For the first time ever, a study is testing the use of MDMA to treat alcohol addiction.

According to a new study held in the UK, it’s been suggested that taking MDMA (the main chemical component of ecstasy pills) could help alcoholics recover from their addiction.

The study was carried out over eight weeks in the English city of Bristol, and had 14 test subjects who were given the drug as part of two psychotherapy sessions.

After the sessions, data was collected over a nine-month period to monitor the participants behaviour of alcohol use, mental wellbeing and day to day functioning within society.

Publishing the results in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, it was found that participants on average consumed 18.7 units of alcohol per week in the months after the trial, compared to the average 130.6 units they had done prior to it.

Ben Sessa of Imperial College London lead the authors of the study, and he believes patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) commonly have a past history of psychological trauma, which leads them to fall into alcohol dependency as a form of self-medication.

It’s believed that the Class A drug that’s often used recreationally as a party drug, manages to suppress a region of the brain known as the amygdala, which leads to an improved ability to process negative memories.

The researchers concluded: “This study demonstrates that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can be safely delivered, is well tolerated and has the potential to enhance and intensify the psychotherapeutic processes in the treatment of patients with AUD.

“MDMA, given in a psychotherapeutic context, may reduce avoidance of emotionally distressing thoughts, images or memories of alcohol misuse while increasing empathy for the self and others.

“It may also address symptoms of other conditions that are frequently co-morbid with harmful use of substances, particularly those symptoms associated with a history of psychological trauma.”

The two sessions in which the participants where given MDMA were part of a wider eight-week cause consisting of ten sessions total, and the patients had recently undergone an alcohol detox prior to the trial beginning.

The researchers said the next step for the trial would be to carry out another experiment where at random, the participants would be split into two groups. To measure how effective the treatment is one group would be given MDMA and the other a placebo.

H/T: The Independent