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 .