Following Albe Hofmann's discovery of LSD's psychoactive properties in 1 943, and previous to their scheduling controlled substances, the psychedelic drugs were widely studied­ six inte ational conferences and hundreds of discussed their potential therapeutic usefulness. The observation that the frightening experience of delirium tremens sometimes led alcoholics to moderate their alcohol intake suggested to early psychedelic rese chers that the "psychotomimetic" ex rience thought to be produced by LSD could be used to A number of hy t sis­ generating studies employing a variety of research designs to examine this p mise were completed, but relatively few controlled trials attempted hypothesis testing. A er twenty-five years of study, a combination of flawed methodology, uneven results and social reprehension led to the abandonment of research on the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs, leaving many avenues of inquiry unexplored and many questions unanswered. Today, after a thi y-year hiatus, this research is gradually being resumed, and there is renewed interest in the findings of previous studies. This a icle explores the history of one branch of psychedelic research, the therapeutic use of LSD in the treatment of alcoholism, and of the events that led to the relabeling of the "hallucinogens" as drugs of abuse. Keywor -alcoholism, hallucinogens, lysergic acid diethylamide, psychedelic drugs, psychotherapy