I've been tripping for eight years, I started in my early 30s and psychedelics have become a significant part of my life. I trip about three times a month or around 35 times a year, I don't smoke weed, drink, or do any other drugs. I alternate between pharmahuasca, mescaline, and shrooms. I trip recreationally, it's a hedonistic endeavor and rarely have insights or lasting epiphanies. I don't integrate, my trips are straight playgrounds.

I initially thought my tripping frequency would lessen with time as seems to be a common pattern, but I've been pretty consistent with my usage. The honeymoon phase, which started in 2007, never ended. Trips never get boring, old, less magical, they are always profoundly beautiful and take me away to where I want to go. I trip on Saturdays and they don't seem to have a negative impact on my life. My personal relationships are fine, my career is solid, and my mental health seems stable. I've never experienced HPPD, residual visuals, or really any lingering psychedelic thoughts.

Since I don't know anyone in real life who gets high and I don't see too many threads about heavy users like myself, I wonder how common my frequency of usage is and the impact it might have on my future mental health.

I kinda wonder if I have a mild addiction or if it's a hobby like any other - growing cactus, ayahuasca analogues, and shrooms can keep one very busy.

Any heavy users out there have any input on your own usage and its consequences.

I've been doing pretty much the same for the last ten years, with nothing to report other than positive effects on my life My interest in psychedelics really blossomed in my early twenties and shows no sign of slowing down a decade later.

I mainly use Salvia and Psilocybe cubensis, more in a medicinal context rather than purely hedonistic. There have been plenty of those kinds of experiences, however. I use Salvia as a treatment for chronic depression (it works fantastically) and mushrooms as a treatment for my cluster headaches/migraines. I use Salvia pretty much daily, in the evenings, one or two bowls of plain leaf. I meditate before and after the experience and it has completely changed my life and the way I approach almost everything. Without a dose of mushrooms every two weeks I would suffer immeasurable pain and agony, so I do that as a maintainence sort of thing as well. None of this is to say I don't enjoy the trips these substances provide

I've used DMT mainly in that capacity; purely 'recreational', although I would hesitate to call it that. I do feel that I integrate my experiences pretty successfully most of the time and I wouldn't say it's purely hedonistic. It's more exploring my curiosity of what this substance is, could be, how it could help to change things for the better (within my own life and the world at large). I also don't use it too frequently; perhaps once or twice a month.

If you feel it's bordering on addiction then, well, perhaps you're right. I rarely question my gut feelings, my instincts, especially with things like this. Nobody knows you better than yourself. Maybe take a break for a couple weeks, a month, see how you feel? See if there are any negative aspects that rear their head in the absence of your regular trip schedule. If not, then, well, all the power to ya If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Welcome Caputo!

I've been tripping somewhere around 2-4 times a month for the past few years and haven't had any negative side effects. I will say that Acid is a different beast than "Organic" psychedelics and definitely leaves me feeling a bit loose in the head when I use it more than once a twice a month, but I generally like to mix it up since I have quite a few different substances at my disposal.

In response your "Completely Hedonistic" approach I would strongly suggest trying MDMA, it in my opinion is the most hedonistic feeling in the world.

Also congrats on growing your own cactus! I've just started mine and can't wait to try them!!

-Paulo

I see nothing wrong in tripping once every couple of weeks. In fact, i've been doing this (mostly with changa and very occasionally oral entheos once in a good while) for the past three years and have noticed a marked increase in mood and outlook on life. Before coming to psychedelics, I was extremely depressed and suicidal and had attempted to extinguish my life multiple times and constantly wrote about it. As a consequence, my doctor put me on Prozac, that wonderful depressive drug that's supposed to make me happy and content and all that bullcrap

Well instead of making me less suicidal it increased the frequency of suicide attempts to where I would, multiple times a day, stand on the verge of the brink of death, held back from taking that final step by a rapidly eroding sense of purpose which wouldn't let me liberate my spirit. Needless to say I discontinued Prozac on the day I found myself standing at the edge of the opened door of my mother's minivan rolling down the highway at 55 mph, feeling the cool wind lick my face as my mother's hand groped my neck from the driver's seat in front of me, screaming and begging me to not go through with it. A very long depressive lull opened up between my family and I and I found myself without purpose and ashamed that I couldn't go through with what seemed to be the only certain thing in my life: death.

Then came along this little drug called acid...

I first dropped on new year's eve of 2011/2012 and ever since that first dose I have come to terms with my suicidal tendencies and, instead of wasting around trying to hasten the inevitable, I have learned to manipulate the energy into my writing in order to create meaning from meaningless thought. With all due certainty, I most likely wouldn't be around if I didn't find entheogens around that time in my life and am very happy that I have-I have only gotten positive long lasting effects from an occasional trip and life has improved considerable since then. I have developed my writing style and am currently working on a series of short stories and novels and have developed a deep devotion to my newfound hobby of gardening, which I picked up about a year after being introduced to psychedelics.

I don't think there is anything wrong against using psychedelics on occasion if one respects the spirits of these substances and uses them responsibly and respects them-self and others while using them. They function as fantastic antidepressants and I am happy to be growing with them among my teachers and guides. If one finds that psychedelics are impacting their life in a positive way, then there is no reason to doubt the attraction merely because the mainstream bullshit culture we live in says otherwise; if taking zombie drugs such as SSRIs, benzos, tricyclics, opioids or whatever else the Dr. Prescribes to be ingested on a daily basis is considered acceptable if it has a positive impact on health, then why should one consider psychedelics to be any worse? If the life you live with occasional psychedelic use is better than the previous way you lived life, then what is there to say about it? If it works, don't fix it.

All the best,
-Godsmacker

Metanoia, thanks for sharing with me. I've never had plain salvia, just a 20X extract that I did a few times and it was too odd and terrifying. I've thought about buying plain leaf to give it a shot. How does the plain leaf differ from the extracts? Good to hear that your trips remain an asset to your life. I've had a month of abstinence here and there and it's cool - there's not much a shift of headspace for me - but I do long for a trip when I'm not tripping.

Paulo, MDMA was cool back when I did it in the early 1990s, I loved it. Mescaline scratches that itch for me nowadays. What cactus are your growing? I've got a cool cactus garden with an emphasis on bridgesii and rare peruvianus, the bluer the better!. Living in zone 9b permits you to grow trichocereus and mimosa hostilis which allows for self sustainability. There's nothing like watching your favorite plants get big and strong.

Try growing your own. It seems like you're pretty comfortable with home production, and I've found the experience of home-grown saliva to be much more useful and enjoyable than store-bought stuff. Maybe it's a placebo effect, maybe there really are sentient 'plant spirits,' I don't claim to know, but I totally changed how I thought about it once I started growing.

Plain leaf is 20x times weaker than 20x extract. Because of the reverse tolerance, it begins very mild - almost like a light stone, and with time, you can learn how to push into more entheogenic spaces. That learning period really helps you come to know the drug and get used to the effects. Using it buccally also helps. I like the chew the leaf, and then once that's plateaued, maybe I'll smoke a bowl full of similarly plain leaf. The effect is never as overwhelming as it is when smoking extracts. I find it more of a cognitive/cerebral experience than a perceptual one.

Blessings
~ND

I have a lot of experience with addiction and recovery. At one point I was a pretty low bottom addict. If there is anything in my life that is interfering with me having genuine honest relationships or health problems I need to address it because in the end these things manifest in self loathing and self destructive behavior. When I decided to let psychedelics back into my life I had a lot of trepidation but my approach was about exploration of my consciousness and spirituality. MDMA I have found in the past had some addictive potential but it loses its magic quickly if overdone. I have found it safe to use once every 3 months on a protocol. I preload 2 doses. 125mg and 75mg spaced two hours apart and I stop there whether I want more or not and preload nutrionally all day beforehand. Yeah it can be hedonistic but I like an intimate meditative environment for it with focus on empathic work in my relationships. It depends on what you want from it. I like to do DMT toward the end of the roll, I believe it to help aid neuroprtection and makes any craving to extend the experience cease in the DMT afterglow. I think your pacing is probably OK. Growing things is an amazing way to bond with what you take into yourself.

Been working with plants over 10 years.... I usually do 3-4 ceremonies a week. I dont use recreationally though. I also know shamans in Peru who have been drinking 3-4 times a week for 30-40+ years and they have no mental health issues - if anything their minds are healthier then others and they have great emotional states most would envy.

With the plants and fungus you mentioned none of those will hurt your health on your own. Sounds like you are kinda neutral with them since they are just a fun way to relieve stress maybe? If you traumatized yourself emotionally with them, then that would be harmful to your health, and if you use them as introspection tools then that would be good for your health.... And if you use them for fun but are safe about it.... Probably neutral, or maybe helpful in a small way as they probably help you let go of some minor stress whether you have lasting insights or not....

This.

I bought and used extracts, and plain leaf, for a couple years until I started to grow my own plants. It was a huge difference once I started consuming my own homegrown leaf. There is definitely something going on when you nurture a plant like that; talk to it, water it, feed it, touch it. You cultivate a bond that extends into your experiences.

As for plain leaf vs. extracts; night and day. As Nathaniel said it is a far more gentle immersion into Salviaspace when you work with plain leaf. Quidding can be incredibly rewarding. I tend to smoke my leaf but I think that's just down to personal preference, or maybe just out of habit because I did nothing but smoke it for many years. I do like the rapid nature of the smoked experience; although I do see the benefits from a slower, more gradual unfolding like with buccal administration.

I recommend everyone start with plain leaf, it's a far better introduction than some (most likely mislabeled) extract you pick up from some headshop or online vendor.

In my opinion it is what you make out of it. "I don't integrate, my trips are straight playgrounds" is a selfcreated set based on an integrated experience, not to integrate at all seems sheer impossible. Maybe I get you wrong with the definition of integration and you mean that you don't think about your visions and what is happening around and in you too much.

Releated to the thread topic, I don't see a certain consumption pattern of psychedelics in my life, except cannabis which I smoke almost daily. I take it more like, everything at "its" time. How often I go on a trip also depends on the substance, for instance, I find a decent dose of LSD and mescaline much more physically exhausting than blasting off with shrooms or a good vape of DMT freebase. I say it like this: "Now, is always the right time to go on a trip but sometimes I find myself more functionable in a somehow sober state."




haha.. indeed and beside of the fun aspect of cultivating and coexisting, I feel more realted to the substance and the experience, like an ongoing symbioses which I appreciate.

tseuq