Seeking Guidance: Struggling to Find Stability After Ayahuasca

[Silo341]

Hey everyone,

I know a lot of you have been to South America and experienced Ayahuasca, so I’m hoping for some insight. I’ll try to keep this brief, but basically, I’ve been struggling with addiction since I was 16. I am 30 now.

Before I went to Peru, I managed to quit ADHD stimulants that I’d been abusing—after a mental breakdown from work stress and failing exams. I quit my job, spent a week camping in the bush, had a powerful experience with another psychedelic, started attending NA meetings to get things back on track, and found a new job. I made it 197 days sober, but recently had a pretty intense relapse and my addiction appears to much more aggressive than its ever been.


A few months after returning from the retreat I ended up losing my job again due to performance issues, ended up moving to a different area, & launched my own business. I’ve put a lot of money & time into getting it set up, but I'm struggling to find clients and I’m running out of cash.


I can’t figure out why things are spiraling so badly in the opposite direction. During my six Ayahuasca ceremonies, I went through a fair bit. The purge was quite aggressive as you can image. The facilitators mentioned that spirits from my dieta—like bobinsana and ajo sacha—would stay with me and could be called upon for support. I felt like something heavy was lifted at the time—whether you’d call it negative energy, parasites, karmic influences, or even curses.

Fast forward to the present & I feel like the negative energy has returned & has me by the balls.

I keep thinking about all the people who have been profoundly helped by Ayahuasca, but I’m not seeing that in my life right now.

Instead, it feels like I'm spiraling down quickly.

 

[modern]

May not be what you want to hear but its not any plants fault. Shit happens in life with or without your intervention and addiction even when treated or managed will always be something you will deal with your entire life.

Maybe you're in the wrong field since you can't keep up or preform at the level required. Starting your own business takes a lot of work and risk and sometimes just fails due to lack of experience with managing a business and all the things that come with it. Even if you know the field and already had a previous business sometimes you just timed it wrong or its saturated market.

Plants can help a lot if you are able to integrate what your 'subconscious' might have presented you during your experience. But they are not magic pills that fix everything even if you were to do it for a longer period. Also if you didn't change anything in your life like cutting out bad friends/connections or

Things I would suggest having been thru major change in my life is cut and reduce as much expenses as possible. Cut all tv subscriptions, cheaper phone plans, cheaper/slower internet, don't upgrade anything unless a necessity . Cut out all excuses you may have that you are busy or don't have time for your business. Then focus nearly constantly on only that and work on multiple solutions to fix it... give yourself small breaks to eat and workout/walk in nature but honestly don't spend time gaming/browsing online or anything else. Focus exclusively on making your business work and make the sacrifices you need for it to happen.

As for your addictions PERSONALLY I've seen the only way to 'fix' that is to replace it with something else. Make it your work or get a hobby. Don't try to suppress your addiction but replace it with a healthy habit. I still struggle and sometimes go overboard but as long as you catch yourself before getting too bad its fine.

If things get bad seek help and talk to someone you trust. Ayahuasca or other plants will not magically do anything.

 

[Varallo]

It sounds like you’ve been through a lot and have been working hard to understand yourself and find a new way in life.

Sometimes, Ayahuasca brings deep issues to the surface, but those issues often need ongoing attention. It’s common to feel like a weight has been lifted in the ceremony, only to find that unresolved layers come back up later. Ayahuasca isn’t a “one-time fix” it often opens doors to things that need regular support, reflection, and processing. That is something that is still very much hard work. In my experience Aya can’t really do that for you, and people who are preaching that it can, might not have been back from the experience long enough.(or have alternate motives)

In short healing is a long journey, and even if things feel dark now, trust me, just by what you have told here I’m sure you doing it. Finally if you have the chance, talk to people around you about your struggles, and see if that helps.

I wish you all the best.

 

[Silo341]

Things I would suggest having been thru major change in my life is cut and reduce as much expenses as possible.

I appreciate you bringing up the idea of cutting things out—I've started doing this recently especially since moving & realizing how materialistic & wasteful I can be, so it’s good to have this reinforced. A friend of mine always used to say “Simplify, man!” from the Simpsons and I hear his voice whenever I do or obtain things that create unnecessary complications. Reminds me of the idea effortless action from Tao Te Ching.

As for your addictions PERSONALLY I've seen the only way to 'fix' that is to replace it with something else.

I've wondered whether it’s possible to completely lose the desire to engage in addiction, or if that pull will always linger somewhere in the background.

If things get bad seek help and talk to someone you trust. Ayahuasca or other plants will not magically do anything.

Will do.

I suppose I’m still trying to figure out what impact these ceremonies have had on me so far. It reminds me of when I first tried LSD in my late teens—I thought I’d had a transformative experience, but my old destructive habits came back quickly. Over time, each psychedelic experience seemed to confirm that temporary insight alone wasn’t enough to make lasting changes.

Ayahuasca, though, felt different, almost like an exorcism compared to other psychedelics, and definitely more somatic. During one ceremony, I purged something that felt like a creature leaving my body. I felt an intense, searing pain in my throat, like a snake covered in tiny daggers wriggling its way out. In another, I spent five continuous hours just trying to maintain equanimity as waves of physical pain moved through me. After those hours, the pain concentrated at my third eye, and I sat with it, waiting for it to dissolve like the previous waves. Instead, it persisted and turned into a headache. The next day, I came down with a fever and could barely move because of joint and muscle pain, though I recovered quickly.

I’m still not sure what the purging did, or what effect the limpieza or icaros had. I don’t fully understand why the shaman sucked air from my head or blew air onto my wrists, or why ayahuasca flooded me with overwhelming, incomprehensible information that left me sick with nausea. The insights were so fleeting that I couldn’t even recall them later to try to integrate them.

It was tough going through all that, am I being naïve to expect it could equate to a lasting effect that would contribute to some kind of spiritual development.

Thanks for your thoughtful response modern I really do appreciate it.

 

[Silo341]

Ayahuasca brings deep issues to the surface, but those issues often need ongoing attention.

Ayahuasca isn’t a “one-time fix” it often opens doors to things that need regular support, reflection, and processing.

That makes sense. So perhaps a more useful way to think is ayahuasca operates as the catalyst for awareness that nudges toward reflection & healing, specifically by shining a light on unresolved emotions/areas that need attention

maybe instead of asking “Why am I even more addicted than I’ve ever been?” I should ask “What is still causing me to do this?” - why its returned after 197 days clean time in the first place - the triggers, what I was thinking, how I felt & why, emotional patterns feeding the addiction.


I realized that those 197 days clean served their purpose until I encountered a roadblock - a build up of cascading change. In that sense, the relapse is a signal that I need to reach a new level of growth in my thinking and actions, one that allows me to flow with change, rather than struggle against it.

Thank you Varallo for illuminating this

 

[rkba]

've wondered whether it’s possible to completely lose the desire to engage in addiction, or if that pull will always linger somewhere in the background.

The one addiction I have managed to break completely with is smoking cigarettes for ~12+ years. But the break wasn't all that smooth.

After those 12yrs, I was clean for ~5+ years and within those years the desire lingered in the background, would come up and nag, trying to infiltrate its way back into my life. Sometimes those triggers were predictable, other times they were ambushes trying to catch me off-guard. I laughed them off.

But then, after 5 years clean, "a build up of cascading change" came into play in my life and boom I was smoking again. This trigger was valid enough, apparently.

That lasted about one year and then I made a conscious decision to quit. And after that no more desires, no more ambushes, no more lingering in the background. It is eradicated. That was ~23 years ago.

However, we are all different and we all react differently to the reflections that we experience.

I'm just sharing this story to tell you that, for me, it is actually possible to get rid off the lingering in the background feeling.

Now, I have plenty of vices left that could also benefit from this treatment, but it seems the willpower is not there, yet.

I'm working on them, just need to find the right angles of perception.

Also, -in my opinion- in life you have to practice before you can perfect something. Nothing comes 'naturally', it's all 'work'. In fact it almost seems that this practice and work could be the sole reason we are conscious to begin with.

But that's a story for another thread.

So, as always, Flux with joy and enjoy the Flux!

 

[doubledog]

It is common and normal that your situation in life and your mental state get worse after entheogenic experience.

Spiritual path is not only about rainbow and butterflies, it's also about your personal darkness and insecurities. You need to face it somehow, and of course it's very unpleasant.

 

[EmeraldAtomiser]

Hey there.
Sorry to hear of your struggles. I feel your pain and have been in similar circumstances with similar feelings.
I have taken ayahuasca with the intention of helping me with a chronic marijuana addiction that was part of my life for many years, the majority of which I was unaware of its presence.
It certainly helped me for periods following the ceremonies, but after a while I would find myself dipping a toe back in, ultimately ending up back where I started, only with more regret. Ultimately my failing seemed to be the lack of integration work I did in the afterglow periods, following the ceremonies. As others have said, replacing old, unwanted patterns and behaviours with positive ones is of ultimate importance, to stop the slide back towards the past, and the time for this is while the afterglow is still in full effect.
I have recently tried some brain working recursive therapy (BWRT), and have found it to be really excellent for this. Could be worth looking into.
This is the practitioner I have been seeing www.bwrt.me
All the best, and I hope you can find a way of putting this pattern firmly in the rear view mirror.

 

[Varallo]

I have recently tried some brain working recursive therapy (BWRT), and have found it to be really excellent for this. Could be worth looking into.
This is the practitioner I have been seeing www.bwrt.me

I know this is well ment so please don’t take it personal. BWRT has all the hallmarks of quackery and is not based in science. To the OP if you decide therapy is something that you want to try my advice is to only make use of trained and registered professionals, depending upon your place of residence you usually can find if someone is actually a trained an licensed therapist in a public register.

Making use of unlicensed services and or unscientific methods is very risky and usually leads at best to financial loss.

 

[Silo341]

brain working recursive therapy (BWRT), and have found it to be really excellent

Thank you for the recommendation, Emerald. I hadn’t heard of BWRT before, but after a quick look into it, I’m definitely interested. I find breaking out of my own cycles challenging, even when I’m aware of them - strong emotions tend to override reason. The idea of having someone guide your thinking while simulating those cycles makes a lot of sense. I’ll reach out to them and give it a try.

It’s funny how cyclical our lives as humans are. We try to skip past the suffering, only to end up using just as much energy countering the consequences. It reminds me of how badly I failed math's throughout school only to have to go back and actually learn it as an adult as a job requirement.

 

[EmeraldAtomiser]

I know this is well ment so please don’t take it personal. BWRT has all the hallmarks of quackery and is not based in science. To the OP if you decide therapy is something that you want to try my advice is to only make use of trained and registered professionals, depending upon your place of residence you usually can find if someone is actually a trained an licensed therapist in a public register.

Making use of unlicensed services and or unscientific methods is very risky and usually leads at best to financial loss.

What a dreadfully judgemental, negative post. I'm offering a suggestion that, in my experience, is effective and worth exploring.
There are all sorts of therapies and systems that many believe are bogus or 'unscientific', but that others find to be incredibly effective where all else has failed. Seems very odd for someone on a site such as this to be dismissing something based on what seems to be a personal belief.
I think a recent global event should have us questioning 'the science', rather than dismissing something out of hand because it does not fit into the accepted scientific framework.

 

[Varallo]

What a dreadfully judgemental, negative post. In my experience it is effective and worth exploring, regardless of your personal feeling about it.

I’m sorry that you feel this way, hopefully we can see this as a difference of opinion rather than the dreadful and negative frame.

For the sake of this discussion I will not dive in to deep but there is sufficient information that leads me to conclude that this is in fact an unproven method which has very little theoretical basis and that is driven by marketing strategies. On top of that mister Terence Watts, promoted his methods as scientific while there’s no evidence to support his claims and when pressed on his claims that where ruled by ASA as misleading he said that;
“Put simply, BWRT Practitioners are required to contact the client’s medical consultant or GP concerning anything other than simple fears or phobias.”

I don’t think this would be sufficient in this situation since it is not a case of simple phobias. So I think it’s best for the OP to, when considering therapy, find a proper therapist. If you would like to discuss this topic further feel free to reach out, and we can then discuss it privately or in a new thread.

 

[🌺🔥🫧]

The plant medicines make you more sensitive, and not necessarily 'healed', although sensitivity can help you find a healthier (more healed) way of life.

You could become even more averse to suffering and bad habits following a trip as a result, and come to seek relief even more strongly. You have had a major shift in your subconscious and you are still re-orienting yourself and your Way of Life to harmonize with this.

From my personal experience, psychedelics have always reverberated within me long afterwards and inspired change. I oftentimes have had powerful emotions rise up AFTER trips, and it is precisely here where you can choose to continue living the way you were, or witness&mature your relationship with reality as it is presented to you.

The art of sobriety is a deep path full of things we have never seen before. We are all addicted to LIVING ultimately, as I see it. How subtly have you learned to appreciate?

Constantly building new good habits you like into your life can not only provide more energetic space to let feelings rise up and evolve, but also, it can catch you after your next trip, and whatever strong experiences life may throw at you. If you, for instance, have an unhealthy relationship with amphetamines, you might consider not necessarily 'fighting' this front right now, but letting that be and finding ways to make other little positive changes which are easily integrated (and likeable) into your life. These little changes will add up over time and provide you more clarity with which to face stronger challenges such as amphetamine addiction.

However, reading your initial post, and some of the following, I must say that, behind your question is something much deeper than (I believe) can be addressed with mere words. If you are seeking a true answers, or a responses, it is my belief that the voice of this very life of yours is speaking to you, and waiting for you to listen. Such a voice knows your past and who you are. A dialogue with the totality of your being will honor you fully.

These are only my thoughts, and as such, your question has provided a mirror for all of us to see our reflection. Thank you for that, and should you accept our answers into your heart,


Best wishes!
we are all in these questions together
much love

 

[EmeraldAtomiser]

I’m sorry that you feel this way, hopefully we can see this as a difference of opinion rather than the dreadful and negative frame.

For the sake of this discussion I will not dive in to deep but there is sufficient information that leads me to conclude that this is in fact an unproven method which has very little theoretical basis and that is driven by marketing strategies. On top of that mister Terence Watts, promoted his methods as scientific while there’s no evidence to support his claims and when pressed on his claims that where ruled by ASA as misleading he said that;
“Put simply, BWRT Practitioners are required to contact the client’s medical consultant or GP concerning anything other than simple fears or phobias.”

I am afraid I have as little trust in associations like the ASA or 'medical practitioners' as you would seem to have in 'unproven' therapies. Your choice of language, describing the technique as quackery, is pejorative and dismissive, and seems to be based solely on the thoughts of the established medical industry.
I am not surprised that the 'accepted' medical profession has no time for therapies such as this, as they like us to believe they are the holders of all knowledge and understanding, with healing only being possible through their 'scientifically proven' techniques.
It would seem to me, that even if someone does not ultimately have any success with this technique, that all you are going to lose is a little bit of cash. It's not like you're taking an unproven, untested drug, which could have all kinds of side effects, it is simply cognitively attempting to pull yourself out of unwanted patterns and replace them with positive ones. I am in no way surprised that it is being portrayed as 'unscientific' and ineffective by the profession that acts as a both a marketing and sales wing of the pharmaceutical industry.
My personal experience of it was positive, so you will have to excuse me for not worrying about opinions of MDs and the like. As Groucho Marx said, who are you going to believe, me, or your own eyes?

 

[Panpsychic]

I am afraid I have as little trust in associations like the ASA or 'medical practitioners' as you would seem to have in 'unproven' therapies. Your choice of language, describing the technique as quackery, is pejorative and dismissive, and seems to be based solely on the thoughts of the established medical industry.
I am not surprised that the 'accepted' medical profession has no time for therapies such as this, as they like us to believe they are the holders of all knowledge and understanding, with healing only being possible through their 'scientifically proven' techniques.
It would seem to me, that even if someone does not ultimately have any success with this technique, that all you are going to lose is a little bit of cash. It's not like you're taking an unproven, untested drug, which could have all kinds of side effects, it is simply cognitively attempting to pull yourself out of unwanted patterns and replace them with positive ones. I am in no way surprised that it is being portrayed as 'unscientific' and ineffective by the profession that acts as a both a marketing and sales wing of the pharmaceutical industry.
My personal experience of it was positive, so you will have to excuse me for not worrying about opinions of MDs and the like. As Groucho Marx said, who are you going to believe, me, or your own eyes?

Yes, trying to invoke the authority of 'science' especially with regards to the mind and consciousness is frequently a fruitless errand. Science is a broad and ever evolving domain and what is believed to be true and scientific today may be seen as a limiting belief and redundant in decades to come if the history of science teaches us anything.

That said, there clearly are therapies that have been researched and studied and have shown efficacy that would be generally recommended. Someone giving a personal recommendation from a less known unconventional therapy approach that they found helpful can be taken as just that and nothing more.

As you mention, it is at worst going to be ineffective but is a short term treatment, and will still likely have at least a bit of process crossover with effective psychological treatments. There are still plenty of treatments which have, often with selectively skewed 'scientific' backing, far more detrimental effects such as that of endlessly propogated big pharma drugs dished out by wine, dined and bought medical professionals, or things like Electro Convulsive 'Therapy'.

In a domain such as this of psychedelics, we need to be even far more cautious and reserved in making 'scientific' pronouncements when the area of study, the mind and the mind in expanded states is ultimately still so little understood. So while I would generally recommend for example a Stanislav Grof trained therapist if you can find one for having perhaps the deepest developed psychedelic therapeutic framework that has been developed thus far, novel approaches can sometimes be helpful and may be worth a try.

 

[EmeraldAtomiser]

Yes, trying to invoke the authority of 'science'

Personally, things need to happen at the speed of science for me to really take notice.