Spring 2014
I’m working as an addictions counselor in an intensive outpatient program in Southern New Jersey. I’ve just celebrated eight years clean and sober. I’m setting my own hours. I’m making good money. I have my own apartment. I’m socially acceptable and a responsible member of society. I’m also miserable as f*ck.
My family sits me down one evening and lets me know that they can clearly see that I’m not happy. They’re not wrong. They suggest I try medication. I’m not hearing it. I didn’t get clean off illegal drugs to get back on legal ones. I can’t deny that I’m not happy though, and what my family didn’t know was that I’d come dangerously close to relapsing on pain medication after kidney stones a couple weeks earlier. I didn’t have an answer at the time, but in that moment I recognized that I needed help. I was definitely open to something, but I had no idea what that might be.
Turns out, it was going to be Ayahuasca.
The next week, after my impromptu family intervention, I must have heard about Ayahuasca a dozen times in a dozen different ways. TV Shows, movies, podcasts, friends, conversations I overheard… Ayahuasca, Ayahuasca, Ayahuasca. It seemed that the universe had presented me with an answer.
Only one problem though… I was a member of an abstinence based recovery program and Ayahuasca is one of the strongest psychoactive substances on the planet. How do I make sense of this?
In eight years of recovery, my life had become infinitely better than it was during my active addiction… but I still wasn’t happy or joyous or free. The core of my recovery was “don’t use no matter what,” but now it felt like I was being called by my higher power to this powerful indigenous plant medicine. Was this using? Was this a relapse?
I didn’t know and I wasn’t sure… so I did what I’d been taught. I shared about it with my sponsor. I shared about it with my network. I shared about it in meetings. My intention wasn’t to get other people’s opinions (but boy did they give them) as much as it was to keep sharing honestly in hopes that I would discover how or if I was lying or deceiving myself.
After weeks of sharing and reflecting and praying, it became clear. This was legit. This was an opportunity and an invitation to take my healing and recovery in a new direction. I decided to answer the call. I gave notice at my job, waited until my apartment lease ended, and then headed down to South America.
My six weeks and seventeen ceremonies in the Amazon that summer changed my life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this kind of thing is for everybody. It’s not. But for me, it was tremendously beneficial. I left a lot of sh*t and emotional baggage in the jungle. Trauma, painful memories, anguish, anxiety, overwhelm, despair, depression, empathy, surrender, and trust were all part of the lessons and learning and healing. I faced demons and felt horrifyingly hellish fears. I felt unconditional love and grace like I’d never known was possible. It was an amazing experience that changed the trajectory of my life, and it only happened because I was willing to follow my own truth.
Honestly, if I hadn’t been miserable and almost relapsed that prior winter I don’t know that I would have been open to a journey into the jungle to puke my guts out. But the universe does its thing and sets us up in the most beautiful ways, so that’s how it played out. I lost a lot of recovery friends when I came back from Peru, and while it was upsetting at first, I was eventually able to understand and accept it. What I’d done was heresy in a lot of recovery circles and most folks weren’t ready to embrace an understanding of recovery that could include the ceremonial and intentional use of plant medicine. I’m glad that folks are becoming a bit more open-minded these days as our collective understanding of addiction, recovery, and healing continues to evolve.
That fall, after I returned from South America, I opened a holistic learning center and private counseling practice in Glassboro, NJ. After my time and experiences with Ayahuasca, I was fully committed to creating a spiritual oasis in Southern New Jersey. It was a tall order and I had a long way to go, but I’d finally found a sense of purpose and feeling of contentment that had previously been missing.