Ayahuasca is a psychoactive drink used by many Indigenous groups throughout Amazonia, as well as by mestizo shamans (known as "vegetalistas"), religions and independent groups in Brazil. Since the 1990's the drink has been used to treat dependency. At present, there are a few centres in South America that carry out this type of treatment. I carried out fieldwork in four of them, one in Peru and three in Brazil. In this article I present a short ethnographic description of these centres and offer some considerations about the role of experience during the effects of the tea in the process of recovery from dependency. I also consider the possibility that this type of treatment is not merely a substitution therapy.
Dependency; Drugs; Ayahuasca; Imagination; Experience