HOW ‘MICRO-DOSING’ LSD HELPED A WOMAN’S MENTAL HEALTH AND SAVED HER MARRIAGE’

Save for an underwhelming brush with magic mushrooms at university, US public prosecutor and writer Ayelet Waldman hasn’t touched recreational drugs. Now, aged 52, she has released a brave memoir of how she believes a small, cobalt blue bottle of LSD helped her regain control over her mental health and mend her marriage.

Waldman’s book, A Really Good Day, is the latest account by proponents of so-called micro-dosing, in which they describe how small doses of psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin mushrooms have changed their health and the health of others, including their mental condition.

Microdosing has a Reddit thread with over 11,000 subscribers, and several popular podcasts such as Reply All have explored the practice’s apparent virtues and potential.

Self-medicating with “sub-perceptual” quantities of hallucinogenic substances, a tenth of what is taken recreationally, is known as microdosing. Every four days, hits are administered.

Devotees claim to have had improvements in anxiety, sadness, and migraines, as well as increased sex drive and creativity, to mention a few. However, scientific research have yet to provide solid evidence to back up these claims.

Waldman has reported how her depression and bipolar symptoms vanished, similar to the effects of pharmacological stimulants but without the anxiety or negative associated with them.

Microdosing with an illicit, unregulated substance, on the other hand, comes with its own set of hazards. Those found in possession of acid in the United States face up to three years in prison and fines ranging from $1,000 to $25,000. LSD, like cocaine and heroin, is classified as a class A narcotic in the United Kingdom, and possession is punishable by up to seven years in prison. Those who use LSD run the danger of having terrible experiences and flashbacks that can endure for years. Microdosing wrongly can result in unpleasant, full-blown trips.

After standard treatments for her depression, bipolar disorder, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder failed, Waldman tried microdosing.