Addiction treatment has been one of the most watched areas of psychedelics research in recently, as studies explore whether they could help people shake off the need for other substances, both legal and illegal.
LOS ANGELES — Melanie Senn's father, long dead, appeared to her as she lay back in the dimly lit room at the Santa Monica clinic, a mask over her closed eyes, and the psychedelic trip began.
Her father had died decades earlier after struggling with alcohol use disorder and bouts of homelessness. She didn't see herself as an alcoholic — it was a word that seemed out of place in her stable life as an educator, wife and mother — but she had begun to think about how much wine she was drinking at night, the sapped energy and headaches she endured by day.
Yet U.S. researchers have been legally scrutinizing possible uses of psychedelics in scores of clinical trials approved by the government, addressing their effects on anorexia, migraines and a range of other maladies. Early studies have shown promise with treating addiction to tobacco and alcohol. The question has gained urgency as the U.S. faces an overdose surge that is killing more than 100,000 people annually, the majority linked to opioids, and a spike in deaths tied directly to alcohol, which have hit their highest rate in decades.
Physicians in New York and New Mexico published a study this summer finding that patients treated with psilocybin and psychotherapy cut back more on heavy drinking than those who received psychotherapy and a placebo. In addiction treatment,"we really are at a place where we need radical advances," Johnson added."As a field, we keep banging our heads against the wall."Scientists have found that psilocybin acts on key areas of the brain that are important in addiction, said Dr. Lorenzo Leggio, a senior investigator with the National Institutes of Health whose research focuses on identifying new treatments.
"It's one thing for me to tell you, 'Hey, your drinking is negatively affecting your relationship with your family members,'" he said."It's another thing to have a very visceral and vivid experience in which it is shown to you." "There is a lot of excitement — and I share that excitement," Leggio said. But"we also need to make sure that we don't overlook safety."
"It's not that it's an overnight panacea or miracle, but it certainly was far more effective than anything we had tried to date," said Amber Capone, who had been preparing to leave her husband, Marcus, before he underwent treatment in Mexico with the psychoactive substance ibogaine. The couple have founded a nonprofit, Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, that helps veterans get such therapies abroad.
"They talk about these epiphanies, where the switch flips and then they just feel different," said Heinzerling, who was an addiction-medicine doctor and researcher at UCLA before joining the Pacific Neuroscience Institute."Myself and some of the clinicians were always like, 'How do you facilitate that?' Because people would try, try, try — and it would happen at the least expected time.
Senn, one of a score of people participating in that pilot study, called it"hands-down the most profound experience of my life." During her trip, she said, she experienced her father gently wiping away her image —"almost like he was erasing my ego" — then taking her to a celestial place that she strained to describe in words.
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