Can drugs/medication create long term positive change?

[gotmeonmyknees]

Hello everybody.


First post here, so just wanted to say hello and wish you all success in life! Now I would love your opinions (preferably facts) about using medication for social anxiety.


It's a fact that the brain is neuroplastic and can be rewired right? Now, would medication/drugs in conjunction with exposure therapy create new pathways within the brain, and if so would that amount to long term change?


I ask this because the way I see it, if the medication will help me to behave with greater openness and confidence, and those behaviors became habitual (whilst on the drugs of course) then surely that would create new neural pathways within the brain, which would amount to long term change?


What's putting me off from starting any medication is the addiction potential so I really don't want to start them and then end up in the position where all I have done is associate these confident behaviors with the drugs and then as soon as I'm sober, it's back to square one.


Thanks for reading

 

[BurritoJimmy]

When I began drinking alcohol I got over my social anxiety. Obviously it has an effect in the moment but eventually everyday social anxiety went away without any need for alcohol. So lets say you take a xanax or have a couple drinks before a social situation and have a great time with little anxiety. Your brain learns that the situation isnt so scary and then you can eventually try another situation without the need for the drug. The key is to do this without getting hooked on the drug.

 

[fermonos]

I kind of get what you're saying.

Back when I was a shy person, around 15 I wouldn't speak to anyone other than people I knew etc. Anything involving someone new or crowds I wouldn't do.

Anyway fast forward to last year when I was going out every weekend getting fucked with my mates making a complete idiot out of myself and seeing many others do the same. I came to a massive realisation that no one actually cares how you look, talk, interact with people and things around you and so on. It's all in your head, so drinking alcohol did help my anxiety massively but I don't think it will help in the way you are thinking of.

 

[Dresden]

I never danced before I started going to raves to buy ecstasy. Then I learned how to dance to rave EDM music on ecstasy. In the early 2000's commercial MDMA largely vanished, but I could still dance on par with Shiva or Parvati without the e, even though it wasn't as much fun sober. Conclusion: MDMA and raves/gay techno clubs pernanently improved my dancing.

Also, in the 90s in addition to XTC, I did lots of good LSD. It gave me many personal and religious insights and I daresay brought me closer to God. Hoeever, it was emotional torture before arriving at these spiritual plateaus, and when acid disappeared around 2003, I soon drifted apart from God eithout the acid and that is, to this day, a big disappointment for my soul.

In short, it's the TAO. You can't have light without dark, or good without evil, and that which is short actually DEFINES what is long. You don't get something for nothing, and there are always unitended consequences to deal with. However, I don't regret the spirutual evolution I went through using cocaine, meth, lsd, shrooms, ketamine, mxe, and ecstasy.