Addiction and detox

A medically supervised iboga detox, in ceremony.

Iboga is known for one thing above all: interrupting dependence. Our detox programs put that in a medical frame, with a physician on site day and night, and inside the Bwiti tradition, so that what the medicine interrupts, the ceremony and the three months after help you keep interrupted.

3 to 5days of medical detox, set case by case
24/7physician on site
3months of continuing care

Apply for a detox program Talk to the intake team

Scroll to explore

Programs

Two lengths, private room only

Detox is not a separate product with a fixed price. It is a standard ten- or fourteen-day program, private room, to which the physician adds three to five days of medical detox when your screening calls for it. Those days are billed on top of the program, $600 to $800 per day, typically $1,800 to $4,000 in total, and confirmed in writing before you pay.

Detox programs
Program	Price, US dollars	Typical fit
Ten-day retreat with medical detox	$9,300 plus detox days	Alcohol, stimulants, cannabis, prescription misuse, and dependence that is not physically complex
Fourteen-day retreat with medical detox	$13,000 plus detox days	Opioids and other dependencies where stabilization, tapering or a longer recovery window is needed before and after the ceremonies
Medical detox days	$600 to $800 per day	Three to five days, decided case by case by the physician after screening; typically $1,800 to $4,000

The physician decides the program length and the number of detox days with you on the medical screening. All prices all inclusive from Cancún airport; laboratory tests before travel are paid separately. Full pricing.

Not everyone needs the detox days. If your screening shows no medical withdrawal to manage, you simply join the ten- or fourteen-day program, or the physician may suggest a seven-day retreat. The price follows what your body needs, never the other way around.

What iboga does

Interruption, then work

Iboga is not a cure for addiction. What it does, and what makes it unlike anything else, is interrupt: the withdrawal, the craving, and the loop of thoughts that drives both. What you do with the interruption is the work of the weeks after. How this differs from rehab and ibogaine clinics.

Withdrawal
For opioids in particular, guests describe going through the ceremony with withdrawal symptoms markedly reduced. For alcohol and benzodiazepines the physical withdrawal is managed medically before the ceremony, never by the medicine alone.
Craving
Many guests report a reset of craving that lasts weeks to months. That window is why the three months of continuing care are not optional: it is when new habits are built.
The story behind it
The night is a life review. Guests see the events, the people and the reasons behind the use with a distance they never had. The practitioners guide the review the next day; the psychologist works with it in the weeks after.

Recognizing it

What dependence looks like, in plain words

Addiction rarely announces itself. It starts as something that helps: a drink that loosens the day, a pill that stops the pain, a line that makes you sharp, a bet or a screen that makes the evening go faster. It becomes a problem when the help turns into a need, and the need starts running your life.

You are far from alone. In the United States, 27.9 million people aged 12 and older had alcohol use disorder in 2024, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Drug overdoses killed 79,384 people in the United States in 2024, a 26.2 percent drop in the death rate from the year before, according to the CDC; fentanyl and other synthetic opioids remain the largest part of that toll.

You need more
The same amount does less than it used to, so the amount creeps up, or the time between uses gets shorter.
Stopping hurts
Without it you feel sick, shaky, anxious, flat or unable to sleep, and using again is the fastest way to feel normal.
The rules do not hold
You set limits, dry months or deadlines, and keep breaking them. You use more, or for longer, than you meant to.
Life shrinks around it
Work, friends, sport and family get less of you. Time goes to getting it, using it and recovering from it.
You keep going anyway
Health problems, money trouble, arguments or legal risk have not been enough to stop it.
It is a secret
You hide how much, from whom and when. Shame keeps the loop closed, and one honest conversation is often the first crack in it.

Why it keeps going

The loop, in plain language

Your brain has a reward system. It releases dopamine when something matters for survival, like food, warmth or company, and that signal says: this matters, do it again. Drugs, alcohol and some behaviors push that signal far harder than ordinary life can.

The brain adapts to protect itself. It turns its own response down. The habit now gives less, and everything else gives much less. Ordinary pleasures go flat. With many substances the body also adapts physically, so stopping brings withdrawal. Meanwhile the cues around the habit, a time of day, a place, a person, a feeling, become triggers that fire the craving on their own, sometimes months later.

That is the loop: use to feel normal, feel worse without it, use again. Willpower alone rarely breaks it, because the loop runs below the level of decisions. The animation below shows it in four stages, and what the iboga night may change.

The habit brings a lift that nothing else in the day can match.
A drink, a pill, a line or a bet: the loop starts the same way.
Ordinary life goes flat, and you need more just to feel normal.
Stopping brings withdrawal, craving or both, so the loop restarts.
After the iboga night, the craving can go quiet and life feel brighter.
An opening, not a cure. Some withdrawal is managed medically first, and the brain still needs months to recover.
Then you meet what the habit was holding in place.
Often pain, grief or a story about yourself. Around the fire, you can put it down.

A simplified picture of how a habit can change everyday feeling, not a measurement. The third stage draws on animal studies and uncontrolled human case series; the fourth describes the tradition's understanding, not a medical claim. Animal studies review · Case series, N = 191.

The evidence, honestly

What the research on ibogaine says, and does not

Iboga and its main alkaloid, ibogaine, are not approved treatments for addiction anywhere we work. The research is real and encouraging, but it is early. Almost all of it uses purified ibogaine in a clinic, not whole root bark in a ceremony, and no randomized controlled trial of ibogaine for addiction has been published. Here is the honest picture.

Animals
A consistent signal
A 2016 systematic review and meta-analysis of 27 animal studies found that ibogaine reduced self-administration of drugs, especially in the first 24 hours. It also found motor problems in the first day and brain cell loss in some studies, and recommended close monitoring in any human use.
Opioids
The strongest human data
In an observational study of 30 people treated in Mexico, scores on a standard opioid withdrawal scale fell from an average of 31 to 14, and half reported no opioid use at one month. A twelve-month study of 14 people in New Zealand found that a single treatment reduced withdrawal and led to cessation or reduced use; one participant died during treatment.
Opioids and cocaine
A case series of 191
An open-label case series from St Kitts, covering 191 people treated for opioid or cocaine dependence under medical monitoring, reported reduced withdrawal and craving after a single treatment, without significant adverse events.
Stimulants, alcohol, cannabis
Looking back at 75 people
A Brazilian retrospective study of 75 people who had used alcohol, cannabis, cocaine or crack found 61 percent abstinent at follow-up after ibogaine combined with psychotherapy. Abstinence lasted a median of 5.5 months after one treatment and 8.4 months after several.
Alcohol
A first small pilot
In a 2026 open-label pilot in Brazil, nine adults with alcohol use disorder received ibogaine in hospital. Most reported drinking less, but only five completed the study, and five showed changes in the heart's QT interval. The authors called for randomized trials.
Safety
The heart is the real risk
In a Dutch hospital study of 14 people, ibogaine lengthened the heart's QT interval by 95 milliseconds on average, and half passed 500 milliseconds; the effect was reversible. A review of 19 deaths linked to ibogaine found that, where the evidence was adequate, heart disease or other drugs explained or contributed to most of them; seizures from alcohol or benzodiazepine withdrawal were another risk factor.

What this means for you: the evidence supports iboga as a real interruption, strongest for opioid withdrawal, and it also explains every step of our medical protocol. It does not support anyone promising you a success rate. Read Ibogaine success rates and How iboga works.

Substances

What we work with, and how

Each dependence has its own medical logic. The physician decides case by case; this is the general picture.

Alcohol
Taper first, then ceremony
Acute alcohol withdrawal is dangerous on its own. Guests with daily heavy use are tapered under medical guidance before travel or stabilized on site during the first days; the ceremony comes once the body is safe.
Alcohol
Opioids
Short-acting, then iboga
Heroin, oxycodone and fentanyl users can usually go into ceremony after a short, planned interval. Methadone and buprenorphine need to be switched to a short-acting opioid weeks before, with the prescribing doctor. This is why the two-week program exists.
Opioids and fentanyl
Stimulants
Cocaine, amphetamines, prescription stimulants
Stopped before travel, because stimulants and iboga do not mix: how we protect your heart. The ceremony works mostly on craving and on the life behind the use.
Cocaine · Adderall and stimulants
Benzodiazepines
Never during withdrawal
Iboga is not given during benzodiazepine withdrawal. A slow taper with your doctor comes first, sometimes over months. We help plan it; we do not shortcut it.
Xanax and benzodiazepines
Kratom and 7-OH
Opioid logic, with extra caution
Kratom acts on opioid receptors, lengthens the QT interval and slows the enzyme that clears ibogaine. It is stopped for a planned interval set by the physician, after a step-down from concentrated 7-OH where needed.
Kratom and 7-OH
Ketamine
Stopped before travel
No ketamine around the ceremonies. Screening checks the heart, the liver and the bladder, and the plan covers the depression or pain that ketamine was often treating.
Ketamine
Cannabis and nicotine
Simpler, still real
No medical taper is needed. Both are stopped before travel per the preparation guidelines, and both respond well to the reset and the follow-up.
Cannabis · Smoking, vaping and Zyn
Chemsex
Meth, G and mephedrone
Daily G use needs a supervised detox first, meth needs a clean interval and a careful look at the heart, and the integration works on sober intimacy, without judgment.
Chemsex
Behavioral
Gambling, screens, food, sex
No substance to detox from, but the same loop. The psycho-spiritual programs are usually the right frame; the psychologist helps decide.
Gambling and sports betting · Video games · Porn and OnlyFans · Social media and phone · Shopping and spending · Food and binge eating · Love addiction and codependency

Before you travel

Preparation and medicine safety

The most important rule on this page: never stop a medicine or a substance on your own to get ready for a retreat. Some withdrawals are dangerous, and some medicines must come down slowly. Every change is planned with our physician and, where relevant, the doctor who prescribes it. Withholding information is the one thing that gets a guest sent home, because the protocol only protects you if it knows you.

Screening
ECG, blood, honesty
A 12-lead ECG and a full blood panel with your own doctor or a lab near you, reviewed by Dr Villarreal, plus a detailed questionnaire about everything you take. Tania, our psychologist, joins when the history asks for it.
Withdrawal risk
Alcohol, benzodiazepines, G
These withdrawals can cause seizures. They are tapered with a doctor before travel or stabilized on site, and iboga is never given while they are under way.
Maintenance
Methadone and buprenorphine
Long-acting, and unsafe with iboga. Only for people who have decided with their prescriber to come off, and only after a switch to a short-acting opioid weeks before. If maintenance is keeping you well, keep it.
Antidepressants
SSRIs, bupropion and others
Some raise ibogaine levels through the liver enzyme CYP2D6. Any taper is planned with your prescribing doctor, weeks ahead, never alone.
The heart
QT-prolonging medicines
Some antipsychotics, antibiotics, antifungals and other medicines lengthen the QT interval, as iboga does. The physician reviews every one. How we protect your heart.
Addiction medicines
Naltrexone, disulfiram, acamprosate
If you take a medicine to support sobriety, the physician decides with your prescriber whether and when to pause it. Many guests return to one after the retreat.

Electrolytes matter too: vomiting, poor eating and heavy drinking lower magnesium and potassium, which raises cardiac risk. They are corrected before any ceremony. Read Safety and medical protocol.

How it unfolds

The two-week program, day by day

The physician sets the plan after screening, so this is the usual shape, not a fixed schedule. On the ten-day program the same steps are shorter, with three ceremonies.

Before you fly: preparation
Two to four weeks of preparation: the guidelines on diet, alcohol and medicines, any taper or switch planned with your doctor, and one preparation call with the team. Lisa stays reachable throughout.
Days 1 to 3: stabilization
Arrival, intake, vitals, bloodwork review. The physician manages withdrawal medically, rest and food come first, and the practitioners meet you around the fire without medicine.
Days 4 to 10: ceremonies
The Bwiti ceremonies, each followed by a processing day and an integration day. Cardiac telemetry, IV access and the medical team in the palapa every time.
The day after each ceremony
Rest, sleep, light food. The practitioner sits with you to talk through the night's life review, and the physician checks your heart and vitals.
Integration days
The cenote, the garden, writing, time with the psychologist. The first quiet days without the habit, in a place built for them.
Days 11 to 14: recovery and plan
Sleep returns, appetite returns. With Tania and the medical team you build the plan for home: people, places, triggers, support, medication if any.
Three months after
Four integration calls, the medical team reachable, wearable data reviewed. Relapse is not treated as failure; it is treated as information, quickly.

For the family

If you are reading this for someone you love

Many first messages come from a partner, a parent or a grown child. Living beside someone's addiction is exhausting, and you have probably tried everything. You are welcome to help. The decision has to stay theirs: we do not accept anyone who is being sent, because the medicine asks for an honesty no one can give on someone else's behalf.

Join the discovery call
With their agreement, ask your questions and hear the medical answers firsthand. Lisa can talk with you before they fly.
Do not force a cold stop
Throwing everything away the night before a flight can set off dangerous withdrawal. Follow the physician's plan instead.
Be part of the after
Family does not stay at the center, but can join the preparation and, if they wish, the integration calls.
Look after yourself
Groups such as Al-Anon and Nar-Anon exist for exactly your situation. You will be more help rested than burned out.

After the retreat

The three months that decide the outcome

The retreat opens a window. What you build in it decides what lasts. Three months of continuing care are included in every program, and they are not optional extras: they are the part of the work that happens in your real life.

Four integration calls
With the practitioner and the psychologist, spaced across the three months, to work with what you saw and what is happening now.
The medical team reachable
Sleep, mood, a hard week, a question about a medicine. Your data is reviewed against the baseline from your screening.
A plan for the hard hours
The times and places you used to use are the hardest. The plan you built at the center fills them on purpose, with people, movement and support at home.
If you slip
Call us. A slip is information, not failure: what happened just before, who you were with, what you felt. After opioids, a slip is also an overdose risk, because tolerance drops; never use alone, and keep naloxone near.

We encourage every guest to build support at home too: a therapist, a mutual-help group, a doctor who knows the plan. After the three months, alumni calls are available at $100 an hour.

Who it is for

And who it is not for

A good fit
You have tried to stop and could not hold it. You are willing to be honest about everything you take. You have, or will build, some support at home. You accept that the retreat is the start, not the end.
Not now
You are in acute withdrawal, you are pregnant, you have a heart condition, you are on a medication that cannot be tapered in time, or you are coming because someone else insists. We will tell you on the discovery call, and often propose a later date.

Questions about detox

Straight answers

Do I have to be sober when I arrive?

It depends on the substance. Alcohol and benzodiazepines require a medical taper or on-site stabilization; opioid users follow a short planned interval; stimulants and cannabis are stopped before travel. The physician gives you exact instructions after screening. Do not attempt a cold stop on your own.

Will iboga get me through opioid withdrawal?

Guests consistently report that withdrawal symptoms are markedly reduced during and after the ceremony. It is the best-known effect of the medicine, and the reason it is studied. It is not a guarantee, and it does not replace the stabilization days or the follow-up.

What is your success rate?

We do not publish a percentage, because the honest answer depends on what you count and how long you follow people. What we can say: we measure, we follow every guest for three months, and we tell you what we see. Anyone who quotes you a high round number is selling.

Can my family come?

Not during the retreat. Family can be part of the preparation and of the integration calls if you want them to be, and Lisa can talk to them before you fly.

Is the detox program available on every date?

Yes, on any open retreat date, subject to the private rooms available. Detox guests are part of the same group of eight, with their own room and their own medical plan.

How much does an iboga detox cost?

The program is $9,300 for ten days or $13,000 for fourteen days, in a private room, all inclusive from Cancún airport. Medical detox, only when the physician requires it, adds $600 to $800 a day for three to five days, typically $1,800 to $4,000, confirmed in writing before you pay. Laboratory tests before travel are paid separately.

Why does detox need a private room?

Withdrawal days mean checks through the day and night, broken sleep and sometimes being unwell. A private room gives you rest and dignity, and lets the medical team reach you without waking anyone else.

Is iboga an approved treatment for addiction?

No. Iboga and ibogaine are not approved medicines for addiction. The human research is observational, mostly with purified ibogaine in clinics, and no randomized controlled trial has been published. We offer a traditional ceremony inside a medical protocol, and we are honest that it is an opening, not a cure.

Can I come if I take methadone or Suboxone?

Only if you have decided with your prescribing doctor to come off, and only after switching to a short-acting opioid weeks before travel. Never stop either medicine suddenly on your own. If maintenance treatment is working for you, staying on it is a sound choice.

What happens if I relapse after the retreat?

Call us. We look at what happened with you and adjust the plan, inside the three months of care. After opioids, tolerance drops, so an old dose can be deadly: never use alone and keep naloxone near. After heavy drinking or benzodiazepines, get medical help before stopping again.

How soon can I start?

Most guests arrive three to six weeks after their first message. Three weeks is the practical minimum, because the ECG and bloodwork take time to schedule and review, and some medicines need a taper. A long taper, such as for benzodiazepines, can take months; we help you plan it and hold a date when you are ready.

Sources

The research behind this page

Belgers M et al. Ibogaine and addiction in the animal model, a systematic review and meta-analysis. Translational Psychiatry, 2016. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Brown TK, Alper K. Treatment of opioid use disorder with ibogaine: detoxification and drug use outcomes. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 2018. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Noller GE, Frampton CM, Yazar-Klosinski B. Ibogaine treatment outcomes for opioid dependence from a twelve-month follow-up observational study. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 2018. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Mash DC et al. Ibogaine detoxification transitions opioid and cocaine abusers between dependence and abstinence: clinical observations and treatment outcomes. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2018. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Schenberg EE et al. Treating drug dependence with the aid of ibogaine: a retrospective study. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2014. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Rocha JM et al. Feasibility, safety and preliminary effects of ibogaine in patients with moderate and severe alcohol use disorder: a pilot, open-label study. Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, 2026. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Knuijver T et al. Safety of ibogaine administration in detoxification of opioid-dependent individuals: a descriptive open-label observational study. Addiction, 2022. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Alper KR, Stajić M, Gill JR. Fatalities temporally associated with the ingestion of ibogaine. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 2012. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Alcohol use disorder in the United States: age groups and demographic characteristics (2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health). niaaa.nih.gov
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Drug overdose deaths in the United States, 2023 and 2024. NCHS Data Brief No. 549. cdc.gov

A medically supervised iboga detox, in ceremony.

Two lengths, private room only

Interruption, then work

Withdrawal

Craving

The story behind it

What dependence looks like, in plain words

You need more

Stopping hurts

The rules do not hold

Life shrinks around it

You keep going anyway

It is a secret

The loop, in plain language

What the research on ibogaine says, and does not

A consistent signal

The strongest human data

A case series of 191

Looking back at 75 people

A first small pilot

The heart is the real risk

What we work with, and how

Taper first, then ceremony

Short-acting, then iboga

Cocaine, amphetamines, prescription stimulants

Never during withdrawal

Opioid logic, with extra caution

Stopped before travel

Simpler, still real

Meth, G and mephedrone

Gambling, screens, food, sex

Preparation and medicine safety

ECG, blood, honesty

Alcohol, benzodiazepines, G

Methadone and buprenorphine

SSRIs, bupropion and others

QT-prolonging medicines

Naltrexone, disulfiram, acamprosate

The two-week program, day by day

Before you fly: preparation

Days 1 to 3: stabilization

Days 4 to 10: ceremonies

The day after each ceremony

Integration days

Days 11 to 14: recovery and plan

Three months after

If you are reading this for someone you love

Join the discovery call

Do not force a cold stop

Be part of the after

Look after yourself

The three months that decide the outcome

Four integration calls

The medical team reachable

A plan for the hard hours

If you slip