According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, hallucinogens are any illegal drug, chemical or natural, that alters a person’s sense of reality. All drugs, including hallucinogens, become much more popular during the holiday season. So, the question is, why do people take hallucinogens around the holidays? The answer is not a simple one. In order to understand it, it is important to know why people take hallucinogens at all, and why the holiday season heightens this trend.

Why people take hallucinogens

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, hallucinogens have been used in religious ceremonies for thousands of years. They have even been used to treat mental illness. However, in this day and age, they are primarily used for recreational purposes. Most of the time, the reasons people take hallucinogens include:

• personal pleasure,
• to deal with stress,
• to escape reality, and
• to achieve a sense of enlightenment, either physically or spiritually.

All of these reasons are dramatically heightened during the holiday season, and it is easy to see the potential draw of hallucinogens.

The holiday effect

Many people experience stress during the holidays.

Everyone will agree that while the holidays are filled with parties and gatherings with friends and family, they are also filled with stress, worry, and often, a disconnection with spirituality. People take hallucinogens for each of these reasons but there are circumstances unique to the holidays that increase the likelihood of someone wanting to use them.

Pleasure

People take hallucinogens during the holidays to increase their enjoyment of a number of activities including:

• parties
• visits to clubs with friends
• family gatherings
• intimate moments with their significant other

Stress

During the holidays, stress is higher than normal, leading people to take hallucinogens to help them cope. This stress can come from:

• financial troubles
• pressure to find the “perfect” gift
• family problems
• societal pressure to be “merry”
• having guests in your home

Escape

Often times, all of the hustle and bustle of the holidays just makes people want to escape reality. They may turn to hallucinogens to achieve this. Some other reasons, related to the holidays, that they may want to escape are:

• depression
• anxiety
• hopelessness
• a feeling of helplessness

Enlightenment

The holidays certainly have an undercurrent of spirituality and religious connotation. It is therefore understandable that people seek to feel closer to their “higher power”, or seek a spiritual awakening. Especially in this time of rampant commercialism. In order to achieve this people sometimes turn to hallucinogens.

As you can see, the holidays really do increase the chances that a person may use hallucinogens. When a person uses hallucinogens to escape the reality and stress of everyday life, it becomes a problem. Any drug that allows you to escape can quickly develop into a habit and then into an addiction. For more information on hallucinogens in general or getting help for an addiction to hallucinogens, give us a call at 800-411-9312 (Who Answers?) .