TrueLife - From Stigma to Healing: Garyth Moxey on Medicinal Journeys #2

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Ladies and Gentlemen,It is an honor and privilege to introduce our esteemed guest today, a luminary in the field of entheogen provision and harm reduction advocacy, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Garyth Moxey stands at the forefront of psychedelic therapy, armed with a profound commitment to education, healing, and transformation. Garyth's journey is one of relentless dedication and growth. Trained as a psychedelic therapist at the prestigious Synthesis Institute, he has become a beacon of hope for many, specializing in the application of Ibogaine for addiction detoxification, particularly for opiate addiction. His expertise extends to the realms of 5-MeO-DMT and Psilocybin, substances he employs to facilitate deep psychospiritual exploration.With decades of experience and rigorous training, including certifications from the Orenda Institute and the F.I.V.E. education program at Tandava Retreats in Mexico, Garyth is a master in guiding individuals through transformative journeys of self-discovery and spiritual awakening. His work transcends the clinical; it is deeply rooted in advocacy and awareness-raising within the psychedelic community. Garyth has been instrumental in documentary projects like "Dosed," which illuminate the profound healing potential of psychedelic medicines.Beyond his psychedelic therapy work, Garyth is also a passionate advocate for medical cannabis, producing high-grade cannabis oil tailored to the specific needs of his clients. His extensive knowledge of cultivation and extraction techniques ensures the highest quality of medicinal products.Together with his partner Blair and their beloved canine companion Millie, Garyth continues to create holistic healing experiences in Vancouver, BC. Their offerings include comprehensive Ibogaine and Iboga treatments, psilocybin therapy, and 5-MeO-DMT sessions, empowering individuals to embark on profound journeys of healing, transformation, and self-discovery.Please join me in welcoming Garyth Moxey, a true pioneer in the realm of psychedelic therapy and holistic healing.Garyth Moxey - Inner Realms Centerhttp://linkedin.com/in/garyth-moxey-b00614266 One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist through ruins maze lights my war cry born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. and I hope the wind is at your back.

I have with me, returning guest, the one and only, Gareth Moxies, and an honor and a privilege to reintroduce him back to our show today, a luminary in the field of Entheogen provision and harm reduction advocacy based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Gareth stands at the forefront of psychedelic therapy armed with a profound commitment to education, healing, and transformation.

His journey is one of relentless dedication and growth, trained as a psychedelic therapist at the prestigious, Synthesis Institute, he has become a beacon of hope for many, specializing in the application of ibogane for addiction detoxification, particularly for opiate addiction. His expertise extends to the realms of five-imio-DMT and psilocybin substances he employs to facilitate deep psychospiritual exploration. With decades of experience and rigorous training, including certifications from the Orinda Institute and the five education program at Tandava retreats in Mexico, Gareth is a master at guiding individuals to transformative journeys of self-discovery and

spiritual awakening. His work transcends the clinical. It is deeply rooted in advocacy and awareness raising within the psychedelic community. Gareth has been instrumental in documentary projects like DOS, which illuminate the profound healing potential of psychedelic medicine. Beyond his psychedelic therapy, work Gareth is also a passionate advocate for medical cannabis producing high-grade cannabis oil tailored to the specific needs of his clients. His extensive knowledge of cultivation and extraction techniques ensures the highest quality

medicinal products. Garrett, thank you so much for being here today. I hope the world is treating you well, and I'm looking forward to an amazing conversation. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you for having me back. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. Yeah, it's my pleasure.

I'm really thankful to get to talk to you, and I feel like our first conversation. conversation went by so quickly that we only got to touch on the surface area. And I just wanted to have you back and get into some of the things we were talking about. And for those that are just tuning in right now, you and I were having a really fascinating pre-chat about Ivo game. I thought we could just, we kind of launch right there a little. There's some things people don't know about it. You're working extensively with it and you've been doing it for quite some time. And maybe I could just drop that right there in front of you and let you run with it. Yeah, so Ibegain. I'm going into my 13th year now of working with Ibegain. And when I first started working with it, I was kind of trained in the more traditional way of working with Ibigain, which is kind of people come in. They do a test dose of 100 milligrams or so. People check then if there's been any adverse reactions. and if everything's fine, there's been no allergic reactions or anything, then we just dump a whole lot more into somebody, and that would be the flood dose, you know,

it could be anywhere up to about 36 hours before anybody has any sleep. And that was some years ago now, and the whole situation has changed. When I first started getting into this game, it was all heroin. And now there isn't any heroin. you know or not here anyhow i know that there is in europe and stuff they haven't really been hit with the whole fentanyl crisis like we have on the you know in canada and the u.s so um the game has kind of changed a little bit um fentanyl now is a is a very ferocious um opioid uh much stronger than something like heroin.

And due to the drug war, we are finding on ourselves in the situation of now, you know, the narcotic supply has been tainted with fentanyl and other fentanyl analogs. And now there's even other analogs that are coming in, which are even stronger than fentanyl. So, you know, it's kind of, it's, it's a very bad situation.

And it's been brought about because a lot of this fentanyl can be mailed to the states or to Canada. And that's how we first started experiencing it was, I think, in 2008, was it? No, hang on, no. So 2012, they took the oxy cotton off the market or the oxy 80 and then replaced it with the oxy neo which is still an oxy 80 tablet but you can't get at the oxycodone very easily inside to you know people used to crush them up and snort them or inject them and stuff and with this the the oxy 80 there's a coating that goes around

outside which then made that very difficult to do so of course the black market is going to step in immediately and started making these um oxy 80 knockoffs which are actually fentanyl uh one milligram of fentanyl or something like that in each pill and so that was of course if you ban something then it's going to be replaced by something else right so now that has um made the whole situation much, much worse. Fentanyl has a much shorter half-life than heroin. So that means that the effects of it don't last anywhere near as long. And so it means that people are going into withdrawal very quickly.

So that means that they have to reuse or re-up on a constant basis. So, you know, if a drug war was put into place to keep people safe, then it's failed miserably. I'm fiercely anti-drug war because, I mean, you know, people are like, well, if there wasn't a drug war, then it would be a free-for-all. It already is a free-for-all. You know, there's heroin or, sorry, narcotics on most street corners,

or a lot of street corners of big cities. And it already is that kind of free-for-all. I mean, our overdose deaths now, I think in BC we get like eight a day. Wow. A day, just in BC. And four in Vancouver. And those are the people that actually, you know, pass away, many of them being in, you know, a Starbucks bathroom or something like that. So the drug war has actually made things much, much worse.

And it's in the hands of criminals, you know. So, and it doesn't look like it's going to be getting any better. And so, you know, which is affecting people worldwide. Now, things have changed a little bit for us here in Vancouver. It used to be people would get onto Suboxone or methadone. But now we're just trying to keep people alive here. And so some of the, we've got rapid access addiction clinics where people can go and get put on to they can get hydromorph which is a strong narcotic and also time release

morphine so if people are coming to us and they're using street drugs here in Vancouver then you know we can't really work with them with the street drug situation but if they can go to the rapid access addiction clinic then people can get an on an alternative opioid supply and then we can start moving towards possibly doing a treatment with people. You know, but the whole situation has changed much, you know, compared to how it used to be. People used to be able to show up on the door, you know, on heroin, and we could work with them, but now things are a lot different.

You know, the drug supply has been very badly tainted with fentanyon. If that wasn't bad enough, over COVID, elicit benzodiazepine started getting into the street supply as well, which makes overdose so much more likely to happen when you're mixing benzodiazepines with opiates. And then Ibigen doesn't work for benzodiazepines as well. So, you know, our pool of people that we can work with is just gotten smaller and smaller.

We find ourselves now working with not so many people that are using street drugs, but more housewives that have become addicted to OxyContin or Percis. set or something like that or some other kind of opioid, you know, that might be prescribed by the doctor. You know, and we do work with some people that are using street drugs, but they've got to be able to jump through our hoops before we can start working with them, you know. And then also, apart from that, there's got to be a good treatment plan.

You know, we don't just treat people if they're just going to be, you know, like Ibegan should be used as a tool. and it's not just, it's always been kind of banded around as a bit of a magic pill. And I'm not trying to downplay, it's efficacy, because there is nothing else for addiction like Ibe game. But, yeah, it's just, it's become complicated, a lot more complicated. And it's important that people use it as a tool within a plan, a bigger picture plan that, you know, that they're going to use for their recovery. not just like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm living on the streets. My family's going to pay for a treatment and then life's going to be rosy afterwards because that's not really how it works.

You know, the whole Ibe game thing is a process. And having some support is crucial for that process. So, yeah, things are definitely a bit more complicated. Our client at the moment is going to inscape. And our last client is at InScape at the moment. And InScape is a recovery place down in Mexico. Right. Yeah, more of a holistic approach.

And they also do plant medicine there, which could help people, you know, be on the right track before they leave and then go back into their lives, how that's going to look. But the more support you can have around these kind of treatments, It's the better, you know. Yeah, it's, it seems interesting the way in which the drug war, the actual drugs coming in have changed the landscape of addiction.

And it seems to me that what you were doing is you have had to change your methodology and treatment. When we first began the conversation, you were talking about an individual who's on a program, and sometimes it's six days, sometimes it's more days, and it's getting the medicine into them. And I'm wondering if you could share sort of your methodology. with people so they can understand what something of that is like. Yeah. Well, we've got somebody in at the moment and he actually managed to come off. He was on a lot of different drugs and antidepressants and stuff before he came in.

He's somebody that's been in and out of treatment a lot of times. So he actually, he was on some replacement therapy but was also had been using crack and crystal meth. he managed to go and detox in the country in Virginia. And so he wasn't actively using any drugs when he came in. That didn't really change too much on the way that we're going to work with him. He came in and we gave him a smaller dose so as I can see how the medicine is working with him, how that's going to affect his physiology. the blood pressure and heart rate can drop as many as 20 points when we're working in higher dose ibegain.

So I get a bit of an insight as to how his body's going to receive the medicine. And also it's a bit of a primer for his body to have a bit of that medicine run through him. So when I'm doing a higher dose, the body's not going, what is this? Get it out. There can be a lot of purging with ibegain. but that's normally due to motion sickness. And the body, you know, having a little bit of it run through it before. So it's not kind of rejecting it in some way. And so then the next day, my nurse came and flew over from Vancouver Island.

And then we went into, we started the procedure of a flood dose, which was, up to about, I think, 12 milligrams per kilogram or something like, yeah, roughly around there. And so that's an experience for him. He didn't sleep that night. It goes around into the next day. That's a bit of a gray day for people when they have taken a higher dose. Yeah. They feel a little bit blah. And but he got some sleep that next night. And then the next day, We just start up with Ibegain again.

And I've seen just over the years, the amount of Ibegain you get into people makes a huge difference. So he's with us for another six days or something like that. And he will be taking Ibergain another four of those days. So was it Sunday to Ibegain and Monday and today and tomorrow? I think he's got off. yeah so basically he's taking a lot of ibegame while he's with us yeah and that's working more on a saturation model instead of just the flood dose model

so he'll you know he's he's laid out downstairs at the moment now he's had higher doses a higher dose go through him these are smaller doses he doesn't need to be monitored in quite the same way so he's he's got some meditation music gone downstairs. He's got his eye mask on. And he's fallen asleep, actually. Which for some people, it isn't unusual.

But we will be doing this now until he leaves on Monday. So we'll be doing this up until Friday or Saturday. And then we'll work with him with 5MEO DMT at the very end. And that kind of ties everything together. There's a synergy that happens. with ibegain and five mEO dm t which is you know why a lot of places in mexico are yeah also working with with five meo so um that can bring in um working with the ibegain can be a little dark um shadow material might arise um it's just not easy taking this medicine

but i explain to people the more that they take the better they're going to feel on the other side. And I've seen that, you know. And a problem that they're having in Mexico at the moment, because people's doses are so high with the fentanyl. So when people are actually going through with these flood doses and stuff, they might feel good for the first little bit. But if they don't have enough fiber gained in their system,

they're not going to feel good in a couple of weeks. And we just had this with somebody that was going to come work with us. and he got attached to this high dose flood dose thing. It's going to do it all for him. And then normally when we're working with opiates as well, we do a lot of low dose and repeated dosing so as we're saturating somebody's body so as they don't find themselves in that situation

a couple of weeks later starting to drag their feet. So this young guy, he'd gone to Mexico to one of these more established places that have a very good PR team and stuff. And they'd even posted on their website, you know, look at so-and-so. He was on dope last week and now he's all great. That didn't last.

And now he's back in Canada and been put on some other medication because he's experiencing some post-acute withdrawal syndrome. So, you know, this is a problem that the Ibegain world is experiencing. And I feel that the previous model that everybody worked on. And they worked on that model because, you know, that's how Howard Lotzoff discovered it in 1962. And then, you know, a lot of us that provide were, you know, drug addicted ourselves. And so then we did it that way, therefore it must be done that way. And that's just the kind of, you know, a thing that's kind of we found ourselves in the Ibe game world.

But I was just talking to somebody the other days. He's been doing, you know, working in that more traditional way down in Mexico. And he's just saying, we're just not getting the same results that we used to get. And my answer to that is, yeah, you just got to keep them for another week and keep on giving them ibegain because then there's more nor ibegain in the system that's floating around that's what's working you know not just the flood dose you know maybe you could break that down for people like what how does it how do they get the nor ibupagane in their body like what what what's that process metabol it metabolizes so ibegene metabolizes in the system into nor ibegain right and then that's

what floats around in the system afterwards and and kind of leaks out into the body and brain so is there a half-life on that like how long does that stay in the body do we know um a long time well i'm not exactly sure of that i know that myself and what i see with people is that what i like to get out of out of people is like a three-month period okay you know and i find that if you get lots and lots of ibe gaining to people then that's the kind of timeline that you're looking at you know and that the um Neuroplasticity, you know, which often takes up to three months anyhow for that, you know, for new pathways to form. And so particularly with the Ibegain, you know, if you've got a lot into somebody and of course they're going back to a good supportive situation, then that's kind of what we get from people.

I no longer have people moaning about not having enough I've been on board. You know, and so, and pretty much, we used to do that anyhow. We used to spend a lot of time people would come for at least 10 days. And then since I started doing Inner Realms, it's at least two weeks for an opiate detox anyhow. So, yeah, it's about repetitive. I began, I began, I began. And a lot of places I spoke to a guy the other day, he was in Mexico for four days, you know, for his flood dose.

And that was it, four days he was at that place, and then they kicked him out. Now, have he, you know, had a little percassette problem, then that might have been sufficient, probably would have been sufficient, you know. But he didn't. He had a fenced-nall problem. And then he was able to find enough oxy-contin to, it was cost him a lot, and there was an awful lot of oxy-contin.

But he managed to stay on oxy-contin for a while before going down. But then they, you know, they did this quick treatment with him, and they went home. And then he said after 10 days of not sleeping, he went out and got some oxy. So now he's back on, you know, he's opiate dependent again. And that's really just because he just didn't receive enough either game. Yeah.

So it's changing the game, you know, and it's the drug war. Yeah. You know, this stuff, we haven't come across it yet, but like trank and stuff, which is going in a lot more on the East Coast. You know, there's these different animal tranquilizers that are ending up in the dope. And, yeah, which has given people all kinds of open sores. and you know so it's just and people didn't want those drugs they wanted heroin right right and heroin's much easier to deal with and but not as profitable to drug dealers and as long as we

live in a capitalist society you can't keep hard drugs out of high security prisons how are you supposed to keep hard drugs off the streets. So, and, and the authorities are addicted to prohibition. Sure. You know? Private prisons, all of it. It's all part of it. It's just a huge mess, you know. So, so, so there, you know, the society's response to this. And the drug war basically is, is, is, is humanity's self-inflicted open wound, you know. So we're dealing with it in the wrong ways. And it's costing a fortune as well. You know, if you think about somebody

in runaway addiction that's out on the street, like what's that costing in theft, sexually transmitted diseases, the list goes on and on hospital visits, incarceration.

You know, somebody could be out there for 20 years. Right. You know, costing society an awful amount. We've been going through this thing. We've decriminalized drugs up here

as well in BC. see and now there's a backlash against that. And nobody is concerned about people using drugs at home. But what they don't like to see is the homeless people using drugs in public. You know, and that's upsetting them.

Well, give them a fucking home. You know, if you don't want to see people using drugs in public, and that's the reason why they're using drugs in public is because they don't have a home. Yeah. So they're always trying to take their tents away from them and

closing down their tent cities and stuff and you know it's and it's like the new the new um population to hate on you know when i see there's these different youtube channels and stuff which are just poverty porn really right you know and they some guy walks around downtown you know filming people doing drugs and and being in a very vulnerable vulnerable position well that's clicks yeah and that's money for his YouTube channel, you know, and then when I see the comments that people put in, you know, and it's just shocking to me how, you know, it's just the new people to hate on. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, on some level, I think mental illness is contagious in a way in that when someone has a problem and we don't help them fix it, like it weighs on us. Like, we become sort of disabled and. a way to deal with that situation. Like everybody's like most people I know have been around a situation like my niece overdosed on fentanyl. Like I've, I've seen the, you know, tears of disaster flowing down my sister's face and understand what it's like to lose people.

And like that is contagious. It doesn't end with someone dying because now the entire family is injured. And some people deal with that by blaming the other people out there. But it's all of our problems. Like every one of us, it's part of us that's dying. And you can see it in the streets. And people don't know how to deal with it. And the authorities just try to blanket it over or worse yet.

They turn it into some sort of a conveyor belt for profit. You know, they profit off the idea of addiction. Hey, here's this new company that's going to help. But they're just going to soak the money out of it and not really give anybody any help. It's a disaster, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, not much is being done up here as well.

I mean, it was supposed to have been that, you know, the profits from the cannabis industry was, a lot of that was supposed to be funneled into people in recovery. And, you know, we do have safe supply up here. Okay. Which some people are trying to get rid of, which is just going to be a death sentence to some people. But that's the levels of compassion. And then, you know, the right are always saying, oh, you're just in, the right of saying, oh, by having a safe injection place, you're encouraging.

drug use no people are going to be doing that anyhow we're just trying to keep societies safer you know from disease and can keep people alive because people are going to be doing that nobody's ever died in in insight you know which is that Vancouver's a safe injection place we have other ones but they're not federally recognized the same way that insight is nobody's ever died there you know and yet people are dying we're losing eight people a day across the province you know and yet the right seem to say you know oh you're encouraging drugies no not just trying to keep people alive you know and we've got um overdose prevention sites

dotted all around then in the downtown east side in in alleyways and stuff like that because if there's a queue to get into um insight the safe injection place well somebody's can go out in the alley back Because they're just trying to get well, you know, and that's where people are dying. What, it's such an, it's, it's both heartbreaking and heartwarming to see some of the success stories and the failures of, of individuals battles in there. But it does seem to me to be like a symptom of the sickness of our society. Are you aware of any sort of like programs that you see that are addressing the bigger issues? Maybe it's the wealth inequality or do you have any thoughts on what could be the major symptom that's one of the symptoms that's causing this breakdown? I think wealth inequality is a big one, you know, because it's very difficult for now for just anybody on a low income to be housed.

Yeah. You know, and then so if you've got the slightest bit of a drug problem, boom. Yeah. Housing is one of the first things it goes, you know. And that's, we're experiencing a huge housing crisis here anyhow. You know, and that's people that aren't drug addicted. You know, we've got tent camps and RV camps and stuff. And it's not just happening here.

It's happening everywhere. Yep. You know, so I think that's a big driver. And then, of course, then if you don't have security of a home, well, fuck, I'd be using drugs as well. Yeah. Yeah. And as a society, we don't really seem to give a shit, you know? Yeah.

Generally speaking, people are putting the rents up because that's what's happening. The rents are going up, you know. So, yeah, it's not a good situation. And I don't really see it getting any better very quickly either. You know, they don't seem to be doing a whole lot of public housing here or anything. Or if they are, then they're very late. in getting stuff together. So that's one of the bigger problems.

And then the tainted drug supply. Yeah. It's mind-blowing to me. You know, if I, it makes me think of the idea of relationships, the way we treat ourselves in our own mental dialogue or our inner dialogue. sometimes that, you know, I realize what it's like to have a series of negative patterns repeat in my mind and know what that does to me and my family and my relationships. And it seems that that is something that echoes outwards into society where we take those

negative thought patterns and we just apply them to people that are less than for some reason. Whatever reason we make up in our mind, okay, these are the people I'm going to just dump all my hate on because I can't do it to my family, you know. But on the topic of relationships, I think that's maybe one reason we're seeing things like I will gain and this sort of, you know, turn towards conscious awareness make big changes is that these altered states of consciousness reshape our perception of relationships. And it helps us. So the question I have for you is how do, in your opinion, how to altered states of consciousness reshape our perception of relationships and the way we connect on a soul level? Hmm, good question. Yes, thank you.

I guess it depends on which substances, you know. Well, you know, I guess with the psychedelics, it takes us away from our normal 2.0 kind of thought way of thinking and can really shake things up for some people. You know, I was supposed to have become a dairy farm manager or something or other. and then I took psilocybin. Large dose of psilocybin, and that clearly wasn't going to happen anymore. So, you know, maybe it affects us in a way of thinking about our relationships and what have you.

Also, depending which substances, you know, I think the whole MDMA thing, you know, obviously young people want to take MDMA because they're connecting with each other on ways that they never did before, you know, so, and yeah, so I guess, you know, in a lot of ways that maybe might make people think more about their relationships with others, a field of the importance of it. I feel that, you know, a lot of people are very disconnected these days with our phones and social media and stuff, and even in some ways we're connected through that.

connected to a whole bunch of friends that I was involved with, you know, years ago, because I say it's that connected connectedness. But, you know, people are kind of stuck on these things. Yeah. Phones. And so there's a disconnection there, you know. I don't know. But I think that we yearn for that, for that kind of connection and communitas.

But we don't have so much of it anymore, it would seem. I don't know. We're a little bit older, so, you know, we grew up in a time of not having our phones and things. So I'm quite happy to be as old as I am and to have had to use my own mind as a youngster for entertainment, you know, which when I think about how we did things as kids and now how kids do things today, I mean, it's quite different. them. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, you know, the human spirit yearns for connection. That's well said. And I think that sometimes, you know, that these medicines can bring us together in community.

You know, I feel that, you know, if people are going to ayahuasca circles, it's not, just about the ayahuasca, it's also about the community that they're being a part of, you know, or in recovery, you know, that connection thing is important because, you know, I think one of the biggest things, takeaways that people get from recovery movements is the connectedness. Yeah. You know, that's kind of what I got out of going to the Rooms to AA was, you know not being isolated at home or when I was using you know being that's where people end up in total isolation normally when they're engaged with substance you know it's getting away from that and getting back to community and

relationship you know I do I hear sometimes people say that getting to hear someone's story from their lips that is near identical to your story is this an incredible way in which you realize you're bigger than yourself that you're part of a community that you're not alone for the first time and maybe that's where some of that community comes along maybe for guys our age it was playing waffle ball out on the street until the lights came on you know yeah you know but for some people who may not have had that you know you the isolation fact of the town happening right now. People are siloed in their houses. They, they, they went through COVID, which is very isolating for a lot of people. Yes. Yeah. That isolation can be a real

banger, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we're not supposed to live like that. No. You know, throughout our history, our human history, right. Right. We've pretty much always been, you know, with our tribe, you know, our community in some way form, whether that be the church or, you know, there's always some kind of community. So yeah, there's a lot more isolation now. Individual isolation. Yeah. The individualism that people are experiencing.

But that whole isolation around that, you know, modern technology as well. You know, I see it in our relationships. Yeah. Sometimes my partner and I, you know, we might be in different rooms sending each other memes from Instagram. Or cute, cute dog stuff, you know, puppy stuff. Yeah. You know. It's interesting.

So we're communicating, but individually we're seeing in front of our death, death scroll devices, you know, and not really being part of something. Yeah. Yeah. And then kids are being born into that. And it's like, you know, it's almost they're born with a device in their hand. Yeah. Yeah. And they know how to use these devices, you know, back to front.

And if ever I have a problem on my phone, I just hand it to a younger person. Say, can you fix this? And they go, yeah. Right. A split second. Yeah. I think that that also speaks to the idea of isolation between generations. If you, if I'm almost 50 and I know that my daughter knows more about certain types of technology than I do.

She's going to a cool school where they're learning how to. create different things and different apps and stuff like this. And it's it's mind-blowing to think about the chasm between her and eyes idea about technology. And then if you factor in a boomer versus like a zoomer, like those are, that's a giant chasm. And that's isolating in itself. There's no longer the elders able to pass down information that a young person really finds worthwhile. You know, and that can lead to some anger down the road, I think. Yeah.

Or what is AI going to do? AI could put an end to a lot of people's professions. Yeah. I think it has to. What's going to happen then? People don't have a way of making an income. It's going to change the job situation. Sure.

Yeah. I think it's a tale of two cities. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Well, let's not try and get two do we do. Let me bring it back to Clint, Kyleus. He's got a question here. First off, Clint, the psychedelic Christian podcast.

Great podcast. Clint, thanks for hanging out with us. He says that I recognize that such situations are often case and individual dependent. But do you have any advice regarding the balance of compassion and tough love for those trying to help loved ones struggling with addiction, opiate addiction in particular? That's a hard one. I don't find tough love to really be love somehow. I mean, it's a way of dealing with a situation where, you know, you're going to cut somebody off or something like that.

That's a difficult one because, yeah, it is on an individual basis. It's difficult to support people in some regards when they're in full-blown opioid addiction. but of course the more support that we can give within reason you know then then we should but again it's a very difficult situation you know i i don't particularly know how to answer that one i just you know i just haven't found tough love to really you know it doesn't really cut it and it's yeah, it's not really love in some ways, you know, it's just kind of that, yeah. I think we're seeing less and less of that these days because people, I think people realize

it's not really helping too much, you know, but I do understand that the situation can be very difficult for family members and stuff when somebody's in opioid addiction, because it affects everybody. It's not just the person that's going through. it, you know. Yeah. I think we could define that. I think we could define tough love.

If we defined it better on some level, you know, it's, it's, it's sort of a big idea. But it seems to me the foundation of tough love is someone who has enough belief in the person they're trying to care about that they can figure it out. You know, and it's almost ingrained in our society when you look at the hero's journey or the prodigal son or a lot of these myths were like, listen, you can do it. or the rebellious teenager, oh, yeah, you think you know, go show me then. You know, so this idea, it's, and maybe it's the rugged individualism that we talk about sometimes. But I think it just depends on how we define it, you know, because there are success stories about it. But on some level, I think maybe we run into the problem of language because is what part, how much of support is enabling? You know, those are two different things, but they seem to kind of run together a little bit.

What's your thoughts on that? No, I understand. Yeah. And you're right. You know, you don't want to enable somebody, but at the same time, you don't want to shut the door on them. Right. And their basic needs. Right.

But it can also be a very difficult situation. You know, somebody that's in truly out of control opioid addiction, you know, that can be a very scary thing and burns families down to the grass. You know? So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Boundaries, yeah. Of course, having good boundaries. But again, it's an individual thing, you know, from one person to the other. And I really don't have a good answer for that one, Clint, I'm afraid. Yeah, it's a good question, Clint. Thanks for bringing it in there. Yeah. Have you found in your travels that there there are a lot of simulistic. with with addiction or are there a cultural sort of traps that people fall into that bring them into addiction?

Yeah, cultural ones. Sure. Like, you know, alcohol in Europe. You know, like in the UK, alcohol is kind of a cultural obligation. Right. And I think, you know, in Russia, I think alcohol use disorder is the number one killer of man over 45 or something like that. liver disease you know which is being promoted by the state wow you know i think they have they probably have a monopoly on on um because it's communist country they have a monopoly on on on the alcohol that's killing their population it's crazy it is crazy and then that's a cultural thing that's just been passed down and yeah well you know addiction i i think cigarettes and alcohol kill way more people than

illicit drugs do so you know and that's a cultural thing isn't it it is a cultural thing yeah yeah definitely there seems to be a thread though that whoever controls the drugs that fuel a

society tend to be the people in charge you know like well that's where the money lies isn't it in drugs and oil and war right Right. You know, and there's some money in illicit drugs, but not really compared to pharmaceutical. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. Look at Purdue. And OxyContin is still. The Sackler family alone. Yeah. It's still, OxyContin is still $80 or a dollar a milligram, I believe. So an Oxy20 costs $20. An Oxy80, if you can get hold of one, costs $80.

worse. And so that's a dollar a milligram. That's much more than any illicit drugs. Oh, gold for that matter. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. Yeah. And then, you know, there's so many people on pharmaceuticals now. And why is that?

A lot of people are on antidepressants. Huge a number of people are on antidepressants. Is that people are depressed? They're anxious. Maybe they're a victim to an incredibly successful marketing campaign. Yeah, there's that. There's that.

Right? I don't think they can advertise antidepressants here in Canada. We don't watch TV anyhow, but I seem to remember in the States. States in New Zealand, I think. I remember seeing the ads and thinking, oh, holy shit. You know, they don't seem to work for people. they might work a little bit for a short period of time for a certain percentage of population, and then they're very difficult to get off of afterwards, you know, can cause all kinds of problems.

And then they cause all kinds of problems when people are on them as well. Right. You know, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, all of that kind of stuff. But they dish it out like, you know, smarties. I've had doctors trying to put me on various antidepressants for ADHD. Yeah. So I won't take those. I'm hopeful that.

It seems to me on some level, that's what this sort of wave of plant medicine means to me is this idea that we can awaken to a new fuel, a new way to see ourselves, a new opportunity to heal ourselves. And each one has now the opportunity to go and help out the next. When you make it to the top, reach around and help the next one up. Because all of us seem to have faced something in our life. And if we can confront that thing that we faced, figure it out and then just tell someone, then we become the bridge to helping them on some level, you know, instead of turning to the alcohol or the companies. Well, I think that's happening slowly.

Me too. But the thing with the psychedelics is the people doing the work, you know. Otherwise, it's back to, it's just another peak experience that we've had. And, you know, I was given all of these great insights, but I didn't really implement them afterwards. So therefore, I'm going to go back to this peak experience in another three months and have another one and get a lot of really good downloads and information and not implement them either. So that's something we see quite a bit in the psychedelic world, you know? Yeah. So of course, you know, but that's, and I think more and more people are getting wise.

So the fact that, you know, oh yeah, I should probably integrate this experience better than I have been. There's been more emphasis in the last few years about people actually doing the work, you know. Yeah. I mean, occasionally, you know, people have a psychedelic experience and knock it out of the park and just seem to change their lives effortlessly. But for the most of us. It's like you're given some information and then you have to act on that afterwards, you know. And that's kind of where the work comes in. And yeah, well, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Yeah. I see that there are, there is quite a lot of that going on in the psychedelic community is that people repeatedly go back for peak experiences and they don't integrate them properly and then they're just going back for peak experiences, which in some respects is a little bit like going to watch a really cool movie. Yeah. Yeah. So, oh, time to go to the cinema again. Hopefully after watching that movie, enough you can quote it, though.

You know what I mean? And then like, at least then, like, you start pretending. Oh, I remember John Wick over here. He did this one thing. Yeah, yeah. It seeps into your life a little bit maybe. Yeah, yeah. But he started doing those cool moves because he started doing meditation.

Do you see that this, do you see this particular wave as a building block? Like, we probably couldn't have had this. wave unless we had the last wave. And, you know, is that, is that something that you see? I know. And it's interesting to see where it's going to go. Where is it going to go from here? AI might have, um, huge implications.

Do you know what I mean? AI might be, uh, creating new drugs for us. Yes. Um, that we, you know, that we wouldn't have able to come up with on our own. Um, so it's interesting to see how this will unfold. And yeah, it's an odd place because there was this huge, like, you know, there was suddenly all of this money for investment for psychedelics and that lasted not very long. And now there isn't any money for it. Do you know what I mean?

So it was a bit of a flash in the pan, but, you know, and I don't know how far we've gotten as well. Because at the moment, really, the only thing that's available has been ketamine. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? which is a dissociative, um, so like anesthetic. Yeah.

You know, that just got used off on cross label. So, you know, there's a little bit more going on, I guess, with psilocybin. And psilocybin managed to make,

um, uh, some moves because nobody from the medical world knew what it was. You know, if they tried to do that with LSD, it wouldn't have happened. Yeah. Um,

you know, things are moving as well. like we've got a lot of mushroom dispensaries now in Vancouver and in other places mushrooms and online and stuff so again that's not really coming from the medical establishment that's coming from the underground yeah so and like five years ago we're thinking oh yeah this this new wave is happening you know and I remember some of the conversations that when I was doing my synthesis course some of the conversations that were happening and that I really thinking that you know that it was going to be adapted by the the mainstream um the society where it wasn't really I mean like the two dose movies um talking to the filmmakers they're always like you know what we could have made more if we'd made two movies about literally anything other than psychedelics you know because it's still quite kind of a niche thing.

A lot of us that are involved, were involved anyhow. We've just been given a little bit more certain amount of respectability, maybe, or something or other. So, yeah, it's interesting to see where this will go and how much will build upon on top of this. I still think that there's still quite a bit of stigma.

Yeah. You know, attached to, psychedelics and the powers that be have done a very good job of that you know I'm still people say that LSD will change your chromosomes or some bullshit like that so yeah I mean things are moving along but then the FDA just shut down so the likeos yep the MDMA yeah they just shut them down from moving forward and in some respects I could see some of their reasoning for that. So, but, yeah, things aren't moving as fast as we would like them to move, and they never do.

Yeah. So, so I'm hopeful, I would really like to see that, you know, in some years to come, that people, you know, if they need an Ibigain treatment, they would be able to get one, you know, through, because it will cost the state or society as a whole. less money to treat people with ibe gain than it will be just to let them you know out and about running around in addiction but you know how much how much money is available for for our mental health and for just health in general you know look at the system you got in the states you know we we're ours is a little bit better because you know we've got socialized medicine um but still yeah it's bleak yeah yeah it's it's yeah it's taking its time some a friend of mine is working with somebody with the mdMA soon or has just done through um we have a system in in canada where people can access it's a

special access program and so somebody has just accessed that through mdMA through a special access programming in Canada you know but people are still somebody was given special access for depression with psilocybin the other day and apparently that was a bit of a game changer they had been given it to people with end of life yeah so so now that you don't have to be dying in order to try they're fucking ridiculous and and then we've got all of these mushroom dispensaries downtown, you know. So, and that's how the cannabis was legalized in Canada, is that Health Canada said, oh, okay, we're going to give you permission to use cannabis. We're not going to tell you

where to get it from, but we're going to go ahead and said you can use it, you know, and the health Canada came up with some medical cannabis, which is just garbage and nobody would ever use it, you know, so, so that wasn't viable. And eventually, you know, so they're doing the same now, Oh, yeah, we'll give you permission to use MDMA. We don't know where the fuck you're going to get it from. But you go ahead and do that with your nurse practitioner friends. And the same with the psilocybin, you know, so. Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting times. And I do see a lot of people in institution, like higher learning, starting to embrace it on some level. Like you're beginning to see a lot more acceptance of people writing papers about ideas. And if that is some sort of a green shoot, I know that Abigail Calder is out there and Luigi Espasiano and Dr. Sebastian Schultz. Like there's so many people out there that are beginning to gain some traction with some of the ideas that they're putting out there. And I think that that could spawn the next generation. You know, if we open the door a little bit, someone may be curious and poke their head through and start to trickle in. Well, there's trials going on it.

Yes. My friend is working on some trials in the UK. And there was an Iber game trial, a 5MEO trial. Yeah. So there's stuff going on, you know? Yeah. I don't think there's quite the money that there was a couple of years ago. You know what I mean?

And so, yeah, everybody's not getting excited about it in the same way as that they were. But yeah. And it also gets very expensive when you get pharmaceutical companies involved in trials and things like that. I think it costs like a billion bucks to bring a drug to market. It's just a lot of money. Yeah. And you're talking about a cure? Yeah.

And for things like something like Ibegain, it's going to be a long time before that happens. For a start, people aren't very concerned really about people with drug problems. Yeah. Good point. Ivy Gaines more likely to come about through Parkinson's and stuff like that, I feel, which people are, we could be more likely to want to see the development of a drug for something like Parkinson's instead of a development of a drug for people with a drug problem. Maybe dementia. I think Beckley or Adam Tapp had a really good article on about 5MEODMT and dementia. And like, you know, all of a sudden that could open the door right back up and we start talking about longevity.

Yeah, but if it's, you know, connecting with the divine, I don't know if the shareholders are going to. Oh, my God, we've got to throw our money on that one. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting how there seems to be, you know, an odd relationship between, almost an adversarial relationship between spirituality and medicine. Like, there was this wedge that was driven in there. Like, we're not going to talk about this, okay? You can have medicine, but you can't have that. That seems to be like, you know, pushing on each other a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's the medical system. You know, it doesn't really recognize that side of things, you know. But that might be the reason why you're depressed, you know. Yeah, imagine that. But they can't define that stuff. You can't manage what you can't manage. I mean, and that's another problem with psychedelics is that they don't like this.

they like to keep things in a box like this and don't like it when it goes boom like that because they can't write data about that they can't do you know what I mean yeah how do you create a supply chain around that how do you how do you what do you mean we're wrong all the stuff we said was wrong what do you mean shut that down now

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so yeah interesting I do I think it's inevitable like and that's that is what gives me hope is that, you know, when we see Christians in Arkansas beginning to open the door to psychedelics in their church, like that to me is like, look at this. Look at this coming in over here. Well, that happened with Santo Dime, right?

Yeah, Dr. Jessica Rose. And that was Judge Roberts. Okay. It was a Bush appointee that allowed that to happen. So, yes. I mean, that is. And then, you know what? would want to see that I wouldn't want all of these compounds to be just taken over by the medical establishment.

Right. You know, because it hasn't been, and then suddenly they come marching along and, oh, now we've found use for these. Yes. Therefore, they are ours. And everybody, if they want to take these, has to come through a doctor and, you know. Right. Which would be a bit of a disaster. and so I don't want to see that the medical or the psychedelic scene kind of being hijacked by the medical establishment, you know.

So how is it going to work out otherwise? You know, it's an interesting situation, you know, how they'll maybe allow the holistic use of these medicines in some areas. Because, I mean, that's what John Roberts did, is he allowed Santo Dumbled. made to be using using that in their religious you know religious freedom is the the reasons for that you know so there should be something along the same lines but how to do that I don't know you know we're trying to replace this archaic harmful drug war that most people pay no attention to anyhow you know I certainly never have yeah and um so you know what's it going to be

replaced with. And what's the general public, you know, allow it to be replaced with? Like, um, uh, we have all these mushroom dispensaries downtown now. And, um, uh, some years ago before we had any bricks and mortar mushroom dispensaries, uh, Dana Larson, um, a long time activist in Vancouver for cannabis and now psychedelics said that he had an online dispensary. And he said, somewhere publicly that he was going to have a bricks and mortar store downtown and so one of the city councilors got wind of this and then wanted to have a big meeting where they would she would be able to ban mushroom dispensaries downtown because she could see that there was going to be one on every street corner kind of like we had it with cannabis before it was legalized now in order to

to do that ban, you have to be a public meeting. And so about 100 people went down now saying all of the pros for psilocybin. And the city council meeting was shot down six in favor of

dispensaries to against. Well, that was some years ago. Now the city council's changed a little bit. And they said at that time that they would be happy to be working with VPD to roll out the successful storefronts for mushrooms. But mushrooms are still Schedule 1 in Canada.

And so, and now, you know, this is six or seven years later now, I think. And now we have like 15 or more each week. There's more dispensaries. And yet they won't give them a business license. So here's the problem you can see right now. It's like the city is saying, okay, well, we're not going to. to shut these places down. But in the meantime, we're just going to ignore them.

Yeah. Which does nothing towards, you know, bringing things a little bit closer to being regulated. They'd said some years ago that they were going to do all they could with BPD to make sure that they could regulate these things. And the same thing happened with cannabis. For years, the dispensaries were unregulated. And then they legalized cannabis.

cannabis, pushed out most of the people that were involved in cannabis and made it a culture over the years, illegally, but still made it a culture. And it's kind of, you know, are they trying to do the same thing? What's going on? You know, meanwhile, as we get mushroom dispensaries, you know, proliferate in Vancouver. Well, then they're going to start opening it up in other places. And I think they are in Toronto and stuff. And so in the meantime, the powers that be don't want to,

they know that this isn't the time to be arresting people and bringing them into court, because that would just be a waste of public money. Yeah. But they're still not doing anything. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So what is the drug war going to be replaced with?

And that's kind of interesting. I think that's some green shoots Like when we look at that model It kind of reminds me of of Gandhi's method Of you know first they ignore you Then they laugh at you then they fight you And then you win you know and on some level If we look at cannabis

Yeah it hasn't We can say that it's on some level It's been difficult to monetize it In the way that Wall Street wanted to Like that seems like a win to me You know like that seems like a win Like, yeah, you can't really get your arms around it, can you? And then here comes mycelium and growing sort of like the mushroom a little bit.

Starts right here. Find some people over here. It pops up, fruit over there, fruit over here. And I'm noticing a lot of young individuals like, I'm not really going to drink anymore. I don't want to get wasted. It's like, I'd rather like sit around my friends and like contemplate the philosophical underpinnings of power. You know, and like that seems to me to be like a win. And so maybe the drug war is replaced.

with irrelevancy. Like, wow, you know, I'm hopeful. And that's very, maybe that's pie in the sky, but I can see those green shoots happening. And maybe that's contagious in some ways. I'm hopeful anyways. Is that too, holliana? Yeah, well, you know, I read an article the other day

that said that in the States, on a certain day, like last month or something, more people consume cannabis than alcohol. Yeah. That's a win. That's a plant with an agenda. Yeah, I agree. So we're seeing in, yeah, I guess, you know, well, and that's why we had decriminalization.

One of the reasons why we had drug decriminalization here, I think the main reason is that you just can't arrest their way out of this situation, you know. Yeah. But, you know, even with that, and so, you know, Dana, with his, he's got three locations. in Vancouver. One of them is a coca leaf cafe so you can go and order a

coca leaf cafe instead of coffee you know yeah but he's also selling LSD

and DMT 5MEO DMT pens you know which is really sticking his neck out there yeah

in some respects but not really I mean that's the reason why they don't want to drag him into court because there's all of these mushroom dispensaries

or you know mushrooms can get you just as altered as LSD or DMT or, you know, he's selling a lot of microdosing kits as well for ACO, DMT, 1P, LSD. So he's like a one-stop psychedelic shop. But, you know, if you're selling mushrooms, why shouldn't you be able to sell the other psychedelics? Yeah. You know, it's like apples and pairs at this point. So what they did with him is they arrested him.

the other day and um uh threw him in jail for eight hours took all of his stock in his three in his three stores and then let him out without charging him wow they should know that he's not going to submit to those kind of intimidation practices so he just went up and restocked his three stores and opened them up again that's so awesome they won't they won't drag me to court I'm pretty sure because it will put their drug laws on trial. Yeah. You know? And with the claim of support he would get in Vancouver as well,

I, you know, they did the same thing with oil in Britain. There was an activist who publicly gave oil to a woman who needed it for her child for seizures. And this was done publicly in somewhere, an important. place in London and in front of the press and as soon as he handed it over the authorities handcuffed him and and charged him but uh no sorry they had they arrested him took him down in the station but until this day they still haven't charged him again because it's you know that's putting their drug laws on charge uh or on trial um but since that kind of display of um public disobedience, now there is medical cannabis in the UK, you know, not in the ways we

probably want to see it, but people do have access in some cases. You know, I look at a very strange time at the moment. It is. Transitional, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I look in the U.S., I see a lot of like the psychedelic Lawyers Guild and there's all these professional agencies sort of kind of coming up around this. And when I think about that, I think about the way language is changing.

And we all, people who find themselves in an altered state of awareness through Beth work or psychedelics, they often find themselves bumping up against the ineffable or they find themselves seeing themselves in a different way. But ultimately, I think it comes back to this idea of language. And what if we tie this all together with some of the kids doing projects about the effects, of psychedelics on the brain. Instead of beginning to see plant medicine or psychedelics or these compounds, what if we were able to change their qualification or their classification to exogenous neurotransmitters? You know, now all of a sudden we're getting into the realm of like, oh, this is a neurotransmitter.

I see. How can that be illegal? So on some level, it could be a semantic sort of realization. oh, we've got to change the language here. And I'm sure that there's stops there, but I think there's something there, right? Yeah, I think in Theogen helped with that. Yes, agreed. But it's not, it's not, it's not a silver poet.

It still leaves it a little bit ambiguous, doesn't it? Right. Yeah. So, yeah. And again, like the establishment can't really say, oh, God, the God within. You know, yeah, great. What does that mean exactly? Yeah, no, you're right.

I think more of a term like that would be beneficial. You know, if we look at things a little bit more scientifically, you know, because it's coming out of the realm of, you know, indigenous and hippie use now. Yeah. You know, which would both be kind of frowned upon by the powers that be, you know. But, yeah, no, I think you're right, you know. And there's going to be a lot of little baby steps. Yes. To getting us to where we would like to be with this situation, you know.

And if we look at the models of cannabis, like we've gone from, oh, my uncle scored this white widow to I like the turpine profile. You know, there's a real maturity process there that allows people to, that kind of language allows you to use in a different way. You have to have the linguistic pathway in order to thoroughly understand the environment, right? I can't tell you about the trail unless I tell you, oh, he goes at the four mile marker, there's a yellow ribbon and there's like a sequoia tree right there. That's where you're going to make you left at. We need that same sort of language for the psychedelic environment.

I think it's happening. Like, just in this conversation alone, I think we've covered some fascinating topics that can give people, you know, something to chew on in some way. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but interesting times, you know, like, where is it going to go? and yeah and there seem to be having a harder time in the states like i think australia is just the work has now

legalized um medical use of mdma yeah so which is you know stepping out before the u.s. and how long can you deny positive results i mean there's people that do their whole life i get it you know i've done it for a big part of my life you know but at some level society has to start seeing like, you know what? Yeah, but they're still dragging their feet. Like the whole thing with the, you know, with the FDA and the NDA. Like, fuck. I mean, it's the, it's the, the veterans.

Yeah. You know, because that seems to me that would be the easy way in the linchpin. Deal with the veterans. Or frontline workers. Yep. With, you know, paramedics and the cops. and what have you.

I would have thought that that would have been the easy way in with that population, but still, well, so. It's time as well. Because things have changed over, you know, this last period of time. And so, you know, just, I was at, last time I was at my dentist's office,

I was looking up watching the screen, and they were talking about ketamine, catamine infusions. You know, so, yeah. I love it. I got on. Here's another question that comes in from my incredible audience to all my audience. Thank you for putting some questions over here and hanging out with us today.

And this is what actually has to do with language. What is the role of language in interpreting and integrating the profound insights gained from the altered states of consciousness? Oh, a difficult one. That's a very individual thing. Of course. Because integration is a very individual thing from person to person. And then a lot of the stuff that we might experience might be ineffable. You know?

Yeah. Especially when we're working with things like 5MEO. You can't even, you can't describe that. You can't put that into words. You know, that's why ineffable comes up so often, you know. So what was the question? me guess. The role of language in interpreting and integrating the insights gained.

I guess that's kind of integration. Is there symbols in there or yeah? Well, it's kind of in some ways what you're doing in integrating is metabolizing. Oh, I like that. Yeah. You know, you're metabolizing the experience. And often that's done in ways that can't really be put into words exactly. I think it's more of a heartfelt or felt, you know, in some ways.

I'm just thinking more of 5MEL because that's so profound. Yeah. And trying to integrate that experience, integrate and putting language to something that can't really, you know. I mean, we use words like oceanic boundlessness and stuff like that to, to make pathetic attempts of trying to describe what that experience can be. Maybe that's part of the healing is trying to think of a word

that can describe the experience, right? Like that sounds like you're desperately trying to form a new pathway. You know, like that. Maybe that's part of the work is that contemplation. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and sitting with that.

Yeah. afterwards instead of being distracted on our phones yeah yeah that's a great point that's the the neural net instead of the internet yes yeah yeah well and you know that and that takes away from people's integration um our busy lives and in these things yep stuff so yeah i agree what else do i got here but the more that you could somebody could do do to metabolize the experience. I like that. Yeah.

What are some techniques and some ways in which you have found to help people metabolize? Well, the first ones, I guess, you know, the first thing that we do with people, I encourage people to journal after a fibemial dmpt experience or with their Ibidain experience. Journaling can be good, but not everybody's into that. you know guys aren't particularly good journaling I'm useless at it so art but immediately what we do is nature you know after a session that's the first thing that we normally do after somebody's had a period of time that they might want to do some journaling and stuff we we generally have a bite to week

because people have been fasting and then the first thing that we do is we go to the forest. And so we feel that nature is a big part of that integration. But there's lots of different techniques that people can do for integration. You know, in some ways that, you know, integration is like a Polaroid snapshot. That somebody takes, and it takes a while for that to develop. You know, remember when we used to get Polaroid, we used to wave them around in the air. Yeah.

And then slowly that picture develops. Yeah. And so there's a lot of things that people can do along the way to help that picture developing, you know, a lot of other techniques, mindfulness. But nature and being in nature and not on your phone, because that's when material can come up into people's field of consciousness. There's too many things in our world these days that takes us away from that. you know so so before doing medicine work we encourage people to to disconnect as much as

they can and then afterwards as well and and take time before re-entry it we encourage me if people come and do work with us for Ibegain if it's for drug detox so we encourage them to go off to do some kind of aftercare like in Scape or something like that but if people are coming for five MEO then we would encourage them to take three to seven days off afterwards and to be able to sit with the experience and not be on their phones and you know spend time with themselves you know so we encourage people to get an Airbnb if that can be something that people can do or you know create some kind of something before they step back into the real world

that's the period of time that you have to take that huge experience and try to metabolize it before going back into life. And that's often where a lot of the work is. Of real work is of being able to give yourself that time, to not be distracted, to spend some time journaling, doing some art, different things

or working with a therapist as well an integration specialist we generally hook our people up with integration specialists is there a process for that do you match certain individuals with certain therapists yeah I've got a general idea of who might that might fit well

for people and then introduce them that way you've got a few people put in our back pockets. Yeah. Which could be an even longer process, you know, like all of our Ibergain people connect with my friend from the IBEGain counselling services, Anders, Anders, BT.

So there might be a lot of sessions afterwards. You know, depending, everybody's process is different, depending, you know, what they've been coming from, who they are, what's been going on in their lives. you know some people needs more support afterwards than other people do so it's quite an individual kind of basis but we still encourage people

to to put as much as they can into an integration process afterwards instead of like oh I'm just going to come and take this drug and you know like I say which can be just like peak experiences that people return to on a regular basis as opposed to not gleaning as much as they could out of their psychedelic experience. And that's doing the work afterwards.

Gareth, do you ever get the feeling that like sometimes maybe that the plant medicine works by finding an individual that's been through experiences teaching them and then they teach someone else? You know, maybe that's just the way health works on some level. Like we have turned the instrument into an institution of health. And I look, I'm for doctors and health and people have accidents. It's such a, it's a wonderful thing. But on some level, it just seems that maybe there's a lot of other modalities where, like, what you're doing. Like maybe that is just an alternative form of health care that people, they say the teacher shows up when you need them.

Maybe you are the teacher that shows up for a lot of people. You think that that could just be the way it works? Well, I feel that what's happening is that when people engage with the medicine, what we're really doing is showing them a door and helping them walk through it. Because we don't do the medicine ourselves. You know, that's the other ones that are doing the idea game. They're the ones that are going through that full release experience. So in some ways, you know, it's kind of like the medicine through help with others is really helping people to heal themselves in a certain way.

And that knowledge can be passed on to the next person and can also aid like, you know, people that we work with, talk to the people that we are going to be working with. you know and explain to them how that process worked for them you know what was good and what wasn't or you know the pitfalls or you know especially when we're working in addiction yeah you know that can be uh and so people do need support um coming through that but ultimately at the end of the day it's um you know there can be a lot of advice given and stuff but everybody's process is a little bit different, you know, and people recover in their own ways at their own, at their own speed as well. So, and with working with Ibegame as well, a lot of people have been trying to get out of addiction for a long time. And so, and this kind of, in some ways, giving them a roadmap, if you will, you know, with the aid of the medicines. Yeah. plant medicine and other help along the way, but it's kind of an individual path that people are walking.

It's interesting. What about the idea that sometimes I think about the idea that maybe addiction is a sort of malady on the way to becoming a better species and enough of us have to go through it. You know, there's this thing that happens when one of us does something, someone else learns. Like, no one could run a four-minute mile until one guy did it. But then more people did it. Now, more people can do it. Maybe addiction is a thing that we have to go through as a species in order to get to the next level.

And we're in the midst of it here. And people are learning. They're getting better at it. We're finding ways. And maybe it becomes a malady of the past on some level. Do you ever see it on that cosmic level? I'm not sure. It's all part of the human experience because we're all addicted to a certain.

Yeah, totally. You know, like as a species, we're addicted to oil. Yep, we addict. We know that it's having a severe detriment to us as a species, and yet we're still engaged in it. And some people are actively fighting against alternatives. You know? I don't know.

I don't think we come into this world to experience wholesomeness and love and all of that connected connectedness. I think that it's something that you work towards as, you know, because I was horribly disconnected and drug-inicted at one point in my life and I'm not now. you know and it's that journey of coming back to wholesomeness which which has its own own rewards so i'm not too sure about that one um it seems to affect us on a lot of different levels and you know it's some very very detrimental so I don't know we're comfort seeking creatures so that's a bit of a problem

and we've become quite addicted to our comfort compared to how we used to live but again to our species detriment or to our children's detriment you know so

I don't know it's a it's a tricky one that like if I if I had to do the whole thing again, I would probably still do it the way I did it because of the importance that it was to me I wouldn't be able to do what I do now

if I haven't gone through that. Yeah. So, and I wouldn't be the person that I am now if I hadn't gone through that. You know, and have the same compassion for people and stuff because of experiencing that ourselves. So, and as horrible as it was

as I was going through it, you know, and I didn't really get out of addiction until I was 35. But again, like, you know, I wouldn't be who I am now without that. So, you know, yeah, it's an interesting time. And society has gone through bad times of addiction as well. You know, I think that they clamped down on opiates very heavily at one stage is because there were so many people addicted to opiates. You used to be able to get heroin at the corner store.

you know that's made it produced by buyer so and then alcohol has been a big part of our human history you know in in in Britain you know with the gin and everything you know a lot of poor people were very addicted to gin it's always been something that's been there for the and you know drinking beer is always a very working class yeah um thing which was you know just helps people with being fucking working class yeah totally at the end of the day

you know that's so yeah maybe maybe some of our addictions might be less detrimental as we wise up

a little bit as a species maybe AI will be producing drugs for us that won't have so many detrimental effects

in the future you know so I don't know you know it's difficult to say you know as long as we are pleasure-seeking creatures which we are yeah and I think it's always going to be a problem for us and we learn the hard way on an individual basis so you know but as a society as a whole I don't know you know things are getting better when we say that in some respects when more people consume cannabis than

they did alcohol in the US last month or something or other. Yeah. So we're seeing a little bit of shift there. I think the addiction is a lot more in our face now since crack and fentanyl. Now crystal meth and fentanyl, it's a much more visible thing, you know, which therefore is making people in society a lot more aware of it. addiction's always been a problem but I think it was not something that was seen as much

you know we've always had a drug problem in the downtown east side there but now it's it's really out of hand but part of that is all of the money that people have made on housing which has made housing like this commodity that a lot of people can't have so yeah I live in Hawaii and I see these there are so many new towers going up and I you know I just it blows my mind to see how much building is going on and how many homeless people there are and then you start realizing oh you know housing is the new art market it's a phenomenal way to wash money you know and you have sovereign wealth funds just buying like 50 million dollar condos that are going to sit empty if you're like oh I see what this is just a and it's

probably all drug money. It's so crazy to see the connection. Miami was built that way. Yeah, yeah. That's how it was built up with cocaine money. Right. And a lot of money, the building that happened here, was also foreign investment.

Yeah. And well, now they brought in some laws about owning property that you can't just own it and just rent it. Right. So you can, but you have to pay a tax on that. Right. Which they're going to do, you know, spend on housing. I don't know.

I know. It's almost like, you know, we're consuming ourselves in this, you know, drive for growth. Yeah. The orboris. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, the housing situation, the drug situation. you know yeah in in some respects you know as you look at it from the outside could be you know

viewed as um the downfall of the west you know in some respects so things are certainly changing that's for certain yeah as a society as a whole do you think values are changing uh well it seems to be people seem to be more money orient orient orient or maybe they've always just been like that. But there seems to be a lot more inequality and people don't really want to pay taxes for, or a certain percentage of, or it seems like the super wealthy

are not being taxed in the ways that they used to be. And so as to the detriment of everybody else. Like when you're a billionaire, how many more billions do you need? You need all of them. That's ridiculous. Right. But now they're not getting taxed in the same ways that they used to.

Therefore, a society doesn't have the same kind of money. But there seems to be a drive against social benefits and things like that. Or they call it communism or, you know. So I don't know. I feel that we will look more and more like. South America every day. You know, I went to Columbia a long time ago

when I was young, like 12 and the inequality seemed to be very glaring. And it seems to be something that we're seeing more and more of now. Like you say, these towers are going up. In Vancouver, there's more Lamborghinis and

Maseratis than there ever were, but there's more people on the street. Yeah. And they contain it a certain area in Vancouver because you know the rest of Vancouver doesn't want to see that yeah it's there's a

there's really Marshall McLuhan in his book talked about digital feudalism and we've spoken quite a bit about the phone and the way in which technology is making people addicted to the consumer ideologies versus

and it does seem like there's a war between consumerism and creativeness and I maybe Maybe the natural state of capital is to coalesce at the top. You know, when you start looking at third world countries or you look at most, even in the West now, like you just see two classes.

We're moving from a class system back to a caste system. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like I said, it's looking more and more like Brazil. Yeah. You've got the super wealthy and the super poor. And it seems like the middle class is being kind of taken out. Yeah, I think purposely.

Well, it seems to have been happening since I left school, which is, you know, the Reagan and Thatcher era. Yeah. That neoliberalism. And, you know, a lot of the medical system has changed. A lot of people now that are out on the streets would have been in some kind of institution. There would have been an institutionalized in some way or form. And now instead of nurses taking or looking at. out for those of people.

They're just on the streets in places like the downtown east side. Right. It's mental health issues, which we just don't care about anymore. And then the drugs, which are now cheaper and more available than they ever have been. Yeah. So their system, it just doesn't, it seems to be failing. You know, so. Yeah.

So in that way, it seems society has just gotten mean. you know and like if people have the ability to make it to the top and you know they they want to do that faster and want to have more it's all about more more more we idolize you know wealthy people but Forbes magazine and stuff like that's just bullshit I just kind of but you know that's just kind of that's society that we live in yeah we idolize this you know we idolize success and they people like Trump and stuff, you know, or, you know, half the population of the country does. Or it would seem.

There's a good quote that said, in a world, in a society that is sick, the most well-adjusted people are probably the sickest. Like that's the position we find ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. Gareth, the conversation, I love it, man. It's so fun to get to talk to you. And I really respect what you're doing. I'm super thankful for the work that you've done. And I think you have a really unique way of helping people find out how to become the best versions of themselves. And I'm always excited to learn about that.

And I just want to say thanks on behalf of me. And I know a lot of the people in my audience are thankful for that, man. Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. But they're the ones that come and do the hard work. Yeah, it's true. That's true.

That's true. They have to have the courage to do it. I always try and emphasize that. People say, oh, thanks for, you know, helping me. And I'm like, well, it's not really a helping situation. You know, we're giving you the opportunity to help yourself. You know, and that's kind of, you know, because they're the ones that come and do all the hard work. So, yeah.

But we are, we've created a place where we can set the stage for that, you know. And, yeah, once I found a way that I could do that, then you know, just want to pass that on and make sure that people do have that opportunity. You know, it's a bit difficult here being here in the way that we are. But because we're in Vancouver, you know, we can still operate. And in some ways due to the kind of level of civil disobedience that goes on around here, you know, that started with cannabis. and there's a lot of people doing plant medicine work here there's a lot of therapists doing

work they've been trained through theracil and stuff so so there's a lot of people stepping out and doing the work and because we're on the west coast of the Americas that's where people have been doing it forever yeah we're just kind of carrying on with a bit of the tradition really here I think so I like it opportunity it's a great way to help people Thank you. I appreciate. Good, thanks. Yeah. Where can people find you? What do you got coming up?

What are you excited about? Well, oddly enough, somebody reached out to me earlier on and said that they're going to people to help bringing to a band one of the streets up. Sorry, I had a conversation with me just more of that. And that might be where I begin to get its record, you know, some weird place like Afghanistan. So interesting things coming up. I've just come back from Mexico. I was just down there helping at a 5MEO DMT retreat. That's something that we're trying to spend more time doing, working with that molecule.

But people can find us just through a search of, Inner Realms, Inner Realms Center, all one word, Inner Realm Center.com or, yeah, Inner Realm's Vancouver, then we can come up with a pretty easy Google search. So, yeah, it can be found that way. Awesome. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did, and I hope that you all have a beautiful day. And I hope you take some time to maybe spend some time alone and think about what you want out of life and how to get it. I don't nurture better relationships. Go down to the show notes.

Check out Gareth. And thanks for tuning in to the True Life podcast. Gareth, hang on briefly afterwards. But to everybody who hung out with us today, thank you so much for being here. That's all we got. Aloha.