Guys! Guys! I just rediscovered something that I read a while back but never did anything with!

Treating PTSD with Beta Blockers

Many of us here are struggling with overpowering bad memories. Could we use extinction to cure PTSD in much the same way that we've cured our addictions?

I need to do some more research, but . . . I have some Propranolol. It's sitting downstairs. It was prescribed for anxiety a while back, but I never used it because Valium (and alcohol!) were obviously much more effective.

I really must try this. First I'll do some more research to make sure that this isn't just nonsense which has already been debunked, but if the research shows good signs then I'll give it a shot.I'll report back in a few days.

This is exciting. I have long suspected that my husband suffers from PTSD. Let us know what you find!

Looks like we're in the "early research is promising" stage.

Some of the concerns are kinda dumb IMO, like the claim that soldiers should be traumatized and horrified after killing -- that a "moral lobotomy" will make them less human. That's a lovely concern, Ms. I-Don't-Have-PTSD. Makes you sound very morally elevated.

Smarter concerns are that it doesn't work perfectly (what does?), that it can do funky things to the blood pressure, that it shouldn't be used by anyone self-medicating with alcohol or other drugs (so finish your TSM cure first), and that the dosage required is rather higher than has been thoroughly tested with previous uses.

It would also be rather tricky to do as a self-cure. Normally a therapist guides you through reliving the memory while under the influence of the drug. One interesting study had people listen to a recording of themselves telling their own story . . . I might do that approach if I decide to use myself as a guinea pig.

Another issue is that it's much easier to apply to someone suffering from a single large trauma than to CPTSD from many/prolonger smaller traumas. That's the part that really worries me. Perhaps a pro is needed, to identify a few linchpins which are supporting the rest of the trauma effect. Then again, are therapists really any good at that? If they were, wouldn't we see better results from therapy? Still researching and considering.

This is potentially big. Even after we fix our addictions, many of us are still left with whatever led us to them in the first place.

If I do this, I will use the sound recording method and I'll do it when my husband is home in case I have a bad reaction to the higher dose of the drug. I have low blood pressure to begin with, and I'd just as soon not die during the experience.
[ETA: I forgot something important in this paragraph -- it sometimes causes heart attacks even in people with no prior heart disease. So, yeah, don't do this alone. This is not naltrexone and it's not almost totally safe.]

If anyone wonders what happened to this experiment . . .

I didn't make a sound recording, but at one point when I was already having powerful and unwanted thoughts about past trauma, I took a stiff dose. The thoughts remained (naturally; it's not an amnesia drug).

I didn't measure agitation carefully, because I don't know any way to do that, but a few days later I was "attacked" by the same old traumas -- and my subjective experience of agitation was lower. Noticeably lower. I probably should have mentioned that at the time, since I know some of you were waiting, but better late than never.

Combined with the stuff I'm now learning about upregulating my too-low pleasure receptors, I'm starting to wonder if we live in an age when a true cure for alcoholism is possible.

Use pharmacological extinction via standard-dose naltrexone to break the active addiction.
Resolve past traumas with the aid of propanolol.
Fix the brain chemistry with [Not saying what yet because I'm still developing a reliable path].

This would address the three main problems, would it not? The active addiction which feeds on itself, the unremitting stress which bonked our pleasure receptors out of joint, the born or acquired low pleasure receptors which resulted -- this would handle all three of those major contributors.

The only thing left would be the "hungry heart" component, but this would fix the wiring which keeps the 25% who can't be free of the past be more like the 75% who just say, "screw it" and move along.

Heh. If this actually works, I should get a Nobel Prize for Medicine. You heard it here first, folks! If a decade from now people are using this or similar programs to turn alcohol addicts into normals, all credit goes to melissa1928!