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Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

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Re: Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

#251

Post by _lacroix »

anon192831 wrote: post #183
carapace wrote: post #164

Set and setting. The drug just rattles your cage. I quoted Leary on 'set and setting' the other day on an LSD history thread and mentioned Leonard Orr used to get great results with nothing more exotic than oxygen, so rather than repeat that ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21264919 ) I'll say this: If you have a modality of therapy that works, it will work without the drug (which, at best, serves as an amplifi…

It's not just hitting the vacuum tube. If one just trips for the sake of tripping, then there is not much to be gained except for several hours of happy serotonin hits in the brain. However, what we know about psychs is that there is a huge release of BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor) and a shutdown of the DMN. The BDNF enables a ton of new neural connections to be built. It's like you have about 6-8 hours of…

This is how my doctor explained psychedelic therapy to me - it triggers a massive release in BDNF that stimulates neuroplasticity, which allows for long term changes to occur. The trip itself can be a catalyst for reflective experiences that help with the growth of positive new neural circuitry but it is by no means the most important aspect of the treatment. In the case of ketamine, which is what I did, the release of BDNF continues for hours after the trip ends.

Re: Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

#252

Post by monktastic1 »

magnamerc wrote: post #240
cheez wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a habit I'm trying to break as well and I pondered using drugs. But I don't do drugs otherwise. How do you go about finding DMT?

You can buy pre-cursors (or known as analogs) like 4-AcO-DMT online from Lysergi. They are sold as a 'research chemical', however they metabolize into psilocin so it is indistinguishable to psilocybin. Obviously you should take every pre-caution before ingesting any substance by doing your own research, and looking into the authenticity of the supplier.

FWIW, I can tell you that not everyone finds them to be indistinguishable.

Re: Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

#253

Post by mikelyons »

avodonosov wrote: post #229
RandomTisk wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a challenge for you: Without google or other external sources, what do YOU think are the top 2 or 3 downsides of using them? Do you even know?

I know cases of very tragic results of psychedelic use. So if you think to enlight me on childish bullshit like "the war on drugs is a conspiracy against us, in reality, drugs are very good for people" - if I was some 25 years younger I could consider that, but not today. If you believe there are no downsides, FYI, around a century ago heroin was marketed as a "no downsides" cough suppressant. With time (very soon) t…

There have been tragic results of using automobiles, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't all continue to use them. There have been tragic results of using Tesla automobiles, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't all eventually move to electric, autonomous cars.

You can basically say "there have been tragic results" about anything because there will always be irresponsible use.

I could argue that this is irresponsible use of reasoning.

Psychedelics, used responsibly, have overwhelming positive results in my experience, in scientific literature, in popular culture, in human spiritual history. The problem is that you have to validate this in your direct experience, and many people will either not have the requisite knowledge or open-mindedness to use them properly or to overcome the fear of them in the first place.

Re: Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

#254

Post by carapace »

defterGoose wrote: post #242
carapace wrote: post #164

Set and setting. The drug just rattles your cage. I quoted Leary on 'set and setting' the other day on an LSD history thread and mentioned Leonard Orr used to get great results with nothing more exotic than oxygen, so rather than repeat that ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21264919 ) I'll say this: If you have a modality of therapy that works, it will work without the drug (which, at best, serves as an amplifi…

>a little 'shroom tea can be great fun. You go out of your way to say you're not against drugs per se, but based on this statement and I can say that your attitude towards psychedelics is probably antithetical to their therapeutic potential. Having used mushrooms only once (admittedly in a larger-than-probably-responsible dose), I can say that viewing the trip as a recreational experience is misguided at best and dam…

With that statement I was merely acknowledging a fact. Many people have had a fine old time with the aid of the "Magic" Mushroom. It can't be denied. However, personally, I agree with you that "viewing the trip as a recreational experience is misguided at best and damaging or dangerous at worst."

Re: Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

#255

Post by Smithalicious »

ojhughes wrote: post #9
happythen wrote: post #7

Awesome. So the last two years I have asked people if they know anyone with shrooms, I really wanted to quit dipping (Copenhagen tobacco), been dipping for 15 years, and heard this really works. No one I knew had any leads, not really shocked by that. But I quit dipping anyways, about 6 months ago. Moral of the story: sometimes your friends don't have illegal drugs and you have to suck it up and do right things the h…

Can you not go and pick them where you are? I thought liberty caps were pretty widespread over Europe

I too would very much recommend people pick and eat the "desriable to eat" kind of mushrooms. If I had to describe what they look like, I'd say it's very similar to the "will kill you horifically" kind of mushrooms.

EDIT: I should say that I mainly said this because I thought it was funny. I actually think it's fine if people to take risks like that if they understand the responsibility and do their own research. I also think it's fine if people occasionally die from things like those, so take that as you will.

Re: Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

#256

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

kragen wrote: post #169
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think legalization is good. I also think universal healthcare is good. Unfortunately healthcare is super expensive and enabling certain behaviors increases costs a lot. Different estimates seem to suggest that (back in 2015) the opioid epidemic had had an economic cost somewhere between a half a trillion and a trillion dollars, and it's increasing [0, 1]. Full-on prohibition is bad, but maybe there's still lots of…

The damages from the opioid epidemic are almost entirely due to the unpredictable quality of street drugs and, especially, the resulting fentanyl overdoses. Opioids have some toxic effects even without those overdoses, but the resulting deaths are more than an order of magnitude smaller. (People rarely die from constipation and hearing loss.) If you want to reduce the human cost of the opioid epidemic, you will favor…

>The damages from the opioid epidemic are almost entirely due to the unpredictable quality of street drugs and, especially, the resulting fentanyl overdoses.

Wow. I knew the unpredictable quality was bad, but didn't know that the damages were almost entirely due to them. Any chance you have a source there?

Re: Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

#257

Post by Smithalicious »

acollins1331 wrote: post #4
potatofarmer45 wrote: post #3

If the active ingredient really temporarily "rewires" the brain such that multiple "rewires" can help break dependency, it should be tested with video game addiction. I know many people I grew up with who have a WoW addiction that is highly detrimental to their lives.

I just started playing WoW classic. People always ask me how I like it, seeing as I never played WoW before. I would describe it as not very fun, but incredibly addicting. I'd continue to elaborate but I have to go do some leatherworking...

Heh, my experience was the opposite. I played it for a bit (having played WoW during burning crusade through cataclysm) and had a lot of fun, but I stopped because it didn't hook me enough into playing long sessions or logging in every day.

If there's one game that does "not very fun (occasionally) but incredibly addicting" for me it's Old School Runescape. I started playing Runescape in 2006 and I still play in 2019 (with some breaks in between). I'm 21. That's most of my life.

Re: Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

#258

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

n1231231231234 wrote: post #176
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think legalization is good. I also think universal healthcare is good. Unfortunately healthcare is super expensive and enabling certain behaviors increases costs a lot. Different estimates seem to suggest that (back in 2015) the opioid epidemic had had an economic cost somewhere between a half a trillion and a trillion dollars, and it's increasing [0, 1]. Full-on prohibition is bad, but maybe there's still lots of…

I think you are confusing several matters. If I understand your comment right, you are saying that the opiod crisis shows that people do choose drugs if they can and if there was univ. healthcare, then the system would go down under the costs. The problem with this, as I see it: A good chunk of people addicted in this opiod crisis didn't choose to get addicted. They were all too readily prescribed hard painkillers fo…

I was taking issue with this statement:

>I’m an adult, I can either make those decisions for myself or hire experts for consultation to help me make the decision.

The opioid crisis is evidence that this can lead to trouble. There's an easy counter argument that it only causes trouble for the people who choose to start using those substances, and so it's still the right thing to allow someone to do. I tried to present an externality imposed to counter that counter, and healthcare is an easy example.

Re: Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

#259

Post by Smithalicious »

tfinster wrote: post #69

A legal and safe psychedelic retreat center in the Netherlands is https://synthesisretreat.com/ They have experienced guides/facilitators who can help in case someone is having a challenging experience while on psilocybin, and they have medical staff on premise if anyone needs it. The one caveat to note is that even though I'd say the retreat center is 90% secular/scientific, there's still a 10% remnant of non-scient…

You might call the shamanic aspect of it "non-scientific woo" but it's important to distinguish between "based on objective reality" and "actually improves your life" here. Many beliefs are one but not the other; in fact, I don't think they're that strongly correlated.

Of course, you can't easily alter your own beliefs, so if you have a lot of trouble suspending your disbelief for these things it might still be a turn off for you. But some such things can be useful to "believe" even if you do not think they reflect objective reality.

Re: Magic Mushrooms Can Help Smokers Kick the Habit

#260

Post by Smithalicious »

empath75 wrote: post #86
dpcan wrote: post #83

What's far more terrifying about this practice is that it's a method of reprogramming the way someone thinks. This is "Clockwork Orange" level experimentation. Imagine this being used in concentration camps or interrogations. Getting people to a mental state where they have no choice but to confess or conform because their minds will no longer let them "touch the cigarette". This is very scary.

The CIA tried this with MK ULTRA. It doesn't actually work and they abandoned it.

Granted this did supposedly give us the Unabomber so there's reason to be skeptical of such practices. Not to say that what these researchers are doing is MKULTRA.
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