Lost 35 Pounds, Found My Marriage: A Cabinet Maker’s Medicine Journey
Artem SmirnovWelcome to Normalize Psychedelics. We’re building a community that celebrates transformation through authentic medicine work. 🌱 While psychedelic healing is often associated with mental health, our community members are discovering breakthroughs across all aspects of life—from healing relationships to breaking free from addiction to finding authenticity at any age. Through these real stories, we’re creating a world where psychedelic healing is understood and accessible to all.
Meet Johnny Arellano, a Seattle-area cabinet finisher whose transformation story caught our attention in late 2022. Through intentional psychedelic experiences, Johnny transformed his life at age 44—dropping from 225 to 190 lbs, embracing 3 AM yoga and meditation, and deepening his marriage. His journey shows how conscious medicine work can catalyze profound change across physical health, relationships, and spiritual growth.
Watch: From Party Life to 3AM Yoga: How Psychedelics Changed This Dad’s Life
Q&A with Johnny
How did your life change after your first LSD experience?
Johnny:
My first high dose experience with LSD actually, I was in a point of my life I didn’t belong and things weren’t going right in my life and I needed to move.
This was at a point in my life where I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t have any intimate relationships and just had this party crew, people who lived with me, a bunch of roommates. And I got tired of waking up, walking over people passed out sleeping while I went to work.
During this experience, I went up onto the roof and enjoyed the stars, and closed my eyes and went deep. And then the sun was rising and the clouds were pink. It was beautiful, and it was like this dragon was just going over the sunrise and telling me to go north. And my parents had moved to Washington. And I was like, all right, I’m done, I told my roommates that I’m moving out. And then I moved to Washington State.
I moved to Washington State, I found the love of my life. I started a family and didn’t really touch psychedelic drugs.
And then life went on and I had three beautiful kids, I got a house and a dog, two dogs and a cat.
How did you rediscover psychedelics later in life?
Joe Rogan had Michael Pollan on his podcast, and it was about the book “How to change your mind”. I downloaded that audiobook, listened to it and it was like… all right, so there’s something to these substances. I had a crazy experience and was like, Whoa, what the heck was that? I had no idea what exactly it was and what could it do. And then after listening to his story, I was like, I got to try this differently.
So I did. I made the intention for sober October. I was completely sober, and in October I downloaded the Calm app and picked up meditation, and I set an intention for self exploration of my consciousness (taking psychedelics). I was happy, you know, things are okay. And that experience was crazy.
It was like the Kundalini chakra colors and I was traveling through all of those.
It was just amazing.
I went through space, in the clouds, it was like the cosmos were right there in front of me.
And then a flash of light just hit me with all the love and gratitude in the world. And I was crying and the connection to everything was just so strong.
The only other experience I could ever compare to was being in the birthing room when my son was born.
And then I thought, wow, I’ve never had that. The only other experience I could ever compare to that was being in the birthing room when my son was born and I was holding my wife’s legs up and I watched him come out, the whole thing. And that feeling I had in my heart. That love.
That’s the only thing, I was there front row with you, and the nurse looks at me. She’s like, Dad, are you okay? And I was like, I am the best that I’ve ever been. I understand why men will hit the ground, and that’s the only thing you can compare it to.
I’m getting chills just thinking of the experiences.
It was life changing.
I was like, you know, there’s so much more to life and I want to be the best person I can be. And that put me on the path to becoming the best version of myself.
I changed my diet. I continued with the meditation. You know, yoga, exercise daily. It just kind of put me on the path to be a better person. And then I told myself, this is something I want to do on a yearly basis.
How have psychedelics changed your marriage?
My wife, she wasn’t really into soliciting mushrooms. I think she’s had lower doses. So she had an experience where she’s like, I don’t want to do that, but now that I’m doing this, she’s like, Maybe I’ll try since we’re doing this more responsibly.
But we were in some rocky times in our relationship and typical things, you know, it’s difficult in relationships. There’s give and take and there was things that I wasn’t doing. And she wanted me to do. And we had a hard time communicating with that. And it got to the point where she couldn’t really express herself and she got frustrated and she wasn’t happy, so she felt like she wanted to leave.
I was devastated.
She’s the love of my life. I couldn’t see myself being with anybody else. And I said, you know, people do this for couples therapy, PTSD. And a coworker of mine, she had some MDMA and she sold it to me. And my wife was like, would you be interested in taking this with me and just hanging out, see what happens?
So we both took about .3 grams of MDMA and we watched Blue Planet and it was beautiful.
You know, we were like, you know, the ocean and everything. And the way that documentary, when they set you up, is so beautiful and then smack you at the end. We were just like, man, we need to be better people.
And the documentaries over, and we kind of just really start to roll. Now we’re getting into it, we’re cuddling, you know, we’re holding each other. And what it did for me is it made me shut up and listen. And what it did for her is it made her open up and talk. And we talked for 6 hours, all night long. And she was willing to say without holding anything back.
She just said everything that I did that she wasn’t happy with and I was willing to receive it, without putting up a wall and being negative to where it would be a headbutt.
It was more of the open, heart loving conversation. And we came out of that loving each other even more.
And it got to the point where I was like, you know, this is something we should do at least once a year if we can, just to reset.
