[MDMA]-assisted psychotherapy is bringing peace to people with PTSD
“Alcoholism is PTSD as far as I’m concerned …the vast majority of my patients with alcohol and other addictions are essentially ‘PTSD plus.’” -Dr. Ben Sessa
He started to numb his anxiety with alcohol and prescription drugs and almost killed himself accidentally about 10 times before his family intervened. He tried to go to talk therapy but nothing worked. He took administrative leave from the fire department. He wasn’t himself. He even left his wife while she was in labor to drink at a bar. “I became a complete piece of trash as a human being. I may as well have been dead. I was losing my family,” said Thompson of this time in his life, which was dominated by nightmares, flashbacks and fits of rage. No matter where he was, Thompson had the combat veterans’ proverbial thousand-yard stare — a form of detachment to keep at bay an enveloping feeling of horror … After swallowing a capsule of MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine), [in a safe, controlled, FDA approved clinical environment] Thompson lay down on a futon, put on an eye mask and felt a wave of empathy and forgiveness wash over him. He opened up to a psychoanalyst about traumatic experiences in his career as a firefighter that he had suppressed. Those topics had been simply too painful to broach before. Not anymore. “I remember calling my wife and telling her — for the first time in years at that point — I had hope that I could be myself again. I had ‘re-witnessed’ the person I am, the person she married, and thought I might be able to come back. All hope wasn’t lost as we had expected at that point,” Thompson, 32, told Yahoo News.
From the Article (Yahoo and Newsweek):
Ecstasy-assisted psychotherapy is bringing peace to people with PTSD & Alcohol Abuse and MDMA Clinical Trials
Artwork Fair Use by: Woodcut of drinking and vomiting
