A Mindful Approach to Dementia & Psychedelics: Our Shared Journey Series - Ibogaine - The World is Definitely Changing
I am happy to meet up with a senior yoga teacher friend from Nosara, Costa Rica, where we lived when Henry first retired ten years ago. She is planning on moving to San Miguel de Allende. In Nosara, I loved teaching mindfulness and offering sound healing at the retreats and hotels as well as to private clients. My yoga friend, like us, found Nosara was not a place we could age in place. This was especially true after Henry hit his head on the tennis court, falling unconscious and requiring 14 stitches on his chin. Already in his 70s at the time, he never fully recuperated. The neurologist says it did not cause his Alzheimer’s (officially diagnosed several years after the accident) but most likely accelerated it. Did you know that one in four seniors falls each year and it is a leading cause of injury and death for the elderly?
Two years after that fall, another one—smacking his head on a boulder and breaking his scapula right down the middle in a clean break—did not help. Balance is of primary importance; so is making safe decisions like not climbing ladders. But another factor is knowing when you’re tired or enough is enough. Henry and I sometimes think back on that first fall: Did he trip? Were his muscles tired? Or was this already Alzheimer’s at play, where there was a disconnect that caused Henry to trip and fall?... We will never know. What we do know is that the fast pace of Nosara, which kept increasing along with its growing popularity, and the pounding heat took away from extending Henry’s independence; in fact, it impeded it. As much as I loved Nosara and my life there, I knew I was being called into a different challenge and phase of life.
Mindfulness helps me understand the nature of reality as one that is fluid and ever-changing. The fixed attachment to a house, a home, or even a lifestyle is, at the end of the day, a kind of attachment. Even being attached to this physical body could be contemplated in a similar manner. These contemplations can become more poignant when dementia puts these underlying beliefs into question.
Selling our home in Nosara and moving was done with a certain amount of grace (admittedly, it was not always so: I reacted to many of our previous moves with great resistance or even recrimination). I left our life in Nosara behind us. We did, however, keep a second property—a beautiful little getaway in the mountains, where the climate is temperate throughout the year. It was a modest casita in a rural part of the country. We named it Termaling—Garden of Termas, in Tibetan. A terma is a hidden treasure that is revealed at the aligned time and place; its purpose for the good of humanity. Termaling was just that—with its natural thermal springs, where we would bathe for hours with monkeys overhead, toucans feeding their young, the breeze through the tropical vegetation, and even one year, a sloth that appeared on January 1st! We also took morning swims in the river, its celeste blue would grow deeper in color as the dry season continued. It was our haven, a natural healing just being immersed in nature. But with that too, we had our time. This beautiful property should be in the hands of a younger steward of the land. At this time, I am continually trying to simplify my responsibilities. I want to be as present for the situation that is in front of me. The reality is that more care is needed for Henry and less responsibility for me.
Before seeing my Nosara yoga teacher friend, I had an appointment with a medical professional I had met a few years ago when I was last in San Miguel. He was a doctor from Puebla, Mexico. He had told me he volunteered at a retreat on the Oaxaca coast for people with cancer. He himself had recovered from cancer and had his first psilocybin journey there. It was a pivotal turning point in his journey. At the time, I had a clear idea to write a mindful microdosing journal, but it was purely in the idea stage, before seeing the beautiful mural art of Mariana Juarez, which catapulted the project forward and eventually into the book Mindful Microdosing: A Guidebook and Journal. The Puebla doctor and I had in-depth discussions about psilocybin, mushrooms, and microdosing. So I was looking forward to seeing him again and continuing our conversation where we left off.
Much to my surprise, he hadn’t returned to Oaxaca but instead had learned about his Japanese roots, an occurrence in his state with a fascinating history. He had traveled to Japan and met several relatives. He had recently returned and had written a book. What he also shared is that he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s seven years back. Just the night before, I had read the first study on how the psychoactive ibogaine showed improvement with Parkinson’s patients. In the study, there is imaging of an MS lesion that can be shown shrinking in real time. I mention this to the Puebla doctor. I send the link, which I am sharing here.
Stepping into the psychedelic space, I hear a lot about ibogaine. In the compelling movie DOSED, I got more of an inside view of its dramatic potential. However, I dismissed it as something I would not be much involved with, as I viewed it as having potential to help stop addiction to heroin or fentanyl. I also understood that medical supervision was necessary and strict medical screening was needed. The Puebla doctor asked if ibogaine can be microdosed. I didn’t have a clue. What a novel idea, I thought. I really don’t know much about it.
So two hours later I am having lunch with my Nosara yoga teacher friend, and she shares about her depression, and probably getting the gene and propensity due to her parents and other family members who struggled with it. She went on to tell me how plant medicine has been a big companion and support in her mental health journey and achieving a balance and positivity otherwise elusive.
Living in Nosara, I knew that any evening of any week there were several options for plant medicine journeys, and if not right in Nosara, there are several well-known and other lesser-known retreat centers throughout the country. I was not part of that world, though I had visited some of the gardens where ayahuasca, khanna, and other plant medicines were growing. What I didn’t expect her to say was that she has microdosed ibogaine. She put me in touch with her ibogaine guy.
The next morning I spoke to her ibogaine guy. At the end of the conversation, we realized we had met about a decade earlier at his retreat center on the outskirts of Nosara. After getting healed himself from a rare health condition, he had dedicated himself to offering plant medicine. Now he has two centers in Costa Rica and one in Mexico. The potential for ibogaine was unparalleled, he said, even for Alzheimer’s. He noted that ibogaine itself is shaped like the brain. He was in a hurry because he was in the process of planting thousands of Tabernanthe iboga on his recently acquired extensive farm. He had been growing it successfully, but now he was ready to go big. For him, it sounded like ibogaine reigned supreme. It seemed like ibogaine’s potential could help everyone with any condition—well, almost everyone. He did have a strict medical intake, along with a medical intuit as part of the screening process. Not everyone who inquires is a match.
I get off the call fascinated and wonder if this should be the inner retreat for my upcoming 70th birthday later this year. Now is not the time. Traveling to Costa Rica or his new center in Mexico is too overwhelming to think about right now. Anyhow, our friends are coming for lunch, so I better start preparing the meal.
These are our good friends who have been in San Miguel for several years. They suggested we try out the place we are renting so we can see about possibilities for aging in place—both for Henry, with declining Alzheimer’s due to the continued layers of assistance offered, and also for me, with friends like them and a vibrant cultural scene in the Centro. What I didn’t expect was for them to mention there is someone locally, in San Miguel, who works with ibogaine.
Our SMA friend mentions that he understands the person working with ibogaine mainly services people with addiction, perhaps alcohol. Indeed, we found there is a lot of drinking in San Miguel. There is also a very active AA community, with different group meetings in either Spanish or English. So it was with surprising optimism to learn that ibogaine may be an available option.
As an aside, Bill Wilson, the co-founder of AA, took LSD under medical supervision. It was a pivotal experience in his own sobriety. It is said he actually conceived of his 12-step model after a high-dose psychedelic journey. He even wanted to integrate the therapeutic use of LSD to help alcoholics in their recovery. He was a strong advocate of using LSD as a preparation for alcoholics who had difficulty grasping the spiritual aspect of the 12-step program. Yet, it was decided to be left out of the AA program, mostly due to the cultural climate around LSD. (Even though it was legal for part of the 1950s and 60s when Wilson took it.)
The bottom line is that I was having a pretty typical week and yet… and yet the therapeutic use of psychedelics came up in unexpected ways. Conversations with peers around my same age ran the gambit—one that heard about ibogaine for treatment for addiction, another who took it therapeutically to combat depression, and another who cultivated it, led ceremonies, and founded several retreat centers for its use. The world is definitely changing!
- Lauren Alderfer, PhD.
