692. The Natural Drug That Gets You Off Drugs: Ibogaine w/ Jonathan Dickinson

Can a natural drug get you off drugs?

Co-founder of Ambio Life Sciences and one of the leading voices on ibogaine, Jonathan has spent over 15 years inside the clinical, traditional, and research sides of this medicine.

Being handed a Zoloft prescription after a nine-item questionnaire became his first real entry into altered states, a lens on the world that also left him feeling trapped. Harm reduction research in Vancouver and the NAOMI heroin trial pulled him into drug policy, where ibogaine became the bridge between that world and psychedelics.

My own history with opiate withdrawal and Effexor comes in, along with the paradox at the center of this field: a psychoactive substance that helps people put down other substances. You'll hear about Jonathan's first Bwiti initiation in Gabon, the Stanford research on Navy SEALs, and why the real work happens in the weeks after the ceremony.

You'll learn:

[0:00] Introduction

[4:18] The literature that pulled Jonathan toward altered states

[11:10] Effexor samples my Century City psychiatrist left in the bushes

[19:41] Harm reduction and prescribing heroin to stabilize addicts

[24:13] A spiritual experience as the seed of Alcoholics Anonymous

[34:56] Reconciling the paradox of using drugs to get off drugs

[43:48] Agency and reconnection ibogaine gives beyond withdrawal