Getting off antidepressants in the age of the drug war
an open letter to Charley Wininger, author of 'Listening to Ecstasy'
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
July 21, 2024
The following was inspired in equal parts by Charley Wininger's book, "Listening to Ecstasy,"1 and by my so-far frustrating attempts to get off of the SNRI antidepressant called Effexor 2 .
Hey, Charles.
As an amateur philosopher, I have written extensively on the subject of outlawed medicines and the role that they can play in combatting my dependence on antidepressants 3. This topic is foremost in my mind at this time of my life because I have just retired at age 65 and am now determined to get off Effexor, not just because I do not like the drug but because I am tired of being a ward of the healthcare state.
I have been on these expensive and under-performing meds for 40 years now and I finally have time to do something about it. I am finding this transition to be extremely difficult, however, because of drug law restrictions, combined with the fact that psychiatrists are generally materialists (at least the ones that I know) and so they believe that efficacy of drugs must be determined under a microscope and not by the laughter of a depressed patient (let alone by the millennia's worth of unabashed and joyful usage documented via Mesoamerican statuary). I think in this regard of the article by Dr. Robert Glatter in Forbes Magazine (June 9, 2021) entitled "Can Laughing Gas Help People with Treatment-Resistant Depression?"4 The fact that a doctor has to even ask this question shows how modern science has lost track of common sense. Scientists today seem to be making a virtue of the necessity of modern prohibition: instead of protesting drug laws, they are pretending that those laws only ban substances that would be useless to human beings in any case.
I also take issue with the term "treatment-resistant depression": it implies that we have drugs that treat depression just fine, thanks, but that some few patients cannot benefit from them because of their own quirky biochemistry. My cousin has been on these wonder meds for years and even swears by them (she even has an alarm to signal her daily "pill time"), and yet she spends most of her free time in her gloomy bedroom moping and seldom attends family get-togethers or responds to requests for weekend outings. Yet she herself is convinced that she just has to find the right combination of "meds" in order to be cured. Surely, no kinds of drugs have received more "Mulligans" for poor performance than have SSRIs and SNRIs.
One of the main problems that I've encountered in attempting to get off Effexor creatively is the fact that everybody wants to bar me from cutting-edge treatment for safety sake - as if it's safe to be chronically depressed, as if I myself place safety above every other goal in my life. In reality, however, safety has never been my main goal in life. The only people I know who place safety first in practice are hypochondriacs, who counterproductively seek to stave off every single potential threat to life and limb. The emphasis America places on safety when it comes to the use of psychoactive drugs is way out of line with the way we evaluate risk for any other activity. Free climbing would not exist if we demanded the kind of statistical safety that we demand of psychoactive medicines.
In specific, the fear of so-called serotonin-syndrome seems to be way overblown5. I have tried to follow up on the few cases highlighted in research and had little luck getting details. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would think that Big Pharma was sponsoring scare studies about "drug mixing" in order to keep their captive audience from using alternatives to SSRIs and SNRIs. (Thousands die from aspirin every year, and yet no one's telling me there's a huge danger in taking aspirin, even though I am approaching the age at which I might be prone to such fears.6) Paranoia aside, I have used both peyote and psilocybin while taking Effexor, and there were no health problems at all. The only problem for me was that the Effexor clearly dampened the vividness of the visual impressions when using those natural substances. This, in turn, increased my resolve to get off Effexor, since I felt almost like that drug was "polluting" my body, biochemically speaking, by making me irresponsive to natural godsends that have been used for millennia for the benefit of human beings. It's as if a Big Pharma 78 drug had made me incapable of appreciating a sunset.
Here's another area in which modern scientists have lost track of common sense: they refuse to acknowledge the role of anticipation and happiness in making withdrawal palatable. When I say that MDMA and psilocybin would help me, it means little to my psychiatrists, mainly because the efficacy of MDMA and shrooms has not yet been proven to the satisfaction of reductive science. And yet to some extent, I HAVE TO BE RIGHT about this: it IS what I feel and believe about those substances! I can't be wrong about that. And my belief matters. For when it comes to psychoactive drugs, expectations count, as they are a big part of the "set and setting" for use. Even most materialists today agree that attitude matters.
Here's an example.
Let's say I was feeling "down" on a week during which I was getting off of Effexor. I would feel horrible if I had nothing to look forward to: i.e., nothing except more of the same old "down" days. I may finally decide that I am going to admit defeat, give up on the withdrawal process and go back to using Effexor at the regular old daily doses. But if I knew that I was going to be using MDMA or shrooms on the upcoming weekend, much of that negativity on my part would be counteracted. There would be light at the end of the tunnel. This is all mere psychological common sense, but it is a benefit of drug use that modern science completely ignores. They have to: because once they admit the power of anticipation and expectation, they would be forced to acknowledge that almost any psychoactive substance could be used as an antidepressant (in some dose, in some dosing schedule, for some person, in some situation, etc.). This is why and how De Quincey originally used opium : not just to enjoy the weekend at the opera, but to enjoy LOOKING FORWARD to that weekend at the opera! The whole drug-use SITUATION improved his mood, not just the opium 9 use per se. Again, this is a benefit of drug use that materialist science ignores, thereby helping them to toe the line with the Drug War orthodoxy that tells us that "drugs" can have no positive uses for anybody, anywhere, ever.
Granted, a given drug may not work as I personally expect. In that case a reasonably educated person will say, "I stand corrected, let's try a new dose, or a new dosing schedule." Or, "Let's try some other potential helpful substances instead." But I do not like the idea of rejecting any specific psychoactive medicine a priori merely because of risk, especially when that risk is statistically miniscule compared to the risk that we freely allow for other activities in life. To put it another way: Yes, science has a role in telling us the known risks, but science itself cannot do a cost/benefit analysis for a given psychoactive substance because all they know are the costs of use - and even this is only a partial knowledge since they do not know the costs to the user of NOT using the drug. Nor do they know the benefits that the user expects to receive from the drug, nor how much the user values those benefits -- or even demands them in his or her life, feeling, perhaps, that life is not even worth living without them.
After reading accounts of user experiences on drugs like huachuma cactus, MDMA 10 and psilocybin, it is clear to me that they all have what philosophers call a "prima facie" potential for helping one cope psychologically (perhaps even spiritually) with the doubtful and fearful emotions of antidepressant withdrawal, thereby helping to make withdrawal succeed. I cannot help but feel, therefore, that much of the pushback against using them in conjunction with antidepressants (at least in some doses and in some situations, etc.) comes from the prescriber's desire to be in control, both thanks to materialist ideology which wants to literally "chart" all progress with times and numbers, and to an all-too-justified fear of litigation in this intoxiphobic age of ours11. Because let's be honest: any drug dealer would immediately recognize the simple psychological truth that drugs can be used to fight drugs, especially if said drugs make one feel good and look forward to their use. The scientists strain credulity when they tell us otherwise, but when we complain, we are given the metaphysical retort that the drugs we're talking about do not "really" help us, which, frankly, sounds more to me like a religious complaint than a scientifically derived conclusion. Does coffee really help us? Does alcohol?12
Personally, I think it's no surprise that drugs like Effexor have such high recidivism rates. What can we expect in a country that has outlawed all drugs that could help with the withdrawal process, psychologically speaking?
If psychiatrists would ever ask me as a user what I thought would help me get off Effexor13, I would answer as follows: give me access to all psychoactive meds and let me decide, based on user accounts, which are most likely to buoy my mood such that I can, indeed, endure (or even transcend) the side effects of antidepressant withdrawal. Of course, here is where our childhood indoctrination about drugs comes into play, causing us to feel in our bones that such protocols must lead to addiction and that human beings will never be able to use psychoactive medicines wisely. And indeed they are right, there will be victims of freedom: but they will be far less in number than the victims that are dying thanks to Drug War prohibitions: in inner cities14, in civil wars overseas15 - not to mention the millions who go without godsend medicines worldwide because of our disproportionate and selfish fear for the safety of white youngsters in suburban America. Only by rejecting this prohibition mentality can we re-establish the fourth amendment to the US Constitution, end the militarization of local police forces, and stop Drug Warriors from stacking the courts in their favor by throwing minorities in jail with drug laws written specifically for that purpose.
Author's Follow-up:
May 30, 2025
Here is where I am supposed to insert the groveling disclaimer that I am not giving medical advice. I do so, however, under protest. Jim Beam whisky gives "medical advice" every day of the year in its prime-time television ads targeted at young people16. They tell the kids that sociability and relaxation can be obtained by drinking whisky. Meanwhile, Red Bull tells kids what to do if they wish to be accepted by their fellows: namely, to drink Red Bull. As for Starbucks Coffee... well, you get the idea. Besides, the idea that we should leave the discussion of "drugs" to medical doctors is wrong. Medical doctors are behaviorists17 when it comes to human psychology and so are dogmatically obliged to ignore the obvious benefits of psychoactive medicines -- as well as the obvious downsides of outlawing them: the violence that we thereby create out of whole cloth, the deaths that we create by refusing to teach safe use, the gangs and cartels that we create by drug prohibition in the exact same way as liquor prohibition created the American Mafia and first brought machine-gun fire to American streets.
Moreover, since drug use has inspired new musical genres and new religions, doctors are clearly unqualified to perform a risk/benefit analysis of drug use. To do so, they would have to be experts not simply on the purely physical risks of drug use, but also on the relative value of music and religion in an ostensibly free world. For the question is not simply, does drug use have risks? All activities have risks. The question is rather: are those risks worth it given the enormous potential benefits of things like musical and religious freedom? That is not a question that our doctors have been trained to answer. If there are any experts on such topics, they are philosophers and theologians, not medical doctors. Fortunately for those doctors, however, our government is interested only in the potential downsides of drug use (as is clear from the fact that we have a National Institute on Drug Abuse rather than a National Institute on Drug Use). And so physicians feel free to judge drug use in a way that we judge no other risky activity on the planet: that is, by looking at only the downsides of the activity and never looking at the benefits (and never looking at the endless downsides of outlawing drug use).
So rather than apologize for writing honestly about drugs, I would prefer to remind the reader of what they ideally would have learned in school: namely, that they have to do their own research on the probable utility of any particular substance when it comes to obtaining various desired results. It is all about details, folks -- your goals in life, your general disposition, your biochemistry, your risk tolerance, your education level, your choice of specific substances, your choice of dosage, etc.: you know, all the details that Drug Warriors ignore. Why? Because they have childishly decided to judge drugs "up" or "down," as "good" or "bad," without regard for the vast array of variables that affect the outcome of use. And so they say things like, "Crack kills!" and "Fentanyl 18 steals loved ones!"19, failing to realize that such statements are philosophically equivalent to the paleolithic cry of "Fire bad!" Such statements serve to make us fear and demonize substances rather than to learn how to use them as wisely as possible for the benefit of humanity. The braindead take-home message is that one victim of misuse is one too many when it comes to drug use, a standard that we hold for no other activity in the world, not for mountain climbing, not for parachuting, and certainly not for car driving or alcohol consumption.
This prohibitionist mindset makes drug research problematic for those seeking honest information. This is because the conglomerate-owned media censors all reports of beneficial drug use, thereby consigning most honest talk about drugs to the Dark Web, where the honest bits are buried amidst hype and spam and sales pitches disguised as educational content. It is interesting to note how this censorship forces honest articles about drugs into bad online neighborhoods, thereby causing most Americans to ignore them. In my non-digital youth, all merely honest talk about drug effects was shunted off onto fringe publications from seemingly shady companies like Loompanics. This had the no-doubt desired effect for the government of discouraging drug research by suggesting that the pursuit of honesty about drugs was a seedy business associated with call girls and pornography and the other dubious services that are advertised on such fringe outlets. As one scoured the profit-driven fringe mags looking for the truth about individual drugs, you could almost hear Uncle Sam in the background saying: "Come home, sinner, come home." After all, our drug-demonizing censorship had cast truth seekers as perverts and heretics, and all free thinkers were invited by the government to feel guilt by association.
To summarize then, I make no claims as to the power of any particular drug to help get any particular person off of any particular dependence-causing meds like Effexor. Nevertheless, there are plenty of drugs whose usage reports make it absolutely clear that they have a huge potential to help one "steer the course" in withdrawing from an unwanted substance. What is recidivism after all? It is merely the result of a couple of hours of extreme angst, generally experienced in the wee hours of the morning, in which bad psychological vibes persuade the withdrawing individual to relapse. Now, I maintain that it is mere psychological common sense that the effects of these relatively short periods of angst on the part of withdrawing individuals could be obfuscated and defanged with the help of a wide variety of drugs, used alone or in combination, especially when that use is inspired by actual experiences of others in similar situations, with similar goals, and similar risk tolerances, and similar biochemistry, etc. The Drug Warrior keeps us from thinking this way by insisting that human beings will always be irresponsible children when it comes to psychoactive drugs. And yet in the absence of such anti-scientific fearmongering, folks like myself could survive recidivist angst by using cocaine 2021 for the first instance, laughing gas 22 second, a mood-boosting phenethylamine after that, and so forth. The idea that drug use has to be drug abuse is a warped idea of modern times, one that promotes a dark ages when it comes to mind and mood medicine.
To put this another way, I am the expert, to the extent that there is one, in deciding what makes sense for ME given a true risk/benefit analysis of drugs, one that considers ALL the benefits of drug use AND all of the downsides of NOT using a particular drug. Would I commit suicide 23 without it? Would I require brain-damaging shock therapy without it? I alone am in a position to know what drug use makes sense for me in light of my own circumstances: including my own psychological, vocational, philosophical, musical, and religious proclivities and goals in life. Materialist doctors can tell me about physical risks, but that is all. They cannot tell me whether that risk makes sense for me since they cannot see the world through my eyes -- despite their mendacious claims to be able to judge drug use "up" or "down" without regard to context.
For those who see no benefits in drug use, let me end with a list of drug user reports from "Pihkal.24" Just read the following reports of the effects of various phenethylamines and then try to tell me that such substances could have no positive uses for anybody, anywhere, ever.
"More than tranquil, I was completely at peace, in a beautiful, benign, and placid place."
"A glimpse of what true heaven is supposed to feel like... The entire experience
was exquisite. Next day, same sense of serene, quiet joy/beauty persisted for most of the day. A true healing potential."
"It had the most profound impact on me. It was at the time of the death of my wife's mother, and I found that I could look directly towards death and its ramifications."
"Somehow my personality was divided and exposed, and this allowed me to understand my psychic structure more clearly."
"A wonderful feeling of converting energy into action."
"This is total energy, and I am aware of my every membrane. This has been a marvelous experience, very beautiful, joyous, and sensuous."
WARNING: Don't bother trying to get off antidepressants unless you are truly committed to the idea in the name of healthcare liberty. You have to be committed to such a goal heart and soul, merely to have a chance at success. For long-term users, it can be a real challenge. It is interesting how psychiatrists flip the script on this subject, by the way: they claim that the hideous withdrawal symptoms somehow prove that the user needed the drug all along. But this is obvious nonsense. This can be seen in the fact that these same psychiatrists would never say such a thing about heroin users: that their angst upon quitting the drug is a sign that the drug was actually working for them.
Note that I am not saying that antidepressants are drugs from hell -- but rather that they BECOME drugs from hell thanks to drug prohibition. Drug prohibition outlaws all drugs that could help you get off of antidepressants and so live a fulfilled life without becoming a ward of the healthcare state. We need merely to re-legalize mother nature's medicines. Why do we fail to do so? Because we judge drugs based on the following silly and inhumane algorithm: namely, that a substance that can be misused, even in theory, by a white American young person at one dose when used for one reason in one circumstance must not be used by anybody at any dose in any circumstances...
Suppose you lived in the Punjab in 1500 BCE and were told that Soma was illegal but that the mental health establishment had medicines which you could take every day of your life for your depression. Would it not be an enormous violation of your liberty to be told that you could not worship Soma and its attendant gods and incarnations? Would it not be an enormous violation of your liberty to be told that you cannot partake of the drink of the Gods themselves, the Soma juice?
Well, guess what? Your liberty is suppressed in that very fashion by modern drug prohibition: you are denied access to all medicines that inspire and elate. Seen in this light, antidepressants are a slap in the face to a freedom-loving people. They are a prohibitionist replacement for a host of obvious treatments, none of which need turn the user into a patient for life, and some of which could even inspire new religions.
The Hindu religion would not exist today had the DEA been active in the Punjab in 1500 BCE.
So do antidepressants make sense?
This question has two very different answers, depending on whether you recognize that prohibition exists or not. Of course, most Americans pretend that drug war prohibition does not exist, or at least that it has no effect on their lives -- and so they happily become Big Pharma patients for life. They flatter themselves that they are thereby treating their problems "scientifically." What they fail to realize, of course, is that it is a category error for materialist scientists to treat mind and mood conditions in the first place.
Why? Because scientists are behaviorists when it comes to drugs, which means that they ignore all obvious positive effects of drugs: all anecdote, all history and all psychological common sense -- and instead try to cure you biochemically. And what has been the result of this purblind approach to mind and moods, this search for the Holy Grail of materialist cures for depression? The result has been the greatest mass pharmacological dystopia of all time, thanks to which 1 in 4 American women are dependent on Big Pharma pills for life.
Peyote advocates should be drug legalization advocates. Otherwise, they're involved in special pleading which is bound to result in absurd laws, such as "Plant A can be used in a religion but not plant B," or "Person A can belong to such a religion but person B cannot."
I know. I'm on SNRIs. But SSRIs and SNRIs are both made with materialist presumptions in mind: that the best way to change people is with a surgical strike at one-size-fits-all chemistry. That's the opposite of the shamanic holism that I favor.
New article in Scientific American: "New hope for pain relief," that ignores the fact that we have outlawed the time-honored panacea. Scientists want a drug that won't run the risk of inspiring us.
Drug prohibition began as a racist attempt to prevent so-called "miscegenation." The racist's fear was not that a white woman would use opium or marijuana or cocaine, but that she might actually fall in love with a Chinese, Hispanic or Black person respectively.
Even fans of sacred medicine have been brainwashed to believe that we do not know if such drugs "really" work: they want microscopic proof. But that's a western bias, used strategically by drug warriors to make the psychotropic drug approval process as glacial as possible.
DEA Stormtroopers should be held responsible for destroying American Democracy. Abolish the American Gestapo.
Today's Washington Post reports that "opioid pills shipped" DROPPED 45% between 2011 and 2019..... while fatal overdoses ROSE TO RECORD LEVELS! Prohibition is PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE.
"My faith votes and strives to outlaw religions that use substances of which politicians disapprove."
Let's pass a constitutional amendment to remove Kansas from the Union, and any other state where the racist politicians leverage the drug war to crack down on minorities.
Kids should be taught beginning in grade school that prohibition is wrong.
Peyote advocates should be drug legalization advocates. Otherwise, they're involved in special pleading which is bound to result in absurd laws, such as "Plant A can be used in a religion but not plant B," or "Person A can belong to such a religion but person B cannot."