Alcohol and drugs are a slippery slope for me and fluency. I started drinking in high school (in my late 20’s now) which felt like breaking free from the chains of stuttering because I could speak relatively fluent while drinking. This led to being in alcohol counseling before I could legally drink and I’ve struggled with a tendency to binge drink since. Weed makes me more fluent when smoking, usually I talk less too so that could be a misinterpretation of fluency. edibles make me less fluent I feel... Edibles also give me major anxiety so that could be the correlation with decreased fluency. I took tramadol after a surgery and it made me a lot more fluent which again was like the slippery slope with alcohol, especially since it’s already an addictive substance. I really had to monitor myself to be sure I wasn’t abusing it just to be fluent. Ketamine increases my fluency and has been approved by the FDA to treat depression.. I thought about maybe trying to use it for emergency speech situations. Psilocybin takes my brain somewhere where I have zero concern with fluency so couldn’t tell ya how it actually effects the mechanics of fluency but the mental freedom has been nice. I think that drug intervention has its place but is not for daily management of stuttering. There’s a very high risk for addiction and dependency, from experience.. not just chemical addiction but psychological because of the fluency reward. Trying to hide behind being drunk or high has stolen time I could have spent getting comfortable with my true self and living more authentically.