Many of you probably know already that Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, was an avid supporter of the use of LSD to treat alcoholism. I found this biographical article online (in
Modern Drunkard magazine, "Standing Up For Your Right to Get Falling Down Drunk Since 1996", which I have never heard of before now but which seems quite relevant itself) which is brief, catchy and fascinating. It reminds me of several interesting and widely applicable points, not the least of which is that the popularity and longevity of
any movement, whether a cult, a philosophy, or a therapeutic technique, ultimately depends as much on the charisma of the initial promoters as it does on any qualities of the core idea. Just think what the world of addiction treatment would be like today if Bill Wilson hadn't been such a character!
This is my favorite part of the article:
One of his therapeutic journeys lead him to Trabuco College in California, and the friendship of the college’s founder, Aldous Huxley. The author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception introduced Wilson to LSD-25. The drug rocked Wilson’s world. He thought of it as something of a miracle substance and continued taking it well into the ‘60s. As he approached his 70th birthday, he developed a plan to have LSD distributed at all AA meetings nationwide. The plan was eventually quashed by more rational voices, and a few years later the Federal government made the point moot by making the drug illegal. (That Wilson’s plan was shot down is probably fortunate. LSD is a beautiful thing, but nothing sounds more horrifying to me than a roomful of chain-smoking, frightened, needy drunks tripping their heads off in the basement of the local Y.)
My father passed away from all sorts of side effects from over consumption of alcohol.
All I can contribute to this article is my experience and feelings about psychedelics. Mostly Psilocybin Mushrooms, and 8 trips of LSD.
They helped me remember integral morals, and possibly showed me new morals, it's hard to tell, but it basically showed me what I was doing wrong or disfunctional in my life. That even is down to drinking soda, eating bad meat, some social issues, repetetive habits, repressed feelings. It helped me cope and configure them, and I remember everything to this day for reflection. Alan Watts said something like this (on the level you don't have to keep taking psychedelics) "once you get the message, you can hang up the phone"
I have far too much to lose by attempting to embark on a social drinking/recreational drug use career.
This is pure logic for me and I am aware of research that says I may be able to do this sobel and sobel among many who claim that this would be possilble.
I work my own programme and it is of pure logic i dont do what is going to make me feel like shit and i try to do what is going to make me feel better over a long period.I try to work on my executive functions as I believe that this is where my problems lie.
I take with a pinch of salt the programme bangers who try to tell me how to live my life and quote bill W at every turn.The man was taking LSD for goodness sake when he had this spiritual awakening.We paddle our own canoes but get out to help those who are ploughing a lonely furrow.Best Wishes.X
The goal of AA's are to overcome our dependence on alcohol, understand the true reasons we became alcoholic, fix those defects, and become wholly functioning members of society.
Ours is not to judge others, but to have love, patience, and tolerance for others.
I for one, cannot afford to get into an argument, use profanity, or bear resentful and hateful feelings towards others.
If I allow people, places, or things to impinge on my sobriety, then I am placing my life in perilous danger.
I also agree the acid in the 70's was mostly speed. I know I drank even more when tripping. The 60's 'cid was clean and did open some surprising doors. Alas I became a drunk, a sot, a wino, the old guy at the end of the bar huddled over my shot and beer chase.
Today I am clean and sober. I will not forget my past and every day I work the AA program found in the first 164 pages.
He took it in a controlled setting, a garden, there were experienced friends present and his wife dosed too.
He describes "seeing" a bush for the first time ever, noticing the detail right down to the fine pores on the leaves.
The interesting part - his wife who was a naturalist did not see plants any differently - she was already trained to notice the details.
LSD acts to shut down the normal controls of incoming sensory signals. Many of us are entirely self-absorbed and see only a fraction of what is really going on around us. This spiritual death occurs as the wide-eyed child grows into a good minion of the state - a perfect consumer rat.
And good consumer rats consume - alcohol.
the word was the Bill W. was given LSD in a clinical setting as
a possible cure for alcoholism. My experience is that all approaches to rcovery w/ the exception of some minor psycopharmacology administeed by a competant physician were
useless to me except the spiritual tools outlined in the 12 steps having been down the road with nutritional diet, excercise, yoga, church. If there would have been a way to stay sober
like most alcohics I would have found it before becoming one. In my opinion with more scientific information under my belt these days I am still
powerless over alcohol. I cannot breakdown, digest and metabolize alcohol like biochemicaly normal peaple.
Thank God for Alcoholics Anonomous. Sorry about how I spell.
"Then, on December 11th, 1934, after five years on the bum, something happened. No one, and especially not Wilson himself, was ever able to adequately articulate what occurred, but according to the standard tale it went something like this: After repeatedly failing to get his drinking under control, Wilson, trembling on the brink of insanity, called up into the sky, “If there be a God, let Him show Himself now!” Suddenly, a warm bright light filled the room and Wilson found himself standing atop a mighty mountain. A wind came to him, surrounding his body and moving through it. With its departure, Wilson fell back into himself and never touched another drop of alcohol..." While essentially true, the author leaves out one important, universally known fact: This episode occurred in a hospital, where Bill was being treated for alcoholism with belladonna, a hallucinogen, and it was while "tripping" that Bill had this revelatory episode. Also from the article: "It’s never been entirely clear, however, how AA tallies sober members from the non-sober ones... [the numbers tallied of sober members] ultimately depend upon the truthfulness of information given by members of an organization who have been told that drinking is a source of deep personal shame."
Nowhere in AA, that I know of, are members told to be ashamed of their drinking. Nor, as the author implies, do members believe such a thing due to being told so by someone in AA. AA members aren't "tricked" into believing drinking is a source of shame. AA doesn't recruit, preach, reach out for members, or promote itself in any way. You have to seek it out. People seek out AA because, for them and them alone, alcohol has ruined their lives. It's not a judgment call, or a moral decision. It has nothing to do with "good" or "bad" -- some people are unable, once they have tasted a drop of alcohol, to stop drinking it until they pass out. It is impossible to have a beer for lunch with coworkers, because an alcoholic cannot detach from the beer and will just as likely stay behind to continue drinking. Once this has destroyed aspects of your life, it is not a matter of AA convincing you that alcohol is something to be ashamed of, it's quite beside the point.
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Thomson
Alcohol">[link] Rehab