The movie Requiem for a Dream is a difficult movie to watch, but gives the audience a glimpse into a world they might not ever see. I watched the movie on Hulu with my girlfriend about a month before we watched it in class. The movie portrays a group of people who eventually succumb to the horrors of drug addiction and despair. Drug addiction can change people who are full of hope and dreams into people who don’t care about anything else but getting high. People who are addicted will sometimes do anything to get their fix, and that is what Requiem for a Dream is about.

Drugs can dislocate us from ourselves and others. Drugs can cause a person to lose sight of hopes and dreams in order to satisfy cravings, and/or avoid withdrawals. In people’s brains there is an interaction between reactive reward pathways and reflective reward pathways. The reactive reward pathways motivate people towards immediate gratification through the use of things like cues and associations, while the reflective reward pathways motivate people for more abstract or long term things, for planning, reaching goals, cognitive, or social rewards. As a person transitions into drug addiction, the reflective and reactive reward systems both adapt, and work together to create exceptionally salient pathways encouraging drug use. The pathways encouraging drug use can be so strong that it overrides other reflective reward pathways that discourage drug use, making the person more concerned about using drugs than they are about life goals, social reinforcement, relationships with others, and anything else that could prevent them from using the drug. People become willing to do anything to get drug, and this movie dramatically portrayed it. In Requiem for a Dream they were willing to do anything they had to do to get more heroin, including prostitution, losing an arm, leaving a girlfriend behind, driving across the country, risking death, and prison time. As drugs become the focal point of someone’s life everything else they once enjoyed can fade away and lose meaning, leaving them stranded and hopeless with nothing left but the drug addiction, and the guilt.

A lot of times addicts end up doing terrible things like stealing, or lying to people they are close to. In Requiem for a Dream the addict steals his mother’s TV to pawn for drug money. Addicts use their reflective reward system to focus on the drugs, how and where to get their next fix, and avoid thinking about their own stressful circumstances. Addict’s lives can become very stressful, and a lot of times addicts don’t have adequate coping mechanisms to deal with the stress. When under a lot of stress they often get cravings to use drugs; if confronted about their drug addiction many addicts experience cravings to go use drugs. After using drugs to cope with stress for a period of time the associations formed in the brain can become very salient, making it difficult for addicts to deal with stress without wanting to use drugs every time. As the drug addiction progresses the old coping mechanisms used for dealing with stress can become less effective, making the person rely even more on the drug in times of stress. In Requiem for a Dream as the people became more and more addicted they changed, they didn’t care about opening up a clothing store or about each other as much at the end. They clung to their old dreams as they faded away. Eventually all they cared about was finding anyone who had heroin for sale or trade.

The movie is hard to watch because it’s difficult to see people besieged with the hopelessness and despair of drug addiction. Many drug addicts have sacrificed everything for addiction; it destroys people’s lives and tears families apart. The underlying neurobiology determines someone’s potential for becoming addicted to any particular substance, while many people try drugs, only people with certain neurobiology end up addicted, others walk away from them without any addiction. In the movie they are addicted to heroin, and it’s hard to see people out of control and struggling with addiction when they need to get treatment so they can get their lives back in order.

Addicts usually have an underlying neurobiology that makes them prone to becoming addicted before they ever try a substance. If they use a particular substance they may have an experience on the drug that has a big influence on their thoughts and behaviors. They may feel like the drug filled in something that they have always been missing. They may become obsessed with the drug, and won’t be able to do anything but think about using it again. They may feel in love with the drug. The brain can form strong associations with places, people, paraphernalia, and environments, reminding the person about the drug whenever they see one of these cues. Whenever something good happens to them they may want to use the drug, or whenever they have a stressful experience, or whenever they see a spoon, or see a straw. After using a drug a few times the pathways can become so strong the person will do anything to anyone to get more drugs, and nothing else in their lives matters anymore. Some people with certain underlying neurobiology can go from having dreams and aspirations to addiction within a very short amount of time, and after only a few uses of a drug. In the movie Requiem for a Dream they went from using drugs and still having dreams and aspirations, to desperate drug addicts who would do anything for drugs, and didn’t care about anything else within one year.

Scientists are debating the idea of using psychedelic drugs in a therapeutic fashion to treat a number of serious medical conditions including alcoholism. Studies have found success using psychedelics to treat conditions including post traumatic stress disorder, drug addiction, obsessive compulsive disorder, and cluster headaches. Scientists in the past few decades have had difficulty finding funding to conduct psychedelic research, but stronger financial support has paved the way for a resurgence of psychedelic studies. Funding is largely provided by two organizations, The Heffter Research institute, and The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). This article will focus on how psychedelic drugs are used to treat alcoholism.

Canadian psychiatrists Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond experimented with giving psychedelic drugs to alcoholics in the 1950s. At the time the prevailing philosophy was that addicts did better after hitting 'rock bottom'; the researchers thought that LSD and mescaline would scare addicts away from drinking after having a bad trip. Instead of having a bad trip most of the addicts had a pleasurable experience, leading them to see things in their life in a new way, and enabling them to control their drinking. Their studies showed a high success rate in helping alcoholics quit drinking using LSD and mescaline.

Neuroscience research has found that LSD disrupts the circuitry maintaining alcohol addiction, and allows the addict to escape from the addiction cycle... Won't people just become addicted to psychedelics? No, at least not physically addicted. Psychedelics do not cause dopamine to be released on the nucleus accumbens, and therefore by definition are not physically addictive. Can't recreational use cause permanent schizophrenia or psychosis? Nope, that is just another drug rumor. Psychedelics can unmask symptoms of schizophrenia for people who already have or are developing schizophrenia, but it doesn't cause any person with normal brain functioning to develop schizophrenia or psychosis.

Psychedelics have proven successful in treating alcoholics who had failed other methods of controlling their drinking. When LSD and talk therapy were combined it proved successful in helping over half the people remain sober for over two years. Another study had a ninety percent success rate treating alcoholism using the same method. These are very high success rates for something so difficult to treat like alcoholism. Many of the people in the study claimed that the LSD treatment had saved their lives.