5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Working With Psychedelics

#1 They are no magic pills

Without psychedelics, I probably wouldn’t be here today.

It’s a sad fact, but it’s the truth.

I was miserable and hopeless beyond measure before I found my way to psychedelic medicine. Trapped in addiction, depression, and isolation.

Psychedelic healing completely turned my life around.

Over the last three years, I’ve journeyed with different medicines ranging from mushrooms (psilocybin) to LSD, ayahuasca, and San Pedro (mescaline). I’ve done so in various settings and with many different practitioners.

I didn’t know anyone in my immediate environment who had any experience with psychedelic healing. Sure, I had friends who’d use mushrooms to trip. But not for healing. Whenever I googled, I was disappointed by the lack of information available.

I’ve learned a lot in the last few years.

Here’s what I’d wish I’d known before starting my psychedelic journey.

Psychedelics Are No Magic Pills

For the longest time, I had a tendency to glorify new treatments.

Every time, I’d think, “this will be the thing that gets me out of it”.

Whether “this” was a new therapist, treatment modality, book, or habit.

It never worked.

Naturally, the same thing happened with psychedelics. Once I learned about their healing potential, I was convinced they’d help me end my suffering.

Not manage it, end it.

And they would eventually, but not in the ways I anticipated.

I thought I’d just drink Ayahuasca once and the root cause of all my suffering would be cured. When I relapsed a few weeks after my first retreat, I was devastated. “That didn’t work either, I’ll never change”, I figured.

Turns out that a) I had to drink Ayahuasca 12 times not once. And b) surprisingly, psychedelics won’t do the work for you.

You’ll still have to do that yourself.

But once you do, everything shifts.

This is what we call psychedelic integration.

Psychedelic Integration Is Hard Work That’s Not a Matter of Weeks or Months, But Years

I’d done my research. I’d spent a whole year educating myself on psychedelics. Every respected voice in the space echoed the importance of integration, so I was very familiar with it.

Here’s what I thought integration would look like: journaling about your experience, perhaps talking to someone about it, cultivating healthy habits such as meditation.

Here’s what I now know integration actually looks like processing what wasn’t fully processed during your journeys, a lot of discomfort, confusion, trial, and error. In addition to journaling, meditating, and talking.

Psychedelic journeys provide you with an abundance of insights, often an overwhelming amount.

But it’s up to you to act on them. How much your life changes depends on which insights you choose to act upon, and how firmly.

My integration involved cutting out alcohol (which I had no intention to do, I loved drinking), moving away from my favorite city in the world (New York), leaving a job that was intellectually stimulating and well-paid, and seeking out many different modalities to process lots of raw, vulnerable emotions.

Some of my processes stretched across multiple journeys, over the course of many months or even years.

People that are persistently worse off after a psychedelic journey haven’t done the work to integrate it. They opened a process but didn’t close it.

Make sure you’re in it for the long run. Take integration seriously.

Psychedelics Invite Spiritual Bypassing

If you don’t integrate your experience, you’ll not only be worse off but also run the risk of spiritually bypassing.

Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist John Weldwood defined “spiritual bypassing” as follows:

“Spiritual bypassing is the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.”

After my first psychedelic experiences, I felt enlightened.

I’d gotten a glimpse of reality. I finally understood the universe, consciousness, and myself. I believed these insights would heal me.

They wouldn’t.

While I healed my traumas over the course of several journeys, I was still faced with the result of my trauma: my lack of emotional coping skills.

I expected my addiction to fade because I’d addressed its root cause.

But I hadn’t yet done the work to make it redundant. I hadn’t yet re-learned to regulate my emotions healthily.

Once I faced this inconvenient truth, I finally cracked recovery.

It’s easy to have a couple of psychedelic experiences, see god and the nature of the universe, and feel woke. But if you don’t do the work, the integration, it all means nothing.

You’re just sleepwalking.

It’s just another convenient escape from your reality.

Psychedelics Are a Miraculous Gift to Humanity

Psychedelics change the lives of millions of people.

They heal trauma victims suffering from decades of PTSD, they help smokers finally quit, they relieve opioid addicts from withdrawal, and create the circumstances for spontaneous recovery. They heal depression and anxiety. They reconnect people with nature, themselves, and each other.

The list goes on.

Yes, they are no magic pills, but they are miraculous.

There are few mental ailments psychedelic medicines won’t improve.

I wish I’d known this earlier.

I would’ve sought out psychedelic medicine years earlier. It would have saved me so much pain and suffering.

If you’re struggling, please look into it. They might be able to help you, they might be able to spare you years of pain and suffering.

Psychedelics Can Make You Feel More Connected and Alone at the Same Time

I felt different all my life. Like something was wrong with me.

And then I had this double life, this secret addiction, which was so isolating.

Psychedelics helped me reconnect on all dimensions. They’ve helped me understand and share my story vulnerably. They’ve connected me to my body, my emotions, my essential self. They allowed me to show my full self to others, and as a result, created deep authentic connections.

But they’ve also made me feel alone.

You have this incredibly transformative journey. You want to talk about it to people close to you. You want them to know you and your story.

But psychedelics are still stigmatized as much as mental health is still stigmatized. Sometimes I bring it up, sometimes I don’t. When I do, friends and family are curious but they couldn’t possibly understand.

It creates distance.

The good news is that through my psychedelic journeys I’ve found incredible people on similar paths. I’ve also had a handful of friends seek out experiences since, which is so special. But it’s a minority.

Until psychedelics are more accepted and mainstream, I’ll continue feeling different.

At least it’s for better reasons now.

Closing Thoughts

My intention was to accurately portrait both the beautiful and the difficult aspects of psychedelic healing.

Just to be clear, the positives far outweigh the negatives.

By every measure.

I’d rather do the hard work of integration than never change.

I’d rather drink Ayahuasca hundreds of times than not at all.

And I’d rather feel different because I feel weird and misunderstood than broken.

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