[s3krit]

>yet it generally doesn't seem to make them a worse, better, or even different person

I think there's a vague consensus that one must 'integrate' the experiences you have on psychedelics in order to meaningfully impact your life, if that's your goal. Those profound experiences and feelings you can have on psychedelics are certainly incredible and moving in their own right, but in order to make that have an effect on who you are (increased empathy and better framing of life events are often mentioned), you the taker of those drugs has to put some work in to learn from it. It always bothers me when I'll see statements like 'this drug changed my life', especially when talking about psychedelics. The drug didn't do it alone.

This is also seen in the early work using MDMA by psychiatrists - the drug itself was just one part of the treatment.

[spoiler]

> It always bothers me when I'll see statements like 'this drug changed my life', especially when talking about psychedelics. The drug didn't do it alone.

Yeah, I never liked that phrasing either. It makes psychedelics seem like some magical mental health panacea.

Often people who seek out these drugs are already taking the first steps to change their life (this can mean many things, even if "only"[1] changing their outlook) before ever taking the drug. They changed their life on their own, the drug was just a means to an end.

[1] I put only in quotes, because anyone who's struggled with any mental health issues knows this can be a gargantuan hurdle

[mistermann]

> It always bothers me when I'll see statements like 'this drug changed my life', especially when talking about psychedelics. The drug didn't do it alone.

Are you always this precise when causality is being assigned though? Take geopolitical matters for example, when you hear a story about what caused some event on the geopolitical stage being attributed to one variable/entity do your spider senses perk up and realize you're being told a tall tale?