Kambo for Alcoholism
The Kambo frog venom is applied to small pieces of wood. Later, water is added to wet the venom and make it into a paste for application to the skin.Kambo was discovered by a shaman in the Amazon who had taken Ayahuasca (another sacred medicine) to find a way to prevent and treat diseases for his tribe. Ayahuasca showed the shaman the Phyllomedusa bicolor frog and how to administer the toad venom.
In the Amazon, this frog venom treatment became known by different names including:
- Kambo
- Campo
- Sapo
- Vacina de Sapo
Outside of the Amazon, Kambo is sometimes known as The Jungle Vaccine because it can be administered to generally support immune system function to prevent serious disease.
Kambo for Alcoholism and Mental Health
Kambo is said to drive out panema or negative energy from the body. Kambo acts on the autonomic nervous system to release negative emotions or trauma that has been stored in various configurations. Trauma can be encoded into the autonomic nervous system in a variety of ways including as:- Physical illness
- Mental illness
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Bipolar Disorder
- Panic Disorder
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
- Dissociative Identity Disorder
- More…
- Relationship Issues
- More…
Click here to learn more about the DreamLight.app, a guided meditation and brain-entrainment tool.
Panema and trauma might be viewed as similar things where trauma is defined as any event that makes a person feel fear regarding his/her survival or fear regarding the survival of a loved one. People who have been exposed to trauma either before becoming alcoholics or even as a result of alcoholism, enter into a prolonged state of stress and heightened levels of cortisol. This, in turn, suppresses the immune system and alters our breathing patterns and digestion such that our normal healing response gets hijacked. This can then lead to the repetition of behaviors that are maladaptive and that don’t serve your highest good. It can cause you to react to the present as though you are stuck in a traumatic moment in the past.
According to Candace Pert, the use of Kambo for alcohol addiction treatment speeds up the normal process of healing that occurs when a person stops drinking. In other words, it hastens the alcoholism recovery process. Kambo supports the body’s natural “field of intelligence” to regrow dopamine receptors, restore normal immune system function, improve breathing and digestion patterns, and restore all of the body’s systems that have been damaged to a more normal, baseline level of functioning.
Click here to schedule a health coaching call with us.
The hyper-stimulation of the pituitary gland that happens as a result of exposure to the Kambo neuropeptides causes the person receiving Kambo to have the opportunity to confront the fight-or-flight experience of a traumatic event that happened in the past. Through repeated administration of Kambo, this person becomes accustomed to confronting the fight-or-flight reflex which reduces the habit of running away or trying to cover up these intense feelings. Essentially, through Kambo, a person can practice confronting fear, anger, sadness to improve general emotional stability.Several neuropeptides such as dermorphin and deltorphin, or caerulein, act a bit like the natural endorphins that our bodies produce, for example as a “runner’s high”. Alcoholics may not be producing a lot of natural endorphins as a result of their addiction which means that they may not get to experience a lot of natural high points in their day. Kambo peptides allow the brain to elicit a pain-relieving effect without causing an addiction. It helps to bring back the good feelings that our bodies can produce naturally via endorphins.
Click here to buy The Anti-Addiction Encyclopedia.
Kambo Neuropeptides
Kambo contains a number of neuropeptides that impact various systems of the body. Below we’ll talk about some of the neuropeptides and how they work as a cure for alcoholism.
-
Phyllocaerulein
The neuropeptide Phyllocaerulein works to stimulate the adrenal glands and the pituitary gland to reduce pain and produce a feeling being satiated. Stimulation of the pituitary gland along with the adrenal glands help increase the body’s ability to conquer the challenges of everyday life. Kambo contains about 32 micrograms of this neuropeptide per milligram.
The Phyllocaerulein in Kambo, via its effect on the adrenal axis and the pituitary gland, is particularly useful as a cure for alcohol addiction because it readies the body to face life’s challenges in a normal and healthy way. It helps us react positively to fear rather than seeking to escape from it by drinking alcohol.
-
Phyllomedusin
Phyllomedusin regulates neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin by targeting the tachykinin receptors. It causes smooth muscles to contract while dilating blood vessels throughout the body. Phyllomedusin also increases the permeability of the blood-brain barrier. Phyllomedusin is present at a dose of around 22 micrograms per milligram of Kambo.
-
Phyllokinin
Phyllokinin impacts the bradykinin receptors. Phyllokinin causes smooth muscles to relax. Phyllokinin also causes the blood vessels to dilate and it also increases permeability of the blood-brain barrier. Phyllokinin is present at a dose of about 18 micrograms per milligram of Kambo.
-
Sauvagine
Sauvagine acts like a hormone in the body. It also interacts with the adrenal-pituitary axis and the corticotropin receptors that are involved in addiction, stress, anxiety, and depression.
-
Deltorphin
Deltorphin is a peptide that targets the delta opioid receptors. It has more potent effects on beta-endorphins that the body produces naturally to reduce pain and enhance feelings of relaxation and pleasure. It is present at about 5.2 micrograms per milligram. The opioid receptor sites that are activated by deltorphin shut down when they’ve had enough of this peptide. After they’ve maxed out, they don’t need or want further stimulation. Opiates, in contrast to deltorphin, flood opioid brain receptors in a way that makes the receptors lazy and needy.
-
Dermorphin
Dermorphin is a peptide that targets the mu opioid receptors. Like deltorphin, dermorphin is a peptide that activates opioid receptors, but only until they’ve had enough stimulation. At that point, the mu opioid receptors shut down. This is in contrast to what happens when a person takes an opiate drug that floods opioid receptors such that they are not able to produce natural opiate-substances like endorphins in the body. Dermorphin is present at a dose of about 0.25-0.33 micrograms per milligram.
-
Caerulein
How Kambo Is Administered
Kambo is a frog venom that is stored on a small wooden stick. The venom dries, but later can be wetted down using clean water so as to make it into a pasty substance. To administer the Kambo “paste”, a tiny dot of skin is burnt so that the dermis is exposed. The paste is then scraped off the stick and applied to the dot of burnt skin such that the peptides easily gain access to the blood supply.Effects from the Kambo are usually felt within a few minutes of the application of the paste to burnt areas of the skin. The effects last for about 10-15 minutes.
My Experience with Kambo
Kambo is not psychoactive, but it is a type of sacred medicine that causes a powerful physical reaction. While something like Ayahuasca or Sapito might provoke hallucinations or the experience of traveling in other worlds, Kambo is a medicine that causes you to confront your felt sense (a term coined by Dr. Peter Levine) and your body’s reaction to stress.As a remedy for alcoholism, Kambo assists the body by purging the liver and the gallbladder. Clearing out the liver and gallbladder also produces clearer thoughts and less rumination during alcoholism withdrawal and detox. Though not everyone purges during a Kambo ceremony, the purge can be especially important for those who are working with Kambo to stop drinking.
Kambo is often combined with other sacred medicines like Ayahuasca or sometimes Iboga or Sapito (another type of frog venom with psychoactive effects). It is not administered simultaneously, but rather during the same ceremony with some of these other remedies for addiction.
Lydian and I learned how to administer Kambo from a shaman in Mexico who used the medicine to treat people like doctors and nurses during the COVID pandemic before the vaccine was available. She would administer Kambo to everyone who came to her temazcal each week so as to prevent the spread of the virus while simultaneously promoting socialization during a time when people were not socializing often. At this time, we learned how to administer Kambo and we received many doses of Kambo too. No one that she worked with got COVID even though they were people on the front lines.
People who are struggling with addiction including alcoholism withdrawal often report that their withdrawal symptoms disappear almost immediately following a dose of Kambo. As a treatment for addiction, Kambo should be administered at increasingly shorter intervals of time until the alcoholism withdrawal process comes to an end.
Click here to buy an enema bag to cleanse the liver prior to a Kambo ceremony.
In my experience, Kambo is often used to cleanse the body, the mind, and the spirit prior to a person receiving other psychoactive sacred medicines or prior to doing a 2 to 3 hour temazcal ceremony. Kambo is empowering and it helps people find their courage and strength so it makes sense that it is often a tool that’s used to introduce other powerful sacred medicines like Sapito or Ayahuasca. Though Kambo can be administered as a stand-alone remedy for alcoholism, it combines very well with certain other medicines that can improve the outcome of treatment for alcohol addiction.
Click here to buy Organic Coffee for Coffee Enemas to cleanse the liver prior to a Kambo ceremony.
Though many people do vomit when they work with Kambo, I have never vomited when working with this medicine even at high doses. For people who are afraid of vomiting or who wish to avoid a major purge (due to a fear of vomiting or purging), consider doing a coffee enema up to 3 times per day for 1-2 weeks prior to doing the Kambo ceremony. Eat alkaline foods during this time period as well. The combination of working with coffee enemas, alkalinity, and Kambo is a powerful healing protocol that can totally change a person’s health trajectory for the better. We also recommend that people take Pueraria lobata / Kudzu at a dose of at least between 2000-3000 mg per day prior to working with Kambo to heal the pancreas.
Click here to buy Pueraria lobata / Kudzu.
The use of Kambo prior to a temazcal is also highly recommended particularly a temazcal that involves detoxifying herbs and concoctions that are thrown on the rocks, administered as a tea, and spread on the skin during the ceremony. Kambo treatments are usually administered first and then the temazcal ceremony follows.Once the Kambo is administered, it takes about 15 minutes on average for the effects to wear off though in some cases, the effects do last longer (up to about 45 minutes though this is somewhat rare). Again, Kambo does not produce a psychoactive experience, but it is an excellent medicine to take prior to a psychoactive medicine such as Sapito or Ayahuasca. As a mind-clearing, fear-reducing medicine, Kambo is administered first and then, after its effects have entirely worn off, other sacred medicines can be administered.
If you are interested in receiving Kambo treatments for alcohol addiction, contact us at [email protected] for more information about our facility in Mexico.
Click here to read about the use of Ayahuasca for alcoholism.
If you or someone you love suffers from alcohol addiction, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) can be helpful in the beginning stages to release trauma that drives the addiction. EMDR involves the back-and-forth movement of the eyes to process trauma in the right and left brain hemispheres. We often administer EMDR to our clients when they are just beginning at-home treatment for alcohol addiction. EMDR can make people more open to the idea of healing and it gives our clients first-hand experience with releasing trauma. EMDR is simple to do at home by yourself, but many people have better results when they first work with an EMDR practitioner to guide them through the process of "intention". Click here to do a free trial of EMDR online.
Click here to do a free trial of EMDR online.
Resources:
• Vice Media Group (2024). How Amazonian Tree Frog Poison Became the Latest Treatment for Addiction. Retrieved February 19, 2024 from https://www.vice.com/en/article/gqkxa9/kambo-ceremony-alcoholism-purging-uk
• Meehl Foundation (2018). Kambo for Addiction. Retrieved February 19, 2024 from https://meehlfoundation.org/kambo-for-addiction/
• Lattanzi, G. (2021). Kambo, Iboga, Ayahuasca. Ulisse Di Corpo
• Gorman, P. (2015). Sapo in My Soul: The Matses Frog Medicine. Gorman Bench Press.
• Williams, J. A. et al. (2014). Caerulein. Retrieved February 19, 2024 from https://pancreapedia.org/molecules/caerulein
• Erspamer, V. et al. (1993). Pharmacological studies of “sapo” from the frog Phyllomedusa bicolor skin: a drug used by Peruvian Matses Indians in shamanic hunting practices. Retrieved February 19, 2024 from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8266343/
