Hanifa Nayo Washington & Adam Rubin (Fireside Project): The Psychedelic Peer Support Hotline

A difficult psychedelic experience once meant a hospital visit… or worse. Now, in the spirit of the Zendo Project and other psychedelic peer support organizations, we have a new hotline called the Fireside Project (call or text 62-FIRESIDE) and there’s a lot that psychedelic therapists can learn from leaders like Hanifa Nayo Washington and Adam Rubin.

On the show, we discuss the influence of ceremonial medicine and legacy psychedelic support organizations in informing Fireside. We talk about the value of community in mental health and how Fireside nurtures their own cohort of volunteers. We review the data from the first 18 days of operation and discuss potential legal issues. Finally as always, Hanifa and Adam share their advice to psychedelic therapists.

Fireside Project Co-founder, Adam Rubin is a psychedelic harm reduction activist and crisis counselor. He has worked over 45 events around the world since 2015 with many different organizations including the Zendo Project, White Bird Rock Med, RGX Medical, and Take 3 Presents. He has given trainings to peer support volunteers, local psychedelic communities, and event medical teams. He has also written a series of zines titled “The It’s Okay Psychedelic Harm Reduction Series” and distributes them for free.

Hanifa Nayo Washington is Fireside Project’s Cultivator Of Beloved Community. She is an award-winning cultural producer and the Principal Organizer & Co-Founding Practitioner of One Village Healing, a wellness and resilience initiative. Hanifa has been combining arts, healing, and activism to make the world a better place for 20+ years and in 2017 she released her 3rd album Mantras for the Revolution. In December 2018 Hanifa received a Phenomenal Women Arts Award from the Arts Council of Greater New Haven for her contributions and achievements in the arts.

Links

• Fireside Hotline: 62-FIRESIDE
• Fireside Project
• The Stormy Search for the Self
• Hanifa Nayo Washington
• Adam Rubin

Timestamps

• :04 - Hanifa’s background in ceremonial psychedelic medicine and community building
• :13 - Adam’s experience with Zendo Project and other psychedelic peer support groups
• :17 - Psychedelic peer support is not shamanism
• :21 - The value of holding space in community and the challenges with doing that over a phone line.
• :30 - How Fireside supports their beloved community of volunteers
• :41 - Skills earned in psychedelic peer support
• :45 - Data collected by Fireside
• :50 - The legal status of organizations like Fireside
• :58 - Advice to psychedelic therapists