Understanding the First Two Weeks After Ibogaine

By Anders Beatty

When your child or loved one completes ibogaine treatment, it’s natural to want them close. You’ve longed for this moment—when the chaos quiets, the pain recedes, and perhaps for the first time in a long time, there’s a glimpse of your child again.

So why, after such a powerful healing experience, are they not coming home?

Why are they going somewhere else—away from family, from familiarity, from you?

The answer is both simple and profound:

Because the first two weeks after ibogaine are sacred—and delicate.

And returning to the familiar too soon can undo what the medicine has just begun.
—
The Liminal Phase: A Threshold, Not a Return

Ibogaine initiates what we call a liminal state—a time of transition between who they were and who they are becoming.

It’s not recovery, and it’s not yet integration.

It is a deep reorganisation of the psyche, nervous system, and identity.

Think of it like spiritual open-heart surgery. The work isn’t over when the medicine wears off—it’s only just begun.

In this phase, your loved one is emotionally porous, neurologically fragile, and spiritually raw. They are deeply sensitive to energy, to tone, to memory, to anything familiar—especially family systems.

—

Why They Need Space from Familiarity

It’s not about blame. It’s not about you having done anything wrong.

But the home environment—however loving—is part of the old identity structure.

Returning to the same patterns, roles, or dynamics (even unconsciously) can reactivate the very survival mechanisms ibogaine has helped dismantle.

By landing elsewhere, they are creating a clean container. A liminal cocoon.
A space where there are no reminders of the past.
No old roles to slip back into.
No one to perform for.
No history to manage.

This distance is not rejection.
It is an act of deep self-respect—and, in truth, an act of respect toward you as well.

—

If Something Goes Wrong, It’s Not the Familiar’s Fault

There’s something else important to name, gently but clearly:

If your child were to return home and things went wrong—emotionally, psychologically, or behaviorally—it would be almost inevitable that blame or responsibility would fall on the family environment.

This isn’t fair to you.
And it’s not fair to them.

That’s why a neutral space is essential.

If there are setbacks or difficulties—and there often are—they can be held without entangling them with family history, guilt, or confusion.

This is about clearing the slate, not for avoidance, but for genuine integration.

—

What You Can Do From Afar

You still have a powerful role. But it may look different than expected.

Bless the distance: Affirm their choice to land elsewhere. Let them know you understand and support it.

Stay connected, lightly: Short, encouraging messages. No pressure for updates.

Avoid emotional loading: Don’t make this about missing them, being hurt, or not understanding. That will only confuse and burden their process.

Trust the process: This space is a vital part of their return—not a delay of it.

—

In Closing

Your child is not pulling away.
They are stepping into something new. Something they’ve perhaps never had: a truly sovereign space to discover who they are outside of addiction, outside of trauma, outside of family dynamics.

This space is not forever.
But it is essential.

Let this be the greatest gift you can give them:
The gift of not needing them to be ready before they are.
The gift of not pulling them back into something too small for what they’re becoming.
The gift of letting them complete the crossing.

As the poet John O’Donohue wrote,
“To come home to yourself, may all that is unforgiven in you be released.”

And this—this space—is where that coming home truly begins.

With warmth and deep respect,
Anders Beatty