HOLLYWOOD SOBER

Welcome to the big scam of wellness, god bless us all stumbling around trying to figure it out. 

I love trolling IG for “spiritual wellness” influencers—bonus points if they are based in Bali/Ibiza/Tulum/ and offer tantric sex coaching or trauma healing services with ZERO credentials. One of my favorite wellness scammers charges women thousands to scream in the woods and beat a tree with a stick.

*Shipping costs outside of the Continental US to be paid by the subscriber.

With a “magic stick” aka a whip made of leaves, for a portrait by Mary Rozzi. I cannot guarantee the size & shape of the stick I will mail you but it WILL BE MAGICAL.

The Hollywood wellness scene is particularly influential as the intersection of privilege and access to the newest modalities set worldwide trends. It is also hilarious.

I readily admit to enjoying an Erewhon shopping spree but I do draw the line at purchasing a $19 Hailey Bieber smoothie. That said, my morning matcha recipe includes matcha from the Kakegawa region of Japan; Collagen peptides, adaptogenic mushroom powders, cardamon, cinnamon, dates and homemade cashew or coconut mylk which all combined would probably retail for around $14-18 at the tonic bar.

Beyond the high end morning matcha, my personal wellness journey includes breath-work, meditation, surfing, setting healthy boundaries and my aforementioned 444 days (and counting) of sobriety.

I am raw dogging my sober journey, not doing “Calfornia sobriety,” aka when you (mostly) abstain from hard drugs and limit alcohol but use weed, plant medicine and tequila (less calories, less hangover.)

I am a California born hippie who used to make East Coast friends avocado and sprouts toast on multigrain bread back in high school and have definitely sunned my perineum. Even so, I regularly roll my eyes at myself and the Hollywood wellness scene and just how far gone it is/ I am.

For example:

Driving on the 10 Freeway I passed an “Adopt a Highway” sign sponsored by a Hollywood Ketamine clinic. Ketamine as in the now federally approved drug for treatment of depression and pain management. I will always think of Ketamine as “Special K” which is what it was called when my friends and I took it at raves when we were 14. Only in LA would a Ketamine clinic advertise their good samaritan services on the freeway.

On the East side of Los Angeles, I took a pilates class in a studio with a pink neon “good vibes” sign hanging above the reformers. The teacher burned sage before we started class. Girl-boss catch phrases were tossed around as we worked out alongside a discussion of which school Beyonce sends her kids to. During the cool down the teacher played sound bowls. I personally love sound healing and have been known to sage my pussy* but prefer not to combine all these activities with exercising.

*You may laugh, but I often tell people to sage or “energetically” clear out their pussy/ dick/ asshole as a method of resetting their sexual energy. This is especially helpful after a breakup or disappointing sexual experience (NOT traumatic or boundary crossing, that is something I take very seriously.) I am not suggesting you hold a burning plant thisclose to your genitals, but you can let the smoke waft towards you from a safe distance while concentrating on letting go of other people’s gunk and/ or any of your own as a symbolic ritual of releasing.

West of the 405 freeway, I attended a daytime house party in LA where almost everyone (except yours truly, on her sober journey,) was on Quaaludes. I asked one guy, who was dressed like Bella Hadid in baggy jeans, a white tank, minimal but chic jewelry and wraparound sunglasses, to describe the high. He said it was “a feeling of grounded-ness like your lower body is really heavy and your head is floating, attached to your body like a balloon. Plus it only lasts about an hour so it’s low commitment.” I had only read about Quaaludes in books about the 70s and couldn’t believe they were circulating in the 2020s. Now they are considered a “healthy” alternative to harder drugs because the formula has been designer-calibrated. The most fashionable Quaalude dealer is the supplier to a very publicly sober Hollywood heartthrob who popularized his services. This dealer sends clients a PDF menu of drugs, which include the usual suspects (cocaine, MDMA, etc) plus “vintage” ones, like Quaaludes. Emojis are associated with each item so that when you text your order (via Signal) it’s all in code.

The media likes to paint women as the biggest suckers for wellness trends, but I know countless bros who view Andrew Huberman as a God, pontificating for hours about their raw milk and primal diets (“real men eat meat, grrr”) counting macros, testosterone levels and calories like an influencer with an eating disorder.

Don’t even get me started on the straight male polyamorous “healer” scene (often found leading tantric sex workshops in Bali or Venice Beach, California.) Good lord, if I receive one more DM from a guy that starts with “Hello Queen, I received a download for you…” I call them “spiritual fuckbois”— the below meme pretty much sums up this subcategory.

California is at the forefront it comes wellness and new age devotion and has been doing so for over 125 years. Los Angeles just before the turn of the 20th century was a city teeming with transplants seeking clean air, a warmer climate and health cures. Between 1870-1910 the census quadrupled every few years as if the country was tipped west and those wishing to reinvent themselves came rolling in to discover a land where fortunes could be made and all dreams were possible. Historically, the influx of eccentrics tempted by California’s new age lifestyle always included mystics, mediums and charlatans. Having poured over 1840-1910 Los Angeles census records during research for my book, Sporting Guide, I’ll share a few of the entries for 1880:

Lulu Walker “Palmist,” 33 yrs old, married 15 years.

Mary E.W. Wright “Medium, ” Lodger, 71 yrs old, married. Bore 6 children, 3 still living.

Gussie Swedenborg “Clairvoyant, ”33 yrs old, Emigrated Sweden, widowed, 1 child deceased.

Margaret Mayhaim “Magnetic Healer,” Boarder, 46 yrs old. 1 child.

Emily White “Card Reader,” Head of Home, emigrated England.

Viola Packard “Palmist,” Divorced, 34 yrs old, 2 children deceased.

Flash forward to the 2020s where Hollywood wellness includes healers, gurus, matcha, sage, pilates, smoothies, perineum sunning and designer drugs. Adding to the mix is a subsection of “woke white wellness” folks who wax poetic about enlightenment and inclusivity, often while throwing private parties filled with a sea of other privileged white people. I was invited to one such soirée in Los Angeles, held in the immediate aftermath of COVID. I listened as a gaggle of East Side women, who consider themselves more spiritually and ethically evolved than their counterparts West of the 405 freeway, discuss their anti-racist book clubs. In between extolling said anti-racism, they took turns inhaling Rapé— a powerful, cleansing plant based snuff (primarily tobacco)—used by shamans in Brazil and Peru.

In December 2019, I visited Peru to see the country, not to partake in a plant medicine ceremony. Before I went, I was introduced via WhatsApp to a couple of Q’ero wisdom keepers (Quechua people who live in Cusco region) to learn about their healing practices and plant knowledge. When I say plant knowledge I mean this—every single plant on Earth has been used by indigenous cultures since the dawn of time and contains a spirit and purpose far beyond the pursuit of getting high. The Q’ero curanderos (aka shamans, healers) I met with in Peru spoke with reverence for Pachamama (Mother Earth) and the mountain deities (Apus,) which they consider sources of wisdom and knowledge that can benefit the world and our own healing. One Q’ero curandero, who sometimes leads plant medicine ceremonies, told me that when he works with Peruvians for a medicine journey, it is for a specific purpose. He spoke of Ayahuasca and San Pedro as prescriptions that could help to expose the root cause of an issue or allow someone to journey deeper in order to come to terms with a difficult life passage or trauma. Examples he shared were a couple on the verge of a divorce who wanted to see if the marriage was salvageable, and a person with a cancer diagnosis. We spoke about how plant medicine had been co-opted and commodified by Westerners looking to fast track the path to enlightenment. As he put it, and I’ve heard others say—psychedelic experiences can give you a glimpse out the window, but it doesn’t get you out the door.

I spent my birthday (Christmas Day) that year with two Q’ero shamans in a Pachamama ceremony, to honor the land and give thanks for the honor of experiencing her magic. I won’t share much about it here, beyond this single image below, as it feels too personal. I will say that I felt deeply connected to spirit and spent hours purging, without having imbibed a single drop. I was “sober” but my mind and body were inhabiting an astral realm I am still processing, years later.

While I was in Peru, it was impossible to miss Ayahuasca tourism, a scene I find particularly ripe for satire. In the years since, back in the US, I’ve lost count of how many white guy/girl self-proclaimed shamans lead ceremonial retreats with “medicine from mama dragon” I’ve come across. Fucking shoot me. But also….please send me any you see either here or on IG as this is exactly the kind of spiritual influencer trolling I LIVE FOR. You can find me lurking in the comment sections.

I spoke with my pal

Ben Lee

who is behind

Weirder Together

about our cultural obsession with seeking, escapism and plant medicine. I’ve known Ben since the late 90s/early 2000s. He was one of the first people I knew who was experimenting with Ayahuasca in Hollywood. Around 2009/2010, I attended several “Full Moon Puja’s” he and his wife,

Ione Skye

hosted at their house. Below is an edited version of our conversation.

Liz: During the time you were hosting the full moon pujas (which I loved going to,) you were wrapped up in guru worship and plant medicine journeying. What was the LA ayahuasca scene like ? How do you look back at yourself in this moment of extreme seeking?

Ben: I had a very intense relationship with a guru back then and those pujas were a traditional Hindu ceremony for worshipping the divine feminine. Those monthly gatherings were one of the best things that came out of that time. Everyone brought a vegetarian dish for a potluck and would sit and chant and go into an altered state together. Thats fun. A lot of like minded people and artistic people were gathering and hanging out. there were a lot of overlap between all scenes. I had heard about Ayahuasca since I was a teenager who got into the beats and was fascinated by the Yage letters between [William] Burroughs and [Allen] Ginsberg, so I had always wanted to try it and knew I would. I started hearing about [ayahuasca] being in LA around 2008 or so. My friend Josh Radnor was really into it. We had a spiritual exchange program of sorts. I shared my guru with him on a trip to India, he introduced me to plant medicine. He won ultimately lol.

It was quite a fringe thing back then. Most people had never heard of it and when they did, they mostly thought it sounded terrible. It seemed to draw quite intense people towards it back then, but now it feels like its reached a tipping point and you don’t have to be that discerning to find it.

Liz: What is your take on the current “plant medicine has all the answers” rhetoric? Was there a moment when you felt you were using plant medicine to escape rather than seek?

Ben: I cant imagine anything having “all the answers”. I think of life as quite paradoxical, and sometimes the less you search the more you get offered. Looking too hard can strain your eyes. I think all the searching drives people a little crazy. The plants sometimes amplify that and the individual might not be able to tell the difference between what they are seeing and what it might mean. It’s a dangerous journey.

For me, it was more escaping into seeking. I always wanted enlightenment, god, truth, transcendence etc. but I didn’t realize how even that yearning can be a real crutch to take you away from the here and now.

Liz: How did you come to the end of that chapter of “searching” externally? 

Ben: It really had to do with integrity. I saw a lack of it in myself, in my gurus, shamans and fellow seekers. There were some very high minded and powerful ideas being explored, but not a lot of worldly compassion, understanding, responsibility or success. I felt like the spiritual path was taking me further from my friends and family, making me feel superior and judgemental of others, not bringing me closer to other human beings, which is surely the point. Also, this might just be my experience, but most spiritual paths seem to get homophobic at some point, which is a red flag. Ultimately, I felt satiated, like I’d taken enough time to explore stuff, and was ready to live.

Here’s the thing about seeking and wellness journeys. It’s all about the contradictions and is certainly not linear. You can be an sober asshole or a trash collecting, community-service minded drunk. You can put Erewhon smoothies on your Amex account while pumping your face full of filler or you can self-righteously state that plastic surgery is for the less enlightened. For one person, experimenting with bondage (as in being tied up professionally) could be the modality that helps liberate them from old patterns; for another it could be learning to take 10 deep breaths before responding to external triggers. I’ll tell you what I do know for sure— anyone who tells you they have it all figured out when it comes to healing or that wellness is one size fits all is full of shit.