IBOGAINE FOR PTSD!

The Quieted Rage

By Damon Matthew Smith

PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is a condition that has had limited
progress in the creation of viable treatment options for people afflicted with
this despair and rage inducing disorder. Conventional medicine has come
up with no long-term answers to the problem, which not only has a range of
dangers for the person who has PTSD but also for the society at large.
Time magazine reported in the article WAR ON SUICIDE?, “While veterans
account for about 10% of all U.S. adults, they account for 20% of U.S.
suicides.” (Gibbs and Thompson) This is a startling percentage, 1 in 5
deaths caused by suicide are veterans of war. Another 1:5 ratio is
important to note when discussing the burgeoning problem of PTSD,
“Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from
Iraq and Afghanistan — 300,000 in all — report symptoms of post traumatic
stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have
sought treatment, according to a new RAND Corporation study.”
(www.rand.org) This study was the first of its kind to look at this epidemic in
all branches of the US military, and its implications are terrifying. This is a
mental health crisis that neither traditional psychology/psychiatry nor the
VA and military leaders have provided any real solutions as the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan drag on. The situation is dire.

I went to the first War in Iraq in 1990-91 as an Army Combat Medic. It was
given the catchy nicknames of first Desert Shield and then, when the US
started the air assault, Desert Storm. After coming back stateside, I started
to suffer from bouts of rage, severe depression, thoughts of suicide (one
botched attempt with pills and a bottle of whiskey), and more and more
self-medication with alcohol. When I was discharged in 1998, I was in
college full time and had a supportive family and group of friends, but still
my alcohol abuse and difficulty containing my bouts of rage and the
aftermath of chronic depression was accelerating. I battled through and
achieved some academic and personal success, earning two
undergraduate degrees and one graduate degree, getting married to my
longtime girlfriend, and finding my first adjunct teaching positions. However,
I was unable to contain the absolute anger I experienced at the most
insignificant triggers. The crying of a baby, the smell of diesel fuel, the
sound of a helicopter flying over, the dropping of a metal pan on the kitchen
floor, a car following to close, or a dissatisfied boss (lost many a college
teaching job due to my PTSD), and I would fly into uncontrollable
screaming and yelling fits, at times turning this rage inward, falling to the
ground in palsied sobbing and unintelligible babbling. By 2005, I quit
drinking and felt this would solve the problem, save me from the growing
fear I had of going outside, of my wife leaving me, of being out of control
once again, and, most importantly, of taking my own life. It helped, but only
temporarily. The rage, depression and suicidal ideation soon began again
its assault on my daily life.

Flash forward to today, the end of 2012, and I feel free of this dominating
anger and the violent outbursts, my triggers of the past have little effect on
my behavior and mood, and for the first time since before my wartime
traumas I feel positive and excited about my future. This stunning
transformation came out of my experience at the end of this Summer with a
substance called Ibogaine. Ibogaine is an alkaloid derived from the
Tabernanthe Iboga shrub found in West equatorial Africa and has a long
history of shamanic and medical use with tribes of that region. In recent
years it has produced media attention due to reports of effectiveness in
treating drug addiction and providing opiate addicts with significantly
reduced, or at times completely alleviated, withdrawal symptoms during
detox.

I had to travel to Costa Rica because of its illegality in the US ( Schedule I,

along with Heroin and Methamphetamines), and was treated by Lex Kogan
at the medically supervised Ibogaine treatment center named fittingly–
Iboga Path . He required an EKG and Liver Panel blood test before I was
allowed to come to his center, which he reviewed with his onsite doctor and
medical staff to rule out counter indications for Ibogaine treatment. After my
file was reviewed, I received the call that my treatment would be conducted
on the 22nd of August and that I would be picked up at the airport by none
other than Eric Taub, a central pioneer in the use of Ibogaine since the late
80’s. I have known Eric for 7 years, first meeting him in 2005 after I stopped
drinking, then working with him over the years developing his novel but
simple idea that no child should be without clean water, nutritious food,
safe shelter and a digital age education. You can see our efforts to bring
this concept to life by building models for International Cooperative
Education and Global Sustainability Awareness and Action at our
organization’s website, www.ICANRevolution.org.

After a 35 minute drive through the hills of Costa Rica, I was dropped off at
the center. My intake into the center was comfortable and laid back. Lex
talked with me for a few hours, assuaged my fears about the experience
significantly with his knowledge and hospitality, shown my room where I
would be staying for the duration of my experience, and I ate my last meal
made up of a myriad of local, organically grown fruit before my treatment in
the morning. When I woke up that morning I was instructed to drink water,
as much as I liked, because during the experience I would be limited to
only a few sips an hour to avoid nausea. I filled up a few glasses, downed
them, then made my way outside for a walk before my treatment to clear
my head. The mountain air was crisp, as I walked up the hillside road lined
with coffee plants and trees filled with tropical birds my mind was all abuzz
with what was about to happen. So many thoughts permeated my brain,
and as panic started to overtake me I found myself experiencing a low
grade anxiety attack. It would be my last.
The treatment began with a test dose of the white powder that I was told
was the purest Ibogaine HCL that money can buy. I wrote in my journal,
“Just took a 3 mg/kg test dose.…Here we go!” For 31 hours after this I was
laying on my back, investigating my inner workings and life like never
before. I had taken other psychedelics, several times, but this was different
from any of those experiences. This experience with Ibogaine introduced
me at first to very familiar visual distortions, or “trails,” that I have
experienced on other mind altering substances, but this is where the
comparison ended. About 2 hours in, I noticed a very strange thing. I could
close my eyes and see the room, not just imagine the room, but see every
single detail. I kept opening my eyes, not sure if they were open already, to
find every time I closed them again I would emerge out of the darkness with
eyes closed into a clear picture of the room, details as fine as the buttons of
the TV and DVD on the dresser, the folds of the curtain, my journal and
tablet computer on the bedside table with a uncapped pen hanging
precariously onto the far right corner. It was only after I accepted this
strange new ability, this closed-eye seeing, that the visions really started:
swirling vortexes that would swallow me and spit me out into my past and
future, movie screen images of both who I was at my soul’s center and who
I wasn’t but through the sickness of experience had told myself I was.
Ibogaine taught me how to literally set fire to those images of the false me,
the injured me, the manipulative me, the addicted me, and send the smoke
and ashes.

Movie screen images of both who I was at my soul’s center and who I
wasn’t but through the sickness of experience had told myself I was.
Ibogaine taught me how to literally set fire to those images of the false me,
the injured me, the manipulative me, the addicted me, and send the smoke
and ashes into an ominous, dark black hole. Mr Iboga taught me how to
find freedom past all of these false masks created trying to come to grips
with trauma, how easily they would burn if I allowed them to be set ablaze.
I called my ethereal guide Mr. Iboga, after many before me. I have also
heard of him referred to as Dr. Iboga, as he offers awe inspiring healing to
all that meet him. He was very real, palpable, and a being of obvious power
and universal wisdom. He first appeared to me when my eyes were open or
shut as an intricate wooden mask similar to the Thai mask I have over my
front door at home but more detailed. Then he appeared to me as these
eyes surrounded by white paint on pitch black skin. The eyes were
shocking at first, zooming in then out of my perception, wide open and
intense. I had the feeling this was all in preparation for a direct face to face
meeting with this plant spirit. I was right. Once I had acclimated to the
onslaught of eyes, he appeared to me, a large presence with white striped
face paint and an enormous feathered headdress. He would take me on a
journey through the lattice work of my very soul, jump time and dimensions
with me in a process reminiscent of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas
Carol. I was allowed to see with intense clarity scenes from my life,
moments of triumph and kindness, but more importantly times when I was
monstrous and unkind…times when my PTSD reared its ugly head and I
felt psychotically obligated to show the rest of the world my pain. I was
shown also possible futures, outcomes both apocalyptic and serene, and I
knew in those moments Mr. Iboga was showing me not simply my
pathways through time, my life path, but the choice for us all to live in the
light or perish in the darkness. I understood in that moment that my fear
had put me off the path towards the light, that all engulfing fear that
possessed me with thoughts of worthlessness and suicide had become my
temporal vehicle into a dismal and deadly future that wasn’t going to stop
until it tore me away from every bit of love and light I held in the core of my
heart. Mr. Iboga showed me how to open the door of this vessel of doom,
how to send it careening into the abyss without me, and at the end of my
arduous journey, 31 hrs. in total, how to let go of my affliction.

As of the writing of this, I have had no PTSD attacks, triggers have become
inert and without the power they once held over a fearful me, and I am by
all accounts a brand new man. My wife is now pregnant with our second
child, my outlook on the future is no longer desperate and despairing, and I
am enjoying life outside of the constant threat of that all-encompassing
rage that defined more than half of my life. The rage has quieted, the
memories of trauma not frantic specters choking my present life with guilt,
regret, and horror, and thanks to this powerful plant medicine, Mr. Iboga,
and the wonderful providers and medical staff at Iboga Path…I am finally
free of PTSD .