Reclaim Your Life in 2017
Making a resolution to step off the endless treadmill of getting high (or just getting normal and being able to function in the latter stages of drug dependence), followed by doing whatever you need to do in order to get more money to get high again, while watching the rest of your life spiraling down the drain, is a wonderful idea. New Year’s is a traditional time when people across the world make resolutions for the coming year.
It isn’t much of an exaggeration to say that most people who have been drug dependent for any length of time, have made a near-endless series of commitments and resolutions, to step out of the cycle, and reclaim their lives. The problem is, as with most resolutions, it can be easier said then done.
While the basic foundations of what drug addiction even means, are built on quicksand and open to interpretation; is “addiction” a disease, or simply a collection of maladaptive learned behaviors? As 2016 winds towards a close, Western models of medicine are conflicted and undecided on even this simple baseline.
Nearly everybody has a friend (or 10) who may have shared a story that could be paraphrased as, “…and I just got tired of getting high every day, waking up a wreck, not knowing whose bed I’m even in or where I am, missing appointments, blowing commitments, and having my life starting to fall apart. So I stopped drinking and doing coke!” Well, congratulations! Good for you. You made the right choice. But… you’re not addicted.
A very reasonable summary of drug addiction amounts to: if you are repeatedly taking a drug, over and over and over again, and the consequences of your drug use continue to pile up, your life is spiraling out of control, and you know that you should stop, have tried to stop, but cannot. You’re addicted. You are following nearly overwhelming compulsions, as opposed to making reasonable choices, your neurochemistry has been hijacked and you’re along for the ride. As much as friends and family may blame you for the choices you’re making, the concept of choice is present only during the initial stages of drug dependence. In the beginning, you are making choices… they’re quite probably poor decisions because using drugs to superglue yourself together is, at best, a bandaid, which is not going to last, but they are choices.
During the latter stages of heavy drug dependence, your hijacked neurochemistry has pretty much turned you into the lab-rat in a cage hitting the lever, over and over and over again. The concept of choice has vanished. You know that you should stop, but you can’t.
Resetting Your Neurochemistry with Ibogaine
Ibogaine Treatment is remarkably effective at providing an experience which is more than just another detox. Post-ibogaine the slate has been wiped clean and you are reset back to a pre-addictive state. In short, your body and brain have been rebooted. Ibogaine provides more than just a detox, it’s akin to a complete reset. At the present time, there is no drug treatment modality which comes close to what ibogaine treatment can offer heavily addicted individuals.
While ibogaine is more than just a detox, it still falls short of being a “cure.” In and of itself, ibogaine will not provide you with a brand new life and completely different patterns of behavior. It will give you a relatively painless and effective reset from addictive drugs, and it does provide people with a perspective shift, wherein they’re able to step outside of themselves and evaluate their choices in ways that may not have been possible prior to having an ibogaine experience, but ultimately the only person who is ever going to keep you “clean” is you.
Make a Plan & Get a Support System
Getting clean is a process. What’s important is your headspace and beliefs about yourself, not so much what your clean date is, or how long you’ve been off drugs. These are important milestones, but they shouldn’t define who and what you are. What you need to do is create a new script for yourself, and the life that you want to have. Set simple goals and celebrate personal milestones, with rewarding yourself in positive ways, which reinforce your new patterns of behavior and habits, while moving further away from maladaptive patterns of behavior which were no longer working for you.
Having some kind of therapist whom you trust, can relate to, and share your problems with, is critical for most people. It doesn’t really matter whether they’re a Ph.D., or come from a completely different background which has nearly nothing in common with addiction counseling as taught in schools. What matters is that they are the right person FOR YOU. You must have some kind of resonance with the person who you’re trusting your life with, because no matter how impressive their credentials may be, it’s not going to help you if you don’t trust or relate to them. It can take a lot of effort to find someone you connect with, or it can be as easy as letting go of pre-existing prejudices and judgements and trying something that has never worked for you prior to ibogaine treatment.
In addition to one-on-one therapy you should make every effort possible to set up a safety-net for yourself which provides group support when you need it. Having a safe environment available where you can share problems that may seem overwhelming, with other people you connect with and can relate to, is invaluable and can be an asset that makes or breaks your plan to clean up and reclaim your life.
Every person is unique and your journey through recovery is not going to be exactly the same as everybody else. But you will require both individual and group support. If you’d like more information about how ibogaine treatment can help you attain your goals and work with your unique situation, please feel free to reach out to one of our intake specialists.
Namaste and all the best in 2017.