AUSTIN (KXAN) – In 2018, Justin LaPree was lacking alternatives.
“The [anti-dpressants] were not working, the anti-anxiety pills were not working. I got hooked on Oxycontin, which was prescribed for pain,” LaPree stated.
He had post-traumatic anxiety and a distressing mind injury from his time offering in the Marine Corps from 2001 to 2005.
“Everything that I was taking from [Veteran Affairs] was removing me further from myself,” he stated. “In 2018 – I was a firefighter at the time in downtown Austin – I had an attempt on my life in the parking lot of that fire station that was unsuccessful.”
A month later on, he reviewed How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan – a publication narrating clinical research study on psychedelic compounds. By completion of 2018, Lapree attempted it out.
“I’m here – I’m living the best life I’ve ever lived,” Lapree stated. “These psychedelic compounds were the catalyst in saving my life.”
In current years, several have actually transformed to psychedelics for recovery with clinical research study sustaining unscientific accounts.
Greg Fonzo, Ph.D., co-directs the very first psychedelic proving ground in Texas called the Center for Psychedelic Research & Therapy. His group is presently recruiting for 2 studies taking a look at the results of psilocybin – the psychedelic active ingredient in magic mushrooms – on treatment-resistant anxiety and individuals with anorexia nervosa.
Fonzo stated when patients take in psilocybin, there are “a lot of changes in the way the brain is functioning,” he stated. “Those changes in brain function are also profound shifts in people’s state of consciousness. Sometimes, they report novel insights, changes in mood [and] changes in cognition. And then, for some reason, that experience [with] the conjunction of therapy around the drug itself and psychological support, people feel better,” he stated.
For LaPree, he wishes words goes out around psychedelics to individuals that have actually attempted several therapies yet are still having a hard time. He started Hero Path to Light to aid link experts, initially -responders and their households to psychedelic therapy.
“What if? What if these medicines were able to reconnect us with ourselves? The world would change,” he stated.
