Harambe Ibogaine Detox Retreat Centre - Testimonials

I've been struggling with trauma and many mental and emotional blocks. I've hit a wall where I became entirely imprisoned by my mind and couldn't escape it. My days became unbearable and filled with self-inflicted suffering. After therapy, coaching, and working on myself, I needed something beyond the mental sphere, which is why I've taken this leap of faith.

Bilal is very professional at his craft. I've had an easy journey because I followed his instructions before the day of the treatment (medical tests, diet, sleep, preparation, etc.).

It was worth the experience, and I felt like I'd spent two years of therapy in one night. The Iboga won't solve your problems overnight or give you what you want or expect, but it will deliver you exactly what you currently need and show how you can move forward. You still have to do the work and practice the teachings actively and regularly.

Personally, the Iboga cracked my mind open and showed me to my face all my negative thoughts patterns and how I've let them control my life. I could make peace with my major traumas, and I gained a lot of clarity. I realized I am not my thoughts but the awareness of my thoughts, and I can choose to be entertained by them or let them go at will.

Some other learnings seemed very basic and obvious, but there is a difference between understanding them and "getting" them.

I'm far from being transformed, but I'm grateful for this experience. I will come back in a few years when I'm sure I've integrated and practiced all the learnings for going to the next stage.

I would like to share with you my transformative experience. one day, i decided to go and meet myself and I followed the advice of a friend, a brother, to do an Iboga retreat with Bilal. What to say … After more than 2 weeks, convincing changes are here. After so many years of no communication with my parents, I was finally able to express all the things I didn't dare share with them, but with a lot of love and gentleness and above all with forgiveness. And during this process, I realized that thanks to my "journey" to discover who I am, I understood where my fear of abndonment came from, my need to please everyone even to my own peril. I also started to finally look at myself in the mirror and love the image it reflects. I gained confidence in myself and today I only do things that I like and do me good and without thinking that it can offend those around me that I tell them NO. I only surround myself with people who share the same vibs. And above all, I have become much nicer to myself, more attentive to my body and what it really needs at all levels. Besides, I quit smoking, I started to do a little sport, to pay attention to what I eat. In short, to take care of myself. And it's a really good feeling.

I want To tell you a secret, my brain put so many blockages and reinforced concrete protective barriers during all its years that my experience only lasted 6 hours. The fear also of the unknown of my state upon awakening or even not waking up hampered this experience which when I woke up seemed a failure. But after everything I say at the beginning of my story, you understand that it was a great success. If I am telling you this, it is to encourage you to take the plunge, to seize the opportunity to find yourself, to find the answers that you are lacking. Do not be afraid because with bilal you are in very good hands if not the best. He will be there by your side to accompany you on the best trip you can afford to your self.

Have faith in you, you are a treasure and you deserve the best.

I grew up and lived all my life fighting depression, ptsd and addiction. I had a chaotic emotional and personal life. My professional life was a mess for more than 15 years.

I came to Iboga treatment during a phase of reconstruction. I was in therapy for 5 years, engaged in a healthy relationship (but not able to be emotionally stable and present enough) and I was going through a lot of anxiety, avoidance and pain as i still was suffering from depression and addiction regular relapses.

Through the treatment, I only wanted to get rid of the addiction relapses; addiction that I did not succeed to get rid off in the last 25 years.

A friend of mine introduced me to Bilal and after speaking with him I felt reassured and trusted him to go through with the treatment.

Bilal gave me all the information I needed, he listened a lot and gave back expert and relevant feedback.

During the experience, Bilal was constantly present and focused on my safety and well being. He did not rest or sleep in the first 24h and was monitoring my vitals as well as my environment. As part of the treatment, he was not in the room with me but close by and answered and came in the room right away, each time I called him. This made me feel safe and helped me so much during the treatment.

In the weeks and months following the treatment, Bilal was available each time I needed to share what I was experiencing and going through. He helped me understand and accept my perceptions and also clear my doubts or not feel threatened by them.

Going through the treatment gave me much more than I expected.

Not only it helped me to get rid of the unmanageable and irresistible cravings but It made me also much more in touch with and aware of my senses and my emotions.

I feel much more at peace with my self. My anxiety level is in an acceptable and manageable bandwidth. My craving is extremely rare and I have the inner resources to manage it.

My wife is amazed by my recovery and emotional health improvement. My professional life and relations have improved along with my interpersonal skills.

Of course I still have a long road ahead. I will always have to monitor myself to avoid being overwhelmed by anxiety or cravings.

I have a marriage to build and nurture, a family to take good care of, but going through the treatment made me feel more confident that I will achieve these goals and live a healthy life, having the resources to fight for my health and loved ones each time I will have to.

Idriss

Why you should choose Harambe Ibogaine Detox Centre?
I fully recommend the ibogaine experience with Bilal and Cathy. I had a preconception that they might be two crazy hippies who would encourage me to talk to trees and denounce myself as an animal murderer, but they are just two lovely, knowledgeable and down-to-earth people. As soon as I arrived and got chatting to them and their kids, I felt relaxed and I really enjoyed getting to know the whole family over the course of five days. They also have the loveliest and most well-trained (Ridgeback) dog: Jamma.

They live in a beautiful part of the world and after I recovered from the Ibogaine experience, I spent my time either lying in a hammock in their botanical conservatory, sunbathing on the roof or walking with the dog through the orange groves and eating delicious oranges. By the end of my stay, I felt fully recharged and ready to face the world again.

I fully recommend Cathy, Bilal and this setting over staying in a clinic. They have all the relevant knowledge to ensure you have the experience you need, and probably twice the compassion (compared to clinic doctors).

How was my ibogaine experience?
Cathy picked me up from the airport and took me to their house; when I arrived, Bilal gave me a drink which cleared out my system. Then I just relaxed on my bed and watched films on my laptop and went to sleep. The next morning Bilal gave me the first ibogaine capsule, then another an hour later but nothing was happening. However, I lay there a little longer and I started to enjoy the shard of light coming through the blind turning into a hallucination of a beach. This was just the beginning. Throughout the following few hours as things got more intense, Bilal and Cathy both made regular checks on me without disturbing me (which was perfect). The whole time I was also fully aware of who I was and where I was; I even tried to test myself with thinking of scary stuff and it was fine because I knew that I was in control. As others have said, you do get more sensitive to noise. I would recommend bringing ear plugs because you are in a house and there naturally will be some noise, but for me it wasn’t really a bother.

I cannot really recall any of the visions I had. They were not linked in any emotionally relevant way to me, nor did they show me anything revelatory. However, I was able to think deeply about who I was as a person, the things I said to people and why I said them. It was like, for the first time, I was able to think without all the other opinions and influences from outside casting doubt on the truthfulness of my thoughts and beliefs. I discovered some stuff that really struck on a visceral level, and this was stuff I had already known on an intellectual level but it had never penetrated to motivate active change.

This stuff was mainly my need for attention and focus on myself. I kept remembering snippets of conversations I had had over the past few months and all of them were showing me that the stuff I was saying was designed to draw attention to me (both positive and negative), and the focus was always on how I was presenting myself to the world. The ibogaine also revealed a false self I had developed to mask a fragile ego. This false self was opinionated, controversial and somewhat obnoxious.

After a few hours, the ibogaine began to subside in strength. This is the hardest part because you lay there with your thoughts for the next 24-48 hours and it is really really boring. However, it is vital because you can still think in a creative way and it helps cement and clarify new insights. The next morning after the experience, Bilal brought me fruit, granola and yoghurt (after no food for about 40 hours). I was sooo happy and I definitely felt Stockholm syndrome towards him J.

How do I feel now (3 weeks later)?
In some ways I am not much different. My personality has not changed drastically. I still drink more than I should and I love meat just as much as before. However, I feel like I scraped out a negative and false feeling inside myself. I feel calmer and more compassionate towards my friends and family, and I also feel this more towards myself. I can see aspects of myself that I really like more clearly and I feel less attached and ashamed of my negative traits. It’s like I’ve detached the negative traits from my identity and now they just live in my mind, ready to be slowly destroyed (no rush). Finally, I feel motivated to make active changes towards self-improvement in the form of therapy.

Final advice?
Don’t be afraid to undertake this experience. It will give you what you need.

I wanted to take iboga because I have had a lot of trauma and problems in my life. The relationship with my mother broke early. She turned my siblings against me. As a man, relationships with women seemed to get to a point but not go further due to my mental/emotional blocks. I then went through many problems. By 13 began smoking weed and by 30 I was spending three quarters of my surplus wages on it. I had heard about iboga treatment for a while but was sceptical. My uncle did the treatment and he directed me to www.harambedetox.com

When I arrived at Harambe Detox I felt safe with them. They are very practical and down to earth; they are not fake shamans and are respectful of the medicine and they give all the credit to the medicine and not themselves. The iboga was something else! I was in another world of confusing visions and crazy dreams. Every one´s visions/experience is different so I won’t go into the details. When I awoke, I felt an amazing calmness, happiness and lack of cravings. I could think about weed and not feel that I needed to smoke it, not even tobacco! This has created an amazing freedom in my life. Now I look at the situation with my family and not feel the rage and disappointment that I once felt. Having so much more money and being free of addiction is a great feeling!

I still feel that I have more exploring to do with iboga and I will be coming back to do more. Catherine explained that we are like onions, and each treatment peels of a layer. In my opinion, everyone should take it in their lives. I would say Catherine and Bilal are humble not to give themselves credit as they are concerned, very caring and watchful, there to help you if you need.

You have to be ready to write a success story and I was not. At least not yet.

I went to Valencia for a one week stay in May 2017. Despite the 2 negative reviews, I found it to be exactly as advertised. Cathy picked me up at the airport with the 2 little ones in the back seat. The kids were 4 and 9 at the time and just the way kids that age are. The room I was in had an own bathroom, food and drinks were provided.

Now to the treatment itself. I was still on my medication, namely 800mg of xr morphine daily. Even though I’d didn’t take it the day of the treatment, I took it the day before.

To get the full psychedelic effect of ibogaine, one should be already clean or further into withdrawal. Not in full withdrawal, but further than I was when I got the first dose. There is of course the factor of me being an absolute sissy about wd’s.

I didn’t have a visual trip, didn’t have any revelations but except for some restless legs, sweating and shivering I didn’t have any wd symptoms either. So, it works and if you’re ready to go home sober and keep it that way, ibogaine is a valuable tool to get there. I literally skipped the worst part of withdrawal. The next day I was really weakened, but since I couldn’t stand being in that room with my own thoughts, I sought out Bilal and talked a little, went for a shaky walk around the house and then back to bed.

It’s not easy, but it’s the best chance I have. I relapsed after 24 hours back home. But I will definitely go back to take two flood doses when I’m finished with university. The service Cathy and Bilal provide fills the gap between shady clinics in eastern Europe, expensive retreats in Mexico that don’t give out full flood doses (as I hear) and doing it alone at home, which is dangerous.

I want to mention that I threw up a lot during the final stages of the ‘trip’ and since it might’ve been blood Cathy didn’t hesitate a second to take me to the hospital.

Looking forward to doing it right the next time. Even though I relapsed I’m glad I did the experience. Now I know for sure that there’s a way out that works.