Taking Ibogaine with a bunch of Special Forces Vets

Part 1

Last Monday morning, I climbed into a white Subaru with Mexican license plates in front of the Sheraton Hotel in San Diego, alongside four U.S. Army veterans who had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and suffered traumatic brain injuries there. I didn’t know any of the men, the driver was also a stranger to me, and somehow I felt lost, and also very small and frail next to the guy sitting beside me in the back seat, whose upper arms were thicker than my thighs.

It didn’t take long for the scenery to change. The familiar image of affluent American society, with its functional highways, supermarket outlets, and fast-food restaurants, gave way to a fence, and then the border crossing. Ben, who worked for a veterans’ organization, and would be accompanying the vets on their journey, gave us instructions from the passenger seat: “Especially on the way back, when we’re re-entering the U.S., if a border agent asks why we were in Mexico, just say we spent time at a wellness retreat. That’s enough. Please don’t mention anything about crazy psychedelic drugs…”

Everyone laughed, including me.

Then we were in Mexico, approaching Tijuana, the sprawling city just a few kilometers South from San Diego, yet seemingly from another world: slums along the roadside, chaotic construction, and ruins of unfinished buildings everywhere. “Up there is the Vets’ House,” Ben explained, pointing to a hill high above the Pacific Ocean. “That’s one of Ambio’s locations. That’s where we’re headed.”

My nervousness had grown by now. In the weeks leading up to this, there had even been moments when I considered calling the whole thing off. I felt relatively okay with my life, so why would I risk anything?

This trip was about Ibogaine, the ultra-potent alkaloid from the African rainforest shrub Iboga, whose secret lies underground in its roots. Ibogaine has caused a stir in recent years for its ability to eliminate dependencies—whether on alcohol, cocaine, heroin, opioids, or even the highly dangerous fentanyl. Allegedly, a single dose is often enough to eliminate any craving for these addictive substances.

To learn more beforehand, I had met with Professor Dalibor Sames from Columbia University in New York, the world’s leading Ibogain researcher: “Habits, like repetitive thoughts, for example, develop into grooves in the brain, imprints in the neural network. Depression literally presses itself in. And then comes Ibogaine… Classic psychedelics, like LSD or psilocybin, fit like keys into locks: a door opens, leading to a cascade of neural activity. Ibogaine works differently. It’s not so targeted. It seems to have known our brain for a very long time and addresses all problem areas simultaneously—all the grooves, imprints, and entanglements. Neurotransmissions are optimized, synapses are cleaned, everything is fine-tuned. It’s like an upgrade to the neural network. A team of tiny specialists swarming up there—a biotechnology like we’ve never seen before. This promotes the brain’s self-reconstruction, its neuroplasticity. New connections form between nerve cells, and that’s exactly what leads to a reduction in unwanted habits like addiction, feelings of inferiority, faulty thinking, or neurotic fears like eating disorders and so on. These negative patterns in the brain are smoothed out, dissolved. They disappear when the brain remains plastic, adaptable. And Ibogaine ensures that.”

Recent studies, he added, show that the alkaloid stimulates the production of the nerve growth factor GDNF (Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor), which plays a key role in neuron regeneration. Additionally, Ibogaine increases the expression of BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor), which is critical for neuron growth, synapse formation, and learning—processes tied to the evolution of the frontal cortex, responsible for planning, social cognition, and abstract thinking. In animal studies, Ibogaine was shown to promote the formation of new neural processes, called dendrites, which enhances neuroplasticity. Cognitive restructuring, a kind of rewiring of the brain, and the healing of brain injuries (including trauma) are the results. It counteracts dementia and boosts brain energy.

That had convinced me. But there’s a catch: Ibogaine not only promotes brain growth but also puts strain on the heart, blocking potassium channels that allow the heart to electrically recover after each beat. This reset process is prolonged under Ibogaine’s influence, causing the heart to beat slightly slower. In rare cases, particularly in people with pre-existing heart conditions, this can have consequences—sometimes severe ones. The heart may fall out of rhythm, skip a beat, leading to arrhythmias. Since data is limited and inconsistent, there are no official figures, but in rare cases, depending on dosage, sensitivity, pre-existing conditions, or genetic factors, this can become dangerous, and people have died.

That’s why it’s especially important, more so than with other psychedelics, to take Ibogaine in a safe setting. There are a few reputable providers for this, including Ambio in Tijuana, Mexico, where Ibogaine is not banned, unlike in the U.S.

The van stopped, and Ben, Judd, Mark, Mike, Nathan, and I got out. What would wait for us behind the doors of the Ambio-house?