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TRIP OF A LIFETIME Nothing could help Decca Aitkenhead process her grief after her husband drowned in Jamaica. Until she returned there for a magic mushroom retreat PHOTOGRAPHS BY ABBIE TOWNSEND have never felt so sick, abandoned or attention is drawn to an antique silver INNER VISIONS PARADISE FOUND terminally alone. A dragging sickness case on the sideboard, which we were Left: One of the Below, top: the in my stomach grows insistent, told contains a limitless supply of spliffs MycoMeditations resort’s idyllic until the nausea is worse than hand-rolled at dawn every day by the “facilitators”, Justin, surroundings. chemotherapy, morning sickness and butler. It all felt promisingly fun. I’d taken checks in with Bottom: guests food poisoning combined. Everything mushrooms recreationally years ago, and Decca during a trip enjoy fine dining around me has been draped in a had a hoot; the promise of a deeper psychic ghostly white sheer netting, cleanse this time is thrilling. transforming this beautiful lush The following day, holding a plastic tub of recklessly “high-risk rave”. Eric had to go on tropical garden into Miss Havisham’s fat grey capsules, each containing 0.5g of national TV to try to reassure Jamaicans attic. Wherever I turn, everything is ugly, psilocybin, the retreat director, Eric that psilocybin poses no long-term threat Ideathly and hostile. I’d always wondered Osborne, goes round the circle calculating to mental health. His views are backed by what a bad psychedelic trip would be like. our optimal starter doses according to body scientists at Johns Hopkins who, in 2018, An hour ago I took 9g of psilocybin, and size, drug experience and emotional stated that “psilocybin is one of the least now I know. constitution. My only worry is my first dose harmful drugs to society” and called for the The staff members dotted around the won’t be big enough. Whether it’s dental legal classification of mushrooms to be garden look sinister and menacing. One has anaesthetic or hair dye, I always seem to need reduced in America. Since then, the cities turned into an eerie statue and appears to Baltimore, which unveiled its own centre more than everyone else. Eric recommends of Denver, Colorado, and Oakland, be levitating on the wall. The fellow guest for “psychedelic and consciousness” 9g for me, we glug down the pills and California, have effectively decriminalised lying on the lawn resembles a corpse. The studies. Results so far have been disperse to our designated trip locations. psilocybin. Yet in Jamaica, the controversy only refuge I can think of is my bed, but astonishing. Patients report miraculous and And now here I am, completely off my continues to rage, flamed by rumours that getting there from my sun lounger is a enduring psychological transformations, head — and psilocybin very definitely isn’t a body of psychiatrists is preparing to Herculean challenge of co-ordination, and and the vast majority rank psilocybin one of working for me. demand that Myco be closed down. Frankly, turns out only to make matters worse. the five most meaningful experiences of It must be around sunset when Eric by the end of my first trip, I’d have been I have never felt more nauseous or isolated, their life. According to Home Office data, appears at my bedside. “Eric,” I groan. inclined to agree. or wretched with regret. Coming here was 1% of men and 0.4% of women aged 16-59 in “I hate you. This is the worst thing I’ve ever a truly terrible idea. England and Wales took hallucinogens last done.” He smiles, supremely unfazed. my nostrils is going to help? You might as n the morning after our first dose, we I’m in Jamaica to try to process a series year. And if further proof were needed that “Uh-huh. Yup. Wishing you were dead?” well tell me to bring a penknife to a nuclear WIDOWHOOD HAS LEFT ME gather for “integration” to discuss our of catastrophic traumas. In 2014 my life “shrooms” are becoming more mainstream, “I have literally longed for nothing else.” war. What else have you got?” experiences. With the exception of a imploded when my partner drowned after look no further than The Goop Lab — He says I feel sick because I’m purging “Well, you could try getting on all fours FEELING DISCONNECTED FROM 25-year-old advertising executive rescuing our four-year-old son from an Gwyneth Paltrow’s new “wellness” the trauma within me. “But I’m really good on the ground and kind of rootling around.” from San Francisco called Mike, I’m ocean riptide. A year later I underwent a docu-series for Netflix — which follows a at taking drugs! This nausea isn’t my “You want me to pretend to be a badger? THE WORLD, IMPERSONATING MY Othe youngest in the group. Paula is a retired double mastectomy and chemotherapy group on a psilocybin retreat. trauma; it’s your mushrooms.” Are you insane? You’re useless.” biology teacher, here to resolve existential for breast cancer, and had to abandon our I signed up for a week at a magic “Yeah,” he nods, smiling. “I hear that Every time I open my eyes, the OLD SELF WHILE INSIDE FEELING angst about her mortality; her husband, Jay, rural family home, which my sons loved, mushroom facility, MycoMeditations, and a lot.” hallucinogenic visuals are still grotesque. is a retired pathologist intellectually curious for a city they loathed. Although in remission in December I draw up with a friend at “How much longer will this last?” The nausea gets so overwhelming I beg for BLANK. NOTHING HAS HELPED about psilocybin after reading Pollan’s book. now, I’m haunted by fear of orphaning a string of opulent villas overlooking a He studies me. “By the looks of you, death. Eric says he’s seen this all a thousand Married for 37 years, they share a sober- them and can’t escape the shadow of cliché of turquoise Caribbean sea. There another good hour at least. What you’re times; up to a third of first trips go like this. minded, scientific sensibility, and have not cancer. Widowhood has left me feeling are eight other guests from America, mostly doing now, this is the work.” Finally, thankfully, I fall asleep. At 2am, taken drugs before. disconnected from the world, impersonating middle-aged or retired, and with seven “This isn’t work, you lunatic!” I wake with a banging headache, a mouth A retired computer engineer describes my old self while inside feeling blank. I think retreat staff we dine by candlelight on fine “We could try some nostril-movement.” like a decomposing rodent and legs too “a general sadness and unhappiness that’s I conceal it well, but know I’m in considerably china. The only clue that this isn’t your I struggle to sit up, tangled in sheets, to wobbly to walk. Come dawn, I decide, I will manifested in anger against the world. worse shape than I pretend to be. I have tried standard luxury resort comes when our shout at him properly. “You think wiggling pack my bag and get out of here. I have had a successful life. But it hasn’t therapy, yoga — even veganism — but To MycoMeditations’ critics, my brought joy.” An airline pilot has similarly nothing seems to have helped. unhappy first dose would confirm all their “achieved a lot of things” and ostensibly When a friend suggested magic fears about psilocybin. Prohibited in almost “had a wonderful life”, but his jokey mushrooms, I thought he was joking. every country on the planet, the bonhomie conceals a lifetime of self- Then I read How to Change Your Mind, hallucinogen is legal in Jamaica only loathing. In secret he self-medicates on Michael Pollan’s 2018 bestseller about the because no government ever got round to alcohol and pills, disgusted by shame, emergence of a new psychedelic medical outlawing it. Thanks to this legislative terrified that his innate badness will be movement. Psilocybin, mushrooms’ active oversight, the island has now become a exposed. “If people know the truth about psychedelic ingredient, is currently being global mecca for magic mushroom retreats; me, I’m in trouble.” A venture capitalist is trialled in leading university hospitals MycoMeditations, founded by Eric, is the another middle-aged high achiever across North America and Europe on market leader but still can’t keep pace with privately wrestling with unresolved patients suffering from depression, anxiety, rocketing international demand. In 2018, self-doubt and remorse. post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive- he ran 12 retreats; this year, 36 are already There’s a psychiatrist, Simon, who compulsive disorder, addictions and eating booked, with a long waiting list of guests looks like a success story on paper, too, but disorders. Last year, Imperial College willing to pay up to $11,000. He hopes describes his preschool sons as “terrorists” London launched the world’s first Centre the Jamaican government will see the to whom he feels “more like a stepfather for Psychedelic Research, followed by Johns potential for the country to capitalise on than a dad”. The most nakedly troubled Hopkins University School of Medicine in its accidental status as a psilocybin leader, guest is Mike, just 25, who resembles an but as MycoMeditations’ profile grows artist’s impression of pure, unadulterated he fears a backlash. human pain. Mike can’t make eye contact, SHROOM SERVICE FOREST BATHING A former teacher from Kentucky, with and his body looks as though it would Above: doses vary Right: Decca enjoys a deep Southern drawl, Eric doesn’t look always rather be anywhere than wherever according to body a moment of calm or sound like anyone’s idea of a mental it finds itself.