LARB Radio Hour: Ayelet Waldman's Psychedelic Salvation

Medaya Ocher talks with Ayelet Waldman, author of "A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life," about her experience micro-dosing LSD.

By LARB Radio HourApril 20, 2018

 

What if a highly illegal drug could be used, far more successfully than prescribed pharmaceuticals, to help people with depression and bipolar disorder? Who would be willing not just to experiment on themselves, but also to spread the word? LARB Radio's Medaya Ocher talks with just such a brave soul, Ayelet Waldman, author of A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life. Recorded in front of a full house at Scripps College, it's a fascinating dialogue full of surprises: Ayelet relates her own personal struggles, her frustration with anti-depressants, her traumatizing years as a Federal public defender appalled by the War on Drugs, her full knowledge of the severity of the law she was breaking, the whimsical arrival of a package from Lewis Carroll, the pharmacology of LSD, the precision of micro-dosing, and then, magically, relief. Ayelet acknowledges that her social privilege (as a prosperous white woman, a Harvard Law graduate, married to Michael Chabon, herself a successful mystery writer and novelist) allowed her to take a huge risk, as such she feels compelled to announce her discovery of happier trails ahead.