🎈 You Should Quit Alcohol & Try Psychedelic Therapy
2014. When I became a medic at international music festivals, the carnage I witnessed led me to quit all substances. I demonized them.
It took me 8 years to come around to the possibility that some substances have the potential to improve mental health and prosocial behaviors. With the help of researchers, Tim Ferris, and my best friend who spearheads the Flying Sage.
In this article, I share my subjective experiences with psilocybin, my take on the link between well-being and substances, and my critique of the normalization of alcohol. My conclusion here is this. Replacing alcohol with the intentional use psychedelics is a good move for your mental health and future self.
If you are an event host or community facilitator, consider this article a call-to-action to rethink the default way of bringing people together — through alcohol. Maybe it's time to try something new.
My Journey With Substances
I've never been drunk in my life... I've never blacked out. I believe it's because I learnt too much about alcohol too soon. I skipped a grade and took a university nutrition course when I was 16. It led me to understand the full physiology of alcohol... and fetal alcohol syndrome.
When I became a festival medic, I had some horrific encounters with drunk people. Suffice it to say, one 15-year-old kid, who had arrived at my medical tent, went in and out of consciousness (and rage) every 5 seconds. He had been punched in the head in the crowd.
Not only drunk people. On another occasion, a 7ft man high-out-of-his-mind put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me through double doors as I tried to calm him down. I had to run for safety.
Experiences like these led me to develop a negative view of all substances. Until 2021.
My friend, a professional psychedelic guide and medicine advocate, offered a structured experience for my men's group. It changed my perspective on psychedelics forever. But not alcohol.
To understand why my views on psychedelics have changed, I want to share the two cases where psilocybin improved my well-being; I've only used psilocybin three times. After having these experiences, I became frustrated by the ubiquity of alcohol contrasted with the stigma of psychedelics. It really should be the other way around. You'll see my point.
Psilocybin has made me a kinder, gentler, patient leader.
After reviewing anecdotal data, we'll compare psilocybin to alcohol, and why I recommend quitting, and starting tripping.
Trip 1: January 2021
Main lesson: How to forgive and love people even when they mistreat you.
Summary quote from my journal: “Even if they turn on me, even if they call me an asshole, even if they tell me 'so what' about my work, I will still zap them with light and love, I will still love them.”
Consider the following like the description of an empowering dream.
Blindfolds on, laying down on my back, journal beside me.
An hour into my journey, I saw myself surrounded by my loved ones. My co-founders. My best friends. My parents. I was in the middle of a circular lecture hall. Like a coliseum almost. Everyone was yelling at me. Pointing at me. Hating on me. Discouraging me. Their faces were grimacing. And back in the physical world, I was crying intensely.
What happened next remains fixed in my memory forever.
I transmuted everyone's hatred. I visualized a beam of light shining from my chest to everyone in the lecture hall. It shined into everyone. And it transformed everyone in the room from a state of hatred, to the opposite. They started encouraging me and praising me.
So what? Well, this memory reminds me to love people when it's hard. When people are mistreating me, I remind myself that I have light within me. When I shine it on others, even if they hate me, they will start to feel the light too. They will come around.
This experience has reminded me that I can unconditionally love others, especially when they do not like me. I now view myself as a literal laser beam of warmth that can transform hatred into softness.
Affirmations: I use love to transmute the hatred and pain in others. Hatred is my cue to practice warmth.