Do you know the mushroom man?

Read Sober Psychonaut disclaimer for people in sobriety exploring psychedelic medicine

Erik Fenderson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Last weekend in New York tripping my way to Phoenix, I bought mushrooms of the magic variety from a menu via text and sidewalk delivery out of what looked like a pizza delivery bag. God, the guy was so sweet and courteous, describing my options, the different strains as it were, like weed, depending on the type of experience I wanted to have.

“And oh by the way, this is my new runner Sam, he’s gonna take good care of you. I just wanted you to get to know him.”

“Hey,” I said, looking furtively up and down the street, still grappling with whether it was okay to order psychedelic products off a menu and have them delivered to your doorstep within 30 minutes.

Mushroom magic becoming real

Psilocybin, the active ingredient in mushrooms that causes the “trip” is gaining popularity on the fringes within certain mental health circles and has been legalized in states like Massachusetts, California, Oregon and Washington State, and remarkably, Washington, DC, with the Entheogenic Plant and Fungus Policy Act. (Here's the lowdown on mushroom legality state-by-state.) And although I was breaking the law, clearly no law enforcement in New York City had an interest in my purchase of psilocybin strains of Amazonian or Penis Envy on a Sunday night in midtown Manhattan outside my friend’s house.

This whole legalization and coming to terms with psychedelic medicine as legitimate, nonaddictive, beneficial for all sorts of neuroses and maladies and ultimately, profoundly spiritually enlightening, is something I’ve known all along. It’s just that getting sober, putting down alcohol, usually goes along with putting down drugs.

You can’t exactly walk into an AA room and say, “Hey, I’ve been sober 30+ years but I’m working through some shit with magic mushrooms.”

Yet—that’s exactly what’s happening. It works for addiction issues and beyond. It’s what’s possible and now it’s looking to be what’s probable.

You can’t exactly walk into an AA room and say, “Hey, I’ve been sober 30+ years but I’m working through some shit with magic mushrooms."

Psilocybin therapy session at Johns Hopkins - Matthew W. Johnson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Psychedelics aren't addictive: Here's why

It comes back to the experience produced by the drug vs. the drug itself.

​Psychedelic drugs are unlike cocaine, for example, which produces desirable effects like euphoria, energy, clarity, excitement, but also disrupts seratonin, a nerve transmitter that affects mood, among other things, thus producing an experience the brain wants to replicate because it’s so good. Therefore, it’s addictive. The brain, the body wants more. And you can use it to some extent while still functioning normally in your life.

​With psilocybin, or LSD (acid) or MDMA (ecstasy) for that matter, a journey or experience begins and ends within a certain time period. It is not sustainable, nor have they found in lab experiments do animals go back for more psilocybin. There is no addictive quality to the drug itself. Essentially, you could have one such psychedelic experience and have a profound transformative experience and never desire to have another.

Malenacd, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On the other hand, you could have that experience and find it so seductive you desire to delve further into the realms of human consciousness and spirituality to see where it takes you. Plus, it’s just fun, and well—magical.

I’m particularly intrigued by this idea that psychedelics—and let’s just throw ketamine in there, too—give us access to an alternate universe, a world, a reality, a being-ness that exists in parallel with us at all times but we have filtered it out, diluted it to the point where we only see what we need to see to get through life. But there’s this brilliant-ness that is there all around us—maybe akin to the magic and wonder a child experiences or like a baby seeing things for the first time.

What an amazing opportunity to experience joy, wonder, fascination and profound love for self, others, the world—through psychedelic experience.

I am increasingly drawn to all aspects of it. I don’t know where it’s taking me but I’m ready for the ride. I know there’s something very right about it.

My ketamine therapy:
​Is my husband ready to hear about it?

THE KETAMINE DIARIESSo back to ketamine. My guide answered a burning question which was, once I’ve had my psych eval, which has to be with a Pennsylvania practitioner and I have to be in the state while we have our virtual session, do I still have to be in Pennsylvania for the actual ketamine sessions?

The answer is no. I can be anywhere for those.

So it looks like I’ll be making a few trips to New York after my first ketamine session, which I’ve planned to have in Pennsylvania.

Next up, I haven’t shared this yet with my husband. Not that I’m avoiding the conversation but mainly we’ve been ships passing in the night with ridiculous travel schedules and little time to connect and regroup as a couple.

I have some trepidation though, as he is not a person who gets depressed or understands the extent to which it has impacted my experience of life these last few years. He knows from what I have shared with him but because it is not part of his make-up, he doesn’t know-know it. He’s also not following psychedelic medicine as “medicine” but I believe still sees it as purely recreational drugs.

Admittedly, my younger self would have categorized as recreational indeed (recreational = having fun) while also having some pretty profound experiences that shaped who I am and how I go about life.
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Some time between now and my clinical evaluation, I will have to sit down and tell him my whole story. Maybe I’ll just give him The Ketamine Diaries to read. Less work for me and maybe he’ll understand it better.

Did I mention that I stopped liking myself a few years back? I mean, how does that happen? How does one go from being completely mature and at ease and comfortable in one’s skin—settled and content with life, self, the world—to being in a constant flux of self-doubt, dis-ease, concern, melancholy, apprehension, dread of future, apathy, just muddling through…

WHAT HAPPENED?

And why can’t I get it back together?

It seems to me the promise of psychedelic medicine and all its evidence-based results that address these exact maladies…is possibly the answer.
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I have a glimmer of hope that it is—and I’m scared out of my mind that it’s not.

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I want to be in love with life (again)."

Bufo⏤like kissing a toad, sorta

My friend Angela did the toad thing. It’s called Bufo.

“Bufo! What’s that?!”

Toad venom, she explained. Potent, shamanistic shit that takes you on the journey of a lifetime.

“How so?”

“After I puked, my mother, who’s deceased, came to me and apologized for everything. We never had a good relationship. She said sorry for everything. It was so powerful. Life-changing for me.”

“Wow.”

Rolf Dietrich Brecher from Germany, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

​Another friend I told about the toad, she pulled it up on her Facebook.

“I think I heard about the toad. My friend who used to be an addict, she’s posting all about these toad rituals.”

“I wonder what it’s like,” I mused. “I mean, do you lick the toad, or is it a pill from toad venom or an injection, what?”

When I talked to Angela again, she assured me no toads were harmed in the process. You have to work with someone you trust who doesn’t harm the animals.

“They extract the venom from the toad’s cheek glands, the toad is not hurt or killed, and you smoke the dried venom crystals. Everything's carefully administered and monitored by facilitators.”

Will psychedelic medicine help me to take the world less seriously, I wonder?

These last few years, they’ve been a bitch.

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