27: Out of the Box Heroine Detox With Richie Ogulnick
“What Ibogaine does is it gives people the insight that they have to…have the courage to do something that they must do.” –Richie Ogulnick
Who would dare be a major proponent of an unfamiliar heroine detox with just a flickering assurance of success? Not even this man- Richie Ogulnick, a simple Jewish jeweler from the Bronx who has not even the slightest experience with addiction. But with just one phone call, he was off to Africa to embark on this very challenging adventure to become one of the pioneer enthusiasist of this method.
Dreaded about addiction are the agonizing effects that comes with withdrawal. It’s even worse than addiction itself that some have hesitated to walk the path of sobriety. As Jeff was one advocate of multiple avenues on healing addiction, he sits with Richie Ogulnick to talk about what this out of the box heroine detox is about and how one can be eligible to undergo the process. Contrary to conventional treatment methods, Ibogaine treatment promises a quick somatic reset without the anguish brought by withdrawal symptoms. Just how this happens and what true healing entails is discussed in today’s podcast. Listen in as Jeff and Richie revisit the story of this auspicious encounter with Iboga, the roots of addiction and what every family considering addiction treatment has to know.
Highlights:
02:55 1989-An Intriguing Encounter
11:55 Off to Africa
19:05 Watch Out for Red Flags!
29:02 What Constitutes Healing?
46:09 What’s There Yet to Dream
Skip the tormenting withdrawal symptoms, fast forward 36 hours of detoxification- sounds promising? Learn more from @TFRSolution's interview with Richie Ogulnick #ibogaine Share on X
Connect With Richie
Telephone: 3525196181
Website: www.ibogawithrichie.com
Email: ibeginagain@aol.com
Quotes:
19:10 “Really the heart is the most important thing that we have to look at to make sure that there aren’t any red flags.”-Richie Ogulnick
27:10 “ ‘Addicts tend to be more intelligent and more sensitive than anyone else’, and what I found was that to be true.” – Richie Ogulnick quoting Jeff
29:34 “What Ibogaine does, at least if not more, is it gives people the insight that they have to do something different. It gives them some idea that what they’ve been doing before and why they’ve been relapsing over and over again is because they hadn’t have the courage to do something that they must do.” -Richie Ogulnick
32:42 “What you’re talking about puts a whole another hit on detox and … this is a pathway that’s outside of the main highway towards what the people normally think of as recovery.” – Jeff Jones
38:17 “Some people say that it was like 10 years of therapy wield into a 3-day 3-stage process and they get so much out of the Ibogaine session. But that’s only the people that have the willingness to look inside. Ibogaine is not gonna force the person to look at anything that there is not to explore.” -Richie Ogulnick
Got ideas? Perhaps a future podcast? Schedule time with Jeff here: https://meetme.so/jeffjones
Transcriptions
JEFF: Hi there. So, today on families navigating addiction and recovery podcast, I have a very special guest. You know I’ve gone through my own process of challenge here. One thing, and I’m sure people who have listened to this for a while know that I’m a big advocate and supporter of multiple pathways to individual and family recovery. What that means is there’s a lot of different methods that people use and utilize for their own recovery. And there are some methods that are highly publicized and others that are less so. So today specifically, despite everything that I know about addiction and statistics and that they haven’t been getting better despite the efforts of many, many people with a big heart and work day and night and are available 24/7, these statistics are not going down. And so today my guest is Richie Ogulnick. And so, Richie is going to talk about some of his background with Ibogaine and specifically Ibogaine in relationship to heroin detox. And so this is not something that’s FDA approved, however, this has been going on quite a while. I have learned a little bit. I’m really looking forward to this conversation with Richie to where I can learn a whole lot more. Welcome to the show Richie.
RICHIE: Thanks very much for inviting me, Jeff.
JEFF: Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome. So, if you could start a little bit just by, you know, giving a background, letting people know who you are and specifically in the context of the topic of Ibogaine in relationship to detox.
RICHIE: Okay, I’ll do that.
JEFF: Thank you.
RICHIE: Yeah. Back in 1989, I first heard – I received a call from a friend who had met on the streets of New York as I was selling my crafted rings and he was selling his wife earrings and he told me about Ibogaine. He was interested because he was an alcoholic. He had heard about some addiction interruption treatments going on in hotel rooms in Amsterdam. And it just sounded so intriguing because people doing heroin were being treated. And literally in 36 hours, they were close into a predictive state reset biochemically with a metabolite that was added to opioid receptor sites. And they had choice again, without going through the agony and the symptoms of withdrawal. And I didn’t understand why it wasn’t readily available. So I walked to the library at the University of Florida in Gainesville and learned a little bit more about a fledgling corporation located on Staten Island.
A couple of years later, to make a long story short, I went to Africa to find Ibogaine. And I literally synchronistically ran into the only chemist in the continent of Africa that was extracting Ibogaine from the west African shrub Tabernanthe Iboga and I brought it back within a 10 day period. The first 13 grams of isolated Ibogaine hydrochloride and immediately published an article and began to receive interest from people from all over the world because it wasn’t available anywhere except with me at the time. People coming from Australia, from Europe, mostly of course from the United States and Canada. Over a period of 15 and a half years, I conducted 754 opioid, alcohol, psychospiritual sessions, therapeutic sessions with an array of different intentions. And during that time, I trained a couple of doctors, clinicians and many ex addicts who have open centers in Mexico and Central America and Brazil. And now it’s in 30 different countries and there’s about 200 active Ibogaine providers throughout the world.
So that’s just a very brief synopsis of what I’ve done for the last 20-25 years, because actually after I did 15 and a half years of working with people on a one to one basis and training people, I then began to refer people to different providers, contingent upon the type of model that they’ve wanted to use with Ibogaine. What they wanted to experience because there’s many different models from the medical model to a shaman model and contingent upon what a person can afford. Where they want to travel as a lot to do with the model that they maybe attracted to. So I spent the last 5-10 years on the phone with people. I learned a lot –
JEFF: Yeah. So there’s –
RICHIE: Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
JEFF: There’s just, you have quite a bit of stuff here that I am really curious about, but can you go back to the beginning? Like you said you were on the streets of New York selling something and you got a phone call from a friend. Can you tell that story just real quickly again, Richie?
RICHIE: Okay. Sure. Okay. Well, I was a craftsperson. I made my own jewelry for 21 years.
JEFF: I see.
RICHIE: So, I did craft shows and malls.
JEFF: Yeah.
RICHIE: And find craft shows on the streets. I was just kind of fond of it, spending some time in New York where I grew up and raised [inaudible] family and just playing around downtown. And I met up with Al [inaudible] who is back then in his 50, severe alcoholic. He had been a troubleshooter for international telecommunications companies where he would get a call, and [inaudible] with a pack of Camel cigarette and a few bottles of Scotch and he would rewrite a 3000 page manual for a short period and save a company lots and lots of money. It was a very high pressure job and he ended up on the streets of New York selling his wife’s earrings.
JEFF: Oh, yeah. Okay.
RICHIE: We kept each other previa the latest alternative modalities and we were friends.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah.
RICHIE: He called me one day, I was in Florida where I live and he said: “Have you heard of Ibogaine?” No, and I received a package of information from a person by the name of Howard Lotsof who was 63 and 19 year old heroin addict who received a dose of Ibogaine from the chemist. And the chemist said to him, I think you can find this interesting and he took this dose of Ibogaine and three days later he walked out of his apartment in the village in downtown Manhattan. He told me he looked up at a tree and it was the first time in his life he wasn’t afraid. And then he walked into the village and he realized he wasn’t in narcotic withdrawal.
JEFF: Yeah.
RICHIE: And he asked the chemist: “What did you give in me?” And the chemist gave him five or six other doses and how it dose out with his few of his young heroin addict friends and they all didn’t go to any symptoms of withdrawal.
JEFF: Got it. Yeah.
RICHIE: They were free. Not that they didn’t relapse because that’s the main part of this story that I would like to share to the audience.
JEFF: Right. Yeah. But so Richie, the thing I’m really curious about is like when you heard this about Ibogaine, it’s like you really wanted to learn more and learn more and I’m just wondering like what inside of you got ignited or on fire to really get curious and want to learn more.
RICHIE: Sure. I was more than curious. I was mesmerized.
JEFF: Yeah.
RICHIE: I was completely infatuated cause when I heard about it and I walked to the library and I picked up this one page of information and then called Howard and he sent me a packets of information. It was when I read the subjective testimonials, fanatics who had experienced Ibogaine that I was absolutely mesmerized. I had never been an addict. No, I had I ever even experienced in my quiet, solid middle class Jewish background in the West Bronx Addiction. I’ve never experienced any of it. But it was a very auspicious week for me. It was Thanksgiving week of 1989 and I had just separated from my daughter’s mom. I was very, very sad. I was hitting up in a rare, hitting up medication at that time in my life, and I’m just being honest with you, I know this is kind of woo stuff, but I was hitting up and within 11 seconds they were these two beings that were on both sides of me and they were looking at each other and I was in between and they were laughing their heads off. They were having a much better time than I was having. And during that week there was a series of events and people that I was introduced to that created a cone of radical shift in my personal life. And I became so, so interested in Ibogaine.
JEFF: Yeah.
RICHIE: I didn’t understand why I couldn’t go to Africa and the pygmies would look around me and through me and decide if I was going to be the harborer of Ibogaine to the world. I could pick up 40,000 doses for three cents each. Had a free needle park in Europe, dose out 20,000 people. One quarter of them would show up for this free needles following week, which is what they did at needle park, they used to dose out, give people free needles to shoot with because at least they were clean.
JEFF: Clean needles. Yeah.
RICHIE: You know, so yeah. So I would call CNN, you know, and every whole world would know about Ibogaine and that would be the end of my messianic complex. That was my naive dream.
JEFF: [Laughs] Right.
RICHIE: And it took me two years to gather up a sleeping bag and a mosquito net and a few thousand dollars and the courage to go to Africa, I didn’t really know where to go. So I flew to Rwanda, Cameroon because I knew that Ibogaine grew in Southern Cameroon. I didn’t know where to go. So I knocked on the door of a organic chemistry department, had of burnt out university with glass panes over the the ground with none of the thousands of students that were walking around carrying a book. And I spoke with a couple of professors and they said to me that they hadn’t been paid as a few months and I knocked on the only door that I can think of knocking on. A couple of guys were playing cards and I said: “Do you know anything about Ibogaine?” And they said: “No, but somebody will be here tomorrow. Come back.”So I went to my bed and breakfast, came back the next day and a 6″5′, 300 pound guy looked at me when I asked him if he knew anything about Ibogaine. And he looked at me with a startled expression on his face and he said: “Ibogaine? Well, I’m probably the only chemist on the continent of Africa that have spent the last year and a half learning how to extract Ibogaine from the shrub and God will strike me down if I don’t work with you.” He said: “Where are you from? The Bronx? How did you find me?” [laughs]
JEFF: Yeah.
RICHIE: I didn’t know where else to go. I just knocked on your door. Fate takes me.
JEFF: Yeah.
RICHIE: Practically [inaudible] to a 150 year old, old wooden chest. And he picks out, takes out a vial, a small vial of white powder that says 13 grams ibogaine hydrochloride. We talked for a few minutes and he says: “I’ll tell you about the Ibogaine.” I said: “How much?” He said: “Oh, about a thousand dollars a gram. I said: “Yeah, but I only have $4,000 to give you. He said: “That’s okay. You’ll come back. Just you know, I trust you.”
JEFF: Aha. Yeah.
RICHIE: So I gave him pretty much everything that I had. I remember routing out the heels of my shoe, taking one of my daughters to the mall, to the shoe man there and I didn’t know if I would use the routed out heels to my shoe but it turned out that’s where I put the magical blend magazine, which reach 65000 people in California. This is before pretty much anyone have any computers in 1993. Three and a half years to get to Africa and to come back within 10 days and immediately upon coming back, very shortly thereafter, River Phoenix, a young actor died in front of Los Angeles, Hollywood club. He was brought up and raised in Gainesville, Florida, who has very dearest friend came to me, 13 days after River Phoenix died addicted to heroin. We did his treatment with him and that was basically the beginning of my ability to be able to let go of the jewelry and to focus primarily working with Ibogaine.
JEFF: Yeah. Thank you very much for getting into that story and some of the detail because it’s very curious to me, well like I want you to say more about the Ibogaine specifically in relation to detox. But you know, the origin story of kind of how this happened is, you know, really, really, I’m curious and I’m sure other people are curious too. So thank you very much. But –
RICHIE: My pleasure.
JEFF: – and the other thing that I heard you say is that you’ve worked with 754 people, 754 sessions with people over a 15 year period. Yeah?
RICHIE: Yeah. That was personally, and in that timeframe we received a lot of help from people that came, for example, one person came doing about 80 milligrams of Methadone a day. He was living in a cardboard box under a bridge up in the northeast part of the country, I remember it was New Hampshire or Vermont. And he came and his liver was so compromised that we had to spend two and a half months turning his liver around so that he was eligible to do Ibogaine. He was just a fascinating kid. And it turned out that then his father came from Costa Rica where his father was living and well during the time that we were turning his liver around and literally in Chinese medicine has a lot to do with anger, they were at each other’s throats. For two and a half months, they were working out. And I’m not exaggerating, two or three generations of abuse and abandonment and [inaudible]. It was so beautiful because it was such a healing going on both physically and psychologically, therapeutically in terms of their relationship.
JEFF: Inner personally here. The other thing that I like in talking about the guy there that was on 80 milligrams of Methadone and you needed to let time go by to where his liver would be at a place where he could do this. The other thing that I’m guessing here is there’s like a way to assess, like is this person a candidate for this kind of detox or not. What does that look like?
RICHIE: Absolutely. Well, two things. Really the heart is the most important thing that we have to look at to make sure that there aren’t any red flags. And specifically around the heart, we’re looking for what’s called the QT. QT is the electrical current that runs through the heart. If the QT is borderline or very low, that’s a red flag because Ibogaine temporarily lowers the QT. And if it’s already low, it may, although it’s a very rare but it still may bring the heart into arrhythmia and that could be dangerous.
JEFF: Right.
RICHIE: Making sure by receiving an EKG that there aren’t any red flags. The standing heart rate too is important. If it’s really, really low, given that Ibogaine [inaudible] further temporarily also is a red flag. 43 beats per minute, that’s a bit low and it’s questionable as to a person as a candidate or not.
JEFF: Yeah.
RICHIE: The liver is not as significant, but we like to take a look to see how well the Ibogaine is going to metabolize to the liver. But anyway, this individual, it was two and a half months and he at the time, he was also transferring off of Methadone to a short acting opioids. You can’t do Ibogaine directly with Methadone, you need to cut through the half life of a long acting opioids like Suboxone, Subutex and Methadone and transfer to a shorter acting opioid, which we did. And then it was a terrific experience and he was clean. After a year, my hard and fast rule was that if a person is still knocking on my door and they still want to work with Ibogaine, if they’re clean for a year, then I would train them and they would go on their own wherever they want to go in the the world, whether it be underground or above ground. Anywhere.
JEFF: Yeah.
RICHIE: They would carry on with their life’s work. And the ex addicts, because I trained with particularly wonderful, sensitive, caring, dedicated, I began providers even more so than the doctors and the clinicians that I trained. The addicts are so savagely and they’re so streetwise as far as interactions with other medications and they’re so intuitive and they’re showing love, giving back.
JEFF: Right.
RICHIE: They ended up, probably 85% of the people that I trained we’re exotics and those are the ones that opened up the centers throughout the hemisphere and other place of the world as well.
JEFF: Yeah. So Richie, really an important point about that I’m getting here, specifically with people in addiction is that they can be the one in the family who is like the emotional lightning rod. They’re very sensitive people. They’re very creative people and they can carry a lot of the grief and shame from past generations or from a situation. And it’s like, you know what I am guessing here from the story that you just told is that once people who were in addiction, they went through this Ibogaine process and they had a significant change, transformation way in which they see the world themself and other people in it. It’s like they really could see the potential that Ibogaine would have to transform people who’s in a pretty significant addiction cycle to, as you were saying, having addiction interruption, you know.
RICHIE: Yeah. Very well could I found through the years. It took me a long time to, first of all, for addicts to be able to relate to me as a person that was a facilitative because I came from such a different world than they did. And just a really short story. It wasn’t until about 10 years into working with Ibogaine that I introduced Ibogaine and wanted to create an underground network who have this country because there are people that can’t afford to go to a center or don’t have the passport to be able to leave the United States. And so I spent a few months in New York and introduced and invited several people from all over the country, from Santa Fe, from the Bay area, Portland, Chicago, to come and to be trained during a few months period. And we began by distributing flyers and brochures in front of Methadone clinics in Harlem. We began to interest about 30-40 people to do Ibogaine sessions in their apartments.
JEFF: Oh, wow!
RICHIE: And really profound training happened, but there was one particular incident where a heroin runner down in the village was actually okay when I asked him for us to take a film crew and myself up to his dealer’s apartment like on down, way down in the village and they were okay with it. So I went up with a film crew, an independent, because I wanted to watch them shoot up heroin, I wanted to see for myself, you know, where all these people were coming from and why the attraction. Why he did it. And well before he did it, we walked into the apartment and I swore, it was amazing to me that the apartment building actually existed because it looked like it was condemned. You couldn’t see one inch wooden flooring because the whole apartment was with paper bags, it looked like it haven’t cleaned the apartment for a couple of years. And this couple, the dealers has a smile on their face because they were perpetually high, you know, given that they had access to as much as they wanted.
JEFF: Right.
RICHIE: And so my guy shot up and he described the experience of warm under his tongue and a sense of wellbeing that I could only define in my own terminology as a transcendence, as a sense of being home and at rest with oneself. It just really put the icing on the cakes to me as far as what addiction was all about. And I realized that everyone in the world is looking for that peace where you’re a head of a corporation or whether you’re shooting up dope, you’re wanting that peace and that rest.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah.
RICHIE: But I really want to go back to what you said before because what you said before was so perfect. What you said was that addicts tend to be more intelligent and more sensitive than anyone else and what I found was that to be true. And that [inaudible] for an addict to sit across from a person that they really look up to and admired was the first time that they did that when they were kids, they were ripped off. They were abandoned. Because most of the people that have called me during the last 20 years, and most of the sisters and the wives and the parents that have called me, it’s clear to me, and I’ve put it to the test many times that there’s an abandonment issue usually from the same sex parent, which creates the addictive process in the first place. Probably 60% of the people that call me have an abandonment issue, some kind of an emotional or physical break with the same sex parent, probably 20% with the opposite sex parent and then the remaining people that called has type of personality that will jump out of a plane, they’ll do anything ones they tend to be addictive to new and exciting experiences and they fall in love with it, that’s the story. That’s they become addicts and that constitutes about 15-20% of the people that have called. The remaining have received abandonment issue with the same sex or opposite sex parent.
JEFF: Yeah. So-
RICHIE: So yeah, go ahead.
JEFF: I would like when you talked about the statistics and the abandonment issues, I’m curious like have you seen like how people heal that or –
RICHIE: Yes. Absolutely.
JEFF: Thanks.
RICHIE: I’m glad you asked. And that’s brings me to what is absolutely essential whether it’s after a conventional detox or whether it’s after Ibogaine? Because what Ibogaine does, at least if not more, but at least what it does is it gives people an insight that they have to do something different. It gives them some idea that what they’ve been doing before and why they’ve been relapsing over and over again is because they haven’t had the courage to do something that they must do. And if they had more insight, if they were willing to take a deeper look into their process during the 36 hour, second phase, second stage self collective experience with Ibogaine, they realize that the reason why they became addicts is because of this deep emotional hole, this deep hole in their ego which was created as a result of the abandonment issue. Then supported by running away from this issue for many, many years and sitting across from a same sex [inaudible] that they really look up to and admire. Because what addicts tend to do is invariably sit across from people that they have control over and because they’re so sensitive and so intelligent and usually so streetwise, they’ll tend to find people in their lives. Even if it’s a therapist that they basically have control over in the name of therapy, they can be looking into the eyes of the therapist and the therapist thinks that they’re doing some work and they’re just pulling their therapist chain because they don’t want to lose that control. The Ibogaine at least breaks them down to a point where they realize that they need to sit across from a therapist that don’t have control over and that’s when the healing takes place.
JEFF: Yeah.
RICHIE: Yes. Very rarely Jeff. Very rarely and inadvertently almost by accident during the 12 step program, once in a while a sponsor will play the role of that individual feeling will happen. But what I’m saying is, is that you can do it consciously and deliberately and set the stage for that relationship to happen so that it happened. Because otherwise, even after Ibogaine, if a person’s in their 20’s and 30’2, they’re still going to be carrying at least some of the baggage that so addictive situation in the first place, even though they feel that they were in pre addictive state and not craving. They didn’t go through any symptoms of withdrawal. They were in the honeymoon period. They had 36 hours after they’ve done Ibogaine, they could be kayaking 3000 miles away.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah.
RICHIE: I’ve seen it happen, but three months later if they haven’t done the work, they could also be relapsing,
JEFF: Right. Thank you very much for that story Richie. So, I mean, what you’re talking about kind of puts a whole nother head on detox and is, you know, when I initially in this opening was talking about the multiple pathways thing, you know, this is a pathway that’s definitely, you know, outside of the main highway towards what people normally think of as recovery, you know, but the story sound really quite powerful and significant. And you know, one thing that I want to say here, specifically to family members is that, you know, families are doing their very best at the time with the information they have with the inner resources, their ability to kind of calm themselves down as opposed to continue to stay engaged. And like you were saying in the story, argue for two months or something like that.
RICHIE: Right.
JEFF: So, you know, I don’t really see families at fault with any of this, but I do see that there’s impersonal patterns that come down through the generations where –
RICHIE: Exactly.
JEFF: – if people do not see them, they identify with them and they take them as personal and it’s painful. And so people do what they need to do to take care of themselves or protect themself. And so yeah, what’s you’re talking about here is, you know, I’m pretty blown away with it. I’ve also done, you know, before interviewing you, I’ve done some research about some of the like outcomes here. There was one video I was watching and saying, you know, 98% success rate from detox and, exactly the kind of detox you’re talking about, three days and it’s like no withdrawal symptoms. And it’s really like this gap of time. Like yeah, they can go out and do a lot of things that they have no craving. However, if after a period of time, like three months, six months, whatever it is, if they haven’t done the work, they can slip back in really, really easy. And specifically if they go back into a family and the family structure dynamics that you were talking about, if those haven’t changed, then like those become factors that contribute to more vulnerability to cravings, addiction, relieving the pain in the old [inaudible] way they have before.
RICHIE: Right. Yeah. And contingent upon a person’s age has a lot to do with the type of aftercare that is essential. For example, a person who’s struggling with addiction and they’re in their 40’s and they have a job, they have a couple of kids that are on their way to college. If they’re in their 50’s, they have a support system. They have a mortgage, they have a life –
JEFF: They have some maturity.
RICHIE: Yes, yes. They burned many bridges. They’ve lost many years to have maturity and they can do Ibogaine. There are layers of the onion that are already kind of permeable. In other words, they can see the light at the end of the tunnel because they’ve created something of a life for themselves and they don’t need as much. They don’t need it to relocate a hundred miles away. They don’t even necessarily, although it still would be worthy for them. It would be useful for them to do therapy, but the person that’s in their 20’s that’s been an addict for eight years and they’re 25 years old, since they’re 17 they’ve been running away from their issues and that they’d been doing opiates. They don’t have a support system, being taken care of by mom and dad let’s say, with an occasional few months of homelessness and then parents take them back out of terrible, agonizing fear that their son or daughter could die on the street.
JEFF: Right. Yeah.
RICHIE: If they go back, they go back to their roof and their room, if they don’t do anything, invariably they’re going to relapse. So what I learned early on was, and it was given to me, after seeing like 100 or 200 treatments and seeing that the symptoms of withdrawal eliminated by like 90%-100%. I began to speak with people on the phone, very matter of factly, that okay, I know what Ibogaine can do but I know its down size. I know what it can’t do. You’re going to be place, if not thrown into a pre [inaudible] state but you’re still be carrying the baggage that brought to you in the situation in the first place to some degree, depending upon the willingness of the person has to really explore deeply during that 36 hour reflective experience because some people say it was like 10 years of therapy rolled into a two day, three stage process. And they get so much out of the Ibogaine session, but that’s only the people that have the willingness to take a look inside. Ibogaine is not going to force a person to look at anything that they choose not to explore. Organics like Ibogaine, tend to create symbiotic relationship. In other words, they don’t force a person like LSD or tend to say: “Hey man, you’re going to look at this whether you like it or not.” And then sometimes a person has a bad trip and it takes them a few years to catch up with [inaudible].
JEFF: [inaudible].
RICHIE: Exactly. Right. Whereas organic don’t that and so –
JEFF: So Richie –
RICHIE: – a person, let me finish, a person at 25 years old can actually squirt their issues. You know, they don’t really end up going deep in fact, with 25 year old will come out of Ibogaine session, you know, because of the propensity they have not to go inside to so many years. They’ll say: “I have no idea what I just experienced. All I know is that I’m not craving and I didn’t go through any withdrawal.”
JEFF: Yeah. Kind of to summarize what I heard you say there is that people who are younger are more vulnerable to relapse and, you know, people who are older have more life and time on the planet and maturity. It seems like that maturity is helpful in the deep exploration part of three days.
RICHIE: Absolutely. Right. And if a younger person have family that’s mature and that has the means through which to set up a couple of other components to the after care process, then that person has a terrific chance of staying clean after Ibogaine. It necessitates a couple of things being put into place and those two things are essential and one is therapy and the other one is relocating and starting their life all over again somewhere else.
JEFF: Well, the other thing that I think of is support for the family to create conditions that are inhospitable to active addiction in the family structure.
RICHIE: Amen. [laughs]
JEFF: And so I would add on to that piece right there, but I’m realizing –
RICHIE: Jeff, I talk with parents about just what you said for more hours than I talk about the Ibogaine.
JEFF: Yeah, yeah. Well that’s, I mean, in my world here, in working with families, that’s what I’m set up to do. That’s my whole focus is, you know, focusing on the family piece to support them. Kind of having a larger understanding of what else going on in the structure of the family to where they can, like, there’s language out there, you know, like enabler and codependent and all that kind of stuff that really pathologized family members. And I don’t see what family members are doing as pathology. And so I think that’s one of the things that stops them from taking advantage of resources that are out there. And the Ibogaine thing, I mean, things happen so quickly, you know, from the detox standpoint, but I know enough about, you know, the addiction piece is you just can’t take away the chemical or process and assume everything’s going to be fine because it won’t be, you know.
RICHIE: Right. Yeah.
JEFF: So, yeah, this is, I’m realizing I could talk with you for quite a while and that you have, you know, many years of stories here. And so I’m wondering like for people that would like to connect with you and maybe ask you questions about their specific situation, is that something that you are open to or like how –
RICHIE: Oh, sure.
JEFF: Yeah.
RICHIE: I’m available anytime for a phone call without having to schedule anything in advance. I’m old school, so just call me. Remember when you just call people.
JEFF: [laughs] I do remember Richie. I’m old enough. I do.
RICHIE: Right. Me too. I could give out my email address, but I actually would prefer a phone call.
JEFF: Sure. So what’s your phone number?
RICHIE: Phone number is probably the best phone number to use is area code 352 here in Gainesville, Florida. (352) 519-6181.
JEFF: Okay.
RICHIE: And my website, my recent website is www.ibogawithrichie.com. So that’s I-B as in boy, O-G as in George, A with R-I-C-H-I-E And my email address could be, Ibeginagain@aol.com just the way it’s spelled. I begin again@aol.com
JEFF: Yeah. And so, if you know people connecting with you, you can be a resource for them to one, have an understanding of the three different models and I didn’t ask you about that. Like from the medical model to the shaman model kind of thing.
RICHIE: Right.
JEFF: And then you can help kind of point them in the right direction or –
RICHIE: Right, right. Because there are some very wonderful centers and Ibogaine providers that are caring and dedicated and then there are some others that are just in it for the money and kind of not really stable enough to be having this responsibility. And I would like people to be referred to centers that will take well care of their loved ones.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, so thank you very much. And so one last question before we end here. And that is like if you had the ear of every family member with an addicted loved ones, specifically heroin, since that’s what we’ve been talking quite a bit about. If you had the ear of every family member with an addicted loved one, what would you want them to know?
RICHIE: Well, that someday I hope that Ibogaine is legal in the United States and that it has a room in every VA hospital in the country that is facilitating this addiction interruption tool. It’s the most humane and the most efficient addiction interrupter that I’ve come across on the planet. And the fact that it gives people insight as well into their process is such a bonus. So it has a miracle component to it and it’s just something that I would love if more people were taking advantage of more often.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah – yeah. Great. Well thank you very much Richie. I appreciate this conversation. You taking the time and yeah, and I am going to I’m still in my own learning process here with this, so thank you.
RICHIE: Well thank you very much for inviting me.
JEFF: You’re welcome.