By this afternoon the doc agreed to increase the dose. I recommended we make a 2mg per kilo booster that he takes after the liquid mixture (6mg). We made the pill and got ready to go. By the time we were on our way out his aunt got home. She couldn’t understand why he needed to do a second dose, begged us not to go and cursed him for plaguing her with worries. Later we were laughing that if she couldn’t find someone to plague her with worry she would find it in Lady or the Michi the cat, which she does. I tried my best to make sense of it to her but there was no getting through. Finally I just promised to take care of him.
So today we’re playing pioneers trying this liquid mixture of Ibo and mineral free water, at least were the first to try it that we know of. He’s hypothesizing that the ibo will be absorbed quicker so that he wont have to wait the first hour or two before he begins to feel the effects. I’m not so sure it will be any different, but I’m excited to experiment.
We decided to start this one a bit later in hopes that the noise from outside will have calmed. We turned off the fish tank filter and doc talks to Jessie about being more sensitive to the noise. This time she’s sans the baby, but brought her 11year old son Francisco. He’s painfully shy and probably the most quiet out of us all. I can’t imagine how bored he must be, so I gave him my laptop and showed him windows paint, it’s not the Internet but it’s something.
Jessie takes his vital signs again and we begin around 7pm. We being recording the process on the camera as he snakes a small tube down his throat so he doesn’t have to taste the bitterness of the ibo. I inject the 20ml of liquid into the tube which contains 6mgs per kilo. A half hour later he takes the booster. Jessie and I start a movie on mute for Francisco.
We check on him an hour later, an hour and a half since we started. Still no reaction besides seeing trails. He says he’s afraid the liquid didn’t work, that it compromised the ibo somehow and is upset that he’s wasted it. I tell him to relax and see what happens, it hasn’t even been two hours.
Hour 3 Jessie and I watch him from the cameras. He’s perfectly still so I assume he’s finally slipped into it. A half hour later we hear a movement in the room and get up to check. He’s gone into the bathroom on his own. My first reaction is slight panic but once he hears us he calls out “Esta bien” Everything’s fine. He has no reaction to it whatsoever besides a slight wobbly feeling and some trails. He doesn’t remember having any visions. I can tell he’s disappointed. We sit for a long time and try to figure out if it had been altered by the water and why that would affect it. He’s frustrated. “I should just used it like de Bwiti have been for thousands of years, why did I question it?” I somewhat agree but say “This is just an experiment, remember that Thomas Edison quote you told me a while ago 'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.' At least we learned something, now we know the answer to this, even if it isn’t the one you wanted.” He nods “We must try again tomorrow with the pills. Ok Dr. Fitzsimmons, lets go home”. I don’t care how good he feels the thought of operating a car with Ibo in your system scares the hell out of me so I convince him to wait until he feels more stable, at least another hour or two. By that time he’s fallen asleep. Tomorrow it is.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
At Least for Today
Well well well, I've fallen far behind in my writing after I left for my trip but it's a good indication of how busy I've been with the many small miracles that have recently occurred.
Although I have much to say about my trip around this beautiful country it will have to wait for a later post because I must write about last night while it is still fresh. Yesterday I finally administered the doctor's Ibogaine treatment and wrote the following throughout the night:
So here I am on hour 2.5 of the session, the doc is stable and hopefully approaching the visionary stage.
The day went pretty much how I expected, things popped up and delayed us 3 hours but I’m just so happy to be at this point, I was starting to believe the session would never happen. We put the medicine into capsules this morning and used the scale for the first time. It was a pretty hilarious trial by error session as we clumsily tried to get the powder into the tiny capsules without spilling any using these fancy little steel and crystal instruments. We tried about 10 different methods and tools until we found one that wasted the least ibo. The pills we bought are too small and wouldn't fit any more than 0.110 milligrams-we needed 436 milligrams for his 1st session which equals about 6mgs per kilo. So we first made a 100 mg allergy testing pill, and 4 other pills for the rest of the dose. He is doing 12mgrams per kilo in total split between tonight and Friday night. 6mgrams is pretty low for someone of his weight and experience with substance abuse. I did 6.5 my first session and had my head blown off so it's always relative.
Next we made the mixture for Fridays session. The doc had an idea a few weeks back to administer ibo in a liquid form. I’m not exactly sure what the benefits are but he thinks it might get into the blood stream faster which will speed up the process, or if someone has a problem swallowing pills, like a few of his patients do, this could be an alternative. Time will tell what the differences are. We got mineral free water from the lab and put 436mg into 20ml of the water, mixed and put into a dropper for Fridays session.
We’re aiming for a 4pm start so he begins fasting at 10am and I advise him to stop drinking liquids at 12pm. I catch him sneak a can of tomato juice around 3pm, we’ll see which end it comes out later.
During our process a young woman came to the house with a new born baby. I figured she was a friend here to show off her 20 day old baby girl. We kept working and about an hour later the doc mentioned that Jessie is a nurse and will be helping us with the treatment. OK, so I won’t be alone like I thought, which isn’t a bad thing but I'd liked to have known this. The baby is adorable and has yet to be named, she still cant decide on one that everyone in the family agrees with. Jessie is very sweet, 31 but doesn’t look a day over 25 and speaks no English whatsoever (which is good, I need the push). I guess he figured I wasn’t ready to be prodding him with IV catheters or in the chance of an emergency resuscitate him, which I’m ok with, I wasn’t completely either.
I then realize that the baby is coming with us and will be here the entire time. Ok, not such a good idea. If there were a top ten list of worst things to be present at an ibogaine session I would put a new born baby at number 4 behind a monster truck race, an air show and a group of howler monkeys. Eh, whatever I guess we’ll make it work (that’s been my motto for the last 2 months). I’m just slightly annoyed that he never mentioned it to me.
An hour after we were supposed to have started treatment we are still at home. Another surprise visit from Mynor for….I’m not sure what, packing food, clothes and necessities and finally we’re ready. We get to the treatment house at 5pm and are met by Sergio and his wife. They are here to interview us before the session at the doctor’s request. Ok, another thing which is sprung upon last minute. They interview us for an hour meanwhile 2 of the doctors that are waiting by the phone to assist me call to check on us. I inform them that as expected we are behind schedule and promise to update them when we start.
Sergio and his wife leave as we begin. The dr. wants to record his session so he sets up the tripod in the room. He keeps a notebook on the bed for writing and a voice recorder. I tried to explain that I think it should be more of an internal process but he insisted that he wanted as much information recorded as possible. As expected none of these things were utilized, except a few messages into the voice recorder that were pretty much garbled nonsense within hour 2.
He took the allergy test pill at 5:55pm. Jessie took a quick physical checkup and inserted the needle for the I.V. catheter port in his wrist. I couldn’t think of anything more uncomfortable to have on during an Ibo session but he insisted that he wanted it in the case of an emergency. I think the difference between our point of view is that the more medical the session the less comfortable I'd feel, where he feels the opposite, the less medically monitored the more uncomfortable he feels.
The 4 pills with the full dose are taken exactly a half hour later at 6:25pm, which is the exact time that the baby (whose been an angel the last 4 hours) decides its time to sound off and let the world know how hard it is to be alive via her vocal cords. I rock the baby as Jessie finishes her check up. I’m a sucker for her and am slightly more interested in the baby’s needs than the doctors. I always feel like I’m playing house when I hold a baby and imagine for the time being that she’s mine, sick I know. But after more than a half hour of tending to her she reminds me how selfish I am and how far off the reality of a baby is to me.
He wants us to leave the lights on and stay with him for a while. Within the first hour he has almost no symptoms. He feels slightly tired and his auditory senses are elevated. He complains of how loud the fish tank filter in the living room sounds from his room. I suggest he be alone to try and take in what he’s feeling .
A half hour later we check again its been an hour and a half since the full dose and now I can notice the changes, he still insists he feels fine but hears a buzzing in his ears. He needs to use the bathroom and as he sits up the weight of the medicine hits him hard and he has trouble moving. I walk him to the bathroom and try to sooth him by telling him its all normal and to be expected. He wants Jessie and I to stay and talk to him but he can no longer remember English and keeps forgetting Jessie’s name. He keeps saying half sentences and then laughing hysterically, we laugh along with him and he curses me “DR. FITZSIMMONS hijo de la gran puta you put me in this state” and then laughs uncontrollably at himself. It's relieving to see that he's laughing so much, so the visions and his thoughts must not be too terribly uncomfortable, but I'm a little nervous that he can no longer understand English, just in case he needs to communicate an emergency or anything with me.
He wants to speak with Dr. Tercero to assure him everything is alright, so I call him and the doc makes absolutely no sense on the phone and abruptly hangs up. I have to call back to assure him everything is cool. We stay for a while and humor him but eventually I try to convince him to be alone to feel the medicine work. He agrees but has to get up to pee again. This trip is much harder than the last it takes many attempts to get on his feet and both me and Jessie to get him to the toilet. He wobbles back and forth as he stands, giggles to himself and asks us where the loud (nonexistent) music is coming from. I don’t want to freak him out so I say that I can hear it slightly but his senses are probably more elevated than mine right now. Back in bed he can hardly manage words so we leave him.
Jessie and I eat dinner together and try to quiet the baby. She's very sweet and helpful with the medical side of things but the truth is she knows nothing about Ibogaine and how sensitive the treatment process is. She is speaking full volume, answering her cell phone and wants to put on a movie. It’s hard to understand how extremely vulnerable a patient’s senses are during this time if they haven’t been there themselves. The creek of a door opening can sound like a tree crashing right next to you. I can’t blame her because she was thrown into this probably yesterday with no knowledge of it, but I’m really annoyed with the doc for not schooling her in the basics or at least telling me about it. I have trouble telling her to quiet down due to the language barrier but she gets me, the baby however does not. Although I may be looking at this situation as flawed I know we are all here at the same time to create his session together for a specific reason, even if it may be disturbing to him, it all has a reason. We collectively make up his experience.
The noise in this place is unreal which I've never noticed until now. The airport is nearby so low flying planes scream their way over us, the traffic outside his window is so loud it vibrates and because there is little furniture, every room echoes like a ghost house. Not to mention the little angel screaming at the top of her lungs. I can’t help but cringe with worry at every little noise on his behalf, but doc hasn’t complained about any of it yet, I don’t know if it’s because he can’t get the words out or he’s content in his waking dreams.
Hour 3- Jessie’s phone rings. She answers it and walks carelessly into doc’s room, speaks full volume in Spanish and hands him the phone. It’s his aunt checking up on him. UHHHH not a good idea to hand someone 3 hrs into an ibo treatment a phone with a paranoid, worry wart family member on the other line asking if everything is alright. I rush in the room and see him take the phone as he can barely open his eyes. I’m impressed by the fact that he can get through the brief conversation. Ok no more interruptions for a while!
Hour 4- things have finally quieted down a bit, the baby is up and down from sleep but at least done howling and we’re seated in the living room, me typing away and Jessie watching The Last Samurai on mute with subtitles. I haven’t checked doc because I figured he needed some time. From the cameras I could see that he’s still moving quite a bit in the bed, I did too in my first treatment, it was horribly uncomfortable. I’m hoping it’s not too rough for him as he’s approaching the peak.
Hour 5-Jessie and I crack the door of the doc’s room to check on him. He looks at us and says “come one in, sit with me” completely coherent. It’s the strangest thing. He is sitting up talking with us completely animated and full of jokes as he always is. He says he feels no symptoms at all besides seeing trails which follow anything that moves and slight numbness of the body. He chugs his whole Gatorade and I get him water and a banana. I’m slightly nervous about him eating, I’m not sure if he has peaked already and is on his way down or if it’s yet to come. He’s sure that he’s past the peak and is even making sense of some of the things he saw in his waking dreams and explaining them to me, Jessie, the voice recorder and the camera. He also is having nicotine cravings, which I think is strange because Ibo is said to lessen if not stop withdrawals once the visions begin. However I think what happened is that he didn’t take enough ibo for his body weight and his tolerance to substances and his body quickly metabolized the medicine which ended the session in only 5 hours.
He only took 6 mgs, where if he were an addict he might have done around 20. I urged him to do at least 15 between the 2 sessions but he kept saying he didn’t want to waste the Ibo, he now admits it was because of fear.
I know it’s silly but I feel slightly disappointed that he had such a casual experience, I think we defiantly should have had a booster pill on hand of at least 2mgs. Although I believe that every Ibo experience goes exactly the way it was meant to, I guess we can take this as the introduction. Maybe I can convince him to take more on Friday to get to a break through point, we’ll see.
The hardly slept that night. Partly because I was anxious to hear how he's doing and partly because I was worried about him. He slept until about 3pm, which is pretty normal, Ibo can be exhausting. When he awoke he burst out of the room looking surprisingly refreshed "DOCTOR FITZSIMMONS!" he announced as he hugged me "I FEEL GREAT!" I listened to his experiences for the rest of the day.
From his point of view the session was extremely successful. By no means did he enjoy it but he was on a high from how much he'd received from it. He was incredibly terrified by the sensations he felt physically and when he looked at Jessie and I he could see the veins in our skin as if we were pale corpses. He also had a bit of a paranoid phase where he saw this elaborate plan that panned out perfectly in which Jessie and I were hired to kill him. Despite all of these living nightmares he was able to laugh at them. He said the absurdity of it all made him laugh hysterically, which showed him that fear is simply created.
He also had specific visions of seeing himself on a street corner branch off into 3 beings. His physical self, his alcoholic self and his essence which has been the same since birth. The three walked onto different paths and later came together and had an argument about wanting to drink again. The alcoholic self won over the physical self and he was convinced that he needed a drink as soon as he could wake up from this state. He said he felt panicked as if the Ibogaine had a reverse affect and restarted his addiction. Then the essence self intervened and won over the physical self by saying "I don't drink anymore, at least for today" He said such a simple message never seemed so clear, he felt that it sealed his past with drinking for good.
I'm shocked by how similar this vision is to the one that we recreated in the "Iboga" play back in 2005 at Pace University. We staged a battle between Ego, Essence and the "Addict Mother" being treated. I played Essence and yup I won. It blows my mind how these visions repeat in different people's subconscious. It's truly amazing.
He was completely relieved of his cold that began the night before with a severe throat ache and a stuffy nose. He said he felt completely clean and fresh. Incredible.
Although he did have slight cravings to smoke he said that his renewed reminder of being able to choose was enough for him to not give in. He handed me his cigarettes and said he would try, "At least for today." I suggested that he might still have cravings because in order for Ibogaine to work on an addiction interruption level he would've needed to take around 15-20milligrams per kilo. His cravings are still reduced immensely compared to what he thinks they would be like if he quit cold turkey. After all he was smoking almost 3 packs of Marb reds a day for over 30 years and he's escaped this with only psychological cravings and some fatigue.
He was overcome with emotion as he thanked me profusely for the session. He told me that he cant believe this was my first time administering because I operated as if I was completely in control and soothed his fears with my nurturing, soft approach. He thinks I was born with a gift to do this and begged me to come back and work with him in the future.
I have to say that although last night I was panicking and concentrating on all of the things that went wrong from my point of view, I think he's right. I never questioned my actions for a moment last night, I just knew exactly what to do at the proper time. I cant even say that I was thinking much about it. I was just feeling and following my instincts, which was easy because I felt so in tuned to what he was going through. It was as if I was feeling all these outside influences right along with him.
Later I let him know that I wanted to up his dosage for Friday. As expected he was repulsed by even the thought of taking his second dose tomorrow, let alone a higher dose. He understands my reasoning and agrees with me but is still shaky at the thought. I understand completely. I wanted the first ticket home out of Mexico and to never hear ibo mentioned again for the rest of my life on the day after my experience. Then after a week of being talked into it I gave in and did my second treatment. I'm incredibly thankful that I did, it was such an amazingly clear gift in which I got the answers to every issue of my physical life. 2 years later I still can't process all of it. I think it was Rocky (Sayulita MX provider) that said the first introduction session cleans out all the dark cobb webs of the mind so the second session can come in and do the real work. I really think there's something to that.
We're both pretty fried from the whole experience, in a good way. We'll probably take it easy tomorrow in preparation for tomorrow night's follow up session....!!!
Although I have much to say about my trip around this beautiful country it will have to wait for a later post because I must write about last night while it is still fresh. Yesterday I finally administered the doctor's Ibogaine treatment and wrote the following throughout the night:
So here I am on hour 2.5 of the session, the doc is stable and hopefully approaching the visionary stage.
The day went pretty much how I expected, things popped up and delayed us 3 hours but I’m just so happy to be at this point, I was starting to believe the session would never happen. We put the medicine into capsules this morning and used the scale for the first time. It was a pretty hilarious trial by error session as we clumsily tried to get the powder into the tiny capsules without spilling any using these fancy little steel and crystal instruments. We tried about 10 different methods and tools until we found one that wasted the least ibo. The pills we bought are too small and wouldn't fit any more than 0.110 milligrams-we needed 436 milligrams for his 1st session which equals about 6mgs per kilo. So we first made a 100 mg allergy testing pill, and 4 other pills for the rest of the dose. He is doing 12mgrams per kilo in total split between tonight and Friday night. 6mgrams is pretty low for someone of his weight and experience with substance abuse. I did 6.5 my first session and had my head blown off so it's always relative.
Next we made the mixture for Fridays session. The doc had an idea a few weeks back to administer ibo in a liquid form. I’m not exactly sure what the benefits are but he thinks it might get into the blood stream faster which will speed up the process, or if someone has a problem swallowing pills, like a few of his patients do, this could be an alternative. Time will tell what the differences are. We got mineral free water from the lab and put 436mg into 20ml of the water, mixed and put into a dropper for Fridays session.
We’re aiming for a 4pm start so he begins fasting at 10am and I advise him to stop drinking liquids at 12pm. I catch him sneak a can of tomato juice around 3pm, we’ll see which end it comes out later.
During our process a young woman came to the house with a new born baby. I figured she was a friend here to show off her 20 day old baby girl. We kept working and about an hour later the doc mentioned that Jessie is a nurse and will be helping us with the treatment. OK, so I won’t be alone like I thought, which isn’t a bad thing but I'd liked to have known this. The baby is adorable and has yet to be named, she still cant decide on one that everyone in the family agrees with. Jessie is very sweet, 31 but doesn’t look a day over 25 and speaks no English whatsoever (which is good, I need the push). I guess he figured I wasn’t ready to be prodding him with IV catheters or in the chance of an emergency resuscitate him, which I’m ok with, I wasn’t completely either.
I then realize that the baby is coming with us and will be here the entire time. Ok, not such a good idea. If there were a top ten list of worst things to be present at an ibogaine session I would put a new born baby at number 4 behind a monster truck race, an air show and a group of howler monkeys. Eh, whatever I guess we’ll make it work (that’s been my motto for the last 2 months). I’m just slightly annoyed that he never mentioned it to me.
An hour after we were supposed to have started treatment we are still at home. Another surprise visit from Mynor for….I’m not sure what, packing food, clothes and necessities and finally we’re ready. We get to the treatment house at 5pm and are met by Sergio and his wife. They are here to interview us before the session at the doctor’s request. Ok, another thing which is sprung upon last minute. They interview us for an hour meanwhile 2 of the doctors that are waiting by the phone to assist me call to check on us. I inform them that as expected we are behind schedule and promise to update them when we start.
Sergio and his wife leave as we begin. The dr. wants to record his session so he sets up the tripod in the room. He keeps a notebook on the bed for writing and a voice recorder. I tried to explain that I think it should be more of an internal process but he insisted that he wanted as much information recorded as possible. As expected none of these things were utilized, except a few messages into the voice recorder that were pretty much garbled nonsense within hour 2.
He took the allergy test pill at 5:55pm. Jessie took a quick physical checkup and inserted the needle for the I.V. catheter port in his wrist. I couldn’t think of anything more uncomfortable to have on during an Ibo session but he insisted that he wanted it in the case of an emergency. I think the difference between our point of view is that the more medical the session the less comfortable I'd feel, where he feels the opposite, the less medically monitored the more uncomfortable he feels.
The 4 pills with the full dose are taken exactly a half hour later at 6:25pm, which is the exact time that the baby (whose been an angel the last 4 hours) decides its time to sound off and let the world know how hard it is to be alive via her vocal cords. I rock the baby as Jessie finishes her check up. I’m a sucker for her and am slightly more interested in the baby’s needs than the doctors. I always feel like I’m playing house when I hold a baby and imagine for the time being that she’s mine, sick I know. But after more than a half hour of tending to her she reminds me how selfish I am and how far off the reality of a baby is to me.
He wants us to leave the lights on and stay with him for a while. Within the first hour he has almost no symptoms. He feels slightly tired and his auditory senses are elevated. He complains of how loud the fish tank filter in the living room sounds from his room. I suggest he be alone to try and take in what he’s feeling .
A half hour later we check again its been an hour and a half since the full dose and now I can notice the changes, he still insists he feels fine but hears a buzzing in his ears. He needs to use the bathroom and as he sits up the weight of the medicine hits him hard and he has trouble moving. I walk him to the bathroom and try to sooth him by telling him its all normal and to be expected. He wants Jessie and I to stay and talk to him but he can no longer remember English and keeps forgetting Jessie’s name. He keeps saying half sentences and then laughing hysterically, we laugh along with him and he curses me “DR. FITZSIMMONS hijo de la gran puta you put me in this state” and then laughs uncontrollably at himself. It's relieving to see that he's laughing so much, so the visions and his thoughts must not be too terribly uncomfortable, but I'm a little nervous that he can no longer understand English, just in case he needs to communicate an emergency or anything with me.
He wants to speak with Dr. Tercero to assure him everything is alright, so I call him and the doc makes absolutely no sense on the phone and abruptly hangs up. I have to call back to assure him everything is cool. We stay for a while and humor him but eventually I try to convince him to be alone to feel the medicine work. He agrees but has to get up to pee again. This trip is much harder than the last it takes many attempts to get on his feet and both me and Jessie to get him to the toilet. He wobbles back and forth as he stands, giggles to himself and asks us where the loud (nonexistent) music is coming from. I don’t want to freak him out so I say that I can hear it slightly but his senses are probably more elevated than mine right now. Back in bed he can hardly manage words so we leave him.
Jessie and I eat dinner together and try to quiet the baby. She's very sweet and helpful with the medical side of things but the truth is she knows nothing about Ibogaine and how sensitive the treatment process is. She is speaking full volume, answering her cell phone and wants to put on a movie. It’s hard to understand how extremely vulnerable a patient’s senses are during this time if they haven’t been there themselves. The creek of a door opening can sound like a tree crashing right next to you. I can’t blame her because she was thrown into this probably yesterday with no knowledge of it, but I’m really annoyed with the doc for not schooling her in the basics or at least telling me about it. I have trouble telling her to quiet down due to the language barrier but she gets me, the baby however does not. Although I may be looking at this situation as flawed I know we are all here at the same time to create his session together for a specific reason, even if it may be disturbing to him, it all has a reason. We collectively make up his experience.
The noise in this place is unreal which I've never noticed until now. The airport is nearby so low flying planes scream their way over us, the traffic outside his window is so loud it vibrates and because there is little furniture, every room echoes like a ghost house. Not to mention the little angel screaming at the top of her lungs. I can’t help but cringe with worry at every little noise on his behalf, but doc hasn’t complained about any of it yet, I don’t know if it’s because he can’t get the words out or he’s content in his waking dreams.
Hour 3- Jessie’s phone rings. She answers it and walks carelessly into doc’s room, speaks full volume in Spanish and hands him the phone. It’s his aunt checking up on him. UHHHH not a good idea to hand someone 3 hrs into an ibo treatment a phone with a paranoid, worry wart family member on the other line asking if everything is alright. I rush in the room and see him take the phone as he can barely open his eyes. I’m impressed by the fact that he can get through the brief conversation. Ok no more interruptions for a while!
Hour 4- things have finally quieted down a bit, the baby is up and down from sleep but at least done howling and we’re seated in the living room, me typing away and Jessie watching The Last Samurai on mute with subtitles. I haven’t checked doc because I figured he needed some time. From the cameras I could see that he’s still moving quite a bit in the bed, I did too in my first treatment, it was horribly uncomfortable. I’m hoping it’s not too rough for him as he’s approaching the peak.
Hour 5-Jessie and I crack the door of the doc’s room to check on him. He looks at us and says “come one in, sit with me” completely coherent. It’s the strangest thing. He is sitting up talking with us completely animated and full of jokes as he always is. He says he feels no symptoms at all besides seeing trails which follow anything that moves and slight numbness of the body. He chugs his whole Gatorade and I get him water and a banana. I’m slightly nervous about him eating, I’m not sure if he has peaked already and is on his way down or if it’s yet to come. He’s sure that he’s past the peak and is even making sense of some of the things he saw in his waking dreams and explaining them to me, Jessie, the voice recorder and the camera. He also is having nicotine cravings, which I think is strange because Ibo is said to lessen if not stop withdrawals once the visions begin. However I think what happened is that he didn’t take enough ibo for his body weight and his tolerance to substances and his body quickly metabolized the medicine which ended the session in only 5 hours.
He only took 6 mgs, where if he were an addict he might have done around 20. I urged him to do at least 15 between the 2 sessions but he kept saying he didn’t want to waste the Ibo, he now admits it was because of fear.
I know it’s silly but I feel slightly disappointed that he had such a casual experience, I think we defiantly should have had a booster pill on hand of at least 2mgs. Although I believe that every Ibo experience goes exactly the way it was meant to, I guess we can take this as the introduction. Maybe I can convince him to take more on Friday to get to a break through point, we’ll see.
The hardly slept that night. Partly because I was anxious to hear how he's doing and partly because I was worried about him. He slept until about 3pm, which is pretty normal, Ibo can be exhausting. When he awoke he burst out of the room looking surprisingly refreshed "DOCTOR FITZSIMMONS!" he announced as he hugged me "I FEEL GREAT!" I listened to his experiences for the rest of the day.
From his point of view the session was extremely successful. By no means did he enjoy it but he was on a high from how much he'd received from it. He was incredibly terrified by the sensations he felt physically and when he looked at Jessie and I he could see the veins in our skin as if we were pale corpses. He also had a bit of a paranoid phase where he saw this elaborate plan that panned out perfectly in which Jessie and I were hired to kill him. Despite all of these living nightmares he was able to laugh at them. He said the absurdity of it all made him laugh hysterically, which showed him that fear is simply created.
He also had specific visions of seeing himself on a street corner branch off into 3 beings. His physical self, his alcoholic self and his essence which has been the same since birth. The three walked onto different paths and later came together and had an argument about wanting to drink again. The alcoholic self won over the physical self and he was convinced that he needed a drink as soon as he could wake up from this state. He said he felt panicked as if the Ibogaine had a reverse affect and restarted his addiction. Then the essence self intervened and won over the physical self by saying "I don't drink anymore, at least for today" He said such a simple message never seemed so clear, he felt that it sealed his past with drinking for good.
I'm shocked by how similar this vision is to the one that we recreated in the "Iboga" play back in 2005 at Pace University. We staged a battle between Ego, Essence and the "Addict Mother" being treated. I played Essence and yup I won. It blows my mind how these visions repeat in different people's subconscious. It's truly amazing.
He was completely relieved of his cold that began the night before with a severe throat ache and a stuffy nose. He said he felt completely clean and fresh. Incredible.
Although he did have slight cravings to smoke he said that his renewed reminder of being able to choose was enough for him to not give in. He handed me his cigarettes and said he would try, "At least for today." I suggested that he might still have cravings because in order for Ibogaine to work on an addiction interruption level he would've needed to take around 15-20milligrams per kilo. His cravings are still reduced immensely compared to what he thinks they would be like if he quit cold turkey. After all he was smoking almost 3 packs of Marb reds a day for over 30 years and he's escaped this with only psychological cravings and some fatigue.
He was overcome with emotion as he thanked me profusely for the session. He told me that he cant believe this was my first time administering because I operated as if I was completely in control and soothed his fears with my nurturing, soft approach. He thinks I was born with a gift to do this and begged me to come back and work with him in the future.
I have to say that although last night I was panicking and concentrating on all of the things that went wrong from my point of view, I think he's right. I never questioned my actions for a moment last night, I just knew exactly what to do at the proper time. I cant even say that I was thinking much about it. I was just feeling and following my instincts, which was easy because I felt so in tuned to what he was going through. It was as if I was feeling all these outside influences right along with him.
Later I let him know that I wanted to up his dosage for Friday. As expected he was repulsed by even the thought of taking his second dose tomorrow, let alone a higher dose. He understands my reasoning and agrees with me but is still shaky at the thought. I understand completely. I wanted the first ticket home out of Mexico and to never hear ibo mentioned again for the rest of my life on the day after my experience. Then after a week of being talked into it I gave in and did my second treatment. I'm incredibly thankful that I did, it was such an amazingly clear gift in which I got the answers to every issue of my physical life. 2 years later I still can't process all of it. I think it was Rocky (Sayulita MX provider) that said the first introduction session cleans out all the dark cobb webs of the mind so the second session can come in and do the real work. I really think there's something to that.
We're both pretty fried from the whole experience, in a good way. We'll probably take it easy tomorrow in preparation for tomorrow night's follow up session....!!!
Monday, December 1, 2008
Embracing Stagnation
Yesterday we had our big CPR/First Aid course. It was somewhat of a grueling 5 hours but very thorough- the only way doc knows how. I'm pretty lucky to have gotten the whole training for free. He does these training courses for the special Olympics staff and schools.
I'm feeling better this week though with the reality of our situation. I'm trying to take everything as it comes instead of trying to force productivity. If nothing else it's made me more aware of that in myself. My best attributes is my ability to see through blocks and accomplish things with persistence and luck, and its one of my biggest flaws; not being able to relax and be content if I'm not constantly working towards accomplishing something. That's always the case with people though, what you love best about someone is also what you cant fucking stand about them, it just depends on the situation.
Plus its been around 15 degrees warmer so that always helps : )
One of our investors/partners pulled out of the project today. Its bitter sweet because on the bright side it doesn't really matter since he hasn't paid his end in a month or shown any interest in helping or contacting us plus we can move on now that we know he's defiantly out, but the hard part is that the center is in his name. The doc doesn't seem worried though, he's much more concerned with loyalty than money (one of those things I love and cant stand).
Luckily we found a loan for the scale and it will be shipped to us on Friday! So it looks like at least I'll be able to facilitate docs session before I go, which would be so very gratifying.
Even better news...my Mom is coming tomorrow!! I'll get a much needed and anticipated 10 day break. We're going to Antigua to climb Pacaya- an active volcano, Lake Atitlan which is the biggest Guatemalan lake that's surrounded by little indigenous Mayan villages and last Tikal, home of the biggest Mayan ruins in the country and tropical lands so it'll be even warmer. Luckily doc promised we'd wait until I got back to start treatments.
Till then Lady and I are just sitting on the roof holding down the fort and embracing the sweet stagnation of the day.
I'm feeling better this week though with the reality of our situation. I'm trying to take everything as it comes instead of trying to force productivity. If nothing else it's made me more aware of that in myself. My best attributes is my ability to see through blocks and accomplish things with persistence and luck, and its one of my biggest flaws; not being able to relax and be content if I'm not constantly working towards accomplishing something. That's always the case with people though, what you love best about someone is also what you cant fucking stand about them, it just depends on the situation.
Plus its been around 15 degrees warmer so that always helps : )
One of our investors/partners pulled out of the project today. Its bitter sweet because on the bright side it doesn't really matter since he hasn't paid his end in a month or shown any interest in helping or contacting us plus we can move on now that we know he's defiantly out, but the hard part is that the center is in his name. The doc doesn't seem worried though, he's much more concerned with loyalty than money (one of those things I love and cant stand).
Luckily we found a loan for the scale and it will be shipped to us on Friday! So it looks like at least I'll be able to facilitate docs session before I go, which would be so very gratifying.
Even better news...my Mom is coming tomorrow!! I'll get a much needed and anticipated 10 day break. We're going to Antigua to climb Pacaya- an active volcano, Lake Atitlan which is the biggest Guatemalan lake that's surrounded by little indigenous Mayan villages and last Tikal, home of the biggest Mayan ruins in the country and tropical lands so it'll be even warmer. Luckily doc promised we'd wait until I got back to start treatments.
Till then Lady and I are just sitting on the roof holding down the fort and embracing the sweet stagnation of the day.
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