The Plant Medicine For PTSD Podcast
The Plant Medicine For PTSD Podcast is dedicated to bringing you real stories of real people getting real help to overcome their trauma through the use of intentional plant medicine and other spiritual practices.
The Plant Medicine For PTSD Podcast
2. Nic Lowry - From SWAT & Child Sex Crimes to Healing With Plant Medicine & Spirituality
How does a seasoned law enforcement officer, with 23 years under his belt, grapple with the unseen wounds of PTSD and anxiety? Join us on Plant Medicine for PTSD as we welcome Nic, a former SWAT officer, who shares his harrowing journey through trauma and the unconventional paths he took toward healing. Discover the raw and emotional stories behind high-stress tactical operations and child sex crimes cases that left Nic battling severe anxiety and relying on ineffective conventional treatments.
In a profession where mental health is often stigmatized, Nic opens up about the walls he had to break down to seek help. From the metaphor of accumulating trauma like bricks in a backpack to the critical need for open conversations about therapy and mental health among first responders, this episode dives deep into the emotional toll of witnessing child abuse and death. We also explore the transformative power of holistic approaches, such as yoga, meditation, and plant medicine, which played a crucial role in Nic's recovery.
Nic's candid narrative doesn't shy away from his struggles with social withdrawal, substance abuse, and the turning point that led him to seek help. Through intentional microdosing, faith integration, and alternative therapies like ketamine & psilocybin microdosing, Nic found a path to lasting healing and personal growth.
Tune in to hear his journey of reconnecting with life, family, and faith, and find inspiration in the powerful tools and supportive community that fostered his recovery. This episode is a testament to the importance of perseverance, courage, and the willingness to explore unconventional treatments for mental health.
Want to learn more about the program Nic went through with us to find his healing? Send us a DM with the word PODCAST on our Instagram or send an email to hello@becomingom.com
Thanks again for listening!
If you'd like to support the show, the best way is to share it with a friend and to leave a 5 Star rating on Spotify, or write me a review on Apple Podcasts.
Thanks so much for your support.
To learn more about our coaching programs and retreat offerings, visit https://www.instagram.com/becoming.om/
Hello, hello and welcome to the Plant Medicine for PTSD podcast, the podcast formerly known as the Way Broadly. But I'm really, really excited to be bringing the podcast back, to bring this project back to life with a new focus specifically to share stories of real people getting real help from working with plant medicine, among other modalities, of course. And so for our first episode here today, I'm joined by my buddy, nick, who actually graduated from our Mindful Microdosing program a few months ago. Nick had, I think, a 23-year career in law enforcement as a SWAT officer. He was the point man on his SWAT team as well as working extensively in sex crimes and I think people crimes is the term that he used and so Nick has quite a bit of experience on both ends of the spectrum on the tactical door kicking, shooting and getting shot at side of things, as well as the emotional toll that dealing with sex crimes, dealing with child victim crimes, comes with. And all of that left Nick with quite a bit of damage, honestly, that you're going to hear him talk about and hear how it got to the point where he knew that he needed help. And before beginning to work with us, nick had already made quite a bit of progress. He had gone to this retreat center that you'll hear about. He was getting some help and he was able to come off of the prescription medications he was taking. He was able to get sober from drinking and he was definitely making some progress. But, for instance, when we started working together, he couldn't even exercise. He couldn't get his heart rate up because just that would trigger an anxiety attack or a panic attack. He was having really terrible sleep issues and just this general anxiety that kind of kept him confined to his house, more or less, instead of going out doing things connecting with his sons, pursuing his new career. And so you're going to hear all about how he came to work with us just from seeing a friend of his repost something on Instagram. So just a friend reposted something from our Becoming OM Instagram. Nick saw it and decided to reach out and get some help from us, and you're going to hear all about that journey, all about that process and all about the results that Nick got and that he's able to maintain to this day Now.
Speaker 1:So what was so cool for me about catching up with Nick? Because it's been about four or five months since we stopped working together. So hearing and seeing him keeping all of the progress that he made within our program was really, really awesome. So, without further ado, let's get into it, and you can hear all about this firsthand from Nick himself. I really do appreciate you hopping on here chatting with me Full transparency. I've reached out to a bunch of people and you're the first person that I've actually scheduled it with Not the first person that said yes, but the first person that we're making it happen with.
Speaker 1:So apologies to the listeners if it's a little bit rambly, I'm out of practice with the podcasting, but just a little bit of context. Nick, you are somebody who came into our microdosing program after a long career in law enforcement. That left you with a lot of baggage that we're going to get into, and it's not that we were the first thing that you ever tried at all. I know there's a lot of therapy and there were some very interesting retreats actually that I definitely want to touch on, and I know that your faith was also a big part of that process for you, and it's another thing that I want to hit on here, but you can correct me if I'm wrong in saying that, of all of those things, maybe they got you onto that path and they started that trajectory.
Speaker 1:But working with plant medicine was definitely a different kind of an approach for you and I feel like it had a lot of very tangible changes that you know. You kind of knew what needed to happen, you knew what needed to be put in place and it wasn't until you started microdosing that those things fell into place. And not that microdosing deserves all the credit, not that our program deserves all the credit. Honestly, you deserve the credit for making those changes. But that's one of the things that I want to kind of tease out of the story here is what brought you to that point, the things that you had tried and kind of what was different about this approach. Point the things that you had tried and kind of what was different about this approach. Um, so was there anything else, background wise, that you want to just like share for context for the listeners, before I start hitting you with some questions, talking through the story of of kind of leading up to how we met?
Speaker 2:Um, I mean, yeah, I mean 22 years in law enforcement. You know SWAT, um team leader, SWAT and child sex cases for probably close to 10 years, high liability stuff, traumatic events, the cumulative effect of being in law enforcement day in and day out I mean yeah, it led me to finally raising my hand and saying I needed to get help, but I didn't know where. Wish I would have known about something and not been afraid to do microdosing. But when you're in law enforcement, your avenues of coping and getting better are typically guys use alcohol or they go get prescription medication from a doctor.
Speaker 2:When you get handed a prescription, like when we did with the plant medicine, you're combining self-journey and healing to overcome some of these things. And when you go to a doctor, they give you a prescription and they're like here you go, go have fun. And you're like, hey, this is not working. Okay, well, here's another prescription, go have fun, here's another prescription, go have fun. And it's like when are you going to decide to get off the hamster wheel and do something for yourself? And that's where for me I mean it gradually started. I was still in law enforcement getting some healing, but then it wasn't until I really got out and I had options to do different things and that's what brought me to you guys and I mean, I'm so glad that I came across you guys, because it's been an amazing journey and, in conjunction with you know, doing the things that you need to do daily and then with plant medicine, got me to where I'm at today and I feel really, really good.
Speaker 1:Right on, man, I love hearing that so much. But, um, all right, so let's, let's take a step back, let's rewind, um, cause I don't actually know if I ever knew this about you. Um, I want to hear about the, the upbringing a little bit, or not necessarily just like childhood stuff, but I want to hear about what set you on the path to even go into law enforcement in the first place, because I don't know that we've ever talked about that my general studies, my mom was in the dental field and she had pushed me.
Speaker 2:She's like you know, you could be a dentist, it could be a great career. You're going to go work a couple of days and then you're going to go do whatever you want the rest of the week. And I thought, okay, it sounds amazing. And I'm sitting down here and it's called North Idaho college and I'm looking outside every single day. I'm like it says Marine deputy for the sheriff's office and I'm like, ah, what the heck? What do I got to lose? And so I go, basically test for it.
Speaker 2:It's a civil service test. Go through all the stuff, go through the backgrounds. We're like, hey, would you like to come work for us for the summer? And got hooked on it. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed helping people. I mean, yeah, when you first start and you talk to anybody in law enforcement, they say, man, you get to carry a gun, you get lights and sirens and you get to drive fast. There's all this adrenaline, it's all just, it's so much fun. And there's, you know the key answer. When you take the test, it's like, oh, I want to help people, that's why I want to get into law enforcement.
Speaker 2:And so it just kind of was really on a whim that I did it and I liked it and I mean I had an amazing career. I wish that starting off in my career, I had somebody who said, hey, day one when you start law enforcement is the day one you start therapy, and that you have a therapist when you do this. That would have been something I could, if I could have changed it. But yeah, I mean me starting my career in law enforcement was just a completely probably a misstep, but it ended up being a really good misstep in life. Um, and I had fun, I enjoyed every moment of my career, had a really good career.
Speaker 1:And what um, what like percentage I get. Maybe that's not the right way to look at it, but you know, when you talk about the SWAT team, I'm envisioning you know like kicking down doors, doing raids, like direct action kind of stuff. But I know you also did essentially detective work right With like the sex crimes things, and so I imagine that's a lot less like kinetic, I guess, would be the term. So what was the breakdown of that over the course of your career?
Speaker 2:So started off. I was a field training officer pretty quick into my career and I mean. But when you talk about traumatic events, I mean they basically start I remember as a Marine deputy here I'm 21 years old, I think. I'm a Marine deputy for all of about four months and we have a drowning, and we go to the drowning and this is the first dead body I've seen. And I am on the side of the road. They pull her from the water. I'm on the side of the road babysitting this basically female the same age as I. Am on the side of the road. They pull her from the water. I'm on the side of the road babysitting this basically female the same age as I am that is deceased. And the next day I go to an autopsy and that was my first. You know it wasn't really traumatic to me, but it's still ingrained in my memory that that's there I saw a human being that is, you know, deceased and the things that you do inside of an autopsy.
Speaker 2:And so then I jump into Coeur d'Alene PD and I go through my career there, progress to where hey it's. You know I'm on the SWAT team and we are, we're kicking doors, we're taking people down about here. My journey in SWAT was I'm making a life decision for people that I'm going through a door, not realizing how much stress that put on me, because we go kick that door and I don't know how you would be. But I know, if somebody kicked my door I'm probably, if I'm prepared, I'm going to have a gun somewhere to protect myself. And now I think about that.
Speaker 2:I'm like I got pretty lucky because I was point guy and I would have somebody come up and breach the door. I was the first guy through the door and I'm going to change somebody's life. If they point a gun at me, they're not going to be here anymore. If they don't point a gun at me, we're all going to be safe. And there were some events that we got pretty lucky where we didn't have to shoot anybody. And then my career progressed into investigations and I did a pretty good job. I moved through investigations pretty quick into person crimes. And when you are dealing with person, I mean you're dealing with emotions all the time and you're seeing things that the normal human being doesn't see on a daily basis, that we're seeing every single day, a couple of times a week, dealing with people you just don't necessarily want to deal with.
Speaker 1:And can you define person crimes for me?
Speaker 2:Um so yeah, property crimes, and property crimes are like vehicle theft and anything that's to do with property. And then person crimes are like your domestics, your, your bar fights when the guys are fighting, um, and then it ends up going into like homicides and murders and robberies and all those things where it's like one person versus another person. And so, you know, I was able to move up into that fairly quickly and then, yeah, then I ended up doing child sex cases was a part of internet crimes against children. A lot of you know looking, having to look at child porn, having to look at kids that were, you know, beaten, killed, different. I mean it just was.
Speaker 2:It was pretty traumatic. I remember my first. I mean it's, it's pretty vivid.
Speaker 2:I remember my first call for service with a child death and calling my ex-wife and being like, hey, I need you.
Speaker 2:It's like four in the morning. I'm calling like I need you to go into the bedroom and check on our son right now and she's like why? I'm like I just I need, for comfort of me, I need you to go check on him right now and make sure he's still breathing, and that today, even talking about that, I can feel my anxiety levels just like pick up thinking. You know, I'm lucky we still don't have an answer for sudden infant death syndrome and when it happens and so that's still you know the number of times we'd see those it scares me and I'm glad that my kids are healthy. But you realize, you know over and over the times that you see that becomes more traumatic to yourself and not not going through therapy, not healing yourself, not doing the right things that you're supposed to do, and not, uh, not going through therapy, not healing yourself, not doing the right things that you're supposed to do. And you know, as a, as any law enforcement would tell you, our number one coping mechanism most likely is alcohol.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I on that point, man, I can't even fucking imagine there's so many times I wake up in the middle of the night and just stare at Sita until she breathes or moves and then, like I can just like relax, especially cause we co-sleep, like we all sleep in the same bed, which, if you look at the internet, assures you that the kid's going to die If you do that. Um, you've mentioned a couple of times now you know you're going through this stuff, you're seeing these things and not going to therapy, do you? Do you feel like that would have been different if that had started day one? I almost feel like it's like pressure is just building and building and building and there's like no pressure relief valve, except for alcohol maybe, as you've mentioned, but it's not a very effective solution. Yeah, is that like is that an accurate analogy? Kind of like the pressure building until it just like it bursts because it just can't take it anymore.
Speaker 2:You think about it, it's like a backpack and you're just loading bricks into the backpack and it's like at what point in time does your body say I can't do this anymore, I can't continue to carry the backpack, and either the backpack comes off because you decided to do something about it or the backpack takes you down and unfortunately for me, the backpack took me down Like I was going to continue to. I could do this. I don't need therapy, I can fight through this. I can do this on my own. I think anybody that would tell you. I mean especially one you have to take the male ego and get it out of the way. That's the, that's the first and foremost part. Like, if you can get that out of the way, and then anybody who's in the military or first responders is you got to get the stigma out of the way of raising your hand and asking for help. And it seems like you know, unfortunately for men, that one, we want to say our ego is going to get in the way of us asking for help. And then two is going to be the stigma that we're actually going to see somebody and talk to somebody about our problems and that we may break down and cry in front of somebody you know and it's it's okay to to do that, it's okay to heal I mean, that's to cry is is healing, um, and then you have to think, you know, and you know.
Speaker 2:The other thing I see is the breakdown of guys Well, I don't know what to do. There's not like these conversations you and I are having. It's not enough of us out there talking about. There are other things other than prescription medication. There are other things than alcohol. There are other things than just doing nothing. You need to be doing something, and maybe it's not yoga, maybe it's not meditation, but you got to continue to take those steps forward to find what it is that works for you. Not be good at it. I mean, anybody who's let's just take a cop, for instance you know, anybody who picks a gun up for the first time you're probably not going to be proficient. You need to practice, but we don't want to practice on our mental health. We don't want to do little things that are going to help us move that needle and try. Okay, I did yoga. It didn't really work. I did meditation. You know there's some things in meditation that work but didn't work.
Speaker 1:I did meditation. You know there's some things in meditation that work but didn't work. You know what are you doing? To take progressive steps to get yourself somewhere else instead of just, oh, I'm going to continue to force feedman. But it's a skill that you can develop and you can clearly see that developing. But you're right, you do yoga one time and you're like I'm not fixed. Fuck this, it's a waste of time. I'm not.
Speaker 2:I'm not flexible. I'm not going to wear these pants.
Speaker 1:You know, I just say, I'll admit it, man.
Speaker 2:I do I and I don't do it. I need to do more yoga, but it's like I would get flexible and I know I mean, there's so much healing.
Speaker 1:Just do hot yoga. It makes you more flexible by it, just by that. I also like that. You went with like the bricks in a backpack analogy. We just had our group call for the microdosing group that we've got right now, like an hour ago, and we were talking it's like shadow work week and we were talking about having these like rocks loaded into your backpack that you're just carrying around and maybe somebody else put that rock there by abusing you or doing something to you. But every day you put that backpack on and you accept that you're carrying that weight and that's our work of looking at them and sorting through your backpack and leaving some things behind and feeling lighter.
Speaker 1:But, um, I want to come back to all those positive things that you talked about the alternate methods of dealing with this stuff, the therapy, the not just prescription meds, but let's uh, let's linger in the darkness for a moment here. So talk to me about how all of this shit was affecting you. So, as the pressure is building, you're seeing these negative things. You're not going to therapy. I know that alcohol was part of the equation for you, but paint, paint, paint the listeners a little picture of what was going on in your life that you knew couldn't continue going on and led you down the healing path. But before we get to the healing part, where were we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. You know, as I go back and I think about it, where I'm at now, it was. I mean it was pretty dark. I mean you can go back and look at pictures of me. I look bloated, I don't look healthy. People tell you know, I've got the, I've got the gray beard now. But they would tell you, you know, if you looked at me 10 years ago, I look like I was probably in my 50s and I'm not in my 50s yet. And just the way that my you know the way I carried my weight, like having extra belly fat. You know I was fit but I couldn't lose certain weight.
Speaker 2:But the biggest thing was when I left the office. I didn't want to be around people, I didn't want to socialize, I didn't want to be around my own family. I would go home and I would go find somewhere else to go. I would go to the golf course or. You know, if I wasn't home, I wasn't present. You know they could come in and try to have a conversation with me and I wasn't present. Um, I would have a little bit of a short temper. You know I would be like. You know I don't need to deal with this, don't bug me, go do something else. And then, when it came to the drinking, it was like not being able to control it because I knew that if I drank I was going to get a good night's sleep. I didn't want to deal with the dreams, I didn't want to deal with the nightmares that I was having. I didn't want to wake up the next morning and then have the ruminating thoughts about all of this stuff that was going on. And then it came a point I think the darkest time when I finally decided, hey, I need to get help, was like I didn't actively want to kill myself, but I didn't actively want to be here. My thoughts were if I got in a car accident, if I got shot, if I got hurt and had to go to the hospital, I don't know that I would have made through it.
Speaker 2:My mental state was like, you know, check the box, let's, let's just move on, let's just get this over with. And I, you know I'm like, okay. And then I'm like but how do I provide for my family? You know, I'm the sole provider at this time. I have a job, I have benefits. Um, I didn't have. You know, I have my basic life insurance through work. I didn't have anything outside of there. So I'm like, well, what happens to me If I die on duty? They're going to be very well taken care of. Something happens to me off duty, they're not going to be. And that started to scare me. It really started to scare me and I panic attacks.
Speaker 2:I remember I'd be sitting in my office and at this time I'm a, I'm a Sergeant and be sitting there looking at paperwork, reading reports, thinking I'm fine to start to read some of these sex case reports, and I can just feel my heart rate getting higher and higher and higher. And I wasn't really I hadn't put two and two together, um, and I'd be like I need some help. And I would get in my work car and I would drive home and I'm speeding down the road. You know I I'm excessively speeding down the road to get back to my house and to sit down and try to have a conversation with you know, my ex-wife now and her just really not knowing how to deal with what was going on and her being like I don't know who you are right now and I didn't know who I was, um, brain fog, like completely disassociated with myself. And then it's like I came to a point where just everything just snapped and I was like, man, if I don't get myself some help, I'm not going to be here tomorrow. And I'm looking at my two sons going. They need somebody. They need somebody to show them how to be a leader. They need somebody to be here for them.
Speaker 2:And that's when I finally decided I have to do something. I got to get help and I finally raised my hand at work and said I'm not okay, like there's something going on with me. I don't. I can't pinpoint it, I don't know what it is, but, man, I'm drinking more than I ever had. I mean, on weekends. We would sit around at the bars on weekends and we would just drink until two, three in the morning and go home and then sleep it off and do the same thing the next day, not wanting to be completely avoiding my family, not being present for my boys, not being present for my ex-wife now, and just going somewhere else and thinking about risky behavior. You get these adrenal rushes at work and you get that hit of that dopamine. Well, I'm not getting that over here. And so I would start to do things that I shouldn't have been doing. You know, drinking way too much, driving fast just being stupid. It got scary and I didn't like it and I'm glad that I realized it before something did happen to me.
Speaker 1:You talk about not recognizing who you are. Like I have a hard time imagining you doing that because I know you now. I'm like responsible, even keeled gentleman, yeah, driving fast, drinking beers. Like I have a hard time even seeing that. But to your point, like you're not you when you were in that state, I'm curious, like did you when you were in that state? I'm I'm curious, like did you, um, when you were in that like going through that, did you have a sense of like that this story is playing out and like it's?
Speaker 1:It's almost like you've seen this happen before, like to other guys, or you've heard stories of this happening, and you like have this realization of like oh, this is how that happens.
Speaker 1:Like this is how a guy ends up committing suicide.
Speaker 1:This is how a guy ends up like dying in a like drunk driving incident.
Speaker 1:And I bring that up because I just spoke to somebody the other day who's the wife of a essentially Canadian SWAT officer they call it ERT emergency response team of a essentially Canadian SWAT officer, they call it ERT emergency response team and she was telling me how her husband went away for work a couple of times, drinking binges, came back, had this huge blow up and he just like split, just like left the family and she was so devastated because she saw it happen to like three of his colleagues in previous years and they had always said, like this will never be us, and she was there supporting the other wives. And now, like this is happening to her and so almost like she couldn't believe that the same thing was unfolding, but at the same time, you can believe it because that's exactly how it happens. So what was there any sense of that for you while you were in it? Or were you so just caught up in your own shit that there wasn't that sort of like outside perspective at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I absolutely didn't see it at all. I, you know, and the I think probably the biggest thing that I thought to myself and it's not till somebody pointed out and I had this issue, like I thought, for me to really have post-traumatic stress, I needed to be one in the military too, I needed to be blown up, shot at. Something traumatic needed to happen to me while I was in some type of battle, some type of war, not realizing as a first responder whether you're in fire, police, a nurse, even a dispatcher that little traumatic events on a daily basis might actually be worse than a one-time traumatic event, especially when you get to leave, if you go to war and event, especially when you get to leave, like if you go to war and you're overseas, you get to leave, that you get to leave. Where that happened? Well, when you work for an agency and you drive by.
Speaker 2:This just happened to me the other day. It was a little town north of us called Sandpoint. I was investigating a stabbing, a knife event that ended up turning into a shooting, and the female was on the ground and I hadn't been up to Sandpoint for a while and I was driving with my boys up there and I drove by the hospital and those images pop back up of that female laying on the ground. The officers had shot her and you just don't know. And when you talk about the body, remembering things like those little events come up.
Speaker 2:And that's when I started to realize like, oh, law enforcement does have traumatic events and then we need to be more cognizant of that and pay attention to the people inside when we're working with them for little micro changes and seeing the little micro changes that somebody changes and is different. And it's okay to say, hey, man, are you okay? Do you need somebody to talk to somebody and talk about that? But yeah, I didn't. And now when I look back and I see all the guys I work with and I see all the guys that are still there, I'm like man, I wish things could be different. I don't know that they ever will. And hopefully we're getting better at having these conversations and talking about. It's okay to ask for help and if you're not doing, okay. But the biggest thing is like the buddy check and making sure you've got somebody who sees the micro changes in you and can ask those questions.
Speaker 1:And I know that for you it wasn't the easiest thing even to make that transition, like when you realize that you needed to get help and we don't have to go into, like the politics, the police department and everything like that. But I remember that being something that you were up against, where there just really wasn't much support from the institution itself for you, right for you right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you don't feel supported and a lot of it has to do internally. You feel like you walk in with a scarlet letter. You feel like you're walking in like, hey, I'm broken, I've got post-traumatic stress. When you think about, especially on a SWAT team, you need to know that when you go through a door, the second guy's got your back. If you make a decision to go left, he's going right, vice versa, and you start to feel like guys are looking at you like you're broken and they can't trust you and they can't trust you to make decisions.
Speaker 2:And at the time you know, I think agencies are getting better, but there's this old added mentality Like you just suck it up for you to show up to work and you do what you need to do. You know therapy is not a good thing. There was we actually had a training that came in and there was a therapist that came in and talked about the training and I remember, you know, the administrator basically sitting up at the front of the room saying I've been involved in shootings, this is no big deal, what do you need therapy for? And just being like wow, that's, that's a poor attitude to take. I mean you. You literally just took somebody's life. You had to make a life-changing decision and you're going to tell me that didn't affect you.
Speaker 2:Um, maybe, maybe it didn't, but I know how I felt about it. I know how I felt when I got shot at. It wasn't fun, um, you know, it's not like I'm. Oh, I got, I got shot at. You know, put this, put this award on my desk, that I'm this great human being now at that's a. It changes your life. When you get shot at, um, and you realize, or when you got to pull your gun on somebody, I mean that it was a traumatic events and it changed you. And and so, yeah, it sucked. It sucked coming forward. Um, I had seen what had happened to guys in the past and most of those guys had left the department early. And, yeah, unfortunately I did. I left the department early, but I'm a thousand times better. I'm so much happier.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that I made that decision to do it. So let's talk about what that process actually looked like. So where? Where did you start? So I'm sure in that position you don't even really know what you need to help you. You don't know necessarily where to even turn, and I know the first things that you did were not really the things that solved the problem. So where did that?
Speaker 2:actually start for you, correct? And that's why, like I talked about earlier, like, hey, you can't just go to a therapist and be like, oh, I'm going to be magically taken care of because the first therapist I went to made things worse. Wor first therapist I went to made things worse, worst experience I've ever had. And yeah, it just was. It was a horrible experience I did I. And I told her okay, this is not working for me. And her answer was just breathe. Okay, I'm trying to breathe, but I can't lower my anxiety. I can't get to a state where I can like I can actually get through this. And so the just breathing wasn't working. And she's like, well, you need to stop drinking and you just need to breathe.
Speaker 2:I'm like, okay, that's easier said than done, because drinking would reduce stuff, and so I finally had gotten to the point where I just had snapped I'm mad at her, I'm mad at everything that's going on. Some people had sent some information to me and like, hey, there's a place called Deer Hollow and they do a lot of therapy for first responders and you can sit down and have a conversation with some really good therapists. And there was, there was an amazing therapist there. She sat down with me, she had some hard conversations with me, she wasn't afraid to call me out, and they give you a lot of tools and they give you all these different things that you can do. Um, and that's where I started to incrementally start healing and figuring out okay, I can overcome some of these things.
Speaker 1:Before we talk about the good therapist. Why did that first experience make you feel worse? Like where they do it Cause I've heard people do um, what is it, emdr? Where you're kind of like revisiting the trauma and it can be too much, like it just puts them right back into that state. Was it that? Or was she just not jiving with you and just telling you like, do better, basically, and you're like this isn't fucking helping me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there was a lot of EMDR to start with, do better, basically, and you're like this isn't fucking helping me. Yeah, so there was a lot of EMDR to start with, and, um, it was. It was via zoom. Um, I'm not a huge person who likes to. I mean, I know you and I got to do zoom because we're in different places today, but you know, I like things. I like things that are in person. So we're trying to do some EMDR via zoom.
Speaker 2:And I'm telling her like man, this is just really like I feel like it's opening things up more and more and more and it's like just pouring salt in the wound. And after I do EMDR, I'm not coming down. And she's like, well, you got to lock it in a safe place. And when you lock it in the safe place, you just leave it there. Wasn't working. You know, in some of the sessions I'd be like raising my hand, saying, hey, like this is too much, I need to stop. It's like, well, let's just, let's just kind of fight through this, let's see what we can do to get through this. And it wasn't working.
Speaker 2:And the, the more I've learned about EMDR. You know there's, you have a safe place. If I raise my hand to say, stop we. We probably should stop, you know, and the therapist should start doing some things to talk you down, to calm you down, and those, those things weren't happening. It was just breathe, and I couldn't tell you how upset I would get at just breathe and I would bring up other ideas. I would be like, hey, have you ever heard of float therapy? Nope, never heard of it. I don't think it's a good idea. Have you ever heard of ketamine? Nope, I think that's a bad idea. Have you ever heard of intense therapy in reference to like a deer hollow? Nope, I think that's a bad idea. Everything to her was a bad idea. I needed to do EMDR and breathe. I'm like, lady, these things are not working. I'm trying.
Speaker 1:I want to get better, but they're not working and you know, and it's just like wow, and that's just that's so, like demoralizing too, because here you are taking all this time to like work up the courage, essentially, to admit that you even need help. So it's not like you were super stoked about showing up there, no, and now you're being made to feel worse because, like, why aren't you getting better? We're doing the one thing that I know how to help you with. That's ridiculous, man. But honestly I'm almost glad to have you bring that up for someone else who hears this and thinks like, oh, I'm doing EMDR, why aren't I better? I've heard that from a lot of people. It's almost as if you need to be in a good enough place to kind of tolerate the EMDR, and if you can, then it can be really helpful. But if it's just almost like flaring you up and you're not coming down, as you were saying, I kind of think it's doing more harm than good at that point.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean, you gotta. You gotta be prepared to be activated. You're going to activate some things and I think you need to prepare the people around you. Like, if I'm going to do EMDR, the next couple of days probably are not going to be that great. I remember even coming back after sitting in Utah and doing all the work that I did and then coming back and still doing EMDR here and telling my therapist when I did EMDR I was down for two days. Like you could guarantee. Like if I did EMDR the next two days I'm going to be miserable. Like just opened up can of worms, ruminating thoughts, some of the dreams came back and I didn't enjoy that. That was not a good experience. How?
Speaker 1:recently. Have you tried that again, like how long ago is the most recent time?
Speaker 2:Um, I haven't done EMDR. It'll probably be, I bet you. Yeah, october of this year will be a year, so not not quite a year that I haven't done EMDR. I've done some other things which I mean they work, and I'm certain we'll talk about those things.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so let's let's talk about the deer hollow, Was that? That was kind of the next step.
Speaker 2:So that was before any ketamine or anything else like that. Right, yeah, and it was.
Speaker 1:it was a good, great experience, um, and part of the deer hollow approach is that like some element of spirituality is baked into it, right Like it's, it's like a religious program. Or am I conflating that with something else?
Speaker 2:No, I mean they'll, they'll tell you you should probably have a belief in God and you know any. Anybody who has a facility like that is attached to a church organization. But they don't. They don't preach it, um, but they give you. They give you different modalities. I mean, they talk about yoga. We did a lot of yoga. They give you different modalities. I mean, they talk about yoga. We did a lot of yoga, yoga Nidra. We did a ton of that.
Speaker 2:Journaling, the importance of journaling. We did some EMDR stuff and they had different versions of EMDR, group therapy, where you're talking about things in a group and it's really like finding what it is that's going to work for you. And they said the same thing. You're not going to come in here and EMDR is not going to be the magic wand. Yoga is not going to be the magic wand. Journaling is not going to be the magic wand. You've got to find what starts to work for you and then you need to put it into play and you need to be consistent about it.
Speaker 2:You know, you and I talked about this earlier it's in such a instant gratification world, Like I had this mentality, that I'm going to go in today. I'm going to do this right now, and tomorrow I'm going to be better. Well, guess what? I wasn't. You know I was. I was broken. It took me. And not only was I broken, but it took me like 22 years. If you think about like I broke a bone and I'm repeatedly breaking this bone for 22 years, how long do you think it's gonna take to fix me? I'm not gonna be fixed overnight, and that's the mentality that I had.
Speaker 1:And I had to stop that first. It's such a good point that you didn't accumulate that trauma overnight and fuck, even if you did, even if it's like just one traumatic thing, it's still not how it works in terms of getting better. What do you feel like was effective about that, though? Like, why did that place, why did the lessons from that place, stick with you? Um, because it that it sounds like to me that was the real turning point in your life that you can kind of point to, like this is when my healing began. What do you attribute that to?
Speaker 2:Um, I, I think it really goes into the group mentality. I was afraid to do the group stuff. I didn't want to talk about it. And then when you start to open up about some things in group and you see somebody else who's willing to be vulnerable, you're like, okay, how can I not be vulnerable? And it really came down to I'm not going to fake it anymore.
Speaker 2:I think in law enforcement you get really good at adapting and creating stories or creating timelines in your head and you don't have to necessarily. You don't want to be honest. You want to continue to like what can I do to cover this up? What can I do to blanket it? And it forces you to be honest. I remember my roommate. He said I wouldn't have been honest had you not said some of the things that you said.
Speaker 2:And when you said some of those things that forced me to start thinking about I need to take this serious and I need to be honest about some of the things that happened to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got 22 years of trauma that I have in law enforcement, but then you have to dive into as a child and things that happened to me as a child and then what really got me to where I'm at, and so I went to the root cause of things and I started to figure out what the root cause of things were and fix it from there. And when I think you start to do that, I find myself all the time like if I get activated or something like, okay, why is that doing that? Can I go back and think about what the negative cognition is in my childhood memories and why I would have that negative thought about myself and then instantly start to change that? And so that's where I think going back to the ground floor and saying, hey, here's where some of these traumatic memories come from, and this is why I behave the way that I do, and working upwards really helps.
Speaker 1:I like to call that peeling layers of the trauma onion. Yeah, and we see that all the time in our program man, where it's like I thought I was all fucked up because of this IED in Afghanistan and it turns out it's because I felt abandoned by my mother when I was five years old and that is actually what set me down the course of becoming a soldier in the first place to go be on that mountainside in Afghanistan. But the honesty thing that you mentioned before of well, first of all, being in a group where someone else is inspiring you to share honestly, but just being honest with yourself, I think is really the root of any healing that's going to take place. And I, like you said before, these things are not quick fixes. I want to be clear that, like mushrooms, microdosing, even ayahuasca not a quick fix, but I think one of the things that microdosing really gives you and I didn't come up with this.
Speaker 1:One person from our program actually said this to me. He said when he's on the medicine he feels like it makes it so that he couldn't lie to himself anymore. He couldn't pretend that everything was just okay. He had to actually like face these things that were uncomfortable, but bring the truth of it out, and so I liked that. That was your answer of like why this thing stuck. Was it forced you to kind of be honest with yourself, because I feel like that's a big thing that the plant medicine does as well. Uh, what's the time frame of when you went to that retreat?
Speaker 1:this is 2022 and this is the summer of 22 that this happens so then, what's what's going on in your life after that, like when you come home from that thing? I'm sure it's not all sunshine and rainbows immediately.
Speaker 2:No, no, Basically what was?
Speaker 1:the trajectory like from there.
Speaker 2:So I am, I'm getting ready to come back and I'm at the airport and I receive a phone call from the administrator at Deer Hollow and she's like hey, so your work, your work basically wants to know when you're coming back to work. I'm like I haven't even left Salt Lake, I'm still in Salt Lake and I'm thinking you know what the heck? What am I supposed to do? Come back to work tomorrow? Like I don't. I don't think that I'm prepared for that. I'm not ready for that. I've got some therapy appointments set up back home. I still got some work to do At this at this point. You know my my marriage is is done. You know she's she's notified me that she wants a divorce and I need to basically figure out what I'm going to do when I get home and where I'm going to go, and that's, that's scary. So you're going back to one. I don't know what a, what a career is going to look like. I don't know what my family marriage is going to look like. Where am I going to live, and then what's income going to look like? How does this? I'm on kind of what they call is workman's comp. So I'm like, okay, what does that look like how long can I be on that?
Speaker 2:For A lot I mean just a lot of things that I came back to, which was a hot mess, and I tried some pretty intense therapy. We sat down for sessions six, seven hours a day and tried to work on some things. I truly did try to get back to work and I did. I went back for about probably about a month and tried to go through some things and then I just was like I can't do this. I was looking at the bottle again and I'm like I can't do this. You know, I was looking at the bottle again and I'm like I just had the urge to want to drink again and I'm like I don't like this, I don't want to. I don't want that to be my answer. I had, you know, while I was at Deer Hollow I'd stopped all prescription medications. Like I am done. I'm not taking any of these medications anymore. They're not doing me any good. They're causing more anxiety. I finally found a good therapist. We're doing some good things in therapy. We're talking about IFS, internal family systems. We're talking about thinking of negative thoughts and how to overcome those negative thoughts. We're doing a little bit of EMDR.
Speaker 2:And then comes probably October, and I'm like I can't do this anymore and I need to get out, I'm done. And so I made that decision then to leave, had kind of an emergency therapy session and he's like you're done, like I am not going to sign off on you. I needed you to realize this yourself. I kind of saw the writing on the wall but I needed you to realize it yourself. Like you're not going back, I will never sign off on you going back into law enforcement.
Speaker 2:You can't mentally. You just can't handle it anymore. Your brain is seen too much, your body reacts to it. You're getting sick more frequently. You want to sit at home and just bury yourself under blankets and hide. You've got so much going on, you need to get out. And that was a huge dose of reality.
Speaker 2:And then he suggested like I think we start talking about ketamine and we look at doing some ketamine along with some therapy sessions after ketamine. And I think that really I know I go back and talk about like Dear Hollow and I talk about the basic ground steps of being honest. But ketamine you don't. You don't get to not think about your thoughts. You know, done correctly under the care of a doctor, you're going to see everything and you're going to open up Pandora's box and you really you're going to get.
Speaker 2:When you talk about the layers of the onion, you don't get to choose what your dreams are in ketamine. The ketamine kind of chooses it for you and it was. It was pretty, I mean, it was vivid. It was just like wow, and that really I think that was the ground floor that started to teach me there's alternative methods of healing. I don't want to depend on ketamine. I don't want to depend on you know. I don't want to depend on ketamine. I don't want to depend on you know anything just just throughout my life I want to really start to heal. But ketamine started to open my mind up Like there's other things out there that could really heal me. Um, and that was the huge. So October of 22, that's that's when really was my ketamine journey and things really opened up that I need to, I need to get out of law enforcement and I need to focus on myself to get better.
Speaker 1:How did you shout out to that therapist, by the way, for like not signing off on you, going back and suggesting this? Um, how did you feel when he proposed the ketamine to you? Um, cause you've probably arrested people for this kind of shit in the past, right? So did that like enter the equation in your mind at all? Or were you just like open because you're like I need help?
Speaker 2:It was so I remember sitting in. So I'm in the ketamine office talking to the psychologist or psychiatrist, psychiatric doctor, and he's, like I'm asking these questions, like hey, I'm still employed, like what happens if I test hot for you know, for ketamine in my system? Like I'm free, I got sweat probably rolling down my head. I'm freaking out Like I can't do this, but I need it, but I can't do this. And he's like, hey, hold on, hold on, it's going to be okay, you're under a doctor's care, it's only in your system for a short time, you're not going back to work. Like we need to focus on getting you better.
Speaker 2:And my anxiety level was just through the roof.
Speaker 2:And at that point, like the couple nights prior when I was thinking about going in, those were probably the darkest nights that I had.
Speaker 2:I mean, I legit was thinking like, if I'm going to do this and I'm going to end my life, that would have probably been the closest that I had gotten. Um, and then I'm kind of really glad that I got in to do the ketamine. And after session one it was like, oh, what had happened was like everything that had built back up. You know, you know I'd done all this work and gotten gotten some healing, ended up going back into the profession, brought all of those traumatic events back into play and all those things like hey, we're not ready for all of this stuff. And then did. My first journey with ketamine was, finally, the first moment of this is what it's really supposed to feel like. This is what things are to calm the nerves down, to calm the vagus nerve down, to calm everything that you need to start being and see clarity and to start feel like your body is starting to come back into connect.
Speaker 1:Before we go more into that, tell me some more about the the couple of nights right before that first ketamine session. Why was that so rough nights right before that first ketamine session? Why was that?
Speaker 2:so rough Because I think you know, here I'm realizing that this, this career, is done. Like, what am I going to? That's all I knew. You know, I didn't finish college. I knew how to. I knew how to be a cop. What am I going to do to get income? I still don't have a clear journey of what workman's comp looks like. Yeah, I'm getting this paycheck that comes in.
Speaker 2:Nobody wants to talk about what does disability look like? I'm trying to keep my ego. I don't want to be disabled for the rest of my life. I don't want to be that guy who gets this disability check. Can I live on a disability check?
Speaker 2:And so all of these thoughts are just flooding in and I'm like maybe I'd just be better off not being here, you know.
Speaker 2:But then I go back and I think about my kids and if it really wasn't for my two boys, I probably, if I didn't have my kids, I probably would have been like you know what check the box I'm out Like this is, this is done and over with, probably would have grabbed a bottle of whatever whiskey, tequila, and drank it and went and drove off a cliff somewhere.
Speaker 2:It just was like those thoughts just kept it, just kept playing over and over and it's like you know when and I think there's a lot of guys who can relate to this with post-traumatic like the ruminating thought. When the ruminating thought starts, it's like you can't get off that hamster wheel. It's like that wheel just goes. And it's like there's some days like can I just slow the wheel down? And I'm telling you, that wheel was just going, it was just going and I'm I'm so glad that the day that I went in to do the consult, they're like we need, we want to get you in today and I made that decision to do the consult and then to go in and do treatment that day.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, I didn't realize that. So that's a quick turnaround and I feel like that's even something I would normally advise people against, but I clearly they made the right call that. It's like you need something right now to snap out of the state that you're in. Hmm, that must've just fucking completely blown your mind Like just going straight into like a deep ketamine experience with like no, not much of like an on-ramp to it, not much of like this is what it might be, like, this is how to like navigate this, set your intentions, all that kind of stuff. It just kind of dropped you into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was good though. I mean, like he sat down, we had a really good kind of like you think about therapy session beforehand, like anything that you want to talk about. And then we went into the room, like you get, you get a nice quiet, private room. He kind of explains to you what the experience is going to be like. He sits there and has a conversation with you and he's like, okay, let's just try to clear your mind and really just kind of be opened to the process, and then even afterwards he'll come into the room and he has a conversation with you and he talks about it. Let's break some things down, let's talk about this, you know. And just kind of like you know, he goes back like breathe to relax yourself. Breathe is not your healing, but like breathe to relax yourself.
Speaker 1:See, just breathe, yeah, that first trick was right, just breathe, yeah.
Speaker 2:But then you know, but the biggest part we did is then we did therapy. And what was good is my therapist was completely open. He's like, yes, go to your ketamine and then come see me, and then I would go sit down and we'd do a therapy session and we'd really start to break things down and really get into those layers and have conversations about what was really at the layers, to get those things open. And I remember you know, everybody's ketamine journey is different, you know. So if somebody listens to this it's like, oh well, I had nothing out of it. Well, you might, um, but I remember like seeing layers of the house just continually get taken down and continue getting taken down, and remember all of a sudden at one point in time, just having this vision of dirt and then digging and then building a house back up, and I remember the doctor telling me he's like that is finally he goes.
Speaker 2:Think about the number of traumatic events, think about the number of dead bodies you've seen, think about everything that you've been involved in and how long it took I mean it was probably like four or five sessions to get through all of this and then for everything just to start building up. And I remember telling him at the end of the session I'm like I'm flying on the back of a bird and I feel like I'm finally smiling and you know the like, oh, the wind in my hair and wind beneath my wings and all that stuff. It's like I actually left feeling good. I mean, there was times I left ketamine feeling miserable, like it was dark, like you know you're having all these dark and vivid memories and like oof and it being dark. But then I remember finally getting to a point where like, oh, I can breathe again and things look good and my nervous system just starting to regulate and all those things.
Speaker 2:And it probably was about three months after ketamine. My doctor knew I was in ketamine about three months after, went in and got some blood work done and did my yearly physical. And she's like I am so happy that, one, you're out of law enforcement. Two, you did the treatment that you did. She goes, your blood work is absolutely amazing, like I haven't seen these good of numbers in a while. And she's like I'm, I'm really, I really praise you for, you know, being an advocate for yourself, because she was against some of the stuff, like she was originally against ketamine and then she kind of changed her mind a little bit.
Speaker 1:But she's like I'm glad that you're an advocate for yourself and that you were really pushing through to try different things and that you're doing the work to heal that's cool, good for her for being open-minded, right to like change her stance in light of the actual evidence in front of her and uh, so you're going through that process of shedding these things. That what a incredible like actual vision that you had that you described of like the house being like broken down and and digging a new foundation and building back on top of that. What's going on on the tangible real world end of the spectrum during that point, with career change, divorce, disability checks, stuff like that? Are you rebuilding that foundation in the real world at the same time, or is that still yet to come?
Speaker 2:Uh, it's still yet. I mean, the marriage is over like it. It's, it's done. You know she's, she's filed for divorce. We're, we're moving on. We're we're going different directions.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm still trying to navigate the what's it look like, you know, as I'm leaving this career, what does that look like? I do have to end up getting an attorney to help me filter through the legal jargon and paperwork, stuff like that. When you think that you know, you think whoever and it doesn't matter if you're in a government agency or if you're in the public field or whatever you think that you might have this disability policy, yeah well, good luck with that. So that was, that was a battle trying to cause like it's not a broken bone, like how do we, how do we put a number to this? How do we say you know that you're not making this up? Like, how do we know you're? You're being honest and I had probably told gosh.
Speaker 2:I probably had to tell my story of the traumatic events like six or seven different times and the you know, the thing that kind of opened my mind like really just kind of was the aha, like hit me moment, was this is what victims feel like. You know, when you think about a true victim of a of a crime that I've investigated. They tell a patrol officer, they tell somebody who's in investigations, they tell a victim advocate, they tell the prosecuting attorney. Then they got to go take the stand and then they tell their friends. And I said that when I had to do my independent medical exam for the workman's comp, I was like we're going to tell this story once again. My therapist has all the notes, my psychiatrist has all the notes in reference to this and you're going to want me to tell this story once again. And I've told multiple therapists all these things. I get to relive these things over and over.
Speaker 2:But what I had was different this time was I had a tool in my toolbox that was working, which was ketamine. And at this point you know I'm starting to think about what can I do? I don't necessarily want to do ketamine my rest of my life. Is there something else that I can do that might help me for a short period of time or might start to progressively get me to where to go? And that's what led me to start, you know, looking at you guys and seeing some stuff from you guys, and reach out and have a conversation with you to be like hey, is there some things here that might be able to add to my toolbox to help me?
Speaker 1:I'm so glad that we're actually doing this podcast, nick, because a lot of that stuff you know maybe we touched on a little bit or I heard a little bit of, but I've never heard kind of that whole story leading up to our time together. You know, I know we talked about the ketamine a little bit and stuff like that, but, um, it's. It's really cool just for me personally to like get this full perspective of the whole backstory leading up to this. So let's get into that. I know that you essentially stumbled across our stuff just from uh, from Jake, like reposting an Instagram story, but had had microdosing been on your mind, had it been something that you were like researching quite a bit already, and then this popped up and you're like, okay, I'll text these people, or was that like totally new to you at that point?
Speaker 2:Um, so I had seen stuff. You know I had, probably even before I had started someone like I'm trying to figure out, like over here, what is going on with me, why am I so disassociated with myself? And you see, all these things about post-traumatic stress, and I'm thinking, well, maybe I have this, but I don't really want to raise my hand and say that I have it. So I'm concerned about all those things and I'm looking, I'm reading articles and I'm seeing guys who are doing ayahuasca. I'm seeing guys that are talking about mushrooms and doing microdosing of mushrooms. Mdma is out there. I'm seeing all these things that people are doing.
Speaker 2:But the biggest thing that held me back was like I'm in law enforcement. I'm in law enforcement, I can't do that. I can't go. You know I can't just go over here and go get some. And where the heck would I get mushrooms at? You know I'm a guy, yeah, I'm a cop, but I've never bought drugs. Where the heck would I buy drugs from? Who am I going to go? They go knock on the neighbor's door. I'm like, hey man, you got some mushrooms, you know, and just.
Speaker 2:And then then how do you trust somebody? You know how do you trust somebody. When you get something that's going to be, that's not laced with something else, you know what do you exactly do to try to get better? And you know, can I go do ayahuasca and be able to come back and not test positive for something I don't know enough about it? So yeah, and at this point you know I've tried ketamine and I'm like I am determined I do not want to go back on prescription medications. I do not want to have. I mean, yeah, there's I'll have an occasional nightmare, but it's like I don't want to go back into the continued nightmare after nightmare and the ruminating thoughts, like I am determined to throw whatever I have to at this to help myself heal. And that's where, like, okay, the door is open for me.
Speaker 2:I know that I'm leaving law enforcement, I'm not going to go back. So what can I do that can move that needle for myself? And I'm like, what do I got to lose? Let's reach out. I've seen what ketamine has done for me. Um, I feel like I need something that can really have consistency now, um, and it was, you know, with the help of you and Cordy, I mean that's. I mean I can't tell you from where I was at, you know, getting out of ketamine and to build this base with you guys. It's been amazing. It's been such a blessing in disguise. And then you know you and I've talked about this, finding my way back into God and believing in God and asking God to hey, I need some help here. You know what is it, what is it that I need to do and I need some help.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, for, uh, for legal purposes, nick. I also don't know where you could get mushrooms from a trusted source. So what was it like when we first talked? What was it that made you actually like sign up with us? Essentially Like, what made you actually go with us? What would the first Joe Schmo who offered you a microdosing program would you just have signed up for it Cause you were just super on board, or was there something that kind of stood out like about this process to you?
Speaker 2:I think it was the, the conversations you and I had, the relatability, the, the fact that you, you know you cared, you wanted to sit and have a conversation about this and you wanted to talk about it and there were. It was more than just like, hey, we're going to do microdosing and boom, we're done Like here's, here's some things that are going to make you better and have a good day, Peace out. It was like, no, there's a purpose behind this. Like you don't just get to wake up in the morning and think about doing some microdosing, like you have to put purpose in front of it. You've got to do some stuff first and foremost to get there. And then it was the building up to it. It's like, okay, we're going to go in here, we're going to start talking about journaling, we're going to stock up, talk about meditating. We talked about diet and the importance of diet and all these foundational things that we talked about we're going to put into play. And then we're going to start to add to that and it's just like you said, you're building up the layer. So you're building that foundation of the house.
Speaker 2:You know, I had, you and I had a conversation like you know what? We're going to have a 10 week program and all we're going to do is journal. I don't know if that's going to work for me, but I know what does work is having a couple of different tools in my toolbox and knowing that you know, if I got a flathead screw and it's a Phillips or whatever, it ends up having to be, like I might need a different tool for this. And that's what you provided was the fact that you had a couple of different tools and you said that upfront, like we're going to work with some stuff, we're going to give you some tools to be able to do some things. We're going to add to it and voila, here we are. And that's what really sold me on the program was the fact that it wasn't just one thing and we're just going to stick with this one thing, that you just have this.
Speaker 2:And there's the group sessions and the ability to sit in groups and talk and knock it as much as you want to. I don't want to talk about somebody that I was molested as a kid, or I don't want to talk about somebody that I was molested as a kid, or I don't want to talk to somebody that I cry when I watch hardcore movies or whatever it is, because you don't want to cry in front of your fellow man or woman. But people get power from that and understanding they're not on the island by themselves that there's other people that are fighting these same things. There's other people that may not be a vet or a first responder. There's people who you know.
Speaker 2:Trauma is different for everybody and this group brings people together to have that conversation, to start talking about what those things are, and everybody in the group has a different source of trauma, but we're all able to deal with it together. And you know, maybe you guys didn't have an idea, but somebody in the group has an idea that might help me. And that's where the power was is having that group and having all the tools that you guys provided.
Speaker 1:I like that you highlight the group thing because when we started that it was an afterthought to me, like Cordy was like we should have a group chat no-transcript negative thoughts is real.
Speaker 2:Um, intentionality. You know you, you don't just get to microdose. You don't just get to wake up and be like, oh, I'm on a microdose today. It's like no, you've got to do something in front of that. You've got to be intentional. What are your intentions by doing this? What is your purpose behind that? And setting those things, to then really start to see that things work and that they start to heal. Heal and that's for me. I mean, I journal every single day.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty intentional when I have my conversations with my boys. I talk to the kids about like hey, you're going to fight as a man, you're going to fight through some things and you need to be okay with being. Hey, I'm not okay in having a conversation and reaching out and talking to people and having those conversations. And I'm pretty upfront. I'll tell people like, yep, I go to therapy. Judge me if you want to, I've done microdosing. I can tell you that it's helped me. It might not help you, but it's helped me. But I've also understood that you don't just get to grab something and microdose. You've got to have some intentional behind it and if you don't do that, it's not going to work that great.
Speaker 1:And what's your experience been like so far after the program? Cause, that's an important thing to note here is that, like you, microdosed for a total of eight weeks inside of a 12 week structure, and I forget actually how long it's been since that ended, but you've been on your own for a good bit now, so how would you say that these things have stuck with you?
Speaker 2:I mean I can't thank you guys enough for the things that are in play, the things that I do. I mean I am so like being intentional and paying attention to your body and being okay with, like you know what, yesterday wasn't the greatest day. I'll give myself a score like hey out know out of out of one out of five. It might've been a two yesterday, but you know what, I still move the needle in certain directions. I am still, I'm still in here journaling, I'm still putting positive thoughts, I'm doing my prayer, I am very intentional with myself, um, and I do, I put myself first Um, and I haven't see, I haven't done, I haven't done any ketamine, probably in eight months. So there's not been any ketamine in eight months and I think micro dosing is probably been at least, probably at least four months that I've done any micro dosing.
Speaker 2:But I've had a good, you know, even if some anxiety comes up, I've had the ability to sit in thought and meditate and really stay focused in meditation. And when you talk about those, those grounding tools, some of those grounding tools weren't working and you know it's funny, you go back to the first therapist, like just breathe. Well, guess what works? Breathing actually starts to work, but you have to get to a point for it to work. And now I'm finally at that point where these little tools actually work totally, and yeah to your point.
Speaker 1:Like that actually is the answer just breathe. But good luck saying that to somebody who's like in the middle of a panic attack. Right, yeah, and you mentioned this before that we offer a bunch of different tools and I think maybe that's something that has helped people where they've been let down in the past is that we really try to meet people where they're at with what's going to be effective. But I mean, the credit, like I said before, is all on you for putting this in place and the credit goes to the mushrooms for helping you. But I think it's really important also what you said before that it's not like you've never had a single day of anxiety since ketamine or since this program. It's not like you don't have those bad days still, but now you understand what they are and you're able to feel it, notice it, acknowledge it, honor it, but move through it, as opposed to being stuck in that state for days on end, right, yep. And so what's what's going on now and what's on the horizon? Because I know you got a new career.
Speaker 1:Last time we talked, there was a new lady in your life. Hopefully that's still there. Um. So I mean we talked about rebuilding foundations before. Um, I feel like you, objectively, you're on a pretty good trajectory right now with that. To me it seems like what? Um? So yeah, just just talk to me about that. Like the new career, cause that, honestly, that was something actually that we talked about when you came into the program. There were some challenges there because of the anxiety, um, so, so how has that, like, how have these changes sort of played out in the new career or in the new relationships or in some other ways that we haven't talked about, like that shift that the medicine brought you? It's not just in like oh, I don't have so much anxiety when I'm driving now, but it's playing out in these very tangible ways for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, the new career is, it's interesting. You think, okay, can I do something different? And you can. You start to believe in yourself again. You know you don't have the negative thoughts. You get out of your own way in a sense. You start to do things that you know uncomfortable and it starts to move that needle personally and everybody I talk to and I get out. I want to go out and do stuff. That's the biggest thing that I see. Like I want to socialize with people, I want to have conversations with people. I mean I try to remain very active with my boys, you know, and yeah, I still love to play golf, but I'm also finding myself without paddleboarding, without hiking.
Speaker 2:I have been to like a concert a month and I can tell you, like social environments, I didn't want to be in them. Like it scared me to go to a social environment where there's lots of people around and I'm thinking the worst scenario possible everybody's going to die, I'm going to get shot, there's going to be this mass shooter and just kind of freaking out about all that and my anxiety is being through the roof. And then what do I do to combat the anxiety? Oh, I'm going to drink while I'm sitting at whatever this event is. And now I can go to an event and actually be relaxed. I don't have to have a drink. Some of the anxiety still comes up a little bit, but I'm able to.
Speaker 2:All these tools have helped me and I'm able to get through that and I, like, this summer has just been one of the best summers for me.
Speaker 2:It's been amazing. I'm looking forward to the time I get to spend with my boys and do the different things and I'm so glad that you know I put effort into not just saying I'm going to see this one therapist and if it doesn't work, then I'm just going to resort to what I knew how to do, that I continued to forge through and do what I did because I would have never come across you guys, and I'm so glad that I did. I'm so glad I came across ketamine and that I gave myself. I wouldn't say I guess I pushed myself to do it to get outside of my comfort zone and say you know what I'm important. I need to fix myself If I want to have any type of healthy relationship with another human being again, if I want to have a healthy relationship with a kid. If I want to have a healthy relationship with myself, I need to put the work in to do this, and I'm so glad that I did because I am. I'm happy every single day I wake up and every, every day is outstanding.
Speaker 1:Man, what? Um, I'm just, I'm just sitting here thinking what a difference from when we first talked what you just said of, like this summer has been the best summer you've had in memory and going out and doing all these things. Cause we first talked, you were like I just want to stay in bed with my head under the covers and hide from the world, including hiding from, like, making calls for work right, and to just to hear you say that, dude, it warms my fucking heart. It makes me super grateful that we get like this is my fucking job is helping people like you do stuff like that. It's incredible and it is. It's a blessing to be able to do this and, um, we'll chalk this up to my rustiness as a podcaster.
Speaker 1:But there's one last thing that I really did want to touch on and I didn't weave it in before and you even you even teed me up for it, but it's the faith aspect, and I wanted to ask you before, like when that entered the picture for you, because I know it became more pronounced when you were starting that healing path. Um, I do actually want to talk about how it ties in with microdosing, with, like, the intention setting piece, but, um, what's, what's like the, the source of that for you Like, where's the origin of that faith? Was that something you grew up with, or is that something that you found later on? No, it was.
Speaker 2:You know, I remember, I think one time as a kid I remember being on a bus and kind of going to like a Sunday school, but really family wasn't big into faith and I had told myself like I need to be big into faith and when you work child sex crimes, I lost. I lost a lot of it. Because when you work a case and you've got a church or you've got a priest that is violating kids like I, I had a tough time. I'm like, hey, why would God allow this to happen? And then I had to reframe my mind around that and it wasn't really till I came back.
Speaker 2:Um, I had a lot of time with my son, you know, because now the divorce and I got my kids and my youngest son's like you know, dad, I want to go to church, like I believe in God and I want to believe in God more. It wasn't really until then. I thought you know what, if I'm going to lead my kids and teach my kids the right thing to do and be a leader for my kids, I need to open my heart and see if I can't find a way back into having a conversation with God. That led me into going to church, then going to some men's group. And then I reconnected with a couple of guys that I had spent some time with at the police department and so we started our own little men's group and the one guy he was a police officer, then went to be a pastor for a church and so he kind of leads some men's group and so he started leading us, which then led me to say you know what I want to? I want to get baptized, like I am ready to make this journey. And so I did that. I did that journey and got baptized.
Speaker 2:Um, last so, october of 23, I got baptized and have led myself down that journey and, like I said, it's about being intentional and it's, you know, being intentional with your fellow man and teaching your kids the right thing to do. And talking to God and saying, hey, I'm a sinner, I make sins and I need your help, God, like, can you help me get through these things and fight these battles that we have every day? And again, I, if, if I'm not intentional with God, I can feel the difference in my life. Um, I'm not saying it's for everybody, but it is definitely something that works for me and I do. I believe in my faith.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I, we're using the language, the actual word, actual word, God, we're talking about this stuff. I just spoke to somebody inside our program now yesterday and she was like tiptoeing around bringing that up with me, because it I, you do, to a certain degree, almost have to judge how the other person's going to react when you start talking about your faith in God. And so you know she was talking about like praying to the universe and stuff, and I was like, yeah, I pray to God. She's like, oh good, like me too. She's all like relieved about it. But what I said to her is I feel like when you have that relationship, when you are someone who prays whether it's to the universe, to God, to however you want to think about it I feel like one of the things that microdosing can help you with or can kind of give to you, is those whispers or those signs that are coming through to you from God, from the universe.
Speaker 1:I almost feel like it turns up the volume on those messages where you start to receive more of those or they're a little bit louder. They become things that you can't chalk up to coincidence as easily, where it's like okay, this is actually like a message for me right now, and part of me, like the skeptical part of my brain, says that humans are just very good storytellers and we're very good at rationalizing things. We're very good at coming up with explanations. So probably what you perceived as a sign actually meant nothing and you just invented that. Even if that's true, like isn't it better to live in a reality where, like that I don't know like that random thing that happened actually has meaning? That's positive for you?
Speaker 1:But that's a whole other conversation conversation. Was that any part of your experience, like with the microdosing? What I said about kind of turning up the volume on those messages or just talk to me maybe? More generally, like how ketamine or the microdosing kind of influenced the faith that you had, or how those two things kind of mingled when you're sitting there in a ketamine session and God is talking to you or you're praying to the medicine before you take your microdose and God is maybe answering some of those prayers in some ways. Like what was that piece of the experience like?
Speaker 2:I think for me it wasn't until the microdosing. It's like you talked about hey, you got to be intentional, like you don't just get to microdose for the fun of it, you don't just get to show up in the morning and go grab your pill and throw it in there and be like, oh yeah, I'm going to resolve all today's problems. It was like what are you doing to be intentional? And I set my practice where you know, hey, I'm I'm basically praying over this, saying, hey, I got some things going on. I can I can feel my anxiety fluttering up, like, talk to me and let's be present with this and have a conversation and use that intentionality with the medicine to make sure you're going in the direction you want to go. And that's when I started to notice everything that we'd been doing and really started to notice the changes and be like all right, these things are sticking and these things are working and I'm feeling better when I do this.
Speaker 2:And now, like I said, my practices are every day. I wake up in the morning, I pray. If things are going wrong throughout the day, I'll throw a little prayer in there, and in the evening I make sure I pray before I go to bed, and it's a very intentional practice. And big thing that I pray for is hey, maybe you can help me with my anxiety, god. Maybe you can't, but let's do what we can to keep it at bay. Let's be honest with ourselves and let's pay attention to our body and alert ourselves when, when things are fluttering up, as to what we can do to change that. And it's you know, it's a big part of my life. It's a big part of me teaching my kids, um, what it's like. I mean, I, my oldest son's not a huge believer. Um, he's, he's coming around to it. He started to be a little bit more part of it.
Speaker 1:And my youngest son loves it, and that's, that's just part of my everyday practice. Now. It's beautiful, man. I have, uh, I've got two final questions. We can wrap this up so I can go to sleep, cause it's almost nine, 30. Um, and I dude, I'm just. I'm so happy that we connected. I'm so happy that this is part of your journey, for not just you but your sons, like your family. It's incredible, it's so beautiful. First question, quick question How's your sleep these days? Cause I know that was not good when we first started and I know it still wasn't good for most of the program. So that might not be like the glowing testimonial kind of thing, but how is that? These?
Speaker 2:days. Well, I think the part of it that I've had to get over my head is like you know, your doctor says eight hours, webmd says eight hours. You know, everything on the news says eight hours, everything's like eight hours. You got to get eight hours of sleep and I'm getting like six, seven hours of sleep and I'm like God, I can't be doing this. And I've just come to the realization and it was funny, even my doctor said this the other day during my physical. She's like if it's seven hours, it's seven hours. How do you feel? I'm like, well, I feel great. And so, yeah, I'm getting about six and a half seven hours. But you know what? I'm getting six and a half seven hours of really good sleep and I feel great. Okay, that's good.
Speaker 2:I'm not wanting to go sit on the couch, I'm not being a lethargic bump on the log my consistency at the gym. I think that was something that you and I talked about. Like I'd go to the gym and I would just feel overwhelmed and I feel like the spaces were closing in on me. I can go to the gym and have an excellent workout for 45 minutes now and feel freaking, phenomenal and walk away and start to have a really good day.
Speaker 1:Dude, I remember that distinctly because Cordy and I had a good laugh about this Cause when you were when you started. I know the medicine was very subtle and you're like, yeah, I don't really know how much I'm feeling, but I was able to work out the other day without having a panic attack and I'm like, gee, I fucking wonder why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that certainly helped, it helped get through some of those things and it's. It's been nice, Hell yeah.
Speaker 1:The last thing I wanted to ask you is just what, um, like, what do you wish that people knew about this? Like the, you know, the, the colleagues that you once had, um, the, maybe even, honestly, some of the people that you're working with now in this, like the finance line of work, where this stuff isn't like at the forefront, right, and I ask you this question because it's something I've heard you say before, it's something I heard Jake say before, where it's like I, you know, I I wish that more people knew about this or would talk about it, but I don't know how to talk about it with them. And literally, you're here because you saw something that he put up on his Instagram story and you decided to have a conversation about it. So what would you have to say to somebody, maybe, who was like you in that position that you used to be in, or somebody that you just wish you could kind of fucking take him and shake him and make them go microdose or do some ketamine?
Speaker 1:Like kind of just parting thoughts. What do you? What do you? Kind of just parting thoughts. What do you? What do you? Kind?
Speaker 2:of want to share. I mean, I think the biggest thing is you first and foremost. You have to want it. You have to want the change. You know I can, I can go, preach to you all I want I can. I can lead you to water. You know all those those quotes that are out there.
Speaker 2:But if you don't want to change, you're not going to change and you're not going to change and there's a negative stigma around it. But yet there's not a negative stigma around prescriptions. I mean, how many people that are on some type of depression, anxiety, medication? It's not working, so you get another one. And it's not working, you get another one? How many commercials do you see on TV that say, okay, hey, you're taking this, but it's not working, so add this one, so it works, it's okay. It's okay to take prescription medications, but man, there's so much negative thought around.
Speaker 2:Why would I use microdosing? Why would I use MDMA? Why would I use some other form of treatment to try to heal myself? It's worked for other people. It's worked for people in Peru on ayahuasca and all those things that they're doing. Why am I afraid to try that and being open to trying that?
Speaker 2:And I've heard people say well, you know gateway drugs. You're opening the door up. I can tell you this. I don't I mean, we talked about alternative things for sleep I not done any of those things I have done microdosing. I am not addicted to it done any of those things I've done microdosing, I am not addicted to it. I don't have an urge If I have a drink of alcohol. I have like one drink of alcohol and I'm done. I'm done drinking, and that's maybe once every couple of weeks. Now, if that and I don't find myself like this didn't open the door for me to like I got lines of cocaine on the kitchen counter now when I come home, because I opened the door for microdosing, um, it was. It was something that I used to heal myself. It's it's knowing now that I have a tool in my toolbox and if I need to do it, I can Um, but it's not something that ever became an abuse.
Speaker 2:Or and if, if I hadn't opened my mind up to it, it probably wouldn't have worked. If I had a closed mind, it probably wouldn't have worked and I would have been sitting still in a cycle of oh, what's the next prescription drug? That I can go on. I remember a coworker of mine sitting down talking to me and telling me that he's on like 23 different prescriptions and I'm just like, and he's in a fog, just in a complete daze, how do you function? I don't want that kind of life Like, can I do something over here that can get me over this edge? Whatever I need to do to start healing and I mean I, yeah, no prescription medications whatsoever right now and I feel absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2:I can't, I can't thank you guys enough for what I've been through. You know, no, no paid advertisement here, but it's. It's been absolutely, it's been absolutely amazing that you know the journey I've been through and, like I said, it wouldn't have happened if I didn't open my mind that there's alternative methods to treatment and not being. You know, I think you have Western medicine and Eastern medicine. I love my doctor to death, but if she talks about a prescription medication, it's going to be a lot of questions that get asked. You know, and I think people need to start looking at what the you know what pharmacies are putting out there, the pharmaceutical companies are putting out there, because I don't know that it's in the best interest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that the interest question is really the one to be asking. Whose interest is this actually in? But, as very well said, man and um I've been Cordy and I have both been very fortunate to have such great teachers that we have learned from and that we are really just bringing to you and to everyone else that we work with, these things that we've been fortunate enough to learn. And, like I said before, dude, it's such a blessing to be able to do this and to be in a position to share this with you guys. So thank you for being part of the program, thank you for showing up for yourself, advocating for yourself, like you said, and it's so beautiful to just watch these changes unfold for you.
Speaker 1:And thank you so much for coming on here to share that story. I really hope that somebody listens to this and sees some of themselves in you. Maybe they're at the place right now that you were describing before, and this can be a catalyst for them to seek that help too. That's really the goal here. So thank you very much, nick. I really appreciate it, man.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody, that is it for the very first legitimate episode of the Plant Medicine for PTSD podcast. Super, super grateful for my friend Nick for coming on, for going through this program, for showing up for himself and, of course, very grateful for you actually listening to this whole thing and being interested and following along all of these amazing journeys. If you're interested in anything that you heard today, you want to hear more about how you might be able to go through the same process. Whether you're dealing with the same things that Nick was back in the day of the alcoholism, the pills, the very severe symptoms, whether you're where he was at a little bit further down the line, you know that process had already started. Wherever you're at in your journey, I would love to connect with you and see how we might be able to help or, if not, us point you in some other direction.
Speaker 1:There's a bunch of other great organizations out there. So if you're curious to hear more about anything that you heard in this episode, please, please, please, shoot us a message on Instagram at becomingohm or head to the website becomingohmcom. Check us out there. All right, as always. Thank you so much for listening. Peace out. No-transcript.