We are only beginning to see the ways we might incorporate the use of non-addictive psychedelics into a vibrant program of recovery. This may seem paradoxical to use a psychedelic drug to help overcome another drug. Not necessarily, when you understand addiction is sometimes defined as “spiritual bankruptcy.” Often characterized as being an emptiness or hole in the soul. Addictions have devastating consequences. The addicted person is trying to fill an inner emptiness with anything and everything. Until, in the end, there is just the experience of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. Never once really getting any alleviation of the internal pain and suffering. While using ever-increasing amounts of drugs and alcohol to anesthetize the pain of emptiness.

Simply said, addiction is spiritual bankruptcy. And a spiritual malady needs a spiritual response. The experience of psychedelic medicine opened Bill W. with the belladonna. This psychedelic medicine became a catalyst for recovery for the co-founder of AA. In effect using a non-ordinary state of consciousness with the belladonna given to him in the hospital when he was detoxing, to help enter and change a highly dysfunctional non-ordinary state of consciousness, his alcoholism, into something more functional and life-affirming. People suffering from an addiction, who are “willing,” can choose to travel a similar transformational pathway for spiritual and psychological healing through their own psychedelic initiation and have new hope for their own recovery.

Psychedelic medicines are not a cure-all. At best it is a jump start, to the conviction of living a good life. The catalyst for working a solid program of recovery, enjoying a new sense of connectedness in relationships. Bill W. demonstrated his determination by continuing to actively work the 12 Step program and apply the principles of AA to his life. Bill W. kept sharing the message of AA of hope and healing with others who were sick and suffering. He made a choice of living sober one day at a time. The psychedelic medicines can be the healing balm when combined with therapy, rituals of recovery, and the 12 Steps to aid thousands still suffering from a variety of addictions.