Psychedelics In Recovery Santa Cruz

More than ever, people are turning to plant medicine and other psychedelics to assist with healing from issues such as trauma, depression, and addictive behaviors, just to name a few. There’s something so spiritual and powerful about these modalities, including psilocybin mushrooms, ketamine, marijuana, ayahuasca, and MDMA, that enables individuals to look deep within themselves in their search for self-growth and positive transformation.

Psychedelics have gotten a bad rap over the years, yet with responsible and intentional use, their use can allow individuals struggling with mental health problems to dig deep, oftentimes much more effectively than traditional forms of treatment. For those dealing with addiction to harmful substances such as alcohol, opiates, and speed, psychedelics can offer deep introspection and a reframing of the oftentimes elusive reasons they turned to these substances in the first place. 

The problem that arises, in these cases, is that Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous are strictly opposed to the use of any mind-altering substances in their recovery problems. It’s not a requirement that their members be actively tested to make sure that they don’t use psychedelics, but they do discourage mentioning their use during meetings. This can make those who have had breakthroughs in their recovery using these healing modalities reluctant to share their success stories with others in the community.

The good news is that there is a growing movement, Psychedelics in Recovery, that utilizes the highly successful 12-step framework of N.A. and A.A., while allowing for the open discussion of the role that psychedelics have played in their recovery. While primarily an online meeting place, Psychedelics In Recovery has recently branched out, offering in-person meetings. 

Now, due to the efforts of local psychedelic proponents J. M. And P.S., PIR now offers in-person meetings for anyone interested. Since they opened meetings to the public back in April, they’ve found moderate success in attracted psychedelic users in recovery who had been itching for a local community of like minded individuals. 

In an effort to draw more attention to their cause, I decided to sit down with the pair to see what their program is all about. In an effort to honor their anonymity, I will refer to the both by their first and last initial.

What is Psychedelics In Recovery and how did you become involved?

J. M.- It’s a recovery group. It’s a 12-step program, just like AA, NA, or any of these other programs. It’s a healing group for people to come together, share experiences, and cope. In Typical AA they say no mind altering substances at all. If you go into AA, you don’t drink, and you use the steps. The step work is admitting that you can’t do it alone and you need support and help. 

It’s all about taking a hard look at yourself, doing journaling, writing about yourself and your habits, what you’ve done to others, and making amends. It’s going through your spirit and trying to cleanse and take a look at yourself using meditation, journaling, and service. Doing that kind of work. In a typical AA program, they tell you to stay away from all mind altering substances. That means any type of psychedelics or marijuana.

In my recovery, I was a meth and cocaine addict, and also an alcoholic. I could not stop for the life of me. I had a psychedelic experience with Ayahuasca, and that’s what shifted me into this new way of living with yoga, meditation, and sound healing. So I’m a really big advocate of the power of these plant medicines in waking you up. 

But the thing is, I have six years of sobriety and AA meetings, anytime I tried to tell my stories, mentioning that I used psychedelics, they tell me you can’t say that? People involved in AA kept telling me to come and tell my story, and anytime I did, they told me I can’t say that. I was like, “well what do you want me to do then?”, and they were like, “well just leave that part of your story out”. So I wanted a way to be able to explain this and tell my story in a safe place without being judged. 

I’d been waiting for a psychedelic recovery program to come to Santa Cruz so I could talk about it but it wasn’t happening. It’s like that quote, “be the change that you want to see in the world” and I was like, “if I want this meeting to happen, I’m just going to have to be the one to do it”. So I started our local, in-person PIR group. All these people who started coming were telling me, “I’ve been waiting for something like this to come along because I can’t tell my story at AA”. More people than you think are coming to AA not sharing their story, and there are people struggling who are asking for help and all these people who have used psychedelics are having breakthroughs but can’t tell their story. So it’s very constricting. 

Now that I have this group, they’re able to talk about it— what works and what doesn’t. Each person has their own journey, and this is a safe place to use other medicines to see what works for us, but to also be accountable, to be able to say, “I’m having a hard time with marijuana, I can’t stop,” and kind of get yourself in check. 

In AA, if you tell them you are smoking weed, they look at you like you’re lower than them. So this is a safe space to be transparent with what you’re doing, even though it’s not your typical recovery thing, but it helps people recover easier, I feel like, without all the shame and guilt.

P. S.– I’m a retired emergency physician, but also did sports medicine. I’m 64 and I retired a few years ago, but I recently came out of retirement. Now, I’m doing ketamine assisted psychotherapy with my partner. She does the talk therapy and I do the ketamine therapy medicine. We stay pretty busy doing that, helping people with depression, and other issues as well. 

I’ve been in recovery for a long time. I crashed and burned doing intravenous opioids when I was 26, and been clean and sober since. I’ve been a moderately active member of the 12 step program my whole life, essentially, until I started reading about mental health treatment with psychedelics. That’s what got me started down this path.

Pretty soon after I had my first psilocybin experience in the May of 2021, I discovered Psychedelics in Recovery. Since then, I’ve been an active member of PIR, which is mostly online meetings. People like Justin and I are working to have PIR branch out to be more In-person 12 step recovery program.

It sounds like PIR was already an established recovery program that you guys jumped into?

J.M.- Psychedelics In Recovery is a global program but they don’t have many in-person meetings available. There’s only a few in the world that do. I think that this is because it’s a such a new, emerging thing, and sometimes I feel like people don’t want to walk into the room because they don’t want to be seen. I’ve even met people in recovery in AA who don’t want to come because they didn’t want to blow their cover. 

But the thing is that in-person recovery is where it’s really at because you truly get the most benefit because most the time only 10-15% of the people have their camera on during the meetings. Like myself, I’d turn the camera off and participate while I was cooking or taking a bath, and with that, you’re not fully present. There’s something about looking someone in the eye in a room, without a phone or technology and having a really intimate conversation, you know?

P.S.- That’s really well put. It sums it up for me. In 12 Steps there’s a lot of people who hug, and online you can’t really hug. Psychedelics in Recovery has only been around since 2017. It started small. Primarily it was online, and I think they had an in-person meeting in New York City. Then Covid hit and it took off, because everything took off on Zoom. Unfortunately, it felt like we were kinda stuck there, and now we’re trying to take a step back, which for us would be a step forward, with in-person meetings here in town. 

When did you guys start your meetings?

J. M.- We started April 1st, 2023, the day my dad died. It was perfect timing because I really needed support. In leading this group, I had to be accountable every week, so it was honestly perfect timing, for me. 

What does a typical meeting look like?

J. M.- It’s at Green Magic Yoga, which is located at 738 Chestnut Street. 

P. S.- Monday evenings, 7:30-8:30 PM.

J. M.- During a typical session, we open up with our guidelines, which kinda states what we’re about, who we are, and what we do. We’re not doing this for promotion or money— we’re not selling any services. It’s just a support group to help people recover from any destructive behaviors. Once we do the opening, which lasts about 10 minutes, from there it’s just an Open/Share group. The floor is open and people just talk about what they’ve been going through….”I had a great week. I did this, this, and this, and all these things are coming together” where for other people it’s more like, “My week’s been shit, this is happening, I got in a car accident” etc. 

We don’t offer support for each other during meetings and we’re not having an open conversation. It’s more like an offload, in a sense. It’s not a therapy session where people are talking to us… “We think you should do this”, etc. It’s more like someone talks about how their week went, then it’s open for the next person to talk. At the end of the meeting, after we do our final goodbyes and close off the meeting, then we can have an open conversation if someone is looking for advice. We’ll have that conversation afterwards, but during the meeting typically, it’s just an open floor for people to share, one at a time.

P.S.- It’s important that we’re originally and still are, a really faithful translation or adaptation of traditional AA, NA, and all the other anonymous programs. The meeting format follows most standard 12-step programs. Most people that come to PIR have spent time in the traditional 12 step programs and will be total familiar with what we do. It’s one of those things where we support the thoughtful, responsible use of psychedelics for support and recovery. We don’t promote the use of recreational psychedelics. We’re not a group that is gathering to recover from the use of psychedelics. We’re a very standard 12-Step program with one really important twist, we support the use of psychedelics to augment recovery.

How has your program been received since you started?

J.M.- When we first started, a bunch of friends and family were into it and we had about 12-14 for awhile. Lately, when the summer began to peak and we got into the end of Summer, I think people were trying to get the most out of the season so we kinda took a hit, down to about 4-5. That’s why I really wanted to do this interview too, because, we’re not making any money at all— it has nothing to with growing a business or anything. We just wanted to let people know that there’s a safe space for people to come and speak openly about these kinda things.

P. S.- We’re also open to other people who don’t have any experience or involvement in any other traditional 12-Step programs, but most of our people are. A lot of us were attending NA or AA and kinda keeping quiet about what we’re up to. But to do that, it felt like there was an inescapable feeling of being dishonest or disingenuous. What we offer is a safe space for people who believe in 12 Step recovery who safely utilize psychedelics in their recovery without feeling like it’s a relapse or a problem.

What is it about psychedelics that lends to such a powerful and healing experience in our lives?

P.S.- Gosh, that’s the big question, right? People who aren’t in recovery use it for different reasons, but those of us in recovery have those other reasons— trauma, depression, what have you. Many of us set our intention, and this preparation is to support our recovery and our continued avoidance of troublesome, unhealthy behaviors. PIR isn’t strictly about drugs and alcohol. It’s also used for sex addiction, adult children of alcoholic family members, and all the other behavioral 12-step programs.

J.M.- With psychedelics, there’s an opening to stop looking outside of yourself. Everything you experience outside of you is always through your five senses, you’re interpreting everything through your five senses. Psychedelics offer a way to stop looking outside of yourself and looking to your inner reality, which is a reflection of your mind.