How does ibogaine work in the brain to end addiction?
At the Anzelmo Wellness Center, ibogaine treatment is provided within a medically supervised setting to support both physical detoxification and the deeper emotional work that can accompany recovery. While each person’s experience is unique, many individuals gain insight into patterns connected to their substance use — including long-standing habits, emotional wounds, past trauma, or unresolved feelings that may influence addiction or depression.
During this process, people often develop a clearer understanding of their reactions and emotional triggers and may experience a sense of release around feelings such as guilt, shame, or self-judgment. For some, this increased clarity can create space for compassion toward themselves and others, supporting the healing needed to move forward. Families seeking an overview of how treatment unfolds can learn more through our treatment process overview.
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Ibogaine works on both the brain’s “hardware”
Ibogaine works on both the brain’s “hardware” – the neural circuitry, neurotransmitters and receptors, and the brain’s “software” — a patient’s personality, according to chemist Ignacio Carrera, in an article on Chacruna.net
During an ibogaine treatment, patients may experience a visionary or introspective state that allows them to explore personal history, emotional patterns, and long-standing behaviors from a different perspective. While each experience is unique, many individuals report gaining clarity about challenges that contributed to their substance use, including unresolved memories, emotional triggers, or difficult life events viewed through a new lens.
This type of insight can help patients better understand their relationship with addiction and support meaningful changes in how they approach recovery moving forward.
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“Being able to put together the thoughts that they’ve had, why they’ve relapsed before. I think that’s what Ibogaine really shows you. Our errors in our life. It brings out of us what’s inside of us. It’s not showing us the path to go, it’s more showing us the mistakes that we’ve made.”
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“We’ve been talking about our pasts here, me and the other patients, clients, and I used to get physical responses, just even talking about drugs. I would get rapid heartbeat, get a little nauseous, feel like I had to go to the bathroom or something, and now I just don’t. It just doesn’t even appeal to me. I’ve spent too much time doing that. I don’t want to stab myself with needles anymore. Making myself bleed everyday. I forgive myself, the past is the past. But in the future, this is a beautiful vessel, it’s an amazing microcosm. I have to take care of it.”
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“I felt like I was reborn. I felt like a new person. I felt that my way I expressed it to people was that I was born, I was reborn at my age. Totally clear head, totally brand new. Just totally…it’s insane what it does. It’s really, it’s a miracle when you do the treatment and you come out of it. You know, the first thing I think is miracle.”
A Clean Start
While the patient is moving through the psychedelic portion of treatment, the root bark of the African iboga tree interacts with several neurotransmitter systems associated with addiction, withdrawal, and emotional processing. Rather than “erasing” addiction, ibogaine is believed to support a temporary interruption of withdrawal symptoms and cravings while giving individuals an opportunity to reflect on patterns connected to substance use.
Many patients describe this period as a chance to look at their experiences, choices, and emotional history from a different perspective, which can help them approach recovery with a clearer mind and greater internal stability. While ibogaine is not a cure for addiction, this window of reduced physical dependence can create space to begin forming new, healthier habits during ongoing recovery work.
How Does Ibogaine Work?
In his published work on ibogaine, Eduardo Gastelum Carrera proposes that the medicine may interact with receptors and neurotransmitter systems involved in addiction and withdrawal—what he informally refers to as the brain’s “hardware.” Carrera suggests that these interactions could support the release of neurotrophic factors, small proteins known to play roles in neural health, resilience, and cellular maintenance. He notes that neurotrophic factors are involved in processes such as tissue protection, repair, and, in certain regions of the adult brain, even limited neurogenesis.
While these ideas remain theoretical and are still being studied, Carrera’s perspective reflects ongoing scientific curiosity about how ibogaine may influence the nervous system. What is more consistently observed in clinical settings is that many patients report increased clarity, emotional stability, and a sense of internal reset in the early period following treatment—creating a window of opportunity to engage more fully in the behavioral and emotional work required for recovery.
