Journeys of Healing: Karyn S

In this episode of PIR® Integration Radio, we share a sincere and thoughtful conversation with Karyn about recovery, identity, and the evolving journey of healing.

With openness and depth, Karyn reflects on her lived experience — the challenges she has faced, the turning points that shaped her path, and the practices that continue to support her recovery today. She speaks to the quiet courage it takes to keep going, even when the way forward feels unclear, and the importance of allowing recovery to unfold in its own time.

Together, we explore integration as a steady, grounding process — one that helps translate insight into meaningful, everyday change. We also touch on the role of self-acceptance, the power of connection, and the ways in which vulnerability can open the door to deeper healing.

This episode offers a gentle reminder that recovery is not linear, and that growth often happens in subtle, unseen ways — through patience, honesty, and a willingness to stay present.

  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_00 0:01

I thought like I knew the steps and I thought I really knew a lot of stuff, you know, when I spent all that time in AI and NA and BBI. And it was almost like a new world of recovery filled with love and everything opened up to me once I started incorporating that medicine into my recovery. There's only been a benefit.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Hello and welcome to Psychedelics in Recovery. Integration Radio, a safe space where PIR, also known as Persons in Recovery, come and share their experience, strengths, and hope with us. With you. My name is Anne, and I'm a person in recovery and your host today. Integration Radio is a podcast by Psychedelics in Recovery. The views shared are personal and do not represent PIR as a whole. PIR does not promote, endorse or sell psychedelics or any substances. This podcast is for reflection and integration only and is not medical or professional advice. We ask listeners to respect anonymity and the principles of recovery. Please see the safety and ethics page on our website for additional resources at psychedelicsandrecovery.org. This radio is part of PIR's ongoing effort to carry the message of recovery to those still suffering. In alignment with the twelve traditions that guide our fellowship, this radio will not be funded by outside contributions. PIR, as an organization, has no opinion on outside issues. And while we discuss plant medicine and psychedelic in this episode and many others, PIR does not promote or endorse use. The spiritual intention of PIR and of this podcast is to create diverse, safe, and sacred spaces for all who wish to recover. Always thriving for humility over hubris and principle 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 for 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 past together. This is the PIR Integration Radio. And today it gives me great pleasure to introduce my friend and fellow Karen Hess, who has come to share her experience, strengths and hope with us. Hello, Karen, and thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Hi Ann, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 2:55

All good, all good, and in good company for the next hour. So let's jump in and tell me, how did you discover psychedelics or plant medicine? And how did it lead you to PIR or was that the other way around? Give me a bit of background on this.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Okay. I'm no stranger to a lot of psychedelics. LSD, I you know, used as a kid. Mesculine, I used as a kid, marijuana I used as a kid. As an adult, um, you know, I've been I was in recovery and I relapsed after, you know, 13 years of continuous sobriety. And really was having a hard time getting back. And at that time in my life, just certain pieces of literature came out. It just ended up like in my zeitgeist, my algo, you know, it just like was there. So somehow someone implanted something. I I read um in the realm of hungry ghosts by Gabor Mate, which led me to his work, and he sort of like really had a a lot of to do with my interest in it. So after I was in pain from not from like after like getting sober again, not being able, not being happy, not really caring if I kept my sobriety, you know, just in a really like dark spot. And so I finally did some research on some like retreat spaces or whatever. And um my first time using psychedelics intentionally was with psilocybin.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Right. Yes. Okay, before you tell me a bit more about this, uh let's backtrack a bit and and tell me tell me about your addiction. Tell me about how you were in recovery. Um and and what did that look like and and your experience of addiction. But I I'd love to go back to that ceremony and and hear more about it.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Okay. So go back to the addiction or the ceremony?

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Go back to the addiction.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Okay. Yeah. So as I guess um in high school, um, I really started abusing alcohol and drugs. Um, nothing was off the limits for me. Um, I was I I was uh it just served me, you know, it just served me in my lifestyle and what was important to me, which was just partying, I guess. Um through I, you know, I made it through college somehow. Um after college, you know, I landed a job, but I I ended up getting a couple DWIs, which sort of threw the loved ones around me into a tizzy and really sort of like pushed me into recovery. Um at the same time, you know, throughout most of my like college career, and then a decade after that, I was really suffering from an eating disorder too. So I was just really like a person that was walking around, like subconsciously trying to kill herself. And the only thing that gave me relief of that like subconscious, deep, dark pain was my use of alcohol and drugs. So one thing was constantly serving the other for me. So um sooner or later, you know, I I grew up in in New York. Um, sooner or later, somehow I ended up in Florida as a means to like, you know, get sober. Um, so my rec my real I I did some like time in the rooms and whatnot in New York, but my real like in integration of my life like into the 12 steps happened soon after um 9-11, soon after 9-11, 2001. Um, you know, that's when I got down to Florida. Um and I just become really involved first in AA, and then I spent most of my recovery in NA. Um, and that's where I really just sank my teeth into recovery. And I ended up relapsing, you know, a decade and a decade and a half later when I was on my honeymoon.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah. So yeah. Um, it was just like sort of what um the disease at that time, with you have to think that by this time, I guess I wasn't as active in 12 steps. I was starting to have a lot of like issues with the dog dog dogmatism, like the black and white of it. And it just really started to bother me. And I think that I just built up an excuse. So I was on my honeymoon, and um my husband is a, you know, a normal person. And um, we were at a, you know, a winery, of course. And I was thinking, I'll be fine with this. I've been fine for 15 years without this. And I was like, oh, you know, I think I could do this now. And that's when I started drinking again. It was just a very bizarre, like a very bizarre. I mean, you could tell like how much the disease was working on me to make such a impulsive, you know, not impul impulse control is a big part of my addiction too, but to make such an impulsive decision after like living a different kind of life for so long. And then it took me, it took me a good like three years or so to really get back into um recovery after that. Yeah, because right away I um when I relapsed, I I went apeshit again. Like it just, I mean, the the line was, you know, the flame was lit and you know, it was like, oh, I was just breaking out, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

And what did that look like? You come back? Where where did you which fellowship did you go back to? Was there anything that prompted your comeback?

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Did you get another thing more? Yeah, I got um another DWI. I landed up in um, I was in pre- I mean the to like I just I didn't fit the bill, you know, if you look at me or my professional life, whatever. But so here I was after 15, 13, 15 years of being sober, having service positions and NA, whatever. I was, you know, I relapsed, and about a little less than a year after I relapsed, I ended up in jail with another D DWI. I still don't drive to this day. I could, but it's way too expensive for me. Um, so that obviously like led me back into the rooms. I actually put myself back into a halfway house. Um, and I took trains to my office from this halfway house. Um, I did that. I got I went back into AA. And the reason why I didn't go back into NA were was twofold. The first reason was because my shame and my embarrassment. I didn't want to, yeah, I didn't want to, I didn't want to deal with that shame and embarrassment. Um, and secondly, the reason why I chose to go back into AA was because I was, even though I was drinking, I was going to eating disorder anonymous meetings and they based their fellowship on the big book. And I felt really lost, a little bit lost there, not having been working with the big book because I was working with the NA basic text for so long. So that's one of the reasons why I went back into AA. Yeah. And that was good. You know, I got a sponsor, I did the whole thing, you know, I got sobriety, but then there would be like I would be like a weekend warrior all of a sudden, you know, and it just didn't stick. And it was causing me a lot of pain. And that pain turned into some kind of explore exploration into alternatives. Like that's when I really started thinking, maybe this isn't the end all be all of recovery. Maybe something else can actually help me because I'm I was doing the right things, but there was just some blockage. There was a blockage in my in my soul, in my in my like in my chakras. There was just I couldn't be in it like I used to. You know, it's just death.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

That's when you started exploring other other pathways, and and so you read Gabor and you went to your first ceremony. This is where we paused, and now we've got the context. So, can you tell us more about that ceremony and what happened the first time you used Silocibin intentionally?

SPEAKER_00 11:49

So I was on this retreat in Costa Rica. It was a probably about 10 of us, um, and the you know, the medicine um woman and the you know, some facilitators or whatnot holding space. And I for a long time felt like nothing was happening. You know, it takes I it takes a very long time for me and the medicine, I guess, to work together. But my first ceremony started with me in the ground, like the physical in the earth, not the ground, like in the earth with the earth, with all that comes with being underground, um, insects, twigs, things. Like I was in the earth um in my first journey, and I um remember where the mushrooms are. Yeah, yeah. I was very much like in the earth, and I was accompanied by a snake that um in my mind was I had this, I had a a boyfriend, I guess, years ago who had this pet snake, and I was deadly afraid of this snake, and I had to take care of it when he was gone, and I was just deathly scared. And this snake was sort of my guy, like with me through the ground. So that was sort of the beginning of my journey. And then I saw what what I I'll tell you, like sort of what I saw and what I felt. I see what comes up for me is a lot of masking, a lot of eyes, like facial eyes, um, you know, Aztec Inca like masks, um, but like in colors and popping colors, you know, and that's what's funny because it reminds me of the mushrooms because, you know, they're like the little kids, they do funny stuff. And so I would see masks and they pop up and they pop up. And I just thought that was interesting. And, you know, I'm still with this snake, but seeing these eyes and whatnot. And then that sort of faded away. And what happened with me was I felt sort of like a shimmering golden light like come from above onto my head. I was sitting up when this happened. I like I moved my position in my body onto my head, and I felt like sort of a vibration throughout my body. And all of a sudden, what happened with me was this clog that I had between like the knowledge and moving into my soul sort of you know, was dislodged. I was no longer clogged up. There was a movement between what's in my head and in my spirit, where before I was just sort of in a blockage. And it was almost like the medicine told me, like everything I was reading, all this good stuff I was taking in, like in the effort to quote unquote get better, like it just all started like melding in where I could actually bring it into my daily, into my activities, into how I live. And that was sort of a defining moment for me. And what happened then was all these misunderstandings I had about myself just started to make sense. Um like, for example, me not really understanding when I was acting like a victim, you know, sort of like became a lot more sensical to me. Um, you know, being a little more confident in the knowledge that I already had in my life and the way I was going about it, like I became more confident in who I was as a as a person and as a being, rather than so scared or questioning everything I was doing all the time.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah, to thy own self be true.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

And it's it's it's in those moments that it's been my experience too, where all that intellectual knowledge, which is wonderful but absolutely useless, unless it's turned into emotional knowledge. Every single cell of my body understand that notion. For me, the first time that happened, it was with the notion of the only thing that exists is now, is the present. Past is history, future is a mystery. And all this for me until that point were words on a page that sounded beautiful. And it was after an LSD experience that I got to experience that stillness, absolute pure. And all of a sudden it's in, and it's it's in forever. It's it's a permanent imprint on us.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

And I I it's almost like when you it's a great feeling of non-duality, too, you know, when you're in the earth and subsequent experiences with psilocybin um always so like nature connected, even if I'm inside, there's something like evidence that shows me how like we are just all like one, you know, that feeling of oneness and that feeling of sort of, I think they call it like lagos or something, like that just that space of knowingness. And I think sometimes it could be really scary, and time between ceremony sometimes could, you know, I could find myself going back into a more like of this world mindset.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah. You're you're the you having a human experience, yeah. Yeah, that's that's that that bit. How do we rejoin each ceremony? How do we keep how do we remember that we are a spiritual being having a human experience in between the ceremonies? Because those ceremonies are there as a profound reminder of that. But it's so easy to fall back into being human again. And I guess it takes me n nicely to my next question is how how is that integration? And how do you integrate? How do you stretch the time between those ceremonies? What's your practice?

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Um, I I do work with a plant medicine therapist. I I see she, the therapist I see knows I use plant medicine. She's taken me through, she's facilitated two ceremonies for me. So it's what's really important for me is to digest with her. Um, if like if it takes some like internal family systems work, that helped me a lot. Um, like when I was explaining before, I had this experience of like the knowingness, so much of that also was like the work of self-compassion, um, and how healing that was for me. So I use a lot of self-compassion and integration, especially doing internal family systems work. And other ways I integrate are just so very simple. Nature, service in my community, um, taking walks without my phone, I find very healing. Um being mindful, like it's amazing, like taking note of things when I see a change in my life. Where before I alluded to like some impulse issues, right? Saying, like I be sitting here, I'm like, and I'll have a thought, oh geez, I want to drink, you know, and before, before plant medicine, I would just be like, all right, I'm going out, I I gotta go get a drink. You know, I just need something. Where now it's like, oh, isn't that a funny thought? You know, I don't buy my own bullshit now. Like I just, it's just like, oh, isn't that a funny thought I'm having? Why am I feeling that? And that those type of activities I couldn't do before. Like my impulse would take over. The the the addictive feeling would take over. Where now it's I could actually have a conversation with myself. Um, doing that, noticing that. Um, and you know, going to meetings, going to PIR meetings is a huge part of that. Doing like service there, doing service in my community community is a big part of that. There's um a PIR meeting, the PIR integration meeting that I I love. It's on a Sunday night. Um, and you know, there you just when you're listening to other people's stories too, it does so much for you, you know. So doing a lot of listening, being in like integration is an into into, and I think that there's a lot of intention behind integration. So it's really, you know, having intention behind, well, how do I want this ceremony or this thing to carry on into my life and have intention about that? And when I put effort behind my intention, I believe that's my integration.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

And talking of intention, do you systematically go into a ceremony with uh an intention? Do you do the preparation work also with your therapist, presumably? And can you talk about a bit about those those intentions and how how do you how how do you work with them?

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Oh, good question. Most I would say most of the time when I've yeah, when I'm going into ceremony, I'm going in with an intention. But here's the hit, right? I was taught that, you know, the mushrooms and ayahuasca, there we're not, I'm not to impose my will on the medicine, right? I may want an idea of something I'm working on in my life. Oh, I want to be less impulsive. Oh, I just I want to feel a little more love in my life. I don't go in sharp, right? Because when you go in sharp, it's almost like you're willing, you're trying to, I don't want to bring my will into it. Sort of like a third step, right? I don't want to bring my will into it. What I want to surrender to the experience, understanding that when I get out of it, I can go look at the intention I had when I went in to begin with it. So it's you it's a loosely held thing because I think if you hold on to it to it too tight, once you're in ceremony, you're trying to will the like an answer to happen. And that's not the way it works. At least that's not the way it works for me. I hold like a very loose idea of an intention and I go in there and see what the medicine's telling me. Then after the ceremony, revisit that. Yeah. Whenever plant medicine, I've there's been a couple of times too where, you know, I've maybe taken a medium or a bigger microdose of psilocybin and not have been so intentional or so ceremonial, but more like I just want to relax this Saturday afternoon. I want to get into nature and listen to some good music. And that's almost like an extension of my like ceremonies, you know, where I sort of get back into the vibe of what we were talking about before. Like if I feel like I'm losing touch a little bit of that space and time, then maybe yeah, I'll indulge in some microdosing and stuff like that. And it might not be a big ceremony, but it'll be like an afternoon of just getting back into that mindset. I may need a little help.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Yeah. It reminds me a bit of what people who uh work with Iboga do. And after that Ibergain flush have boosters taking her back to that place and having that kind of quiet, privileged moment to be reminded of what it was like and to to refill it up, really. Um and I I I found I have found exactly the same thing is that intentions are all very well and good, but I rem I need to remember I'm not driving the boat. I really am not. And if I want this to go as well as can be, I really do not want I want to surrender and not have an agenda. And uh and step three is is really for it's the same for me, is is whenever I drink any medicine, I I say the step three prior in my head.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Yeah. I um I'll never forget the my my first ceremony. One of the facilitators is explaining to me about the mushrooms. She's like, we call them the Los Niños because they they just do whatever they want. You can't put they're going to do whatever they want, and it's gonna come from everywhere, so just have fun with it. They're having fun with you. So it's you really have to go in that with that sort of like, yes, that surrendered mindset. Yeah. Because afterward, for me, is when like the change really comes from that first ceremony. I didn't really feel or understand the benefits of what was going on until I had like my next impulse of thought and I didn't act on it. You know, so it's it's sort of like if and I kept working with my therapist. I I've all I've kept going through PIR always. I started going to PIR, I found out about PIR at that ceremony from someone because I was telling them how weird I was feeling, you know, about the doing psychedelics and all that dog dogmatism that we prefaced before. And um I think that with me, it's so like weeks after I'm still gaining benefits from that ceremony if I'm holding some intention in my life to you know be the change I want to be.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

And so perfect timing for for introducing introducing PIR. So it's it's fabulous that you got you got to know about PIR at your first ceremony. And so can you tell me a bit more how you um your first few meetings were and how you integrated it in your recovery if you still go to AA meetings? If you how how do you juggle and how do you share about your experience outside if you do?

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Okay. Um, I've only shared about my experience outside with like I good friends. I don't attend um regular AA anymore. Um I've I've and I know in the how the way AA is where I live, it would not be, you know, I wouldn't be accepted, you know. Um, so I only do PIR. I started going to PIR the week I got home from that first um ceremony. Um I'm a weekend warrior, I guess, because I'm a nine to fiver Monday through Friday. So most of the meetings I attended were on the weekend. And the first meeting I attended is my home group still to this day. It's um Saturday morning meeting. Um I've always loved a Saturday morning meeting. So um that just became my home group. And I just I just remember being so emotional at like my first month of meetings because I was overblown with gratitude. I just there were people actually having the same experience I was feeling of, you know, really appreciating the steps and wanting them to be in my life, but really having this deep knowledge of what these plant medicines were doing for me and how they couldn't be in conflict and how it was so difficult bringing that into traditional AA. And I was just so grateful this space was here because this like model of living my life, for the most part, has been successful. You know, if a problem comes up in my life, I always refer back to, well, you know, what spiritual principle do I need right now to get through this? You know, what step would, you know, get me there? So this way of living has been so ingrained in my life because I've been going to meetings for so long that I just was like overblown with gratitude that now I had a space where where they both were hand in hand, where I was able to talk about plant medicine or not, depending on what was going on or just my feelings or whatever was going on, and just feel so unjudged. And and I have to, you know, a little sidebar here. Um, you know, I had mentioned before when we first started talking that I also suffer from an eating disorder. And that eating disorder, at times my life became very, very like prevalent. Like you could see it, you know. And so there was a lot of judgments from people when I was in traditional rooms. I'm just saying this is my experience, not everyone else's, where people came up to me and was like, you're not sober because you're, you know, in an eating disorder. And that judgment was like way too much for me. So the idea of going into AA with plant medicine now, I I just decided to stick with PIR. And in PIR, you know, I, you know, sometimes mention my eating disorder there, but I I can't, I have to, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that plant medicine has extra extremely helped me with that part of my life. It's of no concern to me. You know, the way I look, um, and whether my weight, you know, is just really it, it's not the prison that it used to be. And that has a lot to do with how, you know, I just started thinking about myself due to plant medicine. The neuroplasticity of my brain has changed.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Yeah. And that's one of the of the beauty of PIR, and I think we don't talk about this enough. Because we've got psychedelic in the name, obviously, our unique comparison point is the fact that we integrate psychedelics in our recovery, but we are also a fellowship of people coming from all 12-step paths of recovery and other paths of recovery. So I I remember my ears being pricked by someone talking about being another eater once in a meeting, and I have never ever uh explored that part of my mental health, and it's certainly one that I realized I needed to explore because I found out in a PIR meeting about people sharing openly about other issues, not just alcohol, not just drugs, and we do not have any outside issues, so we can talk about all this. And I I guess talking about the fact that yes, you've got an alcohol problem, a drug problem, and uh having some eating disorder, all this in the same meeting with no confusion, because I believe it is the same problem, and therefore the same solution can be applied to it. You know, that's why step 12 practice these principles in all areas of your life. We can't distinguish. And that's why other 12-step fellowship have, in my opinion, have failed to see it's all connected. And even some clinical trials, which are specifically intended for one particular type of addiction, it would be interesting to see a clinical trial for addicts. It doesn't matter what you're addicted to, particularly when it comes to psychedelic therapy. Um it's interesting to see this been your experience because you got well in all areas of your life with one fellowship.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

That's amazing. I agree with everything you're saying, it's so true.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

And so so can can you can you elaborate a little bit on how so you how long after um your rejoining the fellowship did you did you do that ceremony?

SPEAKER_00 32:04

So let's see. I it's in 2017 I started back going into AA and I started before the I guess I should mention this though. Oh no, um, I would say around 2022 was when I really got into psychedelics, maybe a little earlier than that. Um firstly, before you know I started um using mushrooms, I did um with the help of a therapist use medical marijuana to help me with my appetite with my eating disorder. And that seemed that that seemed to really help. So um I I did do that. And that really, really, really helped me. Um, which was another reason why I didn't really, I was looking for solutions out of AA. So um in around 2022, I I think I did my first ceremony, and I've been working with the same therapist since then. And I I'm not the kind of person that's like going into ceremony every month. I'll maybe do like one big ceremony a year, and then like microdose throughout the year, you know what I mean? Or take like medium dosages or not, but having a real maybe, you know, since then it's only been a couple, you know, two, you know, three years since that started. But since then, that's just been my experience. Um, one or two like big ceremonies a year and just some little work in between. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

And how did you how did you find you could integrate that work in your 12-step? And have you redone the 12 steps since you got to PIR?

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Um well I it's a good question. After my first ceremony, I went through the steps in a book called Mindfulness in the Twelve Steps. And I did that like sort of not I did that with another girl in PIR, and it was um sort of really cool. We did like a chapter a week, a step a week, and I and I went through it. Um what changed with me was the way that I sort of looked at the steps, where before I was very gung-ho, I'm pointing out maybe some like punishing factors. Like things really started point um started getting pointed out to me that I wasn't really seeing or digesting before. Um, especially regarding like amends and you know, self-forgiveness, like especially regarding like six, seven, eight, nine. Okay. Um it was so amazing about what happened with me with psilocybin, especially was the way I was able to sort of understand my defects of character and how at one time they were really serving me. And sometimes they are really good, but I just take them to a high intensity level. So one of my biggest cruxes that, you know, killed me, not killed me, but you know, hurt me throughout my life was this through line of the inability to forgive myself for stuff I did when I was a kid and in college and stuff like that. Just a total inability to have some self-forgiveness. I would think I would have it. I would go through the motions of the steps when I was an AA and NA, but there was something that kept me in my eating disorder, right? There was something there that wasn't healed. And what I know now was I wasn't able to use the tools of self-compassion, of you know, being mindful, understanding that other people have these feelings, you know, getting with the vibrations of my body, I didn't have the ability at all to use self-compassion in order to forgive myself. So in six, seven, and eight, nine, when you're going through these defects, when you're trying to act different. So, you know, accepting my defects and then, you know, going through seven where I talked about before, where I'm able to incorporate so much more mindfulness into my daily habits for the most part. And then eight and nine, you know, eight and nine, there's there's been a line in the big book that I've missed for years, apparently. And it tells us like we do not crawl in front of every anyone. And so many people think we're crawling in front of these people begging for forgiveness. And that's not what the book says. And I guess it took me still a Simon for that sentence to really like get into my spirit, you know, to really understand that. So that's really how the work of psychedelics and my step work. And I'm I'm doing the steps in such a different way because I'm so much more unblocked.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Yeah. And I also hear a softening, yeah. And and I think it also a softening of the language. You are in the big book where we talk about defects of character, and then you go into PIR where we're talking about characteristic that cause suffering, and then you can even look at it as a defense mechanism and going from resenting those defects of character to having gratitude, because by now there has been a softening, and we can access that part where we become the loving parent that understands, and that is a complete 180. And it's also been my experience where I could not find that part of me in a strict confine of a fellowship that was quite harsh on me, and I have a tendency of being that person. I didn't need any encouragement, and it's quite the contrary. When I come when I came to PIR, and then later the PIR flavored meeting of ACA was ACA, that I discovered true compassion, which for me was was completely uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Um I agree. I think that self-compassion and and just self-compassion and compassion has been like the superpower to really integrate that because it just is the avenue to healing. It's that you know, you can't, and if you don't really have it, you're not really gonna heal it.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Yeah, it's true, you know, that that's that's true through love, healing through love and loving, uh, and love and compassion to all. But that I needed to see example of it in in my immediate um in my fellowship. And I like we talked about earlier, I needed to have that emotional knowledge and that unconditional love that was given to me in my first ceremony was was there forever, and that allowed me to access that part that was locked otherwise.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Yeah, yeah. And it's it's one of the best things about PIR is just being in a room or a Zoom room filled with people who are all feeling that too, who are either like coming at a ceremony and they're just so in love, you know, with the world, with peace and everything, or you're seeing people, you know, preparing for ceremony and sharing, you know, their fears. And I love that about PIR because we're getting, and then you know, sometimes people are just showing up in between ceremony, like I mostly am, you know, just living our lives, you know, in a in a more compassionate, loving way. And that's ultimately what I'm getting in the PIR meetings, you know.

unknown 40:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Beautiful. And um, I'd like to to finish up and uh asking you how how is your recovery today and and how your uh intentional use of psychedelics uh is helping you with whatever you're still struggling on, and what's what's your intention for the next few months and of the year and and what does it look like?

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Well, yeah, um well my intention is always to be working with the medicine, um, not abusing the medicine. Um I would like to continue walking, you know, through this path through the rest of my life, just understanding that I'm already filled and I don't need to keep reaching outside of me to fill some kind of like imaginary, you know, spiritual upleving tank that we and I don't wanna um I don't want to what's it called to hip be a hypocrite because before we were talking about like refilling ourselves. I'm not speaking about that. I'm speaking about the understanding that the medicine's already in me, right? And that I am already connected and to sort of not forget that. Um I think my intention is to keep on the path of sobriety, not abusing alcohol and serving in PIR because I know that outside of this, that's where my best area is. I'm also working a little on, to be honest, is sort of changing my lifestyle. Right now, I think my biggest, you know, or what I believe my biggest like problem or roadblock is is just me straddling like capitalism and sort of like the way I want to live in a more peaceful life, right? And I think sometimes um, especially because we have these spiritual experiences through psilocybin, we be, we I can become very disillusioned, right? Very disillusioned about things that are going on in the world or things that are just going on at my work or in my home. But ultimately, we know that that's not important, right? Because that's what's important is that like that lago space, that that space of knowledge that we are with during our ceremony and in our meditations and whatnot, or how we're doing in the meetings. So, really just walking through with a perspective of understanding like what's really important and what's not in life, and to really um watch my impulse control, you know, you know, not you know, not having alcohol my life um is how I sort of want to live it.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

And and tell me uh tell me more about what your microdosing um regimen or protocol looks like. Do you is it something that you do re regularly or do you do it are you called to it, or do You have a protocol? How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 44:03

I feel really I feel called to it. I don't follow, all right, well, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I'm gonna microdose, whatever. You know, I just um when there are things going on in my life and they're on the tip of my brain, and I have a thought of the medicine. I have, you know, some like 0.25 milligrams, you know, micrograms, you know, the capsules, and I will pop a capsule. It doesn't, I don't feel different, but I sort of there's something about just stopping, taking it, and then asking the medicine just to stay with me that day. You know, I got something going on. I'm I'm feeling a little nutty, just stay with me that day. Like show me how to be. And then like I get on with my day. Um, that's how microdosing really works for me. Um, it's usually it's not, I don't have a regimen, I just feel called when I might be in challenging situations or fun situations, you know.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

And do you find that it's it's got an impact on on your practice that day, as in meditation and prayer? Is that something that you you integrate in your daily practice, uh meditation and prayer?

SPEAKER_00 45:32

I have a pretty regular um meditation and prayer um thing going on. So I don't it doesn't it doesn't really affect it because I'm I'm gonna be doing it anyway. Um I can say that on days when I'm I'm microdosing and I have moments throughout the day where I sort of journal a little more because things sort of thoughts sort of come through my brain of things like, oh, this is what you're really scared of, Karen. This is what you're really scared of, and you know it, you know, like sort of an uncovering, and I'll sort of I'll judge judge that, I'll write that down, and then when I see my therapist next, I'll sort of bring it up to her. Hey, this is what came to me. I was at microdosing the other day, you know, it's just like you doing a project or something, and something really just was sort of nagging me. What do you think about that? You know, so that that happens more often where I'm having, I sort of could like, you know, get to the point of whatever I'm feeling a little quicker. Yeah. But I certainly, when on days when I'm microdosing, I I already know when I'm taking it, I'm going to take time to sit a little quieter, to let the thoughts come in. That's very that's part of my intention behind microdosing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

Yeah, I found that journaling uh during microdose cycles has been it's been very good. My my therapist um asked me to do automatic writing. And that that's quite that works really well. And then later on, um a fellow in PIR suggested uh a two-way prayer, and I didn't know what two-way prayer was, and it's a combination of prayer, meditation, and almost automatic writing. And and I've noticed the the times I do that are usually times when I'm in a micro-dose cycle, because the times when I'm not in a micro-dose cycle, I just don't do it, so I don't have anything to compare with, but the I'm compelled to want to ask, and it's almost like um an oracle, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

And it's and again, like you said before, you're a little softer, you're a little softer around the edges, so it you're just slightly a little kinder to yourself, you know what I mean? And it sort of just like puts you in that prime spot to yeah, explore a little, explore your curiosities a little more.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

Yeah, the default mode network is disabled slightly, yes, and that ego in in the cupboard temporarily, and then we can have access to to the self and with love and compassion without all that judgment that clouds our perception of things, and uh, and it it's it's wonderful. Um, that uh to hear your experience, very similar to to mine in many ways.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Yeah, I mean, I haven't really explored doing like a strict regimen. I I something I would think that might be helpful if I was going through like a really big life change or or not. You know what I mean? But I I haven't explored that it's really everything by with me is a lot by feel, which which is just how it is with me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Yeah, I think it that's probably also something that grows with the practice of of uh of listening to one's intuition.

unknown 49:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

Um yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:08

And you know, that's a funny thing you said, you said before. I think one of the words I was trying to grasp or before when we were talking about my first ceremony and the aftermath and integration. It's like really like that feeling of having an intuitive thought and actually trusting it. You know, that's that's a gift. That's a gift from the mushrooms for me. Is that like you're having a thought and it's not, oh my God. Like, I'm not talking about a thought like, oh, you're gonna have a drink today. I'm talking about like an intuitive thought about your healing, like what I'm really scared of, or this happened, this may have changed me. It's those type of things that you accept a little more instead of brushing away.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

And allow yourself with compassion to become curious about, which is not, which just wasn't on my periphery before plant medicine.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Yeah, the the fact that all of a sudden you just know we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. Yeah. And it's a long way away from those first trimesters of AA where sponsors tell us whatever your head is telling you, do the opposite. Um this is a form of alignment.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

Exactly. And that's what I and this is exactly what I was referring to when I was like that blockage was removed. It's I all this knowledge that we kept saying, oh, it just seeped in. And I was like, Oh, yes, I can do that now. It was like I was it was almost like given freedom or something, just really implanted in me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Yeah, and I think it's what what I love doing now is um attending the big book study on Sunday, which I think was my first meeting, and reading the big book now through the lens of psychedelics. So the words take different meanings, the bondage of self, all the all those, all those notions that I could only see through one dimension, that dimension. Now I can see it coming from all sorts, they have different meanings. And and like you, there's all sorts of words that come out of the big book that I've never seen before. It's taken me many, many times reading it over and over to go, oh yeah, it does say this black and white here. Uh that's that's the open-mindedness that uh uh the psychedelics is is uh is gifting us through neuroplasticity. It's being able to see things we couldn't see before. And they take a different meaning to our recovery. And and I I don't think it's ever ending. I think we could be sitting here having this conversation in 10 years and finding new stuff from that book. Um I'm sure. And then hopefully by then we'll have our own big book, which uh we are still waiting on uh coming soon. Um and um well it's been a delightful conversation. Thank you very much for coming to spend some time with us, Karen, and for all the service you you do in PIR. Um, is there anything you want to lead us out with? A closing comment, a final thought, something you wish I'd asked you and didn't?

SPEAKER_00 52:17

I I the only closing thought is there I've never ever ever had the thought of regret of introducing plant medicine into my life. My life, my performance at work, my performance in my relationship has only felt more free and loving since. And if I if I had to leave anything with that, I would leave that. I I thought like I knew the steps, and I thought I really knew a lot of stuff, you know, when I spent all that time in AA and NA and EDA, and it was almost like a new world of recovery filled with love and everything opened up to me once I started incorporating plant medicine into my recovery. So that's why I would leave with you guys. That there's only been a benefit.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

Psychedelics in recovery is a peer led fellowship guided by anonymity, non endorsement, and mutual respect. Thank you for listening and for placing principles before personalities.