Every time you do a big psychedelic experience, it shifts something in your life; even if only slightly. And if you’re doing that weekly, or even a few times a month, you’re eventually going to lose the plot.
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I’m seeing it happen more and more, close friends, peers, and community members turning to psychedelics as a primary mode of living, relating, and growing.
And it’s not going well.
I’m not writing this as a critique. I’m writing it because I keep having this conversation live, again and again.
Far too often and a lot recently, I've sat with friends whose lives are a bit jumbled up. And it appears that frequent psychedelic use is what got them there. So maybe doing more drugs isn’t the solution? There are many tools, techniques and practices that get one to stillness. I’d love to help point them out and maybe bring in some wisdom from teachers and cultures of the past along with a little of my own experience.
I hope this is helpful. That is my only goal.
Why I’m Not on the Medicine Path
I’ve done psychedelics. Enough to have a well-informed opinion on the topic. I have deep respect for these substances. But I’ve never identified as being “on the medicine path.” Actually, quite the opposite.
When people ask how often I do psychedelics, my response is:
“As infrequently as possible.”
In the 25 years since my first experience, I’ve done several, some multi-day, journeys—trying different substances, techniques, traditions, and protocols. All spread out over several decades. I only seek this kind of work when I absolutely have to and nothing else is working.
While these experiences have been powerful and insightful, they haven’t created the deepest, most lasting shifts in my well-being. And they are certainly not required. Often, they’re best avoided unless truly necessary.
I don’t live in the psychedelic state. I don’t want to. I go when I need the message. And I hope I never have to go again. This is not because I had a bad experience, but because I got the message.
I’ve watched enough people try to stay there, to master it, to live in the state and they almost always lose themselves in the process.
I had a big experience around 10 years ago, and it was so powerful that the energy of the medicine stayed with me for several months. Then one day all of a sudden, I felt it wear off. Like “Boom!” back to reality. And it didn’t feel good. I called the person who facilitated the experience to ask her about doing it again. She replied. “No! Do not do the medicine again, NOW is when the real work starts.” I felt the craving to stay in the high, it’s real. But not going back to do more, was one of the most profound moments for me.
Psychedelics Are Not the Practice
Yes, they’re powerful. Yes, they can open your heart and offer glimpses of God, the Field, the Tao, the Mystery, whatever you want to call it.
But that’s all it is: a glimpse. A moment. And while powerful and useful…
They’re not where peace is.
They’re not where healing sustains.
They’re not where lasting transformation occurs.
A still and peaceful heart is not at the bottom of your 400th cup of Ayahuasca.
The most profound moments of growth in my life (releasing self-doubt, surrendering to a higher power, forgiving my parents, softening into presence, finding peace) didn’t happen on mushrooms or ayahuasca.
They came through practice.
Through devotion.
Through slow, steady inner work, vulnerability, prayer, movement, reflection.
Over time.
If you are curious about these practices, please reach out and I’d be happy to point you to practices (which do not involve any substance) that I’ve found, experienced or I think could be helpful.
Insight Is Not Integration
Seeing the divine in ceremony doesn’t mean you’ve integrated it into your life. That’s the trap.
And it’s a seductive one. Thinking that because you’ve seen something sacred, you’ve become it. That your ego is gone just because you felt it dissolve one night in ceremony.
If you’re boasting about your ego death, I’ve got bad news: you probably just built a stronger, more spiritual-sounding ego. I’ve done this. It’s real. And it’s a trick of the ego.
We’ve all heard the guy:
“Yeah… I had a massive ego death.”
Congrats, bro. Did you win Ayahuasca? What game are you even playing?
If you keep chasing that same state through microdosing, macrodosing, dietas, stacking, you’re likely not evolving. You’re might just be getting more addicted to altered states of revelation.
The Danger of Living in Peak States
The more you use psychedelics as a lifestyle, the more volatile your life becomes. That much shifting, that much energy, that many peak states, it begins to destabilize your system.
I’ve seen fortunes lost, relationships dissolved, trust broken, mental health cratered. Not from bad intentions, but from overexposure to altered states with no integration, groundedness or practices to hold them.
Tuning in occasionally? Beautiful.
Trying to stay there? You can’t.
You’re not supposed to. No one ever has.
If You’re in Crisis, Yes! Look Into It
There are absolutely moments when these tools are appropriate. They’re powerful, sacred, and often more effective than pharmaceuticals.
If you’re stuck in trauma loops, depression, PTSD and if nothing else is working, these medicines might help you shift something big. And they’ve helped me too.
But if your last ceremony was last week… and the week before… and the week before that…
That’s not healing.
That’s addiction.
You’re not a seeker.
You’re a user.
You might look healthy, spiritual, wealthy, but the architecture of addiction is the same. And the consequences will still find you.
You’re Still You (Even on the Medicine)
Let’s be real: if you’re an asshole before Ayahuasca, you’re probably still an asshole after.
Often an even bigger one; just with a spiritual identity layered on top.
Doing more ceremonies doesn’t make you more conscious. It often just makes you more performative. More self-congratulatory. More confused about what’s actually healing, and what’s just emotional bypass dressed in indigenous clothing.
And somehow it’s all wrapped in a $5,000 retreat about “letting go.”
There’s no awakened bodhisattva I know of who preached intensity, consumption, and control as the path to peace. And yet… here we are.
Manifestation Isn’t Mysticism
Here’s another trap: equating spiritual practice with controlling reality through your will.
If someone is teaching you how to “manifest your vision of success” or “activate your cosmic self,” they’re probably just helping you build a shinier ego, and selling you a three-part advanced course to do it.
That’s not mysticism.
That’s capitalism smudged with palo santo.
What Alan Watts Actually Said
From The Joyous Cosmology:
“Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. When you get the message, hang up the phone… The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope; he goes away and works on what he has seen.”
This is the part we forget. You’re supposed to leave the state. And live what you learned.
This has all already happened. We saw this same arc in the 1960s.
And the people who tried to “stay there”?
It didn’t work. They lost.
What You Can’t Buy or Ingest
There’s no pill, powder, or plant that replaces:
Years of therapy
Deep inner work
Stillness
Surrender
Service
Love
Vulnerability
There is no enlightenment pill.
Even if it grows in the ground.
Even if a shaman or a licensed therapist gives it to you. Sorry. It’s just not that easy.
The Search That Never Ends
Psychedelics offer a fleeting ecstasy, a brief oneness with the Field.
And then… it fades.
Many people cling to that feeling as the benchmark for how life should feel. And they start chasing it.
But you can’t live there. No one ever has.
Every high comes with a low.
And the deeper you chase the high, the harsher the crash.
This doesn’t mean the high is bad.
It just means you can’t make it your home. And trying to stay there just won’t work.
“I’m Called to Serve the Medicine” (Are You?)
I hear this all the time. And maybe, for a few people, it’s true. I know some who’ve genuinely been called. Who’ve endured the sacrifice. Who serve with humility and purpose.
But for most?
It’s not a calling.
It’s a career pivot.
Becoming a medicine carrier isn’t an upgrade to your failing coaching business. It’s a complete teardown of your life. Spirit first. Everything else second.
Most aren’t ready for that.
If you want to understand what that life actually looks like?
Read Secrets of the Talking Jaguar by Martín Prechtel.
Then ask again: Is this really my path?
Those Who Serve in True Service
I have friends and acquaintances who serve medicine in shamanic, spiritual, or therapeutic capacities. This is not written about or for you — and you know that.
You are doing deep, important, courageous work.
Thank you for the risks you take, the people you support, and the ways you’re helping shift global culture. Your work is vital. And I support you.
Final Transmission
Every ceremony is like a lightning bolt through your system.
Do you even know what to do with that energy?
Should you really be inviting that in every weekend?
If you’re constantly reaching, constantly grasping, constantly shifting, you may be moving away from the peace you’re trying to find. Not toward it.
So here’s what I’ll leave you with:
What if the stillness you want is already here—beneath the seeking, beneath the stacking, beneath the story?
And when the message comes.
Hang up the phone.
If you are curious about what are practice that have helped me and many in my community find the growth, connection and stillness that many of us seek, please be in touch and I’d be happy to help.
a little Deeper... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
As a practicing psychedelic integration coach....I agree with everything you've said. I find myself almost talking every client out of working further with plant medicines and instead focusing more in preparation phase (creating rituals, intentions, building healthier lifestyle etc) and integrating past ceremonies first.
I appreciate plant medicines, and different modalities and traditions that work with them. But they are just spirits and tools we work with like any other. Not the end all be all.
At the end of the day, we are in power and we are in control. It's time we stop giving our power away to other spirits or people. It is time we stop falling into the extremes just to feel like we are doing something. Stillness brings more gifts than anything outside of us.
As a shaman friend once told me because I have a “shamanic” way of seeing. I saw things through medicine that I wasn’t supposed to witness until I was 60.
Things that take a lot of work to integrate.
And yet, I kept wanting to see more.
But there’s an order in everything.
Two years later, I’m still trying to integrate it all… or forget.
That was my path.
But now. I’m much more careful. (And a scared, too.)
As a practicing psychedelic integration coach....I agree with everything you've said. I find myself almost talking every client out of working further with plant medicines and instead focusing more in preparation phase (creating rituals, intentions, building healthier lifestyle etc) and integrating past ceremonies first.
I appreciate plant medicines, and different modalities and traditions that work with them. But they are just spirits and tools we work with like any other. Not the end all be all.
At the end of the day, we are in power and we are in control. It's time we stop giving our power away to other spirits or people. It is time we stop falling into the extremes just to feel like we are doing something. Stillness brings more gifts than anything outside of us.
As a shaman friend once told me because I have a “shamanic” way of seeing. I saw things through medicine that I wasn’t supposed to witness until I was 60.
Things that take a lot of work to integrate.
And yet, I kept wanting to see more.
But there’s an order in everything.
Two years later, I’m still trying to integrate it all… or forget.
That was my path.
But now. I’m much more careful. (And a scared, too.)