics. And to claim that this is a study using alcoholics who are "ready to quit" simply because the subjects are part of a treatment population is absurd. How many were voluntary participants and not ordered to treatment through work, parents, or the courts? And, veracity in self-reporting for alcoholics is abysmal, consistent with the features of the "disease" concerning honesty and manipulation.
When you start working with an addict, and you finally get them off the drugs or the alcohol, you then start looking at their lives and what they are replacing that drug or booze with. Often times you will find that they are replacing it with other non-substance addictions such as sex, shopping, food, ect. So even if you say LSD isn't addictive so to speak it still allows the addicted person to escape from what it is that they are using for in the first place. Which is why cognitive behavioral therapy is the only real treatment option that works best. Yes medication should be used at first usually an anti-depressant, but then eventually wean them off, unless they were a very heavy opiate user then they may be on it for the rest of their lives. Same with meth, and other drugs that change how the brain functions.
As a mere peon, I should fear any contact with officers, but I feel obliged to point out that LSD is hardly addictive , as you acquire tremendous tolerance to it in mere days, far more so than the other "rec" drugs- even amphetamines. All a user would gain from consuming it daily for 30 days is a reputation for wasteful stupidity from his/her more knowledgeable compatriots.
Secondly, psychedelic therapy relies on the experience of tripping to stimulate abstinance rather than continuous use, like the way, say, you would use L-glutamine and/or niacin to reduce the desire to drink alcohol.
You can find how psychedelic therapy was done in two rare books by Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond-(1.)The Hallucinogens, or (2.)New Hope for Alcoholics- if you can find either of them, both being out of print.
The worst side affect of LSD is that it turns 100% of users into Progressives.
So then this is all just a big conspiracy to promote a progressive agenda in the USA?
The last time they tried this, LSD turned most users into Yuppies.
To all Detractors: Read first, then think, then post.
The article clearly states ONE DOSE IS EFFECTIVE FOR MONTHS!!!
This theory is nothing new. The concept of "positive" brain re-wiring from hallucinogens has been dabbled with for years. Not simply LSD, but a whole host of types from extraction from natural substances to stuff made in labs. There have been some promising results in small studies, treating everything from addiction to PTSD. Nobody would promote this treatment if it meant you were trippin ballz every day. It will be interesting to see how this pans out in the future...
Don't expect the FDA to be moved by this, there is no money in LSD. Notice the dosages are micrograms, not milligrams, you can manufacture massive quantities of the stuff cheaply. The FDA only wants drugs available that cost hundreds or even thousands per dose, those are the moneymakers. Things like marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, which all have extensive and well documented medical uses are routinely banned and labeled useless because they are very cheap to produce and therefore very cheap to sell. Unfortunately the FDA long ago passed from being about promoting food and drug safety into a promoter of state capitalism regardless of drug safety and efficacy.
I maintain no illusions about the chances of any of those three things ever being legitimized whether for medical or personal use. It is 100% about the money, it has nothing to do with safety, it has nothing to do with usefulness. As long as a person is capable of growing mushrooms or weed for themselves and as long as a low scale lab can produce the global supply of LSD for YEARS in a couple days then all three will remain forever illegal because there is no money for the government and no money for the pharmaceutical complex in them.
The question "Why am I alive?" which was forced up me during my first trip, led to me reading "Ideas and Opinions" which guided me away from a life of petty crime. If it weren't for LSD I might never have stopped to wonder "Why?".
So- it took 50 years for psychiatry to finally look seriously at psychedelic therapy (the earliest large scale trials of this treatment for alchoholics began in Saskatchewan 50 years ago, but weren't blind because the authors were intimately familiar with hallucinogens).
Who conducted this experiment, Cheech and Chong? If you like to drink but don't want to become an alcoholic always sober up completely before you drink again, its that simple. Your body has to clean the ethanol from your blood, that's what gives you the sick feeling of a hangover. If you drink before all the ethanol is gone then the body stops cleaning the ethanol and starts cleaning the methanol from your blood and the ethanol builds up to unacceptable levels. Eventually you have to get rid of the ethanol or you will die from alcohol poisoning. When your body tries to clean all that built up ethanol from your system, you get the DT's. My source is personal experimentation and a TV show I saw on vacation. I can stop drinking for a week or a month, any time, and never have any DT's symptoms.
I think there is a lot of information missing from this article and by design. This is very typical, when reporting upon the benefits of Cannabis, LSD, and Ecstasy and other illegal drugs, to name a few.
When you do your own research and when you speak with those who have PTSD or Alcoholism who have tried LSD, or E obtained from a trusted source (not cut with crap or adulterated in any way) in a safe setting (their own home, for example) with an experienced and trusted "Guide",the experience transforms people. Literally. People are able to dig deep within their emotions and psyche and are able to finally talk about traumatic memories and experiences which they have been blocking out and not addressing because they will find the absence of the usual accompaniment of anxiety, paralysis and fear.
In this safe setting--physical and mental--one is able to assess and re-arrange the old furniture and/or keepsakes that they have had locked down in a box in the basement.
It is a spiritual experience for them, one which lasts for hours, whereupon it is not un-like a therapist session.
The article makes no mention that while that person is in an altered state of mind, a calm, trusted guide is walking them through the experience,all the while actively engaged in dialogue so that person can make sense of the debris and clutter which they are going back and walking through in their minds. There is a lot of introspection and reflection.
Uh-huh. I've know a few folks from my youth who tripped one too many times - and never did recover fully. I'm talking about people who are now in their fifties who were permanently brain damaged from LSD. Drugs were a required course where I grew up - everybody got high. Back in those days, you knew your sources and could get pharmaceutical grade LSD (if you paid for it). Some people could trip a hundred or more times with no apparent permanent effects. Others were not so lucky. This drug isn't the completely safe chemical some tout it to be.
This is old news . The research was done in the late 60's-early 70's. Most of the research was shutdown after that because the substance was made illegal.
I will try it.
It'll never fly in the US. We are way too uptight about recreational drugs, even using them for legitimate medical purposes. Unless some politician finds a way to make tons of money off of it and keep others from doing the same thing....
G-d forbid we use it to help anyone!
In my own personal experience, LSD has such greater uses then this... As part of a light therapy, it can help people solve phobias, correct errors in their life.
My relationship was taking on water like the titanic, instead of working it out, we just kept sealing those bulkhead doors.. One night a friend laid out a few blotter paper hits (3-500MCG) I ingested two, and after an enjoyable night I'll never forget... I had periods of strong reflection... culiminating with an epiphany. I realized how and why my life had taken turns, and even proposed solutions to remedy this... well our relationship was saved for another 18months-2years. The drug itself allows for you to channel all your mental pathways inward.. Allowed me to simultaneously judge our situation from my own, and other perspectives. Which helped me draw the proper conclusions to all my problems.
--- My Theory on why the treatment is highly successful --- Not only can you channel your mental energy inward, but the mindset created during this time of extreme euphoria might be stored and remembered differently, perhaps even triggering a dopamine reaction when the user has similar thoughts regarding the subject.
I have my doubts about the accuracy & amounts of dosage in this article.
"ranging from 210 to 800 micrograms" - ??
Assuming it's pharmaceutical quality - that is (>500ug) a HUGE amount of acid. Even experienced trippers can flip out on 300 mics or more if it's pharmaceutical or theBear's(rip) quality. (Owsley, Sand, Scully or Sandoz)
Based on my personal experiences with LSD I'd say 150-200/250 microgram doses should be more than adequate for an effective therapy session.
I'd like to see a videotape of someone who actually took more than 500 mics of LSD if it's "the good stuff" - but I would not like to BE that person.
Wish there was a fact-check or more in-depth data for this article. 800 mics of pure LSD in a proper "set and setting???" I have my doubts.
I had a 45 year smoking addiction and I tried every program to stop but just kept smoking. Several times I made it 2 or 3 weeks but then relapsed. The very interesting thing was that in May I had double Knee replacement surgery that had me in a care facility and on some pretty powerful pain medication for about a week. I've had a few surgeries for other things in the past couple of years but this time was different for some reason and I've had no desire to smoke since. I believe it was the drugs or combination of the drugs.
I believe this to be similar occurrence and if you are under constant pressure from this condition a bright hope on the horizon perhaps.
OK if we understand why this works, which is that addicts come to gain a new perspective on themselves and their addiction, why don't we just use this knowledge to make a good non-drug based treatment based on that. I really think the last thing addicts need is more drugs - look at methodone when used with heroin addicts. It turns out that methodone is harder to get off than heroin.
Let's learn from this.
<a href="">Smyls</a>
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Just tell me one thing, WHERE THE @!$%# DO I SIGN UP?
Interesting to see this research resurrected after 50 years of government suppression. Early research indicated effectiveness with alcohol addiction among other maladies. Early research was also conducted by the military. These are powerful drugs directly affecting brain chemistry, and like any other have the ability to do harm or good. Time to do the research and end the era of suppression due to fear and ignorance.