Ibogaine: Mexico or Brazil? With DJ

Source transcript; not proofread against the finished audio. No sentence-level speaker labels have been guessed. Timestamps provisionally subtract the one-hour editing-timeline offset; confirm synchronization before deploying timed captions. Spoken opinions are preserved and are not medical recommendations. Apparent transcription errors remain in the source, including “boss” in the closing tree remark.

[00:08] All right, here we are at Nekawa Ibogaine in Brazil and my name is Charles and i'll be our host today and I'm here with DJ. This is our Student Series, so we're taking an opportunity to get to know our students and especially get to know their thoughts about psychedelics, about Ibogaine and about what's going on in life. So thank you for joining us today, DJ. Of course, thanks. Thanks for having me. Of course. Yeah. Nowhere else to go. It's true. It's true. So I think what we wanted to talk about today was there was the recent news article in the New York Times. You read that the other day. We were reading it concurrently on our phones. Yeah. And this is a topic that's interesting, especially for you because you have prior Ibogaine experience.

[00:56] So why don't you tell us a little bit about your prior experience? You don't have to mention any names, but just tell us a little bit about what that was like for you, what you experienced, and then we can maybe reference the article. Yeah, sure. Yeah, so I

[01:12] first was introduced to Ibogaine in the beginning of 2025 and I was at a time in my life where I was going through a big transition and I was struggling with substance use disorder at the time. And so I started to reach out to reach out to friends who had gone through the experience before. And of course, by reaching out to friends, they're going to give you the program that they went through. Of course. They only know the one program. Exactly. So I started reaching out and I was able to get into a center. This was on the backs of Joe Rogan and the big announcement. So a lot of clinics were full at the time. And I was able to get some connections and get into a place in Mexico where a lot of the Ibogaine clinics are.

[01:59] It's a pretty popular place you went to, right? Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's, you know, probably one of the biggest names in the space. So I was fortunate enough to be able to get in and to go there. And I don't know what I was expecting around the experience, but I think that going there, I knew that I was going to get help and I knew that I was going to have this, this big experience. Right. And, um, I think

[02:28] kind of what was missing was an education piece around, what Ibogaine is, what the process is. And, you know, I, and at the same time, I didn't really search for that help, but also I didn't feel like it was provided by the clinic at the same time. And so the, the, before the, during and the after, you know, we had a zoom call with, with a coach before. And so we had a little bit of understanding, but, I think the biggest thing was, was afterwards when you go through this, this big psychedelic experience, it's, it's hard to make sense of, a 14 hour trip And yeah, I think it was, and so I kind of just went about my life and I tried to had, I kind of had to figure it out by myself and, how many days, like when you got there, how many days before you did Ibogaine? So it was a 14 day stay and I did Ibogaine, I think day three. Wow.

[03:25] Yeah. So pretty fast day three. Yeah. Pretty fast. And then two boosters after, okay. Which were a little bit more low dose. Yeah. Yeah. And what was your issue in general that you were going there for? So I, I've struggled with substance use disorder, particularly opiates in, in my past. I wasn't, physically dependent at the time, but I did have a slip up that, you know, caused me to, to search for some alternative, modalities because I had spent a lot of my life, in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and in the American treatment program. So I was at this time I was, I was searching for something else. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I want to come

[04:08] back to that article, in the article. It talks a lot about Mexico. It talks a lot about the treatment centers. It named some names and some of the things they talk about are going to these centers and getting medications very quickly. Even if you don't necessarily need medications their giving out benzodiazepines or sleeping meds, not having a lot of supportive care not having medical professionals, there's some challenges there that they brought up. Did you experience some of those things when you went? I did. I mean, when I got there, I was given benzodiazepines, I believe Ambien as well. Yeah. and I was not, I did not have an active prescription for these drugs at the time. So yes, I was given some prescriptions and you know, for me, like being in a vulnerable state, (your gonna say yes), I'm not going to say no.

[04:59] So, uh, yeah. And it, and it does help with it. You know, your mind afterwards, it's pretty blown wide open. Yeah. It definitely calms it down. I know. So I worked at a lot of clinics early on and people would come out of Ibogaine and, and this happened to me too, after a few nights of not sleeping, you want something to help you sleep for sure. But I did notice that a lot of times the clinics, the owners or the people running the clinics will, will adopt the policy of just giving out medication pretty readily because they don't want to deal with someone in discomfort. Sure. Right. It's much easier to just say, okay, we're going to give you some medicine and you're going to go to sleep and we don't have to, we don't have to deal with you tossing and turning and being agitated all day. Mm-hmm . And yeah, I mean, it's kind of makes sense. I think as we've in here in Brazil, the, the attitude we've adopted, we've said, okay, well, if you're tossing and turning fine, we're not going to do anything about it. I'm just going to tell you to go take a walk, you know, like go, go wander into the jungle, go, uh, go walk at night, go do whatever, which is something that people do here. Right. In the middle of the night, we see people getting up and going for walks because maybe they can't sleep.

[06:13] I think that's a better alternative than passing someone two milligrams of Xanax or some Ambien.

[06:19] I mean, what has been your experience being in the jungle versus, you know, versus that experience of being in the treatment center in a, I guess it was a house or a hotel or something of that sort. Yeah. Yeah. It felt like a hotel sort of resort, but gosh, I mean, being in nature and being in the jungle, it's, it's good for your body. It's good for, your immune system, everything. It, it, uh, it really helps. And, a lot of people and including myself, like coming from, using and using substances, we, we struggle with sleep afterwards. And so, yeah, I think it's really a time to understand like the importance of sleep hygiene. What does our, our nighttime routine look like?

[07:04] What are we doing before bed and during the night too? Like there, there's, I guess, studies or things that have come out around, you know, not trying to force yourself back to sleep, but getting up and reading or going for a walk and then trying to fall back asleep. So, you know, here it's, it's really a time for learning and, and understanding yourself and what works for, for you.

[07:25] Yeah. Yeah. And to the point where you mentioned about not, not knowing a lot about Ibogaine, I would say, you know, it's hard, it's hard to educate someone about that experience fully before they come. And I think the way I've tried to approach this as a, as someone who runs a program, as I've said, okay, I, I want you to have ample time beforehand to just settle into the space. Before you have to do Ibogaine or anything else. And even there are times where we're working with ayahuasca, you got a mosquito right here. Yeah. We're working with ayahuasca beforehand so that it preps you in a way to be ready for that kind of experience that is long and arduous and, and difficult and hard to comprehend and pushes you a lot. So, I mean, you've, you've been here now almost a month, right? And you're going to spend, yeah, a month and a day, month, month today, a month today. Okay, great. Awesome.

[08:23] And you're going to spend some more time and then do Ibogaine. How have you felt as far as obviously you've experienced Ibogaine before, so we don't have a, you know, brand new experience, but as far as prepping for getting ready for Ibogaine, what has been the difference in this process versus before? Oh my gosh. Yeah. I think that coming here, it's allowed me to, to really land within myself. And instead of coming from a frantic place of, of trying to fix something. And then three days later, you're going into this experience. I think that coming here, you know, it was two weeks before, we drank ayahuasca or we, we did any psychedelic experience. And this allowed me time to, to get my body right by starting to eat healthy. We work out every single morning. So really trying to get the body ready for these experiences is very important, but also with the mind too. You know, trying to, to understand the mind, to grow the mind and, um, to ultimately be ready for, for these, uh, experiences because they're not, they're not, uh, comfortable. I don't want to glorify it by any means, but, uh, yeah, I think that when you're in that place of, of within yourself, that you can have just that much more of an experience. Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. Taking time, right. When we don't put all the importance on the medicine or the psychedelic experience, and we actually just recognize that this process of you unfolding is it takes time, it takes peace, it takes, uh, separation from life. And then you can be prepared to have the psychedelic experience to its fullest effect. I think is the best approach

[10:04] person. Yeah. And this environment here is completely different than the environments that we came from where that I came from. Yeah. And so just by that, it's uncomfortable to start. It's not, it's not easy to come to, to the jungle of all places or, uh, to get into a new routine or anything like that. So, moving through that uncomfortability, it just prepares you even more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Uh, yeah. The jungle is, it's the jungle. It's rainy. It's humid. There's spiders and snakes and bugs, mosquitoes all the time. It's like, it's tough. Yep. Yeah. It's no joke. Okay. Yeah. I think, let me, let me kind of reframe from the article. What else would I want to touch on there?

[10:52] I mean, the article is basically saying that the, the care within the Ibogaine field, but also just the psychedelic field in general needs to be better. It needs to be better. And you've been to a lot of rehabs. You've been to a lot of 30 day programs, 60 day programs. You've been doing this for some amount of time of your adult life. And I think, you know, as we talked about at the beginning, there, I think the best approach, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on this is fusing the, the conventional model with long-term care and this process with the psychedelic experience, uh, and then adding into a exotic environment or an environment that is totally, totally out of your element really provides a fantastic template of kind of a combination effect. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I touched on environment earlier, but yeah, I think what we're doing here is just, setting up everything around us for us to, to build new patterns, to build, to be able to see our patterns first of all, and then, uh, build new patterns within our life and be able to take this, what we learned here and take it back home. And, yeah, I think that from

[12:05] what I've seen and, you know, integration is thrown around a lot and, yeah, sometimes I don't know if we have a good understanding of what integration is. Sometimes we just sit around in a circle and talk about integration. I don't think that's actually what integration is. Uh, it's, it's a long process. And, uh, you know, we've gone our entire lives building these patterns and we've done it 50,000 times. And with psychedelics, it shows us one time of us being out of these patterns. So we have to, to rewire and to, to build these new patterns within ourselves. So that's why I think that the longer stays are, are much more beneficial because we get to, to see those patterns and then actually start to build them within ourselves. So, I think it's, it's challenging to be able to go 14 days and then go right back into your life and, and, you know, figure it out.

[12:58] Yeah. So that's why I think that the longer stay is, is important because it gives us a chance. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

[13:08] And then just as a closing, what's been your, uh, this week or the last few days, what's been kind of the, the exciting thing for you that you've been working on or learning or doing since you being here? Yeah, it's cool. Cause, cause being here, nothing is, uh, nothing is required of us. Like we can do what we want, but, uh, if you follow that, if you follow the program, you know, it's going to be really beneficial. So I've been working on, starting a business for myself, around the education of Ibogaine and helping families and, people who want to explore this avenue, receive the education and, and get them set up with everything that they need and provide them with the, the resources, to be able to make an informed decision. Yeah. And then, I've been reading a lot, which has been great.

[13:58] And, you know, I never thought myself a reader, but again, trying to develop new things within my life. And it's been, it's been exciting for me. Yeah. Crushing hours a day. Yeah. Yeah. Getting into it. So, yeah, just trying to do new things and to push myself and challenge myself. Yeah. I love it.

[14:15] Yeah. I, that's ultimately my, my goal for everyone is not to try to force or push anything on anyone, but give you the space, give you the opportunity to recognize the value in these things. Because when you go home, you're going to have to be the one to do it. I can't make you go to groups. I can't penalize you if you're not going to be doing things because when you go home, it's going to be exactly the same. There's not going to be anyone watching over you. You have to be your own person. And so I love it. I've been really excited just to see these developments simple as that, just feeling comfortable. Oh yeah. I can read for a few hours at a time. I can actually sit down and focus and do this, man. That's, that's a lifelong skill that carries you far. Yeah. When you're stressed out and you're not feeling good at home, when something's going on, you can just sit and pop open a book and, and drop in and settle yourself.

[15:08] It's a fantastic exercise. So yeah. Yeah. I know it's been great having, uh, people like you and everyone around me on the, on the same path. And, it's been inspiring in a lot of ways just to see, my peers and the people who work here continue to push themselves and, and us as well. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah. All right. Well,

[15:29] that was awesome. Thank you. Thank you, DJ. We really appreciate you coming on with us again. This is Nekawa Ibogaine in Brazil. We're going to be doing more of these. This is part of our student series where we're not so concerned about people's past. We're really looking at what they're doing now, their present and their future. So join us next time. Uh, DJ will probably be back, but we'll have others to have with us and make something awesome. All right. Awesome. Look at this, look at this tree. This boss is freaking awesome. Wow.