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Could banishing the destructive thirst for alcohol stem partially from magic mushrooms?

University of Calgary researchers have begun recruiting 128 patients to embark on the largest single-site trial of its kind in Canada to find out.

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They’re trying to determine if sending patients on a psychedelic psilocybin trip will enhance the impact of psychotherapy sessions for those with alcohol use disorder (AUD).

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“What’s new is taking a scientific approach to demonstrate it has an impact,” said Dr. David Hodgins, a professor of clinical psychology at the U of C’s Faculty of Arts.

“There are a lot of beliefs about what the possibilities are – it would be really nice to see the science there.”

In the clinical trials, patients would undergo about an hour of psychotherapy, which would be followed by a psilocybin dosing session lasting five to six hours, said Dr. Leah Mayo, principal investigator and Parker Chair of Psychedelics at the Cumming School of Medicine.

“It’ what you’d think of a psychedelic trip – the visual, the profound insights,” said Mayo, adding after the dosing, patients would receive another psychotherapy session.

“It going to be done in a very controlled environment with a trained therapist.”

Prior research and anecdotal evidence suggests psilocybin can make the brain more amenable to conventional therapy, said Mayo.

“They can open up a therapeutic window of opportunity – the brain becomes more elastic, people are open and more receptive,” she said.

“Cognitive flexibility is staying out of that rigid thinking and becoming more adaptable.”

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But she emphasizes psilocybin alone “is not going to be a magic cure.”

The psilocybin is being sourced from Burnaby, B.C.-based Filament Health which has extracted the naturally-derived substance into capsule form. The trials have received an exemption from Health Canada to use a drug that remains a controlled substance.

Currently, the dissociative anesthetic ketamine is the psychedelic drug legally and most commonly used in therapy to treat conditions such as PTSD and depression.

Literature on psilocybin’s use in targeting AUD dates back to the 1960s with more recent research carried out by New York University which in 2022 reported subjects’ heavy drinking was reduced by 83 per cent following therapy involving the mushrooms.

In the Calgary study, half the subjects will be given a smaller dose, the others a larger one to determine which approach is most effective, said Hodgson.

The talk therapy, he said, would also be somewhat of a departure.

The norm “is a more confrontational approach, this model (we’re using) avoids confrontation,” said Hodgson.

“It’s a process that encourages a lot of self-reflection – if people identify and focus on the reasons they want to make changes in their lives, they’re much more likely to succeed.”

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While family support is important for helping patients stick with the study, forcing them into treatment rarely works, he said.

Patients go through a total of 16 weeks of follow-up following their dosing session and the team hopes to have results from the work in a year, said Hodgson.

“It’s a relatively short period…I think there’ll be a lot of interest in this,” he said.

Both researchers say they hope to create a standardized protocol that can be applied by other researchers and ultimately, if the process bears fruit, for use as a widespread treatment, said Mayo.

“If this does work, it’s something that can be adopted widely…we’d like it to be an intense treatment that’s a catalyst or change,” she said.

Those interested in participating in the study can email pactlab@ucalgary.ca 

BKaufmann@postmedia.com

X (Twitter) @BillKaufmannjrn

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