From my experience, especially with psilocybin (shrooms), the main benefit is not hallocinogenic at all (at a ~2g or so dose) but that it has the effect of basically forcing you to confront all the emotional pain that you bury and ignore. I always end up laugh-crying and experiencing revelations about myself, my relationship etc that I simply don't have otherwise. I can see how effective it can be when taken while in therapy because you basically force yourself to open up. It's a truth serum, of sorts.

I have not tried DMT but my understanding of ayahuasca (active ingredient is DMT) retreats in places like Peru is that it's like "10 years of therapy in a week."

Your first paragraph is exactly how I describe it to people. I'm a big proponent of LSD, but only to those that I think are intelligent enough to make a considered choice[1], and always with caveat that it involves a temporary lapse in your ability to shove things down into your subconscious that you'd rather not deal with. The implication is that if you feel like you're not currently ready to throw open that door and take an honest look at your issues, then it's likely not yet for you.

[1] I know this is unavoidably derisive, but I mean this in the most mundane way possible. Some people I know can read the literature & integrate other sources of data (including anecdotal data and cautious experimentation) and come out with a best-effort understanding of the science that's far superior to the blunter recommendations and laws that are the start and end of most people's investigations. The latter play an important role, since most people just don't have the critical thinking or epistemological skills to integrate a big messy pile of data saying contradictory things with different types and quality of source. This goes for everything from psychedelics to nutrition to interpreting your blood test results.

While I agree, I think it has to be noted that those revelations have a tendency to get eroded by everyday life.

It sure is no panacea, but it can be the first step.

Don't know about this particular experiment. However, in the book How to Change your Mind, there are a lot of references to recent research of psychedelic therapy to treat addictions and after 1-3 sessions, 50-80% of subjects drop their addictions for good (at the time of the book's writing, they had only been able to follow the patients for up to 1 year). There's also the anecdote of one of the founders of AA, who quit alcohol through psychedelic therapy.

> There's also the anecdote of one of the founders of AA, who quit alcohol through psychedelic therapy.

Bill Wilson quit drinking in the 1930s, and experienced LSD in the 1950s. While he talked about LSD therapy for alcoholics in positive light, he was already sober and started AA before trying LSD.

Bill Wilson was treated with Belladona as part of his treatment for alcoholism, which may have accounted for his later interest in LSD, given the well known and well documented dangers of the Belladona treatment.