Normally, when one goes to rehab, it’s to break the cycle of abuse and addiction, not to test out some hallucinogenic drug for a week to see if it distracts you from your other addictions. But, if you’re Charlie Sheen’s ex-wife, you probably still have that mindset that you only have one gear: go.

Brooke Mueller hopes that the seven-day treatment in a Mexican clinic with the hallucinogen, Ibogaine, will help “rewire” her brain.

Ibogaine is a psychoactive chemical compound that is found naturally in the root bark of the West African iboga shrub.

It’s also used by members of African tribes and religions during healing rituals and rite-of-passage ceremonies.

Some studies have actually shown that the drug helps to curb symptoms and prevents drug cravings for people trying to get clean.

This is probably because the schedule one substance, meaning it has a high propensity for abuse itself, makes one trip relatively hard and one ends up forgetting about all the other worries.

Mueller recently spent 45 days in rehab, exiting last month, but has since been photographed holding a crack pipe and was also reportedly ejected from a plane for erratic behaviour.

According to Dr Stephen Ross, director of NYU Langone’s Center of Excellence on Addiction, those who take Ibogaine:

May have visual hallucinations where they will feel they’re transported beyond three-dimensional time and space.

They may feel interconnected to a higher form of energy, their consciousness is part of a greater consciousness, and have a sense of sacredness, awe and reverence.

This is all good and well, but unfortunately the usual side effects of taking hallucinogenic drugs still exist and Ibogaine has been responsible for about 20 deaths so far.

Dr Scott Basinger, associate dean of extramural affairs at Baylor College of Medicine was honest about it all:

I feel that her multiple relapses are a failure, not of the rehabilitation programs she has attended, but of her total unwillingness to follow an aftercare program.

He went on to say that this will only be a “band-aid to the disease of addiction,” for poor Brooke.

[Source: ABC]