Health Impacts of Kava/Considering trying it
Hi guys,
There does not seem to be a lot of specific info out there but I want to hear people's opinions and advice for starting kava. for context, I am a pretty young (over 21) male who wants to age as well as I can, while still enjoying life. I cut out alcohol and weed at 19, the only drug I engage in is the occasional shrooms trip, and all of that is sort of informed by my understanding of what is beneficial for the human body. I eat a very good diet, I feel great every day, don't want to slip into bad habits.
However, I have been in many social situations recently where being able to have a drink would have made things a lot more fun. I had a great time when I would drink in college but didn't do it a lot, never really any chronically bad experiences (besides all the times I would like, have too much, but those were still funny memories). Never really got hungover, the only issue I really had was that I would get sick a lot. Point is I like the feeling of being drunk, but don't like the biologically negative effects of alcohol/ethanol.
This is where Kava comes in, I like how kava looks for a couple reasons. For one, the drink itself is less separated from nature; my general life philosophy, at least for things I ingest, is that the closer to its natural form the better. This heuristic applies to fruit (selected bananas vs wild blueberries), meat (hot dogs vs grass fed steak), sugar (again, fruit vs high fructose corn syrup), cocaine (coca leaves vs the refined powder), whatever. I don't really want to argue this point; it's just the reason why I am initially interested in Kava. This heuristic has served me well in life.
My understanding is that it acts on the GABA receptor in the brain which reduces anxiety, and that it acts somewhat similarly to alcohol in that regard. I also have come to believe that it doesn't really do any of the cellular damage that alcohol does, and while there are risks for the liver the link seems somewhat isolated, and also a bit dubious. I am happy to be corrected on any of this by the way. It seems like a pretty strong substance, and probably not something I would want to do regularly, but similar to psilocybin I don't think having a strong psychoactive effect in of itself is a dangerous thing. I also have come to understand that it can have extremely different effects on different people, so I ultimately would have to try it myself. The thing is that it is really expensive so that's why I'm coming here first.
Long term I wonder if there are any issues. As another example, I am considering going back to weed edibles just every once in a blue moon since weed is fun and not seemingly toxic at a cellular level, but my understanding is that marijuana destroys REM sleep and that is really like the main negative health effect that will happen no matter what (obviously scaled to how often you use it, if you use it just one night then REM will just be hurt that night). Kava is obviously much less studied than weed, but that's why I am coming here to talk to people who actually have experience with it. I'm also reminded of ashwagandha, obviously quite different in many ways but also something that seems to have a very strong effect but can be negative or positive depending on the context.
Finally, does it really replace alcohol? I've seen people say it sort of does, but not quite, I've seen people say they've blacked out from it (crazy asf lol), I've seen people say not much impact, but that's obviously all just individual anecdotes, I would want to hear from people who both have experience with it but also have a good understanding of other people's experiences.
I'm sort of just rambling here but I wanted to show my perspective so then y'all can further inform it and help me out on my decision to actually buy. Do y'all know any good lab tested brands too? I've read that that matters too.