商业周刊:阻止自杀的药物(1)（在线收听）

A Drug to Stop Suicide

阻止自杀的药物

Amid a national epidemic, there may be hope: A fast-acting new drug based on ketamine

一种含有氯胺酮的速效新药，有望治疗自杀这种在全美蔓延的健康问题

By Cynthia Koons and Robert Langreth

辛西娅·昆斯和罗伯特·兰瑞思撰稿

Joe Wright has no doubt that ketamine saved his life.

乔·赖特毫不质疑是氯胺酮挽救了他的生命。

A 34-year-old high school teacher who writes poetry every day on a typewriter, Wright was plagued by suicidal impulses for years.

赖特是一名34岁的高中老师，每天都会敲着打字机写诗，他多年来一直饱受自杀冲动的困扰。

The thoughts started coming on when he was a high schooler himself, on Staten Island, N.Y., and intensified during his first year of college.

他在纽约州的斯塔顿岛上高中时，自杀冲动就开始浮现。上大一时，这种想法变得更加强烈。

"It was an internal monologue, emphatic on how pointless it is to exist," he says. "It's like being ambushed by your own brain."

他说：“那是一种内心独白，突显出存在的无意义感，像是被自己的大脑伏击一样。”

He first tried to kill himself by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills the summer after his sophomore year.

大二后的那个夏天，他第一次吞下了一瓶安眠药企图自杀。

Years of treatment with Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, and other antidepressants followed, but the desire for an end was never fully resolved.

多年来，他一直服用百忧解、唑洛夫、韦布汀和其他抗抑郁药物进行治疗，但那种想结束生命的执念从未被真正解开。

He started cutting himself on his arms and legs with a pencil-sharpener blade. Sometimes he'd burn himself with cigarettes.

他开始用削笔刀在胳膊和腿上割伤自己，有时还会用香烟烫自己。

He remembers few details about his second and third suicide attempts. They were halfhearted; he drank himself into a stupor and once added Xanax into the mix.

他几乎记不清第二次和第三次自杀的细节，那两次他都心不在焉，一次他喝得神志不清，另一次他往酒里加了抗焦虑药赞安诺。

Wright decided to try again in 2016, this time using a cocktail of drugs he'd ground into a powder.

2016年，赖特决定再试一次，这次他把几种药物碾成粉末。

As he tells the story now, he was preparing to mix the powder into water and drink it when his dog jumped onto his lap.

而当他正准备把粉末混到水里喝下去时，他的狗跳到了他的腿上。

Suddenly he had a moment of clarity that shocked him into action. He started doing research and came upon a Columbia University study of a pharmaceutical treatment for severe depression and suicidality.

突然间，他一下清醒过来，震惊的同时也让他行动起来。他开始探究，后来在哥伦比亚大学参与了一项医治严重抑郁症和自杀患者的药物治疗研究。

It involved an infusion of ketamine, a decades-old anesthetic that's also an infamous party drug. He immediately volunteered.

治疗中要注射氯胺酮，这是一种很老的麻醉剂，也是派对上常使用的毒品。他当即自告奋勇做研究被试。

His first—and only—ketamine infusion made him feel dreamlike, goofy, and euphoric. He almost immediately started feeling more hopeful about life.

他第一次，也是唯一一次注射氯胺酮时，感觉像做梦一样，昏昏欲睡但心情愉悦，他几乎立刻感到对生活充满希望。

He was more receptive to therapy. Less than a year later, he married. Today he says his dark moods are remote and manageable. Suicidal thoughts are largely gone.

此后，他更愿意接受治疗。过了不到一年，他就结婚了。现在，他表示自己已经很少出现阴暗情绪，而且也能掌控那些情绪，基本上不再有自杀想法了。

"If they had told me how much it would affect me, I wouldn't have believed it," Wright says. "It is unconscionable that it is not already approved for suicidal patients."

赖特说：“如果他们告诉我这药会对我产生这么大的影响，我根本不会相信。这种药尚未被批准用于治疗自杀的患者，真是不合情理。”