What Drug / Substance other than alcohol helps you forget ?

[Akashik]

Swim is curious on finding something that can help him forget recent memories.

Swim has seen some pretty emotionally upsetting and disturbingly graphic images and videos which he wishes he never saw.

( if swiy must know, they were war related )

So, anything out there ( other than alcohol ) that can help in mashing the short term memory?

[caltrain208]

Well smoking a lot of weed always seemed to dull SWIM overall, as well as his short term memory. Although it probably wouldn't help SWIY forget, MDxx may help SWIY somewhat.

Oh, and Opiates are always great at repressing problems (until you run out).

[MrG]

The use of pharmacological agents for the purpose of "deleting" memory is still in its infancy and is not something likely to be achieved through simply necking a fistful of a recreational substance or two.

I would advise that SWIY would be better served trying to resolve the upsetting imagery through similar methods utilised for PTSD sufferers. Maybe EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing ) might help.

These types of imagery, quite easily available on the internet, *should* be distressing, don't forget that.

[RaverHippie]

The disruption of short term memory is possible through an erratic and deficient amount of sleep. Last week for various reason, I hardly got any decent amount of sleep and what little I did was restless and tiresome. All told it didn't amount to more than 15 hours for the week and I can specifically remember only a few momentous occasions. Other than that, many days are absent from my mind.

I'm not sure how well consciously depriving yourself of sleep could affect your memory but when extenuating circumstances dictated that course of action it did present impressive results. Nothing was ever able to be converted from short term to long term memory as it happened so nothing was really remembered.

It would likely be too late to implement this as the forgetting happened in real time, the memories previous to the gap of poor sleep are still there and intact. This would be possible in my eyes if the viewing of the images/videos were to have occurred since the last time restful sleep occurred.

[drug-bot]

any high enough dose(relativly larger than theraputically prescribed doses) of a benzodiazepine will make one forget/blackout a large portion of the events that transpired while under ther influence. also legitimate theraputic doses of a good benzodiazepine will greatly reduce ones anxiety and fears but it wont make you forget any tramadic memorys only make them much less anxiety provoking. with benzodiazepines one should avoid cns depressants such as alcohol, opiates, ghb, barbituates, anything that depresses ones central nervouse system; if mixed in the right quantitys death occurs by the stopping one breathing, (though swim takes benzodiazepines a few times a week and he's also on methadone and likes to take a shot or 2 or 3 but never more than 3 of vodka and he hasnt died, yet. but swiy has been on methadone a long time at a stable dose, and 1-3 shots of hard liquer really isnt enogh to intoxicate most people. but he would never recommend that to anyone, kinda like that saying 'do as i say, not as i do'.)

but if swiys question refers to a drug that actually erases ones mind of a tramadic incident theres none swiy knows of.

also Mr.G made some good recomendations.

[terrapinzflyer]

MrG has some good points. Swims turtle will also say that particularly MDMA, and to a lesser extend LSD, have shown good results in treating PTSD. Now swims turtle isn't recommending just getting high, something like this requires work on swiy's part, a good quality of substance, and someone to help swiy work through it.
As MrG said, EMDR may be a good route, and possibly biofeedback or a flotation tank.

Nothing known today is going to erase specific memories, and trying to suppress them through drugs, is, in swims turtles opinion, just asking for future problems. Better to sort out the root of the problem...

[Lady Codone]

Though drugs are NOT the best solution to this problem (which I'm assuming you already know), there are some good candidates. Benzos, alcohol, opiates (NOT all together!) and things like Ambien and other "downers" would probably work.