Common Pitfalls to Avoid after Ibogaine Treatment

by Jun 15, 2016

Ibogaine treatment is exceptionally effective at giving people who may have failed at more conventional detox methods, the opportunity to regain a locus of control and interrupt their addiction. After ibogaine treatment your physical addiction will be reset and you’ll have a window of opportunity to establish the patterns of a new, drug-free existence.

After your physical drug dependence has been reset through ibogaine treatment and you’re taking the first steps of a new, sober life, this can be a difficult time for people. Unfortunately ibogaine is not a magic bullet, but rather a catalyst for change. For the first time in a long time, almost anything will seem possible. It’s important to use this time to the best of your ability to do so and try to plan ahead.

Mistakes to Avoid

While it may be true that there’s no such thing as a mistake and everything is only a lesson, it’s helpful to set some boundaries and goals for yourself in your newly sober life, so you don’t stumble into each new situation unprepared.

Not Taking Care of Yourself

Many people haven’t experienced life free of addiction for years or decades of time, prior to their ibogaine treatment. Living in active addiction is very time consuming and can be likened to having a full-time career in and of itself, doing nothing but going through the motions of an endless cycle that leads nowhere, but manages to take up all of your time.

After getting clean many people race in multiple directions all at once and want to fix their relationships, their job situation and every aspect of of their lives which they’ve neglected for years.

Whatever you need to focus on today, tomorrow, or next month, it’s extremely important to take time each day to take care of yourself. Get some exercise, it provides endorphin release and will make the rest of your day more pleasant. Read something. Learn how to relax or even meditate. Have sex. Have fun. Chances are you haven’t really enjoyed life in a long time. You’re either high (very briefly), medicated or dopesick. Experience what it feels like to be a person again.

If you focus all of your energy on attaining goals, or place yourself in potentially explosive emotional situations with people you may have hurt or wronged in the past, you’re really not doing yourself any favors. It’s probably not urgent to rush into situations that you’ve managed to ignore for years. Take things day by day. Try to be kind to yourself.

Putting Yourself in Dangerous Situations

Your environment can go a long way towards helping or harming your approach to daily life. You’re probably going to travel quite a distance to obtain ibogaine treatment in some other country. After this you will hopefully be going to some sort of transitional living arrangement where you have some time to reintegrate and heal, before returning to your home and facing the world.

If the situation you’re returning to is extremely toxic, you may want to try making alternate arrangements. If you return home and make no changes in your previous patterns, habits and friends, then you are setting yourself up for failure, or an extremely difficult journey that could be much easier if you set reasonable boundaries ahead of time.

One of the most black and white boundaries it’s a great idea to follow, is staying away from friends who are still actively using drugs. Even if they’re not just drug friends, but rather people you’ve known for a long time and feel close to, it’s an extremely poor idea to spend your time hanging around with people who are getting high, when you’re newly sober. While anything is possible, what’s far more probable is that you’re going to end up right back where you were, before seeking ibogaine treatment.

If you deeply care about someone who is actively using drugs, then do yourself, and them, a favor, and stay away until you’ve had some time to reintegrate and get a little bit of strength

A Lack of Support

Before it’s urgent and an emergency, while you have the time to reflect and think about best possible outcomes. Try to make reality-based plans for where you’d like to see yourself next week, next month, 6 months from now. While you’re still in a positive space, reach out to people and if you don’t already have one, find some kind of support system that works for you.

Ibogaine is known as a substance that interrupts addiction. This is an accurate characterization of what ibogaine does. It hits a reset on your drug dependence, wipes clean the slate, resets your body, and loads you up with a long-acting metabolite called noribogaine, which significantly reduces cravings, acts as an antidepressant, and alleviates symptoms associated with post-acute withdrawal syndrome (PAWS).

In short: ibogaine reboots your life and presents you with a window of opportunity where anything is possible. This time period isn’t perpetual, it’s going to end in 2-4 months after all the noribogaine has left your system, so try to set aside as much time as you can, to focus on you. Establish positive patterns, spend time with non-drug using friends, find things that make you happy and bring joy and hope into your life.