Sobriety, “Vegetal” and the World of Illusion

Abstract

Drawing on the long-term ethnographic research conducted in the addiction treatment center Via da Paz, the article discusses the relationship between the concept of sobriety and reality. Via da Paz is located in the Brazilian Amazon. The center combines the União do Vegetal religious rituals with psychotherapeutic methods mostly grounded in Twelve-Step approaches. During the 9-month therapy people undergoing treatment drink vegetal – the psychoactive brew containing DMT. Though DMT is schedule 1-substance, classified within the UE Drug Conventions as a hallucinogenic drug, in Via da Paz practices related to consumption of vegetal play a central role in the recovery from addiction. Moreover, people undergoing therapy differentiate the state induced by the brew from “intoxication” with other psychoactive substances and experience it as sober. The aim of the article is to show that in certain social contexts, the path to sobriety (understood as a clear recognition of reality), may lead through the use of substances, that in other contexts are considered as distorting the perception of reality. As it is suggested this is related to the different ontological conceptualizations of the reality itself.