The medical profession is becoming increasingly interested in using psychedelics for deeper healing and given the resurgence in the West (note that using psychedelics for healing has been practiced indigenously for millennia), it’s no wonder people from all backgrounds, including those in recovery from addiction, are curious whether psychedelics can help them.

As an addiction metaphor, the hungry ghost demonstrates what it feels like internally for a person with an addiction or addictive tendencies. Unlike true hunger, which can be satiated by food, addiction is more of a spiritual hunger that a person tries to quench with something external. They may try a substance, a relationship, or a behavior (sex, shopping, etc.) to fulfill the aching emptiness inside.

Oftentimes going deep into the soul and the psyche requires you to let go of and lose your footing in the world as you knew it. There’s a surrendering here, an acceptance of what is rather than what you want to be. Carl Jung speaks to this when he writes, “Every transformation demands as its precondition ‘the ending of the world’ – the collapse of an old philosophy of life.”

We spend so much time trying to fit ourselves into a warped, sociocultural reality that it’s no wonder we have such high levels of depression and anxiety. We are born into families that nonverbally require us to fit in and we are conditioned by them in order to do so. Then we go to schools that require

It’s a taboo topic in 12-step groups: the use of psychedelics to aid recovery. I’ve worked with patients, clients, and students who felt ostracized and bullied if they spoke about using ibogaine or psilocybin or ayahuasca (three common psychedelics showing promising results in addiction recovery)

People are worried about gaining the “COVID 15,” or 15 lbs. as a result of sheltering in place. Others are making jokes about it: “Do I call My 600-lb Life or do they call me? How does this work?” On the other end of the spectrum,