Ayahuasca Addiction Treatment
Ayahuasca is an Amazonian entheogen that is usually made with two primary herbs: Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis. It is a sacred indigenous medicine that is used extensively in the Amazon Basin as an herb that can teach people how to heal themselves and others. Ayahuasca has its own consciousness and it can speak directly to those who take it.
Recently, Ayahuasca has become more widely known in the developed world. As scientists work with Ayahuasca to understand how it works and how it can help people medicinally, it’s become clear that Ayahuasca is one of several essential sacred medicines that can be used to cure addiction naturally. Ayahuasca works through several mechanisms of action that are known and understood by science, but this herb also has the ability to speak directly to humans through the mind after it is consumed. This aspect of Ayahuasca is less easy to explain or understand scientifically. Ayahuasca works like an Inner Counselor that provides opportunities for self-confrontation and trauma release that is simply not possible in a drug rehab facility or a therapist’s office, but it also contains medicines that have the ability to rejuvenate organs like the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas.
How does Ayahuasca work to cure addiction?
The best results from taking Ayahuasca for addiction happen when a person is ready to quit their addiction and move on to a new life. Intention makes a huge difference when working with Ayahuasca.
Let’s say that a person who is addicted to stimulants or opiates arrives to do an Ayahuasca retreat for addiction in Mexico and they are fully and unequivocally committed to the path of figuring out how to overcome addiction. They know that their addiction is hurting them and they want to regain control over it. Their Intention is clear so the Ayahuasca will speak clearly to them about what they want and help them take steps toward that goal.
In contrast, let’s say that a different person who is addicted to benzodiazepines or some other street drug arrives for an Ayahuasca retreat in Mexico with a conflicted feeling about whether or not they really want to quit taking drugs. This person will probably have a different trip that will help them resolve their inner conflict about whether or not they’re ready to stop taking drugs permanently.
When working with the sacred medicines, intention is really important.
It’s important to understand that Ayahuasca is like 10 years of talk therapy. It can provide visceral insights and customized self-confrontation for people who are ready to accept this kind of internal work. In those who aren’t sure about whether they’re ready or not, Ayahuasca can provide them with tools to think more clearly about their problem.
In any case, Ayahuasca works to cure addiction in part through physical reformation by healing organs such as the liver and the pancreas. The Ayahuasca purge plays a big role in this healing process. Many people dread the purge and, in fact, eating a very healthy and basic dieta a week or more prior to taking Ayahuasca can lessen the purge. Doing one or more sessions of the Hulda Clark Gallbladder Cleanse and coffee enemas in the lead up to a Mexico Ayahuasca retreat with us can lessen the purge somewhat by releasing bile sludge and bile stones and gallstones from the liver and gallbladder.
Ayahuasca for Trauma Release
Addiction is always related in some way to trauma. Luckily, the release of trauma is something that our bodies were designed to do. In fact, the liver and the gallbladder play a huge role in retaining anger. The pancreas, spleen, and stomach (which all sit near the liver and gallbladder in the area at the lower edge of the rib cage, play a role in our feelings of trust and mistrust, safety or a lack of safety toward the world. These are the organs that often store trauma.
Ayahuasca causes a purge if a purge is needed in order to release anger from the liver and to release feelings of being out-of-control from the pancreas and stomach. The purge releases real toxins as well as toxic emotions permanently. Not everyone experiences a purge after taking Ayahuasca. Over time, after you’ve taken Ayahuasca for a while, the purge stops being necessary.
When a person takes Ayahuasca, they don’t typically purge and purge and purge for the entire 8 hours. Usually, Ayahuasca causes a purge of specific emotional content and toxins and then there’s a period of “learning” that happens. In a group setting, if one person purges, sometimes the other members of the group also purge, but this varies. Ayahuasca helps us tune into other people and feel our connection to others acutely in a way that we normally ignore or fail to understand. In any case, the purge is feared as part of a package that involves relinquishing control to a Higher Power – in this case, Ayahuasca.
Alcoholics Anonymous is an iconic system for overcoming addiction and it relies powerfully on the concept of a Higher Power and the idea releasing of one’s control, but Ayahuasca is a sacrament that allows people to relinquish control in a real, material way. Many people feel intense feelings of heat or cold, like a fever during an Ayahuasca trip. These are emotions that have been resisted – feelings that the person didn’t want to feel that now live in the body. Sometimes people feel sick to their stomachs. This could involve vomiting or diarrhea. These are also emotions that are being released. When you give up your control to Ayahuasca, this sacred medicine helps you to release what no longer serves you. Rather than just training your mind to remember that you’re not in control over everything, Ayahuasca allows you to experience faith in a Higher Power in a visceral way so that it becomes like body-wisdom or heart-wisdom rather than feeling like a rule that you have to follow with your logical mind.
Pharmacology of How Ayahuasca Works to Treat Addiction
The most important ingredients in Ayahuasca pharmacologically speaking are beta-carboline and dimethyltryptamine / DMT, but Ayahuasca also contains harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine. Harmine, in particular, is the ingredient that is able to cure diabetes and cancer naturally. Click here to learn more about how to use Ayahuasca to cure diabetes and cancer. But harmine, tetrahydroharmine, and harmaline act as reversible MAO inhibitors (MAOIs) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). MAOIs and SSRIs have antidepressant effects which can be important in the treatment of addiction. As a reversible MAOI though, Ayahuasca has a greater range of motion in terms of how it functions in the treatment of depression. All of the major MAOIs that are prescribed by doctors and psychologists today are irreversible MAOIs or SSRIs.
DMT is a substance that’s abundant in the plant kingdom as well as in mammals. It causes anti-anxiety effects as well as psychedelic effects. DMT does not cause tolerance with repeated use. It is the substance that is believed to help human beings tune into other human beings and feel what others are feeling empathically.
In fact, scientists have worked hard to understand Ayahuasca’s ability to cure addiction naturally, but the pharmacology of this plant medicine always falls short of bridging the gap between experiencing Ayahuasca first-hand and the science of how it works on the brain. The only system of medicine that seems to be able to explain, at least to some extent, how Ayahuasca cures addiction, is Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). TCM recognizes that certain organs “transmit” or “hold” specific emotions. Though the brain is acknowledged in TCM as an organ that plays a role in mood and mental health, it is not the sole organ responsible for how we feel, how we behave, or what we think. Ayahuasca has healing, curative effects on the organs that sit on the lower edge of the rib cage: the stomach, pancreas, spleen, liver, and gallbladder. Ayahuasca helps release trauma and negative energy and actual physical toxins that are being stored in these organs. This release creates new opportunities and ways to think and feel after an Ayahuasca trip ends. When we get away from the looping thoughts, it’s much easier to find novel and sometimes miraculous solutions to problems that have followed us sometimes for decades.
Ayahuasca for Addiction: What to Expect
We often hear people express concerns about taking Ayahuasca because they’ve heard that a friend took Ayahuasca once or maybe up to 3 times and then had a sequelae of problems afterwards. Indeed, before I took Ayahuasca the first time, I’d had a conversation with a man at a lumber store about how his girlfriend took Ayahuasca and then developed heart arrhythmias. At the time, nearly 15 years ago, this concerned me. Yet, when my time came and I knew that I needed Ayahuasca due to a family crisis, I didn’t hesitate to take it. I took it willingly and without fear despite the fact that I’d had serious heart arrhythmias myself as a child due to a case of visceral chickenpox.
This first Ayahuasca trip changed my life dramatically. It told me a story and took me through a trajectory of experiences that was absolutely one of the most dramatic things I’ve ever experienced. But this Ayahuasca trip was not my first experience with entheogens. I’d had lingering issues several years prior after taking Sapito. It took a while for me to understand that these issues that I developed happened because I needed more Sapito not less of it. I had trauma that needed to be released through more than just one Sapito trip back then. Ayahuasca can be this way too. A person may take Ayahuasca once or even three times, but they actually need more like 10 trips to get through all of the material that pertains to addiction or the issues that they’re facing in their lives.
If we were going to say, for example, that Ayahuasca is like 10 years of talk therapy, then we’d need to acknowledge that some people may need more talk therapy than others (like 20 years? 30 years?) depending on how much trauma they’ve experienced in their lives. Some people may also need more sessions with Ayahuasca than others as well. An addict who is between 20-30 years of age would probably need fewer Ayahuasca trips than a person between 30-40 years of age+. Life gets more complex as we age. Essentially, most people who are struggling with addiction need more than one Ayahuasca trip to overcome their issues. Doing 3 trips in quick succession may be a good approach in terms of doing Ayahuasca for addiction, but be aware that some people may need 4 or more trips to get through all of the material that must be released to overcome addiction. Don’t let this scare you. There are ways to deal with trauma between Ayahuasca trips. We’ll discuss some of them below. Additionally, addicts may benefit a great deal from doing Ayahuasca microdosing between trips to spur insightful dreams and to continue to heal the liver, pancreas, gallbladder, and other solar plexus organs.
What types of addiction can be treated using Ayahuasca?
One Canadian study published in 2013 with 12 participants showed that two Ayahuasca ceremonies performed over a 4 day period for addiction produced the following results:
- A decline in alcohol use.
- A decline in tobacco use.
- A decline in cocaine use.
- No change in cannabis use.
- No change in opiate use.
None of the participants experienced negative effects as a result of taking Ayahuasca.
According to scientific studies, the following types of addictions that respond to Ayahuasca include:
- Alcoholism
- Nicotine and tobacco addiction
- Cocaine addiction
- Methamphetamine addiction
NOTE: If you suffer from a type of substance addiction that isn’t listed above, consider working instead with psilocybin or Iboga / Ibogaine for addiction. Iboga / Ibogaine is a very powerful anti-addiction herb that often cures addiction with just one dose (patients often don’t have to return for 6 months or a year after taking ibogaine for addiction). Many people choose to work with Ayahuasca or psilocybin for addiction because they are a gentler treatment, but iboga is powerful and some people need to start with iboga for addiction to kick start the healing process. If you have questions about which type of sacred medicine would be best for a particular situation involving addiction, please set up a health coaching session with us and we’ll happily guide you through a protocol for a specific type of addiction.
Click here to read more about how Ayahuasca works to treat alcoholism.
What can I do to help an alcoholic / addict? How you can change yourself to help another person.
I speak from experience on this topic, but before you race out of the house to start changing yourself in order to help an alcoholic stop drinking or to help an addict stop being addicted, you need to know that you’ll have to fix yourself first and this can be a tall order. Most of us carry a lot of trauma and if you want to be an agent of change for an addict, you’ll have to delve into this material first.
I have always been a big believer in the idea that our bodies were designed to heal and that…not only were they designed to heal, but that we were designed to be able to heal others (and for others to be able to heal us). In today’s world, I don’t believe that we use the technology of our human bodies very often in the right ways to heal each other, but I’ve worked with this “human-tech” myself to heal my own family members, including family members who were addicted to meth, for example and I can say that I’ve been awed by the results.
To get to a place where my work with a sacred medicine like Ayahuasca was valuable to another person, a family member who was addicted to meth, I had to work intensively with this medicine. I had to be willing to NOT BELIEVE that I could help him and focus only on myself. I had to love without conditions, which meant letting go of anger that I used to protect myself. And I had to arrive at a place of letting go, which was painful. All of it was painful. It was like a series of negotiations that I made with myself. My family member, an addict, then came back to me and to us and, seeing the level of patience and understanding that I had for him (that we had for him – because there were several of us who worked together on this project), even though he’d put me through a lot of really awful things, made him open to also working with Ayahuasca and also psilocybin for addiction.
I believe strongly that addiction was meant to be worked with as a family unit to the extent that that’s possible. Sometimes just one other person might be willing to go and work intensively to heal themselves. Sometimes maybe two or three people are willing to do this work. But our bodies have this amazing thing called the autonomic nervous system which is directly connected to the endocrine system. And the autonomic nervous system allows us to transmit information and receive information from other people. It allows us to express things that we can’t express in words. Sometimes, if a person heals themselves using Ayahuasca, psilocybin, or other sacred medicines, another person, a loved one, will literally feel it and be emboldened to heal themselves too.
What to Expect After Taking Ayahuasca for Addiction
Another study involving 10 participants who had undergone Ayahuasca treatment for addiction at least 2 years prior showed that:
- Participants either experienced 2 years of abstinence of drug use or less harmful drug use habits.
- Over 50% of the participants experienced a reduction in drug cravings two years after their Ayahuasca trip.
- Improved understanding of the underlying cause of their addiction.
- Improved problem-solving regarding their addictive behavior.
Remember though, as you read this list, that this study is talking about taking Ayahuasca ONE TIME and then doing nothing else afterwards to treat addiction. The results are astounding. If these study participants had also worked with anti-addiction herbs like Kudzu and Mucuna pruriens, their results would have been even better.
Click here to read more about supplements and herbs for alcoholism.
Trauma-Informed Therapies to Use Between Ayahuasca Trips
It isn’t always ideal to do Ayahuasca trips in rapid succession. Not everyone wants to sign up to do multiple Ayahuasca trips. Don’t let this scare you away from taking Ayahuasca. Rather, if you’re planning to do just 1 Ayahuasca trip for trauma, be sure to familiarize yourself with other trauma-informed therapies that you can work with, as needed after you do an Ayahuasca trip.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing / EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing / EMDR is a very simple and elegant trauma-informed therapy that can be done using online tools. EMDR involves the movements of the eyes from left-to-right, back-and-forth while thinking about a troubling memory, a negative toxic thought, or an uncomfortable emotion. The eye movements help move the content back and forth from the left hemisphere of the brain to the right hemisphere of the brain so that it can be “integrated” and “released”. EMDR is gentle, but effective for people who have negative effects from Ayahuasca after doing just 1 trip.
EMDR is not as powerful as Ayahuasca. If you have trauma that’s unresolved after doing an Ayahuasca trip, begin by working with EMDR, DreamLight.app, and craniosacral therapy, but if the negative effects continue, consider doing another Ayahuasca trip to resolve and integrate the unresolved issue.
Click here to do a free trial of EMDR online.
DreamLight.app
The DreamLight.app uses brain entrainment as well as guided meditation to allow users to release trauma at home without therapy. The DreamLight.app uses special flashing lights that mimic the random type of patterns that happen when sunlight is filtered through the leaves of a tree. Our brains are wired to respond to this kind of random light pattern by going into a healing trance state.
The DreamLight.app can be used in a variety of ways as a tool to release trauma that has not been fully integrated following an Ayahuasca trip. If you’re working to overcome addiction naturally and you’re considering doing Ayahuasca for addiction, the DreamLight.app can also be used as a tool before and after Ayahuasca to reduce the trauma-load.
Craniosacral Therapy
Craniosacral therapy is a type of energy work and massage that uses the innate intelligence of the body to release trauma. Craniosacral therapy works well with both EMDR and DreamLight.app, but a person who is trying to overcome addiction at home might wish to work with all of these treatments to release trauma more quickly.
Psilocybin Therapy
Psilocybin mushroom trips are very different from Ayahuasca trips. For someone who is struggling with addiction, psilocybin can be extremely useful as a tool to quickly release trauma that causes addiction. Ayahuasca though, has certain healing properties that can be extremely beneficial for the organ tissues after a person has struggled with addiction for many years. It’s possible to work with psilocybin and Ayahuasca at separate times to release trauma.
Most people who are wishing to use psilocybin therapy for addiction should plan to do between 20 to 30 full trips with microdosing between trips. Microdosing psilocybin without doing psilocybin trips is not usually powerful enough to overcome the trauma that underlies addiction. But that being said, it is possible to do psilocybin therapy at home.
Click here to buy psilocybin online.
Psilocybin is an alternative to Ayahuasca for addiction. Both are relevant sacred medicines that are extremely valuable as a natural remedy for addiction, but they work differently. Both Ayahuasca and psilocybin should be administered multiple times for best results as a cure for addiction.
Resources:
Frecska, E. et al. (2016). The Therapeutic Potentials of Ayahuasca: Possible Effects against Various Diseases of Civilization. The Retrieved August 27, 2024 from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773875/
Hagan, E. (2018). Ayahuasca for Addiction? That’s a Trip. Retrieved August 27, 2024 from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-addiction/201812/ayahuasca-addiction-thats-trip
Thoricatha, W. (2015). Ayahuasca Therapy Shown to Help People Suffering from Substance Abuse. Retrieved August 27, 2024 from https://psychedelictimes.com/ayahuasca-therapy-shown-to-help-people-suffering-from-substance-abuse/
Hamill, J. et al. (2019). Ayahuasca: Psychological and Physiologic Effects, Pharmacology and Potential Uses in Addiction and Mental Illness. Retrieved August 27, 2024 from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6343205/
Loizaga-Velder, A. et al. (2023). Therapeutic effect of ceremonial ayahuasca use for methamphetamine use disorders and other mental health challenges: Case studies in indigenous community in Sonora, Mexico. Retrieved August 27, 2024 from https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2024-08594-001