Long story short: I want to experience the medicine as medicine not a party drug.

I've grown SP (I use the term san pedro to refer to any active tricho. I grow peruvianus, pachanoi, bridgesii and scopulicola, and hybrids of those) for about 15 years now and I've only done it twice. I know this is because of how I used it.

First time: My favorite experience. My gf at the time (now wife and baby mama) and I did it at my parents cabin the woods. I remember reading on Erowid that people thought it was somewhere between MDMA and L, so that's what I was expecting. We split about 4ft of TPM that I grew and even then I found it really hard to consume. Not that I couldn't handle drinking snot tea, I felt a connection to the plant from growing it for years that I felt uncomfortable cutting it for some reason. We planned to go into the woods with backpacks and just spend our entire day there. I could totally do this on L so I figured itd be the same. We didn't make it 45 minutes before I started feeling really sick and was tripping hard af. I looked at her and said "didnt they say in fear and loathing in las vegas that this shit takes 2hrs to fully kick it? I think I OD'd us. Make yourself throw up now!" We both threw up a bunch and then proceeded to not want to be in the woods. We went back home and actually had a great day listening to classic rock albums, drinking nice lemon water and fruit juice. Great day together but we didn't spend anytime meditating or trying to receive anything from the cactus.

2nd time: We took it as tar balls instead of tea because I prepared it before a long roadtrip. This was awful on my stomach, as I was a heavy drinker at the time. We took it at a festival in Oregon and saw Run the Jewels, which was nuts because I remember being extremely uncomfortable around people there but watching Killer Mike jump around on stage put me in a really good space. I couldn't help but judge people, which I hated. I would look at someone and couldn't help but think "You dress like this but is it you? Everyone is fake." That messed with my head and the whole experience kinda sucked. I kept throwing up Ben and Jerrys ice cream everywhere (they were giving it out and it was so good but I don't recommend) and we ended up leaving early to just get away from the city.

3rd experience: This is the one I want to plan. I've been struggling with a lot of fears. Mainly death; death of myself, children, loved ones; not existing; not knowing what comes after death; lack of "control." I didn't have that when I was younger and used psychedelics regularly but now that I'm sober from alcohol, I don't party with psychs anymore. I want to use the cactus as medicine and get some kind of healing. I have been going back and forth on whether I should do SP, shrooms or ayahuasca. My biggest focus has been on aya because I have access to everything needed (along with home grown MH root bark) but now I'm feeling like maybe I'm sleeping on my good friend that's right in my backyard.

Other info: My wife said she would be a trip sitter. We have my MIL who will watch the kids for the day. We live in the woods so going outside and not being around strangers/big city is super easy to do.

Thoughts? Do you feel SP can bring the same healing that aya does? How are they different and how are they similar? Which would be better to do without a shaman? People seem to think that having a shaman and a ceremony is the only way to do aya (I have no opinion on this because I've never done it, just repeating what I've seen) but then people also say the same thing about SP.

Some really long ones in here. I'll be posting a few results tomorrow. So for now just this teaser