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Psychedelics
An Interview With Someone Who Tried a Hallucinogen
Explore one woman's nitty-gritty experience of trying ayahuasca for healing.
Posted May 3, 2024 Reviewed by Ray Parker
Key points
- Legislation to legalize hallucinogens is progressing in the U.S.
- While waiting, some people are willing to travel outside the U.S. to try them.
- Some people are finding the relief they seek from the experience.
When Sophia Pepin answered my query seeking a person who had sought treatment with a hallucinogen (such as psilocybin or ayahuasca), she had recently been through a heart-rending romantic breakup. At the time, she had been studying biochemistry in preparation for entering the cannabis industry, but she was “angry and depressed and felt just generally broken,” she said. After giving it some thought, she decided to take some time off and explore healing with hallucinogens, which have been gaining acceptance among experts as a way to treat trauma, among other uses.
Pepin has a brother in his 30s who has both alcohol use disorder and substance use disorder, and she was hoping that he would go with her. “Multiple treatment centers have failed him, and my own attempts at helping him have also failed him,” she said. He declined, even though she had even offered to pay his way.
Pepin’s journey took her to retreats in Costa Rica and Peru, and she has a lot to offer about her experiences. I won’t name any centers because I don't want to promote them, but Sophia did provide me with their names, locations, and dates she was there.
Note: Most hallucinogens are illegal in the majority of the U.S. A few U.S. cities have decriminalized some of them or have proposed doing so, according to the Reason Foundation. Here’s some information from her trips to facilities that others may find helpful, including those curious about hallucinogens for treating addiction or past trauma, such as a sibling of a person with alcohol or substance use disorder may experience.
Choosing a Retreat/Facility
At one retreat in a foreign country not mentioned here, Pepin had a less-than-optimal experience. Her main complaint was that the director was not a credentialed shaman as he held himself out to be. As a result, she strongly advises anyone considering this type of retreat to investigate staff members’ credentials fully, specifically those of the director and the facilitators. As with addiction treatment centers, some retreats are better than others.
Preparing for the Experience
Pepin started preparing months in advance, following the instructions she received from each retreat. One requirement was to follow a strict diet with no animal products or byproducts, preservatives, or refined sugars. She was also directed to drink lots of water. She ate a mostly vegan diet but eliminated night-shade vegetables such as tomatoes, eggplant, and white potatoes.
Pepin also journaled her intentions for what she wanted to work on at the retreats. In addition, she stayed off social media and gave up TV “to be in the right frame of mind for the upcoming experience.”
The Particulars
Pepin’s first ayahuasca retreat was in Peru in 2021. In 2022, she volunteered (mostly in the kitchen) at an ayahuasca retreat center in Costa Rica, which gave her a discount, and attended eight ceremonies or sessions. There were from 10 to 30 other people in her ceremonies as well.
Pepin summarized her experience as follows:
“The ceremony space in Peru was intimate, with a maximum of four people in attendance for those ceremonies. Costa Rica included from 10 to 30 people in a communal space, and even though the gathering was larger, I was volunteering with many of the people and knew them in that sense, so I wasn’t with all strangers, and the volunteering really brought us closer together.”
“The medicine is about 30% of the work,” she said. “It helps you break those barriers down; it gets you where you need to be so you’re able to access places you’ve buried because of trauma.” She added that a person’s reaction. and how long a ceremony lasts depends on how much of the drink they consume. Her ceremonies lasted around four hours each, and a facilitator was present at each one. During the ayahuasca purge, Pepin said she had a positive reaction, feeling that she was ridding her body of past trauma and negative emotions, even while having somewhat uncomfortable physical reactions, like vomiting. (She revealed other physical details of her purge, but that’s all I’m comfortable revealing.) However, she also said that “it was as if all her demons were battling, and it felt like they were crawling out of her throat.” There is no one standard reaction, she explained. The day after the ceremony, the group met and discussed their experiences. “It’s very uniting, very emotional,” she said.
Her Review
In describing her experience of these retreats, Pepin uses words and phrases such as “transformative, life-changing, and nothing short of miraculous.” She underwent several purges because she wanted to work on different things and found a “reset of sorts” after each one. She said,
“My mother was a drug addict, and I learned how to work through childhood trauma and figure things out. My brother also came up during the experience. He had a tough childhood like I did, but I was 11 years older than he was, and I feel like I left him behind. He lived with me for years, and I had some rules he had to live by, and I really put my foot down. During one ceremony, I apologized for being so hard on him.”
Caveats
If you ever consider trying a session with psychedelics or hallucinogens, remember that this is one person’s experience, and yours may be totally different. Also, don’t try these treatments on your own without a trained facilitator.
