Ibogaine Mesodosing Week 3: First Days of Sobriety from Alcohol

Once again, hello to anyone reading. My name’s Pedro, and I’m about to take you into my Ibogaine Meso Dosing Week 3.

If you haven’t read Week 1 or Week 2, click the respective hyperlinks, so it all ties in and makes sense, before diving into this one.

By the third week of meso dosing with the ibogaine tincture, I couldn’t help but be surprised at how effectively it was working.

Before ever trying to meso dose with ibogaine, I had micro dosed with psilocybin truffles and hadn’t felt much except a very slight openness to step outside my comfort zone after the first 4-week cycle.

Definitely a lived glimpse of the difference between ibogaine mesodosing and psilocybin microdosing.

The ibogaine tincture had clearly become something I could feel physically - a grounded sort of buzzing under the skin, an enthusiasm and curiosity for what each day would bring.

What was even more surprising to me was how it was helping me question certain internal processes and narratives with self-compassion, instead of judgement and self-criticism. It was actually softening the grip of the inner critic in real time.

It was helping me understand the triggers to my drinking, which since taking a break from working at Tabula Rasa Retreat, had increased beyond my own comfort zone.

Behaviours such as binge-eating or forgetting to eat entirely; hours spent engaging with webcam porn models in live chats, now revealed themselves as a half-hearted balm for the loneliness and the isolation I had allowed myself to slip into.

Then I remembered: I already knew this; as a matter of fact, I had even written a blog about how so many of us are addicted to certain kinds of behaviours we don’t even recognize as addictions.

And, step by step, meso dosing with ibogaine was revealing my patterns of executive burnout; I was understanding my unhealthy relationship to work, and how the effects of my people-pleasing often drove me to prove myself beyond my capacity.

Now that I’ve given you a little more context, enjoy the raw vulnerability, insight and self-compassion contained in Week 3.

7:20 am – 30 drops Ibotincture T.A.

• I will ground my body during challenging moments.
• I will allow feeling to move through without fixing it.

Not able to write much now, except that I am feeling nervous about today and going to a couple of decisive oncology appointments with my sister.

Evening Reflection:

This was much harder than I thought.

At the hospital, I noticed how much I wanted to be “the strong one,” the calm, competent sibling. I want to make everything okay, to figure it out, to be useful.

But underneath that, there’s a small child who is ultimately terrified of loss. I didn’t try to fix him today; I just acknowledged he was there, and discreetly hugged myself when I felt the need.

After getting home, I lay down, feeling wrung out; I ended up absorbing a lot of her anxiety and fear.

As I lay still and let those emotions run their course, I noticed a familiar thought: “I deserve a drink after a day like this.”

Instead of blindly obeying it, I watched it. I named it. Then I deeply connected with my body with an hour of holotropic breathwork, followed by meditation.

I was able to choose differently today.

Work-wise, I was also able to be honest and tell Alvaro about how little ability to focus and work I had left because of the emotional weight of the day, instead of forcing productivity through gritted teeth.

I set about doing one work task only and letting that be enough: editing the first video of my Ibotincture testimonials.

For the rest of the day, I watched a couple of music documentaries, read, and drifted in and out of my thoughts. It was a gentle kind of numbness, but out of conscious choice rather than dissociation.

There are times for rest and light entertainment, I am now learning, and one doesn’t need to over-produce to deserve them; but one does need to tune into bodily cues to pick them up, or else one unconsciously defaults to automatic coping strategies.

I can feel exactly how easily that particular cocktail of emotions could have led to alcohol; but now, there’s a slight gap between the feeling and the action, and in that gap, there is at least a chance to choose.

8:15 am – 30 drops meso ibogaine tincture

• I will honour grief as teacher and meet myself without numbing shame.
• How will I be honest in work relationships while I steady my ground?
• I choose one action that supports sobriety today.

Wasn’t really able to work yesterday as I was processing the enormity that comes with the energy of cancer, of how things might pan out for my sister, of whether she’ll make it or not.

Fast-forwarding and hypothesizing about how I would deal with it if such a thing befell me.

Diseases like cancer bring to the forefront the frailty of life, as well as our attachment to this earthly experience — and for those of us less spiritually attuned, the despair of the fade-to-black notion of death; that this one life is all we have.

Regarding the decision to not drink as this ibogaine journey unfolds; there’s still a pull, a kind of ghost muscle memory that suggests “wine would help,” but it doesn’t feel as inevitable as it used to.

Feeling hopeful that I can one day control my alcohol - a glass with a meal, a toast at a celebration - or simply not drink.

For now, I’m realising that this body is not an endless resource; I would do well to start cherishing it while I still have time.

Also, I took a temporary, part-time job at F_____’s handicraft kiosk. It’s hardly exciting, but it’s easy. I’ll be glad of the extra money to help settle my debts.

8:15 am – 30 drops Ibotincture

• How will I listen to my body’s limits today?
• What would it look like to move at the speed of my nervous system instead of at the speed of panic?
• I want to let small joys count as victories.

Unsure whether I am more annoyed that it took 45 minutes to get served a coffee and pastry at the riverside café waiting in line — or whether I was surprised by how irritated I felt — so much so that I had to do 4-7-8 breathing in line to stop myself walking out and going back home in a huff.

I had to tell myself that yes, this is my time and my spot, but it is equally everyone else’s. Then, with my takeaway coffee, sitting under the beautiful shade of trees, preparing to journal peacefully, three guys sat themselves uncomfortably close to me and one of them asked me for a cigarette. “Seriously?!” I thought, saying nothing as I resentfully gave him one, leaving moments after because the sun was encroaching on my available shade.

While none of the above situations were unduly stressful, the self-righteousness behind my reactions was a lesson.

It points to my difficulty in enjoying any moment that falls short of my expectations. So often I defeat myself by saying “There’s no point, it’s ruined,” or “I won’t enjoy it like that” before it’s even happened.

How much of our moods are so easily sabotaged by the stories we tell ourselves about what we don’t enjoy, and how staunchly we cling to that!

Evening Reflection

I can’t get over how fast the ibotincture works, it really is felt within the hour, which makes the daily taking of ibogaine tincture for behavioural addictions and anxiety loops feel like an active, present ally rather than a vague concept. It’s like having a non-judgemental friend in the room who occasionally taps you on the shoulder when you’re about to lie to yourself.

I’ve been listing all the benefits extensively, but it’s also interesting to note how different it is to micro-dosing with psilocybin, for example. No way did I ever get such grounded, noticeable results within a three-week timeframe.

Second day not drinking still has me feeling jittery, but I’m looking forward to sobriety. Also, to losing the extra 3 kg alcohol has made me put on in the last month and a half. Am now at the kiosk, and still feeling good about my day.

I notice that instead of binge-watching Netflix, doom-scrolling or defaulting to porn the moment discomfort arises, I’m more capable of simply sitting, breathing, and naming what’s here: sadness, fear, resentment, loneliness. Naming them seems to take away some of their power.

8:00am – 40 drops Ibotincture

• How will I ground myself before working on difficult tasks?
• What boundaries will I hold today so I don’t abandon myself?
• Can I let one small step be enough?

Affirmation

My value is not measured by output or income.
I am already abundant because I live with intention, presence and purpose.

Inner Work:
Sit for 10 mins with this affirmation. Let my breath mirror it:

• Inhale – I am already abundant
• Exhale – I live with purpose

Question:
Where in my body does the word “abundant” land?
Place my hands there.
Let it root.

Evening Reflection

Every Atom of My Becoming

To let timid promises rise
From ventricles of heart
Brave with sinew
In awe of not being broken.

To watch will unfurl
From mire of doubt
& stone by stone
Build church of change.

To dash old words off each other
To speak the tongue of the ineffable.

To be rid of placenta
Of amniotic tales
That were my prison
But never my cells.

To know I own nothing;
The people & things in my life
Are the passengers of tides.

To favour process over outcome
& pick its fruits
only when ripe

Is to witness every
Atom of my becoming
Add and subtract
From the ever-changing I.

9:00am – 40 drops Ibotincture

• I will allow plans to shift without self-punishment.
• What one goal will be enough by day’s end?

It’s 9:30 am and I’m annoyed.

Annoyed I missed my 6 am wake-up and walk.

Now, because I have other time-consuming commitments to my day - a visit to my sister, and at 7 pm, another thing that will only have back home by 10pm - I’m feeling the vice tighten on my rituals of self-care and processing space.

I’m concerned about my sister; she’s imagining all of the worst-case scenarios of either getting treatment or refusing it, and I don’t know how to hold space for the kind of emotional pain she is in.

Evening Reflection

Now the day is done, let me reflect on it and reframe:

• I had a plan, but then life happened. Today did not begin wrong, it began differently.
  To recreate the immersion within the river walk, I sat at the corner café near my flat listening to Bach and reading; still getting some sunlight.
• Instead of seeing all these different pulls as interruptions to my work, can I see them as acts of love within my work? My life is, after all, my sacred labour.
• The goal I achieved by the day’s end was being there for my sister, and that is enough. I don’t need to know what to do: being fully present for her and allowing myself to feel as I feel is an accomplishment. In this case, there is nothing to fix, change or solve.
• Don’t discount the positive: yesterday, my act of self-care yesterday was to not only write a poem, which I hadn’t done at all in the last 10 months, and spend three hours in the studio practising drums, when my entire nervous system was telling me I didn’t deserve that time.

8:15am – 40 drops Ibotincture

So, yesterday afternoon I decided to steal three Xanax from my sister’s supply, because I craved a release valve.

I was enjoying the buzz, and plugged the guitar into the iPad, playing happily away until after midnight, when the phone rang.

My sister, who had become bedridden with one of her painful flare-ups of fibromyalgia, asked me if I could take our mother to hospital, as she had been feeling sharp abdominal/lower-belly pains.

So: off to hospital with Mum. Spent all night there waiting for tests. She was discharged around 10am, and we drove back home. It was nothing more than a urinary infection.

BUT: I completely forgot that Alvaro and I had a Zoom meeting this morning with J____ and J____ to discuss Transilience Health, and didn’t get their calls or notifications because I forgot to take the phone off “Do Not Disturb.”

The interesting thing is that normally I would have beat myself up, telling myself I was a complete asshole.

I was able to interrupt the inner critic loop, and say to myself that sure, I could have made a better choice than taking Xanax for relief, especially given my former addiction to it.

The moment I put them in my pocket, I justified it to myself by saying it was an expansive release and form of self-care.

Let me now reflect on this properly.

Did I get the Xanax to celebrate life, or to bypass pain?
To be honest, a bit of both. Things have been getting better in my life, and I’ve been putting in the work, psychologically, emotionally, and professionally. But it did serve a soothing purpose, however minor.

Did it serve a deeper need that is otherwise unmet?
Yes, for example: of a more active (sober) social life, and my resilience in sticking to better self-care practices, such as meditation, or creative writing, or dancing, or yoga, or regular contact with nature.

Was it an echo of a past pattern at risk of being continued?
Part of me would like to think that this was an isolated release valve, but another part of me knows better.

It’s not that I am at risk of allowing this to spiral into continued use, but I would benefit from noting: every time I pause or completely drop one particular substance (alcohol in this case), it seems to always express itself through another one, or an entirely new self-soothing behaviour I never even knew I had.

I didn’t spiral into shame. True, I secretly stole the Xanax, but I didn’t let that invalidate my progress.

My inner critic didn’t hijack me. I didn’t punish myself, and am now able to see the whole thing with maturity and grace.

7:00am – 30 drops Ibotincture

Mood: slightly annoyed — didn’t get up in time for my river-walk again.

More-so annoyed because of the things we do sometimes for a bit more cash: the kiosk commitment is draining my available time for self-care.

However, I would do well to reframe that this is an investment my own financial freedom.

Plus, with the extra hours at second part-time job, I’m closer to paying off my debts.

My sister is feeling quite down, so will take her out for dinner, just the two of us.

Evening Reflection

I’m concerned that my sister may have already started giving up before the fight; which is not a good omen, as a big part of surviving cancer hinges on the will to live.

I understand that her fibromyalgia, chronic depression and anhedonia leave her little resources to want to put up yet another health battle.

The truth is, my sister’s body is not just ill. It’s exhausted, biologically and emotionally; the cancer didn’t arrive in a vacuum.

But again: this is not mine to fix.

Whereas before my people-pleasing, caretaker mode would make me slump into dark blues over not being able to “heal” or “fix” the significant people in my life, meso-dosing with ibogaine has made me see much more clearly what belongs to me, and what does not.

I can have compassion for the world and its mother, sure. But I don’t need to drive myself into the ground over lives I cannot fix.

7:30am – 30 drops Ibotincture

• I will give myself permission to read, rest and connect sober.
• How will I notice procrastination without shaming myself?
• What victory list will I name before I sleep?

The quiet splendour of passing days as I continue to notice small but significant changes within.

Today I worked morning shift at the kiosk lightly, without frustration.

Then, on the way home, decided to gift myself a book: Ocean Vuong’s new novel “The Emperor of Gladness.”

I came home and was meant to start work on a laborious task for the Ibogenics website, but felt the need to procrastinate. I checked in with myself through some breathwork, and felt more able to start

I still wonder what makes me procrastinate certain tasks? Low boredom threshold when it comes to repetitive tasks? Or something else?

Is it my ADHD? I know I have it but have never done deep research on how its exact symptoms impact me specifically. Must remember to study this.

Evening Reflection

Today’s Wins

• Deciding to step out of isolation and going to dinner with L____. He drank alcohol, but I didn’t and it wasn’t triggering for me.
• Regaining the deep pleasure in reading beautifully written prose.
• Honouring my body and mind with meditation, breathwork, a nap, good art, soulful company and good food.