Journeys of healing: Leon

PIR® Integration Radio — Episode with Leon

In this episode of PIR® Integration Radio, Leon shares a thoughtful and honest reflection on the inner conflict that shaped his experience of addiction and recovery.

Leon speaks openly about what it felt like to live with what he describes as “a war inside” — a tension between different parts of himself pulling in opposing directions. Through his recovery journey, he began to understand that healing was not about defeating parts of himself, but about learning to bring them into dialogue and balance.

Together, we explore how recovery can be understood as a process of internal harmony: moving from conflict toward cooperation between the parts of ourselves that struggle, protect, and seek relief. Leon reflects on the role of self-awareness, compassion, and consistent daily practice in gradually transforming that internal war into a more peaceful relationship with oneself.

This conversation offers a grounded perspective on recovery as an ongoing process of integration — learning to listen inwardly, understand our motivations, and cultivate the conditions for lasting change.

A calm and thoughtful reminder that recovery is not about perfection, but about learning how to live with greater clarity, balance, and honesty.

  PIR® Integration Radio is a podcast produced by Psychedelics in Recovery.
In keeping with PIR® traditions, the podcast offers a space for reflection, shared experience, and integration, in support of recovery. It does not promote or endorse substance use. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There was a stuckness around the dynamic of internal struggle, you know, between different parts of me that um were working against each other. So there was often, you know, almost like a water inside of me. It was almost like groundwork. I would try to quit every day. And then by about 10 a.m. I knew I would already have scored more. And then be smoking. So my definition of recovery has to do with having like peace between the different parts of me.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Welcome to Psychedelic in Recovery Integration Radio, a safe space where PIR, also known as Person in Recovery, come and share their experience, strength, and hope with us, with you. My name is Anne, and I'm a person in recovery and your host today. This radio is part of PIR's ongoing effort to carry the message of recovery to those still suffering. In alignment with the 12 traditions that guide our fellowship, this program will not be funded by outside contributions. PIR as an organization has no opinion on outside issues. Whilst we discuss plant medicine and psychedelics in this episode, PIR does not promote or endorse their use. The spiritual intention of PIR and of this broadcast is to create diverse, safe, and sacred spaces for all who wish to recover. Always striving for humility of a hubrist and principles before personality. Whether you're new to the idea of integrating psychedelics or plant medicine in your recovery process, new to recovery or a longtime member of the fellowship, our aim is to create a space of curiosity, connection, and hope. In this first series, entitled Journeys of Healing, we explore the intersection of recovery and the transformative potential of psychedelic medicine through some of our members' experience. So settle in, open your mind, and let's walk this path together. This is the PIR integration radio. And today it gives me great pleasure to introduce Leon, who's come to share his experience, strength, and parts of recovery with us. Hi, Leon. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Hi Ann, thanks for having me. It's great to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

It's a pleasure to um to welcome you in this uh episode. You've been doing a lot of service in PIR. I've uh heard and seen you a lot in the Saturday morning live meeting. And it would be good to um to get to uh hear your story in a bit more depth. And um starting with your journey of discovering or encountering psychedelics and PIR, how did that happen? Um when how were you led to either and both?

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Okay. Um I know I first discovered psychedelics as a teenager. I know it was experimenting with lots of things at that time and had some experiences with LSD and psilocybin, some things that opened me up to some new possibilities at that time. And I will also say I was introduced with in a in a setting and with a mindset that was maybe not ideal in retrospect. And within a cohort of friends where there was a lot of abuse of different kinds of substances going on. So I feel like I kind of managed to come through those experiences, having it been kind of a net positive. But I wouldn't say the same for everybody who I was around and with at that time. But I guess we'll come back to the family and places of origin stuff later. But kind of fast forward, I uh found myself in recovery through kind of uh circuitous path. And after having had extended periods of sobriety and continuing to struggle, um, I wanted some help with depression, and I tried different things and was interested in the possibility of psych psychedelic assisted therapy, and so I found some folks who were doing ketamine assisted therapy here where I live, and I did um a ketamine infusion with them, and it was powerful and it worked for a short period of time. It didn't fix me, um, but it uh did open me up to some possibilities for healing that maybe I hadn't realized, and actually, maybe one of the most important things was that that particular therapist told me that there was this thing called PIR that existed because I'd been sharing that um I was in 12-step recovery meetings and wasn't comfortable sharing about my experiences with psychedelics, but also I I felt like I needed more and I um was scared that I was gonna go off the rails, so to speak, if I um wasn't staying connected, staying connected to uh some kind of a recovery fellowship.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

And that's how you discovered PIR.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

And do you remember which meeting was your first meeting?

SPEAKER_01 5:14

I don't remember. I don't remember. I mean, I think that I logged on a couple of times to meetings early on and felt a little bit scared about it, or maybe that it was just it wasn't the right time for me yet. Um I was like, oh, this is a place where there's no guardrails. Like, I don't know, you know, having had success in in a more traditional recovery setting where there were lots of clear guidelines and guardrails, it felt a little scary. And I, you know, uh people sharing about all kinds of wild spiritual experiences and things that I couldn't necessarily identify with at that time. So the first few times that I that I um attended a meeting, it didn't take right away. I I came back to it again um a couple of years after that when I was already more kind of well established in a new recovery pathway for myself. I'll say I've attended a lot of different fellowships in my time. And most recently I came to PIR after establishing a pretty my most recent, you know, a successful period of sobriety for my underlying uh addiction behaviors have came through recovery dharma. And right um, and from there I was able to pivot into also incorporating psychedelics in recovery because by that point I was open and uh in the right place to hear what was being offered and and um because recovery dharma is also pretty open compared to mainstream 12-step fellowships.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

So do you think that eased you into uh a more open-minded, broad fellowship such as PIR? And that was the missing s the missing gap between coming straight out of your what was your fellowship of origin?

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Marijuana Anonymous, as often happens, like started to peel the layers of the onion and and find other things that need att needed attending to. So, you know, I've attended Alcoholics Anonymous, I've attended um SLAA, I've attended Overeaters Anonymous, Nicotine Anonymous. I didn't I I don't have like a strong foothold in any of those fellowships, but they're all ones that I've checked in on and and maybe taken some good information from.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Yeah, so all all those fellowships in my experience are fairly structured. I wouldn't say rigid, but there is a very strong framework. And coming straight from one of those to PIR can be a bit disconcerting for some.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

So maybe the recovery dharma was the the the step that was missing in your progression. I have attended a couple of recovery dharma meetings, and I find them completely different and different to PIR, different to AA and NA. And it's um it's it's a very interesting framework of recovery as well. Do you still attend your that fellowship? I do.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yeah, I do still attend. I have like um about three or four meetings that I attend every week, and recovery dharma is one of those.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Um, so I've put together a patchwork, you know, of what works for me. And the recovery dharma keyed into um, you know, prior to ever even attending any recovery meetings, I had established a meditation practice um from years before. And that was an important, you know, any any um kind of progress that I had made prior to entering recovery or even after it was was built on a foundation of that meditation practice. Um, and so even my first marijuana anonymous meetings, I would go to the meditation meetings that they had. So that was what seemed to be an obvious fit in recovery dharma and openness and the just compassion, you know. I think that is one of the the overriding principles there. Um But I have to say that I don't totally fit there either. I mean, I don't um identify as being a Buddhist, you know, some of the the I don't totally believe the Four Noble Truths, and I don't totally follow the Eightfold Path, just like I don't totally uh believe a hundred percent of the principles in twelve step. But I've gotten so much benefit out of both, and I appreciate the ability to take what works and and leave the rest to some degree. I will say that one thing that recovery dharma in meditation generally has helped me with is developing that part of me that is the observer of myself. The real fruit of meditation practice is the just the the ability to to just um get a little bit of space between an impulse and then the reaction, as they say. And having that little bit of space allows me the possibility of making a different choice or responding in a different way. And the fruits of that over over time and with a lot of work have been that I have more confidence than I probably have ever had in terms of trusting my own intuition to make healthy choices for myself in recovery and outside of recovery. So um I don't feel like maybe like I felt before that when I don't follow things exactly, that I was maybe being bad or doing something wrong or hiding something in recovery, but I feel like I can have confidence in my own ability to uh identify my my intuitive guidance and and and follow it, at least to a greater degree than I haven't.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yeah. I what you said reminds me of that sentence that we we hear in AA, God is in the pause and having that moment of that moment of rest before a reaction. And I love the way you talked about your observers and and being able to observe yourself without judgment and that that practice through through meditation. Um I have struggled with meditation all my life, I think probably due to an ADHD diagnosis, um, not the diagnosis of the ADHD. Um and I have found that uh things that uh using plant medicine, uh the ability to observe and the ability to pause has come uh more naturally to me. And I can't credit meditation for that, because my practice of meditation, meditation probably doesn't look like yours. My meditation is a walk or my meditation is a dance. But psychedelics have really helped me find that moment of uh of quiet that was so elusive to me until then. And those observe observe without judgment is that it's such a gift in recovery to be able to get to that point of uh looking at oneself, observing oneself, understanding oneself. Um yes, that that's that's really uh a key element and and uh fascinating to hear that you got stuff out there with meditation practice. And yeah. How have how have um psychedelics uh uh in impacted your meditation practice whilst we're on the topic of meditation?

SPEAKER_01 12:39

That's a good question. Let me just uh to to respond to what you're saying about meditation. I started meditating by essentially like trying to fix myself in a similar way to when I attended the first recovery meetings. I had heard about these 10-day silent meditation retreats that anyone can go to. And I heard some other people have had really positive experiences, and I went to one fully with the attention to come out of there not smoking anymore. And and, you know, and I it didn't work in that way, but it did having that intense experience of kind of being forced to be quiet and and to meditate for hours a day, and in a very what seems from where I'm sitting now, like a kind of a brutal methodology of the way to say past meditation. But it did get me very grounded in that practice. So I'm thankful for that. I'm gonna flip your conversation, your your question a little bit, rather than how has the psychedelics affected my meditation? I'll say how does the meditation affected my psychedelic experiences?

SPEAKER_03 13:40

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Many of my psychedelic experiences and probably most of the last adult period of my life have not been super pleasant. Having a little bit of even when I'm in a being swept away by the by the current of of an intense experience, I can still have just a little bit of remove from it and and observe it unfolding and not have to, you know, quote unquote freak out. So that's been useful. And I think that I think that probably my meditation practice has also changed. But the way that I learned meditation was that it's not like there's a there's nowhere to try to get to. There's not like a w a right or a wrong way to do it. You know, but how I measure my my progress is is how I'm able to show up in life, you know, with my my family and my my work and my my loved ones and and my sense of purpose and um and how I am able to be in a relationship to my in internal landscape and all the parts of me that show up. Whether there's violence in those interactions or whether there's kind of peace and love.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Yeah, that's that's a good compass, uh, internal family or uh internal part and uh how reconciled can we be with with them at any one point is is a good measure of serenity and recovery. But uh going back to what we were talking about just a bit earlier, about the you know, you were saying that you you took a bit of recovery dharma and a bit of the 12 steps. One thing that I found particularly attractive when I first got to PIR was this is the fellowship where I was allowed to define my own version of recovery, what what my recovery looks like. And that for me is such a liberation of not feeling guilty that I'm doing this or this wrong. And so my my question would be what what is your version of recovery? And uh how how do you how did you put all these pieces from all the fellowships that you visited and your spiritual practice? And would you like to share that with us?

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah, thank you. I feel very much the same. I I love PIR for the openness and the the implicit trust that we have for the people in the room to define, you know, what is recovery and what their path is, because it's all so different for each person and and so unique to the to the issues that that we bring you know to the rooms. And yet the the in yet these commonalities kind of emerge. You know, for me, what is my definition of recovery? I've talked about it in different ways, but I think that one way that I've talked about it is that in my process of uh spinning out an addictive behavior and addictive substance use, there was a stuckness around a dynamic of internal struggle and conflict, you know, between different parts of me that um were working against each other. So there was often, you know, almost like a war inside of me. When I was actively using, it was almost like groundhog day. Like I would try to quit every day, and then by about 10 a.m. or noon, I would already have s scored more, and then be smoking and then making the plan to quit the next day, and that went on for years and years. Um so my definition of recovery has to do with having like peace between the different parts of me and working towards some idea of wholeness, like all the parts of me are in a cohesive whole that is working together towards something like the idea of purpose. And I'm motivated by the idea of purpose, like the the why of recovery, you know. Like I don't necessarily for me see like the value of recovery to to being like a like I'm not trying to have a perfected, sober, pure self. I'm not I'm not walking a path of asceticism, you know, or mu being a monk. Like I believe that I'm here to do some maybe some important some important to me things on this planet at this time. I and I don't know that as far as my own personal spirituality, like I have a hard time always believing that there's some external sense of what that purpose might be, although it would be nice to think that. Um but but I but I do believe that we are such powerful meaning makers, um, that that if I can discover purpose in my day-to-day life, um and and and leave some positive benefits to the world, then that's worthwhile. It's like uh one of the things that I really loved about 12 steps in terms of the you know, these really potent sayings or are cliches almost is is about the next right step, just focusing on taking the next right step. And that's what my spirituality looks like. Like I don't have a real I I kind of firmly identify as uh agnostic. Okay. I don't know, I really don't know. And um not knowing preserves some of the mystery. I really like there to be mystery and it and feels humble, like acknowledging that I know what's whatever's going on is is real big and it's like maybe too big for me to totally comprehend it. And and it keeps me curious, and that's where I want to be. Like I want to be in a place of curiosity about the world. And um, but I do have this sense that there's like the next right step, that if I can connect with that part of myself that is maybe related to something we might call higher power, you know, that I will be able to see what that next right step is and then have the the ability or the the courage or the willingness to take it on a moment-by-moment basis. And sometimes that looks like washing the dishes.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Mm-hmm. Chop wood and carry water.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Yeah. It's um it's interesting when you talk about the the parts and uh and the conflict uh between your different parts and and coming to to peace with them and bringing peace. What what's helped you in in that journey? Have you walked the path of ACA and the inner family system, or did you go down the IFS route and or both? Do you want to uh elaborate on this?

SPEAKER_01 20:10

No, I feel like I hope to attend ACA one day. I get so much from people sharing about their experiences in ACA, and I always connect with that so much. But no, the the internal family system stuff has been a really powerful framework through which to interpret and engage with my internal life since I I discovered it. And I and I discovered it through actually a different psychedelic assisted therapist that I saw for a short period of time. And I find it I find it so useful to have a framework like that where all of the different parts of me that want to show up or that do show up in the world get to be there and they all have value. None of them are inherently bad. And within that framework, there's this idea of the capital S self, you know, the part of me that is a kind of maybe maybe it's an essence, but it's also like all the best parts. It's loving, it's curious, it's compassionate, it's courageous, it's all those things. And it's the part of me that what I would consider to be connected to higher power. You know, when I was defining my own higher power in my step work early on, I defined it as very much similar to the way IFS defines capital S self, like that there's a part of me that is connected to something greater and to others and shows up through connection with others. And I don't know what it is, and I don't know what that thing that I'm connected to looks like, or what that network of interrelatedness, you know, might look like or or be like. But I I have some kind of sense that it exists and it's been really useful, you know. As you know, it it's always difficult to talk about psychedelic experiences, right? Like words don't do justice to them often. It's like we're doing a little bit of violence to them by trying to force. them into a box of language. You know, so it's been useful that the idea like that the map is not the terrain. You know, like we have different maps that we've used, you know, through the languages that we grew up learning or the different, you know, frameworks for understanding ourselves. And 12 steps was a really useful map for understanding and working through why I was stuck the way that I was for so many years. And it was so helpful and and I and I wanted other maps to use also to try to get to some different places that that the 12 step framework was not offering. And I find IFS Internal Family Systems to be a really useful map because it feels so empowering, you know, to to have a really practical, simple way to relate to the different parts of me as they emerge kind of in day-to-day life, you know. And I'll just say kind of relating back to your earlier question about like the definition of recovery, one of the other ways that I've talked about my definition of recovery is in relationship to you know one of these parts. Like there's a part of me that since since I was a kid, since you know a long time ago, I've had a part that will emerge that persistently fantasizes about um taking the off ramp from life. You know, that part I've I've reacted against that part. I've been scared of that part. I've tried to run away from that part. And one of the definitions of recovery for me now is to like understand and bring that part in, you know, and and maybe um I'm not totally there, but maybe I could imagine a place where that part of me doesn't feel like it has to do that, you know, like that role of like I trust that that part of me will be there to take me out if I ever am in so much suffering that I need to be taken away. You know but um but that it doesn't have to do that all the time. So like taking something that's felt so shameful and dark and and making it into something that's I can actually have gratitude for as a powerful alchemy.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Yes yeah and and a journey to healing of all parts um even even those that are wanting to push on the exit button.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

That that's that's pretty much the definition I believe that Young had of individuation is to reconcile all these parts and making us whole I think you said the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you were supposed to be who you're meant to be all in all. Yes yes I do too. And um going back to your psychedelic experiences it seems that from what you were saying that a lot of it was done through psychedelic assisted therapy so with a therapist um and um how have those experiences affected your agnostic view? Has it deepened the agnostic in you or has it deepened the mystery or has it revealed at any point a a notion of higher power that becomes more if not definitive or definable at least palpable?

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Good question. Yeah I mean I've had I've had the two different experiences with psychedelic assistant therapists, but they were pretty short and I didn't have enough money to keep a really like a long-term therapeutic relationship going in the way that I really would have probably benefited from, you know, but I um so they ended up being kind of one-off experiences that I I got a lot from but most of my psychedelic ease has actually been solo or with a with a partner or a friend. And then there's the whole chapter of my life where I was using psychedelics socially and in more of like a partying type atmosphere. But the kind of like adding it all together I would say that it's reinforced an idea of agnosticism for me. Agnosticism in the sense that like certainly not atheism you know also like not like not not wanting to do justice to the mystery of it or not wanting to do violence to the mystery of it by trying to pin it down or attach it to a certain set of ideas. But I want to look through the microscope and see the little germs and bacteria floating around if somebody was just to tell me that those exist um you know sure I I believe that you believe that they exist but I want to see it for myself. And so I've you know honestly this has been a learning for me because I I've um I've tried you know having heard other people have experiences of really like different ways that we talk about it ego death or like a a divine kind of unification or some experience of direct interaction with the with with uh a deeper spirituality I haven't had that and I've tried to have it but I think maybe the problem was in the trying and I'm and I'm at a place now where I'm okay with it. Like I actually feel you know maybe more spiritual than I ever have but it's subtle and it's in the mundane things day to day and and I and I believe that on a good day I can connect to a sense of awe and wonder about you know the rain, leaves on a tree, my child you know interacting with my dog. Like it's all the whole universe is all right there. You know and yeah my my um my early psychedelic experiences in a very uncontrolled chaotic set and setting gave me a glimpse that there was something else there that and it's been a process to not chase after that to try to to catch that glimpse again and again but I really feel like the the most deep healing that has come in my life has not been all in one moment. It hasn't been these rushes, these transformations it's been just these little small changes over time that that that are built but built through consistency and and showing up again and again.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

But they happen you know I guess that takes me to my to my next point and my next question is we can't really talk about psychedelic experiences if we don't talk about integration. And I think that's exactly what you've just started to touch on is that those little changes that we make on the day to day um this is this is the essence of integration of you know psych psych psychological shift or or those mega moments that we can have during a journey they are very short-lived and there's very little we bring back but what we bring back can be integrated on a day to day what does your integration practice look like do you do you have a a method do you do do you a methodology for your integration? How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 29:20

I feel like I should do more to some degree like periods of my life it's it's a little too different. But I'll just say um when I first like my first period of of successful long-term sobriety came after um a significant macrodose of psilocybin and then you know that next day I started going to meetings and did 90 and 90 in fact I did with more than 90 and 90 but and started doing step work and went through the 12 steps as my integration so to speak from that experience. I had I had gone to meetings prior to that I had tried to quit prior to that I tried to quit using psilocybin prior to that. For whatever reason that time the combination of that macro experience and then jumping immediately into a 12 step program and doing it diligently worked for me. And you know that that significant period of sobriety was the basis for a lot of the growth that has come subsequently you know getting out of that extreme stuckness that I was in during that previous period of my life. So it hasn't been as structured as that more recently but I also I haven't done a macro journey in quite a while. I I I tend to be do you know microdoses these days as little check-ins and my and my integration is in the form of of kind of daily rituals and practices, you know, my morning routine in terms of uh meditation and some movement and one thing that I've always you know I feel like maybe lacking is some writing exercise which I I don't currently have but I think that that would I would benefit from that. But I I attend meetings you know multiple meetings a week and I make a point to share um about what's going on. Yeah no I'll just say about that like that initial psychedelic experience that that kind of um allowed me to entry into a world of recovery like many others was not glamorous it was not fun um you know and I feel like I should represent this many everyone gets to have their own experiences for me often it feels like I feel like I open psychedelics open the door to a kind of existential dread and that's something that I could work with and I could be with and maybe even transcend but often I just end up kind of uh you know in the fetal position shaking for hours and then um but yet the next day there's something that's been relieved and I feel better and I feel like I have a a place to to begin again from and so uh I don't want people to feel like that they that they need to have like a white light experience for the medicine to be successful because that hasn't been my experience really.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Yeah I think I think it's important that that's why we are doing this this podcast is to represent different experiences and uh for people to understand that it is very often not a white light experience. You don't necessarily meet your maker and come back with a very definite set of instructions and it certainly isn't a cure for addiction. Psychedelics in my experience have shed light on the darker part of myself the one that I do not want to see the one that we're buried deep the one that are pulling me back but I come back from that with a to-do list rather than um any uh nothing has been alleviated quite the contrary my my list of things to do uh and improve on and work on is is uh is been um populated and that's why you touched on microdose and that's why I think sometimes microdose is is the more palatable way of you know of presenting psychedelic inner recovery and adding things into little chunks, little bytes that are easier to understand even if in at the beginning it seems unperceptible. It seems nothing is happening. I remember my first microdose I was furious cursing at the therapist thinking because I'm an addict you didn't give me enough and it's not working until it does.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

And uh what what's been your experience of microdosing versus the macro yeah um I've getting I've gotten a lot of benefit out of the microdosing we have different ways that we talk about these these substances um you know as medicines or sacraments but one thing that seems to be really clear just kind of from a scientific perspective is that they are induce a kind of temporary neuroplasticity you know that they allow us to um generate some new neural connections and and and make make the pathways a little softer so that deeply carved in lines can be changed or can be redirected potentially and and for for many of us grown ups you know we become very stuck in our thought patterns and so just a little bit of an introduction of some plasticity opens up the possibility that that things can be shifted and and often in subtle ways like we're saying with the microdoses I've found that finding to often take like the solution is often to take less and less because my goal with the microdose is to to just introduce some of that neuroplasticity and then be in my life and just try to be in my life in the best way possible. And like thinking of of my life as the ceremony you know like we talk so much about set and setting and we would have all this intentionality around how we enter into it and how we what stimuli we'd expose ourselves to the music and the lighting and the comforts and and then the intentions you know what we're what do we want to work on what do we what's our attitude going into the experience and doing a microdose it's like causes me to think about um how do I how do I set create a set and setting in in my life uh for example um I have a habit of uh listening to audio podcasts and and just as as almost just a way to have talking in my ear you know almost as like soothing whether or not I'm actually fully engaged in the content. But when I am on a microdose day it becomes very obvious to me that that that is a kind of self-soothing distraction and it becomes almost unbearable. And I just want music and I don't want just any music I want soothing or like music that's beautiful to me tonally. And so that's interesting. Like that added and so in a way the microdose is making me a little more sensitive which is something that if you had told me that before I probably wouldn't have done it because I consider myself already to be kind of a sensitive person and it's been frankly a source of shame and and maybe one of the drivers of of uh suffering for me over the years like the feeling of being overly emotional and not able to self-regulate all the time. And so the microdose can act can accentuate that if I microdose and then um and then just scroll social media or allow myself to spend a lot of time at you know a big box store or something like that. Like I can actually kind of do a little bit of harm to myself because I'm in that extra sensitive state and and being able to have the awareness about that is like well maybe I shouldn't be doing those things just on a normal day.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yeah that's that's awareness. Yeah. Yeah it's it's interesting that that story of not being able to do the things that are not very good for you when you microdose and and becoming aware of that. I have had that with the noise around me. I I don't often have the radio on and I switch the radio off and I put classical music because I need the environment on the outside to reflect the environment on the inside or vice versa. And that they be they become really important it's becoming important to correlate them. And then reflecting on oh dear you know what is the impact this is having on me when I don't pay attention that noise that the music the lyrics the uh we we think we are completely uh immune to it but we're not and social media even even worse so that that's that's interesting becoming aware of those little things that that make a big difference uh to our mental health uh to our wellbeing absolutely and uh we are coming uh very close to the end of our interview and I've got one more question to ask you we normally close with this it's what is the challenge in your life or what what are you still struggling with at the moment in your recovery that you are looking to overcome with or without the use of psychedelics?

SPEAKER_01 38:51

That's a good question. I would say that I still have a lot of parts of me that come up in relationship, you know, with my with my partner for example but also with friends and people in my life you know these are things that might be talked about in the context of a coda coda meeting codependency stuff or um love addict type stuff. And so it's like a set of kind of issues but all just you know within the context of like learning how to care for myself identify my own intuition about things and trust that how to communicate it lovingly and how to be aware of when certain parts of me try to take the steering wheel so to speak and to gently take the steering wheel back and and keep it in in the hands of the higher version of myself the capital S self that that is the the connected and loving one that I want to be present. I mean if I'm totally honest like when I was getting high all the time it felt like I was connecting with higher power you know what I'm saying like and and I don't think that was totally wrong but nor was it totally right like I think what what I was doing when I was getting high was temporarily disabling a part of myself that often stood in the way of connecting with my higher power and then when when the substance would wear off that part would come back and be very angry and uh and escape itself with force. And so I still have parts that that wanted to take take the wheel and so the struggle just continues to try to s just stay in self and to try to stay connected to Ida power and um and to nurture those parts such that they don't they can trust that that I that we're all in this together and that they they are loved and they are cared for and that I'm yeah to to try to to try to be that integrated self that we're talking about. I really like uh you know uh somebody mentioned in a in a 12-step meeting years ago that emotions are like children on a road trip that you can't let them drive the car but you also can't lock them in the trunk. So it's like I'm on this road trip and I just want to like have everybody get to where we're going and in a in a way that we can all feel good about it and have a good time. All the kids get to be loved and be heard and that this journey that I stay stay on the path so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Yes it's it's like one of our good friend in the fellowship Tofa talks about walking the tight rope and uh and this this is this is it. It's uh not not driving the car but not in the trunk somewhere in the middle finding that balance where where where serenity lies but it's it's a fine line and it's uh it's a c it's it's a constant adjustment. Absolutely well it's been an absolute pleasure having this conversation with you Leon. We've got a couple more minutes is there anything you wish I'd asked you or any closing comment you have anything you want to say before we close?

SPEAKER_01 42:20

No I think this has been really good. Um and I and I and I imagine that some people who haven't been exposed to the IFS framework might find the way that I'm talking about the different parts of myself a little off putting and strange. But uh we do talk like this a little bit in 12 steps don't we talk about like my addict like my addict uh reared its head or it's it's out there doing pushups in the parking lot waiting for me to to stray and um at this stage of the game like recovery looks like I want to invite that addict in and give it a seat at the table and see if I can alleviate some of its burden and some of its suffering and um not just fortify myself against it, you know?

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Yes. Yes. A journey of reconciliation everyone's invited. Well thank you very much Leon and um it's been a pleasure and um I will see you soon and certainly next Saturday morning in the Saturday morning live and until then have a lovely rest of your day. Academics in recovery is a peer led fellowship guided by anonymity non endorsement and mutual respect. Thank you for listening and for placing principles before personality.