It may seem odd to write about addiction on a website that advocates the use of psychedelics not only to heal the sick but as a tool to improve the lives of those who are already well. As someone who is in recovery myself from addiction, truly understanding the nature of addiction is important to finding a way out. You’ll hear a lot out there that psychedelics aren’t addictive and no one would ever repeatedly abuse a drug like that but you’re wrong. Anything can become an addiction, maybe not physically addictive but people can become addicted really to anything they receive a dopamine boost from (sex, drugs, gambling, the list goes on…).
Understanding What Addiction Is
You may view addiction very much the way I did before collapsing under my own; as an inescapable hole dug the moment the individual picked up the substance for the first time. My addiction to alcohol grew slowly and while the abuse was there from day one I wouldn’t admit my helpless surrender to it for 20 years. Addiction is not straightforward and manifests itself in many different ways. Addiction is not limited to ingestible drugs nor is it only classified by those living on the streets begging for money to get their next fix.
A Hammer Is A Tool
This blog was started as a hobby of mine to write about what I’m interested in and I’ve discovered a deep passion for how these psychedelic substances can have profound affects on those that use it….correctly. They have for me and have altered the course of my perspective in a profound and positive way. Do not get it confused, I do not advocate the use of these drugs for recreation and in fact I highly frown upon it. These are drugs at the end of the day, and like any other drug can be easily misused and abused. A hammer is a tool until it’s used to harm someone else, then it’s called a weapon.
Used as a tool can help improve the quality of so many lives but for those that are willing to put in the therapeutic work that accompanies it. I would go as far to say that the drug is just the catalyst but the real work, the real discoveries, and the real positive outcomes only come with proper integration and therapy. That’s the real magic. The drugs to me, loosen the ego just enough to make an individual pliable enough to face that which they do not want and address those defects/trauma through an objective lens so that they can start to change them.
Anna Lembke & Andrew Hubberman
Hopping off my soap box now. Please enjoy Andrew Hubberman’s (professor of Neurobiology and Opthalmology at Stanford) podcast interview with Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist and author working as the Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University. They discuss addiction of course, but what’s really fascinating is understanding the dopamine balance and how it affects our actions on a daily basis. How the body continually attempts to balance and what happens when we, as humans, keep overriding that to feel good. Check out her new book all about the correlation between addiction and dopamine. It’s becomes a part of the law of diminishing returns.
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