For Ayelet Waldman, Microdosing LSD Led to Revelations
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Talya Zax January 10, 2017
Think the psychedelic drug LSD belongs in the tie-dyed “turn on, tune in, drop out” days of the past? Ayelet Waldman — novelist, essayist, and wife of Michael Chabon — believes that, at least when it comes to therapeutic drug use, you ought to think again.
In her new book “A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life,” Waldman details a month she spent using minute doses of LSD to escape an emotional state of, as she told the Forward, “absolute desperation.” During that month, she took 10-microgram doses of the drug — one-fifteenth of an ordinary dose — once every three days.
In “A Really Good Day” Waldman takes an earnest look at her own emotional makeup, the often-surprising science on the use of LSD, opioids, and amphetamines, and the systematic racism of the United States’ War on Drugs.
She didn’t set out to write a book when she began microdosing, she told the Forward. Shortly after she began the experiment, though, she realized its literary potential. The project brought her back in touch with her former career as a federal public defender, during which she often defended clients accused of drug-related felonies.
Stay tuned for a Forward feature on “A Really Good Day.”
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