First off I want to send my love and sincerity to all the members of this forum as I have been a "lurker" for the past two years of my spice-o-nautical journeys....and believe me if it wasn't for a site such as this who knows where I would be...you are a bunch of well-rounded intelligent individuals who are genuinely concerned about their members in regards to safe and responsible psychedelic use and have helped to ground me in more ways than you guys know. Again Thank You as you all have my upmost respect!
A little about myself....I am a southerner in the USA (NM) and wouldn't want to be anywhere else as I feel like I am truly home in this world. I have not always felt this way as it has taken me quite some time to accept this especially during the rough adolescent years of my life...growing up in a single family household with a mother who was a workaholic and occasionally visiting my father who was struggling with alcoholism, my sister and I were just trying to find our place under not so favorable circumstances. So we did what any kid would do.....try and find acceptance through friends which now looking back was a huge mistake but at the same time I wouldn't want to change anything in my past as I truly feel I needed to go through the journey I have to shape the person I am today.
I started using psychedelics at a way too early age...my first lsd trip was when I was 13 years old. I always hung out with the older kids since my sister was a couple years older than me, so I had connections. My first lsd experience was amazing and scary at the same time because the group of friends that I first started to trip with were not the best of company but I was later able to find a group of friends who liked to trip and were good company so we would trip often and we had only good experiences....mushrooms made their way into my life. My friends and I absolutely loved mushrooms as we were dosing them quite regularly that is until the night two of my friends and I had a nightmare of an experience. This experience still makes my blood curl...My friend shot my dog in my living room with my handgun and was going to originally point the gun at my friend instead. That night I can easily say I had a mental breakdown in front of everyone and I learned a lot about how we were living our lives the wrong way leading up to that point and what disturbed me the most was how little remorse my friend showed regarding the situation; but I forgave him...I was literally drug to hell and back. We all were pretty scared straight for a while...I would still trip off mushrooms every now and then.
I can say I took a good ten year integration period from all psyches; made some big changes in my life which allowed for me to obtain a bachelors in science; found the love of my life and married her; found a challenging yet rewarding career as a professional scientist; started a family that is more beautiful than I could ever imagined...yes I feel like I am very blessed with everything that has been given to me so far....but everything comes with a cost in this life.
Within my "integration" period I still had some life experiences that I had not thoroughly integrated even to this day...which is the reason for my calling back to psychedelics. The two major life experiences I have yet to fully integrate are 1) the loss of my father to alcoholism and 2) the sudden unexplainable development of a lifelong disease known as Graves ‘disease.
I had trouble with the death of my father even though I have many not so good memories of him as a child. We were able to get very close to each other right before he got sick. We would take fishing trips to catch trophy trout and smoke lots of weed and drink beer. I remember one of the trips I had brought some a bag of mushrooms for us to eat together which he wouldn't partake because he said that he didn't enjoy the effects only when smoked...so that was the first time smoking mushrooms as I really didn't notice anything but a euphoric feeling that was anything more intense than the potent cannabis we were smoking...I remember having a deep conversation with him like never before and that night was really special to me. Within a year and a half he would succumb to liver cirrhosis. What really tears me up was that I wasn't with him at the last moments of his death even though I knew in my heart when that moment was going to be. What brings me peace is knowing that we were able to make an amends before and that my faith led me to believe we will meet again. I have just started the book "Supernatural" which brings up some of the same emotion I have endured. I would be open to the possibility to meet with him again using ayahuasca and/or ibogaine sacraments.
My thyroid disease developed not too long after the death of my father. I had to undergo two radioactive iodine treatments to "burn out" my thyroid as the doctors said that I was one of the worst cases they had seen. I don't have a family history as what the doctors are believing what the cause to be. I know it is because I have been living my life so unbalanced that my body is starting to become affected. On top of thyroid disease I have been battling debilitating migraines from the age of seven but during the radioactive treatments I was getting a headache at least a couple times a week. I was really on the verge of another kind of breakdown but I fought with all my energy to get through it..I would wake up in a kind of stupor where it would resemble some sort of panic attack during that time. I was in bad shape until I received my calling back to the beautiful mushrooms and my introduction to the spice.
It took me a while to warm up to the idea of trying the spice as I was skeptical..I like most people were like "oh yeh another drug just what I need". so I did my research and decided to partake as I felt I had enough experiences with other substances under my belt. This was like nothing else but my ego was still fighting it..I remember thinking "fuck that why would anyone want to smoke that stuff, I'm throwing the rest of that shit away" but little did I know the experience was just the beginning and the integration led me to believe otherwise later on. Did I throw it away, hell no! I began to research more and more and I decided to grow my own batch of mushrooms and have had two successful grows...I decided to get my own batch of bark and yes do my own extraction with one first and only successful extraction under my belt as well with many more to come!
When I began to take mushrooms and smoke spice regularly I have noticed a huge shift in the way I perceive and act in this world and only for the better. I remember the experience that made me crack and totally change my way of thinking..I clearly have been living my way the wrong way before my return to psyches. Since I have been taking mushrooms and spice regularly my headaches have dissipated for over a year for the first time in my life...I feel I already have been given the gift of healing.
I have come further than I could've ever imagined and I know there is an unbound potential with these special sacraments. Every day that I am alive is a beautiful day as I feel I have been given a second chance to spread the love. Even though, there is no one I could relate to in my daily life as many of my old friends have been scared off psyches a long time ago maybe one day. At least I have a beautiful and supporting wife who has seen the difference and does share my passion for them even though she has yet to experience them for herself....soon enough in time my friends
