Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock. This is a place for stories of hope and healing, recovery, and redemption.

Today I'm doing a solo episode.

This is psychedelics, psych meds, and the question of tapering.

Here's an interesting fact.

It is very possible that you could do a more than adequate taper and wash out of a serotonin

med, say, acetalopram.

You could do it slowly enough that you don't have terrible withdrawal effects, then take

a therapeutic dose of psilocybin mushrooms, which importantly have a very similar structure

to serotonin.

Let's say even a superheroic dose, say six grams or more, and then nothing happens.

I've heard many versions of this story over the last few years.

And to add some mystery and intrigue here, the offending serotonin meds are most often

serotonin promoters, also known as agonis, not the serotonin

blockers, also known as antagonists.

How can this be?

One of the more interesting and difficult challenges of integrating psychedelics into

psychiatry is how to deal with the fact that so many of the folks who will seek out care

for their treatment-resistant depression or OCD or body dysmorphia or PTSD or attachment trauma,

that they're on psychiatric meds, many of which can have very significant and even dangerous

interactions with some psychedelics.

For the potentially millions of people who might seek out psychedelics for psychiatric treatment

or psychospiritual exploration or just plain recreation, the question of whether to tape off some

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