My Why
The pandemic hit and while I got to work at home I also could drink whenever I wanted. A first for me since college. After a 20 year drinking career it was culminated in an eruption of irresponsible drinking and a destructive path in my wake. I woke up after a particularly bad bender and was in complete desperation, addicted to alcohol, floating through the days with my fingers tightly clasped to the last remaining things in my life I love and care about.
I owe so much of what got me to where I am to my girlfriend. Through all the mess she remained gentle, kind, and patient. She approached my progressing disease with compassion instead of anger, with love and not hate, without a thought towards her needs. Qualities that I would soon find were not in my repertoire. I soon found myself, like so many before me, reaching out in desperation for help. Willing to admit defeat and open myself up to a different way. After a number of ER visits and a look at my life it was time to give this thing up.
Now, I had tried this so many times in the past and I did not hold my breath that this time around would be different. The old hamster wheel of swearing off alcohol, get my shit straight and just as I’ve gotten all the pieces put into place and think I’m fixed and start the cycle again.
This time however, I took it seriously, I joined my first AA meeting and the rest is history.
I have never met a more caring and compassionate group of people that literally span all economic, social, and racial boundaries. These people continue to guide me a towards a gentler side to life and I quickly realized that this was not a program to quit alcohol. Yes, that’s at its core however, it’s about growing as an individual, addressing (with vigorous honesty) my character defects and addressing many of the underlying reasons I drank to begin with. It is a life long commitment I couldn’t be happier to be a part of. It’s a guide to living that non-alcoholics should try too.
I had been attending a rigorous schedule of 90 meetings in 90 days which was suggested to me. Some days I was going to two or three meetings a day. These people uplifted me, I saw myself in all of them. The book and stories all resonated with me to my core. I knew I was home.
A step outside of the beaten path…
Outside of that I had a lot more time on my hands. As the days clicked by I naturally saw my interests moving away from trash tv and into books. You read that right, reading books. Books about psychology, human behavior, how the brain works, the universe, spirituality, and life. I was trying to understand scientifically the reason for my behavior. I stumbled on a writer, Michael Pollan, who had been bouncing around the interview circuit promoting his new book, “How to Change Your Mind”. It was an interview on the Joe Rogan experience that would further push my life into a (wait for it) true spiritual awakening and an acceptance of who I am. A food writer by trade he had taken a huge risk to his professional reputation by studying, ingesting, and writing about the renaissance psychedelic drugs were having in mental health research. He wrote on various studies treating individuals with mental health issues including PTSD, anxiety, depression, addiction, etc. He spoke of his experiences and of those in the various studies. He described, in great detail, how the profound experience (under the guidance of a trained therapists coupled with integration sessions after) was healing people of chronic mental health disorders and drug addiction. Now, I instantly remembered the first time I had taken them back in college and wondered if anything in that experience helped with any of that. As you might have guessed, it did not. I had no intention other than to simply get fucked up.
As a kid who struggled significantly with anxiety and depression this was really intriguing to me. I have seen psychologists and psychiatrists for 15 years and they have prescribed me a myriad of different drugs with a strategy I could only assume was straight up guessing.
A Shift In Perspective
Now, until this point, I believed drugs were just drugs. They introduce chemicals in the brain that have a euphoric effect. Period. It wasn’t until I stumbled on a guided meditation by Ram Dass to the tune of an East Forest song. It struck a literal chord in me and I wanted to learn more about him. As I read and watched videos I just couldn’t understand how a scientist/psychologist could believe not only in god but that psychedelics were one of many doorways to spirituality and expanding human consciousness. I had been struggling with finding any form of higher power as the program suggests. I didn’t feel like I could just make up a God and there was no way I was going to accept the one I had been taught all my life. Not because of anything else then I didn’t believe it. I didn’t understand it. And, to be perfectly honest, I had never spent the time to learn for myself.
So, while this is highly frowned upon in my program and I don’t suggest anyone do what I did without professional supervision, I decided to try it myself. I found an app built by Field Trip Health that offered a virtual guided mediation and planned a day, set an intention and took a moderately large dose. I ensured I would be home alone but let my girlfriend know my plans. I plugged in and off we went. That one experience, set and settings dialed in perfectly, I had an experience I have no other way to describe than divine in nature. An experience I, to this day, feel has altered me at my core. I am writing this now months after this experience still as enthused as that day that not only can psychedelics heal sick people, it can also enrich the lives of well people. More to come on that later…
And just like that, I climbed down the rabbit hole to what I would soon find out was a spiritual journey leading to a spiritual awakening (something I had heard about but had no clue how that happens). It continues to grow and change every day. These experiences coupled with ongoing therapy and my AA program have positively impacted my life, my relationships, my work, and my overall outlook on life, death, past, present, and future.
I started this site because I want to share my experiences, growth, and strength with others. I want to advocate for the use of these drugs in a medical setting to save the lives of those suffering. I write about psychedelics, spirituality, meditation, consciousness and my personal, new found relationship with MY God.