Good Drugs and Bad Drugs — Don't Mix Them
Disclaimer
I am not recommending recreational use of the good drugs described below.
I am only recommending their use in correct settings with proper guidance from a medical professional.
Most of those good drugs are currently in clinical trials, seeking approval for mainstream therapeutic use.
Once they are approved, they will assist many individuals to get off the bad drugs described below.
Very few doses of the good drugs will effectively treat depression, anxiety, insomnia, addiction, and PTSD far better than the bad drugs currently being prescribed by Western medicine.
Perhaps a better term for good drugs would be entheogens—that is, substances that reveal God, which enable unconditional love and forgiveness. My experience and observations show that the bad drugs interfere with or prohibit the ability to love and forgive others.
Neurogenesis is the creation and development of neurons.
Neuroplasticity is the ability of neural networks in the brain to make new connections and pathways.
Brain imaging technology shows that entheogens (good drugs) stimulate neurogenesis and neuroplasticity, which lead to greater levels of empathy and forgiveness, thereby creating a greater ability to love others.
Bad drugs have the opposite effects on the brain, decreasing our ability for empathy, forgiveness, and love.
Bad Drugs
When I was 13, and living in Louisiana, I discovered that a couple of beers and some pot made me feel better and loosened me up.
Then I would seek escape when I could, using those drugs.
When I was 15, my girlfriend, Christina, didn’t like me hanging out with partiers on the weekends, so she asked me to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
I wasn’t a daily drinker at that time, or even physically addicted to alcohol, but I decided to give the meetings a shot.
In AA, I discovered that the members helped others unconditionally, with no interest in money or sex in return.
That attracted me to the meetings.
The only requirement to attend was a desire to stop drinking.
AA mostly involves people getting sober from bad drugs, which are addictive and tend to make them selfish, thus destroying their lives and the lives of others around them.
The bad drugs include cocaine, methamphetamine, Heroin, Oxycodone, and Fentanyl. And alcohol is bad when abused or used excessively.
The bad drugs lead to pain and suffering and bring out the worst in us.
I have mixed feelings about marijuana.
On the one hand, it opens my mind to new insights.
On the other hand, it shaves off a large percentage of my IQ while I’m under its influence.
I also noticed that it made me feel awkward in social situations, so I would isolate more when I was using it.
In larger doses, it can create fear-based stories in my mind.
The bad drugs do not bring out the best in people or help them to connect with others with unconditional love and forgiveness.
So, yes, there are definitely bad drugs if they prevent us from being of service to others, for serving others is the only way to experience true happiness and peace in this life.
From age 15 to 17, I was sober as I attended AA meetings.
Then, from 17 to 19, I drank alcohol and smoked pot again.
From 19 to 32, I was once again sober, helping people to unconditionally help others.
But then I started a webcam site that I write about in another section of my book, Expert Giver—No Strings Attached.
I didn’t use cocaine or meth, because I had seen the destruction they caused others in the AA program.
After I had a massive spiritual experience in 2018, I drank alcohol and smoked pot occasionally, and stopped going to AA meetings until recently.
Nevertheless, although I could manage drinking alcohol or smoking pot without abusing them, I found that neither brought out the best in me.
Usually, when I was under the influence of one or both of those drugs, I would get into arguments or say something I would later regret.
That was enough for me to quit the drugs and return to AA.
I like AA because it enables people to go from being selfish victims to providers of service to others, with the primary goals of love and forgiveness.
I was on a prescribed antidepressant drug called Lexapro for twenty years.
It took away the edge of my anxiety, but put me midway between happiness and sadness.
For those twenty years, it was difficult for me to cry.
When I stopped taking Lexapro some years ago, I began to actually enjoy crying.
It is highly cleansing, and something we were meant to do, not to prevent.
Another drug that a doctor prescribed for me was Adderall, when I thought I needed more energy, focus, and drive to achieve more at work.
Adderall did give me energy and focus, but I felt that I was burning out my brain.
I experienced ups and downs as the drug reduced my personality, making me more bland.
It also led to my having increased levels of anxiety.
Many people on Adderall are also prescribed anti-anxiety medications and insomnia medications, which are needed to counteract the Adderall, but these medications are very difficult to stop using because of the horrendous withdrawal symptoms they cause.
Due to Adderall, I couldn’t sleep at night, so my doctor also prescribed Ambien for me, which I got addicted to for over ten years.
It also affected my short-term memory the next day.
Whenever I tried to stop using it, I couldn’t sleep for four nights and days, and would wake up every fifteen minutes.
It was torture.
After three nights, I would give in and resume taking the Ambien.
My doctor advised me to taper off by cutting my dosage in half every week.
However, after that didn’t work because I couldn’t sleep, I tried tapering off 25 percent every week—and that worked!
I’ve been off Lexapro, Adderall, and Ambien for years now.
What has caused people to have all these problems today with depression, anxiety, and insomnia?
Modern life has played a large role.
In 1926, Henry Ford created the 40-hour workweek.
Since then, people have worked more and more, chasing money.
In the process, the traditional home, in which the man supported the family, became the two-worker home, in which the man and woman both worked.
In many cases, that led to divorce, with both partners working separately.
If there were children, they no longer were part of an intact family, and often became criminals.
In fact, most inmates in prison today come from fatherless homes.
Combine all this with the fear-inducing negative news cycle every day on TV and social media, and one can see why people get depressed, are anxious, and can’t sleep, which turn them to using addictive medications.
Essentially, people are treating their symptoms, rather than their underlying problems.
The good drugs described below will treat these problems much more effectively.
But the most effective treatment would be to enable people to love and forgive each other.
Attending AA meetings can be a very effective way to achieve that goal.
Once Expert Giver Groups are up and running, participation in them will be another effective way to achieve that goal.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Benzodiazepines replaced barbiturates for treating depression, anxiety, and insomnia.
On the downside, however, they cause sleepiness and degraded short-term memory, and are extremely addictive, often for decades, with severely negative withdrawal symptoms if one tries to stop.
The only way to avoid those withdrawal symptoms is to taper off from Benzodiazepines gradually in slowly decreasing doses.
Abruptly stopping use of Benzodiazepines can cause severe consequences, including psychosis, seizures, suicide, severe anxiety and insomnia, irritability, twitching, brain fog, heart palpitations, and physical fatigue.
Essentially, Benzodiazepines are alcohol in a pill form.
Long-term use of Benzodiazepines, which should only be prescribed for less than a month, has been shown to decrease brain activity and even increase the incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease.
One in eight people in the United States are currently taking a prescribed Benzodiazepine, mostly Ativan, Klonopin, Valium, or Xanax.1
Repeated alcohol use also leads to addiction, with the same withdrawal symptoms that Benzodiazepines cause.
People use alcohol to treat stress, but over time, even with casual use, alcohol actually increases stress and insomnia.
In fact, alcohol is one of the only drugs that can literally kill people when they withdraw from it.
To treat withdrawal from alcohol, Western medicine usually prescribes Ativan and other Benzodiazepines, but that is only trading a bad drug for a worse one.
We see this same methodology to get people off Heroin and Oxycodone by giving them Methadone or Suboxone, which is to turn addicts into zombies, for whom the withdrawal symptoms are as horrendous as they are for the original drugs, if not worse.
To top it all off, Western medicine treats these secondary withdrawal symptoms with Benzodiazepines, which starts the cycle all over again.
On a brighter note, there is clinical research at this very moment which demonstrates that Ibogaine derivatives help Heroin and Oxycodone addicts to cease use after only a few treatments with very mild withdrawal symptoms.
Another way to get off Heroin and Oxycodone addiction with only mild withdrawals is to take Kratom, which is a member of the coffee family.2
Abstaining from bad drugs is often the first step to removing the blocks in the way of fully realizing our ability to be expert givers.
I am not a doctor, so please get a physician’s advice before stopping any of your prescribed medications.
Since withdrawal symptoms usually accompany abstaining from bad drugs, and the process can be difficult, most people need to go to a detox or medical treatment center to do so.
However, in many cases, abstaining can be done by simply attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and gaining the assistance of the members of that program both inside and outside the meetings.
The only requirement for membership in AA is a desire to stop drinking alcohol.
People usually end up in AA because they have hit bottom, and life has become painful enough to push them to become sober.
Currently, most people who enter the program do so under extreme conditions, introducing themselves as “alcoholics.”
After my spiritual experience in January 2018, which I describe fully in my book Expert Giver—No Strings Attached, I came to a point in my life where I could use alcohol casually and thought I had it “under control.”
During that time, I didn’t want to attend AA because I didn’t want to say at a meeting, “I’m Jason, and I’m an alcoholic.”
Four years later, I realized that even casual alcohol use was holding me back from being the best expert giver I could be, so I needed to stop drinking completely.
Recently, I resumed attending AA meetings, but now I introduce myself by stating, “I’m Jason, and I have a desire to stop drinking,” instead of saying, “I’m Jason, and I’m an alcoholic.”
The only requirement for membership in AA is to have a desire to stop drinking alcohol.
Thus, people can join AA without having to hit an extreme bottom.
If people are willing to abstain from “Bad Drugs,” they can connect to a huge community for support, which can lead to a profound spiritual awakening.
AA welcomes young people who are potential alcoholics, and also individuals with a problem drug of choice other than alcohol.
Both AA and Expert Giver Groups have effective ways of removing the blocks that prevent people from becoming Expert Givers.
Churches should freely support these two groups, since they both promote the true mission of Christianity, which is to enable unconditional love and forgiveness as the primary goals for every person, without the rules required by religion to start a connection with a Higher Power.
Bad drugs create an ever-increasing spiral into selfishness.
That leads users further and further away from the solution to their pain, which is to live a life of service to others with unconditional love and forgiveness as their directive.
When individuals get stuck in using bad drugs, that keeps them confused and unable to leave behind a lifestyle of feeding selfish instinctual desires that hurt and abuse other people and isolate themselves.
Under the influence of bad drugs, individuals are in a self-defeating loop of trying to treat their pain with drugs, chasing instinctively driven self-satisfying distractions and pleasures, which will never lead to the love, happiness, joy, and peace that they truly want to experience.
Bad drugs hold us in a place where our selfish instincts rule, and service to others through unconditional love and forgiveness is impossible.
Bad drugs keep our lives in Hell, making it impossible for us to experience love, happiness, joy, and peace.
Quitting bad drugs is step one in transitioning out of this painful existence.
If you want more love and peace in your life, you must stop using bad drugs.
There is no way around that truth.
Omitting bad drugs is the first step to relieving psychological and spiritual pain, which enables the path toward true love, happiness, joy, and peace in your life and in the lives of those around you.
Good Drugs
Good drugs are in various stages of clinical trials to seek FDA approval for use in treating depression, anxiety, insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and addiction to bad drugs.
Some time ago, I came across a documentary film on Netflix called DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman, a doctor who did medical research in New Mexico with over fifty volunteer subjects in the 1990s, administering more than 600 doses of Dimethyltryptamine (or DMT for short).3
DMT is a chemical that occurs in most plants and animals and is both a derivative of and a structural analogue to tryptamine, which is also found in psilocybin and LSD.
It can be consumed as a psychedelic drug and has historically been prepared by various cultures for ritual purposes as an entheogen—that is, a God-revealing drug.
DMT also occurs naturally in the human body, where it is produced by the lungs and the liver.
DMT is close in molecular structure to Serotonin and Melatonin.
Dr. Strassman’s research for his documentary supported the position that DMT is not harmful to the body.
In fact, more recent research has shown that DMT has antidepressant and anxiolytic effects on the brain, meaning that it relieves anxiety by growing new brain cells in the hippocampus; DMT also improves memory.4
Most of the volunteers who participated in Dr. Strassman’s study in the 1990s were interviewed over a decade later for the documentary, in which they reported that their experience with DMT was the most important event in their lives.
It is amazing that a simple molecule found in most plants and animals causes the most direct way to have a spiritual experience.
At the moment, that molecule, although found naturally in the human body, is a Schedule 1 illegal drug in the United States.
But some people are working to get the Drug Enforcement Agency’s approval to use DMT for religious purposes.
Small Pharma, a pharmaceutical company in London, has obtained fast-track status from the British government to develop a synthetic version of DMT to treat depression.5
People in South America have been using DMT for centuries in their spiritual ceremonies, mixing ingredients from two plants.
Psychotria viridis is a shrubby plant that contains DMT, and the bark of the woody vine, Banisteriopsis caapi, inhibits the breakdown of DMT, causing its effects to last longer when it is ingested.6
The name of the drink, Ayahuasca, means “vine of the soul” in the Peruvian language, Quechua.
At the present time, many Americans, Europeans, and other peoples travel to Peru, where drinking Ayahuasca in guided ceremonies is legal.
Afterward, most of these individuals have reported being healed of addictions, depression, and traumas.
DMT appears to activate the visual function in the pineal gland, which is located between the eyes in the middle of the human brain.
The pineal gland, which is the size of a grain of rice, is suspended in a fluid that contains tiny calcite crystals, which have piezoelectric properties, which means that they produce electricity when vibrated.
When calcite crystals are subjected to compression, they release photons that produce light.
These crystals are piezochromatic, which means that they can release any color of light in the rainbow.
The word piezochromism, from the Greek piezo, “to squeeze, to press,” and chromos, “color,” describes the tendency of certain materials to change color when they are pressed.
The pineal gland is lined internally with tissue called pinealocytes, which are similar to the rods and cones in the retinas of human eyes.
The gland also has the same wiring to the visual cortex in the brain that the eyes do.
The technology used in the older AM radio kits sold by Radio Shack involved applying pressure to crystals that allowed for tuning into different radio wave frequencies.
However, the crystals in the pineal gland release the full 16-million-color spectrum of light when vibrated at different frequencies.
The pineal gland has a lens, cornea, and retina that react to light, just as the eyes do.
It is, in fact, a “third eye.”
In sufficient quantities, DMT is the key that opens the lock of the third eye, the pineal gland, thereby leading the user to experience a greater reality.
That experience is the link between the physical reality of our five senses and the spiritual reality that is unlimited by the senses.
DMT opens the door to multidimensional experiences.
Unfortunately, fluoridation of water supplies, starting in the 1930s, causes the pineal gland to calcify with a crust of calcium, which blocks and inhibits the gland’s functionality.
Prior to the 1930s, people had a higher level of naturally occurring DMT in their blood, which directed them to love and forgive others.
In Hinduism, the pineal gland is called the sixth chakra.
It is also believed that the ancient Egyptians knew about the third eye, which they called “the eye of Horus.”
René Descartes, the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist, called the pineal gland “the seat of the soul.”
That was way before scientists dissected the pineal gland in the 1990s and discovered that it had crystals, rods, cones, and other components of the human eye inside it.
To initiate a “breakthrough experience”—that is, a reality that is “realer than real”—more DMT is required within the human body than occurs naturally.
Many individuals who have taken DMT report interacting with benevolent and loving sentient beings and other different forms of life.
Most of them report that the experience is hard to describe with words.
Deep meditation as practiced by Tibetan monks, sometimes combined with fasting, can generate higher levels of DMT, thereby opening the third eye.
People can also use Ayahuasca, whose breakthrough experience lasts over six hours.
Individuals can also smoke, vape, or inject DMT, which has a more short-lived effect, as little as 10 to 30 minutes.
DMT is an entheogen, which means a substance that “generates God within.”
That is, it is a chemical substance, typically of plant origin, that is ingested to produce a non-ordinary state of consciousness for religious or spiritual purposes, usually involving ego death.
Most users of entheogens report that they become aware that love is the primary presence and goal in the universe, which sums up the meaning of God is love.
Two other drugs besides DMT that have this effect to a lesser degree are LSD and psilocybin mushrooms, both of which have been used to attain spiritual insight.
After the experience, users have reported increased empathy, lowered depression, and a deeper sense of purpose and meaning.
All three drugs, which are non-addictive, were widely studied and used in therapy during the 1950s and 1960s, when they showed promising results for helping depression and addiction, as well as increasing empathy and initiating spiritual awakening.
Another drug that was used in therapy in the 1950s and 1960s as a precursor to using the other entheogens was Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA for short, commonly known as “Ecstasy,” which was shown to “open the heart”—that is, cause love and empathy.
The therapeutic research conducted during those earlier decades showed that the setting and guidance were important parts of using these entheogens in therapy.
Furthermore, it became common practice to use MDMA one hour before taking DMT, LSD, or mushrooms, in order to lessen the chance of experiencing the fear and anxiety that sometimes accompany the ego death or breakthrough experience.
These drugs provide a spiritual experience that is otherwise out of reach.
Currently, MDMA research is being conducted in the United States in conjunction with therapy to treat PTSD.
The initial results of a recent study show that after only two treatments, most participants with PTSD are symptom-free for over a year.7
In another study, 67 percent of the participants who received three MDMA-assisted therapy sessions no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis, and 88 percent experienced a clinically meaningful reduction in their PTSD symptoms.8
All three entheogens were made illegal in the United States when the Controlled Substances Act was passed in 1971.
The reasons appear to have been politically motivated by the Vietnam War and the establishment’s desire to squash the “hippie” movement.
The entheogens, which were seen by therapists as beneficial tools, stimulated empathy and the ability to have compassion and love for others.
At the time, in fact, the hippies’ motto was “Make Love, Not War.”
But the U.S. government was intent on waging war, so illegalizing those loving tools was a way to eliminate resistance to that agenda.
Furthermore, government propaganda was released, which stated that LSD causes brain damage, chromosome damage, and birth defects, but that was all proven to be incorrect.
Subsequent research showed that psychedelics are not toxic or addictive.
In fact, one study demonstrated that individuals who used psychedelics over a lifetime had a lower than average incidence of past year in-patient mental health treatment.9
Another part of the problem that led to the illegalization of the three entheogens was that large numbers of people who were using them recreationally mixed them with other drugs, such as alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, and opiates.
When people mix good drugs and bad drugs, the bad outweigh the good, corrupting the experience.
So playing Hippie Rodeo does not work.
Furthermore, the setting for using good drugs is extremely important, as is the presence of professional guides in that setting.
Professional therapeutic guides prepare participants for how to deal with any fears that may arise.
The guides instruct the participants to move toward, rather than away from, any fears, learning from that what the fears have to teach them.
Fears conjure up imagined stories created by the brain, and can be either ignored or confronted and overcome.
Therapeutic guidance can help participants to avert bad trips, as I wrote in my book Expert Giver—No Strings Attached:
Fear is mostly imagined. Remember this: we have a bad habit of exaggerating our fears, which almost never turn out to be as drastic as we imagine. There are the actual difficulties we have to deal with, and then there are the imaginary ones. Most of our hardships and worries are over imaginary fears that never happen. Remember that the next time you start freaking yourself out. Fear is a human ailment, with its only reason for existing being survival while you are in human form (p. 160).
When good drugs are used alone, they are not only not addictive, but they cause no harm to the test subjects.10
In fact, the opposite happens: the entheogens actually cure drug addiction; lower the incidence of depression, anxiety, and insomnia; and inspire lasting feelings of love, happiness, and purpose.11
Brain scans of people who are under the influence of psychedelic drugs show an extreme hyperconnectivity occurring in their brains, which creates an explosion of new routes and pathways that connect all areas of the brain together.
This is a major “reset,” which has positive lingering aftereffects.
What has occurred is that the default mode network in the brain, also known as the “ego,” is decreased, which causes relief from depression, anxiety, insomnia, PTSD, traumas, and addiction to bad drugs, as well as helping to restore neurological functions, including memory and empathy.
One dose of Psilocybin given to near-death cancer patients with extreme anxiety was shown to bring them a complete sense of peace, and most of them remained at peace with no anxiety six months after the single-dose treatment.12
Another study showed that after just a couple of psychedelic doses, two-thirds of tobacco smokers quit for over a year.13
LSD, Psilocybin, and DMT are all very close in chemical structure and properties to Serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain, and all of the psychedelic drugs bind to Serotonin receptors.
Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, had several LSD therapy sessions, years after he abstained from alcohol.
At the time, other alcoholics were getting over their addiction and their depression after LSD sessions.
Wilson thought that sudden spiritual experiences were just as valuable as gradual ones.
The process of going through AA’s twelve steps with a sponsor produces a gradual spiritual experience, whereas LSD can cause a sudden one.
After Bill’s positive experiences with LSD, and his observing its positive effects on others, he asked AA’s trustees to introduce LSD therapy into the program.
However, the trustees decided to remain “drug free,” since they felt that it would be unwise to change something that had been working well for decades.
It is interesting that many members of AA do not know about the experiences Bill had with LSD and how he felt about its beneficial uses for treating alcoholism and gaining spiritual enlightenment.
In 1961, Timothy Leary conducted the Concord Prison Experiment, which gave thirty-two prisoners Psilocybin, after which he asked them to describe their traumatic life histories and their hopes for the future to help them confront the roots of their criminality.
Usually, within six months of being paroled, 64 percent of ex-convicts would commit a new crime or break parole in some way.
However, two-thirds of the ex-convicts in the Psilocybin study did not return to prison within six months.
But this and other research projects were shut down when Leary and others lost their professional credibility by supporting widespread recreational use of psychedelics.
That included mixing bad drugs with good ones, and going against the government with antiwar protests, which led to Schedule 1 classifications of psychedelics.
At that point, DMT, LSD, and Psilocybin became illegal, which shut down all psychedelic research and medical use in 1970.
The United Nations followed suit in 1971, with all psychedelic research stopped around the globe with its “convention on psychotropic substances.”14
In the mid-1980s, MDMA showed very promising use in therapy.
However, due to the explosion of recreational use, it was put on the Schedule 1 list of illegal drugs in the United States in 1985.
Also in 1985, the United Nations prohibited MDMA’s use around the world.15
An anesthetic named Ketamine, which has been around since the 1950s, has recently been approved for treating depression and pain.
It has a close chemical structure to the “good” drugs listed above, and only a few treatments with it for depression have a lasting effect for months.
However, Ketamine when self-administered can become addictive.
Most of the good drugs have been proven to be non-addictive.
They can actually treat people addicted to the bad drugs.
But if you mix good and bad drugs, it can appear that the good drugs are to blame for any negative experiences.
The bad drugs are addictive because you have to battle withdrawal if you quit them.
But with good drugs, there are hardly any withdrawal symptoms.
After studying the subject of entheogens for several years, I have concluded that those drugs are useful for treating depression and trauma, as well as for revealing a greater reality, which increases empathy and the ability to love others.
However, having a proper setting and a knowledgeable guide for the experience is important.
Otherwise, one might encounter problems.
Of all the entheogens, DMT provides the most direct method to unlock the third eye and experience the otherwise hidden spiritual realm of the greater true reality.
DMT is the only entheogen found naturally in human blood, as well as in most plants and animals on Earth.
However, the levels of DMT needed to activate spiritual insights are blocked unless they are enhanced by consistent fasting, prayer, and meditation, in addition to drinking Ayahuasca.
But because of fluoride causing the calcification of the pineal gland, which blocks the effects of DMT, one must receive higher than naturally available doses to get results.
Prior to the 1930s and the fluoridation of the water supplies in many parts of the world, people had more natural spiritual knowledge, which pointed them to love, service, forgiveness, and empathy.
With most people in the world consistently using combinations of bad drugs, people are locking into following their selfish instincts, which keeps them spiritually lost and unhappy.
They are unable to access parts of their brain which show them that love, service, and forgiveness are the answers they need here and now.
According to The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary, the nature or outcome of a psychedelic experience depends almost entirely on one’s mindset, mood, expectations, intentions, and environment, which include the place and people one is around.
Otherwise, you can have a bad trip.
Recreational use of drugs should be avoided because it usually combines using good and bad drugs.
For example, if a person uses alcohol, marijuana, and DMT together, or alcohol and mushrooms together, especially in an improper or unsafe setting, the experience can turn into a nightmare.
A good drug is one that enables a person to love and forgive others, and to continually seek a lifestyle of service to others.