In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Vanessa Crites
We talk about Vanessa’s journey of overcoming alcohol addiction and psychedelics role in it, history of alcoholics anonymous how it also was inspired by psychedelics we discuss if you can still consider yourself sober if you work with Ayahuasca.
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Transcript
Sam Believ (00:00)
Hi guys and welcome to Ayahuasca podcast. As always with you, the whole assembly of ⁓ today I’m interviewing Vanessa Christ. Vanessa ⁓ has been as 19 years of experience and 19 years of sobriety in 12 step recovery programs. She has eight years of experience as a plant in plant medicine work. She’s a psycho spiritual integration specialist, facilitator, mother.
Sam Believ (00:26)
artist and psychedelics and recovery educator. Vanessa, welcome to the show.
Vanessa Crites (00:32)
Thank you so much for having me, Sam. It’s an honor to be here with you.
Sam Believ (00:37)
Vanessa, tell us a little bit about your story. First of all, it’s obvious that we’re going to be talking about sobriety, addiction, recovery. So tell us about, you know, maybe your story of addiction and how you all became addiction. And ⁓ yeah, tell us your story.
Vanessa Crites (00:56)
Yeah, thank you. Happy to do that. So as you mentioned, I’ve been in recovery from chronic alcoholism for almost 19 years. My sobriety date is July 25th of ⁓ 2005. And I got sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. ⁓ And before I crawled into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, ⁓
Vanessa Crites (01:23)
I believe that I needed a drink way before I took my first one and alcohol was not my problem. It was my answer. It was my medicine. It eased the discomfort and pain and, you know, just the terror of being a human being on this planet.
Vanessa Crites (01:47)
And so I’m actually very grateful for my years of alcoholism because I believe that it kept me alive long enough to have me here sitting with you today. And I ⁓ first started drinking when I was probably about 12 or 13 years old. And I remember the very first time I drank and I remember every detail of that time a friend spent the night.
Vanessa Crites (02:17)
We ⁓ snuck into my parents’ liquor cabinet and we took everything that was in there and poured a little bit in the cup. And I remember ⁓ taking it, drinking about half of it, handing the cup to my friend. And I can promise you that what happened to me in that moment did not happen to my friend. What happened to me in that moment, the moment that piss fire hit my belly.
Vanessa Crites (02:49)
It was like the very first breath I had ever taken my entire life. And I ⁓ felt normal in my skin. My human experience without alcohol was like I had been skinned alive and lit on fire ⁓ walking around in my life. I come from a history of pretty severe trauma and…
Vanessa Crites (03:19)
and it just made everything better. I first started drinking because I loved the way it made me feel. And then I crossed a line where I started to drink to change how I felt. And then I crossed another line where I was drinking not to feel anything and drinking for oblivion. And it got to the point in my drinking where I needed it to breathe. I needed it to…
Vanessa Crites (03:48)
feel normal and ⁓ what was ⁓ after I crossed that last line, it was like I needed it. I needed it to breathe and ⁓ despite unbelievable consequences.
Vanessa Crites (04:09)
and a real deep desire in me to not drink the way I was drinking, to stop drinking. I quit drinking every single day. I’m not gonna drink today. I’m not gonna drink today. ⁓ And inevitably, I was there in my little minivan pulling up to the drive -through liquor store and reaching through the window and just to have the cold bottles in my hand, I could breathe. And it was torture.
Vanessa Crites (04:38)
they call it alcoholic torture. And that’s really what it was like for me. I could, ⁓ anytime I drank, I had almost, not almost, ⁓ every time I drank, I had little or no control over how much I would take. And when I drank, I couldn’t stop drinking. And when I honestly wanted to not drink, I couldn’t not drink.
Vanessa Crites (05:08)
And so that’s the story of what ⁓ alcoholism looked like for me. And in the process of this, I’m building a career and I’m having a family and by all appearances, my life looked pretty great and normal, but I was dying inside. So that’s the story of ⁓ what it was like for me.
Sam Believ (05:32)
So ⁓ I believe that first of all, thank you for sharing the story. It’s very poetic. I could kind of relive it through you. My father is an alcoholic.
Sam Believ (05:46)
my grandfather, I believe, was alcoholic. I think I would probably also be an alcoholic if I didn’t find ayahuasca on time because this existential crisis, you know, depression, whatever you call it, that you were feeling, I also started feeling it in my 30s and luckily so, found ayahuasca and found another path. So I can’t really judge my ancestors. They didn’t, maybe didn’t really have the best tools, but ⁓ obviously you overcame that addiction. And I know that,
Vanessa Crites (05:53)
Mm.
Sam Believ (06:16)
You didn’t do it with the help of psychedelics because you found them later. So could you please talk to us about how you overcame that addiction? And how ⁓ would you do it now, or maybe have people you helped, like how could you do it better with plant medicines?
Vanessa Crites (06:39)
Yeah, great questions. So ⁓ I ⁓ actually had a period of sobriety in my teens from about five years, ⁓ or about five and a half years of sobriety from the time I was 15 until I was about 21 or so. And so I knew about AA and I had ⁓ a community at that time and didn’t, after about five and a half years didn’t really resonate with
Vanessa Crites (07:09)
with what the book was saying, the book meaning the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous where the program of recovery is outlined in the first 164 pages. ⁓ And, but I knew about AA and when I left AA after my teen years, it took me 13 years to get back. ⁓ And so I knew that there was a place for me to go. And ⁓ when I finally had,
Vanessa Crites (07:38)
what I believe ⁓ was an incredible spiritual experience. Like the first spiritual experience I ever had was the moment I drank alcohol. And then there was this moment of profound spiritual ⁓ connection where I just absolutely surrendered. And I said a prayer that I remember to this day and I said, God, and I didn’t even know about God. Like I wasn’t raised in the church. There was no talk of faith.
Vanessa Crites (08:07)
But I made a prayer of petition and I said, God, please put your hands on me and keep me from harm. Please show me your plan and purpose for my life. I’m ready right now. I don’t know about this God thing, but give it your best shot. And that night was my last drunk and I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous the next day. Early bird, 7 .30 meeting and that meeting was my home group for the first five years.
Vanessa Crites (08:37)
And how I recovered was applying the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. ⁓ I ⁓ got a sponsor, I went through the steps as they were outlined in the book. I started being in service ⁓ and ⁓ building self -esteem by doing esteemable things and helping out where I could and…
Vanessa Crites (09:05)
⁓ really built a incredible community there. I think there’s so much medicine in community and fellowship and that that is such a critical piece to recovery. ⁓ And, and so that’s, that’s how I got sober. I did the things they told me to do. I trusted that it would work even though I didn’t necessarily believe that it would. ⁓ And, and, and it did, and it stuck and the.
Vanessa Crites (09:34)
the compulsion to drink left me. I found a connection with the steps are designed to bring about a spiritual experience so significant that it brings about permanent recovery. That’s what they’re designed to do. I recognize that does not happen for everybody, but it happened for me. And I recovered from alcoholism, from that seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
Vanessa Crites (10:01)
And it was around the 12 year mark that I ⁓ started ⁓ exploring ⁓ psychedelic medicines. Two things were happening simultaneously. I was in a place in my life where…
Vanessa Crites (10:19)
Everything was fine. It was fine. And I was doing all the things. I was a co -chair for a national women’s conference. I was leading two big book studies a week. I was sponsoring a bunch of women. I had a service position. I was doing prayer and meditation, but there was the stagnancy in my spiritual growth. I just wasn’t growing anymore. And what I know, what I am taught ⁓ in ⁓ that fellowship is that my…
Vanessa Crites (10:48)
Next function is to perfect and enlarge my spiritual life, to grow in effectiveness and understanding. I was trying to do that and it wasn’t working for me. At the same time, I had a partner with treatment resistant depression who we were just trying to keep alive, a rotating door of psychiatric facilities and treatment centers for him. And I admitted him to a psychiatric facility and I got home that day and I sat down at my computer and
Vanessa Crites (11:18)
and I did ⁓ a search for alternative treatments for treatment resistant depression. And the great work that Johns Hopkins is doing on psilocybin ⁓ came up and that opened Pandora’s box for me. And I went down the rabbit hole and learned as much as I could and bought all ⁓ so many books and listened to podcasts and…
Vanessa Crites (11:45)
watched documentaries and really the initial interest was to help my partner at the time. And then I started to ⁓ hear the call ⁓ to the medicine. ⁓ And ⁓ I started with a microdose protocol. It was very structured and I wanted to get it right.
Vanessa Crites (12:10)
not just because I wanted to get it right, but also because I wanted to protect my sobriety in the process. How do I approach these tools, these medicines, the spirits of these plants with integrity and reverence and in a good way, right? And in right relationship. And I was very fortunate that I had people in my life who were like, okay, this is…
Vanessa Crites (12:36)
this is what you’re getting ready to enter into. I was not alone. I had guidance around blessing the medicine and creating a sacred space and setting intentions and what integration looked like. And so I was armored and armed coming into that experience. ⁓ And that was the beginning of my entry and it completely, completely changed my life. ⁓ It was very subtle.
Vanessa Crites (13:04)
and gentle, like a whisper. But what I experienced was a deeper connection to myself. You know, they say that medicines make the unconscious conscious, that they really just open a door. And I started to feel more connection to spirit and greater appreciation for Mother Earth and ⁓ on my path. And I had…
Vanessa Crites (13:32)
these moments of awareness and perspective and a general sense of well -being. And I’m like, I think I’m onto something here. And my path progressed and fast forward now to where we are. I started sitting with Ayahuasca over five years ago now. She’s one of my primary teachers ⁓ and I love her so much. And I feel so deeply loved.
Vanessa Crites (14:02)
by her ⁓ and I work with psilocybin and a variety of other medicines depending on what I’m coming to the medicines with and…
Vanessa Crites (14:19)
Yeah, so that’s that and you asked another question and the question was would I do it differently? I don’t know that I would ⁓ And here’s why ⁓ I needed to be stabilized ⁓ I needed to have a foundation and a footing in my recovery coming from this path where I numbed escaped and avoided every single experience and feeling that I had
Vanessa Crites (14:48)
right? And I had an opportunity to ⁓ become a woman of my word, to be in service in my community, to get far enough away from the substance ⁓ that I was using and be ⁓ stabilized ⁓ so that I could approach medicine.
Vanessa Crites (15:14)
in a good way. And that’s really my recommendation for anybody. It doesn’t have to be AA, but to find, establish recovery ⁓ in a community and have a path of action, get yourself grounded. And then once that is addressed and you have the group, your community around you, ⁓ then medicine work is a wonderful…
Vanessa Crites (15:42)
sort of 2 .0 or 100 .0, you know, PhD level exploration into addressing those things that are beyond the scope of the steps or beyond the scope of therapies we have tried or beyond the scope of medications we have tried ⁓ to do the deeper work to heal those things within us that caused our drinking or using or compulsive behavior to begin with.
Vanessa Crites (16:12)
Right? And then you’re coming with the right mind. Now I know there are a lot of people out there who are working with psychedelics to treat addiction recovery. And I honor that work and it’s just not my personal path.
Sam Believ (16:27)
You mentioned ⁓ responsible use of psychedelics, right? Because for some people…
Vanessa Crites (16:34)
I’m sorry, you’re far away from, I can’t hear your mic.
Vanessa Crites (16:44)
Yeah, it sounds really far away.
Sam Believ (16:58)
What about now? ⁓ Hello, hello. It’s strange that for some reason it lowered the volume. But you can hear me now well, right? Yeah, we’ll cut that piece out. So I’ll just start with my question again. ⁓ You mentioned the responsible use of psychedelics in overcoming the addiction, right? Because some people could.
Vanessa Crites (17:01)
Yeah, it’s, I don’t know, it’s strange. My volume is fine. Blow again? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Vanessa Crites (17:13)
Yeah, you’re good.
Sam Believ (17:27)
try and use it as an escape or another, I mean it’s kind of hard to get addicted to psychedelics but use it as, you know, abuse it and use it ⁓ irresponsibly. So ⁓ what would you say or what would your words of advice be to somebody who specifically is looking to work with psychedelics ⁓ but they ⁓ know how to do it responsibly?
Vanessa Crites (17:56)
What I would say is that there has to be a litmus test.
Vanessa Crites (18:04)
And in our intention, when we are considering…
Vanessa Crites (18:11)
When we are, ⁓ sorry, there’s scratchiness.
Vanessa Crites (18:17)
Are you there? Okay. It’s lowered again.
Sam Believ (18:50)
Okay, how about now?
Vanessa Crites (18:52)
Yeah, that’s better.
Sam Believ (18:54)
I just reset my microphone. I don’t know what’s why is it going crazy? Okay.
Vanessa Crites (18:58)
Okay. All right, so ask the question again.
Sam Believ (19:03)
You mentioned responsible use of psychedelics. I can imagine somebody who is ⁓ used to rely on substances or alcohol, they might see psychedelics as another high. So how ⁓ would you recommend somebody who is trying to overcome the addiction and they want to work with plant medicines? What would you tell them? What would your words of advice be?
Vanessa Crites (19:26)
Yeah, so psychedelics are inherently non addictive, but as people who are predisposed for compulsive behavior or addiction or alcoholism, we have an affinity for altered states of consciousness. And what I would say is that there has to be a litmus test. Like the intention has to be clear about why and what you are doing and for
Vanessa Crites (19:55)
And the why is so important, right? This is where the intention setting comes in. And the litmus test for me is, ⁓ am I seeking to numb, escape or avoid? That’s the first question. Am I, do I just wanna not feel the way that I am feeling? Because here’s the thing about psychedelic work is it is not a joy ride. If you are working with medicines,
Vanessa Crites (20:24)
You’re not necessarily having some some big, you know ⁓ ecstatic trip the entire time there may be a lot of pain or struggle or Conflict or you’re confronted with things that are coming up, right? Like we’re going in to do heroes work. We are going in to face our darkness ⁓ and And unless you’re ready to do that and do the consequent
Vanessa Crites (20:54)
⁓ integration on the back side of it, which is where the medicine actually lives, then it’s not time. It’s not time to do the work and to be really patient and wait for the sacred call. This is not a matter of curiosity. This is a leveling up and wanting to do the deeper work on ourselves, the sole excavation work on ourselves.
Sam Believ (21:24)
Yeah, that’s those are good words of advice. It’s interesting that we’re having that conversation now specifically about alcohol because last month we had a patient we like to call our visitors patients at the wire at the retreat I founded with my wife and he came over.
Sam Believ (21:45)
to quit drinking basically he was desperate nothing was working for him ⁓ and ⁓ he actually drank like a day before coming to the retreat which normally we don’t allow but in this case he was really desperate so we started working with very small doses of medicine and he ended up staying with us for a total of 14 ceremonies he stayed with us for a month and a half and I have posted photos on Instagram recently he took a photo of himself before and then after obviously he
Sam Believ (22:15)
lost a lot of weight, you got healthy looking, you completely quit drinking. Obviously that’s a really hard way to do it, just like coming into it.
Sam Believ (22:24)
⁓ and just ⁓ full stop and just diving into deep end, but I will tell him to listen to this episode. And, this question is to you from me for him. So what would you tell him now? He’s going back to his, he just left a few days ago. He’s in, he and his travel, he and his family are traveling around Columbia now. What should he do when he comes back to his real life? And then there’s maybe pain or something he might want to escape from.
Sam Believ (22:54)
Yeah, any guidance for Mike, his name is Mike.
Vanessa Crites (22:57)
Yeah, Mike. ⁓ So there will be certain trials and low spots ahead guaranteed. It’s just part of the human experience. And the greatest thing I can say is build community around you of like -minded people, people who understand the path that you are on, ⁓ find others in recovery who are also on a medicine path that you can speak openly with ⁓ and integrate.
Vanessa Crites (23:25)
integrate, integrate, do everything you possibly can do to imprint these new patterns of behavior and new thought processes so that they become an intuitive part of who you are. The thing is, is we can have these huge mystical experiences, transformative experiences that completely change our lives. And if we do nothing ⁓ with what…
Vanessa Crites (23:54)
we learned what we saw, what we were shown, what happened, it disappears like a vapor. And the experiences become something we did one weekend or that one month in Columbia, and it becomes nothing. And we waste the opportunity to really transform our lives. And so, like I said before, where the medicine actually lives,
Vanessa Crites (24:23)
is in what we do when we go home. How am I going to live my life? How am I going to take advantage of tools and skills and new behaviors and new processes to have them become an intuitive part of who I am?
Sam Believ (24:43)
Yeah, it’s all about remembering. At LeBaro, we give people integration journals that guide them in trying to save as much of their experience as they can. So yeah, Mike, pick up your journal whenever you’re feeling sad, listen to some medicine music, and if need be, call me. ⁓ I also noticed…
Vanessa Crites (25:02)
Yeah, and then I want to also say, Sam, I’m sorry, I want to also mention as far as finding community goes, ⁓ psychedelics in recovery is a 12 step fellowship that ⁓ is for people who are curious or actively ⁓ integrating psychedelic medicines into their program of recovery. And that’s an incredible, incredible place to build community of like -minded people.
Vanessa Crites (25:30)
And then I have a community as well called Sobriety of the Soul where people can come and learn how to integrate psychedelic medicines into sober living ⁓ for long -term sustainable benefit.
Sam Believ (25:44)
Thank you for sharing this. So we have people that come to our retreat to specifically heal ⁓ addiction to alcohol, but there’s also people that come ⁓ to fix something else. And I keep hearing it over and over again, maybe one person every month goes back to me a few months later and says, you know what, I just realized I stopped drinking as a side effect. Like they were not even planning to, and I have my own theory about,
Sam Believ (26:14)
what happens there. Have you ever seen that happen or met somebody with that? Like what do you think is going on in that case?
Vanessa Crites (26:23)
Yeah, well, speaking about ayahuasca in particular, I think I have seen that in my community for sure. And not just quitting drinking, but a lot of behaviors that are no longer aligned with who they are truly, who they are truly, right? ⁓ And those behaviors just start to fall away. ⁓ I think…
Vanessa Crites (26:49)
there’s a difference between somebody who’s a chronic alcoholic and somebody who is ⁓ just drinking a lot for coping, right? ⁓ And I can’t say what happens for people, but what I have seen, and it’s also been my experience with some of my own behaviors that, especially with Ayahuasca, when we come out of those experiences, she has just cleaned us.
Vanessa Crites (27:18)
cleaned our bodies and our spirits and our souls and our minds. And I feel a sense of duty ⁓ and responsibility ⁓ to maintain that ⁓ out in my life. ⁓ And so maybe that’s part of it. That it’s a way actually that we are in right relationship with the medicine.
Vanessa Crites (27:43)
rather than just coming to have an experience or to have something healed, the way we show our reciprocity to the medicine is by maintaining ⁓ and continuing to evolve and change and put down those things that no longer serve us. And I think that she has this really wonderful way of…
Vanessa Crites (28:08)
you know, opening us to other possibilities so that we’re not reaching for the thing to try to ease ourselves.
Sam Believ (28:18)
⁓ I had this thought once when I was talking to somebody on the topic of AA and it’s, it has all to do about ⁓ AA and psychedelics. And I remember this joke came to me, which is AA needs another A, which is ayahuasca as in, ⁓ you know, a third A. ⁓ what, what do you, what do you know or what do you think about AA? It’s history that has to do with.
Sam Believ (28:46)
psychedelics and do you agree or disagree that maybe a little bit of another A wouldn’t hurt?
Vanessa Crites (28:56)
So AA in particular is a Singleness of Purpose Fellowship that deals exclusively with alcoholism and ⁓ that singleness of purpose is rightful. And so I’m actually not a proponent of adding anything, you know, it doesn’t need to, yes, AA needs to change. Let me just say that because it really does, it has to evolve.
Vanessa Crites (29:26)
Bill Wilson even said, we must evolve or we are going to fall away. However, I consider medicine work an outside issue, that it’s something that I do for my spiritual growth and that I don’t necessarily ⁓ have to have AA ⁓ affirm ⁓ that in order for it to be legitimate, right? As far as the history goes,
Vanessa Crites (29:56)
Bill Wilson was a patient at the Towns Hospital, Charles Towns Hospital in New York City. He was under the care of Dr. William D. Silkworth. And one of the treatments that they did in that hospital was called the Belladonna treatment. And it was Belladonna, Helbane, a couple of other plant medicines, and it would induce hallucinations and delirium.
Vanessa Crites (30:27)
In Bill Wilson’s third and final stay, and he writes about this in the big book of Alcoholics Synonymous, he has this profound white light experience where he is standing on the mountaintop and the sunlight of the Spirit is just pouring through him, and he had an experience of God. He had a white light experience of God and he fell to his knees. And it was in that experience that he had the vision.
Vanessa Crites (30:53)
of one alcoholic helping another alcoholic to bring about permanent recovery. And so literally AA was born ⁓ out of a trip, out of a psychedelic trip. Although, Helbane and Belladonna are not technically psychedelics, he was experiencing hallucinations. ⁓ So let’s just say that literally AA was born out of a plant medicine experience, yeah?
Vanessa Crites (31:21)
And fast forward to 1956, ⁓ Bill Wilson was friends with Gerald Hurd and Aldous Huxley, who wrote The Doors of Perception about his experience with mescaline. And they were telling him about the work that two Canadian doctors were doing ⁓ on LSD and alcoholism. And at first, Bill was
Vanessa Crites (31:47)
pretty skeptical and was not particularly interested, but they continued to share the results and his interest got, his interest was peaked. And in 1956, August of 1956, Bill Wilson went to California ⁓ and sat with LSD for the first time in the clinical research trials ⁓ to treat his clinical depression. Bill Wilson,
Vanessa Crites (32:15)
had debilitating depressive disorder. He was sober 20 years already, and he had not been able to address the depression. So he worked in LSD research studies to try to treat his clinical depression. But Bill also had another motive. What he saw in his 20 years of people coming into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous,
Vanessa Crites (32:41)
is that there was a large portion of people who were not having a spiritual experience, ⁓ that ⁓ they were not, not for any fault of their own, ⁓ not because they didn’t try hard enough. Even in all of their earnestness, some people did not respond to the process of the 12 steps by having a spiritual experience. And so Bill Wilson was exploring LSD as a possible
Vanessa Crites (33:11)
⁓ to help bring about the vital spiritual experience that…
Vanessa Crites (33:19)
Carl Jung ⁓ suggested ⁓ was the reason this spiritual malady, this disconnection from ourselves and this disconnection from spirit was actually at a fundamental core of alcoholism and addiction and that LSD could help bring about the spiritual experience. Bill worked with LSD for about six to eight years. He got a lot of flacks.
Vanessa Crites (33:49)
from the trusted servants at the top of the AA, but also ⁓ Richard Nixon and the war on drugs happened. And so all the research studies got shut down, but he was working with LSD for six to eight years. We don’t know exactly when it stopped, but Bill is noted for saying in some of his letters that the LSD experiment helped him very much.
Sam Believ (34:17)
So, yeah, if the history went a little different, maybe AA would be working with psychedelics long before and who knows what the world would look like now if ⁓ the original psychedelic renaissance would ⁓ be, I mean, not even, we’re in psychedelic renaissance now, but whatever, the original thing would have been managed a little better.
Sam Believ (34:42)
Yeah, I’ve read a few books about this whole story and one of them mentioned this story about Bill Wilson. I like the phrase that you used in preparation for this podcast. I looked into your other appearances and you said ⁓ something about abstinence sobriety, as in sobriety where you kind of stop consuming a substance forcefully.
Sam Believ (35:11)
What is your opinion on ⁓ abstinence sobriety and what do you think about ⁓ for people to maybe look for the reason why they’re addicted and try to get rid of it versus just kind of white -knuckling it?
Vanessa Crites (35:31)
Yeah, white knuckling it is an unbelievably painful way to do it, for sure, to just try to not. If you have an addictive mind and the mind can’t stop us, it’s beyond our power of will. ⁓ And so we may be like, you know, holding on for dear life to not consume the substance, but the truth is, is that we’re still dying inside. ⁓
Vanessa Crites (36:02)
As far as abstinent sobriety culture goes,
Vanessa Crites (36:08)
In AA in particular, as I mentioned, it is a singleness of purpose fellowship that deals exclusively with alcoholism. No other substances are mentioned. And it’s an outside issue, what I choose to do, ⁓ right? ⁓ There are fellowships that are abstinent sobriety. ⁓
Vanessa Crites (36:35)
where anything and everything is off limits. All mind altering substances are off limits ⁓ while people are still smoking their cigarettes and drinking their coffee and eating their sugar, which are all highly addictive and mind altering, right? So let’s try to put that in perspective. My view on it is that as a person in recovery, if I am exploring,
Vanessa Crites (37:03)
plant medicines, ⁓ psychedelics, earth medicines, and ⁓ these other spiritual tools in a conscious, responsible, and intentional way, there is zero conflict with who I am as a person in recovery. I’ve recovered from alcoholism and I do not drink. ⁓ I’m a person in recovery in good standing. And the work that I do,
Vanessa Crites (37:31)
is conscious, responsible, and intentional, and for the purpose of therapeutic and spiritual aid. I’m not jumping a fence and tripping balls in the woods with a bunch of friends. I’m approaching these medicines with reverence and humility, and as a student, to do deeper work on myself. And I think that’s the difference.
Sam Believ (37:55)
Yeah. And for those people who are maybe ⁓ worried that, you know, they are, they’ve been sober for a few years and what if they’re going to start working with those plant medicines? What if it will rekindle their desire for altered states of mind? Do you have, have you ever noticed that somebody after starting to work with ayahuasca or mushrooms all of a sudden started drinking again or maybe any words of assurance for those who are doubting this methodology?
Vanessa Crites (38:27)
I think that it is a full spectrum experience. It’s not just about the not drinking and it’s not just about the plant medicine. I think that we have to have a holistic approach to our recovery and factor in the entire human ⁓ experience, our meditation, our diet, our sleep, right? Our endocrine system, making sure that we’re detoxing.
Vanessa Crites (38:55)
and that we have a spiritual practice, that we’re focusing on the breath, that we’re connecting to the earth. And so it’s a full spectrum experience is the most important thing. And that for people who are ⁓ working with medicines and who are in recovery,
Vanessa Crites (39:21)
really understanding what your core beliefs are, what your limitations are, what is off limits, what is the gray line, what does it look like when you start to be compulsive in returning to ceremony after ceremony after ceremony, and you’re not giving yourself integration time. Because compulsion is not about the substance when it comes to psychedelics. It’s about
Vanessa Crites (39:48)
chasing the next peak experience. And so if we can be aware enough and know ourselves enough, and this is one of the reasons I said, get your recovery set, ⁓ establish your recovery first ⁓ before you start doing this exploration, because that really is the deeper work. And you have to have some foundation, some grounding ⁓ and stability.
Vanessa Crites (40:17)
before ⁓ we start approaching these so that you can actually approach it in a good way and in a way that is useful and beneficial long term.
Sam Believ (40:32)
You mentioned the holistic approach and ⁓ spiritual side of it. I totally agree with the holistic approach that ⁓ plant medicines is just a door that opens your ⁓ path to healing and then you need more than just, you know, you’re not going to drink ayahuasca every week, but you can drink it once and then integrate and then do all the work.
Sam Believ (40:57)
that’s necessary. I remember when I first came to work with psychedelics, I didn’t think much about the spiritual side of it. I was kind of against it. I thought, you know, well, this is this plant and there’s this ⁓ molecule and it does something in your brain and it makes you feel better, you know, easy as that. But obviously over time, now working with, you know, several years now hosting seven, I get plus people a year. I kind of got hold of the understanding of.
Sam Believ (41:27)
spiritual side of things. I mean, I’m still trying to understand it. So as a psycho spiritual integration coach, as you are, what do you think, what would you explain the spiritual side of healing that comes through plant medicines, whether in connection to addiction or just in general?
Vanessa Crites (41:48)
⁓ so I think everybody has their own personal experience. We all come from different histories and backgrounds. Some of us are dealing with religious or spiritual trauma. And ⁓ so my recommendation would be to have an open mind. Just have an open mind and be in the experience that you’re having ⁓ and that you don’t have to understand that.
Vanessa Crites (42:21)
It’s the experience that will happen over time ⁓ when it comes to a spiritual approach. And it’s not about religion and it’s not about dogma. It is about ⁓ what it is like for the individual to connect with the ineffable, to connect with ⁓ that which cannot be named.
Vanessa Crites (42:51)
And can we become one with that so that ultimately we can become one with ourselves?
Sam Believ (43:02)
Speaking about spiritual things, I just had a thought come to mind, you know, how come we call alcohol spirit? You know, what is ⁓ going on there? Have you heard anything or know anything?
Vanessa Crites (43:15)
Yeah, so like I said earlier on when I was telling my story the very first spiritual experience I ever had was when that piss fire hit my belly ⁓ I had a spiritual experience There are some people I don’t have a direct opinion on on that but i’ve heard a couple of things and some of the things i’ve heard is that alcohol is called spirits because they ⁓ have their own Spirit it is not necessarily
Vanessa Crites (43:46)
a spirit that is healthy or a teacher ⁓ and that it has, it takes over ⁓ the spirit of the person who’s consuming it. So that’s something that I’ve heard about that.
Sam Believ (44:02)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Talk to us a little bit about your project, The Sobriety of the Souls.
Vanessa Crites (44:10)
Yeah, thank you. So, Brightie of the Soul is a educational platform and group coaching program for people who are in recovery, who want to make a safe and informed entry into the spiritual and therapeutic application of psychedelic medicines, ⁓ and, or spiritual and therapeutic, or therapeutic. It does not have to be one in the same.
Vanessa Crites (44:35)
because not everybody is coming to medicine to have a spiritual experience. There are a lot of medicines out there that are being used to treat depression and anxiety, and it’s an all levels course. So if you are a person in recovery who is curious and interested in what it means to be a person in recovery who incorporates psychedelic medicines into their, into sober living, what does that look like and how do I do it safely? If you’ve never,
Vanessa Crites (45:05)
done psychedelics, there’s a place for you. If you are, I have people who are in our community who are medicine carriers, people who have been in medicine space for many, many years, that is part of their life. And they are also people in recovery and they came to learn how to integrate what recovery means within the context of their.
Vanessa Crites (45:33)
active psychedelic work. ⁓ And we cover, ⁓ it’s evergreen with the meaning self -paced with an opportunity to meet weekly in a small group container for group coaching and integration where people can ask questions, they can integrate their experiences, they can metabolize the material.
Vanessa Crites (45:58)
And some of the things that we cover and I’ll sort of go over the arc, the very first thing that we do is personally identify what sobriety or what recovery means to the individual. What is my personal definition of recovery? And determining what our core beliefs are, what our limitations are, what things are off limits and getting really clear about our intentionality with approaching this path.
Vanessa Crites (46:25)
We also cover microdosing versus macrodose experiences and the dosing in between, clinical versus ceremonial application. ⁓ I do a 101 of all the medicines that are being used in either clinical or in therapeutic or spiritual contexts. We ⁓ explore… ⁓
Vanessa Crites (46:48)
Indigenous culture and sacred ceremony and what it means to work with medicines in a good way and be in right relationship with those medicines, safe sourcing, preparation, navigating the psychedelic arc, safe set and setting. We do an intention setting workshop. We cover everything, ⁓ soup to nuts ⁓ on what it means to do this work in a responsible.
Vanessa Crites (47:17)
way ⁓ that is safe and has integrity. And then I have bonus material for my beloved 12 steppers, ⁓ where we cover psychedelic history and Bill Wilson, the ceremony of the 12 steps, I cover both sides of the same coin. The first part is, how do we bring to have a new relationship to the steps, perhaps our first real ⁓ experience with the steps, or perhaps we want to have a new experience of the steps.
Vanessa Crites (47:46)
how to take a ceremonial approach to step work. And then the other side of that is how do we take step work into medicine work to do deeper dives with the support of medicine allies ⁓ on our step work. And then ⁓ I covered trauma healing and 12 step recovery as well. And the website is sobrietyofthesoul .com.
Vanessa Crites (48:11)
I’ll make available to your listeners. I have a recovery informed microdosing guide that I’ll supply a link for a free copy of that. It’s a beautifully curated 28 page guide for how to microdose and recovery. ⁓ And so I’ll make that available as well. And ⁓ that’s sobriety of the soul. And then I also have a private practice where I work with people one -on -one.
Sam Believ (48:39)
Thank you Vanessa, we’ll definitely share the link to your guide. Is there anything else we haven’t spoken about that maybe you would like to speak about?
Vanessa Crites (48:53)
I think what I would say is ⁓ to my fellows in recovery who are listening to this, whether you have an active practice or you’re brand new, just take heart ⁓ and know that if you are seeking ⁓ healing, spiritual connection,
Vanessa Crites (49:20)
you are on a right path ⁓ and ⁓ that there’s a lot of judgment and stigma ⁓ and ostracization happening in recovery communities around this path. Find the others, just find the others. Those people who are like -minded, who are on a similar path to you, to help keep you accountable, to being the medicine of community ⁓ so that you’re not walking this path alone.
Vanessa Crites (49:51)
and you’re doing good work.
Sam Believ (49:55)
Thank you, Vanessa. Where can people find more about you and your work?
Vanessa Crites (50:02)
So my personal website for the personal work that I do for my private practice is VanessaKreitz .com. And then anybody who’s interested in integrating psychedelic medicines into sober living in a safe and responsible way, they can check out sobrietyofthesoul .com.
Sam Believ (50:24)
Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you for coming. Thank you for sharing. I’m sure this was ⁓ entertaining and educational for many of our listeners. And yeah, for those of you who are ⁓ struggling with ⁓ addiction, ⁓ hope that helps and you recover faster. Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you for coming on.
Vanessa Crites (50:45)
Thank you so much for having me, Sam. It was an honor.