There have been many treatments created and tried for drug addiction. One of the worst aspects of detoxing is the inevitability of having to go through withdrawal. The symptoms can be horrific, and many find it difficult to navigate through the pain and the cravings that come with the territory. Statistics show that 2.6 million addicts suffer from the need for both drugs and alcohol, not just one or the other. In addition, in 2011, five million people went to emergency rooms for treatment as a result of drug addiction.
Ibogaine therapy is a relatively new treatment for people who have drug and alcohol dependency. Ibogaine comes from a plant that grows in Western Africa called Tabernanthe Iboga. Unlike other detox methods, ibogaine provides an easy, placid type of withdrawal from addiction to a great number of obsessive drugs. It resets brain activity and has a capacity to remove any cravings for the drug that the patient has been dependent upon, no matter how old the addiction is. After their ibogaine treatment the patient typically feels completely back to normal for a good two to four months. The reason for this is that ibogaine contains a metabolite called noribogaine. Noribogaine is a long acting and extremely effective antidepressant. It stays in the patient’s system up to four months. So, instead of trying to treat addiction to one drug with another highly addictive drug, the ibogaine therapy removes the addiction entirely, and swiftly. The bottom line is that this type of therapy will mitigate more than 98% of the symptoms of withdrawal and will reduce the cravings that will come after any other form of detox.
Ibogaine therapy is done at an ibogaine treatment center. The therapy begins with an intake process carried out by trained members of the center’s staff. The treatment takes several days, from beginning to end. However, as successful as it is, ibogaine therapy is not recommended as a first solution to drug dependency for people who have not yet tried any other detox method. The FDA has not yet approved ibogaine drug treatment for medical use. It is still in its experimental stage and is, for now, only being offered to those who have tried more common methods of detox without success.Thus far, the results of ibogaine therapy have been extraordinary, with patients relapse rates being three times better than those patients who have gone through other drug treatment therapies.
