TripCheck: Be a Friend to Your Future Self

By: Joshua White and Lexie Tomchek

Imagine this:

You’re about three hours into a three-gram mushroom journey.

This isn’t your first rodeo. You’ve danced with the mushrooms before. You know how wise they can be, but also, how cheeky. They don’t spoonfeed you the truth in tasty dollops on sparkling spoons.

No, they make you work for it, and sometimes, that work can be really hard. It can be a gruesome, lonesome journey into the bowels of the abyss. 

And man, today, the mushrooms are making you work for it. Waves of fear smash into your consciousness from all sides, loosening what feels like an already tenuous grip on whatever it is that makes you “you.”

And then, from somewhere across the ether, your phone buzzes.

Turning your head, you glance at the screen. Two words appear: “Fireside Project.”
In that moment, something truly magical happens.

The “you” of this moment peers backwards through time and witnesses the “you” of six hours ago requesting a TripCheck from Fireside Project, the nonprofit that operates the Psychedelic Support Line, a free emotional support service by phone, text message, and mobile app for people in the midst of psychedelic experiences or integrating past psychedelic experiences.

You witness that past version of you smiling at the clever TripCheck tagline, “Your future self may need a friend.” 

“Yes, yes, he just might,” you had thought to yourself, and you requested a TripCheck—a scheduled check-in phone call from Fireside Project designed to bring support and grounding to you in the midst of your journey.

When you learned about TripCheck, you were incredulous. Wait, I didn’t know support lines could call you, you stammered.

You know from past experience that Fireside’s volunteers get it. They’ve tripped before. They’ve swung from the rings of Saturn and plumbed the depths of their own darkness, alchemizing what they encountered into whatever ineffable stuff comprises the essence of presence. They’ve taken to heart and put into action that most beautiful of phrases, “Service is the highest form of integration.”

You know they take their craft seriously, each of them undergoing a rigorous 50-hour training before they start taking calls, and then receiving ongoing supervision from skilled supervisors trained in the art of providing gentle, constructive feedback.

As the words “Fireside Project” shimmer on the screen, you literally feel the love of your past self reaching through time and embracing you in this moment. You allow yourself to be held.

This, you think to yourself, is what healing feels like. 

You return the embrace, and there you float, in that infinite fractal field, giving and receiving love to this version, and then all versions, of you.

You answer the phone, and you hear a volunteer’s gentle voice in your ear: “Hey, this is Rosalía from Fireside Project, just calling to check in on you.”

Situations just like this are why Fireside Project created TripCheck.

Fireside Project has been operating its Psychedelic Support Line for almost five years. Our team of volunteers—over 500 and counting—has fielded tens of thousands of conversations from people in the midst of psychedelic experiences and people integrating past ones.

We speak to people from myriad backgrounds who try virtually every psychedelic at every dose. 

In other words, we are where the rubber meets the road, where rhetoric meets reality. When the media paints psychedelics as magic bullets and conveniently omits the need for robust preparation and integration, we’re part of the safety net that catches people when their reality is crumbling. Within the compassionate container we create, we are where people find the curiosity and courage to see that, perhaps, that crumbling is precisely what they needed to step into a more aligned, authentic reality. 

Here’s one of the things we’ve learned:
When you’re tripping, it’s really easy to forget that the Psychedelic Support Line exists. Plus, there’s an unfortunate stigma that exists around asking for help. Many people fear asking for help in their day-to-day life. Well, psychedelics are non-specific amplifiers. If you’re hesitant to ask for help when you’re not tripping, the prospect of doing so while you are can evoke tsunamis of shame.

That’s why we created TripCheck.

Psychedelic journeys play with time in mischievous ways. Hours stretch into eternities, minutes loop back on themselves, and versions of ourselves drift in and out of focus. The act of scheduling a check-in is less about anticipating difficulty and more about acknowledging that the self who begins the journey may not be the one who can easily reach for support in the middle of it. TripCheck becomes a thread of continuity woven through an experience where continuity can be hard to find.

It’s an opportunity for your present self to show love for your future self, whoever that may be.

Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “Self-discipline is compassion for your future self.” So too is TripCheck.

More than that, TripCheck is compassion in action—it’s a concrete step you can take just to make sure you feel supported when you need it most. And if you’re unsure of when you might need it most, you can request multiple TripChecks in the same journey. That’s right—we’ll call you every hour on the hour if you’d like.

There’s no pressure to answer. In the couple of months since we’ve been operating TripCheck, we’ve done a few hundred of them. About half the time, people don’t answer. But what we often hear afterwards is that it felt comforting and grounding just to see us calling.

Loneliness, after all, is a feeling. And a phone call from a trusted friend ready to hold space for you can feel like a soothing balm on the ache of aloneness.
Even when a journey is going beautifully, it can be nice to have someone to connect with and to share what’s unfolding.

Inside our team, this idea sparked thoughtful discussion and even some disagreement. Some members of our team were thrilled by the prospect of offering support in a new way. Others raised an important question: What if a scheduled call feels intrusive? For some journeyers, the idea of a phone ringing during a psychedelic experience is deeply unsettling. For others, it provides a comforting tether to reality when reality itself feels slippery. TripCheck emerged from holding both truths. It is not a directive. It is an invitation. A gentle lifeline that is always optional, never imposed.

In that tension lies the heart of TripCheck: Connection that respects autonomy. Presence that never intrudes.

Another question surfaced from within the team: Might TripCheck unintentionally encourage people to journey alone, knowing that someone will be checking in? It is a fair concern, and one that echoes long-standing conversations in harm reduction.

People often ask similar questions. Won’t needle exchanges encourage people to inject? Won’t drug checking at festivals encourage people to take substances? These questions come from a desire to keep people safe, yet decades of evidence show that harm reduction does not increase risky behavior. It simply makes that behavior safer for those who choose to engage in it. Our own research supports this. In a study conducted with UCSF and Mt. Sinai, callers to our psychedelic support line reported a meaningful reduction in the likelihood of harm during their experiences.

TripCheck is shaped by this same understanding. It is not designed to replace in-person support. It offers a moment of grounding for those who are choosing to journey, acknowledging that support can matter even when coming from someone who is not physically present.

We’ve provided TripChecks to people journeying at home alone or at a campsite with friends, for people on the couch with a ketamine lozenge or on a hike with some mushrooms.

Every moment is an opportunity to show love to past and future versions of yourself.
So, if you’re reading this, chances are, you may have an upcoming journey.
Whether the trip is happening days or weeks from now, what might it look like to care for your future self on your next journey?

Show yourself some love and schedule your free TripCheck.
Your future self will thank you.

Schedule a TripCheck by calling or texting Fireside Project’s Psychedelic Support Line at 62-FIRESIDE (623-473-7433) or visiting firesideproject.org. The support line is open 7 days per week, 365 days per year, from 11:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m. Pacific Time. We also invite you to download our free mobile app, available for iPhone and Android.