Landy Questions

[Sheriff John Stone]

Man, all this talk of LSD is really putting me on to a real LSD trip (pun).  But seriously...this stuff, at those levels of dosage (and purity) this is really, really serious stuff.

I can completely understand how this would lead to "life changing" moments.  Did Brian change?  I think he did.  I mean deep, brain stem kind of architecture.  I don't know if its just on a conscious level -- or if its deeper than that, more source oriented or both.  But the concepts and the mental language we wrap around the concepts we perceive can be totally rebuilt...from the ground up.

Another thing I was thinking about....(probably another thread) was how much Brian changed....some time in the early 70s.  He went from a shy, intelligent, charming all-american and quick-thinking (aka "bright") fellow......to some kind of low-key, odd-ball nutter as he emerged in the mid-70s.  I would suspect something seriously happened to him, what I don't know, in the early 70s.  I mean like Brain-Damage.  Coke and pot, I guess...not acid.  Acid opened doors and warped his mind...but those other chemicals, combined with serious "removal from reality" behavior-trend led us to....well, "Fairytale music."

There are two quotes that come to mind quite frequently with me, and I'll paraphrase slightly....

First, it's Marilyn stating that Brian was never the same after his first LSD experience. Yes, he went on to create some great music, but, as a person, did he change?

And, second, Brian stating that in the late 60's or early 1970's, he was constantly going over to friends' houses (I think he mentioned Danny Hutton) and getting high. Just think of how many drugs he ingested over that period of time. It HAD to have some kind of effect on his brain...

[carl r]

It seems that acid was a small part of what was flying around in Wilson's world. He's tended to blame the acid particularly - and at these dosages, I expect it would render one rather disorientated for a while - but it was primarily taken in conjunction with, and around  other substances. Just because you feel "damaged" doesn't necessarily mean you are - it could be the perception of deterioration which may be its biggest manifestion, a projection of basic fears. If he had finished taking all drugs in 1968 by the mid-70s he would have been in better shape. Who knows, maybe entirely recovered.

[MBE]

I don't think Brian was an addict until 72-73, it happened really slowly but even as late as 73 or 74 interviews he sounds much more with it then he did in 1976.

[Bean Bag]

Yeah...the Today-Summer Days-Pet Sounds-Smile period, or LSD days...he was accelerated, extremely focused, driven and his spirit was soaring.  But his faculties were right there, riding shotgun and able to keep up with it all (which is why it all worked so well.)  I think he changed, yet still the same Brian...he was really just "occupied."  So I think a return to the Brian Marilyn knew would have been possible...had he gone clean.

So, post-Smile, it's easy to notice the change in "direction" but I don't think its a change in "person" yet.  He was wounded, crushed, into other things et al.  But he was basically the same person -- just his spirit was crushed.  Hence the low-key, mellow, period of Wild Honey, Friends.  The same "Brian" just starting to withdraw.

But fast-forward to the early-mid 70s....CLEARLY, this a different Brian altogether.  The low-key late 60s led to a serious reality-removal for Brian.  Creatively -- his work begins to reflect this.

And you're right, by 76....he was mental.  No doubt.  This wasn't a crushed man withdrawing anymore...this was a guy who was really starting to look....well, homeless.

[Bicyclerider]

It's rare, but there are people who take only one or two trips on acid (especially with those large 60's dosages) and who are permanently changed, personality wise, and sometimes are "damaged" as well as changed.  Sometimes it turns out that these people are schizophrenic and in the early stages of the manifestation of their disease with only mild symptoms until they take acid.  The schizophrenics (and schizoaffectives like Brian) are attracted to drugs as part of their disease.

While Brian was obviously not seriously brain damaged at this time (Today/SDSN/Pet sounds/smile) in terms of being able to work, it's interesting that he apparently did undergo a personality change that Marilyn noticed after the LSD.  What comes first, the mental illness or the drugs, is often an unanswerable question.

[Sheriff John Stone]

It's rare, but there are people who take only one or two trips on acid (especially with those large 60's dosages) and who are permanently changed, personality wise, and sometimes are "damaged" as well as changed.  Sometimes it turns out that these people are schizophrenic and in the early stages of the manifestation of their disease with only mild symptoms until they take acid.  The schizophrenics (and schizoaffectives like Brian) are attracted to drugs as part of their disease.

While Brian was obviously not seriously brain damaged at this time (Today/SDSN/Pet sounds/smile) in terms of being able to work, it's interesting that he apparently did undergo a personality change that Marilyn noticed after the LSD.  What comes first, the mental illness or the drugs, is often an unanswerable question.

Good post, Bicyclerider. I think Syd Barrett falls into the first category you refer to. Supposedly, he had a "bad weekend", and re-emerged a different person. Certainly, Syd took more than one or two trips, but his decline happened very quickly.

What does come first, the mental illness or the drugs? Sometime I would like to see a poll taken among BB/BW fans, just for the heck of it. I am a big believer that if you could've removed the drugs from Brian's life, the non-prescription ones from 1965 - 1975, he would've been able to function at a very high level. I know it's not that cut and dry, the drugs and mental illness might be intertwined, it's complicated, but if you could just take one or the other away?

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

I wonder how the stay in the mental hospital in 1968 affected him. Remember, back then, mental illness wasn't as well understood as it is now, and I've never heard about  what kind of treatment he did receive during that period.

[Bean Bag]

Excellent thoughts everyone!

I forgot about the 68 mental hospital thing Billy C.  That changes my timeline.  I don't think you seek help unless you're really, really in over your head.  And in 68, if we're to say it was less open and understood back then -- than just how f-ed up must he have been!?

So I take it back, -- when I said Brian was just unmotivated and spiritly crushed post Smile.  Sounds like he stepped over the rainbow with the micrograms.

But too, what Sheriff and B-rider said.......what comes first, mental illness or the droogs.  I don't know.  I think you're right Sheriff.......Brian without LSD probably would have just remained 'unique.'   He may certainly have gone 'eccentric.'  Hell, I would too...if I didn't have to go to the office 9-to-5 etc, etc.  If I could live in my castle, hanging with friends, cuttin' records when I felt 'inspired.'  Shoooot....I'd be one eccentric mo' fo'.

 

Still though.  I don't mean to joke.  It's really sad.

[the captain]

My personal belief in the chicken-or-egg question (that is, which came first, drugs or mental illness) is that mental illness comes first, in that it's what is already in the body. Brian's illnesses didn't come out of nowhere after and as a result of drug-taking. We know mental illness ran in his family: his mother talks about Murray staying in bed, for example. And we know he had some episodes prior to experimenting with harder drugs--wasn't the initial plane breakdown prior to taking LSD? I don't believe drugs made Brian mentally ill; I believe drugs exacerbated Brian's mental illness. They were probably also a way for him to cope with his own (ill- or undefined) mental illness in an era when such things were barely spoken about, much less competently, professionally handled.

[Bean Bag]

Agreed.

One thing for certain, if you're standing on unbalanced teeter-totter already...making yourself extra dizzy ain't gonna fix much.

Toss in a few ridiculously over-the-top childhood beatings...

[the captain]

One thing for certain, if you're standing on unbalanced teeter-totter already...making yourself extra dizzy ain't gonna fix much.

Yet if there is one common thread among people I know who have mental illness--of which there are quite a few, both family and friends--it's chemical abuse or at least some sort of self-medication. Very rare in my experience is someone who has one without the other.

[MBE]

I think you can trace Brian having problems to 1963. He was gaining a little weight (he was into health food in high school) and refusing to tour. I don't think he completely changed his personality for over a decade, and perhaps not completely until the second Landy regeme but you can trace the first minor warning signs that early. Though Brian did have a brief stay in 1968, I still think that overall he was a lot more normal from 67-70 or 71 then he ever would be again as far as awareness of things going on around him, sense of humor, obviously quality of work etc.

[fun fun fun]

I couldn't help but notice that in May Pang's book Loving John (for you Beatles non-fans, the "John" is John Lennon), there is a really sappy thanks to Dr. Eugene E. Landy and thanking him for being such a compassionate man (or something....too lazy to open the book)...anybody know what that's about???

Actually, it was Pang's co-author, Henry Edwards, who thanked Landy.  All the "thank yous" were lumped together... he is (or was) a friend of Edwards

[The Heartical Don]

Addiction (substance abuse) is, according to DSM-IV (the chief handbook for psychiatrists) a psychiatric illness. A real alcoholic is ill, in the sense that he simply has to use, because otherwise he will get a fit or a delirium. That amounts to for instance an epileptic seizure with potential fatality, or psychotic episodes with extreme fears and delusions, the dreaded 'cold sweat'. One feels insects crawling under one's skin, or sees snakes curling around one's feet. So one needs the stuff to keep some kind of very fragile equilibrium. That is not to say that when using, one feels well. Concentration is shot, one rambles, talks incoherently, and sleep is totally disrupted; often impotence is also a result, and self-neglect; one rarely eats well, and so on.
I would say Brian, as a victim of a highly abusive childhood, began to suffer from general anxiety disorder, and social anxiety disorder already in his early adolescence. Think: panic attacks, heavy sweating, the tendency to retreat, perhaps phobias and/or obsessive-compulsive behavior. Or, when he felt some threat somewhere, a strong tendency to display childlike, goofy behavior (to escape from responsibility). Then, he could have discovered that alcohol and street drugs worked wonderful against these terrible feelings. That is how almost all addicts really get into abuse. A battered wife knows that half a bottle of gin takes the pain away for an hour or so.
Given all the stories, it's probable that his consumption of cocaine was massive. That alone can cause paranoid feelings for years on end (feeling persecuted, conspired against). Also, he himself admitted  several times that he was a very heavy drinker; he smoked much hashish. Then there's the LSD, that can (sometimes fatally) bring back earlier trauma, because that trauma becomes extremely vivid again. He also spoke of heroin use. And, of course, he was a chain smoker.
My contention is that Landy's enormous mistake was to quickly wean Brian off of street drugs, and all too quickly put him on a regimen of high doses of psychiatric drugs; in that way he could take Bri on nice trips around the world pretty soonish and present himself as a most successful healer.
I think he should have let Brian first do a long, long withdrawal which should have ended in, yes, no drugs at all for a couple of years. Then, with a bit of luck, the 'real' Brian at that time could have shone through. Instead, we got a puppetmaster and his disciple, which disciple went from some terrible addictions into another heavy drug regimen without anything in between. Not good.

(this is just my take on things, from what I read about it all over the years.)

[southbay]

I couldn't help but notice that in May Pang's book Loving John (for you Beatles non-fans, the "John" is John Lennon), there is a really sappy thanks to Dr. Eugene E. Landy and thanking him for being such a compassionate man (or something....too lazy to open the book)...anybody know what that's about???

Actually, it was Pang's co-author, Henry Edwards, who thanked Landy.  All the "thank yous" were lumped together... he is (or was) a friend of Edwards

Edwards  was thanked by Brian (I believe at the 1988 HOF induction ceremony) for being his "speechwriter"

[LostArt]

I wonder how the stay in the mental hospital in 1968 affected him. Remember, back then, mental illness wasn't as well understood as it is now, and I've never heard about  what kind of treatment he did receive during that period.

I don't remember where I read this, or who said it (was it Reum again?), but they said that those around Brian say he was never the same after his stay in the mental hospital.  Anybody ever see (or read) "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"?

[The Heartical Don]

Does anyone know if Landy, being a psychologist and not a psychiatrist, was allowed to prescribe drugs at all? In most parts of the world psychologists aren't, because they aren't qualified M.D.s and 'psychologist' isn't a protected title there.

I recall from the BW 'autobiography' that Landy had two M.D.s in his service: dr. Susser and dr. Samuels. Did they simply carry out Landy's orders without ever questioning them?

It would be grievous if one psychologist and two M.D.s who weren't psychiatrists at all could, between the three of them, do pretty much what they liked without ever being double-checked and second-opinioned by a true psychiatrist...