How Ayahuasca helped me heal alcoholism.

First of all, I didn’t know I was an alcoholic, I thought that my drinking was merely social, for fun and under control.

Even though towards the end of it, it was about one bottle of wine per day.

I could not work or paint (I was predominantly an artist at the time), or hang out with anyone if there was not at least a glass of wine involved, usually a whole bottle, and on the weekends a lot more.

Until I would black out and wake up next morning, not remembering what had happened, so I thought it was all under control, even though it clearly wasn’t.

There was a ceremony when I asked the medicine like:

“Please, allow me to cleanse my body, I want to live closer to my truth.”

It was during the day and I remember that I started feeling nauseous when the medicine started kicking in.

Then suddenly, I hear a subtle voice inside my head, asking:

“Do you remember why you started drinking?”

And I thought like: “Not really… but i don’t care, just get this out of me, I don’t want to keep on drinking, it’s destroying my body, it’s unhealthy, but I don’t know how to quit.”

Then the medicine said:

“Well, why do you have so many judgements around alcohol?”

I thought: “Well, i mean, it has destroyed my relationships, damaged my health, the worst in me comes up when I drink, of course I don’t like it.”

Finally, the medicine said:

“Alright, let’s explore this.”

It took me back to when I was about 13 or 14 years old, when I was extremely shy and really, really self-conscious.

If a woman, especially a woman or a girl that I liked or found attractive came and said something to me I would literally shake and stutter and stare at the floor out of this shame.

I was very, very introverted.

And what happened was that there was this one party where, because of some medication for acne I was taking I couldn’t drink, but everybody else was drinking, dancing and having fun.

I didn’t know how to dance nor how to do anything, I felt so ostracized, like the strange, rejected one, feeling like an outcast.

However, soon after that I met a cousin that was the party guy, very popular and fun, the women really liked him, all the girls fell in love with him because he was funny.

And I started drinking with him, in the moment i started drinking I saw that my mind relaxed and now I was also cracking jokes.

I was moving a little bit, I could have a conversation, so I thought “wow…“

And out of that relaxation I was able to connect with the first women (or girl) that eventually became my girlfriend.

I was able to be more social, to feel more included, so the medicine showed me and said:

“You started to drink alcohol because you felt your life was limited, you couldn’t express yourself, you couldn’t connect with people and you wanted to live a fuller life…

Alcohol provided, freed you just enough from your mind, inhibitions and shyness, so that you could be social, have friends, have a girlfriend…

So alcohol is not a problem, it started as a solution.”

And i thought: “Wow, that’s interesting.”

He said: “However, how is it right now?”

And as I started to see visions, I saw time after time for the last few years when I lived in Europe and in Montreal, Toronto…

How I was partying every weekened, 2-3 times, sometimes up to 5 days a week.

Drinking so much that I would black out, I would not remember what had happened.

Sometimes, the next morning I would wake up and my friends would tell me: “Oh Nico, last night was so much fun, wow, thanks for coming… and that girl you were kissing, she was so hot.”

I didn’t remember anything, nor have the girls number, I don’t remember who she was, so I woke up to a lot of fun things I had done, without any recollection of them.

In some other occasions, I would wake up to really, really ugly messages from friends or women that I was dating, whose night I had ruined because of that compulsive and drunken state.

So the medicine showed me that what started as a tool to live a fuller life was actually doing the opposite right now.

Now, it’s impairing you, now it’s reducing quite literally your experience of life, because you’re quite literally shutting down for a few hours of your life a few nights per week (blacking out).

It showed me that in the beginning it was like the training wheels that you put on your bicycle, so that you can find your balance.

But imagine you put training wheels on a motorcycle, they’re bound to cause an accident, because they don’t suit you anymore.

So, I realized that alcohol for me, it started as the crotch that I relied on, but I saw that I no longer needed it, now I was doing something opposite to what he had intended.

And I felt this from a deep place of awareness, not judgement.

So the medicine allowed me not to judge this part of me, this habit, but to understand it in a deep way, once I understood it, then it started showing me:

“All right, let’s go through the damage that you have put through your body.”

Then it took me to every time that I got wasted, every time I got drunk, every time that I made a fool of myself and blacked out since I was 14 years old until I think my 20’s, when I had this experience.

And it started showing me, one by one, every time that I was drunk, out of my mind quite literally, and I would feel that and vomit it out.

The funny thing was that I saw the cyclical pattern of it all, the same process when I was in one city, almost the same locations, venues, hanging out with the same people, drinking the same cocktails.

It was taking me one by one through every time that I got drunk, until I thought like:

“I’m tired of this, this is boring.”

Then the medicine said:

“That’s right, isn’t it? But that’s what you’ve been spending all your 20’s and teenage years doing.”

I thought this was boring, like I already know what’s going to happen, I kept seeing myself drinking, getting drunk, drinking and getting drunk.

And I was vomiting and vomiting, until the medicine said:

“All right, let’s clear the last part.”

And I will save you a disgusting image, but the last part came in the toilet of the medicine house, it was something not very pleasant.

But it was like a darkness, a dark black ball inside of me that had accumulated from all the alcohol I had put through my system.

It finally came out, the moment it did, I felt like life was on HD, right after, I could see the colors in a more vibrant way.

I heard sounds more clearly, it’s like I had released a layer of numbness that alcohol had slowly created around my body and my system.

I felt so alive and so connected to life, I thought: “Wow, this is it.“

Then I started going through a very rough trip, seeing evil spirits, demons, monsters and children being abused and tortured, people killing each other, violence.

And I thought: “Oh my god, why did I drink this, I’m going crazy, I’m seeing some really horrific stuff…”

I felt quite tormented and I was trying to hide from it, praying…

“Please, please I don’t want to see this, please god, Jesus, somebody save me” nothing was happening.

And I thought: “Okay, maybe I should invite this in, maybe I should look at them.”

So I stopped hiding in a fearful state and I opened up to what I was seeing (with my eyes closed).

Then I saw all the visions I was having were fueled by the spirit of alcohol, or the energy of alcohol.

I saw how alcohol is the leading cause of a lot of violence, rape, abuse, car accidents, broken families.

I saw the ugliness of that, and the medicine said:

“Every time that you’re drinking, you’re contributing your energy to all of this, you think you’re one but you’re connected and this is not demons nor monsters, this is inside you…

This is where you can go into the future if you continue drinking the way that you’re drinking so far.”

And I knew it was right, because when I had been drunk in the past, sometimes I was violent, got into fights, not very caring for the women that I was with.

Sometimes I was full of lies and deceit, I could see that it was a gradual degradation of my mind, emotions and heart that started since i was 14 years old.

I could see how those people that wake up and kill somebody, destroy their family, beat up their wives or abuse somebody else, it’s not overnight.

It’s a gradual process of degeneration into that place, I saw that I was heading straight towards that, nothing changed.

I started crying and asking for forgiveness, from the bottom of my heart I said:

“Please, I really don’t want to be this way.”

In that moment, the experience changed, and the medicine said:

“All right, let me show you what is possible.”

Spoiler alert, it was one of the most beautiful sights or experiences of my life, because I saw what it’s like to live a life of sacredness, of respect for my body and mind, of soberness.

And before, I thought being sober was boring, now I felt being sober as being fully alive, sensitive and connected.

In that place I was seeing mandalas of a million colors, rainbows and hummingbirds, also the most beautiful creatures.

I felt that it was like I was being showered with gifts and frequencies of harmony, joy and bliss.

In essence, the medicine was showing me that when I stop destroying my body, when I stop unconsciously putting substances that disconnect me from life…

When I stop doing this, there’s no other choice but to reconnect with life, and being in connection with life is an experience of bliss, of beauty.

It’s like when you look at a sunset and you’re touched to the point of tears.

I realized that this openness of our heart is possible in every moment, if we don’t tamper or play in an unconscious way with our system.

After that day, I’m not gonna lie and tell you I never touched alcohol again.

No, I never thought about it, I could count probably with one hand, maybe two, the amount of drinks or glasses of wine that I’ve had in the last several years.

Quite often maybe just one per year, maybe on New Year’s, because I want to make a toast with my family.

But it has become a very conscious process where I don’t need it anymore, I don’t think about it nor thinking about how i’ve gone “10 years, 4 months, 3 days“, no.

I’m not obsessed about it nor rejecting it, it’s just something that dropped the moment that I saw it clearly.

Imagine that you’re holding a stick that has thorns in it, and you’re thinking:

“Oh my god, something hurts!”

You’re looking around and you don’t realize that you’re clamping it, the moment that you can see clearly how you’re clenching your fist on something that has thorns.

Nobody needs to coach you or force you, nor make you do a 30-day no boost challenge to drop it, no.

You just see the silliness of it, and that’s what happened.

Ayahuasca showed me first that I cannot let go of something that I am judging, and I was juding my alcohol habits.

Secondly, it showed me how it was what I needed at one point, how it was a tool that allowed me to get something that I didn’t know how to get otherwise.

Then he showed me that he was no longer serving any purpose, and he was doing quite the opposite, then it cleansed my body from all of it.

Allowing me to make a conscious choice:

“What do you want? Do you want to live this ugly way of alcoholism and disconnection that’s bound to end up in violence and chaos?

Or do you want to live a life of integrity, beauty, respect and health?”

Now, here I am.

Thank you.

If you feel the calling to sit with Ayahuasca, in a container held by Colombian shamans at a sacred temple in the middle of the mountain forests, please check:

www.ayahuascacolombia.com/retreats