Could Natural Treatments Have Helped Amy Winehouse?

[Richard D]

Sorry, I know it's from faux news. But this is interesting:


Add to the long list of celebrities who have struggled with drug addictions, the recently deceased 27-year-old British soul diva Amy Winehouse. Every newspaper and magazine will play and replay her final days, and commentators will come out of the woodwork offering thoughtful opinions abut how to deal with talented and troubled individuals who fall into the deep end of the drug pool. However the story sorts out over time, one thing is certain—Winehouse had a drug problem, and couldn’t get out of it. And so, at a very early age, she is one more casualty in the drug-addled celebrity club.

The problem of treating drug addiction is neither simple nor straightforward. A person’s entire biology and psychology play into addiction and dependence, and the threads that weave a tapestry of drug troubles are usually highly complex. Amidst the panoply of offerings, treatments with potent psychedelic substances suggest another line of potentially effective treatment for drug problems. The term psychedelic means soul-manifesting, and was coined in 1957 by psychiatrist Humphry Osmond. These psychedelics include LSD, peyote, ayahuasca, iboga, and other plant or fungus drugs, such as Psilocybin mushrooms. As strange as this may seem at first blush, there is a great deal of work happening in this field.

One agent of change for those struggling with drugs is ayahuasca, a brew made in the Amazon. Made from a vine (Banisteriopsis caapi) and a leaf (Psychotria viridis), and containing the potent psychedelic compound DMT, ayahuasca produces visions and is used to treat diseases of the body, mind and spirit. Over the past several years ayahuasca has been highly publicized in print and on TV for its unusual healing properties, including stopping drug addictions. One large Brazilian-based Christian church, Santo Daime, conducts ceremonies all over the world, using ayahuasca as a sacrament for the direct experience of spirit. Santo Daime claims thousands of successes with people who ostensibly have been freed of drug addictions by participating in the consumption of the psychoactive ayahuasca brew. Many who have formerly struggled with tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other dangerous drugs have been able to shed their addictions. Additionally, thousands of people from around the world are making pilgrimages to the Amazon, to drink ayahuasca with shamans, and to be healed from a broad range of physical and mental disorders. At this point, people are not waiting for a green light from any health agencies.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/07/25/psychedelics-for-drug-addiction/#ixzz1U1M5EV5m


Rest of the article: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/07/25/psychedelics-for-drug-addiction/?cmpid=cmty_fb_Gigya_Could_Natural_Treatments_Have_Helped_Amy_Winehouse%3F

[FreakinDJ]

1. One agent of change for those struggling with drugs - is loosing every thing

and sadly the only reason most if any get off drugs

[elleng]

2. Dunno

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/amy-winehouse-and-the-perils-of-alcohol-withdrawal/?ref=health

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/health/02abuse.html?ref=health

[madrchsod]

3. no....the only thing that could have saved her was herself

[laconicsax]

4. I dunno. If she had only used homeopathic booze and drugs, it might be a different story. n/t

[uppityperson]

7. seriously

pretty wild

[FLAprogressive]

12. ROFL

:rofl:

[HuckleB]

5. Hmm.

I suspect she wouldn't have made it to 27 if she had tried this load of woo.

Ugh.

[Celebration]

6. I doubt it

Ayahuasca can't be patented so by definition it couldn't have helped her.

That's what I have learned from "evidence based medicine", lol.

[semillama]

8. Wasn't LSD once considered for use in treating alcoholism?

In fact, yes:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-10/uoa-ltf100606.php

I think it might be an effective treatment for the Teabola virus as well...

(interesting side note: while typing in "LSD treatment for..." in my search bar, one result was "LSD Treatment for Autism" - I didn't explore any further than that, can't get into a google time-suck at the moment)

[Richard D]

9. There were a lot of such studies. . .

. . . which unfortunately got shut down. Now there's many that are being done with various psychedelics. Most are showing great promise. MAPS is an organization that is doing a lot of good work in this field. And yes, for those of you from the skeptics camp, they are being double blind placebo controlled studies.

[semillama]

10. Hey, I'm from the skeptics camp, and fully support further research

If I were a neurologist, I'd be really interested in what effect the chemicals in certain psychedelic drugs had on things like addiction. I think the stigmata of the recreational use of drugs has really hindered some lines of serious research, unfortunately.

[Richard D]

11. Thank you.

I appreciate that.
Some from the skeptic camp seem to have a knee jerk reaction to anything that is not mainstream.
This research is, IMHO, vitally important. Not only for addiction, but for PTSD and end of life issues as well.

[Dorian Gray]

13. You can only speculate

I have a SIL who is a serious addict. Could alternative methods help her? She'd have to be willing to go through any type of protocol while attempting to give up her daily alcohol and drug use. I somehow doubt that anything can help her unless she's truly committed to quitting.

The same would have been true of Winehouse. Sadly, she passed on, so we'll never know.