If youd like im not totally opposed. still there is a wealth of real testimonials online, including pubmed. and what you write in your reply is valid, i guess to go through the experience is just so stark to someone who hasnt. ive talked to others and there is always a connection on the fact that its just not understood to read it vs go thru. you can also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45507257
Traumatic stress is known to affect the response to alcohol in rats: see "The persistent effects of exposure to a predator odor stressor on sensitivity to alcohol" (2025) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addicn.2025.100230. They found different results in male and female rats: depending on the exact mechanism, finasteride might specifically affect this. (We could ask them to re-run the experiment with a "male taking finasteride" group, and see what happens? But I'd personally want to determine what's developmental, what's genetic, and what's hormonal, and quantify the effects, before running such a specific study.)
This might compound with the findings described in "Alcohol and Placebo: The Role of Expectations and Social Influence" (2020) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00321-0:
> We suggest that expectations of inebriation formed by socialization and experiences can explain most of the behavioural changes following alcohol consumption.
If you can find someone who experienced these effects from taking finasteride, which persisted when they stopped taking it, despite them not ever really minding the symptoms at all, then that'd be evidence that my "it's trauma-related" theory is wrong. But all I'm aware of is people getting really distressed about normal/known side-effects of finasteride, and then afterwards they report a slew of other symptoms that are associated with PTSD.
We don't know which direction the arrow of causality points, and I'm not sure how to establish that.
