I first experienced psychedelics in my late teens and now, 40+ years later, I am still one of the most mentally healthy people I know. In Could Psychedelics Be An Effective Suicide Prevention Measure? Carolyn Gregoire writes: “The new wave of research on the medical applications of psychedelic drugs has suggested these substances hold considerable promise as therapeutic interventions for a number of mental health conditions. Psilocybin (magic mushrooms), LSD and mescaline may also be an effective suicide prevention measure.” Psychedelics have long been used for healing, bonding and ritual by experienced and spiritually connected elders who guide the journey. Psychedelics modify neural pathways that move you to a different plane of comprehension. Once you transcend your ordinary state of comprehension and experience there is more to life than repetition of everyday tasks, an entire new world opens to you and life takes on new meaning. Connection to the natural world is a big part of it. Entheogen is a term used in reverence of substances that act as divine sacraments and facilitate transcendent experiences in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual contex. I first experienced psychedelics in my late teens: mescaline, psylocybin, acid. It was part of the weekend routine and there was nothing spiritual about it. It did, however, open my eyes to a new world around me. Everything I saw took on huge meaning. I saw the interconnectedness of every thing. Years later, friends and I would take them as part of a ritual in spiritual communion for awakening the God within. That was how they were most effective and I used them to discover the deeper meaning of the things in my world. Later there was peyote and ayahuasca which is currently trending. Forty years later, having taken psychedelics many times, I am still one of the most mentally healthy people I know. I’m not some burned out tripping hippy who never got their act together. I have a professional background and worked Monday through Friday 9am-5pm my entire life, and paid my bills on time. I think the entheogen experience, the psychedelic experience, properly guided, can be an effective tool in treating mental health conditions and preventing suicide. It’s about time we began using the tools God gave us to heal ourselves.
Could Psychedelics Be An Effective Suicide Prevention Measure: University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers studied data on 190,000 American adults, collected between 2008 and 2012 as part of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The data showed that lifetime psychedelic use was associated with a 19 percent reduction in past-month psychological distress, a 14 percent reduced likelihood of past-year suicidal thinking, a 29 percent reduced likelihood of past-year suicidal planning. Those who had used psychedelics had a 36 percent reduced likelihood of attempting suicide in the past year. Lifetime use of non-psychedelic illicit drugs, on the other hand, was linked with an increased likelihood of these outcomes.
While the study doesn’t offer an answer as to why the use of psychedelics was correlated with reduced psychological distress and suicidality, it does suggest that more research could be helpful in determining whether psychedelics hold promise for suicide prevention.
“Despite advances in mental health treatments, suicide rates generally have not declined in the past 60 years. Novel and potentially more effective interventions need to be explored,” said Peter S. Hendricks, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior and lead study author. “This study sets the stage for future research to test the efficacy of classic psychedelics in addressing suicidality as well as pathologies associated with increased suicide risk (e.g., affective disturbance, addiction and impulsive-aggressive personality traits).”
A growing body of research has shown that psychedelics may have promise as therapeutic interventions for a range of psychological conditions, including anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
It’s important to note, however, that this research has been largely conducted in controlled, clinical environments — recreational psychedelic use is not recommended for the treatment of mental health conditions. Still, these and other findings suggest that under the right conditions, psychedelics may be a promising non-pharmaceutical intervention.
“Growing evidence including the present research suggests that classic psychedelics may have the potential to alleviate human suffering associated with mental illness,” the researchers concluded. “Further rigorous research is warranted to better understand these substances, with the ultimate goal of taking full advantage of their latent therapeutic capacity.”
The findings were published in the journal Psychopharmacology.
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
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