Since 1988, Dr. Evgeny Krupitsky and a team of researchers at the Leningrad Regional Center for Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Therapy have been investigating Ketamine Psychedelic Therapy in the treatment of alcoholism and heroin addiction. (http://www.maps.org/research/ketamine/ketrussia.html)
Ketamine is most commonly used as an animal tranquilizer and is very similar to PCP. It is enjoying a bit of a vogue as a party druge (http://www.health.org/nongovpubs/ketamine/). "Ketamine produces a dissociative state in a user. Effects can range from rapture to paranoia to boredom. The user feels its hallucinogenic effects and experiences impaired perception. Ketamine commonly elicits an out-of-body or near-death experience; it can render the user comatose."
Krupitsky advocates the use of ketamine because Russian alcoholics, having been raised in an atheistic society, were insufficiently "spiritual" to benefit from the the 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. This reliance on drugs to produce a conversion experience in order to abandon drug use is not without precedent. AA founder Bill Wilson had his "bright light" conversion experience while underoing severe alcohol withdrawal and "treatment" that featured hourly dosage (for 50 hours) of a concoction that featured belladonna. In his later years, Wilson became an enthusiast and user of LSD.
Stuart Elliott http://newappeal.blogspot.com/ www.ksworkbeat..org
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 11:09:09 -0500
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] whipping cures mental disorders
> To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Message-ID: <p06210206be6f2d51bea5@[192.168.1.100]>
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>
> [When I was in Italy in 1976, I heard a story from a guy who said
> he'd been bicycling on Sardinia and rode past a mental hospital. On
> the hospital grounds, a female patient was tied to a tree, and three
> shrinks in white coats were slapping her, saying, "You're *not* the
> Virgin Mary!" Ever since, I've been tempted to recommend a trip to
> Sardinia for certain neurotics I know. Now this approach receives
> some confirmation from Siberia.]
>
> <http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/360/15176_whipping.html>
>
> Whipping therapy cures depression and suicide crises
>
> 03/26/2005 13:06
>
> The effect is astounding: a patient starts seeing only bright colors
> in the surrounding world
>
> Russian scientists from the city of Novosibirsk, Siberia, made a
> sensational report at the international conference devoted to new
> methods of treatment and rehabilitation in narcology. The report was
> called "Methods of painful impact to treat addictive behavior."
>
>