Dear MAPS,
I had a lovely stay with Evgeny and his family last week. He has a charming wife and two beautiful children. I arrived in St. Petersburg on Thursday and left on Sunday night.
St. Petersburg is an epic city with incredible architecture, public sculpture and museums. The ballet was unbelievable. I now see why they say it is the best in the world.
St. Petersburg has a darker side as well. It is a city out of control. It's like being in the movie Clockwork Orange to be there. Authoritarian police, Mafia, gangs of drunken adolescents, crazy erratic driving on ripped up roads. Evgeny is working with very little resources and under great preasure to continue the work he is pioneering in the field of alcohol and drug treatment. He is a good guy struggling in a system that is going through incredible social, political and economic change. The stress he is experiencing is hard for us as Westerners to appreciate unless you live there. The typical treatment program is still patterned after the old soviet system that includes injections that the patient believes are drugs that will kill him if he drinks alcohol. They are in fact placebos. The ketamine session is a radical departure from this form of treatment. It emphasizes spiritual and positive life changes instead of fear. It is carried out in a fairly sterile hospital environment and two anesthesiologists are present at all time. They administer the drug and monitor vital signs. There is a very small chance of respiratory failure which is watched for closely.
I participated in a session as the patient and felt very safe. I'm the first person from the West to go through the ketamine psychedelic therapy procedure, I've been told. Evgeny put me through a screening process that is carried out with all patients to determine my suitability. I received an IM shot of 1.5 mg/kg in the buttocks. The drug took a few minutes to take effect and those attending seemed surprised at how long it took. They gave me a booster shot in the arm and I lost feeling of my body. I was lying down on a bed with blankets over me and wearing eyeshades. Music was played during the one hour session and Evgeny offered emotional support during the entire experience. The visualizations were very vivid and I had a feeling of traveling and flying through holographic landscapes. It was very transcendental or transpersonal or whatever it's called. You pass over the threshold as you do with other psychedelics like LSD or mescaline. It is a profound experience. I could see how given the right set and setting and the proper follow-up and support, such a profound experience can contribute to the healing process of alcohol treatment.
John McClusky
Masters in Social Work Candidate
who is researching alcohol abuse in Lithuania.
mcclusky@ucssun1.sdsu.edu