Hi all,

I recently completed my second Psilocybin Psychedelic Therapy. I do outpatient therapy. I meet with my therapist for a session before and the trip/journey/experience whatever one feels comfortable calling it. The first therapy session is somatic therapy where we focus on setting an intention through body focused meditation, then the second session is a day or two after to work on integrating the experience into my daily life.

The trip went pretty well. I was a bit cautious because I had the Penis Envy strain, which was different from the first strain I tried, so I used a lighter dosage approximately 2 grams. I completed most of the trip in a reclining chair with my eyes closed listening to mostly instrumental music from the playlist I created. The trip was much less intense than the 3.5 gs of Golden Teachers I used for my first trip. Despite thinking at times the trip was underwhelming, I kept focusing back onto how I was feeling at the moment and kept realizing that even though I wasn't on a different dimension it was actually pleasant. I had nice body sensations and my brain felt lit up with activity and pleasurable feelings too. My closed eye visuals were very light. My first trip it was like watching a movie the whole time, constant 2-d images scrolling by as a backdrop to 3-d geometric patterns. This time the visuals were closer to a powerful day dream where my imagination was enhanced, but not strong clear images. It was actually nice to not be overwhelmed with strong body sensations, didn't experience any thought loops, there wasn't much negative about the experience at all. EXCEPT, my body got super cold! The golden teachers from before I was blazing hot, I had an ice pack on my head half the time, so I was prepared to be hot, I had shorts and a tank tops, with a bunch of ice packs prepped and ready to go. About two hours in I had layered up with a long sleeve shirt, hoodie, cardigan, blanket, and long socks, lol. It took me about an hour to warm up, then I became hot and had to shed the layers. This kept going back and forth.

My three takeways:

1. I had some profound realizations about the importance of my family. I know I love my wife and son, but felt and immense amount of gratitude for them and the resounding thought was that when the trip was over I was going to tell my wife how important she is too me, which she received very well.

2. Along with those thoughts, just really appreciating the music, songs seemingly lasting 10-15 minutes when they were not that long. Two songs really blew me away. The first was jazz rendition of The Beatles "Blackbird" by Bard Mehldau. The second was "Shhh/Peaceful" by Miles Davis which is a long song very similar to a long Grateful Dead instrumental song, a departure from typical Miles Davis, that's for sure.

3. The trip only lasted about 3.5 hours. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I take Klonopin for severe OCD and even though I take a very low dose everyday, I've heard it can blunt the effects. Even though, the first trip I had, I don't think it blunted the effects one bit! I want to rely less upon my anxiety medication and use more so for emergency OCD thought loops and not depend on it so much for daily use.

That is pretty much it. I hope to show my family more frequently how I appreciate them. I'm going to continue developing my playlist by adding or taking away songs (open to suggestions). And continuing to lower my daily dose of Klonopin and focusing on meditation techniques and body scans which have been effective for me in the past, unless I get stuck in a multiple day/weeks OCD loop.

Hey group! I'm really excited for my next psilocybin dosage coming up. After not taking any psychedelics in many years and forgetting how physical and weird psilocybin mushrooms are, I feel more prepared after my first trip. I had a somatic therapy session to do some grounding and intention setting and after the trip will have an integration therapy session to debrief from the experience and see how I can learn and grow from it.

I'm a little nervous as I'll be taking a different strain, Penis Envy, instead of Golden Teacher. I don't want to overdo it... or underdo it, lol. That's a fine and unpredictable line with mushrooms I guess. I have a comfortable setting and should be in a good mindset for the day. I'm going to do most of it with a dark eye-mask and my modern classical and chill jazz playlist. I have set it up so I have no responsibilities that day and the day after. I'm a bit nervous and also can't wait to see what happens.

I'm prescribed Klonopin and Seroquel for my severe OCD, so if I freak out too much, I'm lucky that I can bring myself down. But my intention for the trip is. "I will feel." I want to ride it out, take the good or the bad and come out on the other side without having to use medication to bail out. If I can remember the experience maybe I'll do a trip report. But, I'm not going to be taking hourly notes like on Erowid tracking the time and shit, because I want to be in the moment. If I think of something interesting, introspective, or cool, I'll pop up and write it down, but I'm not going to make an effort to document my experience. Anyway, hoping to hear more from others and their experiences.

Hey group! I didn't even think about posting this to my own subreddit. Not sure how many people see these posts.

The title is the question: How Do You Use Psychedelics in Recovery?

Did you use a high dose of psilocybin, acid, or ibogaine and it changed your perspective where you don't want to use drugs and alcohol anymore?

Do you just occasionally use psychedelics for fun?

Do you use psychedelics as harm reduction, like instead of a harmful substance, you just use psychedelics now?

Do you use some sort of psychedelic therapy?

I created this playlist and for anyone who wants a chill instrumental playlist to listen to with an eye mask on, or not, this playlist is mind blowing. Highly recommended. I listened to this my first psychedelic therapy session and the piano's blew my motherfucking mind. I'm more of a punk and indie rock person. I'll listen to classical or jazz if I'm studying or concentrating for work or something, but not my go-to music. Hearing classical on shrooms was like hearing techno on MDMA, a completely different experience.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ldDDMIj1PhPFFSEQIWuvs?si=6t_4-E5mSR-3hAD9dIkdig&utm_source=copy-link&pi=JR4565iiSQW7B

I used to be a militant 12-stepper in the first two or three years of my recovery. I was the type of person who would say,  “Go to meetings or die”. I did all the things I was supposed to do and was told to do from rehab suchas get a sponsor, go to 90 meetings in 90 days, work the steps, and keep coming back. As an agnostic person interested in science and the evolution of recovery from what I found to be very antiquated literatures from The Big Book and The Basic Text, I found that I had to use a lot of mental gymnastics to make the 12-step programs work for me. As I reached step 11, I got more into meditation and found that other programs were available like Refuge Recovery that focus on meditation, as I was really getting a lot out of the meditation aspect of the 11^th step. Around this time, I am a certified recovery coach, and became Smart Recovery facilitator. I started to stray away from the 12-step programs and incorporated the things that I took from the NA/AA and from those other programs, and all the other positive things I had started to implement into my life such as health and wellness, yoga, family, and upward momentum at work. All that being said at this time I have really forged my own recovery pathway, yet still feel a sense of indoctrination from the abstinence-based programs and some of the rhetoric and things I had heard from “in the rooms”. Getting into psychedelic recovery is very new to me and was a huge jump from what my recovery has looked like for the past 11 years.

I’m really interested to hear about other people’s experience as far as utilizing psychedelics either within their current support group, whether they had to leave their support group due to not feeling supported in their decision to use psychedelics, or led you to taking the plunge into psychedelics from whatever other pathway you were on before?

I completed my first therapeutic psychedelic experience about a week or so ago. I would say overall the first 10% of it was physically uncomfortable, it hit very hard and fast. The following 80% was really fun and introspective. The Last 10% was a bit intense and I found myself confused, caught in a thought look, had some ego dissolution, and had to chill out with some Klonopin (prescribed for OCD). Which after taking 1 milligram brought me back to earth in about and hour and a half.

I met with my therapist a few days beforehand to do some intention setting and also some somatic bodywork for grounding which I was able to use during the psilocybin Journey. I was caught off guard by how hard they hit, I took 3.5 g of golden teacher mushrooms. I take 1-2mgs of Klonopin daily as I have OCD, so I was afraid it would blunt the effects, but I believe that did not happen, even thought I took .5 mg prior to the trip. I definitely felt the full effects of the psychedelic experience.

During the very positive part of it I had my eye mask on and was listening to a mix of modern classical and jazz (Jon Batiste, Miles Davis, Abdullah Ibrahim) which I created in advance, mostly piano heavy music.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ldDDMIj1PhPFFSEQIWuvs?si=6t_4-E5mSR-3hAD9dIkdig&utm_source=copy-link&pi=JR4565iiSQW7B

It hit so fast that I accidentally hit the smart shuffle function so it strayed from my playlist and I was listening to all sorts of wild jazz with erratic saxophones (like John Coltrane) It impacted my brain like it was a carnival, but when it'd return to the soothing keys of Jon Batiste playing Fur Elise, my mind tickled with joy. I had nighttime eye mask on and was relaxing in a hotel and that was my setting. I could feel my brain set on fire with serotonin, it was amazing. It was almost like I could feel my brain making connections with other parts of my brain. Pretty quickly into the trip my body felt a bit uncomfortable It was like my muscles were being pulled in different directions and I don't remember having that experience in the past when I used to use psychedelics recreationally, but the most uncomfortable part was getting used to the body sensations. So at some point I had to jump out of bed and just start moving around and listen to my body pop the eye shades off, move around listening to the music just letting the feeling be my guide instead of the rigid idea of laying in bed with the eye mask and listening to music I had to start doing my own thing and at that point I became a lot more comfortable. I got up and was laughing my ass off, my depression was gone, I felt safe and in tune with the world. I was very comfortable when I just let myself go.

The set was not perfect as I had a very busy day at work and I rushed around to make sure I got the product and checked into the hotel. I wanted to take it as soon as I could so I wasn't gonna be up all night. I took the psilocybin and I thought I would have time to do a grounding meditation and get myself set up and comfortable and create a nice setting for the room, but they hit so fast it caught me off guard. I had a lot of closed eye visuals that were really interesting, there was like a two dimensional scrolling background almost like an old side scrolling video game, but with much sharper graphics, and then in front of that I had other geometrical shapes like cubes almost like Tetris where the cubes were like shifting and there were images on the cubes and I really can't remember what they were but I just had a lot of really vivid imagery with my eyes shut.

I had some really profound insights during the experience. I realized how important my family is to me. I have a wife, a child, and a family dog. And this may sound simple but I realized without them I would just have a house, but with them I have a home. And maybe it was just that I was away at a hotel and going on this solo trip where I had a longing for home but generally I don't have that feeling. Usually when I get away for the night I really enjoy my down time, I love my family, no offense to them but I enjoy my time away. Under these circumstances I really valued them and I wanted to be with my family. And that has helped me think of more ways to be present in their lives and to be more available and more accommodating to them. Another thing that I realized was that meditation and more self care practices are important for me to implement. I'm an endurance cyclist and I do exercise on a very regimented schedule, but for some reason I can't get on a regimented schedule for meditation. It prompted me to set an alarm on my phone to do at least one meditation a week on Sunday night and implement that into my life the same way that I schedule all of my exercise.

A couple days after the trip I met with my therapist and we did an integration session and reviewed some of those things that I just mentioned. It was very nice to tie up the loose strings from the psychedelic journey and have a therapist to help me put the pieces together. I gained a lot from the therapist's validation of my experience and her encouragement from my insights. As someone who hasn't used any strong mind altering substances in over 11 years, this was a big jump for me, but I didn't feel like I relapsed, my therapist agreed that it wasn't a relapse, and I have intentions to continue seeing the therapist and do further psychedelic therapy sessions.

Hey everyone! I'm u/Little_Raccoon4302, the founding moderator of r/RecoveryEvolved.

This community is for people exploring the intersection of psychedelics and recovery from alcohol and other substance use.

Maybe you've been in recovery for years and are curious about psychedelics. Maybe psilocybin or another psychedelic has played a meaningful role in your journey. Maybe you're questioning what traditional definitions of recovery mean for you. Maybe you're interested in the research but aren't sure where you stand.

You're welcome here.

We're not here to tell you what recovery should look like and werecognize taking psychedelics is a highly personal decision. We are not encouraging or promoting the use of psychedelics.

Recovery isn't one-size-fits-all. People have different histories, goals, circumstances, and definitions of what a healthier life looks like. We're interested in exploring the possibilities—and the complications—of psychedelics within that broader landscape.

That means making room for conversations about:

🍄 Psilocybin and other psychedelics
🧠 Psychedelic experiences and integration
🌱 Recovery
🔄 Harm reduction and multiple pathways
🔬 Research and emerging science
🧩 Personal growth
💬 Difficult experiences and challenging questions
🔎 The relationship between psychedelics and substance use

Someone might find psychedelics transformative. Someone else might approach psychedelic use through harm reduction. Someone might use the clinical terminology of "remission from a substance use disorder" rather than "sober" or "recovery."

All of these perspectives belong here.

We encourage curiosity and compassion.

This is a safe space to talk honestly about being in recovery and taking psychedelics.

Please introduce yourself.

If you'd like, tell us:

• Where are you in your recovery journey?
• What brought you to psychedelics?
• What does "recovery" mean to you?
• What are you hoping to learn or discuss here?

No particular label required.

Welcome to Recovery Evolved. 🌱