DOSE:		oral	MDMA
		oral	LSD
		oral	Cannabis	(edible / food)
		oral	Ibogaine
		oral	Peyote

BODY WEIGHT:

140 lb

My name is S.O.U. Mynona, and I am an addict, codependent, dysfunctional motherfucker. I was born into an alcoholic family where there was also sex addiction, food addiction, eating disorders, cigarette addiction, coffee addiction, TV addiction, depression, anxiety, and anger management problems. My first addiction was chocolate. It was the first thing I lied about, stole, and fought over, but I am addicted to all types of junk food. I developed sex addiction in Jr. High, then DXM in college, followed by alcohol, meth, cocaine and crack, coffee, designer dissociatives, and MDMA. I am still a packrat, a high functioning hoarder, and I binge on YouTube. I'm involved in a variety of 12 step groups. My decision to get help was motivated by several moments of clarity, which overwhelmingly coincided with experiences involving cannabis and psychedelics.

After four years in recovery, I decided to come out of the psychedelic closet and began to address the subject openly in meetings. For the most part, I was ignored and ridiculed, but my NA home group decided to take disciplinary action six months after I came out. They decided that even though I was walking nine miles round trip to attend this meeting, that I had no desire for recovery and was, therefore, not a member. This was how they rationalized denying me the tools of recovery, such as sharing in meetings and doing service work. I was being shunned in a support group. It was a soul-shattering experience to watch people who just yesterday greeted me with open arms as an esteemed member suddenly turn on me due to this disclosure. I now have deeper empathy for sexual minorities as a result.

I challenged the fact that most members are addicted to coffee, cigarettes, sugar, and porn. I would share how there is no medical movement substantiating these substances, whereas there is a medical cannabis movement and a Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. My words fell on deaf ears, and no one was willing to look at the science behind my decisions. I was involved in activism and was applying resistance in recovery. I discovered that evidence is no match for prejudice and that confrontations tend to produce defensive reactions. I thought my persistence might cause them to reconsider, but I stayed in that group too long due to my codependent fear of abandonment. The irony is that I had already been abandoned.

I drifted away from NA due to rumors that I would be treated the same way at all meetings. A year later, my father told me he had lung cancer due to cigarette addiction. About six months after that, a friend outside the fellowship told me he was ordering a ketamine derivative off the internet. Years before I had used DXM quite heavily---my lowest doses were usually over 700mg and my highest doses were between 2,000 to 3,000mg, but did not consider it an addiction because I could control how much and how often I used and I was not violent and did not steal anything. This is in spite of ending up in the hospital after a grand mal seizure during which I stopped breathing for thirty seconds in front of my now ex-wife's family, as well as going to jail a twice after being picked up staggering down the street at noon with one sock trailing behind me.

This blind spot, in combination with my excommunication, prevented me from recognizing my mistake. After my father died, I was shouldered with the responsibility of handling his estate and selling his house. I began using this and other drugs quite heavily for months at a time.* I suffered numerous paranoid delusions. Eventually, my parents threatened to kick me out unless I got help, so I joined the Native American Church and went in for a peyote ceremony.

The bitterness grew with every bite as I slowly chewed about twelve buttons and drank the tea that was boiled of them. Some seemed fresh while others were somewhat reconstituted and there were also bits and pieces so I am not sure of the exact amount. As I spoke of my troubles, nausea began to build until finally I vomited. There was an added dimension to the pain of the paroxysms heightened by the medicine which was a thoroughly awe-full experience, yet when it was over, I felt as though I had purged more than the physical contents of my stomach. The medicine man and I joked that I was maxing out credit cards going into debt to buy my own bullshit. The medicine did not speak English, but the message was loud and clear: 'Don't let anything get in the way of your recovery. Go back to meetings, find a sponsor, work the steps, find a home group, and do service work. You know what to do, now follow through.' I had a few false starts, but that ceremony marked the turning point.

Once again, I became an esteemed member in good standing, working hard, and serving others. During this time, I was still using MDMA with friends who were massage therapists and energy healers. My dosages went from 150mg to 300mg over the course of eight years. We would give each other long hugs and massages and talk about our feelings. It felt as though an endless ocean of unconditional love had swept us into another world of total freedom from resentment and self-pity. Two days later, I would be flipping people off in traffic. One of these friends eventually pulled some mindfuck cult leader bullshit on me more than once and refused to be accountable even when I took him to see a mediator. We clearly were not getting the same results that MAPS does treating PTSS or that other therapists had using the medicine in marriage counseling. As in music, the instrument is important, but one must receive training in technique to play it well.

I went to Costa Rica for traditional African Bwiti Iboga ceremonies due to the lingering feelings of depression, anxiety, irritability, anger, and a sense of ontological disorientation. I received twice as much as the other seekers the first ceremony and three times as much during the second. I’m guessing it was somewhere between four teaspoons and two tablespoons. Iboga was very direct and personal, but it did not rub my nose in anything. Through both visual and kinaesthetic sensations, Iboga showed me that DXM was a serious problem and that my problems began long before the observable addictions developed. At one point, I had a vision of an accounting ledger that opened up behind my closed eyes like a sort of spreadsheet. There were items in good standing, but the screen scrolled down to reveal other line items that were out of balance. I saw that I had been fantasizing and edging coming down from MDMA and how that was connected to the way I was searching for romantic companionship by asking women out on Facebook. I saw how Facebook itself was an addiction that led me to verbal abuse over politics and sexual tension with women. I saw that the troubles I have from avoiding my troubles are worse than the troubles I’d like to avoid. Denial is more dangerous than anything I have to face.

I did not stop using when I returned home. After a few months, I had a falling out with another group of friends and a broken heart. I used MDMA twelve times in five weeks. In the end, I took it with something like 100mcg LSD and a cannabis edible to come down. The cannabis and LSD showed me I was in another downward spiral. I felt a sense of urgency, so I called my sponsor right away and started my program over. He refused to sponsor me because of my ongoing use of cannabis and psychedelics even though these are the primary influences that got me involved in recovery in the first place as well as providing the motivation for the very act of reaching out to him for help. I was crushed. He has more conventional addictions, but he saw my practice differently. This time, I started looking for someone else to work with right away. I got through the steps with the next sponsor, but we went our separate ways because he would not stop trying to convince me to give up the practices that brought me to recovery. He did point out a pattern of conflict surrounding food that revealed my food addiction, so I got help for that.

I went to the Telluride Mushroom Festival, where many of the talks dealt with the use of psilocin in the treatment of addiction and sacred mushroom ceremonies. I found out about an online fellowship called Psychedelics in Recovery (PIR). Whereas before I transposed the principles of activism in recovery, I decided that perhaps I should apply a recovery principle to activism: attraction rather than promotion. I don't go to bars and confront people to get them to come to AA. I just suit up and show up and do my service to provide a place for people who are willing to get help. Why not concentrate on supporting PIR and allow people to come to us? A woman in LA had an experience on toad venom that inspired her to found the Aware Project based on a very similar idea. A recurring problem in my life is that I have trouble accepting the fact that few people are genuinely willing to be mutually accountable, negotiate, compromise, and practice conflict resolution. Without that willingness, no amount of MDMA or anything else will make a difference. Part of my daily practice involves consciously searching for others with that willingness and accepting everyone else as they are while focusing on three basic questions: What do I need to change about me so that I can be free? What do I have to be grateful for? How can I be part of the solution?

---

Addendum added Mar 2020:

The timeline actually begins in 2011 with coming out and ends in 2018 when I quit MDMA and Facebook, started my journey toward freedom from any kind of masturbation, started Overeaters Anonymous (OA), got back involved with (ACA), and took an anger management course which eventually led to joining Emotions Anonymous (EA).

*After my father died, I began using dissociatives quite heavily: MXE in doses ranging from 50 to 500mg, ketamine in dosages of 100-300mg, and 3-Meo-PCP at 20-50mg. I suffered numerous paranoid delusions such as once when, in a combination of shame and paranoia, I became so thoroughly convinced that my stepdad was going to sell me into slavery because of my uselessness that I actually walked up and asked him. Just at that moment, an HV/AC truck pulled up. The truck had the words "Fresh Air" painted on it in a way that seemed sarcastic to me at the time, as though they were mocking me for my support of environmental causes. Suddenly I was certain that this was a front and that they would bring in a box with an "appliance" in it, so that after coming into the house they could hit me with the chloroform, stuff me in the box, and cart me away. It was February and I ran down stairs, out the ground floor entrance, and down the street in a T-shirt, sweat pants, and socks. It took me about three blocks before I recognized that I was delusional and came back home. Eventually my parents...(continue as per the original).

Peyote ceremonies: Around this time I learned that Bill W, the founder of AA, suffered depression throughout his life in recovery and that he said the most effective treatment for him was LSD psychotherapy.

Exp Year: 2011-2018	ExpID: 114175
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 12, 2020	Views: 2,569
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Ibogaine (28), Peyote (42) : Various (28), Preparation / Recipes (30)