Our quitting interviews this week fell through due to technical and scheduling issues. We will return next week to our normal format of sharing stories of people overcoming kratom addiction. 

Past guest Hilary (episode #65) is now the executive director of a new organization called End Kratom Addiction. The nonprofit hosted a panel discussion: "America's Kratom Crisis Virtual Panel Discussion" for U.S. congressional staff June 25, 2026. We are replaying the audio here on our feed.

Kratom policy and legality is rapidly changing in the U.S. The DEA is propsing a nationwide temporary ban of 7-OH products, along with three related compounds – mitragynine pseudoindoxyl (MP), MGM-15, and MGM-16 – by placing them into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act by early August 2026. This year Connecticut, Kansas and Tennessee all enacted full kratom bans. Kentucky passed a kratom ban scheduled to go into effect next year, and about 75 cities and counties have also enacted local bans across 12 states in 2026 alone. This panel explains why this is happening, though we realize not all listeners will agree with these actions. 

Outside of the use of Suboxone for kratom addiction, the most controversial topic among our audience is whether to ban kratom or not. For the most part, we try to stay neutral on the issue at the podcast.

One thing we do want to take a stand on the issue of kratom toxicity and mitragynine lethality. It is an absolute myth that there have been 0 mitragynine-caused deaths from kratom leaf products. A new peer-reviewed study recently provided additional confirmatory evidence disproving the "zero kratom death" misinformation. While people of good faith can disagree on the issue of kratom legality, it not accurate or scientific to base your policy position on kratom never causing deaths. 

Orlando Kratom Death Case Control Study: https://doi.org/10.1093/jat/bkag017

Kratom Overdose Policy Study: https://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2026.2670611 

More from "End Kratom Addiction: https://www.endkratomaddiction.org/ 

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Lauren talks to James this week. He struggled silently with kratom for years, escalating from casual use to a dangerous 7OH addiction that nearly destroyed his health, memory, and finances. Sharing his expertise as an addiction RN, James ultimately got sober through Ibogaine treatment, disciplined diet and exercise, and leaning on his faith and family.

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Our guest this week is Ty, who quit kratom in August 2023. He is a podcast editor, producer, and a person in recovery based in Cadiz, Ohio. See below how to get in contact with him, his book, and podcasts.

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This week Hans shares his quitting story with Lauren. 35 years old working in a high-stress corporate consulting career, Hans is ambitious and fitness-driven. In his late teens and early twenties, he was addicted to opiates, completed a 30-day rehab and has been clean from those drugs for 13 years. Around three years ago, he decided to quit drinking and began using kratom extracts in the evenings as a substitute. Combined with Adderall for work, togeather this made him feel "superhuman".

This eventually became unsustainable. Hans began a cycle of quit attempts (going 70 days, 49 days, and 40 days clean) each time relapsing. In 2025, curiosity led him to try 7-OH. He was immediately alarmed by how much it reminded him of his opiate days, but still became quickly addicted. That lead to two inpatient treatment programs and taking FMLA leave from work in the last year.

His current sober date is April 27, 2026, giving him 50 days at the time of recording. His 7-OH sobriety date remains April 5, 2025, 14 months clean. Han's recovery toolkit includes 12-step meetings, a sponsor, a tight-knit sober brotherhood from treatment, sober softball, sauna and cold plunge sessions, yoga, breathwork, meditation, gratitude journaling, and strict daily routines around sleep and exercise. 

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After many failed cold turkey attempts, Pasha talks about his quit from about 25g per day by tapering; he was inspired to create a new app for quitting at www.kratomcut.com.  Available for iPhone users now.

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Lauren returns to interview Steve C., who got addicted to 7-OH after just seven weeks of use. He quit by going to a detox center and doing a one week Suboxone taper from 12mg down to 1mg as an off ramp from the kratom concentrate isolate.  

NOTE: The main daily meetings for quitting kratom are with There Is A Way Out (TIAWO) and from Kratom Anonymous. Mountainside has once a week professionally facilitated meetings on Tuesday evenings. Links to these communities here: https://www.kratommeetings.com    

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After struggling with alcohol for all his twenties, Ryan discovered kratom right before pandemic started. This began a cycle of trading booze for powder (than later extracts back to booze for seven years, ever able to quit either, both getting progressively worse. Ryan went to a traditional rehab and is now 70 plus days off of everything. 

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This week, Charlie interviews Dr. Feldman, who recently wrote a paper about kratom and poison control exposures in the U.S. Dr. Feldman received a Doctorate of Pharmacy and completed two years of post-doctoral residency training focused in emergency medicine and toxicology. After residency he continued work in an emergency department and at a local poison center. After many years managing emergencies and poisonings he became a Board Certified Clinical Toxicologist with the American Board of Applied Toxicology (ABAT). Along with teaching and doing research, he works full time in an emergency department helping to treat sick patients and consulting on poisoned patients as a poison center toxicologist.

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Lily interviews Jessica E., a 39-year-old Midwest mother initially used kratom to manage chronic back pain. Daily use escalated starting in 2023, leading to severe panic attacks, rage episodes, and full physical dependency at 8–9 grams per day. Unable to quit on her own, her best friend coordinated her admission to an ibogaine treatment center in Cancun, Mexico, where a supervised 14-hour flood dose completely eliminated her kratom cravings. Now over a year and a half sober from all substances for the first time since age 15, she credits ibogaine, prayer, her supportive husband, and intentional distance from the kava bar community as the pillars of her recovery.

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Lauren from episode 163 celebrates a year off kratom. In her first year of sobriety, the fog of kratom-induced complacency lifted around the five-to-six-month mark, spurring her to launch an Etsy shop, earn a corporate promotion, open her own creative marketing consulting business, pursue psychiatric care for underlying OCD and anxiety, and rebuild more authentic friendships.

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