🧘 Elevating Recovery: Expanding Out of Addiction with the Intentional Use of Psychedelics

By San Francisco Psychedelic Society
Back a community awakening from addiction and help develop new, effective methods for healing at scale. Our intention is to help individuals create fulfilling lives they don’t want to run away from.
$2741
raised from 39 backers
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About This Project

The traditional stance on addiction views addiction as a disease or disorder that is rooted in a compulsive dependency to a substance or behavior. Oftentimes it is looked at as a harmful behavior that an individual cannot stop.

We aim to challenge this traditional stance while birthing a new paradigm for viewing, understanding, and treating addiction and mental health. When looked at deeply, addiction is an attempt to feel normal and whole through a coping mechanism of self-soothing. In fact, for many individuals, addiction can be a way of saving their lives by suppressing uncomfortable emotions and releasing pent-up pain stored in the body and subconscious mind.

What if there were more effective ways of tapping into that unconscious and getting to the root of suffering by generating self-knowledge, transformation, and growth? Addiction is a fragmentation and disconnection from the soul.

Our leaders have first-hand experience overcoming addiction with the intentional use of psychedelics. With over 2,000 support sessions conducted by our community of volunteers over the last 6 years and over 5,000 students educated through our courses, we have seen firsthand how small integration groups providing psychedelic peer support can make a positive impact on the lives of those overcoming addiction, and contribute to the larger effort of overcoming this complex and devastating issue. We believe the integration of growth that develops after a psychedelic experience and the community of support provided is just as important as the journey itself.

While traditional methods like the 12-Step Method can be helpful for some, they can also perpetuate abstinence as the only route to true sobriety. They prescribe a long-term dependency on support groups and disempowering narratives. Even the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson, saw the potential of psychedelics in supporting recovery and maintaining sobriety(though his proposal to integrate LSD into the first step of recovery was largely ignored.)

As more studies and clinical trials on psychedelics yield impressive results in enhancing addiction treatment, it is more important than ever for the addiction recovery community to take these new approaches seriously. Unfortunately, most formal groups still look at the use of these ancient ancestral tools as nothing more than a relapse or the development of another addiction.

Our work is informed by and in partnership with indigenous communities from the Amazon. Partnering with psychedelics as a tool for healing is an ancient practice. In fact, indigenous communities have allied with plant medicine as a part of their culture for thousands of years. They do this by gathering regularly in sacred ceremonies to heal and support each other in the community. We are here to steward the resurgence of these ancestral medicines into the psychedelic renaissance in the modern world. We believe addiction is a response to living in an unnatural world. This evolutionary mismatch breeds isolation, loneliness, and a disconnection from nature. By learning from indigenous communities and their approach to connecting with the natural world through reciprocity rather than exploitation, individuals in the program can redefine their relationship with substances and effectively address the root causes of addiction, rather than using psychedelics as another form of addiction.

We use the support structure of a community to foster a strong long-term healing container to help people integrate psychedelic experiences and trauma.

That's why we started "Psychedelic Recovery". We noticed that while a lot of attention and support is going toward researching the medical benefits of psychedelics, there's not nearly as much support for those using psychedelics as a means of recovery outside of clinical trials, who make up the vast majority. We believe that informal communities and approaches can play a crucial role in turning an insightful psychedelic experience into real-life changes, but often lack the same level of funding and resources. Our goal is to change that and provide a comprehensive and replicable framework for the support and empowerment of those on the journey toward healing and recovery.

This project was created to raise money to support the expansion of our global, online recovery support group and mission to empower individuals to awaken from the slavery of addiction under the banner of a new organization - “Psychedelic Recovery”, a sister organization of the San Francisco Psychedelic Society. As a new initiative, we aim to further the conversation, research, and healing opportunities for individuals committed to this process of metamorphosis.

Currently Fundraising

Help us develop a stunning brand for the “Psychedelic Recovery” platform

$2,741 Raised of $2,500 Milestone Goal

The first step to launching a movement is to give it an identity. Your support will help us create a communication and brand strategy that can bring legitimacy to psychedelic-assisted treatments for addiction. We will share with you our progress and

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Upcoming Milestone

Building a website that turns heads and changes minds

$4,500 Goal

Core to our impact strategy is the ability to stimulate urgently needed discussions on psychedelics in the mainstream. And for that, we need a well designed digital platform that provides a centralized space for information and support for individual

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Upcoming Milestone

Writing keystone articles on psychedelics and recovery

$3,000 Goal

With the goal of making a significant impact from the onset, we intend to concentrate our efforts on creating comprehensive resources that delve into crucial topics such as the essence of addiction, the utilization of psychedelics within the framewor

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Upcoming Milestone

Help expand our Bay-Area programming and develop more educational resources

$10,500 Goal

Your support will allow us to increase the frequency of our in-person and online events and continue developing inspirational and educational resources on the topic of psychedelics and addiction. Community events serve as a platform for generating in

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Dec 27
Create a scalable tool kit for establishing "Psychedelic Recovery" chapters worldwide

Leveraging the learnings from the last milestones, we aim to consolidate our approach into a free tool kit and training accessible for those without means to create their own decentralized support groups. This tool kit will include best practices, co

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Upcoming Milestone

Create a scalable tool kit for establishing "Psychedelic Recovery" chapters worldwide

$17,500 Goal

Leveraging the learnings from the last milestones, we aim to consolidate our approach into a free tool kit and training accessible for those without means to create their own decentralized support groups. This tool kit will include best practices, co

more...
Who's behind this Project

San Francisco Psychedelic Society

Our mission is to educate and advocate for altered states of consciousness by providing community, support, and integration resources to those seeking harm reduction, addiction recovery, spiritual growth, and personal development. We emphasize honoring indigenous lineages, access without dogma, and the destigmatization of all drugs.

Learn more about San Francisco Psychedelic Society

Support This Project

$2,741
raised from 39 backers
Current Milestone
Help us develop a stunning brand for the “Psychedelic Recovery” platform
Donate

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