The Therapeutic Potential of Psilocybin in Alcohol Use Disorder Recovery: A Literature Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: Psilocybin (the active compound found in “magic mushrooms”) has been an area of recent focus in the academic and psychiatric community on account of its potential in treating a spectrum of substance use and concurrent disorders (SUCDs). This paper posits a literature review of the current research pertaining to psilocybin in treating alcohol use disorder (AUD) through a form of therapy known as psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy (PAP). Methods: To undertake this study, we performed a literature review of peer-reviewed studies examining the efficacy of psilocybin in treating AUD through PAP. Inclusion criteria for papers included papers published from 2010-present, peer-reviewed sources, and clinical studies and controlled experiments observing AUD in PAP settings. Exclusion criteria used in screening papers included those focusing on other psychedelic compounds and experiments examining psilocybin efficacy in non-PAP settings. Results: Our overview of the extant literature has determined that psilocybin has strong therapeutic potential for use in PAP settings to treat AUD. Furthermore, we have identified three principal pathways through which psilocybin can elicit promising effects: neurobiological alterations (e.g., neuroplastic effects), behavioral and psychological improvements (e.g., increased receptivity towards cognitive therapies), and spiritual development (e.g., spiritual encounters improving abstinence). Discussion: The use of psilocybin in the clinical context of AUD treatment is well supported in the field of psychedelic research. Behavioural therapies are of high importance when engaging in use of psilocybin for treating AUD patients. There are certain limitations to the applications of PAP, such as predisposition to certain mental illnesses, however, the future of psilocybin therapy is expansive, ranging from subsequent animal testing to microdosing experiments. Conclusion: While our literature review bears positive findings, we encourage further research and clinical trials to be conducted to establish a larger body of evidence towards supporting or rejecting the validity of PAP. Should future research validate the efficacy of PAP for AUD treatment, therapists and psychiatrists could have another tool in their treatment reserve to assist people with SUCDs.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".