Psychedelic drugs and plants have a proud history of helping troubled people overcome alcohol and drug addictions. Some of the first LSD studies demonstrated that the powerful psychedelic drug had enormous efficacy in treating alcoholism, when administered in the proper environment. In fact, Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, even suggested an LSD journey as the 13th step in his well-known 12-Step program for alcoholism recovery. Addictive drug and alcohol use has also been shown to be diminished by ayahuasca and peyote ceremonies among indigenous peoples in the Amazon and Central America. In light of this understanding, it’s such a sad irony that psychedelic drugs and plants have been legally classified with dangerously addictive drugs, and unjustly grouped together with them in many people’s minds--when, in fact, psychedelics generally help to discourage drug addiction. The late ethnobotanist Terence McKenna once said
“The pro-psychedelic plant position is clearly an anti-drug position. Drug dependencies are the result of habitual, unexamined and obsessive behavior; these are precisely the tendencies that the psychedelics mitigate.” Some psychedelics almost seem to be tailor-made to treat addiction problems. The best example of this is a little-known African rain forest shrub known as “Tabernanthe Iboga” (or just “iboga”)--and its psychoactive component “ibogaine”-
Originally appearing here. Psychedelic drugs and plants have a proud history of helping troubled people overcome alcohol and drug addictions. Some of the first LSD studies demonstrated that the powerful psychedelic drug had enormous efficacy in treating alcoholism, when administered in the...
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