text: I had known for a while that I needed to change my lifestyle. Last Monday I woke up dehydrated, hungover, and depressed. This wasn't unusual. I beat my body up daily. On an average day, I woke up and smoke a cigarette while the coffee brewed. Drank a 20-ounce cup with way too much creamer, and headed to work. Normally, it's about an hour drive. Of course, I chain smoked the entire way even though I didn't know what I was getting out of it. Did I feel that much different after smoking? I wasn't sure, but I bought a pack every time I fueled up. Sometimes the thought of how dumb I was being would begin to surface in my mind, but I drowned it out with a podcast or an audiobook. Easier to think other people's thoughts than my own. My job was stress-free, but labor-intensive. As the sun beat down I often got an ache in my side. Was that my liver from the alcohol abuse? I wasn't sure. Make no mistake, I realized that I was an alcoholic. I had done stints at AA, but my social anxiety didn't mesh well with the group. At that point, I didn't know if I could quit cold turkey without suffering from a seizure, or other withdrawal symptoms. Yet, there was still a small hopeful voice that piped up "you can be better." I wanted to listen to that voice. Damn, I'd been drinking and smoking since I was 16. Over a decade lost to that self-indulgent, physically, and psychologically damaging lifestyle. Something clicked that Monday. I wanted to make a change. I wanted to listen to that voice telling me to get better, that there is hope for a mindset that is comfortable with a sober reality. Gabor Mate's book "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" informed me that addiction is rooted in trauma, especially childhood trauma. Trauma being an event that forces you to split your mind into two parts. A barrier to protect yourself from the world, and the true emotional human that wants to be well adjusted. I'm not Mate, but that's how I interpreted it. Intellectually, I agreed with the concept, but I needed to find a way to resolve the trauma that fed my addictions. I stumbled upon an organization called MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. They conduct studies that use psychedelics to help people recover from PTSD. I decided that ibogaine would be best because it was shown to combat addiction without too much of a 'trip' like effect. I wanted to sit with my thoughts and focus on sobriety while under the effects of the substance. I reasoned that party-like stimulus may take away from the healing aspect. The problem was that ibogaine was difficult to find. It is both illegal, and not fun to take, which makes it a bad product for the white, and black markets. After reading, and listening to a bunch of material by Terrance McKenna I decided to undergo a Heroic Dose of golden teacher mushrooms. This is 5 grams, a normal dose being about 2, in a solitary environment without distraction. I wanted to undergo the trip as effectively as possible. Before taking the mushrooms, having never had a psychedelic experience, I needed to know both how it worked in the brain, and what to expect. The body converts psilocin into psilocybin. This is the uncomfortable beginning of the trip. Take everything that I am saying with a grain of salt. You'll see how my research failed me later on. Anyway, to speed up this process I decided to take an MAO inhibitor. I won't get into how this makes mushrooms more effective, because I am both unqualified, and under intense pressure. They aren't giving me much time to write this, and I'm wasting it trying to show you how smart I am. I sought out ego death, and here I am stroking the old dog. The room is shifting again. Fuck I have to hurry, but I'll tell this story in order. Sorry about the temporary lapse.