At The Anzelmo Wellness Center we use plant medicines to help clean your system of opiates, but also to help you to see yourself: your habits, your pains, wounds, traumas, and the roots and cause of your addictions or depression, in such a powerful and clear way. Ibogaine and ayahuasca can show you why you have your anger, stubbornness, loneliness, separation, sadness, reactions, and emotional triggers. It can help you release the shame, guilt, and self-judgement. And can help you forgive yourself, for all the suffering you caused others, yourself, and the wrongs that have been done to you. Many of our patients come to us having been prescribed suboxone in an effort to get off heroin. Suboxone (Buprenorphine/naloxone) has eclipsed methadone in recent years as a treatment for those coming off of heroin. It was originally intended as a detox medication to be taken short term while one goes through withdrawal from heroin. But it’s often not prescribed that way. Former heroin users are often on suboxone for years because once it’s been in their system, getting off of it is just as bad, if not worse, than getting off heroin. The pills themselves cost between about $200 and $700 a month without insurance, and a pill has to be taken once a day. Over time, it can fog your brain, users say, making you feel dull. “You’re just not altogether there, but people are used to seeing you on dope, so they don’t notice,” says one Anzelmo Wellness patient. “Normally I’m quick and funny, but not when I’m on suboxone.” But that’s not the worst part, getting off suboxone is the worst part. One patient, Andrew, is at The Anzelmo Wellness Center not to get off heroin, but to with the Suboxone Detox, He tried for months to get off it on his own, but couldn’t because the withdrawals were so awful. “I tried to stop taking it, but I couldn’t function. You get restless leg syndrome, you’re sick, depressed, confused, sweating, you have diarrhea, you’re vomiting, you’re confused, and sleep is out of the question. Ibogaine, on the other hand, is completely non-addictive. Patients take it one time and are are completely done with their withdrawal symptoms by the time they wake up. Some patients experience restless leg syndrome in the days immediately following their treatment, and some will have trouble sleeping, but there are no other symptoms. Cravings are gone, and there is zero sickness. And you never have to take it again. The Anzelmo Wellness Center is an integrated clinic dedicated to healing severe addiction, deep trauma, and other challenges that life hands us. Our treatment philosophy combines the best of Western treatment modalities with ancient healing techniques and traditional indigenous wisdom.
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At The Anzelmo Wellness Center we have carefully selected various therapies as part of our detox plan and recovery program. These therapies help you on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual level, in order to make your transition into a sober lifestyle as easy as possible after your Ibogaine treatment. When a recovering addict opens up new body and mind pathways of thought, emotion and being, new vibrations are created, thus disrupting and decreasing previous addiction memory pathways. As you remove your old habit — addiction — we want to replace it with new habits: positive and supportive techniques that you will take with you when you leave and start rebuilding your life. Our Qigong instructor talked to us about how Qigong works, and why it’s so effective for those suffering from heroin addiction: “In the first days, they don’t feel strong enough to do the practice, they don’t see the sense in it. Most of them have never heard about it, they don’t know what it is, it doesn’t make sense to them. But after a few days you don’t need to know, you just practice and you feel it . You’re going to find out by yourself, which I think is a better way. Qigong is not something that you read. It’s something that you do. It’s a practice, and you can not compare it with anything. You have to discover Qigong. And that’s what we’re trying to inspire.” “Once you feel it, then you know there is something very strong and powerful that runs through your body. You will realize that it’s a very sacred and spiritual practice. You will realize you are alive and that you are really connected with everything around you and everybody. Then life will start to proceed in a different way. We start to perceive life in a different way, in a more connected way, in a more peaceful way, in a more joyful way. And the blessing that this practice gives to us is that we are free to go anywhere and we don’t need anyone to find the results that we are looking for.” “Well, maybe at the beginning we need someone to guide us to stand up properly, and how to breathe and remind us how to hold the body and to relax but once we have these general guidelines, we can do it on our own and you don’t need to know too much to be able to practice on your own. You can do it just by standing properly and having the right intention. And sooner or later you are going to feel the energy flowing all over you.” Qigong is a vital step in at The Anzelmo Wellness Center. We have found that this ancient Chinese practice will not only increase vitality but is directly able to re-direct cravings into emotional balance…in 5 short minutes. The Anzelmo Wellness Center is an integrated clinic dedicated to healing severe addiction, deep trauma, and other challenges that life hands us. Our treatment philosophy combines the best of Western treatment modalities with ancient healing techniques and traditional indigenous wisdom.
At the Anzelmo Welness Center we have carefully selected various therapies as part of our detox plan and recovery program. These therapies help you on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual level, in order to make your transition into a sober lifestyle as easy as possible after your Ibogaine treatment. When a recovering addict opens up new body and mind pathways of thought, emotion and being, new vibrations are created, thus disrupting and decreasing previous addiction memory pathways. As you remove your old habit — addiction — we want to replace it with new habits: positive and supportive techniques that you will take with you when you leave and start rebuilding your life. Our Qigong talked to us about how Qigong works with plant medicines, and why it’s so effective for those suffering from heroin addiction: “It’s very useful to do Qigong before taking the plant medicines, in preparation and also to do it after. It will help reduce the amount of stress people will have before their journey. It’s normal to have stress because they know they are about to alter their nervous system very powerfully. That’s what these sacred plants do. It works in a very intense way in our brain and our nervous system. I’ve notice a big difference in the people who practice and the people who don’t practice. Those who practice are more peaceful; they have more energy and are less stressed. Their bodies are more open to receiving the medicine without fighting back or resisting the medicine.” “After they take the medicines, it will help them to get back to everyday reality. After the medicines, their perception has been altered in a big way, so it’s going to help them be grounded again, to have their own center again, and to find more ways to keep working with all the information and all the treatment they’ve just received from the medicines. It’s very useful for processing the effects of the medicines in the body.” Qigong is a vital step in The Anzelmo Welness Center program.. We have found that this ancient Chinese practice will not only increase vitality but is directly able to re-direct cravings into emotional balance…in five short minutes. The Anzelmo Welness Center is an integrated clinic dedicated to healing severe addiction, deep trauma, and other challenges that life hands us. Our treatment philosophy combines the best of Western treatment modalities with ancient healing techniques and traditional indigenous wisdom.
At The Anzelmo Welness Center we have carefully selected various therapies as part of our detox plan and recovery program. These therapies help you on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual level, in order to make your transition into a sober lifestyle as easy as possible after your Ibogaine treatment. When a recovering addict opens up new body and mind pathways of thought, emotion and being, new vibrations are created, thus disrupting and decreasing previous addiction memory pathways. As you remove your old habit — addiction — we want to replace it with new habits: positive and supportive techniques that you will take with you when you leave and start rebuilding your life. Our Qigong instructor talked to us about how Qigong works, and why it’s so effective for those suffering from heroin addiction: “If someone comes here, they will learn some simple exercise to keep doing on their own when they go home. They need to practice 20 minutes a day. They need to stay still for a moment, relax, make their energy flow, give themselves the time, the intention of not just using your energy but recharging it.” “If they feel that they are having a craving, they should stop and do the exercises. That will change everything. The thing with addiction is that it’s very unconscious and very mechanic. There’s already a path wired into their brains and also in their nervous system, and all the cells; their whole body, a path that tells them to take drugs. Their body remembers how they feel after they take heroin so they are trying to get back to that feeling again.” “But people who are addicted to drugs are very lazy. They want to feel better fast, right away. And they don’t want to make any kind of effort. They don’t want to have to do anything to feel good except to inject themselves with heroin. But if you want to keep feeling better, you have to work for it. You need discipline. And it’s not something you’re going to get if you don’t practice. Even if it’s just five minutes, ten minutes, those ten minutes are going to help you.” “We have 24 hours a day and when our energy is focused outside of us, which is at least 12 hours or 18 hours a day, and if we don’t do a practice to actually focus or recharge ourselves in some kind of way, we’re just going to lose our energy. If we don’t put it back in some way, sooner or later, we are going to feel sick, and weak.” “We all want to feel alive, energetic, we want to find peace. But we all have different practices to get there and some of them are not intelligent or wise. And addicts have to pay a very high price for the practice they’ve chosen because they’ve damaged their nervous system. They’ve damaged their liver and their kidneys. But with Qigong, they can begin to unwind the damage they’ve caused.” “These main organs are filters that have gotten blocked by the heroin, and they stop working in their own capacity; they start to malfunction. Qigong can help it to start working again, but you have to practice. And if you practice, you will feel better. I’ve seen it over and over again. It’s so refreshing to witness how people are when they arrive, and how they are when they leave. They are so different.” Qigong is a vital step in The Anzelmo Welness Center program. We have found that this ancient Chinese practice will not only increase vitality but is directly able to re-direct cravings into emotional balance…in five short minutes. At The Anzelmo Welness Center is an integrated clinic dedicated to healing severe addiction, deep trauma, and other challenges that life hands us. Our treatment philosophy combines the best of Western treatment modalities with ancient healing techniques and traditional indigenous wisdom.
At The Anzelmo Wellness Center we have carefully selected various therapies as part of our detox plan and recovery program. These therapies help you on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual level, in order to make your transition into a sober lifestyle as easy as possible after your Ibogaine treatment. When a recovering addict opens up new body and mind pathways of thought, emotion and being, new vibrations are created, thus disrupting and decreasing previous addiction memory pathways. As you remove your old habit — addiction — we want to replace it with new habits: positive and supportive techniques that you will take with you when you leave and start rebuilding your life. Our Qigong instructor talked to us about how Qigong works, and why it’s so effective for those suffering from heroin addiction: Many addicts are very emotional. When we have an addiction, it’s very related with emotions. We are trying to find something outside of ourselves to calm our emotions, to make us feel better, because we don’t know how to find it inside of ourselves. So we want something external to give us the balance that we don’t have in a natural way, because we don’t know how to do it for ourselves. In general, people with addiction are trying to find something to help them get some balance in their lives, or to have more joy in their life, or to handle some issues that they have, like trauma or fear or pain. So the first thing that Qigong does it to get back a little bit of peace, peace of mind, because it works in a very direct way in our nervous system. It helps us to calm down our nervous system which has been very altered by these different substances that the patients have been consuming for years. So it’s very altered, it’s not working in a peaceful, normal way. It’s a very slow process of learning how to feel your body again. Addiction numbs your body – drugs give you peace, but it’s a fake peace because it doesn’t last. This will help them begin to feel their bodies again. There are so many things that can affect the nervous system. The principal thing is stress, and the body gets very stressed with the chemical substances that addicts are using to calm themselves. On the one hand, they feel relief for one moment, but on the other hand it’s not natural, its external – it’s something that you have to keep taking, that you have begun to medicate yourself with. And your system is going to pay for that later because it’s not natural, it’s not your own, so you away need more and more and more and more. So you end up making your own body lazy. It no longer knows how to make you feel better on your own. And that’s what Qigong does, it wakes up our capacity to heal ourselves. It allows you to do it for yourself, but it takes practice. Everything we need to be healthy and be peaceful and have joy in our lives, it’s already inside of us and just by clearing our energy channels we can start to access it again. Qigong is a vital step in a 10-part program at The Anzelmo Wellness Center. We have found that this ancient Chinese practice will not only increase vitality but is directly able to re-direct cravings into emotional balance…in five short minutes. The Anzelmo Wellness Center is an integrated clinic, using holistic methods dedicated to healing severe addiction, deep trauma, and other challenges that life hands us. Our treatment philosophy combines the best of Western treatment modalities with ancient healing techniques and traditional indigenous wisdom.
At The Anzelmo Wellness Center we have carefully selected various therapies as part of our detox plan and recovery program. These therapies help you on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual level, in order to make your transition into a sober lifestyle as easy as possible after your Ibogaine Treatment. When a recovering addict opens up new body and mind pathways of thought, emotion and being, new vibrations are created, thus disrupting and decreasing previous addiction memory pathways. As you remove your old habit — addiction — we want to replace it with new habits: positive and supportive techniques that you will take with you when you leave and start rebuilding your life. Our Qigong instructor talked to us about what the ancient practice of Qigong is, and why it’s so effective for those suffering from heroin addiction: “Qigong is an ancient practice — there is a drawing from the 2nd Century that shows Qigong exercises on it. It’s been here a long time. It’s an energy exercise that helps us in many ways — the first thing it does is helps us to keep our energy flowing in all of our body’s channels. The Chinese say that if we maintain our channels of energy flowing, we’ll never get sick. We’ll be connected with ourselves and with the sources of energy in nature like the earth and the sky and the ocean. We are able to receive the energy from the air, fire, water, wood, and the earth. Each source is represented by a different organ. The fire is represented by the heart, the stomach is the earth, the lungs are air, wood is the liver, and water is represented by the kidneys. The same energies that are in the natural world are also in our body, so if our channels of energy are flowing, they are always recharging themselves with a different source of energy from all around, from nature. Chinese people think in a very mythic and poetic way. They were trying to find something to make them infinite, immortal. And they did, in a way. Many Chinese people that practice Qigong live a very long time. Thousands of years ago, they felt that something was flowing in their bodies but they didn’t know what it was. So they did a lot of research on themselves. They would do experiments – some of them were not very nice — to discover the channels of energy. They discovered that there is energy that flows into our bodies. And when they started doing these exercises, they began to feel the energy flowing in different ways, so they started to make a map of the body based on the energy inside of it. And they would ask each other if they felt the same energetic movements and they said, ‘yes, yes, I feel it, too,’ and that’s how they created the map. They discovered different channels and different dots that make up the meridians which are like pathways that your chi, or energy, follows through. They discovered how to influence them to increase their levels of energy. But it’s not just that — the found out that when they are balanced they feel different — better. So they started to affect their meridians with needles, with heat, with herbs, and with exercises, all with the intention of making them flow and connecting them with another, bigger, source of energy, which is all around us, in nature. In the air that we breathe, which is the first energy source, but also in the water; and the sun, which is fire energy; and the woods, which is all the food we eat, fruits and vegetables; and the earth, which is the ground we stand on and comes into our bodies through our feet, if we are grounded properly. So they discovered these exercises to help us reconnect with these different energy sources so if we maintain our bodies, we will always be receiving energy from them, and we will always be healthy. Qigong focuses on three big energy vortexes in the body, called dantians. There’s one in the lower abdomen, the chest, and the head. The lower dantian works with the legs and the organs in the lower part of the torso – the reproductive organs. The middle dantian works with our heart and lungs, our emotions. The upper dantian works with our thoughts and our spiritual selves. But in this practice, the lower dantian is also the spiritual one because this is where we came from — the generative energy comes from this area. The Chinese found out a very important thing — you don’t have to die in pain or sick. In the West, that’s what we are taught, and often it’s true, but that’s just cultural because of how we treat our bodies here. It’s really normal here to end your life in pain and suffering. But it doesn’t have to be like that. There are different ways of leaving this body. And the Chinese are experts at that. Our body has more interesting things than what we know. It’s not a machine that we know how to properly use in this part of the world. So we need to be taught, Western people. We need to learn how to use our bodies. But once you start to feel it, it’s so powerful. QiGong is a vital step in a 10-part program The Anzelmo Wellness Center. We have found that this ancient Chinese practice will not only increase vitality but is directly able to re-direct cravings into emotional balance…in five short minutes. The Anzelmo Wellness Center is an integrated clinic dedicated to healing severe addiction, deep trauma, and other challenges that life hands us. Our treatment philosophy combines the best of Western treatment modalities with ancient healing techniques and traditional indigenous wisdom.
At The Anzelmo Wellness Center we use plant medicines to help clean your system of opiates, but also to help you to see yourself: your habits, your pains, wounds, traumas, and the roots and cause of your addictions or depression, in such a powerful and clear way. Ibogaine can show you why you have your anger, stubbornness, loneliness, separation, sadness, reactions, and emotional triggers. It can help you release the shame, guilt, and self-judgement. And can help you forgive yourself, for all the suffering you caused others, yourself, and the wrongs that have been done to you. In addition to preparing yourself physically for your ibogaine treatment by ensuring that you are off any drugs that contraindicate with it, there are other things you can be doing to get yourself ready for the experience. Ibogaine is one — if not THE – most powerful hallucinogens on earth. If you are nervous about working with this plant medicine — you are right to be. It’s a warrior’s medicine and it should be treated with the respect it deserves. It’s also likely one of the most bizarre and beautiful things you will ever do. Oh, and at the end of it, you won’t be addicted to heroin anymore. For those of you who don’t have a lot of experience with hallucinogens, here are a few guidelines to follow: Don’t resist. This is a big one. If your body starts to hurt and you start saying over and over again in your brain, “I don’t like this, I want it to stop, make it stop,” you will just prolong the pain. Instead of asking the medicine to stop, just breathe. Say to yourself, “This is temporary. The ibogaine is trying to heal me. Please heal me. Thank you for healing me.” And relax your body as much as you can while you say it. Try not to focus on the pain. My friend Derek taught me that whenever he gets nauseous from ayahuasca, he doesn’t focus only on the pain in his stomach – instead he focuses on his entire body, just following his breath, and once he does that, his stomach pain becomes muted. The more you relax, the easier time you will have. This goes for your mind as well. Your mind is going to want to make sense of what’s happening — but it won’t make any sense. Don’t try. Try to shut your mind down, entirely, if possible. Do this through breath. Just focus on breathing, in and out, in and out, and try to keep the rational part of your brain quiet. It’s going to want to control the show, to make a story out of the images you might be seeing — try not to let it. Say, “Thank you, brain, for trying to help, but please be quiet now.” And go back to focusing on your breath. Mediate. The single best way to prepare for Ibogaine is to mediate. Spend 20 minutes a day sitting alone quietly, cross legged, with a straight spine, training your mind to be still. If you want, repeat a mantra to yourself to give your brain something to occupy itself. Russell Simmons is a big Transcendental Meditation guy and he gave away his mantra freely in one of his books — it’s “Rhum.” So say “rhum rhum rhum rhum rhum rhum” to yourself as you breathe in and out for twenty minutes each day to let your mind get used to being a little quieter. This will be a really useful tool for the hour or so you’ll wait after taking the ibogaine, before the effects come on, when you’re anxiety might be at its peak. Repeat a mantra to keep yourself calm. Pray. Prayer can get you through some tight spots during intense hallucinations. Keep your eyes closed. It’s a good idea to have an eyemask with you. It seems that the visions stop when you open your eyes, and it can be hard to keep them shut when what’s going on behind your lids is so intense. An eye mask works to keep your lids down. Do some research, but not too much. Skimming Erowid can be really useful, but I suggest reading the last few paragraphs of the entry first — make sure the experience was positive for the user before you read it. There is ZERO point in reading the negative ones. The vast majority of entries are wildly positive. Don’t have too many expectations, or any, really. The beauty of ibogaine is that even if the hallucinations are not strong, the medicine is still working on your brain. So know that whatever happens during the night — even if nothing happens — you will be free from addiction, or anxiety, or depression — whatever your demon is — the next morning. The ibogaine is in your system the minute you swallow the pill, and it will reset your neurons with or without any hallucinations. You’ll have a second chance. The Anzelmo Wellness Center is an integrated clinic dedicated to healing severe addiction, deep trauma, and other challenges that life hands us. Our treatment philosophy combines the best of Western treatment modalities with ancient healing techniques and traditional indigenous wisdom.
At The Anzelmo Wellness Center we use plant medicines to help clean your system of opiates, but also to help you to see yourself: your habits, your pains, wounds, traumas, and the roots and cause of your addictions or depression, in such a powerful and clear way. Ibogaine and Ayahuasca can show you why you have your anger, stubbornness, loneliness, separation, sadness, reactions, and emotional triggers. It can help you release the shame, guilt, and self-judgement. And can help you forgive yourself, for all the suffering you caused others, yourself, and the wrongs that have been done to you. Most of the staff at The Anzelmo Wellness Center found their calling through the plants. As they cleared their own pain, heartache, and addiction, the darkness that had been eddying in little pools inside their bodies began to run clear, and into that lightness came the message: help others find this path. As their souls grew shinier that mission became a reality — three houses on the beach in Rosarito filled with shamans, healers, laughter, and, most importantly, patients dedicated to their own sobriety, and their own souls. When the staff needs to reconnect with that mission, they go back to the plants for more healing, more information, and more courage. This weekend a group of staff members and their friends sat in ceremony with Kasia and Chance, shamans from Pheonix, to give their souls a little tune up. This weekend is about finding your sweet spot, Kasia instructed us as we sat in a circle. It’s about tuning in to the frequency you want to live in. You can choose the energy you want to align with. Is it love or is it fear? It’s that simple. This is your chance to interact with the divine, she said. Take it. Kasia and Chance take their work seriously. They are not messing around when it comes to enlisting soldiers into the Soul Army. Kasia is a general, directing her troops with a smile and a straight spine. Chance is in the black ops. They never see him coming. Gen. Kasia began to sing, and as she called in the Grandmother, asking for her blessings, the purging began. Like a spiritual Florence Nightingale, Kasia flitted from one to the next, tending to the wounded, who lay in helpless heaps over their buckets, helping to bandage psychic wounds. Around the circle she went, her arms tinkling with the soft sound of her bracelets. Chance, the red-headed wizard, had disappeared to the back room to help clear some dark energy from a woman who was drinking for the first time and felt she was being haunted by dark forces. As she struggled in discomfort from the medicine, Chance conducted psychic surgery, enticing the blackness to leave her body — tricking it with his wit, slicing at it with his hands, joking with it to get it off its guard. In one corner of the living room, F. sang to herself quietly, a song from her childhood, that made her feel loved. “This place is so beautiful,” she said. “I never want to leave.” S. held space from the center of the room, telepathically checking in with everyone, sending them signals to help them deal with their grief. The two tall brothers, strong and capable and wrapped in blankets, walked swiftly throughout the house, bringing water and kleenex to whoever needed it. Kasia continued disappearing and reappearing like a hummingbird, alighting on your shoulder just as you started to cry. Chance finally emerged from the back room energized by his battle with darkness. Behind him, the young woman who had been doubled over in pain an hour before was smiling and radiant, a new devotee of the medicine, the pain gone for the first time in years. Soon the energy in the room lifted and the heaviness in the room began to lighten. Small clusters formed outside on the grass as we began to talk about the messages, we’d each received, the visions the plants had shown us, the new tools she’d given us. Whispers gave way to laughter, and soon the whole room was laughing at something, sending sounds of joy into the earth, little prayers of gratitude in the form of giggles. The Anzelmo Wellness Center is an integrated clinic dedicated to healing severe addiction, deep trauma, and other challenges that life hands us. Our treatment philosophy combines the best of Western treatment modalities with ancient healing techniques and traditional indigenous wisdom.
At The Anzelmo Wellness Center we use plant medicines to help clean your system of opiates, but also to help you to see yourself: your habits, your pains, wounds, traumas, and the roots and cause of your addictions or depression, in such a powerful and clear way. Ibogaine can show you why you have your anger, stubbornness, loneliness, separation, sadness, reactions, and emotional triggers. It can help you release the shame, guilt, and self-judgement. And can help you forgive yourself, for all the suffering you caused others, yourself, and the wrongs that have been done to you. A recent patient, Mason, shares his experience with Ibogaine, 5MEO DMT, and Ayahuasca: “I’ve been in four treatment centers. This is my fifth. I’ve also been in jail, so I’ve gotten clean there. This place is so different. All rehabs are NA, AA, 12 steps. They don’t offer yoga, or any type of spiritual care. All that stuff was foreign to me when I got here. Other rehabs, it’s just meeting after meeting after meeting about drinking and using drugs. It’s a very closed environment and a much bigger population. It’s not coed. It’s like being in an institution. It’s bunk beds, you don’t have your own room. It’s like human trafficking.” “Ibogaine allowed me to look at my life in a different perspective and look at things that have happened to me, that have caused me pain and grief. It allowed me to let them go and deal with them in a healthy way. And it reset my serotonin and dopamine, which have not been normal since I was 11 years old.” “I’ve never been sober since I was 11. My mind has always been so polluted. I’ve always been in a foggy state. I couldn’t tolerate the discomfort of my own self. I didn’t know why then. I couldn’t pinpoint it then. But now with three nights of ayahuasca and one night of ibogaine, I know the cause of it.” “Going into my ibogaine treatment, I was really nervous because I knew I was going to see the truth and see something that would cause me pain. It wasn’t horrible but it was difficult. Mentally it was rough to go through my past again. And look at all the things that I had tried to forget. Waking up that next morning after ibogaine, I felt and looked like a different human being. I looked in the mirror and did not recognize myself. I did not see myself as a drug addict anymore. Something in my brain was different.” “I asked myself, if I had heroin in my hand right now, would it sound like a good thing to do? And I thought no, I don’t need it anymore. I felt happy with myself. I thought I don’t need a chemical to do it anymore. I felt happy. I felt okay with myself. I accepted who I was. It was just like something I can’t explain. but it brought joy to me. My heart felt warm. For so long I have not been able to feel comfortable or loving towards myself. I felt like I loved myself again. I felt like I loved who I was.” “The first night of ayahuasca was like the Toad (5MEO DMT), it was really euphoric. Really uplifting. I felt weightless, like there wasn’t a care in the world that could bring me down. Nothing could bring me down. I felt like I saw god. The second night was when I asked the ayahuasca to allow me to see why I chose to do heroin and meth and drugs to numb my pain instead of dealing with it the right way like normal people do. It showed me that what I had thought had originally caused me to hurt myself was wrong — I had a distorted view of what had happened. I had forgotten how bad my uncle treated me and my cousin and how much he hurt us. I never really realized how much he hurt me. I always thought it was my dad’s fault. I feel like I can forgive my dad and myself and I can tell him to his face, It’s not your fault. I feel like I can accept what I’ve done and move on now. I feel like I’m free from the chains.” “The third night I purged I felt like I got me ego ripped out of me. I was able to get all those bad emotions and the bad feelings about other people out, and I was able to be one with everything else around me. We’re all on a level playing field. We all get the same chances. I felt loved.” “Going back I feel I’d be lying if I said I’m 100 percent not nervous or scared. But I’m not scared of what I have to do. I’ve just never had to face life on life’s terms out there in the real world. But now that I have these tools, I feel like I have the power to do it. The tool of forgiveness, and the stuff I’ve been able to let go of. I can’t change the past.” “I don’t feel like getting high anymore. It sounds disgusting now. I hate it. I can actually say that now and mean it. I always before would say it but knew I would get high again. Now I feel like I don’t have to say yes, I feel like I can make a choice. And I’m not choosing it. Now that all this plant medicine has restored my brain and my chemicals, I am so much happier without it. It doesn’t appeal to me in the same way it used to.” The Anzelmo Wellness Center is an integrated clinic dedicated, utilizing holistic treatment methods, to healing severe addiction, deep trauma, and other challenges that life hands us. Our treatment philosophy combines the best of Western treatment modalities with ancient healing techniques and traditional indigenous wisdom.
At The Anzelmo Wellness Center we use plant medicines to help clean your system of opiates, but also to help you to see yourself: your habits, your pains, wounds, traumas, and the roots and cause of your addictions or depression, in such a powerful and clear way. Ibogaine can show you why you have your anger, stubbornness, loneliness, separation, sadness, reactions, and emotional triggers. It can help you release the shame, guilt, and self-judgement. And can help you forgive yourself, for all the suffering you caused others, yourself, and the wrongs that have been done to you. 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, the patient experiences a psychedelic trip that often shows them two paths — one if they were to continue to use drugs and one if they were to stop. It can also show them their past through a new prism — they can view old and sometimes forgotten memories in a new light; helping the patient to understand why they used drugs in the first place. The patient can gain tremendous insight into their personality and addiction, helping to “pursue profound changes in their lives, including changing their relationship with their drugs of abuse,” writes Carrera. While the patient is undergoing the psychedelic portion of the treatment, the root bark of a little shrub from Africa — the iboga tree — is essentially doing surgery on their brain by resetting the neurons back to baseline; essentially where the brain was before the patient began using drugs. When they finish the treatment, they are no longer addicted to heroin. But in addition to that, the old neural pathways are temporarily taken offline, giving the patient a break from their old habits — enough time, hopefully, to allow them to form new, healthier habits. In addition, says Carerra, ibogaine affects the patient’s “hardware” – “receptors in the brain and in the neurotransmitter systems,” he writes. “Ibogaine can promote the release of small proteins called “neurotrophic factors” in some parts of the brain.” Neurotrophic factors, explains Carrera, are substances that promote “survival, repair, and protection processes in the brain tissue.” Neurotrophic factors can also promote “neurogenesis (the generation of new neurons from progenitor cells) in the developing nervous system and in some areas of the mature human brain,” he writes. “These substances are of vital importance for the development and function of the nervous system.. . .Since ibogaine can promote the release of these neurotrophic factors in some regions of the brain, it is proposed it could repair and protect the damaged neural circuits involved in drug addiction.” The Anzelmo Wellness Center is an integrated clinic dedicated to healing severe addiction, deep trauma, and other challenges that life hands us. Our treatment philosophy combines the best of Western treatment modalities with ancient healing techniques and traditional indigenous wisdom.
