In a candid interview, host Sam Believ meets with Damyn, who shares his life before and after his first ever retreat with ayahuasca. What emerges is not a miracle cure, but a radical shift in awareness that reshaped his relationship with alcohol—and with himself.
A Habit That Carried More Than Buzz
Damyn opens by describing his drinking as part of his identity. He didn’t think of himself as an alcoholic—just “someone who enjoys a drink.” Social evenings, after-work beers, the routines of modern adult life: he slid into them without much question. But over time the relationship felt different. The drink symbolised escape, numbing, and delay rather than celebration or connection.
He began to sense a dissonance: the alcohol was doing more than loosening his inhibitions—it was covering pain, inertia, regret. And as his inner voice became louder, his outer life felt thinner. He realised he was approaching a crossroads: keep cycling, or shift radically.
Stepping Into Ceremony
When Damyn arrived at the ayahuasca retreat, his intention wasn’t necessarily to stop drinking—but to do something different, to face something hidden. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he brought openness. The ceremonies began to peel back layers of habit, conditioning and self-medication. He writes about encountering not just visions or purges, but the simple truth of what the drink had come to stand for in his life.
What emerged was the insight that the alcohol was not the problem—but the symptom. The fear, the story, the avoidance behind it was. Under the medicine, he came face-to-face with the patterns he’d been masking. Suddenly the “need” for a drink seemed less significant, because he started to feel the need to be present. To feel life, not bypass it.
The Shift That Lasted
After the retreat, Damyn didn’t go out declaring himself sober. Instead, he noticed something: one night he declined a drink and felt nothing. Another night, among friends, when glasses clinked, he chose water and simply didn’t care. That unfamiliar freedom felt like relief. Weeks passed, then months. The habit hadn’t required a heroic struggle—it simply dissolved as his relationship to his own story changed.
He never planned to quit drinking. He wasn’t in rehab. But he found himself not missing it. He noticed his mind becoming clearer, his mornings lighter, his energy less compromised. He sensed that the drink no longer served his evolution—it served his comfort, his avoidance, his slowing. When those no longer aligned, the drink faded into background noise.
What Made It Different
Damyn emphasises three things that made the change sustainable:
- Honesty – The ceremony allowed his internal truth to surface: the drink was a band-aid, not a solution. Confronting the root freed him.
- Integration – Post-retreat he didn’t just leave the jungle and resume his old life unchanged. He modified his diet, sleep, relationships, mindset. The medicine opened doors; he walked through them.
- New alignment – When your internal state shifts, your external habits often dissipate. He no longer needed alcohol to feel social, relaxed or “normal.” His normal had changed.
A Balanced Reflection
This story isn’t about glamorising ayahuasca as a quick fix for addiction. Damyn is clear: what he experienced was deeply personal, contingent on setting, facilitation, psychology, and his readiness. It might not work for everyone in the same way. The medicine didn’t make him quit—it made him choose differently.
For anyone wrestling with habitual substance use, his journey suggests that transformation may not always require “willpower” or “resistance”—sometimes it asks for depth, clarity, and a new orientation. He found that once the internal landscape shifted, the exterior followed.
Final Thoughts
Damyn’s shift from drink-as-escape to drink-as-irrelevant is a powerful indicator of how ritual, medicine, and inner witnessing can converge. He didn’t wake up one morning “cured”; he awakened to the fact that his drinking was no longer aligned with who he wanted to be. And from that place, his habits changed—not by force, but by falling away.
For those curious about plant-medicine, addiction, or patterns that silently drive our lives, his story offers hope—but also invites careful reflection: Are you ready to see what the habit is hiding? Are you ready to change from the inside out? In Damyn’s case, the answer shifted from “I need a drink” to “I’m already whole,” and that made all the difference.
Based on the Ayahuasca Podcast episode “How Damyn stopped drinking alcohol after drinking Ayahuasca” with Sam Believ and Damyn.