[HN Gopher] How LSD Almost Became the 13th Step (2019)
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       How LSD Almost Became the 13th Step (2019)
        
       Author : pmoriarty
       Score  : 33 points
       Date   : 2020-07-25 21:01 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (prohbtd.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (prohbtd.com)
        
       | loceng wrote:
       | Anecdotally during a period of 3 or 4 months when I had gone to
       | numerous Ayahuasca ceremonies here in Canada, I saw the
       | progression of a self-proclaimed alcoholic who felt like she was
       | going to die soon from the illness - and physically she was very
       | pale and unwell looking; so much so that she was seeking and
       | willing to try anything including Ayahuasca, which is an
       | entheogen similar to but different than LSD - and arguably being
       | done in a ceremony setting provides a different container as
       | well.
       | 
       | There's an opportunity after a ceremony to share during a talking
       | circle. I can't remember if the woman shared during then or to me
       | afterward, however she told me in the morning that she could feel
       | like alcohol no longer had a hold over her. I saw her 3 or 4 more
       | times over a 3 to 4 month period at ceremonies - and by the end
       | she looked very healthy, her skin had a healthy pink tone to it -
       | and she was beaming with energy compared to before.
       | 
       | Another experience to share related to alcohol and Ayahuasca: an
       | ex-girlfriend of mine had gone to a few ceremonies with me. After
       | her first ceremony she shared two notable things. The first was
       | an insight from her family dynamics that she could see from a
       | holistic level looking down at the structure, which seemed to
       | give her great comfort, reducing her baseline stress. The second
       | was she was presented or saw simultaneously two separate
       | "objects": she saw alcohol and she saw social situations. She's
       | Russian so perhaps the deep cultural aspect of alcohol that seems
       | to go with her background, along with her family always
       | immediately offering a drink to her as their greeting when she'd
       | visit are examples of how deeply engrained alcohol and
       | socializing were for her. After her experiencing that division
       | separating alcohol consumption and social situations, she roughly
       | said she no longer felt the need to drink when socializing -
       | though she never had a problem with alcohol - she felt like
       | whatever association and connection to alcohol simply diminished,
       | arguably due to the clear division of the contexts; unlinking the
       | healthy engagement of socializing from alcohol consumption.
        
         | mikelyons wrote:
         | Entheogens increase your consciousness. High consciousness gets
         | us closer to the truth of what reality is, which allows us to
         | break our self-deceptions.
        
           | loceng wrote:
           | Indeed, they temporarily eliminate the ego and its bias from
           | the equation of the mind, allowing the rest of the mind an
           | unfiltered view and clear understanding based on whatever
           | intellectual capabilities one inherently has; ego death, ego
           | dissolution.
        
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       (page generated 2020-07-25 23:00 UTC)