In the 1950s, when psychedelics were becoming a popular entertainment choice for counterculture types, quite a few psychologists wondered if they might have medical uses too. Doctors investigated hallucinogens like LSD and psilocybin (magic mushrooms) as treatments for everything from schizophrenia to cancer anxiety, but alcoholism was frequently considered a promising avenue of research. Maybe they were on to something. A recent meta-analysis of old studies in which LSD was used to treat alcoholism, conducted by scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, indicated that 59% of those dosed with LSD in experiments from the ’50s and ’60s reported less alcohol abuse afterwards—compared to 38% of subjects who received a placebo. This is one addiction treatment of the past that might just have a future.

Former neuroscientist Jacqueline Detwiler edits a travel magazine by day, but moonlights as a science writer. Her work has appeared in Wired, Men's Health, Fitness and Forbes. She's also written about the hardest drugs to kick and drugs and personality types for The Fix.

Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America, by William L. White, was a major source for this article.