Magic mushroom chemical helps teacher quit drinking; researchers say psychedelics can change the brain and stop addictions
- Researchers explore whether psychedelic drugs such as magic mushrooms can help people shake the craving for legal and illegal substances
- A psychedelic trip is ‘a roller coaster that takes you on a tour of your inner self’, expert says, and the most empowering model for therapy he has found
Melanie Senn’s father, long dead, appeared to her as she lay back in the dimly lit room at the clinic in Santa Monica, California, a mask over her closed eyes, and the psychedelic trip began.
More precisely, it was his thumb. It was disembodied and huge, materialising in her mind to wipe away her own image. Just as a parent might lick a thumb, she said, and use it to clean the dirtied cheek of a child.
“It wasn’t like an aggressive move,” said Senn, 51. Her father’s thumb had appeared right after the word “goodbye” stretched before her, like a banner in the sky.
“It was like, ‘Goodbye. We’re going somewhere else. And you cannot take this version of yourself’,” she recalled.
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, and the sapped energy and headaches she endured by day.
Senn signed up for the clinical trial to see whether therapy with psilocybin, the chemical compound in “magic mushrooms” that can cause hallucinations, might change her relationship with a much more familiar and socially sanctioned drug.