Laughs without Lager

How Ayahuasca & Plant Medicine Can Cure Heavy Drinking & Mindset Loops

• Ali and Meg

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A lot of people quit drinking and then hit the real problem: parties, stress, loneliness, and that loud inner critic are still there, only now you’re meeting them sober. I’m joined by Sarah, co-CEO of Behold Retreats, who shares how she went from a sales and finance lifestyle where cocktails were basically part of the job to a life built around clarity, nervous system health, and deep healing work.

Sarah tells the story of an ayahuasca ceremony that kept working after the ceremony ended. A month later, she’s in a bar with friends and realizes her glass is still full and the “more, more, more” voice is simply gone. We talk about what that shift can feel like, why quitting alcohol still requires a plan for social life, and how reframing sobriety from “giving up” to “gaining” changes everything.

We also get practical and specific about psychedelics and recovery: what ayahuasca is, how psilocybin mushrooms differ, why bufo is so intense, and what a safe, supportive retreat container looks like when you have a Western mind stepping into an indigenous spiritual tradition. We dig into intention vs escape, defining your own integrity, microdosing, integration, and how “question everything” applies to both plant medicine and long-term Western medication approaches for depression and anxiety.

If you’re curious about psychedelics, plant medicine retreats, alcohol-free living, or building real tools beyond numbing, this is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s exploring sobriety, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.


Contact Us: 

https://www.meganwebb.com.au/podcast-1

meganwebbcoaching@gmail.com



Ali

insta:  https://www.instagram.com/idontdrinkfullstop/


Meg

website:  https://www.meganwebb.com.au/

insta: https://www.instagram.com/meganwebbcoaching/

Connect AF: https://www.elizaparkinson.com/groupcoaching

Welcome And Guest From Mexico

SPEAKER_02

Hi everyone. I have a special guest, and also this is my first solo podcast without Megsy. So I'll try my best without you, Megs. And I have a special guest today on Last Without Lager. Her name's Sarah. She's the co-CEO of Behold Retreats. And she's all the way over in Mexico. Hello and welcome, Sarah. Hello, hello.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much for having me. Oh happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02

What's the weather like? We always Australians, and we always talk about the weather. So please tell us what's it like in Mexico?

SPEAKER_01

So we've been really lucky today. We arrived yesterday. Um I live in Costa Rica. That's where a lot of our retreats are. And we closed out a Costa Rica retreat, flew here yesterday, and so we're now in Mexico starting a retreat today. And the weather has been really lovely because the sun is out and bright, and you feel the temperature rising, and then it'll do like a 10-minute pour and then it just cools off. And so we are in the following of a of a little pour with a cool-off right now. So it feels amazing. And I will admit, I'm sitting in AC right now. Yeah, so it's a cool thing. We have these beautiful bungalows with AC.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and it's humid too. Great for your skin. Uh yeah, I don't my my skin doesn't like humidity, so that's why I like a dry heat. Costa Rica, you can feel you can feel the water in the air. Oh, gorgeous. Well, thanks for um yeah, tuning in. I know you've got a retreat. So um we'll get straight onto it. Um so I got you on the podcast because um I'm pretty curious uh about psychedelics and or you know, just different um ways in sobriety or after beyond booze, we can, I don't know, we just go searching for things. So um, you know, tell us a bit about how you got to become a CEO, which is pretty cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Oh man, how did I become a CEO? I would say, like Forrest Gomp, I work really hard and I'm kind, and a feather just kind of floats me. But this one had a bit of direction. Um, my heart is in the retreat space and

Curiosity About Psychedelics In Sobriety

SPEAKER_01

working with people to come and really have a strong, powerful transformation and environment that is soft. So strong, strong ceremonies, soft environment. And um, to become the co-EC co-CEO, um, we also partnered with an incredible um organization that was ready, their leader was ready to go one way, and we were ready to step in. And so that's how the Behold collaboration started. Um, we're so blessed to have an international team all around the world make bringing magic, bringing magic to the humans. So come come meet us, come work with us.

SPEAKER_02

Gorgeous. And so you're a bit of a um ex um, you know, drinker, party girl networker in sales, is that right?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, that is true. I had a career in finance, which is financial sales. And so I'm sure a lot of people are listening go, oh, I know the sales environment. That sales environment is an environment of networking. Um, networking means a whole lot of hours at cocktail parties. And so I drank pretty much for a living. So that was sometimes three or four times a week. And everybody I met during the week, I would collect their business card and invite them to Malibu Family Wineries on Sunday, and we would go there and continue networking and getting to know each other and drinking. And so I also did not know that I had a drinking problem because I never, you know, I never

Sales Culture And Functional Drinking

SPEAKER_01

lost a job. I was functionable. Um, I didn't know what good felt like in the morning. And so once you know what it feels like to be healthy, then you're like, I don't want to go back. At the time, I didn't realize I'm poisoning myself. I would wake up in the morning and say, do I need caffeine, protein, or carbs to try to get regulated so I could go do it again that evening. So, yes, um, I drank for a living and then I drank for fun. And then on the weekends, I would gather with my friends and um, you know, Saturday afternoons and Friday evenings, all of the things. And so because I was functionable and a very happy, uh happy drinker, I didn't, it wasn't a conscious effort. I have to stop, I have to stop. I won't deny that there were times that I would say, Can't you just drink like a normal person? Can't you just have two drinks? And I was like, Let's go try tonight. And it would go from two to ten. Uh so uh when I came into plant medicine, specifically ayahuasca, there was uh my what I would call a first ceremony where I had English instructions. I don't want this story to get too long. There was a first ceremony in the middle of the jungle, no instructions. Um, but my first ceremony where I went in powerful, I had four cops. I sat up the whole time and I had zero experience. I had no known experience. Um I left that ceremony thinking, well, I guess I have to try this again. And a month later, I am in Los Angeles and I'm in a bar with my friends. And I'm also the person that would say, Are y'all ready for another round?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Sometimes I was that person that would say, Do y'all want shots? That was me. And my friend said, Would y'all like another round? And I looked at my glass and it was full. And it was in that moment. If anyone has ever done strong meditations or psychedelics or plant medicine, you'll know the word download. I knew immediately this is that ceremony. That ceremony cleaned me up in the most lovely way, where whatever neural pathways I had that had addictive traits and cleansing my body was complete. Um, most of us, because we're human, we think it needs to hurt. It needs to be very painful that if you were to say somebody that drank a lot to not drinking at all in one ceremony, you would think that that would be dragging through the mud, be very painful. For me, it was actually a non, a non-known experience. And so I now know the medicine is always working, whether we know it or not. Um, and the medicine just really cleaned me up as it does many people. And my third ceremony is when I knew why people do ayahuasca, the the unequivocal experience, known connection. But I was very blessed to have found plant medicine and to have that experience.

SPEAKER_02

So just going back, so when you're in the bar and you saw that drink, so what you're saying is that subconsciously you were like, No, I actually don't want another round. Is that what you mean?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It even so previously I would have already finished that drink. Yeah. Yeah. Previously, I would have been the one who said, Are y'all ready for another one? And it wasn't in my forefront. It wasn't, um, I wasn't thinking, I'm ready for another one. That that part of our mind that's more, more, more was not there.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. And so then what did you just leave the bar and go, oh, I'm done, or you just push through and you just kept drinking, or you just kind of like had that hit, and then how long until your next ceremony?

SPEAKER_01

And yeah. So um one of the things about stopping drinking is now how do we socialize? Now what does my life look like? And in some ways, it is challenging. In that night, I didn't have to go home. I still had fun. I didn't drink. I ordered um a sparkling soda with lime in it and had a good time. And there's other times where I recognize I need a plan before I go into this event, otherwise, I might be on a slippery rock. And so I'm a big proponent of plans, commitments, accountability, and then also like self-love. Uh start taking care of ourselves. We've all heard, or many of us have heard, me not until later in life, that the drinking often isn't the problem, it's masking a problem. And so if all of a sudden we could quit drinking and we don't take care of whatever that problem is, now we're sober facing it. We're facing hard life sober and we need help. We need tools.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, or they the the term is dry drunk. Dry drunk, yeah. You know, it just I've never heard that name. Oh, really? Oh, see, it's Australian, maybe it's just Australian love. Yeah. But yeah, dry drunk is basically you've given it up. Well, that's one of my catchphrases. I didn't give up, I gained, because I didn't give up, you know, sh hangovers, one night stands, loneliness, crap parenting, blah, blah, blah. Right. So again, yeah, taking that um deciding to quit is, you know, then it's the work begins. Like we all talk about it. Absolutely. People sort of go glaze, dies over, what does

The Bar Moment That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_02

that mean? Or it's too hard. You really do have to change the mindset. Otherwise, you literally just um you just the door, the crack's still there, and you'll, you know, it'll just take one shitty day or one breakup or one, you know, celebration. I mean, I don't know about you, but I still get you know the triggers on a hot summer's day on holiday. You think, oh, you know, cold beer would be great. But again, it's just we play the tape forward and we just think, oh god, no.

SPEAKER_01

Um yeah, not worth it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I love you your expression of saying you didn't, um, what did you say? I you didn't give up. I gained. I gained. Yeah, the way that we reframe things in our mind from I have to to I get to. Yeah. Um, we need to start talking to ourselves in ways that are positive. And really, our subconscious is listening. So we need to tell it. We need to tell it, I'm not suffering, I'm not in pain, let's make decisions that this is joyful. And and when it's hard to have tools, to have support for when it's hard.

SPEAKER_02

Which is right, which is what you said. You've got to have a plan. So you go, you have your sparkly water. And the other beauty is that we can drive. So if you go and you think, oh, this is boring, or I've had enough, and everyone's slurring and repeating themselves, and you know, some old granddad's trying to crack onto you, you can just go, I'll see ya. Bye. And drive home. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. How long ago was that, Sarah, that you um this all unfolded for you? And yeah, eight years ago. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, eight years ago. I moved to Costa Rica about eight and a half years ago. I had done plant medicine before doing it for work. I had done it for like my own personal practice. In some plant medicine, like psilocybin mushrooms, I started for fun, for curiosity. Um, somebody told me the earth can look like a rainbow. And I said, that sounds amazing. Let's do it. Uh and then the plant medicine path for work um was eight and a half years ago. And even then, that wasn't my intention. My intention for that ceremony. Yeah, my intention for that ceremony was uh show me my worst and then a path to get better. If I would have known now what I knew then, that's a pretty strong intention to start with. Um, but again, in the most loving way, it said your drinking is your worst. You're not focused, you're not clear, you spend half of your day just trying to regulate, you're foggy all the time, and you don't feel good. And so it's um that was my worst. And who wouldn't want to be their best? And openly, not every day. I'm not the best version of myself every day. Yeah, sometimes I'm a medium version or a low version. And and I also have learned the language to express that to my partner. A lower version of myself needs to talk to you. Can you handle it? Do you have patience right now? Because I need help. Exactly. Not just numbing out, yeah, or swallowing it, swallowing pain or swallowing sadness, swallowing anger, learning, learning how to um communicate it, feel it. A lot of people on a path will try to pretend like they don't get angry or try to pretend like they don't get sad. I didn't know what spiritual bypass meant for a while, and then I realized that's what it is. We do get angry. Those are our boundaries. That is our our spirit saying there's a boundary that has been crossed. What would you like to do about it? And so that what would I like to do about it is just the awareness. Okay, I am angry. Is it because somebody knew my boundary and crossed it? Or maybe they didn't even know the boundary, but now I'm active, not reactive. And so the emotions are important. All of the emotions are important. I say all of them. I don't think shame has a place. I could talk about that separately, but anger, even guilt, when I feel guilty, it's um because I did something out of integrity. And if I what do I need to do about it? Do I need to go apologize to somebody else? Sometimes do I need to apologize to myself, get back in alignment? And then so that guilt had the purpose of take action, and then I'm a big believer in let it go, turn the page, holding on to it. We don't need that.

SPEAKER_02

No, that's what keeps us stuck in, you know, victimhood and and drinking or drugging or you know, just shopping or whatever that coping mechanism was. And for me, you know, uh yeah, my core wounds were running the show, and alcohol was the medicine. And um yeah, so um yeah, so basically, so then you you had that experience in the bar, and then how did you you know, what's the next step? Um, like do you still do the did you still do that work, you know, your sales work? I mean, we've all got to earn a living. So how did you navigate that in?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so by the time I had gone to that plant medicine ceremony, I had moved to Costa Rica. And so I was still working in an environment in which people drank a lot, and I did have to start making better decisions. I had to start making, okay, I can come for this period of time where people are conscious anyway, and have poignant conversations and then decide when to leave and then do the follow-up just the same and invite to healthier activities.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And some people have come to plant medicine.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And what's interesting is in office environments, for example, um, I worked in that alpha environment for a very long period of time. The person that might tease tease somebody else is also the person that will come to your offices and say, Hey, you look a lot healthier. What have you been doing? And and they want to do it as well because they're also struggling.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, 100%.

Social Life Without Alcohol And Planning

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Revenge is, you know, looking good and uh it's not really revenge, but yeah, and even you know, this is why I do a podcast and shout out to you know, life on the other side of any addiction is just fucking so much better because oh, we just don't have that shit in our brains going, you're useless, you know, you're whatever that horrible core belief or that critic in your head. It's just that noise that I was drowning out, or you were drowning out. So um, you know, now, yeah, on the other side, I don't have to wake up in the morning and just think, oh, you know, you did it again. Now I wake up and say, Oh wow, thanks for waking up and you know, just have that gratitude. Feeling good. I know. I mean, I just nothing would ever take me back to that time of you know, being stuck in that addiction.

SPEAKER_01

So what um it's so accepted in it's so accepted in society that I didn't even question it until my 30s. I thought this is life and this is how and when I would meet people that didn't drink, I thought, how do you have fun? And then I realized it's a it's a unconscious fun, and that there are so many ways to have conscious fun or elevated conscious fun. I would rather speak with somebody whose mind is working a little bit faster, not working a little bit slower.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I like that. Yeah, yeah, no, I love that because um yeah, we can all just get on that not nobody likes repeating and shouting over you, and you're not funny. And that's the thing, like I thought I was funny, but actually uh alcohol, sorry, made me funny. And actually it's not. I was actually reading my school reports the other day, and it was, you know, probably the ADHD, which was undiagnosed, but it was like Alison is distracted easily, and and then I found like a book set our year seven camp, and every one of those pages said, Allie, you're so funny. Allie, you're it was all about humor. And I'm thinking, far out, like I'd completely forgotten. And I wasn't drinking, I mean, far out.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think that that mistake happens because when we drink, we slow down our prefrontal cortex, which is telling us um, be quiet, be quiet, or you can't dance. And so when we slow that down, then maybe we'll say the joke that we're not sure if we were sober, if it would land well. And so now that we're sober, how do we still live that more authentic self without needing help? What's also interesting about flow, um, I used to think that flow states were for athletes and musicians. It was for creatives to like get into your center where you're not talking to yourself the whole time. As you can imagine, if you're a musician and you're constantly questioning this and that, your prefrontal cortex is going fast, they get in a state of flow and they just play. Athletes are the same. We are all the same. And the similarity between flow and drinking is it slows down your prefrontal cortex. Now, with drinking, it slows down other areas as well. And with flow, you are sharp, you are, you are just in flow with life. Lovely. And so we can get into those states without alcohol. And we can dance without alcohol. I usually remember the first, I remember the first ecstatic dance I ever went to. I was like, oh my god, this is super hippie, super woo-woo. And I went behind a like a big tree, like a big bush, and I danced where no one could see me. Like it was just, it was nothing like within my my being at all to dance sober. And I actually know that people that are hearing this that only dance while drinking are like, no way, there's no way.

SPEAKER_02

There is a way. There is a way, and it might not happen overnight. I mean, this is the other thing. It's not a race, it's not a competition. I mean, a little bit of one step at a time, one day at a time. Thanks, AA. Yeah. But you know, it's true in a sense that you just, you know, you don't have to just the first thing you need to do is just ditch that bloody toxic shit. Work on yourself, and then you realize that um, you know, you are worth it. Um, you do deserve better.

Reframing Sobriety From Loss To Gain

SPEAKER_02

And so talk to us about this plant medicine. Yes. Yeah. So we serve ayahuasca, psilocybin, which is mushrooms. Okay, so for the dummies out there, including me, what is the well, what is ayahuasca and what is the is psilocybin the same or different or it's different, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and they have some common features. I could talk about that as well. But ayahuasca is from the Amazon basin, so you'll find it in Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Colombia. It's two separate plants of vine and leaves that are brewed down together over a period of about five days. I don't want to skip over the spiritual component of this because it's I recognize that I have a Western mind and most of the people that I interact with have a Western mind, but I would be, I wouldn't be telling the full story without talking about a spiritual aspect of it. This is a part of the spiritual practice of the people of the indigenous communities that are now sharing this medicine because they know the world needs it. And so ayahuasca is from two plants, um, and we drink it as a tea. It's a thick tea. Um, many people do not ever acquire the taste for ayahuasca. And then we connect, and so on the spiritual side, uh, the spirit of ayahuasca. Now, if you have a very Western logical mind, you could also talk about specifically where it is interacting with your brain, with your mind. And psilocybin comes from a mushroom, so it's a fungus. So technically it's not a plant medicine. And what's interesting, we also serve bufo, which comes from a toad, which also is not a plant medicine. So we have plants and we have fungus and we have um fauna, floor and fauna. Um, and so that's the third medicine that we serve as bufo. So psilocybin is mushrooms, and a commonality between psilocybin and ayahuasca is that it is a psychedelic experience. Some people don't like using the word psychedelic, especially with ayahuasca, because more than just altering reality, you are seeing reality. Now, you might have visions that you wouldn't have in your normal state of mind, but they're visions. It's not um masking reality. You frequently people can get a very clear vision of the highest version of themselves and say, here's a path. This is this is your spirit. Uh, and so it's more visionary. Uh they call them los niños, which in Spanish that means little kids. They also have the tendency of um being heart-opening. Ayahuasca is called a grandmother, and so it's heart opening, but grandmothers can also be tough. They can say, like, here, you need to look at this. Now, I'm going to hold you as you process that, because it can be painful to look at ourselves sometimes. It can be painful to look at the planet, you know? But and there's also that grandmotherly feel. What I feel like with Silva Simon, it's also very heart opening. And then, like a kid, there's like, here, I'm gonna show you something, have fun, and then you're you're with it. And so, um I I love psilocybin. It's a medicine that I work with even between the macro doses, microdosing psilocybin, I think is really a helpful tool, especially with people who have some dic addictive traits. And then bufo is a um a it's from a toad and it's um experience that lasts about 15 to 20 minutes. It is very powerful. And so ayahuasca is very powerful. Um Bufo, that five MEO DMT,

Anger Boundaries And Dropping Shame

SPEAKER_01

if um if there were numbers to psychedelic experiences, five being the most, bufo is the most powerful in a short period of time. Ayahuasca might be a four or four and a half, and you get time to consciously work with it, where bufo, you are shot into an experience, and then a lot of the integration happens afterwards. Where ayahuasca, you get to work with her while you're with the medicine. And so that's what we work with, ayahuasca, psilocybin, and bufo. And uh we also work with Yopo for experienced people within the medicines.

SPEAKER_02

And so that sounds amazing. So when so on your retreats, is that um so all of those experiences you're so is that why people come to the retreats? Is is it all about plant medicine and things like that?

SPEAKER_01

Or yeah, what is a retreat? Each retreat, we will serve one medicine. And so in our ayahuasca retreats, we serve ayahuasca. And our psilocybin retreats, behold, does silawaska. And so we take one of the two ingredients of ayahuasca, not both of them, and um, we consume that, and then we consume psilocybin. We do that for two reasons. One, the depth of the experience is vast, and an extended amount of time. So a dose of mushrooms could last three to four hours, and with silawaska, what we work with will last five or six hours. And what do you think? And then I'll still have six hours. Yeah. A lot of different things, a lot of different things. And so we we hold traditional ceremonies, and so our ayahuasca ceremonies are the same as in the jungle. What I really love about Behold is we recognize we are bringing almost everyone who comes to our retreats is um has a Western mind, and we are bringing them into a tradition and a traditional ceremony that is totally out of their element, and we keep it very safe and then powerful. And then outside of ceremonies, we know that we have um jarred our nervous system. And so outside of ceremonies, we take great care on putting our nervous system back. And so um, some people are confident and comfortable going to the jungle. Um, and some people need to feel a bit more support. The first time I did a ceremony, I was in the middle of nowhere. I was in the jungle, and I couldn't go deep because I had to be very aware of my environment. And so I know experientially as well as with people that come, the safer we feel, the deeper we can go. And so um, our retreats, we hold a very safe container even before people arrive. Safety is our number one priority. And then they're comfortable. And so after ceremony, you have the opportunity to go to your room and really take care of yourself, take a warm shower, get in a cozy bed, um, AC and take care. The next day, there's people there to talk to, or you have your own space. There's uh nature walks, saltwater pools. And so it's really a process of taking somebody that knows they can go deep if they're comfortable, and then giving them a traditional experience of ceremony. And so for the six hours, it's moving that connection and seeing what comes up and what to work with.

SPEAKER_02

Um yeah, so it's like a group, uh, a group therapy in a sense, is in your all um Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So in ceremony is um a time for you and the medicine to connect. And then we have a medicine team, a shaman, medicine man, medicine musicians that work with the energy and the vibration in the space. Um me included, some of this didn't resonate until after I experienced. And then I started going, okay, it is true. If you want to know about the universe, study frequency, study vibration. Um, that made more sense to me after a few ceremonies. So uh in that six hours, there's no talk therapy. Um, you're working with yourself, you're working with your spirit, you're working with your subconscious, you're working with ayahuasca. And then outside of the ceremony space, yes, you're very well held with the people that are on retreat with you as well as the facilitators who are thoroughly trained with all of the things. Wow.

SPEAKER_02

All of the beautiful. So do you microdose apart from your ceremonies or do you use plant medicine in everyday life or what yeah?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so ethnically, I would say if you eat consciously, you're consuming plant medicine. But um, if we wanted to specifically speak about plant medicine on the scale of psychedelics, um, not daily, because I think we all need to make sure that we come back to ourselves. Our ayahuasca retreats are even called the guidance side. Sometimes we need a helping hand, but we should always be led back to ourselves. We have everything that we need. Um, even if any organization or human says you need me, we should question them. So I would love it if people came to one retreat and that was it. Um, and most people do. And then some people say, I have a bit more work to do. And then some people say, I do feel complete, I do feel healed, and I want to know more about this universe. I want to know more about myself. Infinity out, infinity in, and it's expansion. So two groups of people

Flow States And Learning To Dance Sober

SPEAKER_01

come. Um, uh, many come for healing, and surprise, they get expansion. And a lot of people come for expansion, and they also things come up, and they're like, Oh, I still have some things I thought that I worked through that they have the opportunity to work through.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, because I was saying before we hit record that I did a reel about, you know, psychedelics in the um, you know, as a form of, you know, is it numbing or is it just another way of, you know, and your response to that was, you know, well, I don't know, what did you say?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I'll we'll we'll take it from the top. Um we have a coach, a behol coach, who has been in recovery, and she also is a dear friend of mine who speaks to defining your own integrity. And so, for example, um I could have a friend here and myself, and she defines her own integrity that for her, she would say, I can take psilocybin, I can take mushrooms in a ceremonial environment, I can take uh mushrooms and go on a hike. I cannot take mushrooms on Friday night for fun because it goes against my own commitment to sobriety. Whereas I could say, I take uh mushrooms in ceremony, I take mushrooms to go on a hike, and I also will take a certain dose of mushrooms on Friday to go hang out with my friends socially. And that's my integrity. And I don't judge her for hers, and she doesn't judge me for mine. And this is an important piece because she's been in recovery and she's also a coach, people will come to her and say, I want to do mushrooms. She also knows how the addicted mind works. We've all been there where it talks us into things. Our minds, addicted mind or not addicted mind, can talk us into and out of almost anything. And so she doesn't serve or recommend pilocybin for anyone's first year of sobriety because that addicted mind will start saying, Oh, this is for healing, this is for healing when it's for fun. And don't get me wrong, fun is amazing, but we need to get our foundation and our roots um ahead of time. We have to have that, we have to have that sobriety piece foundation um before adding some of these plant medicines, just to make sure that our integrity is defined and we're walking it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I had quite a few um people on the on my thread saying, you know, there's just so many closed-minded people anywhere in the world. But yeah, a lot of them were like, oh yeah, it's just um, you know, another form of basically getting out of it or numbing or um escaping. And it's like, do the this is why I wanted to have you on is to myth bust all. Um well it's not just myth bust, but just yeah, just speak to it. Okay, exactly. And get the information and and you know, come from a different side of how how it looks instead of if we educate ourselves, then the fear of that usually dissipates, you know?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I think there we could talk a bit about intention. And so just the same as for my exam, the example of me and my friend. If my intention for taking this psilocybin is to have an elevated conscious experience to work on X, whether that's expansion or whether that's uh focus uh or creativity,

Ayahuasca Psilocybin And Bufo Explained

SPEAKER_01

I have an intention behind it. If I have no intention and I'm in um recovery or sobriety, then perhaps it is just a way to escape. So am I escaping or am I amplifying or working on something? And so people have to have guidelines for themselves and then don't break their own rules, or don't break their own rules the day that they're trying to figure something out. Don't change your roles when you're offered something, you know, because then your addicted mind will say, Oh, you know what, it actually is okay. Oh, yeah, setting ourselves up for success.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. The sneaky bitch inside the head. I mean, if I was to ever drink again, it would be for somebody else. You know, I'm such a people pleaser. Um that, you know, if yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sad in my ways, it's um that I wouldn't, nothing would make me do that. But yeah, of course, being in a 40-year cycle of drinking for, you know, that was my only tool in the toolbox. Well, yeah, yeah, you know, I mean, sure, I would have just gone, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um the people pleasing um is such like a line between giving away a bit of your authenticity to somebody else and wanting to work an environment that flows. So, like when I was a teenager, I used to say, I don't care what people think, but I would say that right before I was about to do something really dumb or obnoxious. I would say that so that I could preempt myself of like, people are gonna judge you. I don't care, I want to do it. Yes. And as I became an adult and more heart-centered, um, I would say, I actually I do care what you think. However, I don't care more about what you think than my own authenticity or integrity. I won't do anything outside of myself, but I I care what you think because I find it interesting. Um, I want you to like me because life will be more fun. Now, if you don't like me, I won't change who I am. But it would be great if people liked us. That's how I have fun when I'm having fun, is because we have relationships where people like us. And so I think some of this um uh areas where I put a bit of attitude towards things. I don't care if you don't like me, I don't care what you think. The soft side of that is yeah, is I do, but not more than I care about myself.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Which is the mask, which is, you know, I'll get you before you get me, or projecting, you know, the insecurity and you know, so yeah, uh lived lived, yeah, fight or flight, you know. And yeah, so I've been uh microdosing for a couple of months now on yeah, it's good. Like initially, I was a bit, you know, scared to take a little pellet, and then um my sister uh is very much involved in this space, so um, yeah, of course I've got her as my um coach type of thing. So at the moment I've just been sitting on two, and you know, you can go to work and drive, which is again, that's what it's about. It's not to get out of it, right? Yeah. Um but yeah, I think it's really um it's helped fo refocus my my day. I'm quite I I'm a Gemini, so I'm an air science, I'm all over the place, and I'm a twin and I'm ADHD undiagnosed or whatever. But yeah, yeah, I just seem to be able to get uh I'm not waking up with that sort of um I don't know. I the next day I don't feel flat, whereas sometimes if I was when I smoked marijuana, I would sort of have what I would call the bong over, even though I had a tiny bit. Yeah, even though I'd have a tiny bit, I would sort of wake up feeling foggy and a bit flat, and so I was a little bit worried about um I'm quite sensitive in that area, and then yeah, so anyway, I've I wake up, so I had some the other day, I went to work and then I had a great sleep and then woke up the next day, might have been yesterday, and yeah, I I yeah just feel good, you know, without any fogginess or residual side effects.

SPEAKER_01

So um I think when we talk about one thing that I've loved about psychedelics since I've ever started taking them is that it has a common feature that we start questioning things. Now, we don't have to question like skeptical with a negative tone. It just says, let's question everything. Does this make sense for to me? And so I have another friend in

Retreat Safety Integration And Support

SPEAKER_01

recovery who was very much um, I can um smoke cigarettes, I can take anything prescribed by a doctor, even if it has opioids in it, opiates in it, um, but I can't microdose psilocybin because it's illegal, and then that would break my sobriety. And so through the through the process of question everything, okay, why is it okay that I can take this pill if it was prescribed to me when the side effects are damaging, you know? And don't get me wrong, I am not against um Western medicine. It has just it's incredible with acute, acute trauma. Um, if I get into a car wreck, I want a Western doctor. I actually want them all now. I want Eastern to work holistically, I want Western for surgeries and pain management, short-term pain management. The problem is when Western goes long-term pain management without healing the core, without looking holistically. And so the question everything, okay, why can I not take microdoses? Why can I not take psilocybin? And if you start answering those questions, you'll realize there is no reason not to, or one that you wouldn't define yourself. Define your own integrity, not have somebody else define it for you. And a lot of people are using it to help them with depression. And then there isn't that long list of side effects that some of the depression medication, including suicidal ideations, you know, and so I in order to come on our retreats, there's um certain medications that might not go well with ayahuasca. And so some people have to taper off medications. And then if they're on something like a depression medication or an anxiety medication that they need to taper off of, um, it is recommended that since they've gone through that cleaning process after retreat, if they're open for it and under a coaching, like I love that you have somebody walking you through this to say, try microdosing. And if it doesn't work, okay, make sure that you take care of yourself. But this is a healthy way uh and the science is there that is just showing it helps with depression, it helps with anxiety.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, because it can rewire those neural pathways to say, hey, you're not depressed. Get out of here. Heal the core. Heal the core. Don't you are lovable, you are enough, you are all these wonderful things. You know, what happened to you doesn't make you define you type of thing, you know, like Oprah says, What happened to you? Or you know, it's that's what I love about yeah, digging deep.

SPEAKER_01

I would love to talk about that because it's really important. People are starting to not starting, sorry, people frequently define themselves by events that happened to them and then the paths that they have taken because of it. And people define themselves by what star sign they are, you know, which um there's more data behind that. But um, and one beautiful thing that a lot of these medicines, including ayahuasca, can do is that it has a disillusionment of self. And so some people will call that like an ego death. I think that's a bit dramatic. Um, you can start seeing I am not this thing that happened to me. I'm also not the pattern that I hold because of that thing that happened to me. That is not who I am. And so we, of course, even if we go through an ego disillusionment, we come back together stronger with more awareness on a path to break those patterns that we don't want. And don't get me wrong, I have beautiful programs that I love. I program myself all the time for my, I consciously program myself. But I've received some programs that I had to unprogram. And so these medicines help with that. Buffo, it's not it, it is more of an ego death than an ego disillusionment because it's so fast, you kind of don't have a choice. You are going to go on this, go on the experience. Yeah. That's one thing I love about the plant medicines. Sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so well, tell us, tell our audience. I know that you're on the other side of the world, however, excuse me. But

Microdosing Integrity And Question Everything

SPEAKER_02

where can people find um how do people get in touch or get curious? Where can we find you guys?

SPEAKER_01

I would say our website is the easiest. We are behold-retreats.com. And I was telling you, we've had quite a few Australians come, and they're so much fun, and they're um just a joy to be around the vibrancy that they bring, and also some work to do, you know. And so it's been lovely to have Australians come. It's a long journey, but it's a journey that's worth it, right? We're we're healing the core. We're healing the core. So I hope you come find us, behold typhonretreats.com. Behold dash retreats.com.

SPEAKER_02

Awesome. Thanks, Sarah. Thank you so much.