Addiction, PTSD & Longevity: How Ibogaine and Psychedelics Can Help to Break Free | Talia Eisenberg

Hey there, I'm Claudia von Boeselager, a former investment banker turned entrepreneur, longevity coach, biohacker, and mother of two. Once burnt out and overwhelmed with chronic health issues, I've transformed my life and helped thousands of people do the same. I've even reduced my biological age by 17 years. Yes, I'm 26 again. Now I'm here to share the tools, strategies, and inspiration to help you live healthier, happier, and longer. On this podcast, I interview world-leading experts in health, biohacking, mindset, and performance, and share personal stories and learnings to bring you the latest insights and tips. Think of this as your go-to space for real talk about all things health and optimizing your life. Ready to unlock your best self? Let's dive in. This is the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast.

My guest today is Talia Eisenberg, a visionary entrepreneur and leading voice in psychedelic-assisted therapy. As the co-founder of Beyond Iboga, ibogaine, she's pioneering a new approach to addiction recovery, trauma healing, and mental health optimization. Talia's journey is deeply personal. After struggling with opioid dependence from a routine medical procedure, she discovered ibogaine treatment, which transformed her life. That experience led her to create Beyond, combining cutting-edge medical protocols with holistic healing to help others break free from addiction and trauma. Beyond Beyond, she's an advocate for psychedelic research, co-founding the Ibogaine Research Institute and supporting global efforts to bring alternative therapies into mainstream healthcare. Today, we'll discuss the science of ibogaine, the future of psychedelic medicine, and what it really takes to heal from the inside out.

Please enjoy.

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Welcome to the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast, Talia. I'm really excited to have you with us today.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

And I wanted to congratulate you, Talia, because I understand you became a mother not too recent— not too long ago. So about a year ago, I think now. And I understand you did some innovative therapies to expedite recovery. Can you share what you did?

Sure. Yeah, that's correct. Bella is going to be 1 year old actually tomorrow. Oh, congratulations. Thank you so much. Yeah, she was born here in Cancún, so she's a Mexican citizen. Mexicana. She's a Mexicana. We love, you know, the culture. We're grateful to be here.

Yeah.

About 3 days after having her— so I had a C-section, which I have another child who also had a C-section, which I wasn't planning for, but, you know, afterwards you typically have to have another C-section. Yeah. So about 3 days afterwards, I did do stem cells, IV stem cells. I had one of our physicians come over to the house and give me IV stem cells. And I think that's what helped me recover so quickly, to be honest, besides, you know, diet and exercise, light exercise and things like that. But my friends were like, God, how are you in Europe already? It's only been a couple months. You have a 2-month-old newborn and you guys are bopping around Europe and, you know, you're going to work with her at the clinic at Beyond and the baby Bjorn, and you have all this energy. And I think, uh, I think it's because that's one of the reasons is the stem cells.

What type of stem cells? Like, what did you do?

Was it topical?

Was it like a spray of the amniotic one, or did you do the infusion? Like, which—

it was infusion. Infusion. Yeah, IV infusion. Yes.

Amazing.

Which we offer.

Yeah, it wasn't my own. It wasn't my own, but they were blank. You know, and we offer them at Beyond to clients. It's part of the longevity program and, and for other programs too, for trauma and dependency programs. It's an offering. So we, we're connected here to a clinic that, that is able to give stem cells and come on site and administer.

Oh, I love it. It's so powerful. I have had a few guests on the podcast, and I'm waiting for another friend to actually book on as well, and just the stories around the possibilities with stem cells is just so exciting. So that was number one. So for all the mothers out there that have had the C-section or otherwise looking to recover quicker, potentially looking at stem cells, I appreciate in not all countries of the world it's available, but that's an amazing tip. And what else did you do, Talia?

What else did I do? Well, I work with peptides, many peptides, BPC-157, which was very helpful in general. You know, I think the stem cells helped repair the scar and helped also with cognition. I think BPC also helped. I have some old injuries from sports and things like that, but also cerebrolysin. Have you heard of that? It's a Russian peptide. It works. They use it for cognition and brain enhancement, and it's used for TBI and different injuries to the brain. So that was very useful. We live in Cancun, so we're in the sun, so that really helps. And then I just have a very full life where I'm living my mission and a great marriage. Building a company I love and witnessing people week after week getting profound healing, transformation, and finding their purpose. So I think that all contributed to coming back faster online after having a, you know, I'm 38 years old, so a little older, but my life is better than it's ever been. And I can genuinely say I'm fairly happy.

I love it. Yeah. And obviously having a mission and purpose that's bigger than oneself is always super helpful. Yeah, but I love it. I feel like there's a potential around like biohacking for mothers, um, like new, new, um, like postnatal mothers as well, like how to optimize for recovery, particularly as women tend to be being older now having kids as well, and that recovery and that transition is a little bit more difficult. So separate subject but super interesting. So thank you for sharing, Talia.

We could actually tie it into ibogaine, which is the subject today. Um, last time, so I had my son I had some postpartum and I actually did an ibogaine treatment and about maybe 5 or 6 months later, because I was struggling, I did go on full disclosure SSRIs for a little while. They sort of numb me, not to knock them. It helped. It probably helped for a few months, but then I got off of them and used ibogaine to reset. You know, ibogaine resets many pathways and many systems in the brain, dopamine, serotonin. We can talk more about that later. But it did help me and I didn't feel postpartum depression after that. So it is a good tool in some cases, not for everybody, for postpartum.

That's amazing because with my second child I had postpartum depression as well and it's terrible. Like if you have small kids to take care of and you're not doing well, like it's really, really tricky. So before we jump into all these amazing things, I'd love for you to explain a little bit more. And, you know, ibogaine, just so people are not familiar, are naturally occurring psychoactive psychoactive compound found in the root bark, if I'm not mistaken, of the African plant— I'll probably butcher the name— Tabernanthe iboga. Is that right?

Well done.

Seen as a life-saving treatment that catalyzes recoveries and also your own recovery. And perhaps, Talia, to start with, you could share about your personal journey from addiction to becoming a pioneer in the ibogaine-assisted therapy space.

Sure, happy to share. So yeah, ibogaine helped changed me on a very profound, deep level. It catalyzed my healing about 15 years ago. I grew up in a family, in many ways, very beautiful. I'm close with my parents today, but there was a lot of chaos growing up. My grandparents survived the Holocaust, so there was intergenerational trauma, no doubt. We were taught not to feel that we had— that we should just be happy that we're alive, essentially. And it was a European family, so it was very fun and cultured. We traveled a lot, but there was a lot of also trauma. And so long story short, you know, by the time I was 14, 15— I grew up in the Midwest, but we would spend summers in Europe. And by then I was already developing an eating disorder. So I had bulimia, which lasted for quite some time. And then, and then what happened was I had a dental procedure at the age of 18, 19. And mind you, I always felt this like root anxiety of like, what am I doing here? Why are we on this planet? I was already asking these very deep questions at a young age. And then when I was given Vicodin for a dental procedure, this was during, you know, 15 years more, 20 years ago when these were being handed out like candy, essentially. And nobody, you know, pharma was— pharmaceutical companies were saying this is not that addictive and tricked the FDA into that. And it's right. There's a lot of books on it now and movies. But I took that Vicodin and I finally felt I felt a sense of peace, a sense of okayness that I had never felt. I was always on edge as a kid and anxious. And so that, you know, addiction is a symptom typically of a deeper trauma. So that helped. Maybe it saved my life. Who knows? I could have committed suicide. But that happened and I fell deeper into addiction. I was living by then in New York City in college and maybe things looked okay on the outside, but And, you know, after a few years they weren't and I was getting prescriptions and it was fairly easy to do that then and buying things off the street. And, you know, I had very blessed to have parents that kept throwing me into these traditional rehabs over a year or two period and they wouldn't work. And part of me wanted to get better and another part of me didn't, right? That's how addiction is. It's a tug of war. So essentially, you know, I would get out every 3 or 4 weeks and I would realize that I would have this fundamental urge craving for either, you, you know, for a, for an opiate. Like I needed it just for my brain to feel peace. Um, and then the eating disorder also kept getting worse and worse and they piled on together. So I realized it was a neurological issue, right? And, and of course also psychological, but neurological. I, I realized that I was about 21, 22 years old and a dear friend of mine told me about ibogaine. He's somebody that I used to, you know, we would have friends in common and go out with in New York City. He was doing great. He was newly married, had a, you know, new company. I ran into him. He told me about ibogaine. Long story short, I flew, you know, I flew to Mexico during one of these opiate relapses and I went to a place that wasn't really well equipped to administer ibogaine. I think it didn't have the level of clinical care, didn't have any therapeutic support. You basically go in this little house and they give you ibogaine the next day in a pill and then you leave. So there's no, you know, when you do this work, you want to prepare your mind, you want to be meet with coaches or therapists. You want to have the tools around you to really make the most of it. Otherwise, you know, people go backwards, right? You— it's really important. They call it the set and setting. Um, and— but however, miraculously, the experience itself, the journey itself during— I had very profound visions. I saw our human race evolving over time, how we evolved, how we forgave each other. I saw my grandmother in the Holocaust and was able to forgive and find peace there because that was a really old story I had told myself. And I miraculously didn't have the cravings. Like, the cravings faded. And I realized then, okay, this is— because when you have an eating disorder or an opiate addiction, all you can do is think about that, right? You can't think about anything else. Or you want to either make sure you have enough, or you want more food, or you have enough of the drug. Or— and then, um, so it's a terrible cycle. It takes up most of mind space. So that faded, and, and I found myself— I found new purpose in life afterwards. I wanted to be of service in the world. I wanted to, you know, I quickly went and started, um, one of the first vape companies in America because I was a smoker and found an early model, um, vape, uh, in Europe that wasn't— vaping wasn't yet pop—

nobody—

it wasn't even called vaping. Nobody— people thought I was crazy. I flew to China and started developing like a little e-cigarette with a partner, and wanted to use that as a harm reduction tool. This is before big tobacco got involved and started marketing to children, which is when I got out. But I thought, wow, this is a profound tool for reducing suffering on the planet. It's not as harmful as traditional cigarettes and all the carcinogens. So, so that's just an example of how I started to change my life. I went back to college and then eventually years later met my husband, got a master's and MBA. But all so, so that was the catalyst for me. And always in the back of my mind, I thought, God, this is an incredible tool for trauma. For addiction, but there's no place to really go to do it justice where it can be given in a loving, safe, supported environment with lab work, with physicians that are top-notch, with coaches that will support you with body work, breath work, you know, cold plunge, everything that I've, um, discovered over the years on my journey. Like, I've invested all my resources and time into basically bootstrapping myself. I'm a product of, of that. And so we eventually— long story short, my husband, you know, is a career innovation specialist and entrepreneur, and he's built companies and he's been a CEO of some fairly large companies in the wellness space. He really took my vision and idea and has been able to implement it over the last 4 or 5 years. And so we built Beyond and we built it at a good time when there was a full-on opioid crisis raging in America. When the psychedelic renaissance, the third wave, has taken form and root. And, when there's an openness to these sort of medicines and when there's an understanding that you can't— it's about where you are when you use them too and how the mind is prepared. And, this is just a tool, an accelerant for people's growth. It's not a silver bullet. So, that's well understood now. And then, the research, of course, it's an exciting time for science and research. And, we can talk about that, more of that, and what's happened in the field and we have a whole data and research department ourselves at Beyond now run by a neuroscientist, which is pretty exciting.

Super exciting. First of all, thank you so much. No, I love it as well. And thank you so much. And I think it's— thank you for being vulnerable, sharing your story as well. And I think that that's part of it. Like, I had eating addictions when I was a teenager as well, or eating disorders, I should say, as well. And I think it's so important for people to open and share about struggles that they have because it gives permission to other people to do it too. And otherwise they suppress it.. And we know, right, that like the suppressing manifests in disease and other issues as well. And I think also with addictions, be it like from, you know, substance abuse to eating disorders to whatever it might be. And it was interesting, I saw Oprah mentioned recently about when she was taking the GLP-1s, she realized that people who are naturally thin, typically they don't even think about food. It's not that constant struggle like what you were just saying as well of, okay, how much have I ate? You know, am I eating too much? Am I eating too little? Whatever the substance might be as well, it's that constant neural pathway carousel that's going on as well. So it sounds like, you know, ibogaine is giving that freedom to actually see things from a different perspective, to open up bandwidth, to be thinking about more positive things as well. So yeah, really, really amazing. And thank you so much for making it your life's mission and work and for helping so many people. So I just wanted to acknowledge that off the bat as well. So let's jump into science and what's been happening as well. Dr. Nolan Williams from Stanford referred to ibogaine as the most advanced natural molecule in the world. Big claim. Love it. Can you explain why and share how it affects or how it affects neuroplasticity and neural rejuvenation?

Sure. Well, first of all, I'm not a neuroscientist. He is, but I'll do my best to explain. Sure. So, it works. It's very complex in how ibogaine works. Some liken it to an iOS system reset because it works on so many systems in the brain and perhaps that's why he calls it the most advanced. But, so So, ibogaine works on GDNF and BDNF in the brain. I don't know if you've heard of this. It's a protein. They're proteins in the brain that basically promote neuron survival and repair. They support dopamine neuron health. They enhance neuroplasticity. BDNF supports new neuron growth. Yeah, fertilizer for the brain.

Exactly.

Fertilizer. Yes, they are the fertilizer for the brain and also they help reprocess trauma memories. They improve cognitive flexibility, enhancing learning and adaptations, which is really powerful for TBI and brain injury, which is what Dr. Williams' study and his team proved with, with 30 Navy SEALs who came through the study and found an 88, 87% reduction in depression in anxiety. It's pretty profound. And, what he found related to the brain, he said that one session of ibogaine essentially Benjamin Buttons the brain by 1.5 years. So, that's pretty profound as well. You actually grow new brain with ibogaine. And, he found that through AI tools. And, I think there's more to come related to that study. It's not out yet. But, yeah. So, just to speak more about GDNF BDNF, the repairing of these damage reward circuits for addiction is huge. So, unlike ketamine, which just works on your NMDA receptor, ibogaine also works on your NMDA receptors, but it also works on your dopamine, your serotonin. So, it rewires your reward pathways and it does so while helping to rewire your trauma-related fear pathways. So, whether you have severe PTSD, we're seeing that we have a whole veteran program now for women, men, and spouses, we're seeing that every day, or whether people are coming for dependencies, whether it's behavioral or chemical, we're seeing, you know, this put to use daily. So that's one area in which ibogaine helps related to the science in the brain is with these, with these nootropic factors, they're called GDNF or BDNF. It also works on the default mode network. Have you heard of the default mode network?

Can you share more about what it is?

Sure. So the default mode network is a system. It's many different parts of your brain that work together when you're in rest. It's like when you're daydreaming, when you're thinking about yourself, your thoughts of your own identity, how people think of you, the ego basically that controls your self-referential thoughts. So ibogaine's effects on the brain reduce this overactive rumination, which is what happens in addiction. It also is why it's helpful in OCD. There's limited studies, but we're seeing it. And depression as well. And also, exactly, depression, PTSD and depression. It breaks stuck thought loops. So, you can sort of think of it as a shuffle play. So, ibogaine is like shuffle play for your default mode network. So, what happens is it allows these traumatic memories to reprocess from a safer detached perspective. It helps you process emotion. And it supports new narratives and self-concepts. So, the same songs don't keep playing again and again. When you're stuck, most people, most humans have trauma, right? And you're stuck in these old stories. Because of this shuffle play that ibogaine supports in, you're able to find new songs come up, new memories, new emotions that are actually higher vibration, right? Because you process older ones. And the same songs don't keep playing again and again. So, it's pretty It's pretty incredible that way as well.

Oh, that's amazing. I'd love to look at the difference between ketamine and ibogaine. But before we do that, I guess people listening might be curious, like, can you do it in one session? Or what does the protocol look like? Do you have to do like 10 sessions? What is the space of time? Like, how many sessions do people need? I know everybody's different, right? But just maybe just to give indication, maybe you can share something on that?

Happy to share on that. So at BEYOND, we have very customized care. You know, you'll go to the website beyond, beyond.us. You'll, you know, have an inquiry call through the website, which you can schedule. We have different programs for different lengths of time. So if you're coming for chemical dependency, if you have an alcohol dependency, you're going to come either for 10 to 14 days. We might need to do an alcohol detox if you're a daily drinker. But if you, you know, are an occasional— a lot of Women come who are older, who drink wine every night, and they only need to come for 9 nights. They don't need the detox. So for them, you know, they will do one flood dose, which is a 12-hour session, which you prepare for, for weeks before you come. You're— each person is assigned a personal coach, and they will work with that person to understand, you know, what they want to target, why they're coming, their own past traumas that might be contributing to their behavior, what they want to work through and ask the medicine. You learn to ask the medicine questions like that. Yeah, like with ayahuasca. However, it's the, the experience is a bit different because your ibogaine is unique in that it's showing you your memories, right? It brings up past memories. It's very individual and very personal in a way that ayahuasca may take you out and might be more universal or more ethereal. This is an intellectual medicine, I would say. So it's— so you're preparing to look at past memories. You're preparing also very important, like, who do you want to become? You know, what, what is— where do you want to go in your life? What inspires you? What are you afraid of but you know is your calling? So this is what the coach helps work on, as well as, you know, coming off of medication. Some people are on SSRIs. Our physicians— so our physicians approve everybody first. You fill out a health form, a health history form, and you speak to one of our physicians and you're either approved or it might not be the right time or it might not be good for you at all. If you have severe, you know, mental health challenges or history of severe bipolar or something, I think it's not for you. If you're on SSRIs, you need to taper off slowly and you'll either work with your physician at home or you'll work with one of our physicians prior to coming. So this is all preparation that can happen months or weeks before. And you always have a personal coach guiding you. You. So the people that come, you know, for example, the people that come for the Horizons program, which is our longevity health and optimization program, it's our fastest growing program. We're seeing more and more like tech CEOs or even, you know, stay-at-home moms that want— are already really happy in their life, but they want to boost their cognition. We see this, or they want to achieve certain results in life, or they want to they want their memory to be better. So, we see it with— we've had undercover police, CIA agents, they come for these reasons. Amazing. And, that's a 6-night program. So, to get back to your question, they'll do one flood dose on day 3 and maybe they'll do something like 5-MeO-DMT at the end or they'll do a smaller dose of ibogaine at the end. But, somebody who's coming for more intense trauma or more intense addiction, they'll stay for at least 9 nights because they really need to, the support around them. And to be honest, the longer you stay, the better the results are regardless of, of, you know, why you're coming. It just so happens that people coming for the Horizons program mostly need to get back soon home to their career. So, so I hope that answers your question. So it's a 12-hour flood dose. You know, you're in a supportive environment. There's noise-canceling headphones. You always have trained nurses and physicians. With you and a coach if you want it. It's very customized and you're listening to a really good playlist. And, you know, if you want extra ibogaine a couple of days later, we have these smaller doses called fractional doses, which people do in there a couple hours. Let's say there's a specific issue you couldn't get to because sometimes the information's coming really fast. They can go back in and work more on, you know, forgiving their father if that's the issue or or just, or whatever it is.

So powerful. And so typically it's one flood dose with a potential second one. And maybe for those unfamiliar, the 5-MeO-DMT, what exactly is that for people that are like, what, what are you talking about?

5-MeO-DMT is a secretion from a toad. It's toad venom, essentially. Yes. And it's smoked. You know, you don't want to do it ever by yourself. You want to do it in a supportive environment. With experts. But what's unique about 5-MeO is that you have a full ego dissolution. So, if you have trouble connecting with something greater or it's the same, it's DMT. So, it's the same chemicals that run through your brain when you're born and when you die. So, you have a very profound it's different for everybody, but a lot of people have this white light, beautiful experience where they're one with everything and they have no identity. In some ways, it's almost the opposite of ibogaine, which is why I think they work really well together. Not right away, by the way. Everyone has 3 or 4 days between if they choose to do this. But ibogaine brings up your programming. It shows you your ego. You're always still holding on to your ego with ibogaine. So you get to, but that's such a great opportunity because you're able to look at the way your programming patterning works and get information. And because ibogaine stays in your system for months afterwards, I mean, there's nothing like it, honestly. It's called the critical period.

We can talk more about it if you want.

Yeah. You can create new patterns much easier after you're shown which patterns you want to change. And then, if you choose to do 5-MeO afterwards, a lot of people don't need it. They feel great. Their serotonin and dopamine's way up. They're happy. They know what they need to change in their life. They feel highly motivated to make those changes. But, for some people, they've been in their ego state, they want to be rocketed to a 5th dimension if you want to call it that and see the oneness and the beauty of it all because it can be— Ibogaine for some, can be very rough. And so the 5-MeO is like this cherry on top, right? And the oneness. And it's a 20-minute or 1-hour experience. But in that experience, you know, no time. You're in the timeless space before we incarnate and after we leave these human forms. And it is very beautiful. And quite frankly, it's helped me personally reset, like, clear stress from my body. And so it can be really good physiologically as well. But some people, it's too much to do both together. So it's, it's really up to the individual and our clinical team to decide if it's a good fit for them. And people's hands feel very held at Beyond, you know, should I do this next? Or do you think this is a good idea? Every, you know, from the beginning of arrival when people get labs, blood work, EKGs, multiple EKGs during the experience because of the cardiac risks, to the emotional coaching support, peer-to-peer support, workshops online, daily massage, sound healing, cold plunge therapy. People are held through the entire time till after they leave when they continue working with that same coach they started with who they're personally matched to based on both of their life experiences. Every, every coach has done Ibogaine themselves. So, so that's very important. And it's, it's hard to say one size fits all. This is what you should, you know, it is very customized.

Absolutely amazing, Talia, for putting something like this together. And I love that you integrate also different modalities with the sound bath healing and the cold plunge And so I think it's like this unbelievable reset of sort of body, mind, and spirits, right? Within the space of a week or 9 days, whatever the time is. So unbelievable. It sounds really, really cool. I wanted to touch on something you just mentioned as well. Dr. Gull Dolan's research calls out the critical 3-month period post-treatment when ibogaine, as you mentioned, remains active in the system, and I believe it's in the liver, to support new habit formation. So can you explain exactly what's happening there? Because it seems like a very unique compound that's able to do this. And what is this unique window of opportunity? Like, how do people leverage this to make lifetime changes?

Sure. I love Gül. She's a friend. She was just here for dinner, I think, last week. She's doing really cool work. But yeah, Gül, so the critical period, think of a baby, you know, your plasticity is very open, right? And as you get older, your thinking becomes more and more rigid. So, ibogaine uniquely creates this window of opportunity where you have, are able to learn, you can learn new languages, you can create new habits. If you, you know, had addiction tendencies or, I mean, all our thoughts are addictive, to be honest. We're all on some sort of a spectrum of addiction if you want to be on it. You can change those thoughts more easily. That's the period afterwards, the first week or two, you know, it's much easier to make these changes and then it's, It's gradually fades over many months after ibogaine. But, and then, so what you do after that becomes very important because after 3 months or so, it becomes your, those habits become your default settings. So you can essentially rewire your whole brain after ibogaine, but it's up to the individual how much they want to put in, right? This is not a magic pill. If they are not motivated and they stay in the room and they don't engage in activity our Horizons program, our veterans program, we have these AI VR training programs for cognition that we're using now to help people become smarter to, you know, we even have like bow and arrow VR practice for target shooting for cognition, memory games. You know, the more you engage in that after Ibogaine on site, the better you're, we're seeing in the research results, the better your outcomes are going to be. And likewise, when you go home, your environment is very important. Some people need to make changes. You know, it's not easy for everybody. They need to leave their spouse who isn't good for them, or they need to leave their career because they're not happy, they're not filled, and the medicine may show them that. So this is how, you know, you want to make the best of that critical period after Ibogaine. And there's different tools on site that you're learning. It's almost a buffet of tools to help you do that when you do go home. So exciting.

Amazing. I want to touch on also the differences to traditional and also ketamine-assisted therapy in terms of outcomes, relapse rates, et cetera. So for people who are maybe saying, well, I take an SSRI, I'm okay, you know, is this for me? Or people who are like, you know, I'm, I'm more keen to try ketamine-assisted therapy. I'm more familiar with that. Can you walk people through differences and benefits just so so that they can really understand?

Sure. Well, first of all, I think it's important to note that ibogaine is not for everybody. And that if you feel it could be good for you, ibogaine is complementary to these other systems, right? So people think, oh, I need to get off Suboxone. Well, that's true. They do before they come, but sometimes after they leave, they might want to get back on Suboxone or SSRI. A lot of people don't need to, but some choose to, you know, just like how it's not a replacement for cognitive behavioral therapy. People come, they get many benefits from the ibogaine, but then they, of course, continue to work with their therapist and that just enhances the benefits. So it's something you can use together with the tools you're already using. Related to, I think you asked about success rates with addiction.

I mean, yeah. I mean, outcome success rates and relapse rates, I guess, would be interesting as well.

Okay. So relapse rates related to traditional addiction are not very good. We know that, right? That's why there's such an interest in the US right now in ibogaine in general, because it hasn't— it's not— what's not— it's not working, right? There's a 747 plane a day of deaths from opiate overdose in the US. It is a full-on epidemic that is killing more people under 40 than anything else right now. So what, what exists in the US is not working. And, you know, policymakers are interested in ibogaine. There's a hopeful, multiple state efforts happening right now for ibogaine, you know, ibogaine research and treatment using opiate abatement funding. So we know that the, for, in the first year, people that people try to get off drugs or alcohol, the success rates are like 10%, 15%, something like that. They are very low. And we know with ibogaine, I mean, they're closer to half that, half, 50%. And then, you know, depending on what people do afterwards when they go home, like their environments, how they choose to engage in therapy and tools and coaching and other tools. So the success rate's already much higher. We know that it's much, much higher. Like people finish our program. Most people don't leave, whereas in traditional rehabs, half the people leave the rehabs. They don't want to be there. Whereas at BEYOND, people really want to come for chemical dependency or behavioral addictions like food or sex, they really want to be there. They're engaged. We also know related— our, our research at Beyond is showing that related to addiction and like withdrawals, opiate withdrawals, alcohol, kratom, we're getting people lately for ketamine dependency, their withdrawals are minimized by 90%. You will never see that in a traditional rehab of 30, 60, 90 days. People are sitting there on their hands thinking about using. And that's what makes it so effective, I think, one of the many reasons, because your mind is open to learning. You want to engage. You love life again. You're wanting to get better. And that's, you know, it wipes the slate clean so that you have this profound reset and you also have a spiritual experience at the same time. Ibogaine is not just physiological. You're having visions about how you can make your life better. Or, and deleting old memories or releasing emotions from old memories that you don't want. So, people have a new joy for life. And, because of that, the success rates, because of these many reasons, the success rates are much higher. Yeah. So— Related to ketamine, you wanted to talk about that briefly. So, ketamine only works on the NMDA receptor. I think it's a phenomenal tool. It helps with neuroplasticity. It helps, you know, it's great for trauma. There's studies on how it's good for alcohol and opiate abuse, but it doesn't have that critical period in the same way. I think it lasts about a week, Gould said. So you have to keep going back all the time and it just doesn't have and doesn't work on many other systems that ibogaine does. I think it's a great complement afterwards, months after ibogaine, if people want to revisit or continue to heal deeper. But it's, you know, we see a lot of people who have, whose ketamine has helped them. You know, ketamine's personally helped me in the right setting when you're not using it in a party setting, of course, when you're using it with coaches or therapists and you're, you know, it's very helpful for depression and anxiety. It's also helpful for life visioning. And, you know, if you already feel great in a clinical setting, IV or IM, so I wouldn't knock ketamine, but it does not compare to the neurological effects or the the, you know, psychological effects of Ibogaine, which is something that you can do. You don't have to do again and again. You can have one treatment, one stay, and be set for years or even life if you are willing and ready to do this deeper work.

I love that. And I think that's a really key piece as well. You mentioned before the set and setting, really important, right? Like how it's administered, the ambience around it, but then putting in the work after that integration piece is so key. With many psychedelics, but clearly also, you know, with ibogaine too. And I think for people interested, it's so important to realize with any of these therapies, it's not just a one-and-done magic bullet, right? It's putting in the work and doing it. But the, the results are there.

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I'd love to just touch on a bit. So you mentioned for the kind of biohacker longevity enthusiasts. So first of all, that the research is showing that the brain I mean, the Benjamin Button effect, right, is reversing its biological age by 1.5 years per session, which is just absolutely amazing. I'm working on reversing mine. My latest one is 26 years old again, so 17 years younger. But then you're combining it with modalities like the sound healing or meditation cold plunges. Why are these practices so beneficial? Like, what are you seeing there? Maybe you can expand on that for people that are listening.

Well, ibogaine is beneficial for memory and cognitive, the speed at which you think because of what we talked about earlier, the GDNF, BDNF, these proteins in the brain and because of the default mode network. So, we're seeing that it's able to reverse people's age because they're more flexible in their thought. Their thinking's not so rigid. And, you can see that —people look younger at the end of their stay after they've learned. Their eyes have more light in them. Their skin— people think that they went and had a bunch of fillers and facials, but their eyes are brighter. They're more excited to be alive. And they've picked up these different tools that they can use at home. Like, a lot of them go, they start doing cold showers in the morning. They start doing HIIT, high-intensity training. You know, it just changes their life. And you can see that they're also able to think clearer. Their relationships get better with their spouses, with their family. I just heard from somebody yesterday, like, I actually want to play on the floor with my son, whereas before I couldn't even sit still. You know, this is somebody who's on their phone all the time, who's used to working a lot, pretty, you know, lives pretty high, at a high intensity. But you're able to pause cause. And, and that definitely contributes to longevity. And, and it also, you know, your cellular stress too, like you, you feel more calm. So of course, you know, cellular stress causes aging and eventually disease. So this is a great tool for, for longevity because of those reasons.

Amazing. What are some of the markers? I'm, I'm just curious that you test for in the bloods and things like that. And what are the improvements that you're seeing above and beyond sort of the, the neurological ones we were talking about? But are like concrete biomarkers in bloods that you're seeing are improving?

Yeah, we, you know, we look at hormones, of course. We look at various factors, you know, cardiac markers. That can take months, right? Like that's a longer-term study. But we're starting to look at gut too. We think that it changes your gut and that's really exciting as well. So I think we'll be sending poop tests out soon to people before they arrive and then testing them afterwards. But that's very interesting. And you can see the changes as well. It changes the way people eat too. I mean, a lot of people come who are overweight. They don't even mean to lose weight. And afterwards, they don't— that was what happened for me. It changed my relationship with food. I wasn't obsessing. My body, I learned to trust my body. I started to eat normally and eat when I was actually hungry and not eat when I wasn't hungry and not respond to stress and overeat because I could go inside and quiet myself. So people are losing weight all the time. We get, you know, months later they've lost 20, 50, 100 pounds and didn't even mean to. Wow. It changes their relationship with caffeine, changes the way they sleep. I mean, that's very interesting. There needs to be more research around that. But some researchers who we're close to are saying that it resets REM So all of that aids in longevity, of course.

That's really, really exciting. Yeah. And I mean, these are fundamental things. And I think with the gut health also super interesting because they say, you know, your gut is your second brain. And so if you can reprogram also that and, you know, the center of a lot of hormone production, et cetera. It sounds so amazing, Talia. I think I need to come check it out.

You should definitely come and check it out. Yes, it is. It is really incredible to witness so many different type, you know, people coming for different reasons and seeing each person gain so much in so many different ways. Um, I think you would love it. And personally, for yourself, you're welcome.

You're welcome to join. Thank you so much. No, I'd love to because, well, obviously, you know, I love these things, but I'm curious as well. And I think just that reset, I think for anybody, right? Um, no person that I've met yet, unless they're maybe a Buddhist monk, has managed to avoid healing from all trauma and all these different things that we all carry around with us. And so if you can do that reset and just step into that highest version of yourself now. I mean, look what impact it had on you and what you're doing to make the world a better place from off of it. So can you imagine if we got so many people in, right? So people listening, if you feel like this is a calling and listening to, then make sure to reach out to Talia and the team as well. I'd love to also address, because I think it's important, some risks or safety concerns. Who is it not for? What are some of the risks involved? What should people know?

Yeah, that's very important. So ibogaine is not a psychedelic that you do for fun or at home. One of the reasons is because there are cardiac risks. It needs to be administered with trained physicians and nurses. So at Beyond, we have about 10 full-time physicians now, 20 ICU cardiac care trained nurses because ibogaine does something to the heart, which is called— it's called QTc prolongation. It prolongs— and again, I'm not a doctor— but it prolongs the distance between, you know, the time between each heartbeat. So it can be, so it can be very dangerous if used alone. So, you know, people are monitored the entire time during their treatments. They have an IV running the entire time with electrolytes and magnesium, which is cardiac protective and neuroprotective. So we're mitigating risk every day, just like if you'd have a surgery and you're, you know, going under with anesthesia, it can be mitigated. It's very safe, but it's not something you want to do at a facility that doesn't have trained professionals that are experts or at home with ibogaine, which is, you know, part, part of the reason why our costs are higher because we have a clinical team and it's a big team. And, you know, this is not like psilocybin or something else. So, and then it's not for everybody, you're right. It's not for people, we addressed it a bit earlier, who have severe mental health issues, who, because you're taking a heavy psychoactive, it's a psychedelic. And so if you have psychotic breaks or have had that or your family members or loved ones have, it's probably not a good idea. But then again, you can go through the process. Doesn't cost anything and you can fill out the form and be assessed and speak to one of our physicians to see if you qualify. Another, you know, if you've had a heart attack or you have a heart stent, also not, not good for you given what it does to your heart already. So those are essentially the reasons why you would not do ibogaine. There's some others, but we are— again, our team can discuss with you if you, if you have any concerns. Anyone can email hello@beond.us and just ask a quick question to and our team will respond.

Amazing. Let's talk about the regulatory situation and accessibility. So I know that there's growing conversations about legalization and FDA approval, which obviously amazing, especially based on what you've been saying and the impacts. What do you think it would take for ibogaine to become widely available?

I think we need to approach this very carefully, right? We have a system in the US that that's fundamentally broken. I'm not sure it's prepared for something like ibogaine, which treats the whole person. It's not like, you know, you just go in and you take a pill and speak to a psychiatrist for an hour or something. And it's also not something like Suboxone, right? They, well, it's not something, it needs to be used in an environment that's conducive for it, right? That has preparation, that has integration support in a long-term follow-up and focuses also on other aspects of the whole person. And I'm not sure the FDA is ready for that. We saw with MAPS and MDMA what happens. Phase 3 study was shot down. It was hopefully going to be medicalized, but then wasn't for many reasons.

Yeah, for many reasons. Yeah, I mean, there was— I don't know if you saw, but they were showing that there was an activist group behind that that was completely distorting information, etc. So hopefully there'll be a new approach. But yeah.

Just so people know. Hopefully we can learn from that and do things differently this time. But also, you know, the fact that it's a psychoactive, that you have a psychedelic trip, there's nothing that the FDA has ever seen, right? That helps, you know, that inhibits, that makes it so people are seeing their dead relatives. I mean, just the FDA is not set up for that. So we'll see what happens. There's also, of course, cardiac concerns. And there needs to be— there have been preliminary research, but there needs to be further in-depth research to show that the cardiac risks can be mitigated. And, but I do think it could be one of the best tools and it is for opioid dependency. And, we're seeing, you know, for PTSD and vets that Stanford study proved it. So the funding is there in various states and there's politicians that are excited. RFK is certainly very interested in ibogaine. And so are some other politicians that have actually, you know, people that have been to Beyond. So that's very hopeful. We'll see what happens. But, you know, I think we need to be cautiously optimistic and work with the science, and hopefully this will get to many more people. I think there's also a risk that, you know, if it's covered by insurance, then it becomes more of an accessibility issue because then you have the people that don't have insurance that again can't afford it. And I'd really love to see more people having access to this medicine and not having to fly to Mexico, but for there to be more government support. And perhaps there's a way to do that, and we'll continue to think about it.

Amazing. Technology is playing a massive role in healthcare transformation. How are you leveraging that? Are there any things that you are doing in terms of using tools like AI potentially, or digital therapeutics or wearables to complement ibogaine therapy and potentially in the near future? Yes.

So we do. I mentioned that for our cognitive enhancement program and for our veterans program, there is— we're using AI and VR, right? We have— we're testing cognition speed and we're using memory games and we have, you know, the ability to use VR to aim and shoot and test that before and after aggregate and continue to improve. We're also considering using Oura Rings. We have a partnership coming up with a veteran-led company and we'll be, you know, each person will receive an Oura Ring when they come and we'll be able to look, use that data and look at that data.

So various ways like that. Very cool. Tali, this has been such an inspiring and informative conversation. Thank you so much. For listeners who want to dive deeper into understanding psychedelic-assisted therapy, Where can they find you? Where they— where would you send them to find out also more information in general?

I think our social media, our Instagram has a lot of education. We have a TikTok, but our website, www.beond.us, if anyone's, uh, there's a lot of information there, but also you can fill out the form. You can request a call there and we'll get right to you.

Amazing. And we'll link everything in the show notes, of course, as well. Do you have any final ask or recommendation or any parting thoughts or message for my audience today?

I would say, yeah, if you're open to this and you have some reservation, do your research and ask yourself in a quiet space if this is right for you. And I think the answer will come. And typically people, if they're interested in ibogaine, it keeps somehow starts showing up in their life in different places. And that's a good way to see if it's calling you or not right now. Love it.

Thank you so much, Talia, for joining us today, and thank you to your audience for tuning in.

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