I qualified for financial help with one of those places that advertise on social media (Joyous, if you know it), and I've got enough to buy myself the first month of pills.
Curious as to if anyone has had experience with it. On paper it sounds like it would be great for me, but my ma is scared of it cause apparently there are horror stories going around in the news. Way I figure it, if it doesn't help, at least I get drugs.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(23)00304-8/fulltext
Recent review paper of a number of trials. I think you should read this.
Hate to be the party pooper, but do you think this is good for your sobriety? Like do you feel confident you can stick with a program and only use the drugs as therapy rather than recreation? I only ask because I know you're still "young" in recovery. Just looking out for you.
I am by no means sober, just not drinking anymore so it isn't a concern. Appreciate the check in though!
Okay, please be careful with whatever you do going forward.
Having typed out my "trip report" of sorts. I want to second this.
I wouldn't recommend using anything as an ongoing crutch. That has brought me nothing but pain and burnt bridges and suffering for 15+ years. If you choose to try and experiment with ketamine treatment I can only recommend trying it as a one-off experiment, or a series of experiments over the course of a week or two.
If you are successful you won't need to keep doing it. You may find you benefit from re-doing it once a year, or once every six months, or something like that. I understand that in a professional setting this is often the approach.
But I think re-dosing, re-visiting a cathartic dissociative therapy session/s should, eventually, be unnecessary as you build a healthier life and mental space.
A good friend of mine did supervised ketamine therapy with his long term psychiatrist to treat CPTSD and he made some serious breakthroughs. However, this was augmenting long term treatment, and he’s still doing non-K therapy
Do you know if he was doing ketamine IV infusions in a clinic? Or perhaps nasal spray applications?
Anything about the frequency of the actual pharmaceutical sessions/doses?
It’s almost exclusively the esketamine nasal spray. I’ve never heard of the type of service OP is describing.
Yeah it'd be the spray or the infusion thing. I think they have different expectations for therapeutic outcomes but I'm really not 100% sure.
Thanks! I'm in 'regular' therapy as well, so im gonna talk to my guy tomorrow about it
A person I know and care for has severe lifelong depression. They did supervised ketamine infusions (~1 mg/kg body weight subcutaneous infusions). Initially weekly then less frequent I think fortnightly, then they ran out of money. It helped them significantly while they could afford it.
I DIY the same protocol with pharmaceutically pure sterile solutions I prepare. Ketamine possibly has some bacteriacidal properties and subcutaneous injection is less risky but I would urge anyone without training to not do this without first consulting someone with the training or sourcing prepared IV solutions. Never IV ketamine as you stand a significant risk of losing cordination with a needle in you.
I initially found monthly quelled nerve pain and helped with depression massively. Like turn-my-life-round with establishing stable routines massively. Now I get by with 3 monthly. I would probably not use it if I found I had to continue using it frequently due to the potential for side effects.
I have not seen good evidence that daily low-dose protocols work well. Reviews seem to support ~0.5 - 1.5 mg/kg doses at varying frequencies. Nasal dosing requires concentrations that are hard to achieve in a racemic preparation, hence patented esketamine.
I did. Not for actual therapy but to just get ketamine paid for by my employer
The research for ketamine being therapeutical is good but the actual therapy is really bad
With a lot of places, the amount of ketamine they give you and the frequency they tell you to take is an absurd amount, it's way too much and way too often. If you took that much ketamine that often, it'll definitely screw with your mind
Other doctors have talked about this and said the therapeutical threshold for ketamine varies from person to person, and that it generally is way lower than the amount prescribed and in lower frequencies too
Get the ketamine if you want but if they tell you to take like a 200mg tablet every 3 days, don't so it, that's a scary amount and your brain will be so scattered from that much ket use
Treat ketamine like you would psychedelics or really strong weed imo to make sure your mind can stay grounded and stable
I second this. Be extra careful. Don't blindly trust dosages that are given to you. I've been prescribed dosage that were WAY too high pretty consistently. Like, so high I think it should be considered medical malpractice.
Yea I didn't want to call it medical malpractice cause I have no medical qualifications but if my extensive drug usage counts as qualifications then my ketamine therapist should be serving life in jail tbh
Yea I didn't want to call it medical malpractice cause I have no medical qualifications
I don't either but I called it out as sounding like a grift operation to me. I gotta admit I glossed over the vast difference between my testimony and the idea of taking ketamine regularly indefinitely. That's wildly inappropriate. Those aren't doctors they're capitalists with one licensed physician in the organisation rubber-stamping the process.
We have similar operations in my country for other practically benign substances. Also for weed. But this particular type of operation sounds like bad news.
lower frequencies too
Yeah the most frequent I've heard of is fortnightly. To me even that sounds excessive unless it's part of a planned therapeutic process over a set time-frame with mental health support staff (ie therapists) helping build coping strategies, doing EMDR, learning bilateral stimulation coping techniques / whatever the fuck else might work.
Good to know! I think the dose they're giving me is 60mg lozenge a day and ramping up from there, but will be mindful of that.
Every day is crazy imo, nobody tells others to do psychedelics or molly every day for therapy
I mean you can experiment but really be careful and mindful of how it's affecting you
Yeah i gotta follow up with someone (doctor, or so they say) there before they give it to me, so ill ask
I would lie, horde that shit, do some research and just take advantage of the subsidised access. Do not follow the dosing protocols being discussed that is bugfuck wild exploitative shit. They tryna hook you fam.
I could be misremembering the dosages but yeah it seems like one of those online ez prescription shops. That said, it seems like it does have the potential to do me a lot of good if I'm not getting fucked in some way.
You will almost certainly "feel better" temporarily. You won't have a breakthrough experience like I described in my post so that perspective has limited value in your position, my experience is closer to infusion therapy which is expensive and exclusive afaik... unless you opted to save a rainy day stash and wait for your tolerance to go down, then attempt the heroic dose self therapy thing (everybody who loves you would caution you strongly against doing this without a shitload of forethought and research and immediate support on hand if things get sketchy.)
Sadly I think the period during which you'll feel better doing regular dosing will be quite limited and you would probably become psychologically dependent on the drug to help you cope and just feel normal, once you acclimate to it. Whether you consider that getting fucked is a matter of perspective. I have no doubt it would be safer and more effective than most anti-depressants and better than doing heroin to cope with life, for example. Still, I don't think it touches anything like the full therapeutic potential of the drug as a fairly powerful tool.
Also I'd be wary of developing false hope, because a lot of these drugs which help in the short term have a tendency to turn around and bite you on the tail end.
and definitely don't mix them with anti-depressants.
edit: HAVING SAID THAT
Sometimes temporary relief is all we need to get our shit together, knock past some mental blockages and start doing the healthy life stuff that promotes better a mental and physical existence. So I'm not gonna shit on the concept entirely.
and definitely don't mix them with anti-depressants.
See, I told the person there i talked to that im on lexapro, lamotrigine, and atomoxetine, and they said that was all fine. What's up with ketamine and SSRIs? I know lexapro kills a lot of hallucinogenics and can be fatal when mixed with mdma, but what's up with ket?
It occurs to me that there appear to be three approaches being explored with ketamine treatment?
- My trip experience is most akin to "ketamine infusion" sessions. Those are the big dose in a clinic type things. I personally attest to this as a plausible approach to augmenting therapy
- There's periodic low-dosing managed in a semi-clinical environment, where you get some of the benefits of just.. being dissociated, but without having it occur naturally as a trauma response. Sounds like my cough syrup era, or the nice feeling of a good post-acid afterglow. I am skeptical of this as a path towards permanent recovery / freedom from learned self-torment / freedom from being medicalised for long stretches of time
- Then there's whatever the operation you've found is doing, which looks like a grey area way to sell ketamine for daily use. I am skeptical that this will not turn into a mini oxy type scandal real quick. If they are not also offering therapy as part of their services, they are either libertarian-brained opportunists or straight up abusing the marginal gains that legitimate research has helped make (re: decriminalisation and the opportunity for medical research / treatment programs,) to make money.
The first two, I'd entertain as plausible approaches though with very different long term goals and expectations for recovery and regaining control of your life. I would sit by and be curious if a friend were doing these.
The last one I would exploit because I seek drugs. I would not trust them with your physical and mental health. I would counsel a friend not to fuck with this.
Aight, so this is definitely in the realm of irresponsible anecdote sharing. But here we go. This happened to me by accident, playing with drugs. It may have saved my life, it definitely improved the quality of my life and my mental health.
Background Info:
I was in therapy after complex burnout and trying to address a serious benzo addiction. My therapist was slated to be one of the first to participate in running a Ket therapy trial. I was going to probably be on the shortlist. The trial got funding pulled last minute.
COINCIDENTALLY. A dissociative drug arrived in the mail and I started experimenting with it. I will NOT recommend you fuck around self medicating. It's led me to a lifetime of wasted time and blacked out years. However.
The Drug / my "approach"
I dosed 3-HO-PCP.
Yes. PCP. The cannibal drug for 90s street lore aka "dat shit big lurch ate his girlfriend on." Well, I certainly don't recommend fucking around with PCP while mixing other substances, but I did not have any cannibalistic compulsions, nor find myself in any dangerous situations, nor did I experience any sort of psychosis-provoking mindfuck state.
In my experience dissociative anesthetics do not lend themselves to this sort of response, I believe that particular bad rep comes from mixing with cannabis. Avoid combos. On their own, I find dissociatives to be a very gentle way to explore psychedelics, because they literally dissociate you, you're buffered, somehow. I dunno, it's hard to explain. The parts you're conscious for, feel adjacent to having a dissociative episode from panic or stress, but it's much more gentle than those psychological responses to trauma, so, it's a shitty analogy that I don't have a better one to replace.3-HO is an analogue molecule of the classic PCP, created to work around the specific laws in the US which dictate the international drug trade as it relates to grey market manufacture and import. It's all illegal in my country, I'm sure it's illegal in yours, if it wasn't then, they update the lists, those US laws are busted and stupid. (No shit hey.)
So I experimented a little with 3-HO and it reminded me of DXM (dextromethorphan) another dissociative, with a horrible bodyload that just isn't worth abusing if you're not a bored juvenile, or can get pure powder. IMHO. I've only done a bit of Ket here and there, but these three drugs, ketamine, dextromethorphan and PCP are all dissociative anesthetics. Oh, there's another one, er, MXE? Someone might chime in I've done a bunch of that and done a bunch of stupid shit since then so I forget.
Then I experimented enough that I hit the 3-HO equivalent of a "K-Hole" - basically when you hit the truly like, "we could do surgery on this MFer and they wouldn't even notice" level of dose. A lot of ketamine users will try to avoid the hole, because it stops being a fun drug and becomes a basically un/semi-conscious pseudo-psychadelic trip. But basically it's an ego death experience. It puts you in a physically vulnerable state. I do not understand people who use ketamine as a party drug.
My mindset at the time:
I was in therapy, I was tired of fucking my life up with benzos, I was addicted to a drug that would kill me if I withdrew too fast from it, life revolved around dosing schedules, tapering, losing the plot and blacking out, running in circles. I was numbing out my emotions which made me extremely vulnerable when the time came for me to burn out. I crashed hard and was catatonic for like 6 months, no shit. I had decades of unresolved trauma. I was actively sick of my situation, knew many of my problem points, and perhaps had made some level of progress on these things.
My point here is, I was not necessarily in a great place, mentally, but I was focused to an extent on change and keenly self aware of my major problem areas. However I was NOT trying to fix myself with 3-HO-PCP, I was playing around with a new drug and enjoying myself the best way I knew how.
My setting:
I had someone in the house with me who is a reluctant but experienced trip sitter. And a young playful, emotionally connected pet.
Worth noting: I was quite experienced with the range of psychological responses to drugs, I've experienced meth psychosis, I've overdosed on things, I've tripped on acid hard enough to step out of the time-stream and walk between universes with full blown visual hallucinations, etc. I'm not a dedicated psychonaut and I maintain a lot of cautious respect for this class of experience. I'm just saying, if you don't know what you're doing, this isn't your granpappy's dope high. This isn't even a one or two tab of acid type of experience, it's closer temporary self-deletion, with periods of fascinating but fleeting lucidity, until the come-down / come-to when the trip is wearing off and the lucidity starts to stick and form a coherent chain of events.
My initial result:
This is the reason I'm telling you this stuff.
When I came back from my first dissociative ego-deaths, it was, as usual, very confusing. (It's very funny too, like, it's very very funny experiencing a complete rebirth of your being and all the layers of social construct and self construct reassembling themselves in a freshly blown mind. It's also very sad and grim. It's a range of things. You gotta be ready for that shit, push the bad off to the side for later contemplation and let the good stuff in to enjoy. Meditation can give you these skills.)
But over the course of I think 3 of these experiences, I lost my desire to use benzos completely. Whatever neural pathways connected my addiction and my need to not-be-sober to cope with not having resolved my problems, had weakened, and my head was in the right place to not want to re-strengthen them again.
I had to be very mindful to keep taking my stupid drug of addiction, but I sped my taper up, I was no longer uncomfortable from the withdrawals etc. I dropped from the equivalent of about 170-200mg of valium a day to a maintenance dose of 5-15mg more rapidly than the literature would indicate is safe or even possible without seizures. (DONT DO THIS, FELLOW BART@RDS. LOL.)
Critically, my mental health improved a lot. I did not continue seeking 3-HO after it was gone. I was happy to basically be sober. I did eventually come off the benzos completely for quite a while. I believe I still experience the ongoing benefits of these experiences.
edit: MXP == MXE / moxy
My semi-ignorant interpretation of this experience
So I've obviously reflected on this a lot over the last few years. I have relapsed since. Nowhere near to the degree that I was gone when I had these breakthroughs. But I relapsed for a variety of reasons and with effective support and self care I would probably still be free of drug addiction today.
I mentioned my then therapist was really into this stuff, so he was up on the literature and we spent a few sessions talking about what had happened. My addiction psychiatrist who was supposed to be managing my taper started to really get the shits with me and fired me, still leaving me in a very physically dangerous situation. Total piece of shit, she was. She was sick of me from the first time I mentioned that I struggle with nihilistic and existentialist philosophy, she straight up told me she doesn't like working with nihilists. What the fuck.
So my understanding is, during many psychedelic experiences (or perhaps all?) there is a great sort of weakening of the neural pathways that form the fundamental patterns of our thinking and our behaviours. I mean it weakens them enough that you might wake up and take 15 minutes to recognise that other conscious entities exist, that the soft hairless long one is like you and the little hairy one is fren. "Hu- man. Bean?" were the first non-gibberish words to my trip sitter after the most powerful of these experiences.
I believe that if you have a conscious desire for change, or are sufficiently sick of the behaviours or thought patterns that plague your consciousness, that these deeply hallucinogenic states have a tendency to cull that which is not useful or desirable. I think this is why I didn't wake up with an entirely different personality, you know? I have a strong ego, a fairly coherent sense of identity, these are things I value enough that the pathways regenerated during the tail of the trip and the days following.
But the dose-impulse behaviour, as a component of my addiction? That was ruining my fucking life, over and over, and I knew it, and I hated it. It withered and died during those trips. With ZERO effort from me. ZERO intention from me. Other aspects of addiction too, were weakened or deleted from my mind. Other trauma-learned behaviours and patterns of thinking were significantly weakened, I've found it much easier to learn to love and forgive myself, to do something like what the therapist would call re-parenting, but it's different in my particular mental framing.
Lasting efficacy
As I mentioned, I have relapsed since. My mental health has generally stayed pretty good, but I'm still not back to being extremely high functioning like I managed to be before my burnout. I'm getting there though.
While the drug class (dissociatives) has a low risk of addiction, I have seen friends become ketamine addicts, I have seen friends become DXM addicts. These drugs are often not good for you in the long run. When you self medicate you run the risk of learning a new destructive pattern - I can fix this with a line of ketamine, for example.
I do not crave or seek out these drugs actively and haven't used any since the bag ran out on these experiences.
With a better support framework in place (that therapist ended up being a dud and triggered a bit of a relapse in me with his own reckless words) or a well prepared routine for active self care - physical, diet and meditation type shit - I think it would be possible to land on one's feet after something like this and literally get the closest thing to a fresh start that life has to offer.
My understanding is, that even in a managed, therapeutic environment, following all the protocols and shit, the psychiatric support staff are only on hand to hit you with a big dose of diazepam if you freak out, and perhaps to help guide your thoughts in a productive direction as you drift off into the trip. Even in a therapeutic medical environment ($$$) those guys are just there as guard rails. They don't know how this stuff works much better than I do, it's your brain doing all the work.
Final thoughts
Should you fuck around and find out?
I don't know Corgi, you're a precious comrade. We love you here.
What I have described above I credit a lot to the nature of the drugs and especially that class of drug for it's particularly potent combination of ego-death-ifying psychedelic properties and ego-buffering dissociative properties. Personally, I think it's fairly safe.
But I also have to acknowledge, again, that I came to this drug with a lifetime of experience using and abusing every class of drug you can think of. I'm a polydrug addict almost by nature. I'd like to change that eventually, I think? But I'm not even sure. I don't place a value judgement on substance use, except that I don't want the people I love using and abusing certain drugs that cause serious physical and psychological harm.
Dissociatives do have their outlier horror stories, so I can't say it is free from the potential to cause psychological harm, and blacking out on anything by yourself is physically dangerous.
Tread cautiously if you choose this path.
But me?
I will fucken do it again.
btw let me know if I need to unblock my inbox if you want to discuss any of this privately. I keep that thang hidden by my browser so I won't see messages unless I know to look for them.
This is interesting, I actively seek the k hole, when I had access to affordable ketamine (it was crazy cheap before it caught on, $20/g was normal) I'd buy a gram and rail the whole thing in one go. It's been a long time and I've done a lot of drugs but damn, I love being in a k hole. I'm also not sure what the hell the nightmare pcp stories came from, literally every punk in Montreal in the 90s was doing it all the time and the results were never even close to the news reports, I'm guessing meth was in play in addition in most cases there. I do recall when I was blasting ketamine a lot that I did generally feel pretty nice afterwards. Usually I'd just k hole solo for 2 hours while really enjoying a 70s Sci fi and not understanding it at all, then I snapped out and felt better than prior. That doesn't mean it's a good therapeutic drug tho. Acid makes me really really confident and confidence is good, doesn't mean I should do more acid
I'm guessing meth was in play in addition in most cases there
I really think it comes from PCP laced blunts. Weed can definitely put people in a psychotic state and if you mix that with a poorly measured (or completely unexpected) dose of PCP- I could see someone bugging out real bad.
But then again it's the media, right? A-PVP was probably what those flesh eating cannibal crackheads in Florida were doing a few years back. I've done that shit, I'll admit it was a very strangely demonic and sex-tastic experience rolled into one (shouts out McAffee RIP) so I could see The Fear taking hold, but not to that extent.
I bet the biggest common denominator in these drug-scare horror stories is untreated mental illness.
Out of curiousity, when you had access to good ket before the market went stupid- how often would you do a nice big megadose like that? Do you remember particularly what drove the impulse, or was it just "getting fucked up" like how I was playing with the 3-HO before I stumbled into an accidental positive upside?
You're probably on the money with the whole pcp thing. I've done pcp a few times and it's not that harsh of a drug. As for k, 2-3 times a week. I'd usually do it on my days I'd substitute booze for benzos. It was fun times but the days I did ketamine and benzos was usually days I wasn't drinking and doing speed. I also had a fairly steady morphine habit on top and was doing acid at least once a week.
yeah I can't comment on whether "real" PCP is especially different to 3-HO-PCP, but I found 3-HO to be downright gentle, rather than harsh. I mean reassembling after the ego death was definitely something not everyone would enjoy but yeah. It's a really misunderstood drug.
I hope you're doing well these days. Anyone else suddenly fiending for K? Shit.
Very very gradually getting more normal. Still smoke obscene amounts of pot.xause it's basically free, really gotta drink less. Otherwise I barely ever do drugs I never had a habit of doing. I cut out the pattern of extra drugs.
Eyyy I've done that drug! Weirdest bus ride I've ever taken.
Thanks for the writeup! Glad you got something helpful from the experience!
No worries fam. I hope you find relief from your issues.
I'd be reserved, as you seem to be, about an online prescription for frequently-redosed dissos. It sounds like a bad idea and, low key, a grift to legally sell drugs that are otherwise restricted. I'm suspicious of the pill plan you described in your OP.
A one time very close online friend became a ket fiend and by the end of her time with the drug was fishing dirty needles out from under her bed, straightening bent sharps and re-dosing with that sort of gnarly rig. She was hooked bad, regardless of whether there's a physical addiction component to it.
Goddamn.
Yeah, it seems just like one of those online places you see advertising ED meds. "Just talk to us! Set up a call and you'll get whatcha need!"
I think it has the potential to do me a lot of good, but yeah, just wanna know what I'm getting into.
I could also be misremembering the dosages, it's been like 2 months since I had the intake call, and they finally approved me for financial aid.
Play the system, lie, do your research, take your time, meditate on this. If nothing else you can resell your ket if you change your mind and make a lil scratch for yourself.
Edit: this is (il)legal advice
First month of pills? I thought esketamine was only approved as a nasal spray.
There’s a phase 2 trial from this summer, but idk if it’s been approved yet.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03063-x
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but they may be enrolling you in a clinical trial, for which you should be paid.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but they may be enrolling you in a clinical trial, for which you should be paid.
I think they're doing legal loophole fuckery with the blessing of a corrupt or lazy physician. I've seen it with other substances and it can be a trainwreck for legitimate research progress. I'm actually kind of alarmed to be hearing about this sort of operation.
If it’s not a clinical trial idk how they’re doing this, legally speaking. I do recreational drugs, but this ain’t that, and there’s procedures and laws to follow. Sometimes those procedures are exploited by companies for profit, but at their base they are there to protect the public from those same companies.
FYI, a friend shared this, it links to actual papers. It sounds like the product being offered here. I haven't read enough yet to know if any of this has gone past clinical trial stages, but you are dead right that Corgi is probably entitled to receive compensation if this is a trial. Could that be the loophole and they're just counting on ignorance or some corporate / marketing construct to launder the trial / fast-track putting the formulation onto the market for a purely profit driven motive?
https://www.osmind.org/blog/sublingual-ketamine-troches-for-home-use-an-evidence-based-introduction-part-1
Friend also suggested that some of the links may be inaccurate, so I suppose further digging would be required to match paper titles with their papers in the usual databases. Obviously "osmind.org" doesn't hit with a lot of authority.
Yeah they do quote a fair amount of studies in there but it’s late for me to scan several studies. I posted this earlier but this is probably the highest quality trial that is working towards approval for oral ketamine for depression
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03063-x
In this phase 2 multicenter clinical trial, male and female adult patients with TRD and Montgomery–Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) scores ≥20 received open-label R-107 tablets 120 mg per day for 5 days and were assessed on day 8 (enrichment phase). On day 8, responders (MADRS scores ≤12 and reduction ≥50%) were randomized on a 1:1:1:1:1 basis to receive double-blind R-107 doses of 30, 60, 120 or 180 mg, or placebo, twice weekly for a further 12 weeks.
Not even close to daily dosing, as has been shown previously with esketamine (monthly) to be far more effective.
Yup. I think the concern displayed by all in this thread is valid and appropriate given what's been properly studied.
Appreciate the summary/abstract. I'm getting into the NYE spirit right now and have been posting on and off all day so my capacity to read studies and grok them is diminished.
I'm sure we'll be reading about the details in the alternative press and then mainstream news within the next couple of years after a bunch of burnout casualties result from this.
They told me it's actually a lozenge or cough drop type thing, but that isn't really important to the thread
No, and United Healthcare is specifically responsible. 2 doctors signed off on it, and then United denied it for no reason and then took so long to respond to things that I eventually gave up
@JustSo@hexbear.net handled it. I haven't done it therapeutically per se, but I have done a decent amount of ketamine. It's a fun drug and was cheap af until ravers and then tech bros got into it. For a while I was getting it for $20/g. I'm also a bit less familiar with how low doses feel aside from coming up and coming down, my goal was to K Hole and I did enjoy that cause it was a relaxing trip that I could function on and was over after 2 hours and cleared up fast. I'm very very skeptical of it having any therapeutic use aside from being able to drop out of normal.conciousmess for a couple hours and come out of it sometimes feeling refreshed. A K Hole was really relaxing for me personally and I would generally come out feeling better but not for the right reasons. It feels like a bad idea to me
Sorry to bug you with further questions, but- did you have significant issues at the time you were using Ket like that?
There's a growing body of literature on the phenomenon I appear to have experienced. I'm not preaching shit except "be smart and safe" so I don't have an axe to grind. But I don't have many people to talk to about this stuff. My therapist who was on top of the research was the only one really interested and most of my friends and family look at me sideways like I'm delusional.
But the reason I ask is, I'm fairly sure that if what happened to me wasn't a fluke, it hinged on the mindset of change and the self awareness of the specifics of my issues. Even if I was just trying to get fucked up before my mind did the thing.
I was having a lot of issues and doing a shitload of other drugs at the time, I'm pretty sure ketamine was doing very little harm cause usually I'd be doing it on days I wasn't drinking to excess, doing speed and/or acid, it was for sure not helping but I don't think it was a major cause of harm. Also I smoked and still smoke a hilarious amount of weed. Like 4 grams a day. Weed interactions have never been an issue. I have found that psychedelics don't hit me as hard as most too and that extends to dissociatives as well. I've seen people trip balls on a quarters tab of acid that I needed 3 to get anywhere, they were vulnerable cases but I generally needed 3 tabs to most people's 1 to get to the same level. That's without adding booze or speed to the experience
I feel you. Relatable on several levels.
Managed to get my weed use WAY down recently. Mostly cuz I'm broke and the pet needs fed before I get lit.
The angle of my question was to get at whether you were in a receptive state for change or not. You know the classic "set and setting" rules of psychedelics. But I'm going to read between the lines here (and go out on a long limb) and assume your big K days did not coincide with a lot of concentrated internal work identifying your issues and whatever disordered thinking you had that made regular drug use a preferable state to be in compared to sobriety. Is that a fair reading of the situation as you recall it?
I apologise if I'm misinterpreting or projecting.
Absolutely fair. I was doing as many drugs as I could at the time. I really should have died. I was also parachuting crushed morphine pills.
Yeah I was big into cold water extracting codeine cuz I have the genetic mutation that increases the conversion efficiency when it metabolises into morphine. Kind of miss those days actually, I was very responsible before prohibition took away my legal avenues for relief after that I guess I just gave up on more than the most basic harm reduction.
But word, thanks for indulging my questions. It supports some of my suspicions around the important factors in large dose (infusion) dissociative therapy and the potential for self medicated (or community mediated) alternative to the expensive clinics.
I very much don't believe in self medication. You can't be your own doctor, especially for mental issues.
Yes I do it currently, it's one of the only things that's helped my depression even a little. Unfortunately for me the effect is modest and only lasts a few days, but it's better than nothing. I don't terribly love the effects despite liking most other drugs, so chance of addiction for me is about 0.
I agree with other posters that 200+ mg every three days is excessive for most people, but I don't think it's dangerous. Dissociative addiction will mess you up though, it's just that you'd be doing far more than that as an addict.
I don't know anything about your alluded to substance use issues, it probably depends on your DOC whether I'd recommend risking it.
it probably depends on your DOC whether I'd recommend risking it.
Underrated point here. And the motivation behind your use, if you have insight into it.
