More Than a Medicine: My First Ibogaine Experience

By Joe Holmes

Leaving the U.S. with Psilocybin on My Mind

When I boarded the flight to San Diego, I honestly wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing. After a month of microdosing psilocybin—and seeing more physical and emotional improvement than anything I'd ever tried—I had to ask myself:

Why keep going? Why leave the country? Why chase more?

I wasn’t in crisis. I wasn’t desperate. In fact, I was doing better than I had in years. So yes, I was skeptical. Not of the medicine itself—I’d done my research, heard the stories, read the science. I was skeptical of myself.

Was I chasing something that didn’t need fixing?

But there was this inner voice—a mix of curiosity, calling, and maybe even duty—that kept whispering:

“You’ve got to know for yourself.”

I kept thinking: How can I ever talk about this medicine, advocate for it, fight for access, if I haven’t walked through it myself? There’s enough of that in our world—people preaching what they’ve never practiced. That’s not me.

So I went.

First Night: Welcome Dinner in San Diego

After arriving and checking into the hotel, we met the others who would be crossing the border with us in the morning. Patients. Caregivers. The integration coach. All of us strangers, but all of us here with some level of blind faith.

We sat down to dinner, and it was clear from the start—this wasn’t a group of people casually dabbling. This was a table full of humans, carrying pain, carrying hope, looking for something real. You could feel it. No one was trying to impress. We were all just trying to breathe.

That dinner was the start of something we didn’t fully understand yet.

Crossing Over: The Ride into Tijuana

The next morning came fast, and so did the nerves. I was all over the place—excited, grateful, second-guessing everything.

The what-if machine was running full speed:

What if this doesn’t work? What if it makes things worse? What if I already found my thing with psilocybin?

But there was no turning back. I paused, took a breath, leaned into my faith, and walked down to the SUV.

We climbed in—a group of seven somewhat-acquainted souls—and crossed into Tijuana. The conversation was light, but the energy was heavy in the best way. We weren’t just taking a road trip. We were heading into sacred, unknown territory—each of us carrying our own reasons for being there.

The House: Where Healing Begins Before the Medicine

When we arrived at the house, it hit me—this was real.

We were immediately welcomed by a medical staff that seemed like they already knew us. There was no cold, clinical vibe. It felt more like being welcomed into someone’s home... someone who knew exactly what you needed before you did.

The day was full—lab work, EKGs, full medical intake, physical therapy, coaching sessions. It was a lot. But it made one thing very clear:

This wasn’t a shortcut.
This was serious medicine that required serious preparation and support.

Then came the food.

The food might’ve been the most unexpectedly healing part of the whole week. Every meal was intentional. Clean, nutrient-dense, delicious. I’d never felt that level of thought go into what we were putting into our bodies after a treatment or surgery in the U.S.

It reminded me just how broken our current hospital culture is.
Here, food was medicine too.

And something else started happening that day—something I couldn’t have predicted. We started bonding. Laughing. Sharing things with people we’d just met that we hadn’t even told our friends back home. It was strange. It was sacred.

Medicine Day: Fire, Intention, and the Drop In

That morning, the energy in the house shifted. You could feel the weight of what was coming—but also the unity.

We each prepared our intentions—what we wanted to understand, what we wanted to release. We wrote our “burn lists,” filled with the baggage we were ready to let go of. Then we circled around the fire, shared what we felt safe to share, and burned our lists together.

It’s hard to explain what happened around that fire.
Something shifted in us.

We arrived as six individuals—but we became one voice, one heart, that morning. No masks. No ego. Just real people with real stories, holding space for one another.

Then it was time for the medicine.

One by one, we were given our capsules—taken by mouth, with deep intention. Slowly. Carefully. With reverence.

And one by one, we waited. Waited until it was time to make our way to our rooms—eye masks on, headphones in—ready, or as ready as anyone could be, to begin the journey.

The Journey: Awake in Another World

This part is hard to describe. And even harder to make sense of.

Ibogaine isn’t like any other psychedelic I’ve ever experienced. You’re not out of it. You’re not high. You’re completely aware—of the room, the people, the sounds—but your mind is somewhere else entirely.

For me, it felt like walking through a shuffled deck of memories. Some from childhood, some recent, some... unplaceable. There was no sequence, no order, no clear message—yet everything felt necessary. Some parts were peaceful. Some parts were intense. All of it was raw.

I’m not ready to share the details of my journey yet. It’s still unfolding. It’s personal. Confusing. Beautiful.

I will say this:
Something shifted.

Not just emotionally. Not just spiritually. Neurologically. I could feel it. Not a fix. Not a cure. But a nudge—like my brain got realigned, and is still adjusting even now.

And truthfully, I still don’t know if this will “work.”
Not in the way people might hope or expect. It’s not as quick or clean as psilocybin was for me.

This feels like a slower unraveling.
But I suspect that’s the point.

This medicine isn’t here to patch something up—it’s here to help rebuild from the inside out. That kind of healing takes patience.

Time will tell. But I believe it’s already started.

The Grey Day: Hollow and Whole

The next day is what they call “the grey day,” and that name is perfect.

You wake up with a different brain, a wide-open heart, and zero energy. I felt hollow and whole at the same time.

Emotionally exposed. Physically exhausted. Mentally still deep in the fog of what just happened.

And yet—you show up. You do the integration. Physical therapy. The post-medicine checks. You journal. You sit in it.

And somehow, that sitting is the medicine.

The Last Day: Leaving but Not Letting Go

When it was time to head back to San Diego, the emotions hit all over again—but in a new way. There was joy—we missed our kids. We missed our lives.

But there was sadness, too.
These people—these strangers I met five days ago—had become family.

There’s no other way to put it. We went through something together that’s impossible to explain to anyone who wasn’t there.

We didn’t just go to Mexico for treatment.
We went to find something. And I think we did.

As we said our goodbyes, I knew this wasn’t the end.
This was the beginning of something so much bigger.

You’ll hear more about the others soon. Their stories matter. We’re walking this next chapter together.

Final Thoughts (For Now)

I’m not done processing. Not even close.
But I’m ready to say this:

I’m glad I did it.

Ibogaine didn’t erase my Parkinson’s. But it gave me something else—something I didn’t know I needed.

Direction.
Clarity.
Sacred momentum.

And I believe this is only the beginning.

There’s a lot more I want to share—but not yet.
This isn’t a miracle pill. It’s not a quick fix.

This is a process, and it takes time—especially for those of us dealing with neurological conditions. The shifts are slower, but they’re happening.

I’ll be sharing more after 30 days.
That’s when the dust starts to settle.
That’s when integration deepens—or drifts.

But for now, just know this:

Healing doesn’t always look like what we’ve been told.
Sometimes it starts with fire, a plant, a room full of strangers...
and the courage to say yes.