Ayahuasca and Addiction: What the Research Shows

Early research suggests that ayahuasca, used in carefully held ceremonial or therapeutic settings, may be associated with reduced problem drinking, smoking, and drug use for some people. But almost all of this evidence is observational and preliminary, there are no large controlled trials, and ayahuasca is not an approved or proven treatment for addiction. It should never replace evidence-based care.

If you have landed here because you, or someone you love, is struggling with addiction and wondering whether ayahuasca could help, you deserve an honest answer rather than a hopeful headline. The short version is this: the existing studies are genuinely interesting, several point in the same encouraging direction, and they are nowhere near strong enough to call ayahuasca a treatment. This article walks through what researchers have actually found, where the evidence is weak, and why relying on a ceremony instead of established care can be dangerous.

If you are in crisis right now, please reach out to local emergency services, or in the UK to the Samaritans on 116 123. Help is available and addiction is treatable.

Can ayahuasca help with addiction?

The honest answer is: we do not know yet, and the people doing the research are the first to say so.

Ayahuasca is a plant brew traditionally prepared in the Amazon, combining a DMT-containing plant with a vine that makes the DMT orally active. (Our guide to what ayahuasca is and the explainer on the difference between ayahuasca, DMT and pharmahuasca cover the pharmacology.) Interest in its potential for substance-use disorders comes from two places: long observation that some traditional and religious communities who drink ayahuasca have unusually low rates of problem drinking, and a small number of pilot programmes that have built addiction treatment around ceremony.

What the research does not show is that ayahuasca cures addiction, that it works better than existing treatments, or that it is safe to use this way without medical and psychological support. Those are open questions, not settled facts.

What the observational research shows

Most of the evidence is observational, meaning researchers watched what happened to people who were already using ayahuasca rather than running a controlled experiment. This kind of study can reveal patterns worth investigating, but it cannot prove that ayahuasca caused the changes seen.

The Canadian pilot (Thomas et al., 2013). A frequently cited observational study followed 12 members of a rural First Nations community in British Columbia through "Working with Addiction and Stress" retreats that combined four days of group counselling with two ayahuasca ceremonies.^[1] Six months later, participants showed statistically significant improvements in hopefulness, empowerment, mindfulness and quality of life. Self-reported alcohol, tobacco and cocaine use declined, and the reduction in problematic cocaine use was statistically significant. Cannabis and opiate use did not change. The authors were explicit that with only 12 people and no comparison group, this is a signal worth chasing, not proof of anything.

Religious-use cohorts. A larger study assessed 1,947 members of the União do Vegetal (UDV), a Brazilian church that drinks ayahuasca ceremonially.^[2] Members had higher lifetime use of alcohol and tobacco than national norms, yet significantly lower rates of current alcohol and tobacco use disorders, and longer membership and more frequent attendance were associated with bigger reductions. That is a striking pattern, but a cross-sectional snapshot cannot rule out that the kind of person who stays in a structured spiritual community differs from the general population in other ways.

The Takiwasi model and structured treatment programmes

The most developed treatment programme is the Takiwasi Center in Tarapoto, Peru, an accredited therapeutic community that integrates ayahuasca and other traditional Amazonian practices with psychotherapy, plant diets and residential structure over several months.

The Ayahuasca Treatment Outcome Project (ATOP) is a prospective study of Takiwasi's results.^[3] By design it has no control group, because the researchers note there is no realistic way to randomly assign people in this setting. Early findings point to improvements from intake to one-year follow-up in substance-use severity, depression and anxiety, and some quality-of-life measures.^[4] Notably, roughly a third of people left before their first ceremony, a reminder that this is a demanding programme and that drop-out can flatter the results of those who remain.

There is not a realistic opportunity to randomly assign patients to alternative treatment conditions, including a no-treatment control group.

The crucial point about Takiwasi is that ayahuasca is one element inside months of therapy, community and aftercare. Whatever benefit emerges cannot be cleanly attributed to the brew alone, and the model bears no resemblance to a one-off ceremony marketed as an addiction fix.

How strong is the evidence, really?

When reviewers step back and look at the whole field, the verdict is cautious. Recent syntheses of psychedelics for substance-use disorders find the literature dominated by small samples, short follow-up, and a near-total absence of randomised controlled trials for ayahuasca specifically.^[5] Some reviews also note that use outside a structured or religious context appears less associated with cessation, suggesting the surrounding support, not just the molecule, matters a great deal.

Put plainly:

• No large randomised controlled trials exist for ayahuasca in addiction. The strongest study designs have not been run.
• Sample sizes are tiny, often a dozen to a few dozen people.
• There is usually no control group, so improvement cannot be separated from counselling, expectation, or natural recovery.
• Publication and self-report bias likely tilt results positive.
• Findings are mixed by substance: some studies see drops in cocaine, alcohol and tobacco, little change for cannabis or opioids.

This is what "preliminary" honestly means. It is a reason to fund better research, not a reason to book a ceremony in place of treatment.

The real danger: replacing evidence-based treatment

This is the part that matters most for your safety.

Addiction has treatments that genuinely work and are backed by decades of strong evidence: medications such as those for opioid and alcohol dependence, structured psychotherapies, mutual-aid groups, and medically supervised withdrawal. Choosing an unproven ceremony instead of these can cost time, money and, in the worst cases, lives.

Some risks are specific and serious:

• Dangerous withdrawal. Stopping alcohol or benzodiazepines suddenly can cause seizures and can be fatal. Withdrawal should be medically managed, never attempted at a retreat.
• Medication interactions. Ayahuasca acts on serotonin and contains MAO inhibitors, which can interact dangerously with many psychiatric medicines, including common antidepressants. Our article on ayahuasca and antidepressants explains why this matters, and you should never stop a prescribed medication to attend a ceremony.
• Mental-health risk. People with a personal or family history of psychosis or bipolar disorder may face heightened risk; see who should not take ayahuasca and can ayahuasca trigger psychosis, alongside the broader safety and contraindications guide.
• No screening or follow-up. Reputable addiction care assesses you, supports withdrawal, and follows up. A weekend ceremony does none of this.

If you are still curious, what to keep in mind

Curiosity is reasonable, and being honest about the evidence is not the same as dismissing it. If you go on exploring, do it with both eyes open.

The settings that produced even the modest positive findings were not standalone trips. They were embedded in counselling, community and integration over weeks or months. The integration work, the slow business of making change last, may matter as much as the ceremony itself, which is why we cover integration in depth. If you do look at retreats, treat addiction history as a safety issue, not a detail: read how to choose a retreat safely and bring the questions to ask an ayahuasca retreat, and ask specifically how they handle medical screening, medications and people in recovery.

Above all, the most reliable thing you can do for an addiction is to start with care that is known to work. Ayahuasca research may one day add to that picture. Today, it is a promising lead, not a destination.

For organisations and crisis resources, see our resources page.