1.1 Foundation

Bond & Discovery.

Weeks 1–2

The work doesn't start with diagnosis. It starts with us actually getting to know you. The real you, beneath the role. The version of you that existed before any of this started.

"You can't outrun a process that doesn't know who you are."

What happens in this phase

Direct 1:1 access to Preston. No junior coaches. No handoffs.
Comprehensive intake: history, family system, medical, psychiatric, substance, professional, relational.
Discovery conversation — who you were before this started, what got you off course, what you actually want back.
Honest assessment of what's been tried and why it didn't stick.
Custom protocol design — we build your specific Epic Method arc.

Why this matters — the research: Meta-analyses of psychotherapy outcomes consistently identify therapeutic alliance (the bond between client and practitioner) as one of the strongest predictors of outcome — often outweighing the specific modality used. American Psychological Association on the evidence base for therapeutic relationship.

Evidence-based modalities we use

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) — the most-studied modality in mental health. Identifies and rewires the thought patterns driving the behavior.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) — emotion regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness. Particularly powerful for high-performers whose intensity is both their gift and their wound.
Motivational Interviewing (MI) — the gold-standard collaborative approach to building internal motivation rather than imposed compliance.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) — values-based work for clients who need a reason that's bigger than not-using.
Somatic processing — trauma work that goes beneath the cognitive level.

The research base: CBT is the most extensively researched psychotherapy in history, with hundreds of randomized controlled trials supporting its efficacy across depression, anxiety, and substance use disorder. DBT was developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan and is endorsed by the NIH for emotional dysregulation. Motivational Interviewing has decades of evidence in addiction treatment outcomes. NIMH evidence-based psychotherapy overview.

1.2 Clinical Foundation

Clinical Modalities.

Integrated Throughout

We don't pick one modality and force you into it. We use the right tool for the right moment — evidence-based, well-researched, and applied by someone who understands when each one actually works.

"The modality serves the person. Not the other way around."

1.3 Body Work

Physical Restoration.

30–90 Days · Ongoing After

You can't out-think a body that's biologically wrecked. Most addiction recovery ignores the physical layer almost entirely. That's a mistake we don't make.

"The body has to come back online for the mind to follow."

Training & movement

Customized training programs built around your current capacity, goals, and history.
Resistance training for hormonal optimization, metabolic recovery, and the psychological win-cycle that comes from getting stronger weekly.
Zone 2 cardiovascular work for mitochondrial repair and emotional regulation.
Mobility, breathwork, and nervous-system regulation built into the daily structure.

Nutrition protocol

Personalized nutrition plan built around your labs, your goals, and your actual life.
Protein, micronutrient, and fiber targets calibrated to recovery from addiction-driven malnutrition.
Blood-sugar stabilization to flatten the craving/mood-swing cycle.
Sleep optimization protocol — the cheapest, most powerful intervention available.

Peptide therapy (when clinically appropriate)

Peptide protocols coordinated with our functional medicine partner for clients where it's a clinical fit.
Used for recovery from sleep, immune, growth-hormone, and tissue-repair disruption.
Always physician-supervised, lab-monitored, and integrated into the broader protocol.

The research: Exercise is now considered a first-line treatment for depression in multiple clinical guidelines, with effect sizes comparable to antidepressant medication in meta-analyses. Nutrition's role in mental health is increasingly recognized through the emerging field of nutritional psychiatry. BMJ 2024 meta-analysis: exercise as effective as therapy for depression.

What we actually work on

Who you were before — recovering the version of you that existed before the addiction, before the burnout, before the role consumed you.
Who you're becoming — the version of yourself that's on the other side of all this work.
Values clarification — what do you actually believe in? What are you willing to organize your life around?
Purpose & mission work — for high-performers, the "why am I building this" question is recovery work, not separate from it.
Relational repair — the marriages, parent/child dynamics, and friendships that quietly cracked while you were elsewhere.
Boundaries & renegotiating life structure — the schedule, the inbox, the standing meetings that built the conditions for the addiction in the first place.

Why this matters: Long-term recovery research consistently finds identity transformation — not abstinence alone — is the strongest predictor of durable sobriety. Without it, even successful detox and treatment routinely revert. The work of becoming someone who doesn't need the substance is the work that holds.

1.4 Self Work

Identity Reconstruction.

60–180 Days · Often Longer

Sobriety is the floor. The real work is rebuilding the person underneath the addiction. Getting your edge back, your mission back, your relationships back, your nervous system back.

"Recovery isn't going back to who you were. It's becoming who you are."

1.5 Life Work

Integration with Real Life.

Weekly · Ongoing

We don't separate "recovery" from "life." We work on business, family, relationships, mission, money, and addiction in the same conversation. Because that's how they show up.

"Recovery has to fit inside a real life or it doesn't last."

How we meet

In-person sessions — Newport Beach, Orange County, with travel availability across SoCal. The depth of in-person work is irreplaceable when the schedule allows.
Virtual sessions — for clients nationwide, traveling executives, and weeks where the calendar requires it. Same quality, same access.
Most clients run 3–5 sessions per month in some combination of in-person and virtual.
Direct text and call access between sessions — the moments that matter most rarely happen on schedule.

What we talk about

Business — the deal that's stressing you, the hire that's going sideways, the strategy decision in front of you.
Family — spouse, kids, parents, siblings. The dynamics. The repair work.
Money — the spending patterns connected to the addiction, the lifestyle decisions to renegotiate.
Addiction recovery — cravings, triggers, sober structure, daily practice, accountability.
Mental health — mood, anxiety, sleep, intrusive patterns, medication coordination.
Mission & purpose — what you're building, what you're actually here for.

The continuum-of-care evidence base: Long-term studies consistently demonstrate that continuing care (sustained engagement after primary treatment) is the strongest predictor of long-term recovery outcomes — substantially outperforming any single treatment episode regardless of intensity. McKay 2009 meta-analysis on continuing care for substance use disorder.

What this phase is — and isn't

Plant medicine is the capstone of The Epic Method, not the start. It is offered only after phases 1–5 are solid: stable sobriety, regulated nervous system, real identity work done, real life integration in place. It is offered only after rigorous clinical screening clears. It is offered only with our vetted, legally licensed partner facilities.

What's covered on the dedicated plant medicine page

The medicines we work with — psilocybin (FDA Breakthrough Therapy), ayahuasca, ibogaine, 5-MeO-DMT
Research from Johns Hopkins, NYU, Imperial College London on durable reductions in depression, anxiety, and substance use
Neuroscience — 5-HT2A receptor agonism, default mode network modulation, BDNF and neuroplasticity
Clinical screening criteria — who is and isn't a fit (we turn clients away when it's not the right time)
Our partner network — Oregon, Colorado, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Netherlands, Jamaica
The 90+ day integration phase after the ceremony — where the medicine actually becomes life change

Read the Full Plant Medicine Page

02 Plant Medicine Experience

The Ceremony.

When — and only when — the foundation is built

For clients who have completed the foundation work and clear our clinical screening, plant medicine integration is the final phase — the catalyst that consolidates and accelerates the work already done.

"The medicine isn't the work. The medicine is the catalyst."

03 Integration

Why integration is the work.

60-Day Minimum · Often 6 Months

A plant medicine experience can open every door. Integration is whether you walk through any of them. This is where Epic Journey was built to live — in the quiet weeks after, when the door is open and the work is real.

"The medicine shows you the truth. Integration is whether you live by it."

What an integration coach actually does

Same-day debrief call — before the experience starts fading, we talk. What came up, what felt resolved, what didn't, what surprised you.
Weekly 1:1 sessions for a minimum of 60 days — the rhythm that holds new neural patterns until they install permanently.
Translation — helping you make sense of metaphor, imagery, and somatic experience that doesn't fit your normal vocabulary.
Somatic processing — trauma releases continue for weeks after a session. We process them as they surface instead of suppressing them.
Behavioral commitments — turning the insight into the actual changes in your schedule, your relationships, your work, your daily practice.
Stabilizing presence — the integration weeks can include emotional volatility, sleep disruption, and intensified perception. Having a calm, experienced point of contact is the difference between a turbulent integration and a destabilizing one.

Why integration matters — the research: The Johns Hopkins, NYU, and Imperial College trials consistently demonstrate that integration support is the single strongest predictor of whether a plant medicine session produces durable change. The neuroplasticity window opens for 2–4 weeks after a session; what gets installed during that window is what stays. Johns Hopkins research on psychedelic-assisted therapy.

If you're integrating after addiction work

Cravings can surface acutely in the first 2–4 weeks. We have protocols for this and a daily structure that holds you through it.
Old people, places, and patterns will test you. Integration sessions plan for these contacts, not avoid them.
Family-system work intensifies. The dynamics that drove the addiction become visible in new ways and we work them in real time.
Sober structure becomes sacred. Daily practice (movement, journaling, sleep, nutrition) is not optional during integration — it's the container that holds the neuroplasticity window.

If you're integrating after mental health work

Mood and energy patterns reorganize. Depression often lifts dramatically; anxiety often releases its grip. We track these shifts so we can stabilize them, not just observe.
Medication coordination. If you're on or coming off psychiatric medications, we coordinate directly with your prescriber on titration.
Identity reorganization. The way you've understood yourself for years often loosens. Integration helps you figure out what you actually want to keep and what you're ready to let go of.
Relational repair becomes possible. Conversations that felt impossible suddenly feel obvious. We help you have them with the people who matter.

Realistic expectations: Integration is not always smooth. Surfaced material, somatic releases, and mood shifts are common and often intense in the first 2–4 weeks. This is normal and it's also exactly why integration support is non-negotiable. Doing this work alone is the single most common reason peak experiences don't translate into lasting change.

03 What To Expect

Walking back into your life.

The 60 days after

What you actually experience in the weeks after a plant medicine ceremony depends on what you came in working through. Here's the honest version for both addiction and mental health.

"This phase is where lives actually change."

Research Backing

The Method is built on peer-reviewed science.

Every phase of The Epic Method is anchored to published research from leading institutions. The protocols aren't theory and they aren't trends — they're the consolidation of what the strongest evidence base actually shows.

Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research

Psilocybin for Major Depressive Disorder

Randomized clinical trial published in JAMA Psychiatry (2021). Two doses of psilocybin combined with supportive psychotherapy produced large, rapid, and sustained antidepressant effects in adults with major depressive disorder. Effects maintained at 12-month follow-up.

Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research →

Imperial College London

Default Mode Network & Psychedelics

Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris's neuroimaging work demonstrating that classical psychedelics reduce activity in the brain's default mode network — the network responsible for self-referential rumination and the "stuck-ness" of treatment-resistant depression.

Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research →

American Psychological Association

Therapeutic Alliance Outcomes

Decades of meta-analyses establish therapeutic alliance — the bond between client and practitioner — as one of the strongest predictors of outcome in psychotherapy, often outweighing the specific modality used. This is why Phase 1 is what it is.

APA on Therapeutic Relationship →

National Institute of Mental Health

Evidence-Based Psychotherapies

NIMH's overview of CBT, DBT, ACT, and other evidence-based modalities used in The Epic Method's clinical foundation phase. Hundreds of randomized controlled trials support efficacy across depression, anxiety, PTSD, and substance use disorder.

NIMH Psychotherapy Evidence Base →

British Medical Journal · 2024

Exercise as Effective as Therapy for Depression

Major meta-analysis published in the BMJ (2024) demonstrating walking, jogging, yoga, and strength training as effective as CBT and antidepressant medication for depression. The Phase 3 physical restoration protocol is anchored here.

BMJ 2024 Exercise Meta-Analysis →

McKay 2009 · PubMed

Continuing Care for SUD

Landmark meta-analysis showing continuing care after primary treatment is the strongest predictor of long-term recovery, substantially outperforming any single treatment episode regardless of intensity. The structural basis for our continuum-of-care approach.

PubMed: Continuing Care Evidence →

FDA · 2018, 2019

Psilocybin Breakthrough Therapy Designation

The FDA granted psilocybin Breakthrough Therapy designation for treatment-resistant depression (2018) and major depressive disorder (2019). This designation is reserved for therapies showing substantial improvement over existing treatments for serious conditions.

FDA Psilocybin Designation Background →

Multiple International Studies

Ibogaine for Opioid Use Disorder

Observational research from Mexico and New Zealand documents significant reductions in opioid withdrawal severity and post-treatment opioid craving with single-dose ibogaine treatment in licensed medical settings. The basis for Phase 6 ibogaine referrals for clients with established OUD.

NCBI: Ibogaine OUD Outcomes →

If you're used to winning — and quietly losing at the same time.

Three phases. One arc.

Preparation — what it actually means.