LSD "addiction"

[DJATARAXIA]

Swim has been taking tabs for about a year now, and knows that although they are not physically addictive, anything could potentially cause habituation. Swim drops about once every two days, or about 4 times a week, but never does more than 400 micros, and even then he has only done that much a handful of times. He also microdoses frequently, and uses the LSD tolerance curve graph as well as the tolerance calculator to gauge tolerance on any given trip. Estimated usage is about 5-10 tabs per week. What are your opinions on his usage? Swim is not necessarily depressed when not using, yet is always looking forward to his next trip and uses it as a motivational tool in daily life to do homework, hang out with friends, and do other productive things like make money during his spare time. Swim is 18 and has been living mostly away at school, but even now that he is home he finds that it does not affect his relationships in any way, nor does it have any other perceptual downsides-- in fact, it greatly motivates him and makes his life much more enjoyable and productive. Say whatever you want about tolerance, but he has been steadily tripping/microdosing multiple times per week for the past 6 months or longer, but Has never had to take more than 4 tabs to have a full trip (by "full trip" swim means that it is about the intensity of a 150-200ug trip if his tolerance were 0, he has become very good at guaging his "trippyness" by this point), yet he never feels an overwhelming desire to "trip sack", he just enjoys the motivational boost. Does this qualify as addiction in any of your respective opinions? Does anybody know of anybody with similar expiriences? Thanks in advance, swim is a first time poster but long time reader, let him know if he does anything against the rules!

 

[Xorkoth]

I was in the same boat as you for a couple of years, sounds so similar, except I was using LSD and a bunch of other psychedelics, interchangeably. It was a slow progression from weekly to most days of the week. I was usually taking doses that qualified as very light doses, one might liken it to microdosing but due to tolerance the doses kept going up. I was at a period of use of 3-5 times per week (whether small or large dose, it was usually small doses but like I said, the actual dosage kept creeping up) for a year and a half or so. At the end of it I really crashed hard from exhaustion, which is why I stopped that rate of usage. I don't feel like it damaged me (permanently), but it took a while to recover my energy levels. Also, it took 3 years of absolutely no psychedelics at all to reset my massive permatolerance. It had gotten to the point by the end where I could take 2-3 times the dose I could take before just to actually get visuals and have something beyond a threshold, microdose-feeling experience, where that dose that was 2-3 times less used to make me trip hard and have a wonderful, satisfying experience. Even after I started using psychedelics again after 3 years, I still required a lot more than most people to get trips that felt less deep. I have been tripping twice a month at most for quite a while now and finally in the past year my tolerance has pretty much dropped back to normal and I feel like I can fully experience psychedelics again. I stopped using them really heavily at the beginning of 2008, and then after I recovered I used them weekly again until 2010 when I quit for 3 years. In 2013 I started using them again, twice monthly for the most part, with some months without using them at all. In 2016 I felt like I was finally back to normal tolerance-wise. So that was about 8 years to recover fully in terms of tolerance and being able to get "full" trips again.

Regarding addiction, I would say that during that period of time when I used them as often as you are, I was relying on the feeling of escape from ordinary life. Psychedelics were making it easier for me to feel more positive and connected, but slowly they turned into drugs of escape rather than beautiful facilitators of experience. It got so normal that it stopped even really having a point. I'd say it was certainly an addiction of sorts, an addiction to novelty that psychedelics brought on. But it's not sustainable.

My recommendation is that you stop taking psychedelics so often, and spend your time on something else that makes you feel good to do instead, leaving them for less frequent use. Once per week is the absolute most I would say you can get away with for any reasonable length of time but even once a week leads to long-term tolerance development and trips that are less meaningful. They're BEST left for special occasions, but if you're like me and you just really like to trip (and it sounds like you obviously are), then twice a month, every 2 weeks, is pretty sustainable and okay to pencil into your schedule. I still occasionally trip more often, like for example at a music festival, I'm gonna take a psychedelic 2 days in a row or maybe 3 times in 4 days depending on the length of the festival, but those kinds of events aren't too often and I don't trip for a while after that.

By the way we don't use SWIM here or other third person substitutions because they don't fool anyone or hold up legally, and it makes posts annoying to read. I know it's required on other forums, no worries, just letting you know. Welcome!

 

[The Shadow Self]

You should really consider the pitfalls of using so much LSD, and there can be many. I used to trip multiple times per week, back in the day, taking rather heroic doses as well. I ended up "giving up" LSD because I was depressed, disorganized, unhappy with life, etc. So, I took a break for over ten years and finished an undergraduate degree then went on and completed grad school. If I had kept with my use, I would never had accomplished all that I have, and I am certainly glad I took a break. So, when I started asking myself if something about the LSD experience seemed "better than my IRL experience", I knew I had to stop. Many of us have gone through this, and LSD is not the only drug I have had to put down for my own sanity and well-being. So if you are feeling like I think you are, and you arrived at a place where you felt the need to post this, it is probably a time for self-reflection, my friend. Do what you need to do to stay healthy, and as lovely as LSD is, and I do indulge occasionally these days, I know my abuse of it is in the past, thankfully. They were dark days (months, years) as I slowly consumed many sheets of LSD and always had some around.

Hopefully that helps. Good luck and stay healthy. The LSD isn't going anywhere. Don't wait until it turns on you starts to scare the shit out of you. It DOES happen.

 

[pupnik]

using too much is a waste
save the excess for your retirement

 

[Solipsis]

LSD can catalyze psychological processes but it won't really cause reliably the same benefits or issues long-term I don't think.

If it's an addiction that people can have with LSD it is a special one, and I'm not only talking about it being the rare sort of drug that mostly produces psychological addiction nor am I talking about the tolerance in the usual sense. Normally with most drugs dependency associated with tolerance effects causes negative withdrawals upon continuation.

With psychedelics like LSD however, at least in my view: A lot of the relatively reliable effects people enjoy that are not during but after the trip seem to be a sort of positive effect of acute withdrawals from developing acute tolerance. Tolerance develops incredibly quickly compared to many other drugs and the withdrawals appear in a way positive.

It doesn't seem technically harmful like other addictions in this sense because discontinuation after the positive effects should mostly lead to your previous baseline, not to withdrawals.

I consider psychedelics therapeutic for me if only for that effect, and I sort of miss it when I have to go without them for a longer time, but I don't see myself heavily depending on that benefit somehow, at most it is *really helpful*, but not desperately unmissable.

And then of course that everything amazing (talking about the actual trip effects now rather than aftereffects) can be psychologically addictive. I've seen a bluelighter post that life didn't seem worth living without psychedelics. I highly doubt that was about the therapeutic after-effects alone but it's quite extreme of course.

I used to abuse things like ketamine, but with drugs like LSD i fine to stick to that once a week max (I am too busy these days for that, and it's probably good not to keep it up weekly although I have done that for about a year a long time ago and it was fine). As I was with ketamine, tripping on acid more than weekly probably involves like some sort of denial that it only gets less satisfying to do it that often. Also the 'pleasure centers' of your brain aren't stimulated extremely I think, so it probably takes a bigger lack of willpower to go into that denial.
Especially when you still have a lot to explore, I guess it can be so thrilling that you just can't wait to go again. But you ought to wait though, to keep it interesting in the long run.

Compensating for tolerance is a waste but it would be ridiculous to me too see that as a sort of moral shame like I find it for wasting food.

 

[Morninggloryseed]

Interesting tread. I know a lot about drug addiction, I am a walking "Dont Try This @ Home" book which you all will read one day. I digress, never heard of "LSD Addiction." There was a summer recently, summer 2013, where I probably tripped every week (the summer of ibogaine), but I never felt addicted. I felt I was pushing boundries, testing waters, played with all kinds of states of mind, but I was never addicted. Are you addicted to LSD? I never heard of such a thing.

 

[pupnik]

@Solipsis
I think I am going back to once per week, it is more sustainable; twice a week is too much.
not addiction, more like hobbyist or obsessive enthusiast

 

[Solipsis]

Sure weekly acid (well I regularly have semi short breaks these days just from being busy or away etc) that resonates with me - in the past I've kept that up for quite some time though it made me much less skeptical than is healthy... a vivid imagination is one thing but thinking you are on to something, some sort of new age quest for the ultimate truth... nah not ok. Mainly epistemological issues with that.

The question is though what happens if you discontinue: can you do it easily, is it discomforting in any way etc. Everyone can say it is a conscious choice to just use psychedelics regularly, but I guess it makes a difference when you prove this by for example discontinuing for more than a year or several years like I did.
For the record: not particularly taking pride in that as I did that because it felt necessary and I think that most of us who trip so regularly are not addicted and can easily discontinue for as long as is chosen... but what about the TS though?

I think in rare cases people might have such a serious infatuation with tripping that it may be hard to stop.

 

[herbavore]

Regarding addiction, I would say that during that period of time when I used them as often as you are, I was relying on the feeling of escape from ordinary life. Psychedelics were making it easier for me to feel more positive and connected, but slowly they turned into drugs of escape rather than beautiful facilitators of experience. It got so normal that it stopped even really having a point. I'd say it was certainly an addiction of sorts, an addiction to novelty that psychedelics brought on.

This.

I think that one of the most powerful aspects of psychedelics is their ability to open the mind/heart/body to other, expanded ways of thinking. Expanded ways of thinking however are not expanded ways of being unless you put the increased knowledge into daily practice. It's pretty easy to have the epiphany on acid that we are all one. Now go find a person that has a 180 degree different world view than you do and try to be one with them on some level. As they say, "Psychedelics open the door but you still have to do the work of actually stepping through it. I think one of the very reasons that psychedelics can stray into habit forming is that you want the door opened for you rather than getting the deeper knowledge/aha moment that says, "Oh, I can do this anytime, anywhere--I just didn't realize it before." But then you are right back in your human body with all its hungers and thirsts and right back in the lap of your ego and your conditioned thoughts and learned perceptions. How do you clear all that aside and put into practice that "walking in beauty" that comes so effortlessly on a drug? If I see it as difficult and frustrating it is difficult and frustrating; when I can manage to see it as a pretty fascinating human experiment, it's a lot more fun.

 

[Solipsis]

Hmm I get a lot out of lysergamide trips that has little to do with the unrealness or break from reality... harmonized thoughts and feelings and I generally feel more inclined to take good (better) care of myself afterwards and feel more calm and at peace, artistically inspired... need I go on?

It's fine if I don't trip - I do have meds that make it doable for me to function (we'll see about professional integration I guess). Although I may have to switch it to saturdays I just love the sunday afternoon atmosphere.

It would probably be different if I had more of an attitude to go hard at it and deep, to really warp my world beyond recognition... then I can certainly imagine it can stop having a point. The more paradigm shifting your trip is, the more integration takes time afterwards and the more inappropriate it is to just keep tripping soon after. I don't think that is good for your mentality. It shouldn't become a compulsion obviously.

 

[Xorkoth]

I agree with you Solipsis... I do use them regularly (in my case 1-2 times a month) at doses that are not trying to push any boundaries, because I find the experiences refreshing and I am able to reflect on recent happenings in different ways. Plus it's just fun, and I like having fun. When I was saying it stopped having a point, that was when I was taking them way too often, multiple times a week, as the OP is doing.

My initial purpose for psychedelics was to push the boundaries and deeply explore reality and myself. Nowadays, I have put those experiences into practice and I rarely get the urge to do that... every so often, like once a year (hell it's been longer than a year since I did this at this point) I try to go for a deep experience. But using them at lower dosages still has value and utility for me.