I Treated My Depression With Ayahuasca in the Amazon Jungle

I have suffered from depression and anxiety for many years. I’m pretty sure it runs in the family since my mother and one of my uncles both have problems with it. It’s just something I inherited. Lucky me, huh?

I can actually remember being a kid in elementary and high school and getting incredibly depressed, like I just didn’t want to even be in the world anymore. I made it through my teen years, but I had something happen to me that made my depression many times worse. My dad died in a very public way – the accident that caused his death ended up on the national news. All of this happened 24 years ago, when I was just 18. 

I grew up in a small coal mining community in the Appalachian Mountains. Despite all of the stereotypes, it wasn’t a bad place to grow up. It was a peaceful community and I had several good friends.

An Accident that Changed My Life

My father was a coal miner, as were both of my grandparents and several uncles. Although it ran in the family, I knew from an early age that it wasn’t for me. My father worked the night shift, and one night – December 7, 1992 – my mother got a phone call that no spouse should ever have to receive. There had been an explosion of methane gas deep within the mine. My dad and seven other men were trapped.

I’ll spare you the long story of the rescue operation that was conducted to reach my dad and the others. It took five painfully long days to find them. To this day I’ll never forget tuning in to CNN Headlline News – every half hour and on the hour – and watching reports of the “trapped miners.” My dad and all of the others were found deceased.

As a direct result of losing my father in this terrible accident – and having to take care of my severely depressed mother after that – I plunged into the depths of major depression. In short, life sucked and every day was a struggle. I was treated for many years off and on with antidepressant medications, but they don’t work very well. And they have a lot of nasty side effects, too. Antidepressant medications were little more than a band-aid that covered up my symptoms. They did nothing to get to the root of the problem.

Discovering Ayahuasca

As many people who have an illness of some kind do, I turned to the internet for a solution – anything that might help. I kept reading about this thing called ayahuasca (pronounced: eye-uh-wasca). I read many accounts of people claiming to be completely cured of depression, anxiety, OCD, fibromyalgia, and other things. I even found some actual medical research that had been conducted on ayahuasca that proves it causes the growth of new brain cells. 

Ayahuasca is a powerful psychedelic tea that the indigenous peoples of the Amazon Jungle have been making and using for thousands of years. It is made by combining two plants and making a tea out of them. Taken individually, neither plant does anything. But when combined, they form one of the most powerful psychedelic compounds known. 

No one is sure how the people of the jungle figured out how to make ayahuasca. Of the tens of thousands of plants that are in the jungle, how they knew to combine these two specific plants is a complete mystery. But combine them they did. 

To the Jungle

After extensively researching ayahuasca, I felt like I didn’t have much to lose, especially since I was close to suicide any. I found an ayahuasca retreat online (there are many of them to choose from), booked it, and then caught a flight to Iquitos, Peru – a city that is also known as the Capital of the Amazon.

Iquitos, Peru is a remarkable place. It is the largest city in the world that is not accessible by car. You can’t drive to it because there are no roads leading to it. You can only get there either by boat up the Amazon River, or by plane. I was in a bit of a hurry, so I chose to fly. 

I met the retreat owner at a local dive bar in Iquitos with the other people who were staying at the retreat at the appointed time. We chatted a bit and then traveled by bus to the retreat, about a one hour drive outside of the city. There are a few roads that snake their way out of the city, but they don’t go far. They all stop at villages outside of the city. 

Each of us was shown to our rooms. I got a room all to myself – a small jungle hut away from the main common area with a small bed, a hammock, and a toilet. Perfect.

The Tobacco Ceremony

Later that evening all of the retreat participants assembled in a type of meeting room called a maloka, which is a large, circular hut where all of the ayahuasca ceremonies are held. The purpose of us gathering this evening, however, was for the tobacco ceremony.

I vaguely recalled reading something about a tobacco ceremony on the retreat’s website, but I didn’t know anything about it. I never really gave it any thought. I guess I just thought the local shaman would blow tobacco smoke on us as he blessed us (or something like that). 

I was wrong. 

The tobacco ceremony actually involves drinking a tea that was made from a type of tobacco that grows in the jungle. The purpose of drinking this tea was to make us throw up. The shamans believe that throwing up cleanses people of negative energies, something we needed to do before experiencing ayahuasca. 

We all gathered in a semi-circle on the floor of the maloka and one-by-one we went up to receive a cup of the noxious-tasting tea. It was quite possibly the most horrible tasting thing I’ve ever drank. It tasted exactly like cigarette smoke smells. After drinking it I went back to my spot and waited to throw up. 

All around me people were throwing up into the small buckets that were provided for us. It was truly a bizarre scene. Eventually a very heavy nausea gripped my stomach and I joined them. The tobacco ceremony was now over and my negative energies were now presumably cleansed.

A Trip to Hell

The following evening at dusk we gathered once again in the maloka. It was now time to experience what we had all traveled so far for – it was time to experience ayahuasca. 

By the dim light of a small oil lantern in the middle of the room, the shaman blessed the ayahuasca by blowing smoke into it. He then said a prayer in Spanish over the ayahuasca he was about to serve us and finished by making the sign of the cross. We were then each called one by one to go up to him and drink a cup of the psychedelic tea. I had read about how horrible ayahuasca was supposed to taste, but compared to the tobacco tea, it wasn’t bad at all. It just kind of had an earthy taste to it. After everyone in the room had drank of the ayahuasca – including the retreat owner and the shaman – the oil lantern was extinguished. Everything went dark. 

I closed my eyes and patiently waited to see the amazing visuals I had read so much about. I don’t how long I waited – about 30 minutes, I think – but that’s when I first started to see things.

The first thing I remember seeing was the image of a Mayan (or possibly Aztec) face, like the kind you see carved on old ruins. In a flash it appeared before me and then disappeared. 

And that’s when I saw it.

I can only describe what I saw as an evil entity. It just appeared before me like some kind of apparition from a movie – an entity wearing a long, hooded robe of some kind. It reached out and pulled a curtain back, like it wanted me to see whatever was behind it. And in an instant I was there.

I was in hell. 

It’s difficult to describe what I experienced, but I will certainly try. I physically felt very hot all over. Everything around me was dark, but I could see a soft glow all around me. And the sound was awful. I could hear a loud roaring sound all around me, like the sound of countless souls being tormented. And to make matters worse, I had a feeling of total hopelessness while I was experiencing everything, like I really was in hell and there was no way out. I can’t even begin to describe how incredibly disturbing it all was.

I stayed in the realm of hell for a very long time, at least 3-4 hours I think, although it felt like an eternity. Eventually I came out of it and the ceremony was over. 

A Difficult Decision

Because my ayahuasca experience was so difficult, I made the hard decision not to use it again on that trip. I was scheduled to use it at least six times during the trip, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of going through such a difficult experience again. 

Even though I didn’t use ayahuasca again, I did continue to work with another type of psychedelic that has healing properties known as San Pedro, a cacti containing the psychedelic mescaline, the same active ingredient in peyote. 

My San Pedro experiences were absolutely amazing. If there’s enough interest, I would be glad to write about my San Pedro experiences in another article.

Is My Depression Cured?

I felt absolutely amazing after returning from my trip. I felt the happiest I had felt in many, many years. The retreat owner did caution me, however, that I probably would not be cured after using ayahuasca only one time. He said I would have to use it several times to be cured. He was right. My euphoria lasted a couple of months, and then I slowly started having days again here and there where I would get a little down.

Was my trip to the Amazon Jungle a failure? No, and here’s why: Although I do still have days on occasion where I don’t feel the best, I can honestly say that my lows don’t go anywhere near as low as they used to. And the days where I do feel down don’t happen as frequently as they used to, either. I may not be cured, but the severity of my symptoms has been dramatically reduced. I don’t sit around thinking about killing myself anymore, and that’s a major improvement for me.

Because of the obvious benefits I got from using ayahuasca, I’m seriously considering giving it another try. Most people who use it have amazing experiences, sometimes even euphoric. The bad experiences – like I had – are actually in the minority.

As ayahuasca continues to increase in popularity, many more ayahuasca retreats are springing up in different countries, like Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Mexico, and others. For my next trip I might try to go to a place that is a little less remote. Either Costa Rica or Ecuador, I think. 

I can’t wait!