"Still, I missed the ritual. I missed the ease alcohol could bring in social settings. At the same time, I was caring for my mother, who was bedridden with early-onset dementia. I could see how much pain she was in, and how the pharmaceuticals she relied on often did more harm than good. I prayed for another way and felt a clear answer: "The plants are there for you.""
"That's when I discovered herbalism - and the vast world of plants that humans have used for thousands of years to support their well-being. I learned about kava, CBD, kratom, and damiana - each with different properties that our ancestors used to calm, energize, or restore balance. It was like opening a door into a forgotten world of natural solutions."
Yasmin Santos stopped drinking in 2018 to heal a gut issue and found she no longer wanted alcohol even after recovery. She missed alcohol's ritual and social ease while caring for her mother with early-onset dementia and witnessing harm from pharmaceuticals. She turned to herbalism and studied plants like kava, CBD, kratom, and damiana for calming, energizing, or restorative effects. She experimented at home in a practice she called "kitchen witching," mixing and tasting tinctures. While working at Meta as an ad specialist, she combined analytical skills with herbal experimentation and founded Altar Native to sell herbal alcohol-alternative tinctures aimed at stressed professionals.
Read at Business Insider
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]