Nine people describe combining psychedelics with 12-Step recovery from addiction

The question

What do people in recovery from addiction say about using psychedelics alongside a 12-Step program?

What they did

Researchers ran a small pilot qualitative study, meaning they interviewed people and analyzed what they said rather than measuring test scores. Between November 2022 and February 2023 they collected data from nine individuals who were in remission from alcohol, opioid or stimulant use disorders. All had used ayahuasca, ibogaine, psilocybin and/or peyote outside of clinical care while also taking part in a 12-Step program. Participants were recruited deliberately through a community partner, not selected at random.

What they found

Participants said they turned to psychedelics because of ongoing struggles with sobriety, psychological distress during abstinence, dissatisfaction with existing addiction treatments, and because this community-based route felt more reachable than formal clinical care. They described reduced cravings, spiritual and psychological mechanisms of change, and a sense that psychedelics worked together with Steps 2, 4 and 11. They also raised tensions with the abstinence-based philosophy of 12-Step programs, and risks tied to unsupervised psychedelic use were a central theme in their accounts. Overall, the nine participants felt psychedelics deepened their Step-work and improved their social and psychological well-being.

The fine print

Only nine people took part, and they were intentionally recruited through a community partner, so their views cannot be generalized to 12-Step communities as a whole. There was no comparison group, no objective measure of substance use, and all findings rest on personal accounts. The authors themselves note the findings are not meant to generalize. This summary is based on the abstract alone.

What it means

This is an early descriptive look at a practice some people in recovery are already using, not evidence that psychedelics help addiction. It raises questions, including about the risks of unsupervised use, that larger and more rigorous studies would need to answer.

Evidence grade: Very low. A small pilot interview study with nine intentionally recruited people, no control group and self-reported experiences only.

This summary is based on the study’s published abstract.