Originally Posted by
Jim Mahan
Forgive me if I've already brought this up. I checked. I write every day, on the same notepad on the computater that I use to write my Bilge posts before I submit them. So I know I've written about it but I'm not certain I haven't posted it. Anyway...
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A couple of years ago, I read somewhere that, after a forty year hiatus on research of the use of psychedelics for psychiatric therapy, due to Nixon's drastically unfortunate war on drugs, asshole, the legitimate use of psychedelics in psychiatry is again legal. Synthetic versions of psylocybin and a mescaline are being produced in licensed labs and there is a growing trend of the use of psychedelics in doctor supervised settings for relieving alcohol abuse syndrome and for treating therapy-resistant depression, and in particular relieving the existential anxiety that some people experience with a diagnosis of a terminal illness.
So this popped back into my awareness more recently, and I'm thinking I could benefit from such therapy. I definitely feel like I'm on the rapidly declining downhill end of the life-curve. My COPD is progressing relentlessly, there's no cure, no surgical intervention, no chemo or radiation. I expect that as I am more and more restricted in the amount of physical activity my pulmonary system can support, I will be consigned to a chair, and left more or less totally dependent on my wife to accomplish all that needs to get done around here. I hate the thought of being a lumpish dependent burden and helpless to do anything about it. And that phase will end with me being essentially bed-ridden until I ultimately demise. And all of that weighs on me, and I'm feeling some depression over it. I've even had the fleeting thought of breaking my nearly seven year abstinence from booze. I won't do that, but just having the thought is a red flag for me.
So it occured to me to do some informal research, read up on the latest info regarding psychedelic therapy. I have no experience with anything like LSD or shrooms. My intuition back when I was a teenager in the late sixties was that I might be one of those few people who would wig permanently out and spend the rest of my life believing I'm a citrus fruit.
My wife has told me in the past that she did do LSD as a teenager, a couple of times. My next door neighbor and best friend of the last two decades, who is my age, was a power-user back in the day, told me he'd done at least a thousand acid trips.
The thing that got my attention in the latest reports I've read, was that, unlike more conventional psychiatric therapies, a continuing use of the substance and repeated sessions was not a requirement to get the benefit. Patients and their doctors report that a single session was enough to eliminate a desire for alcohol permanently. In the NOVA episode I watched, a guy who had been a binge drinker since age twelve, and had been through rehab a dozen times over the years, along with AA etc, had experienced an immediate and permanent cessation of the urge to have alcohol. Similar reports from patients are that a single session gave them a profound life-changing, spiritual experience and a persistent feeling of the interconnectedness of 'the universe.' Peace of mind in spades. An end to the the anxiety and fear of dying.
Then halfway through the NOVA episode a psychiatrist involved with the practice stated that it was not suitable for patients with certain mental disorders—schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Fck me. I'm going to do it anyway. My wife is in favor of the idea for me, and is willing to help find me a practicing therapist. I trust her sober judgement and she has some semi-formal experience counseling people with various issues. Of course the VA shrink would not be allowed to provide that treatment. Of course the feds would be officially aghast at the prospect.
I wouldn't dare to do it on my own, not without the supervised purposeful setting, and I wouldn't have a clue how to score shrooms or acid anyway. But I figure the benefit will outweigh the risks. Thinking about it, I've been a heavy user of pot in the recent past, and I'm sure a sober psychiatrist would say the same thing, that heavy pot use would be contraindicated for me, and that leads me to believe I can anticipate and probably weather the possible side effects.
And who knows, I might be a citrus fruit after all anyway.
I can't catch a break
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