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Drug Science

MDMA for Alcohol Use Disorder


In this webinar, Dr Ben Sessa explains how MDMA therapy could treat alcohol use disorder (alcoholism), based on results from his recent safety and tolerability study.


He gives background into the psychological trauma which often causes addiction and alcohol use disorder, and how modern psychiatry struggles to treat these conditions at the root cause. He explains why MDMA is the perfect drug for treating traumatic patients and describes the recently completed safety and tolerability study into MDMA for alcohol use disorder.


Dr Sessa then presents the results from this study, and highlights the next steps and what is needed to achieve them.


Dr Ben Sessa is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist who has worked with young people and adults in the field of addictions and trauma-related psychiatry for over 20 years. For the last 15 years, he has been at the forefront of psychedelic research in the UK through his affiliations with Bristol University and Imperial College London, under the auspices of Professor David Nutt. He has taken part as a study doctor and as a healthy subject both receiving and / or administering MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, DMT and ketamine in multiple UK research studies. He runs one of the first UK-based medical cannabis prescribing clinics. Dr Sessa is the Chief Medical Officer at AWAKN Life Sciences, a new start-up company opening Europe’s first psychedelic medical clinic, which will be providing psychedelic therapies, therapist training courses and conducting independent research. He is the co-founder and former president of Europe’s largest psychedelic conference, Breaking Convention.


This webinar was part of the Student Psychedelic Conference, 2021. To receive updates about the next Student Psychedelic Conference, join the Drug Science Mailing list.

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