Well in the fight against opioid addiction, some Kentucky officials are looking to the psychedelic plant ibogaine as a potential treatment.

Ibogaine is experimental and nowhere near FDA approval.

But compelling anecdotes have caught the attention of those in recovery spaces.

At an Ibogaine conference in northern Kentucky last week, some offered their testimonials.

I was a Navy SEAL for 16 years.

My specialties were combat medic and intelligence.

And along the way, you really can't do what we did and not have some sort of emotional trauma.

Physical trauma and addiction.

So I took that Vicodin and I felt a relief that I haven't felt for a long time.

It healed the underlying it felt like it healed the underlying causes of my anxiety.

But I needed to take more and more.

And before I knew it, I had a full blown addiction.

Within a year, I'm already buying off the streets, Whatever I could get, that was an opiate.

And then, you know, I ran into a friend in New York City who I had been social with and had used recreational drugs with, and he was doing great.

He had light in his eyes and was remarried and was working on a new company that he was excited about.

And I said, What happens?

And he said, I tried this very, you know, rare.

Nobody had heard of it.

Then it was almost 15 years ago, rare, psychedelic called Ibogaine.

And you need to try it until you need to experience it, because I think it will help you.

And I said, psychedelics.

You guys are doing psychedelics without me, you know.

And he he said, No, this is not that kind of psychedelics.

This is a lot of work.

It wasn't until I found ibogaine that all my addictions were cured first.

Right away was alcohol.

My body did not want any alcohol.

To this day, five years later, I can have a glass of wine, but I can't have to.

My body will reject it.

And I think that's a miracle.

But it might be just science.

If we do more research to find out why this effect happens in so many people.

When you're in full blown opiate addiction, which I had tried to do many times myself to get off of, you're sweating, you're shaking, you want to take your skin off.

It's why most people don't stop or ever, because there's a fear of that.

It is hell.

You are in literal hell.

That's gone with ibogaine.

And I think that should give people a lot of hope that there's another way.

Over the years, people have come to me and said, Okay, how did you do it?

Ibogaine, Where can we go?

And I felt and other team members, medical professionals, mental health professionals, we felt that there was in a place that had the standard of care I would have wanted.

So we built this center in Cancun because you can't do it here right?

I didn't actually take ibogaine myself, but a family member of mine who was really struggling with addiction, legit opioid addiction, which was very intense.

I was offered by beyond to come down and experience it because of my experience with ayahuasca and.

But when they told me about, you know, the addiction had been, you know, kicked by a lot of people who were, you know, introduced ibogaine, I thought of him right away and I sent him down.

I went down with him and he was part of it and came back.

And now he's 300 days sober.

To experience the change in people.

You see it in their eyes.

The reconnection to their own purpose is very powerful.

I feel like I would be among the many who have overdosed if I hadn't found this because I tried everything else.

And this for me, was it?

Hmm.

Well, tomorrow we'll bring you the other side of the story from substance use treatment researchers who say ibogaine carries more risks than rewards.