Using psychedelics in recovery, part 3
Using psychedelics in recovery, part 3
Over 100 resources and 100 stories
Free and paid subscribers of Recovering get the same exact content. Paid is for those who’d like to offer financial support, and be patrons of this newsletter and my work.
The first post in the series discussed why I’m writing about psychedelics and recovery, and solicited your feedback (“Using psychedelics in recovery, part 1: A long road to a complicated decision”).
The second was an account of my experience using psilocybin and ayahuasca over the last three years (“Using psychedelics in recovery, part 2: My experience with ayahuasca and mushrooms”).
In this edition, part 3, I am sharing some resources I’ve collected over the past years (books, movies, articles, podcasts, organizations, providers, etc.), as well as reader-submitted resources and reader-submitted stories/opinions/thoughts about psychedelics/recovery/sobriety.
The next post (fourth) will be me answering your questions (thank you for submitting them—the collection period is over), and the fifth will share conclusions I’ve drawn based on my experience. Those will trickle out over the next few months.
I read over 150 different responses by readers on the use of psychedelics (mostly in the context of recovery from SUD), and it was such a treat to do that. There were so many different points of view and really what it showed me was how unique and individual (and also how common) our pathways are, which I think we know.
This is not an essay—it’s a resource
This is just under 18,000 words. It’s going to take a long time to read and it’s in no way meant to be something you attack at once or consume the entirety of—this hopefully serves as some kind of resource or validation or food for thought.
Trigger warning
This material can be really triggering to read. Most of what’s below describes drug taking, and I recommend if that makes you feel queasy or unsure at all that you skip this series. I want to acknowledge that it is so healthy to not override that instinct and to come back to this material at some later point, or never at all.
Bias
Regarding the reader submissions/stories and resources: please keep in mind this is a collection of responses from readers of this newsletter who self-selected to share about something deeply personal and risky. It’s safe to assume bias—this is not a randomized sample, and will not reflect the general consensus of people in recovery, the general experiences of those in recovery, or resources available to those with addiction, and so on.
Disclaimers, additional comment
I collected about 300 anecdotes and resources from 150 people; they’re organized below (a long exhaustive list of resources, personal narratives/insights about readers’ own recovery, and how you feel or what you think about psychedelics). I did not edit your submissions save some spelling corrections (not noted) or clarifying corrections ([bracketed] to distinguish my own additions). I pulled quotes and statements from some of your responses (see larger font throughout) that I thought were interesting and I was careful that no pull quote altered the meaning of the entire statement or was taken greatly out of context.
I really hope you take the time to read the vastly differing views and experiences, and if you feel called, to add your own to the comments.
Many of your experiences are in the body of this email but there were so many, some ended up in this overflow document.
None of what I’ve written in this series is: [1] an encouragement; [2] a prescriptive “How to”; [3] an endorsement; [4] advice; or expertise. I am writing about my experience, sharing resources I found helpful, about something I am novice, untrained, and passably educated on (psychedelics). Some notes to me regarding this subject matter since I started the series have included such language as “you need to be clear” or “make sure you include” and other similar language about what I “had” to do if I was going to discuss psychedelics, which is a total impossibility and not the point of this exercise. I expect everyone reading this to be an adult capable of reasoning, and self-assessment, and to have a modicum of agency. I do not take responsibility for making sure you get all the correct, necessary information about psychedelics (and recovery) from this one article or series, or that I cover my ass and make sure I speak intelligibly on all angles of this incredibly complex topic so as not to be attacked, discredited, or misunderstood. There are far better resources than me; I have included many of them here.
If you feel at all triggered about this topic, I wouldn’t read it. I reject the idea that people in recovery need to be protected from information—I embrace the idea that you are fully capable of deciding what you should and should not expose yourself to.
The crowd-sourced resources are 100% not vetted. I reviewed them and did some light editing for readability/usability and I excluded most references to individual practitioners.
I’m not “pro-psychedelic” or “anti-psychedelic” the same way I’m not “pro-antidepressant” or “anti-antidepressant”—we’re all different—totally different, wildly different—and you’re going to draw your own conclusions for yourself based on your own self-knowledge, beliefs, preferences, traditions, ability, biological makeup, and at least a hundred other factors unique to you. That is the point of this—to create more options for each of us, that are always going to be unique to us.
I don’t think these substances are for everyone. I believe that they can be of great and deep benefit, but I also know from personal experience that they can (along with many other risks, especially for certain populations with histories of mental health issues) confuse your relationship with sobriety — I 100% believe using (almost) any psychoactive substance, no matter the intention, can make your vows thin and your definitions blurry. This does not mean that I think sober people should be ascetic or all drug taking violates sobriety or whatever, it only means I think it’s important to consider what the addition of certain compounds can do to your own logic and values and recovery.
There is a lot of hype around psychedelics as therapeutics, which you’ll know if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while or just like, are alive right now. I’m not interested in the hype. Psychedelics are a tool — so is Prozac, so is meditation, so is a meeting. Psychedelics have downsides, some of them major and tragic, and the hype clouds this very real aspect, and ushers in a number of other serious issues such as appropriation, lack of safety precautions/standards, and access.
Free and paid subscribers of Recovering get the same exact content. Paid is for those who’d like to offer financial support, and be patrons of this newsletter and my work.
Holly’s resources
These are articles, books, organizations, podcasts, and other helpful content I’ve collected over the past 22 months writing this newsletter to better understand psychedelics and psychedelics in recovery. Many of them are from previous newsletters. I don’t agree 100% (or sometimes even 1%) with a number of things I share; a link doesn’t equal an endorsement in any direction. I share resources I find interesting and helpful, even if I disagree with them.
Books
Books that are focused on drugs (effects, properties, classes, addictions to), drug use, harm reduction (expanded views of what recovery is), drug policy, etc. (i.e., they are not “recovery” books or prescriptive (self-help) or memoir; they’re primarily informational.) These are some of my favorites (and also, they are limited to what I’ve actually read), but many of them were also recommended by other readers. A full list of my favorites and reader favorites can be found here (all books are affiliate links).
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, Michael Pollan
Fellowship of the River: A Medical Doctor's Exploration into Traditional Amazonian Plant Medicine, Dr. Joseph Tafur w/foreward by Gabor Maté
Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts, and Pushers, Thomas Szasz
Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction, Maia Szalavitz
The Urge: Our History of Addiction, Dr. Carl Fisher
Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, Dr. Carl Hart
High Society: The Central Role of Mind-Altering Drugs in History, Science and Culture, Mike Jay
The Bigger Picture: How Psychedelics Can Help Us Make Sense of the World,
—from a previous post, I wrote of it: “Though it’s absolutely a book on psychedelics, which I think feels incredibly niche to some, I found it to be one of the best books I’ve read in a while on navigating current culture/this time in history. I couldn’t recommend it more.”Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic, Mike Jay
This Is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan
DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research Into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences, Rick Strassman
Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction, Judith Grisel (this one is included here because it breaks down, substance by substance, the psychoactive/neuro effects of each, and very few commercial/mass market books have this structure and level of detail)
Articles, papers, studies
A number of essays from Alex Olshonsky’s newsletter (Deep Fix): [1] “On the Complicated Decision to Try Psychedelics”; [2] “Psychedelics as Catalysts for Recovery”; [3] “Overcoming Addiction with Natura Care Programs”; [4] “Addiction Is Between You and the World”; [5] “Addiction and ayahuasca”
“Psychotropic Hedonism vs. Pharmacological Calvinism”, Gerald L. Klerman: “The pharmacological calvinist view involves a general distrust of drugs used for non-therapeutic purposes and a conviction that if a drug "makes you feel good, it must be morally bad.” JSTOR
“Is the therapeutic potential of hallucinogens risky and overhyped?” The Guardian
“How magic mushrooms affect the five senses”, Psychedelic Spotlight
“Know the facts about microdosing psychedelics, including psilocybin”, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA issuing a warning to its flight attendants about magic mushrooms after an off-duty pilot who’d taken them 48 hours before tried to turn off a plane’s engines mid-flight
“Extended difficulties following the use of psychedelic drugs: A mixed methods study”, PLOS One
“Mind-altering substances are being overhyped as wonder drugs”, MIT Technology Review
“Virtual reality plus psychedelics are being trialed in therapy. Are they effective?”, ABC News
“Whatever happened to Mescaline?”, Slate
“Psychedelics Open Your Brain. You Might Not Like What Falls In: Reshaping your mind isn’t always a great idea.”, The Atlantic
The Dales Report provides a weekly roundup email of psychedelic developments
“Ketamine plus therapy could help treat alcoholism, say researchers”, The Guardian
Training a generation of psychedelic therapists, Johns Hopkins Magazine
“An elegant vision for microdosing: As we reimagine our relationship with drugs, we should reimagine the UX of drug use.”, Fast Company
“The Next Big Addiction Treatment: Several psychedelic drugs are touted as effective treatments for drug and alcohol abuse. But psilocybin combined with therapy is emerging as the most effective.”, The New York Times
On microdosing: This on the debate; this on promising evidence of efficacy.
DMT studied for depression (DMT is the active ingredient in ayahuasca, of which there are much fewer studies performed than MDMA, ketamine, psilocybin, etc.)
[From a previous newsletter:] “In some ways, the business model for psychedelics is deeply problematic, analysts say. Most psychedelic therapies are based on just a handful of sessions, a potential obstacle to big profits. By contrast, many of the most lucrative drugs on the market — like those that treat diabetes, hypertension or kidney failure — are taken over the course of a lifetime.” I hadn’t thought about this but basically, because you don’t keep people on psychedelic maintenance, this means Big Psych is going to have a high cost of customer acquisition (CAC) with low customer life time value (LTV) which means it’s not a stable business model; if you’re gonna pay to acquire customers, you’re going to want to keep them, not just give them a few therapies and pronounce them integrated. Also this from the same article: “One patent application for psilocybin therapy claimed its treatment rooms were unique because they featured ‘muted colors’, high-fidelity sound systems and cozy furniture. Another sought exclusivity on a therapist reassuringly holding the hand of a patient. Then there’s the patent seeking a monopoly on nearly all methods of delivering the drug to patients, including vaginally and rectally.”
[From a previous newsletter:] A small study showed that psilocybin decreased excessive drinking, and then everyone lost their shit (on Axios, Mic; it was covered broadly). I read the study multiple times and I am absolutely not an expert and I’m probably going to fuck this up but I want to mention a few things based on my very limited understanding of interpreting research studies. First, people self-selected into this study, meaning the participants were motivated to change; there was no coercive element. Second, the participants received 12 weeks worth of counseling, and were dosed (with placebo or psilocybin) at 4 and 8 weeks (so, a month after therapy, and two months after therapy). Less than half were women, and 4 out of 5 were white. The change was measured in Percentage Heavy Drinking Days, or days in which participants drank four (women) or five (men) or more drinks in a single day. That number of HDD prior to the study was 52%. At 32 weeks, in the psilocybin group, that was reduced to about 9.7%. In the placebo group, that was reduced to about 23.6%. Both groups had a reduction in PHDD prior to psilocybin or placebo (from four weeks of therapy alone, people drank 30% less). I thought about this study a lot because it was all over the news and everyone got hopeful that we’d found the cure, and then I also started thinking about how Marc Lewis has argued that when people who were ready to change were met with an intervention, success rates increased. My point is, YES to new treatments. Yes, this is great. But also, let’s not forget that addiction persists not because we haven’t found a silver bullet, but because we have a dearth of basic, simple resources and interventions that meet people where they are at. Like supervised injection sites.
“Why are psychedelics reemerging in the culture right now?”, Recovering, guest post
On the intersection of psychedelics and climate activism, Atmos
Podcasts, videos, docs (video + audio)
Beyond Addiction Show with Josh King, “All you need to know about psychedelic-assisted therapy with Dr. Brian Pilecki” (This was one of my favorite interviews that Dr. Josh did; this is also just a great podcast that exposes listeners to a diverse set of perspectives on recovery.)
The Plus Three Podcast by Psymposia (“Plus Three dives deep into the world of drugs, from local decriminalization and emerging psychedelic corporations to leftist politics and mass incarceration. Each week the team and guests attempt to make sense of the complex connections between drugs, science, capitalism, policy, and culture.”)
“Psychedelics & Mortality: A Conversation with Roland Griffiths”, Making Sense podcast with Sam Harris (I really loved this one, what I said about it in a previous newsletter: “This podcast with Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins [who has recently passed], whose research on psychedelics spans decades and includes over 400 papers, on Psychedelics and Mortality (1 hour 45 minutes) was simply exquisite. I deeply appreciated how the show started not with the typical psychedelics will save us all everyone try them now trope, but a rather stern warning of the downsides of using them and the respect they deserve, which usually gets swept aside in most discussions for reasons I understand (see: decades-long ban/war on drugs/fear-mongering). I appreciated the nuance discussed around roll-out (decrim/legalization/wide available use after medicalization/trials). I appreciated both these men tackling a deeply complex subject. The first half is free, the entire episode is paywalled but you can request a year-long subscription by emailing support@wakingup.com if you cannot afford it.”
Cover Story Podcast Season 1 (not season 2), Power Trip This whole series on the nascent field of PAT was insightful, entertaining, and informative.
Flourishing After Addiction, “What is recovery?” This podcast is not about drug use or psychedelics, but it is about a holistic, compassionate view of drug use and addiction, and I think it pairs really well with this subject matter
Flourishing After Addiction, “From psychoanalysis to psychedelics: Therapy for addiction, with Dr. Jeffrey Guss”
Contrapoints, “Tangent: Psychedelic experiences” I just love anything she does.
“How psychedelics work: Fire the conductor, let the orchestra play” Five-minute explainer with Michael Pollan
“The Future of Psychedelic Medicine: A Conversation with Jeannie Fontana and Robin Carhart-Harris”, Making Sense podcast with Sam Harris
The Johns Hopkins psilocybin playlist (from
)
Retreats, care, medicine, providers, mutual aid, other
Firesideproject.org An organization/hotline dedicated to helping people in psychedelic emergencies and/or general integration. It’s also a great resource to explore for using psychedelics safely. (This came from a reader but I think it’s worth adding to mine because it’s so good.)
I’ve mentioned the Natura Care program (my friend Alex Olshonsky is part of that program) in multiple newsletters—it’s one of the few (only?) recovery programs that includes ayahuasca and integration over a longer period of time and is specifically geared toward those in process of recovery from addiction. I hesitate to point everyone in that direction because they are a small and nascent organization, but for those of you who are interested, this is an option. I would only ask that before reaching out, you review the materials on the website carefully, and make sure this is a solid option for you. They have limited bandwidth and out of respect for their time (most of them do this work for little to no money), please be extremely serious before engaging.
Organizations (research, watchdogs)
The Challenging Psychedelic Experience Project Exactly like it sounds, this is an organization that researches and provides resources for challenging psychedelic experiences (here is a podcast with one of its researchers that I have not listened to but was suggested by one of you).
Crowd-sourced resource list
Below is an exhaustive list of your best resources. Please note that while I may know of some of these things, these are not my recommendations, and I didn’t go deep exploring them and may not know much about them at all. It’s lightly edited–not expertly. Use your own judgment. I elected not to share providers or retreat centers outside of a few exceptions.
Books
Round up of Drug Books (a curated list of all the recommended books from you + some of my personal favorites, these are affiliate links)
The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture, Gabor Matè
Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction, Judith Grisel
Ram Dass’s work was mentioned repeatedly; Be Here Now (book); Here and Now podcast; Paths to God (book). It was mentioned multiple times that this work helped with integration (the after you take the psychedelics part, where you integrate the experience of it). As someone who is a huge fan of Ram Dass, I just generally recommend going deep on his work (if it speaks to you, and you’ll know pretty quickly whether or not it does). Grist for the Mill and Paths To God are two of my favorite all-time books, and I love the Here and Now podcast (which is hundreds of his recorded talks). Lastly, a friend sent this Ram Dass album by East Forest to me.
Breaking Open: Finding a Way Through Spiritual Emergency This book is about managing/navigating a ‘spiritual emergency’ which is basically, in layman's terms, a mystical experience (caused by drugs, breaks with reality, spontaneous awakening, too much meditation, etc.) that leaves someone destabilized.
Queering Psychedelics: From Oppression to Liberation in Psychedelic Medicine
Swimming in the Sacred: Wisdom from the Psychedelic Underground
Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, Ptsd, and Anxiety
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Podcasts, audio
Truth Be Told, Season 5 (an entire season dedicated to exploring the intersection of psychedelics and racial trauma)
She Recovers, “Episode 14: Taryn’s Ayahuasca Experience” Taryn shares the lessons she has learned from using the plant medicine Ayahuasca. She tells how incorporating this modality into her patchwork of recovery has helped her to stay true to herself. She also addresses many of the questions she received after posting about her experience on her Instagram page. (podcast)
Psychoactive, “Dr. Andrew Weill on drugs, consciousness, and healing” This is a conversation that dives into what is psychoactive (like, mangoes). This podcast in general (Psychoactive) is great.
“Gabor Maté: My ayahuasca breakthrough” (YouTube)
Recovery Elevator podcast: “Plant Medicine (Ayahuasca) and Sobriety”
Film
Huberman Lab podcast. There are many episodes on psychedelics, here are some mentioned by multiple readers: ”Dr. Matthew Johnson: “Psychedelics for Treating Mental Disorders”; “Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris: The Science of Psychedelics for Mental Health”; “How Psilocybin Can Rewire Our Brain, Its Therapeutic Benefit and Its Risk”
Documentary, Fantastic Fungi
Docuseries, How To Change Your Mind
Websites, articles, other digital
“Can 12-Step Groups and Psychedelic Addiction Treatment Coexist?”, Vice
“Ayahuasca, a plea for the decolonization of psychedelic studies”
“The psychedelic renaissance and the limitations of a White-dominant medical framework: A call for indigenous and ethnic minority inclusion”, Journal of Psychedelic Studies
“I'm a big fan of the University of Minnesota psychedelic research team headed by Jessica Nielson, impressive work”
“Mind Medicine Australia are doing great work to educate and offer webinars & summits regularly”
Retreats, care, medicine, providers, mutual aid, other:
PIR, Psychedelics in Recovery, was mentioned many many times: “There's a really cool online group for 12-step recovery and is specifically a psychedelic-friendly group called PIR or Psychedelics In Recovery. What's great about this group is they offer all kinds of meetings from AA, NA women's meetings, family of origin meetings, psychedelic integration.”
“Mindbloom's stuff is worth checking out. Just not nearly the kind of dosage to trigger the level of healing I need.”
Dr. Joe Tafur (author, Fellowship of the River)
Azalea Kemp (Vibrational Healing)
Organizations (research, watchdogs)
“I love the Chacruna Institute, they really focus on the social justice parts of this movement especially in the queer world. Their book, Queering Psychedelics is great.” (The Chacruna Institute mission: “We promote reciprocity in the psychedelic community, and support the protection of sacred plants and cultural traditions. We advance psychedelic justice through curating critical conversations and uplifting the voices of women, queer people, Indigenous peoples, people of color, and the Global South in the field of psychedelic science.”)
MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association Psychedelic Research)
What you said
A few months ago I posted a survey to collect your experiences and thoughts of psychedelics, specifically at the intersection of recovery. I gave four prompts: [1] What questions do you have for me? [2] What's your gut instinct/knee-jerk reaction when you think about the use of psychedelics in recovery (either as an entry point, or part of ongoing recovery)—what's their place in it, according to you? [3] What are you curious about (psychedelics) in general (as it relates to your own recovery, a loved one's recovery, or in general)? [4] What are your experiences with, personal feelings, or thoughts about the use of psychedelics, either in relation to helping someone attain abstinence or heal or as part of ongoing recovery?
Here is what readers (you) said about using psychedelics while being in recovery. Note any identifying details have been removed, and I have in some places cleaned up spelling and grammatical errors (only if it did not alter the intended meaning). I pulled quotes of salient statements (and tried to pull a variety of them), but only if they didn’t alter the meaning of the entire statement. They are likely (but not absolutely) in chronological order according to submission timing, but in no intentional or particular order.
Many of the responses could not fit here (in this post). I created this {CLICK HERE} document to house the overflow.
“I tried psilocybin for the first time this year to treat my depression. I have found it very helpful but have not shared it with my recovery community for fear of judgment. I consider it to just be another tool and medicine that is helping me to get healthy. I am in year five of recovery. I like the fact that there are no hallucinogenic effects from taking small doses. Thank you for being brave and sharing what you are doing. It would be nice to be able to share this with other women in recovery and to not have to hide and feel like I am doing something wrong.”
“I think you need to be very clear1 that therapeutic psychedelic use requires a very deliberate set and setting—you don't just take them and wonder off into the woods, especially with ayahuasca. You need to be sure you are working with guides who have years and years and years of experience with them, preferably from an indigenous lineage, like the Shipibo.”
“It was pretty mind-blowing to learn that Bill W. after 20 years of sobriety had such a profound experience with LSD that he thought those in AA or who were still struggling with alcohol could benefit from it.”
“A lot of the stuff I come across [about psychedelics] seems like it's from young white dudes, and yeah, it's just hard to get excited about it.”
“I'm in healthcare revenue cycle (somewhat your previous life, I know), and I listen to the Race to Value podcast. It was when this super nerdy, industry podcast crossed into an interview with this guy that I decided the universe was pushing me toward ayahuasca. And, I sat in ceremony with the guy's wife who is interviewed. Here's the link.
“I'm a psychotherapist in the Bay Area and have been immersed in conversations around the use of psychedelic-assisted therapy for a while now. I have many colleagues who have integrated it into their practices (either legitimately with ketamine or not so legitimately with MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca). I myself have had profound experiences with LSD, however, since the use of it along with other psychedelics (besides ketamine) continues to be unregulated, I currently view the risk of harm [as] too great to be able to recommend it any person seeking it out to help heal a mental health problem.”
“I am still looking for people who are willing to talk about the experience - but ultimately I am very open to the idea that our minds may benefit from intentful release. I will most likely be going on a ‘retreat’ in either Peru or Mexico in the next 6 months.”
“In my experience as a therapist, I have mostly seen dogma limit recovery rather than enhance it. The other thing that occurs to me is that if we stigmatize the use of psychedelics in recovery we will encourage people to lie about using them which is counter to the whole purpose of peer support (not just 12-step programs) and increased vulnerability as part of the route towards sobriety. [This] article makes this very point in its early paragraphs.”
“I have almost seven years of continuous sobriety and some time before that trying to get there. I have wondered about psychedelics as ways to break up the sometimes awful depressions I can fall into. But, I've always been too worried they could become my next thing. Thanks for being so open/honest about this stuff. I'm also an AAer and while I feel like I've gotten a lot of good, I also wish for a world where more people feel like there's room for all sorts in the recovery tent.”
“Hey, I will be sober 9 years 27th August. I am actually preparing for my third [ayahuasca] ceremony which takes place tomorrow. I have done dozens of mushroom ceremonies prior to sitting with ayahuasca. I am also a life and psychedelic integration coach. This topic is huge for me, I got sober in AA and NA—I believed this was the only way. I know many still do but lets face it it's not very successful. I remember going to rehab only to be told one in 10 will make it. This has now widely been accepted as 'just the way it is'. I still go to AA—I am by no means knocking it— but one can't deny its low success rate and more needs to be done. I feel the 12 steps are a great tool to help people get sober but long term they fail.”
“After returning home from my retreat, I managed to stay sober for about 6 months longer and then entered into a devastating 5-year period of relapse. Now 7 years sober that I contribute entirely to working the 12 steps with a sponsor and being an active member in my women's AA group.”
“My knee-jerk reaction when I think about psychedelics in recovery is: ‘Oh dang, a mind-altering substance I might be able to use?! Sick.’ And that's why I've restrained. Because I still have a hard time looking at mind-altering substances as occasional tools, rather than a headspace I can opt in and out of willy-nilly. I was delighted to get this email and see that you had found some healing in psychedelics. As someone who has been attending 12-step meetings for cannabis, I often struggle with the rigidity of that approach (I attend for the community aspect, I have not worked ‘the steps’) and how ‘dangerous’ it makes any sort of alternative approach seem…I love hearing about the complicated and windy roads of someone else's recovery and the tough decisions we make along the way.”
“In 2022, I participated in a clinical trial in Los Angeles that was testing whether a high dose of psilocybin could help participants either stop or reduce drinking. There were 20 of us in the clinical trial. My guides were a licensed therapist and a neurosurgeon. I'm sorry your experience with psilocybin wasn't positive. We had 10 weeks of therapy and support—I had never had therapy and that alone was profound—and two dosing days, three weeks apart. These journeys were the most profound experiences of my life; they healed deep wounds from childhood and changed my spiritual outlook and mitigated my fear of death. I have been working on a book since then. I've done dozens of interviews, including with a handful of the participants. Three of them quit drinking entirely and are still sober after a lifetime of drinking. I taught argument and reasoning and essay writing at [redacted] for 17 years and left at 50 and now am a freelance writer and audio producer (I make stories for [redacted], our local radio station). Your book has been an important piece of my own path. I'm not in recovery—my goal was to understand my drinking and drink less and I now experience long periods I call ‘serial sobriety’—a chapter in the book. A good friend who was addicted to pot and self-loathing just emailed me last night. He is doing two sessions with a therapist, one with MDMA, which he wrote about to me. The next one will be with psilocybin. I won't quote him here, but his experience was profound, amazing, life-changing, healing. I commend you for writing about your experience. I'm of course wary of people over-using and over-indulging with these powerful medicines, but they are not addictive and their power diminishes greatly with overuse”
“Too many men's experiences that all blend together. Surely women have stories, right? I'd love to witness some.”
“In my average suburban life, I’ve never heard about or been exposed to the concept of psychedelics (other than hearing about college students experimenting with ‘magic mushrooms’). I don’t really have any strong feelings about it either way. As someone who is also in recovery, I don’t currently have any hankering to try psychedelics, as I don’t think it would help my sobriety (or hurt it, for that matter).”
“Very fearful of using a substance when I’ve struggled so much with alcohol and hated my experiences with marijuana—fears of feeling out of control, getting more fucked up, losing the positive insights I’ve attained and work for. I struggle with taking anything (pharmaceutical-wise too) that makes me feel ‘not me’, although I’m so miserable a lot of the time I’m not sure why that is.”
“So I know some people who have used psychedelics to treat TBIs [Traumatic Brain Injuries] and I don’t want to dismiss that experience. And maybe that can be a valuable part of recovery from substance abuse for some. BUT for me, a large part of my alcoholism was wanting to escape my feelings and escape reality and just not deal with boredom in a constructive way, so I really don’t see psychedelics as being compatible with my recovery. I need full abstinence, and I need to feel the hard feelings sometimes and not rely on some kind of escape hatch. But to thine own self be true and all that jazz.”
“Psychedelics have kept me, ironically, from losing my mind for over 15 years. I am very thankful I continued to very occasionally use them in my 3 years of recovery. I find them extremely helpful for my mental health. They help some people (including me) stop desperately grasping for control or to change things beyond that control. The benefits and insights I receive from a trip last so long–my biggest revelations have come to me in trips over a decade ago. I could never trip again and just be thankful for the experiences that I've had, but I likely will again.”
“As an AA member and recovering alcoholic, my initial thought when hearing about psychedelics and research regarding their efficacy when utilized as a part of recovery was skepticism. Before understanding the physiology and biology of addiction and how psychedelics can work and help many people in recovery, I had a moment of thinking, ‘Oh, this must just be a loophole and/or 'excuse' for people in recovery to use/try/use again,’ but then I did research. In particular, [this] Huberman Lab podcast has many episodes about addiction, psychedelic research on addiction, etc…[and] has links to many peer-reviewed studies showing that this is truly groundbreaking for many.”
“I had a really bad time and it really freaked me out to be so so high after being so so sober for so long. This was what I felt like I should’ve known but didn’t even think about, how jarring it would be to be so fucked up after being stone cold sober.”
“I’m super open to it. I think it’s stupid to have made certain drugs bad and illegal and others good and acceptable. I want to do it but I’m scared of culturally appropriate it and essentially doing anything wrong in general. I want to do women only because men scare me. Sober/alcohol-free 12 + years. The only drug I do is coffee. I took acid and shrooms a few times in high school and college. I’m 59. I want to do ayahuasca to free myself from misunderstandings and shame rooted in childhood experiences/trauma.”
“I've got 3.5 years sobriety in AA (and 4+ years not drinking alcohol.) Psychedelics and MDMA were the last thing to go, for me. I didn't want to let go of them. I only did it because my sponsor insisted and I kind of felt like MDMA was frying my brain. I've had this... aching suspicion that I was never ‘addicted’ to drugs in the same way that I was an alcoholic but that line of thinking is a big fat NO in recovery. I recently started working another 12-step program (SLAA) and in that program someone mentioned a 12-step adjacent recovery program called ‘Psychedelics in Recovery’ or PIR. I've attended a few meetings and am still gathering my thoughts / feelings about using psychedelics in recovery—might be an interesting thing for you to check out, although it is still couched in Big Book / 12 Step terminology which can be off-putting. I think there are quite a few fellows in AA who quietly, secretly use things like LSD, mushrooms, and/or DMT (ayahuasca) without sharing for fear of being shamed by the puritanical norms of the Rooms. I've gotten so much out of AA and it's such a huge part of my life that it feels like exploring incorporating psychedelics is ‘dangerous’—maybe to my sobriety but definitely to my network of support. There's a lot of ‘secrets keep you sick’ and expectation to share everything, so doing something like this in secret feels like it would be wrong. And yet, I got so much out of my psychedelic use before I got sober and I would never take that back. I could go on and on, but that's where I'm at! Looking forward to reading whatever you write on the topic.”
“I’ve been sober 9 years. I’ve wanted to try psychedelics but am terrified I will get in my head and convince myself I relapsed and then say ‘fuck it’.”
“I have always been afraid of anything that could cause a hallucination. I recently watched the Netflix document[ary], Fantastic Fungi, however I am definitely curious about it as a medication. My fear comes from reading the book Go Ask Alice as a teen in 1990 which was wildly effective on my anxious brain to convince me to never try acid, mushrooms, or anything of the like. My mom helped also by telling me about a girl who ‘perma-fried’. Meaning she tried acid once, and never came off of the altered state. And because I have a deep visceral fear of snakes, she added that she worried if I tried any hallucinogen, my brain may bring them forward in my ‘trip’ for me to spend 8 to 10 hours with a bunch of them writhing all over me. That one sealed the deal. I am very curious now if it can be dosed as a medicine. The dose is important for these things and while I’m a sober gal, I take western medicine, specifically Zoloft, I tried my damnedest to go off it in 2018 and made it 2.5 years but finally with labored breathing, and 15 lbs of weight lost, plus a four mile cry-walk in the snow the day after Christmas 2020, I realized my brain needed more help than meditation, good nutrition, and living alcohol-free. I don’t judge or think badly of you, Holly for your usage even though I know we’re not supposed to talk about that here. I just want you to know I deeply respect and trust you as a thought leader, and a gentle soul. I’m looking forward to understanding your experience in the future essay.”
“All that is to say, my recovery doesn’t look like giving up all substances and I don’t judge anyone else in any sort of recovery who dropped one thing but can have a healthy relationship with something else. To each their own.”
“I have been sober for 6.5 years and did mushrooms recreationally after not consuming anything (alcohol or drugs) for over 5 years. I've taken them a few times. At a music festival, I like them very much. Being entirely sober at a music festival is challenging, and having access to mushrooms makes me feel like I am not the odd one out. And it's nice to get a little fuzzy and laugh hysterically sometimes. And they have never, ever, ever made me want to get up on a Tuesday morning and do mushrooms. For me, they are totally non-addictive, whilst I get addicted to almost anything that is (alcohol, cocaine, shopping, sugar...). When I have taken them outside of a festival setting, I have found that they can make me go into myself, and do the opposite of making me feel connected, which is the one thing I sort of have a hard time with in sobriety, so I rarely do take them outside of that setting anymore. I think that if you find something that makes your life good and doesn't harm anyone, and most of all is not a threat to your sobriety from alcohol or drugs or whatever it is that is your issue, then why not? I probably wouldn't recommend this to someone early in sobriety, just because you have to have a lot of self-knowledge to know that this can't apply to other things.”
“TBH, I've been wondering about the use of psychedelics—I have a few friends who casually use them and to me, they feel like a slippery slope so I've decided to just abstain but be open to the idea that could change in my sobriety. I'm still a newborn sober person (3 years in October). I'd be curious to see if that is a pathway a lot of sober folks find themselves on. I constantly wonder if I could be happier but I don't really want to be medicated. I appreciate your backgrounding and insights on your process and who you've consulted--I think if I were to use this, I would need to do something similar. Maybe the issue is that I don't know what I'm trying to heal in the first place!”
“I think about them just like medication, if they help people I'm glad for them and I'm grateful I don't need that sort of intervention today.”
“Use of psychedelics has been helpful in my own recovery & studies support its use with others' recovery. I feel sad that abstinence-based recovery spaces cannot make room for the knowledge that they are successful for some people. I stay silent about my use or keep it in the past tense when in those spaces.”
“Last year I spent many months, maybe the year, microdosing 150mg psilocybin every few days/every other day. I found it to be very lifting, a way of feeling confident in social situations and a little lighter when I was having harder times. Was great for a while. Then I started using them when I wanted to join the party, but lacked the desire or was PMS-ing and was feeling low, but needed to be in others company. It was fine, but reminded me of times when I would drink to feel more comfortable in a crowd. Not sure if that was ok. It helped, but did change my normal grounded energy to a bit more manic, like maybe one cuppa coffee too much. Fun for others and myself, but def left me feeling disconnected from my true nature, which was always a little nervous in crowds. I also had some big changes in my business and personal life that spun me out, not sure micro dosing helped, so I stopped. I might try them again for specific needs. Not sure about using as an antidepressant (micro[dose). Feels both good and not so good. Similar to Wellbutrin. Still sorting through some other stuff before I decide to use again. EMDR is working well for me for now.”
“My knee-jerk reaction is probably kind of judgmental based on who is doing it. Which is lame of me. My perception of you based solely on reading what you write, not of actually knowing you personally, is that you are smart, educated, curious, and completely capable of deciding if this modality will benefit you. And if it doesn't, you will take what you learned and move on. However, I also have friends in recovery whom I love dearly and my knee-jerk reaction for them would be "I really think it's a bad idea for you to gamble on how your brain is going to react to this drug" due to them being generally off the rails on or off substances. But who am I to say that? Maybe those folks would benefit the most. I would be afraid to take them solely for fear of becoming nauseous or having that sweaty clammy hangover feeling. I've taken LSD and shrooms recreationally and both gave me that feeling on the come-down. Or that cold post-coke feeling. I avoid that at all costs.”
“I don't think aya[huasca] is an entry point to sobriety, although that may be an unintended consequence of someone who chooses to partake for different reasons. I do think that it has a role, and I just don't know what it is.”
“I sat in ceremony for 2 nights at the end of June for the first time. I hit 9 years of sobriety on 8/5. I am 3+ years into supporting my husband suffering from depression, and I saw this as a further tool to put the oxygen mask on myself (on top of the daily walks/yoga, being of service to others, good friends, 7 hours of sleep, drinking plenty of water, 80/20 good nutrition, and couples therapy - controlling the things I can control). I don't think aya[huasca] is an entry point to sobriety, although that may be an unintended consequence of someone who chooses to partake for different reasons. I do think that it has a role, and I just don't know what it is. I also don't know what I think about the cadence of repeated use. Is it once a year? Is it sooner? The women I sat with in June seem to sit more than once a year. I also feel like the aya[huasca] community could be culty. I felt cult warning triggers go off in my body once or twice while I was on a weekend retreat with the group I sat with.”
“I have been working with psychedelic plant medicines for 33 years. They have helped keep me sober and connected to the Earth. The times when I was using drugs and alcohol I felt far from my sense of self and purpose. For me, working with nutrition, Earth-based practices, and Plant Medicines are the only things that help me heal and have a life I don't want to run from. I have worked with Elders from around the world and have a personal practice, and from both what I can say is that facing oneself takes bravery. Not all medicines are the same nor do they operate in the body the same way. Each has a message to deliver, and sometimes it's a hard truth. Psychedelics are not for everyone but they are definitely part of my path. Without them, I would [have been] dead long ago. I have come to know them on personal, professional, and scientific levels, finding them unparalleled in their efficacy for human change. However, the current buzz around them has some naive and arrogant practices that may cause more harm. This happens with most things so I am not surprised. Regardless, I am deeply thankful for their presence in my life.”
“Physically/substance-wise I have no fear of psychedelics. But I think it begs the question why I'm using them in the first place if I'm not doing it for healing?”
“Before I decided to get sober, I began ketamine infusions for my depression. I'd been on dozens of anti-depressants over the years and at best they toned down the ragged edges of my extreme emotions, but also blunted my personality and capacity for emotional connections. What I found there was that ketamine helped! But it seemed like the part that helped the most was the visions I'd have during the treatments, which I'd struggle to capture and remember because I was so sedated. My nice doc was an anesthesiologist, not a therapist, and his goal was to get the meds into me, not have a therapeutic experience. So being able to integrate my experience was limited. But in many treatments, I came out feeling more connected to the universe and to people. I felt like I met god. I saw death as part of life and me as part of the whole. I was often led down alleyways and through hidden doors into secret spaces where people greeted me as if I belonged. I was able to see the pain of others' experiences and hold them and be held. In short, it was so, so much of the things I'd long been drinking about. Unlike anti-depressants, which somewhat neutralized my emotions, ketamine made me feel like I was tapping into them, like it made it okay for me to look inward, that there was actually some beautiful stuff there. HOWEVER, it all felt a little DIY. I talked to my doc about set and setting, and almost felt like they thought I was drug-seeking, like I was trying to make it recreational. I was going for healing, not for kicks. I've tried microdosing psilocybin and never felt like it helped. Pot's never really done much for me except made for tingly sex and a deeper connection to music. I recently tried Mindbloom's at-home ketamine program, which I dug for the therapeautic approach, but never got anything close to the visions that actually felt like healing. To me, the questions are: is this something that will activate the addiction center - am I going to crave it? Am I going to obsess over it? Is it safe (in the case of ketamine, my blood pressure spikes, so not doing it in the doctor's office is a big risk)? Does it get me closer to myself and what matters most to me - or farther away? And finally, is it accessible? My off-label use of ketamine infusions are $450 a treatment. I have to take a day off work. I have to ask a friend for a favor to pick me up. I cannot afford it. But I also cannot afford to medicate with alcohol, for all the other reasons. If I could get through the financial and logistical barriers, if I could work with someone to fully integrate my experiences ... that would be lifechanging for my recovery. I'm interested to know if your experience tracks with mine and how you think (if you think) there's a way forward for this kind of psychedelic healing for the masses and not just the privileged.”
“I am sober from alcohol. I used ayahuasca in 2021 as part of my recovery and it helped tremendously with core issues.”
“I am sober from alcohol. I used ayahuasca in 2021 as part of my recovery and it helped tremendously with core issues. It was not easy but a valuable experience. I did ceremonies 4 nights at a resort setting and my first night was my total meltdown which helped me to face and deal with some huge anxiety and fear I had been holding on to.”
“Wow, this is so timely for me. I have been interested in psychedelics in a guided format as it relates to recovery for a long time. I have not tried anything yet—but was leaning towards the mushroom experience until I read your post. So thank you for sharing that. For me, as someone who has struggled with alcohol, I am concerned about ME telling myself it’s OK to use mind-altering substances. But, I am forever, searching for a solution to my madness so it’s not that surprising I would consider it.”
“The only thing wrong about using psychedelics for addiction is that it is not being made free and affordable for the communities who need it most, along with therapy.”
“I have always been curious about [ayahuasca], and there is a place nearby in Orlando that my therapist recommended, however there is also a Netflix documentary about a death that occurred there, so I am wary. Also the idea of being a little bit out of control is scary (not to mention paranoia about what I look like doing it).”
“Controversial take: Someone who has healed themselves to the point of being regularly warm, real, and honest but gets drunk one weird night is not ‘less healed’ than someone sober for 8 years who is regularly verbally abusive, insensitive, or checked out from life. Being healed is about what we bring to every moment of every day, and less about compulsively tracking our use of mind-altering substances (though of course, the chronic and heavy use of them tends to mean we are really in need of healing).”
“I'm a little unsure that I read or not, whether you also consider the use of marijuana to be off limits when considering one's self, sober: I took myself off the sauce in late ‘21 after what felt like a lifetime of grey-area, high-functioning, faux self-care dependency. It feels amazing to be 679 days free of what I now can tell was a burgeoning addiction to alcohol. And yet, I'm unclear in my own mind, if I am in ‘recovery’. I never once went to an AA meeting, I simply knew for a variety of reasons, that I had to stop drinking alcohol, or it would end up verrrry bad for me. However, over the course of the pandemic, I kinda fell right into the welcoming arms of the ‘pro-woman’ marketing ploys of cannabis use. I feel some shame around how easily sucked into the packaging and anti-stress promises these new ‘women led’ dispensaries provide. I'm not an every day'er, but lets just say I can't pretend my use is still "on rare occasion". It's a gray area though because, let's be honest, the pattern can repeat, if I’m not careful, where I misuse pot to feel ‘calm’, just as I used alcohol for the same. But when it comes to psychedelics, all I've EVER been told is, ‘they're not addictive’. And, because I left that door open, I feel a lot of pressure sometimes, pressure I so far resist, to be open to LSD or DMT by those same hard-charging female peers of mine who used to apply wine to their problems who say they've had profound experiences that opened them up and gave them entirely new perspectives.... but I simply have too many uncomfortable memories of high school LSD trips gone bad to imagine how a big shroom trip or ayahuasca journey won't be awful for ME. What exactly do these psychedelics DO to a person, generally, and what bearing, if any, does it have (did it have for you) on sobriety? I guess I'm unclear why it would be an issue for an alcoholic to take a drug completely unrelated to the addictive properties of alcohol. Example: I have a brother in 20-years alcohol recovery who tells me that for him, alcohol acts differently on his brain, that one sip and he CANNOT stop, yet who smokes pot! He's not in the program, not a group guy, but seems to be an active, happy, family man now, technically sober if sobriety means alcohol and not all substances and this is where I keep going in circles in my research. I swing back and forth. Does any of that resonate with you, in your decision to try psychedelics? That it's not a breaking of sobriety but a different channel perhaps, to explore but with its own obvious risks? I appreciate your candor and honesty. I don't see your use as endorsements, just honest discovery and sharing findings.”
“I grew up with a mother who was an addict and an alcoholic and I’ve seen more growth from her when she started her journey with psychedelics than all the years of therapies, groups, medications, etc. etc. That being said, as someone who studies drug policy and drug use, I have a lot of concern about the legalization of psilocybin and MDMA without proper social supports in place first.”
“I’m so happy that you are diving into this subject here! I personally felt delight[ed] when I read that you sat with [ayahuasca]. I originally sat with Aya a handful of times over a year before I got sober. I have had chronic pain for a long time, and the Aya ceremonies were part of my process to support my system to come off pain medication. Given that parts of my meds regime at the time [were] opioids - it could be said that they helped with recovering from addictive substances. Even though I didn’t abuse the medication, it is clear to me now that they had an addictive tendency, and I absolutely attribute psychedelics (and bodywork) to the success of me getting clear of those meds. It also opened my heart in unforeseen ways and unlocked a creative path that was deep in my soul and I was able to bring it through into the physical world. I am 3.5 years sober. I recently started CBD oil for pain management- and was adamant that I didn’t want any THC in it, because I did feel it would compromise my sobriety values. The prescribing doctor ended up talking me into the 3% THC due to its pain relief. Yes it was amazing for pain, but I felt like my body, my brain and my psyche registered it as pot. Like I felt body stoned. After the original pain relief, it actually had a really detrimental effect on my mental health - increasing both depression & anxiety, with heightened PTSD flashbacks. After a few weeks, I stopped using it because the side effects far outweighed the benefits. I didn’t even want to use it topically, I gave it away. I felt so out of it, it reminded me too much of the numb feeling. I almost enjoyed that reprieve for the first night or two, but absolutely didn’t want to get used to it. This feeling felt like it compromised my sobriety. I think if I take a psychedelic in sobriety - I want it to be consciousness-expanding, heart-opening, healing for my mental health. It’s got to be light. Not making it dense and heavy. I was also scared of being judged in my sobriety and that I would be not really sober if I took CBD oil at all. It was a real mind fuck. The way I reconciled it was to know that you get to choose what sobriety and your own boundaries are for you. I’m now taking a CBD isolate, with no THC, and this is far more harmonious and I feel like me. I’m looking into psychedelic-assisted therapy currently. I met with a woman last December that I have already sat with. However I haven’t begun yet, I clearly have some more facets of sobriety / taking psychedelics to flesh out. So I’m so grateful you are talking about it in this recovery space! Really at this stage, it’s for treatment-resistant depression and healing trauma. I’ve done years of talk therapy and am ready for a more full embodiment of healing. I know how much it can help—I’m in Australia and it’s only just been approved. Clinical trials are only now beginning and they aren’t in regular clinics yet.”
“One could consider the altering of brain chemicals in this function as similar to that of SSRIs, as a way to attempt to impact the brain towards healing. “
“In my opinion, psychedelics are a tool in the box of recovery, both in mental health and in substance abuse. I feel the set/setting is really important in this case. I would never recommend a recovering addict to go into psychedelic use in the same way they previously went into using alcohol or illegal substances — it's important not to grease the neural wheel of addiction. As you're well aware, it's so easy to trigger that neural wheel of addiction and if a former addict is trying to get psychedelics through the same process they previously got their drugs, this could be problematic. This is where the sticky part with psychedelics lies because it's legal in only a few states and difficult to navigate finding practitioners that support this work where it is not legal. So the place psychedelics has in recovery, from my POV, is through an therapeutic (legal, if possible) avenue that feels supportive to recovery in nature, and not at all alike to previous substance abuse routines. One could consider the altering of brain chemicals in this function as similar to that of SSRIs, as a way to attempt to impact the brain towards healing. When used in a therapeutic setting and with support from professionals or thoroughly vetted practitioners (like with ayahuasca) I believe mind-altering psychedelics, again, are part of the healing toolkit one could use. That is the distinction for me between casual psychedelic use (which could potentially threaten ones sobriety) and therapeutic use. The way into the altered state is entirely different and I believe, from personal experience, that creates a different framework that is less risky. Obviously a lot of research into this needs to be done on the account of the person seeking this experience. Ketamine is a tool being used in many therapeutic settings but can be excessively risky for those with addiction issues because of how it impacts the brain. So as with anything, I believe this should be considered and intentional.”
“I wish some pro-psychedelics advocates would stop othering people who use ‘harder’ drugs and do more to promote broad access to harm reduction and progressive drug policy across the board—not just for ‘plant medicine’.”
“I stopped drinking but I do still use pot and went on a mushroom retreat last year. Open to trying MDMA and perhaps other substances. All that is to say, my recovery doesn’t look like giving up all substances and I don’t judge anyone else in any sort of recovery who dropped one thing but can have a healthy relationship with something else. To each their own. It’s hard not to get sucked into all the positive hoopla around psychedelics. I worry they are being presented as a panacea that will fix ALL the problems and that people will rush into an experience without a full understanding of risk and/or a plan to deal with challenges that may arise. I worry about a lot of charlatans coming out of the woodwork to make money and people not knowing how to find a trusted guide, retreat, etc. I worry about people who could benefit from psychedelics not getting access to them [because of] capitalism. I worry about white peoples having free rein to trip and heal and BIPOC communities getting locked out of that opportunity or even worse, getting locked up for it. I worry about indigenous communities having their practices co-opted. I wish some pro-psychedelics advocates would stop “othering” people who use ‘harder’ drugs and do more to promote broad access to harm reduction and progressive drug policy across the board - not just for ‘plant medicine’. I never tried psychedelics before diving into the deep end and taking a ‘cosmic’ level dose at a guided retreat in the Netherlands last summer. The trip itself was good and I had a lot of beautiful and cathartic moments during it. But afterward as my “thinking brain” came on board and tried to process it, I became very anxious about my brain getting stuck in a ‘bad place’. There were other confounding factors going on in my life but the long story short of it is that I had to start therapy again (not a bad thing, I had been saying I needed to for like a year before post-trip anxiety kicked my ass and forced me to finally do it) and go on Lexapro to manage the panic attacks and severe anxiety that ramped up in the months post trip. I don’t regret the experience but I do wish I tried a smaller dose before to ease the doors of perception open gently instead of blowing the doors off altogether. I wish I went into it having a better post-trip plan if shit went sideways after it ended. I know some psychonauts would say that in the end the ‘medicine’ helped move me to take some steps in my life that needed to be taken… but the New Agey talking points can be dismissive of the fact that this shit fucks with our brain in a really intense way and not everyone can just roll with it! I’m definitely not opposed to the possibility of psychedelics as a tool to treat addiction… BUT… I think for such a purpose people should have access to more than just one integration session - there should be at least a few weeks of integration and good pre and post trip support. I don’t think people should look at psychedelics as simply a one and done solution—’I’ll go trip balls and be cured’. I think these are tools that for some people should probably be accompanied by ongoing therapy and emotional processing. My brother is in a nasty relationship with drinking and if I thought psychedelics could help him I’d chip in the money to send him on a trip. I don’t think it would make his problem worse, but I would worry he’d think of it as a quick fix and keep avoiding the harder, ongoing work of emotional healing that I’m guessing drives a lot of his self-destructive behavior. Also, some people are just gonna want to try psychedelics for fun and to see shapes and colors and have a trippy experience and that’s fine too. Lots of people use drugs because they feel good and are a fun time. I get why focusing on therapeutic use is one step in mainstreaming and legalizing but also, let’s not make people feel like they have to pay thousands of dollars to be healed; let’s give people the info and resources they need to have a good, safe time. Fuck the war on drugs! This is all very rambling and hopefully it makes sense. I appreciate you opening up space for this conversation. It’s not a black and white issue, there is no one size fits all answer to this issue—it is so nuanced and personal.”
“I have not used psychedelics but my son has for his recovery. For him it helped and gave him a clarity he hadn’t had before. He is now a non-drinker for two years and started university again and is happy and much more open than when he was still a heavy drinker.”
“I did a lot of psychedelics and MDMA in my 20s. A lot. And I can say I only had one bad experience, an outlier, because the rest were pretty magical. I haven't done any of the above in recovery. But not off the table. I 100% believe in their usefulness in therapy and that they aren't for everyone. The first thing that's kept me on this side is slothfulness. Before, I always had a guy. Now, seeking out set and setting that a responsible grownup in recovery should do seems like a lot of work. Plus, if I'm being honest, I don't want to do it "responsibly" or in some sort of sterile, supervised setting. I just want to drop acid, dance all night and then write in my journal. So yeah, when I examine it, it's probably more about reliving youth than therapy and hence the pause.”
“I'm for it, though have not yet tried myself. At the 2023 International Trauma conference in Boston there were breakout sessions with experts like Bessel Van der Kolk (trauma expert) and Gabor Maté (addiction expert) and the use of psychedelics in treating trauma came up throughout the week, with set/setting respected it has shown promising results was my takeaway. I believe Gabor has been connected to ayahuasca ceremonies that are offered in maybe Costa Rica and peaked my interest even more. So I suppose I'd say I'm curiously pro individuals in recovery considering as an option when done so thoughtfully and with the right support in place? 🤔 Not in a ‘My friends friends friend gave me some shrooms to give a try’ sort of way.”
“I’m curious to do a retreat as I’ve had a depression relapse after going off my antidepressant.” [Author’s note: many (some/all?) ayahuasca retreats require participants to go off psycho-pharm (anti-depressants, etc.), and do not provide tapering support and such.]
“Nothing ought to be ruled out in the search for long-term sustainable sobriety on the understanding that recovery will always be uniquely personal. How do we know what we don't yet know? Unless there is a willingness to push forward beyond received wisdom how can we ever make progress? In my experience as a therapist, I have mostly seen dogma limit recovery rather than enhance it. The other thing that occurs to me is that if we stigmatize the use of psychedelics in recovery we will encourage people to lie about using them which is counter to the whole purpose of peer support (not just 12-step programs) and increased vulnerability as part of the route towards sobriety. [This] article makes this very point in its early paragraphs.”
“Maybe I'm totally wrong in my assumptions about what it's all about, but I don't think I'm at the point where I feel safe researching it.”
“I quit drinking alcohol in 2017 and have maintained an alcohol-free life since then. I don’t work any sort of program at this point, aside from daily reminders to myself that alcohol is poison and if I drink my life will only get worse and not better. I’ve done mushrooms twice since then, both times with my husband, and pretty small doses. Not in a therapeutic setting which probably isn’t the right route for many people but it worked for me. I really love what psilocybin has revealed to me in terms of awareness of the benevolence of nature and the plants around me. It makes me feel held and safe even as this climate change ravaged world we have entered. I’m interested in continuing that venture into psilocybin and wish that they were legal in California so I could more easily access the therapeutic route and maybe even have that covered my health insurance. I’ve also considered ayahuasca but am still being very careful about it. Some old friends of mine (aka people I trust - I think) who do underground ayahuasca and psilocybin “ceremonies” in [redacted] and would be curious what you think of that approach. I might go there and check out what they’re doing sometime later this year.”
“I strongly endorse psychedelics as a powerful tool in recovery. I’m a TBI survivor, myself, and I’ve benefited from a psychedelic session with MDMA and psilocybin to treat my ongoing PTSD. Today is my 40th birthday, and twelve years ago today, I turned 28 in a coma. It’s been a long road of recovery with a lot of hard work, and two kids later, miraculously, my neurological function was restored by hormones during pregnancy. My nervous system, however, is still very damaged by the trauma. Parenting is stressful. Marriage is stressful. Being a creative professional is incredibly stressful. I’ve needed help. EMDR was a good support for a few years after my daughter, my first child, was born, but it only took me so far. There was a point at which I needed deeper healing, coming out of the pandemic as a mother of two young children. Psychedelic therapy was that for me. My session in March this year was intense. Preparing was very carefully planned, because I’m still nursing my 3yo son, and it was safe to take a night off and let it out of my system. I cried for 2.5 hours in grief over my husband’s best friend who we lost to bipolar suicide a year after my accident, and Joshua became the vehicle for my release of what felt like a lifetime of physically embodied emotional trauma. He walked me to the edge of the next dimension, where we said goodbye in a powerful moment of deep, profound, existential love, and he crossed over. I’ll see him on the other side. Then, I slept for the next four hours in a restorative sleep that I’d needed for years. I’ve been processing this ever since, and I keep finding more healing as time passes. Psychedelics take the preliminary work in trauma recovery of yoga, meditation, mindfulness and physical activity to the next level of healing. The spiritual foundation must be there, though, for it to work properly. As far as when this is a useful therapy tool in terms of TBI, mine was 11.5 years into recovery, and I couldn’t have done it sooner. The neurological damage might have been more disruptive to the healing any sooner. My TBI was severe, and my coma was 13 days. The decision to have children in spite of my condition was high risk, and highly advised against by many. My body, though, knew better. Pregnancy(ies) healed my brain. Psychedelic therapy is healing my nervous system.”
“There’s lots of current data on the benefits of psychedelics in treating addiction. I’m not sure how it works though. I microdosed psilocybin for about two months for depression but had no response, positive or otherwise. I’ve been wanting to try ketamine…However, it’s not recommended for bipolar which I had a bout with years ago in reaction to Prozac. I feel like whatever it takes to stop ingesting alcohol! LSD was used therapeutically in the 60s. My mom’s best friend doesn’t drink so it wasn’t that but she felt it was instrumental in her general wellness in conjunction with therapy. However, I feel like with psychedelics you can’t predict the response so that makes me nervous.”
“I am four years sober, a product of AA, yet haven’t gone to meetings regularly since about my one year mark. (Pandemic, marriage, two kids kind of filled in my ‘community’ that I got from it, I guess? Haven’t felt like I needed it.) Anyway, I have the rhetoric in my ears still, that I can’t trust myself because I’m an addict and that part of my “disease” is thinking things are okay when they’re not. That makes me cautious to introduce substances that aren’t alcohol back into my life, yet on a gut level, I feel like psychedelics and sometimes even small amounts of cannabis could be part of a healthy lifestyle for me. I was addicted to alcohol and cocaine. I’m really not sure. I’m also hesitant to pick something up that’s illegal in my state. It feels like another thing to be anxious about. If it was legal, or especially if it was prescribed, I might feel more confident. Related: I recently started Wellbutrin, and the first few days of that straight up felt like a microdose of MDMA. So it’s like…because that’s pharmaceutical and prescribed by a doctor, it’s “allowed” even though it 1000% is a mind-altering substance for me. Difference is it is (so far) adding to my life instead of taking. For me it comes down to this: am I willing to open the door to something that could lead to relapse or not. If I can live with the worst-case scenario, or if I can’t. I think when my kids are older, I probably will explore this more in earnest. Right now the stakes are too high and I don’t feel like rocking the boat.”
“My PTSD effectively disables me from living a normal life and working and being an independent adult (going on 3-4 years now) and this resource feels like a critical part of my path back to function and independence. But I’m still probably 1-3 years from being able to do that. These medicine experiences give me more tangible hope that I can have a life I want to live. Someday.”
“I used psychedelics a LOT in my first round of sobriety. We even did the psychedelic 12 steps (lol). ‘Pachamama grant me the serenity’ (yes, really) and did drugs in our meetings. I think ayahuasca in particular is great for recovery, but for me (...ok, i'm lying lol, I think for everybody ha) needs to be, at a maximum, an annual event. It's BIG and needs to be processed. From different angles. There's this tendency for 'tribes' (ew) of mostly white people to form and they do it every. fucking. week. It becomes the new addiction. And my group even acknowledged it, but called it a 'lesser of two evils' addiction. And then ayahuasca wasn't enough and people started doing rapee (tobacco blown up your nose) and liquid tobacco and peyote and then yopo and then kambo and then iboga (that's where I drew the line lol) I got addicted to rapee. hardcore. i learned how to self-administer and lost 80% of my sense of smell. because that's what we fucking do. But again, i think done with intention and very occasionally, ayahuasca is awesome. I still think that, even with my negative experience (the gringo group here in panama turned into a literal shitshow lol), it has a place in recovery. I am sober 502 days and now my crutches are sugar and drooly binge-watching and maybe even work (and the avoiding of it). So, who's to say that's any better? I would do a ceremony again with a legit shaman but would first need to get off lexapro (pharma gave me some magic lol. i had a angry mean ragey voice in my head - sometimes with accompanying actions and outbursts and lexapro stopped it almost immediately. I know that's just masking a zit with cover up, but the break from that lifelong bullshit has been a fucking godsend. and that was my other issue with aya groups...they won't acknowledge any of that. they are as close-minded as the other camp.) whoa that was a rant.”
“It would be a shame if we were to treat them like so many do with antidepressants: To help us merely withstand the bullshit ways of the world, our bullshit jobs, our fractured communities, our half-honest relationships, our defective social structures, etc. rather than exploring how to transform all of these areas into those that are real and healthy.”
“I used to be very into drugs before I found alcohol. But truth be told, I never liked drugs. Pot made me paranoid (this is mid 90's/early 2000's) and cocaine made me feel alive but scared me. Alcohol was the thing that did the trick...it made me feel nothing at all. I have been exploring a sober life since March 2020 and have also been thinking about how psychedelics might play a role in my healing journey. But the truth is, I'm scared. I'm scared I might not come back from a trip. I'm scared being in an altered state will do something to me to tip the scales in a direction that I cannot balance again. I'm scared I'll like it too much. Mostly, I am scared of what I'll see. I've been through so much in my life, especially*** the shit I've done since getting sober. And I feel like being in a 12-step recovery program forces me to look at it (in mostly gentle ways, the same way my therapist does) all the time. I'm tired. I only have so much space in my heart. Anyways, that's my thoughts. I can't wait to read more about what you found.”
“I am a physician, provider, researcher, and consumer of psychedelics for recovery, and this has been one of the most important spiritual features of my life and my understanding of my purpose. Nothing replaces it and it changed everything for me.”
“One thing that loops in my head almost daily from you is "to recover is to create a life you don't want to escape from..." (paraphrased), and that looks different for everyone, substances included or not. I tried LSD when I was quite young (19), and it was a transformative experience (skinny dipping in an idyllic lake, anyone?). I've tried ecstasy, it was kind of sweaty and boring. However, since the LSD experience I have lost four of my siblings to tragic deaths -- murder, train, car, and suicide. My brain has been reconfigured to "love life" which means it values safety above risk. Pot, which can also be hallucinogenic, makes me think everyone is the devil and is terrifying to me. So, my personal instinct is that it's not right for me. However, I do think it might help people with major depression, or maybe uncover some traumatic event they haven't processed, which could help them in their healing journey. But, in my own observations in recovery spaces, I've seen a lot of people replace alcohol with psychedelics, because reality has always been too much for them. They have to be in a constant state of dissociation. Which, given the state of the world, I don't blame them (so much compassion). I also have a theory about attachment -- if your core foundation was rocked from the get-go, I feel your brain development can have a serious impact on how you respond to psychedelics. If you didn't have a solid foundational attuning, I think losing control to psychedelics can be highly discombobulating, and compromise your healing.”
“My instincts tell me that the use of psychedelics in recovery should be an option for those who want it. But, and it's a BIG but, it should be administered in a very secure manner and for folks who have some sobriety under their belt. And over a certain age of brain development. To be used to take recovery to "the next level". To help understand the whys of my stubborn devotion to drinking after I have kicked the daily urge. Worry it might be perceived as a replacement for alcohol by some. I am curious/not curious about psychedelics. I was taken on my first LSD trip when I was 15 years old. In those days it was understood to be a serious event. I treated it with respect, unlike alcohol which was 'just a good time'. This was something else. I don't think I was ever the same. Likely my brain was too young for it. I had forever a great distrust in the manmade world we 'see' and live in. It awoke a spirituality in me. I felt great distrust of authority and modern living. Could have just been the times (early 1970s). I still remember some of my trips with great fondness. So not curious about it for my recovery or low-grade depression. I am curious about end of life use of psychedelics. Now at 68 I have seen enough death and ends of life that really suck. I am curious about how to alleviate this suffering and worry. 4. My personal feelings are that everyone suffers from alcohol overuse in very different ways. Our stories may fall into a few obviously identifiable patterns but we bring our personality into play and therefore it would be helpful to have a more personalized pathway out of addiction. More options. I love the idea that Bill W took LSD. Did I get that right? I won't start any rumors. All addiction therapies are expensive. That to me is a big part of the problem. I could never afford to go into treatment and refused to go to AA so drank for too many years after I knew I should not be doing so. Grateful to you and others who have been busting some of the myths about alcohol and drinking. Esp for women. Very grateful. There is no magic pill. There is no magic pill for anything. Thinking there is is what got me into trouble in the first place. Life is a series of choices, micro and macro, that we make that brings us to today. To the lives we have today. I tried a lot of different things to quit. Finally at 65 I found the reason and the means and it stuck for longer than a month. After that it has been a matter of constant tinkering and tweaking to maintain and build upon it. One day at a time. And never questioning my decision to quit. Even when I get a thought to pick up...where the hell did that come from? I plan to put my head on my sober pillow and feck the rest.”
“Interestingly, unlike drugs and alcohol that I compulsively abused, I have never felt a craving or pull to use psychedelics on a regular basis like I did with my drugs of choice.”
“I love your honesty and fears around all of this, and I feel that hearing these stories will help people make decisions for themselves. The AA response to Bill W was uninformed and the danger of “touting mind altering drugs” has a political history. Bravo to you for your continued courage and authenticity. What more could anyone BE/ DO ? I have not done this yet but I am exploring it. I’m not scared but want to make the right decision. Hearing your experience will feed into that. Thank you so much 😊 ! I’m emboldened by you!”
“I'm in Canada. I have been referred to do an intake interview tomorrow with a chronic pain clinic to see if I'm eligible for low dose ketamine infusions. According to me, psychedelics help alleviate suffering by getting to the root, and as such they should have some place in our healthcare repertoire. I'm not sure where or at what point— I require further education on these matters, but for me, they are a last ditch effort for treatment resistant depression. Having been on over two dozen different drugs and drug combinations for 30 years and having been in therapy for 20 years, having undergone electroconvulsive therapy and been turned down for voluntary experimental deep brain stimulation, and not having much—including the will to live to show for it, I was offered ketamine. I turned it down once, out of fear, a few years ago. I have since been offered it again in low dose infusions and I think I've changed my mind. Desperation will do that. The main sticking point that I'm really interested in is the mental health aspect. I obviously suffer from various mental health issues. Due to complex trauma/neglect/abuse and autism in the family, no one seems to be able to tell me with any certainty where my diagnoses lie, dozens have doctors have thrown dozens of labels at me to see what sticks. Basically, I want to know if I'm going to lose my mind if I take psychedelics. Is that possible? I don't really understand? Will it push me upwards on whatever mental health spectrum I'm on? I think if we can help people heal or achieve abstinence with any substance, be it natural or synthetic, and it is not detrimental, we have an obligation to make that safely medically available?”
“I in no way consider using shrooms (or aya) a violation of my sobriety. If anything, the part of me that's still full-on addicted to other things (work, external validation, ocd patterning, other forms of restriction, other ways of asserting control) is the exact thing that's resisting my next macro trip. My ego doesn’t like shrooms or aya. My ego also doesn’t like sobriety.”
“I'd consider myself a psychonaut, psychedelics aren't for everyone, but they are incredibly transformative and i see nothing wrong with using them in recovery. Most psychedelics are nontoxic and very hard to become addicted to. I've had this conversation with my therapist, but still not sure how I feel. I love psychedelics, they've done so much for me, I don't know if I want to count them as drug use.”
“I think it's a personal choice. I have had great experiences with psychedelics when using them mindfully & responsibly. I'm a big fan of micro dosing psilocybin for monthly stretches (a three day on, four day off cycle) a couple of times a year. And, doing so has supported me in working towards sobriety from alcohol and has supported me in recovering from anxiety. I no longer take prescribed anti-anxiety meds. Microdosing has helped me create a new baseline in my life. Shown me a different way of being in the world...more open, less reactive, more peaceful, accepting. I can't say enough good things about it. I also enjoy a decent ‘trip’ on psilocybin from time to time. I know now what kind of container I need to create for myself to feel safe doing so...i.e.: location, company, mental/physical/emotional state going into it. I may have had a couple of too-intense for my liking experiences back in my late teens/early twenties when I was not using mindfully. But, even then, I really believe the experiences helped me evolve. I think you have to respect the substance/’medicine’ as ‘woke’ people prefer to call it now. And, I think you have to learn your limits. Some people do that cautiously, some people do that by going too far too fast. I don't think us of psychedelics is comparable to alcohol abuse. I just don't. It's not been my experience at least. And, I have at one point or another in my life dealt with an addiction to pills (late teens/early twenties), cocaine (late twenties/early thirties), and alcohol (late teens to early forties). So, I know addictions and bad habits. But, BUT, I have never felt dependent on or addicted to psychedelics.”
“I quit alcohol on January 1 and haven’t looked back, but I don’t consider myself ‘sober.’ I still occasionally use marijuana (which I’m conflicted about because I recognize I’m using to ‘take the edge off’) and I am very open to/curious about the use of psychedelics to move past trauma and create new, happier, neural pathways. I’ve read a ton of well-researched articles, personal accounts of people like you who have done it, and if they weren’t so expensive I would have probably attended an ayahuasca or psilocybin retreat myself by now. I have been highly anxious since I was a kid and have been on Lexapro for the past two decades. I’m currently in my third month off SSRIs because I wanted to remember who I was before I started numbing out to avoid uncomfortable feelings and how my body feels in its natural state. It turns out my natural state is highly anxious (surprise!) and while meditation, yoga, and a whole host of spiritual practices and stress-relief modalities are helpful, they don’t get at the root of why my brain feels hard-wired for debilitating worry. If I could have a psychedelic experience that helped my monkey brain find peace in this chaotic world and let go of whatever trauma I’m still holding on to that keeps me in a perpetual state of fight, flight or freeze, I would do it in a heartbeat. The only thing holding me back (beyond the cost) is fear of having a bad trip. I’m curious about your negative experiences on mushrooms and can’t wait to read the recap of what sounds like a positive, healing ayahuasca experience. I don’t have concerns about picking up a new addiction—I feel confident in the research there. I’m interested in cutting through all the hype and studying how ancient plant medicines could provide an alternative to those of us who (for whatever reason) are tired of taking SSRIs and want to find mental peace via a deeply spiritual experience that reassures us we are connected to The Source and everything is going to be okay. Can’t wait to read more—thank you for sharing your experiences with your fellow seekers.”
”I have the rhetoric in my ears still, that I can’t trust myself because I’m an addict and that part of my “disease” is thinking things are okay when they’re not. That makes me cautious to introduce substances that aren’t alcohol back into my life, yet on a gut level, I feel like psychedelics and sometimes even small amounts of cannabis could be part of a healthy lifestyle for me.”
“My knee-jerk reaction is certainly, I would love to try it, at some point, at the right time. I admire people who, like you, have researched it well enough to know that it was the right time for them. I look forward to that day for myself. I have a few friends scattered around who continue to experiment with them and I will one day too, once I know more. I don't worry about it all with regard to my own alcohol recovery. Alcohol is my absolute ‘no’ drug. Psychedelics is something I would love to understand more of in terms of awakening some deeper part of me that I perhaps am not tapping into at 53 years old. For now I am still working on my own alcohol-free recovery.”
“I took acid around 6 months ago (been sober from alc about 2.5 years). I'd say I took it in relation to healing; I went in with no clear plan or guide to progress my healing but I thought I’d access a childlike, raw part of myself and it might bring me some clarity or simplicity. I used to trip a lot in high school, but the last time before this was in 2019. I had a really bad time and it really freaked me out to be so so high after being so so sober for so long. This was what I felt like I should’ve known but didn’t even think about, how jarring it would be to be so fucked up after being stone cold sober. It was unsettling enough to throw off my whole trip and make none of it productive, because I was like ‘Even if I did have fun or a great time it’d be high fun and I’ve learnt to (try to) discount non-sober fun as genuine or meaningful’. So I was freaked out and missed being sober. I felt so far away from the girl I tripped with, but in high school it really brought me together with the girl I was tripping with then. I guess my comment/question is that: was it not freaky for you to be so high all of a sudden? I don’t even like when I drink an energy drink and get an energy buzz; it all freaks me out. Makes me feel weird to think there’s an authenticity/truth in myself I can only access using a drug and not without it.”
“My guess is my response will be fairly standard: hopeful for a tool that truly can have positive impact and open to the use of psychedelics in that context. Fearful that a controlled use could decrease sobriety/recovery and lead to regression of recovery. Ie., you find relief in the use of psychedelics that mimics the relief from addictive substance use and restarts the whole addiction chain.”
“I'm very open-minded when it comes to psychedelics in recovery, however I'm nervous when it comes to me, specifically. I was heavily addicted to cannabis, to the point of flu-like withdrawal symptoms, followed by about 2 months of post-acute withdrawal syndrome when I finally quit. I was originally drawn to cannabis because it's often said to be non-addictive (I'm also an alcoholic). I'm nervous that, while we say psychedelics are non-addictive, can't anything be addictive? Especially for me? I'm just nervous that I could fall into the same trap again.”
“I was late to drinking...20, which I consider late (and became dangerously close to addicted before quitting) and had never tried any drug until my late twenties, which was weed. I'm California Sober because drinking was My Thing, and I realized I never actually did (or do) enjoy the feeling of losing control, hence why I've never gone hard with weed or psilocybin. I think I'm terrified of having that 'experience' and opening up some doors, which makes me believe I should try therapy before I try going there. Otherwise, it doesn't feel safe–emotionally–for me. Physically/substance-wise I have no fear of psychedelics. But I think it begs the question why I'm using them in the first place if I'm not doing it for healing?”
“Thank you so much for sharing this. I feel really conflicted about using psychedelics in recovery, because I do feel like I have treatment-resistant depression and if I would consider medication for that then what’s really different about psychedelics if it was supervised and contained in a series of sessions alongside therapy? It’s just a type of medication. But I also used synthetic ketamine and psilocybin recreationally and feel really uncomfortable considering using those substances again. I feel worried that I would like it or that it would cause me to relapse on alcohol or something else and I’d just feel confused about what I actually want and what I have to do to get it. I think of what you said in Quit Like a Woman about knowing the things you cannot fuck with and I feel like I cannot fuck with psychedelics but then again I think what if it could help me function better in recovery? Damn it’s so complicated. I appreciate your thoughts and vulnerability in sharing this.”
“It’s hard not to get sucked into all the positive hoopla around psychedelics. I worry they are being presented as a panacea that will fix ALL the problems and that people will rush into an experience without a full understanding of risk and/or a plan to deal with challenges that may arise. I worry about a lot of charlatans coming out of the woodwork to make money and people not knowing how to find a trusted guide, retreat, etc. I worry about people who could benefit from psychedelics not getting access to them [because of] capitalism. I worry about white peoples having free rein to trip and heal and BIPOC communities getting locked out of that opportunity or even worse, getting locked up for it. I worry about indigenous communities having their practices co-opted. I wish some pro-psychedelics advocates would stop ‘othering’ people who use ‘harder’ drugs and do more to promote broad access to harm reduction and progressive drug policy across the board - not just for ‘plant medicine’.”
“Is there a balance for those in recovery when it comes to exploring psychedelics as a tool for recovery? For many, the shame that comes with taking a mind-altering substance might very well keep them from using a helpful (or harmful, you never know till you try) tool. Perhaps recovery or sobriety needs a reframe: call it clarity. I am in clarity. I am clear on what will and will not threaten my commitment to myself.”
“Hi Holly. I took your Hip Sobriety course years ago, which I found extremely helpful. I wanted to get off of my antidepressant and read that psychedelic therapy was helpful for that purpose. I also have experienced big T trauma, so I thought I might benefit from the psychedelic experience even if I were unable to wean myself off of the antidepressants. As you know, there are many studies that show the efficacy of psychedelics for the treatment of addiction and PTSD. The science is compelling. There are clinical trials for MDMA at the Harvard Medical school. Psilocybin is in trials at Johns Hopkins. I didn't seem like a candidate for either of the clinical trials. It seemed to me that it would be difficult to obtain either MDMA or psilocybin from a reputable source if not at one of the clinical trials. I live in Connecticut and New York. Ketamine is legal in both states. I selected the Ketamine Center of Connecticut because the treatment is administered by an anesthesiologist. I wanted to have a qualified medical person present during the treatment. I am in good shape physically, but with any medical procedure, things can go wrong quickly. The treatment consisted of six sessions spread out over three weeks. My vital signs were monitored throughout each session, which lasted about an hour. The total cost of the six sessions was around $3,000. I wore a headset that played new age type music and rested under a blanket. I was in a semi conscious state and never felt uncomfortable. I believe that the Ketamine helped me transition off of the antidepressants. I also believe that it helped me to feel less ‘triggered’ by emotionally upsetting events. I will likely return for more sessions in the future as needed. I would like to try MDMA when I can get it legally because it seems like the most promising for PTSD.”
“I first quit drinking many years ago, but for a long time I still had the impulse to drink. Like if I saw cool-looking people drinking margaritas on a patio, that type of thing. It wasn't until I tried mushrooms that I stopped ever having that impulse to drink for fun. I still occasionally have the urge but never for fun, only as a way to hurt myself when I'm in extreme emotional pain. Mushrooms work really well for me. I first tried them after my dad died from aggressive pancreatic cancer. He was a prominent physician, but he was a hippie in his youth and had tried all those things, and we talked about those experiences quite a bit. I began to get so curious about what a different kind of sensory experience would be like.”
“I was lucky enough to have access to good quality psilocybin mushrooms as I worked on getting sober earlier this year. I’m now coming up on 5 months sober from alcohol and I feel that the only reason I got to this point as easily as I did was the mushrooms. I drank for 20 years. I used them in micro doses in the beginning, daily if I felt like I needed it. It got me through the early days when you still want the alcohol so badly, but you also need to stay away from it. A few times I felt a bit high, but overall it just felt like it allowed me to be open to what a different reality of my life could look like. I think it helped me to lay some new tracks in my brain that didn’t include alcohol. I’m still taking a microdose every couple weeks or so. I’m curious about taking a larger dose for a more intense experience, but it feels like my life doesn’t really allow for that right now. I’m not sure how you even go about finding a practitioner to do that with, but I’d love to know if there are resources to do that. I would say that it’s been odd to not share about this major part of my recovery with other people. I’ve been on TLC for meetings and connections, but I have not shared this part of my recovery. In the beginning, it felt like I’d be talking something up that most don’t have access to and so it would be unhelpful. I also don’t want to deal with the inevitable comments that taking psilocybin to get sober somehow negates my sobriety. So, I remain hopeful that the conversation will begin to include psychedelics as an option, but I’m not yet willing to put myself out there as an example. I was very happy to see you talking about it. I appreciate deeply your honesty, Holly. The work that you put out into the world matters very much and it has helped me enormously.”
“I microdose. It feels good, not great. I do think it opens my mind and helps me out of looping thoughts. But it does make me want to have one glass of wine to enhance the lift I feel from the psilocybin. I never do it more than once a week and go for months forgetting about it. It has led to moderating (one glass of wine per week even when not microdosing). I feel good about everything I’m doing. Neither one is a problem for me.”
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Restating for the hundredth time: I do not need to be or do anything here; I am not coming at this as an expert who is trying to influence anyone’s recovery and I trust that we are all adults who are able to make decisions for ourselves—that is a core for me in recovery (agency) and something I have been a proponent of since I started writing on addiction and recovery (that we’re to be trusted with our bodies and minds). I trust everyone here is an adult, and while I have worked hard to ensure that this is balanced, I’m sharing my own experience, and the resources I have used, and the ones you have used as well as your stories. It is not to be used as advice or as a kind of prescriptive.
What a magnificent piece of work. Thank you.
Just reading through the comments brings into sharp focus how much fear and shame there is around addiction and how that in itself is a significant barrier to recovery. Understandably, it tends to be people with addiction issues that read your work, but people who know nothing about addiction and have never struggled with it would benefit themselves, the recovery community, and society at large by taking time to learn more about it. It's more than a shame that most don't bother, preferring instead to pass ignorant judgement that helps nobody.
Also, a big "Amen" to the person who pointed out that the lack of freely available therapy (among other things) is a big miss in helping people in their recovery.
Holy shit, Holly. I cannot fathom the amount of time and effort it took to put all of this together. Thank you!! Can't wait to open up a million tabs on my laptop to read through everything.