42. Toby Miller - Do You Actually Want To Heal?

Toby Miller is back, and we have a lot to catch up on. 

We start with something a lot of people understand but don’t always talk about honestly: losing a dog that felt like family. Toby talks about Lucy, Titan, grief, spirituality, and the weird truth that love and pain can sit in the same room at the same time.

We talk about combat trauma, forgiveness and the stuff that most people would rather bury. 

Toby opens up about being blown up in Afghanistan, carrying pieces of his teammate’s bone in his body, and realizing later that he was still attached to the wound, continuing to suffer because it had become a part of his identity. 

A lot of people say they want to heal. But when it comes time to actually put the weight down, some part of them still wants to keep carrying it.

We also talk about ayahuasca, iboga, plant medicine, preparation, integration, and why none of this works if you’re still waiting for something outside of you to do the work for you.

Connect with Toby: https://www.instagram.com/unmedicatedmohican

Thanks again for listening!

Enrollment is open right now for our Mindful Microdosing Program, which has helped 250+ veterans, first responders, and trauma survivors overcome anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

Visit https://www.becomingom.org/coaching for all the info and to get in touch with us.

Or DM us the word INTERESTED on Instagram.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

So if you have listened to this podcast for a while, and certainly if you've been one of our clients ever, you've heard me talk about Toby Miller. Uh sometimes I talk about him, I quote him more than my own thoughts come out in a given episode. And today I had the pleasure of recording a second episode with my boy Toby. Uh a lot has actually unfolded for him since our first episode, so I definitely wanted to cover all the new things, like his iBoga retreat that he went to, uh, getting sober from alcohol after starting drinking at like age 14. Uh the travel that he and his wife are about to do, the loss of his pup, um, things like that. And then there were some stories that I wanted to revisit that somehow I failed to extract the first time around, like his crazy story with his biological shrapnel in his arm and the sort of uh spiritual symbolic significance there, like that alliteration. Um, and then we get into some classic Tobyisms and hear him explain them in his own words. And as you listen, you'll know why I'm smirking as I say this. So I won't give you too much of a boring preamble because this episode is really awesome, and I love Toby and his wife Sherry. I keep asking Sherry to do this podcast, and she keeps saying no because she learned how to set boundaries now, which is annoying. So I love you guys. Hope to see you someday soon in person, and I'm very glad that Toby was down to do this part two episode. I feel like between that first episode and this one, we have encapsulated uh a good chunk of his wisdom and his experiences with the healing path and with the plant medicine. So if you do nothing other than just listen to these two episodes, you have probably learned a lot that Toby and I have to teach. So thank you for being here. Thank you again to Toby for doing this. Enjoy this episode with my boy Toby Miller. What's the vape that you're hitting over there? Uh is it just nicotine?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

A little bit of nicotine, not much. The lowest possible level of nicotine, and I'm actually giving that thing up next. That's my that's my next challenge to myself. Quit it. So I just quit sleeping. Why do you I just quit sleeping? Why uh why do you want to? I was just man, vape is not good for you. I mean, it's better than when I was smoking fucking cigars and and all of that shit. Is it though? Well, I don't know. Smoking fucking mini cigars to the tune of four or five a day and inhaling them was not good. So I was hacking and coughing and stuff, and this I don't hack and cough, but I just I don't like dependence. You know? So when I I learned to get some freedom when we got me off of the all the meds and and then got some freedom from the booze and changed my relationship. It's uh I just sort of have this thing about dependence. I don't not a big fan of being dependent on. I want to be dependent on as little as I can be. And we want to travel. And vaping's not conducive with travel, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:05

So I think about that every time I'm on a plane, I'm like, man, people with actual nicotine addictions must really be suffering right now.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Gum or patches, probably, but you know, yeah, it's not it's not comfortable for people who are.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

And you're using the zins and things like that?

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah, I mean I never did. I I couldn't stand back man back in special operations, everybody dips, right? They all got a lip full of chew in and a and a spit bottle or a spit cup. And I always just thought it was disgusting. I couldn't handle it. You know, even the nicotine addiction aside, I just couldn't handle the the spit bottles everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Dude, the uh you'll appreciate this, like having been in Peru and smoking like the actual Mapacho there. Because I I smoke, I'm gonna be smoking my pipe as we talk, and occasionally I will chew this tobacco. So I buy pipe tobacco that you can also chew. And like growing up, I thought that chewing tobacco was just disgusting, and you would like immediately get mouth cancer if you ever did it. Of course, and you like you see everyone with the spit bottles. And the first time I chewed it, and then I I had to spit and I swallowed my spit, and I was like, Well, no, dude, I was like, Oh, this is nothing compared to doing a tobacco dieta where like we're drinking straight up tobacco juice every day, like just tobacco leaves boiled in water to like a concentrate. And so I was like, Why are people spitting this out, bro? This is nothing. Probably still gross, but I don't I don't do it that often. I do like to smoke the pipe from time to time, though. Yeah, well, you talk about not being dependent on things, like I'm fucking drinking my cup of coffee today. I realize I don't even like coffee that much. I like the maple syrup and milk that I put in my coffee. So maybe I should just drink that instead.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Like uh like milk chai in Afghanistan. It was just sweet, milky tea, right? And I'm not a tea drinker, but milk chai in Afghanistan, I was the Afghans would make it, and I was just like, hell yeah, I'm in for that.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

That sounds fucking awesome, actually. Um, alright, man. I have I have a handful of uh of topics prepared. Uh I'm gonna start off with a really rough one, and I'm sorry, man. Go for it. But um you guys are kind of in this like holding period, waiting to start traveling the world some more until the last of your dogs passes away. And dude, I'm sorry. But I want to I want to talk about this, man.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Yeah, dude. Uh actually the window on that is getting really short. His uh his energy levels have dropped. He uh he actually got bit by a brown recluse a while ago and had necrosis in his hip, about a half inch deep hole in his hip, uh half inch across and half inch deep. But it it looked remarkably like a a gunshot wound, and uh it's healing and cleaning up, but you know, the he's on three pain relievers, three different types of pain reliever a day, and and still has trouble moving. He's he's a uh a 90 to 100 pound Aussie Shepherd, purebred, and he and and that's not fat, he's just really huge, he's a giant size. And at 13 years old this month, he's uh he's had good innings, man. And so, you know, we Sherry and I were actually talking about this lately. She pregaves, right? So when we were losing Lucy with her uh the Malinois with her DM, she would pregve, and it was it was heartbreaking for her leading up. I am the opposite. I'm very good at being like, I'm gonna deal with that when we get there. I know it's coming. Like there's no question in my mind it's coming. And and the window is getting very short with Titan. It's we for all we know, we could be talking weeks. We are definitely only talking months, and so for me, I'm sort of like, uh just leave it, enjoy my time with him. I'll deal with that when it happens. And I did that with Lucy, and and what was very interesting is when Lucy passed away, and I'm sure it'll happen with Titan, Sherry gets very down to, okay, now we're down to business, I gotta deal with this, how do I, you know, etc. etc. And I lose it because that's when my grief starts, right? Afterward. I'm like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And that was literally, I was in the truck driving away from the vet after Lucy was uh left us. I was literally screaming, no, no, no. Uh and and Sherry is is much better dealing with it after it happens, and she pre-grieves it because she's a consequence thinker, and I am a jump in with both feet, it doesn't matter how funny how deep the water is when I get there, thinker. Uh so I will deal with it harder when it happens, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:43

I mean, maybe that's good for you guys, so one of you is functional at all times while the other is grieving.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Yeah. Also, this the spirituality of it, right? Helps me in in a big way. I well, I'm a person that really believes, you know, we have talked so many times and we've known each other for years now, been close for years, you and I. I just have this sort of feeling that, you know, uh we are energy and stardust. Uh when we talk about a person's spirit, you know, that's energy. And and science says that energy cannot be destroyed, it just can be transferred or moved, right? So where does that spirit go? Well, I don't claim to know that, but I just have this feeling in my gut when I when I talk about Lucy, and when I'm sad or something, I can say, I'll see you again. You know, I don't I don't know where and when and I don't know how that works, but I will see you again. And and so the spirituality really helps me in a lot of ways with this.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Like that a lot. One of our one of our other mentors, you know Ellen. Yeah, she was talking to me the other day because she rescued her dog, she rescued it from Syria when she was over there. And um she, I think when she was on ayahuasca, when she was on mushrooms one time, the medicine told her that that dog was her daughter because she wouldn't have biological children in this lifetime. So like her daughter took the form of this dog so that she could meet her. I don't know about that, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Well, I don't know, man. If you believe in spirits, I mean what what what can and can't spirits do? I mean, I it's like I've I've I've said to you before, you know, I I don't understand quantum physics, but I know it's real. So, you know, just because I can't see something, uh, I may just have a feeling that it exists and and believe that it's real, right? Like we we have such small senses in our five senses that we talk about, you know, even talking about the dogs that knows a thousand times better than ours. So so where we're like, do I smell something? That dog is like, Jesus, you're flooding my sinuses with this, right? And so, you know, what what what exists in this world that we cannot see? I you know, I and I love that. I I I think that not knowing is incredible.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

I know, man. I'm I'm I'm with you on that. Um with your dogs, I know that one thing that made the passing of Lucy even harder is that you you tell me if I'm wrong, but is that like she helped you through so many of your rough times? And uh this is why I wanted to talk to you, man, about this, because I I meet a lot of people who feel like their dog straight up saved their life. And I've heard some crazy stories too of like my gun was in my hand and my dog came and like put its paw on my pistol, or like my dog laid on me all night so I couldn't get up and like go to my gun safe, things like that. Well did did you have similar experiences with Lucy?

SPEAKER_00 10:27

I feel like they have an understanding of your emotion, right? Like they can feel your emotion, um, and it affects them, but they also understand that they can help and change your emotion, I think. You know, and I and I know a lot of people who that's who'd been like, you know, my dog was sent here to to save me. I I I don't know if that's what Lucy was sent here for, but she certainly did. You know, at my worst, um at my worst, she was something that was so important to me I didn't want to to leave it. Um when uh Sherry and I were not doing well, when I was at at my very worst, she part of what anchored her and made it much harder a thought to think about breaking up would be that she couldn't take Lucy from me and she also couldn't be without her, right? So she was an anchor in in the marriage for Sherry for a while before we I didn't know you know that. Yeah, till we did all the work and we got and we got healthy again and got got sort of to the state that we're at now. Absolutely. That dog was that dog was incredible. And um I to the point, like I I did not realize that I could have a relationship that important and that loving with an animal, you know, like it was crazy, like it, it it felt familial, right? This is family a hundred percent. And uh and I took the loss as losing family, uh, you know, like losing a kid. But as I said, you you you have I you know, I mean I've lost a lot of friends from uh either combat or or suicide. And and and and then even cancer and heart attacks due to probably their service after. You have no choice but to move on. You have to carry on. That's the the nobody would want you to not carry on because they passed away. Uh and and it's the same thing with the animal, you know. I mean, goose is gone, but she'd want me to be as happy as I could be. Right? And I'll see her again someday. So it's all good.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Sorry. Um with uh with feeling like family or being closer than family. When I teach the loving-kindness meditation now, you know how like you start with somebody that like you really love and then you move to like a friend and then a stranger and someone has wronged you. I usually tell people to think about a pet because sometimes people a lot of people have better relationships with a pet than they ever had with biological family.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Absolutely. Uh family's a family's a weird creature, right? Like you you are tied to them through biology and DNA. Whether you agree with them or like them or or how your whether your relationship with them is combative or loving or that doesn't matter. You are tied to them, right? And it's it's very difficult to, you know, you don't get to choose your family, right? You choose your friends.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

And your pets. Yeah. On that, on that topic, man, of like losing a dog, I feel like this is a good thing to highlight. Like one of the things that we talk about a lot, which is that like both things can be true at the same time. Like there can be so much pain and grief, and maybe even anger, about like that dog being taken from you, but then there can also be so much love and gratitude for the time that you had with her.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

I think that it's only healthy if you can have both things at the same time. If you let grief uh just eat you uh without recognizing the good, you know. I mean, there there's that saying that that dark light exists because dark exists and and good exists because evil can ex exist. I I think that you have to sort of recognize some dichotomy or some some togetherness in that, you know, that yes, the Lucy left us very early because she got DM' much earlier than she should have. She was still alert and happy and still a a maligator, still a fur missile, you know, but but I also am grateful for all the years I had with her and the the work that she did with me, uh the relationship she had with me that helped me so much in my healing, you know. So I I'm grateful for all of that. I recognize it. Uh when I when I talk to my maker or my God or however anybody wants to describe it, I'm I'm always grateful for the for that. You know. Yeah, it hurts. There's a hole there. But uh, you know, what's this what's the saying? Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved, you know? And and I think that that if we I mean, sometimes bumper sticker philosophers aren't wrong, you know.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Uh dude, stuff like that gets repeated because it's true. Exactly. I I I firmly believe this. Like every cliche that we roll our eyes at, it's only a cliche, like it only gets repeated because it remains true. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Always there's some truth in it, always, right?

unknown 15:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

I have a thing for bumper sticker philosophy, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:22

I've got, you know, uh dude, you know, we're gonna get to yours.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Oh Jimmy Buffett, right? This is new. Breathe in, breathe out, move on. You know, like yeah, it sounds kind of trite, but but I think it's it's it's got value, you know. If we if all of us recognize that you can just breathe in, breathe out, and move on. Sometimes that there'd be a lot less, a lot less grieving, a lot less sad.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

You know, yeah, but man, that's easier said than done. And so like the holding two things, right? Like the gratitude and the pain, pretty easy to see how that applies to something like the loss of a pet or a loved one. Talk to me about how that applies to some of the we'll call it more gruesome shit that somebody might go through. Because I I use you as an example of this quite a bit, so I kind of want to just hear it from the horse's mouth, if you will. Yeah, I mean, because you've been through a lot of things that it's someone would find a hard time being grateful for those things.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Sure. It's and I mean I'm grateful for for much of it. There are things that have happened to me that I'm not grateful for, you know. I mean, certainly uh sexual abuse was was something that I I would not I don't know that I could find gratitude for, but I can find forgiveness for. We've discussed that so much uh in the courses and stuff. But the things that people would obviously go to, like getting blown up uh overseas and and some of the crap that happened to me on on uh three tours in Afghanistan uh and in my service, loss of friends, you know, um Bobby, my dog handler, losing his legs right beside me, having his leg bones punched into my arm as shrapnel, you know, that kind of crap. Yeah, it's it's tough. It's all horrible, ugly, ugly stuff. Uh, how do I find any gratitude for it? Well, I find gratitude for it because I look in the mirror every day now after doing the work I've done and working with medicine and working with myself and with others, and I look in the mirror now and I think, hey, that's a pretty good dude. That's a good guy right there. And you get there through accumulation of all the things you've experienced in your life, not just the good, but the bad as well. The bad teach you to be perhaps more sympathetic, more understanding, more empathetic towards people who are suffering. The bad teaches you, you know, to maybe have a little better understanding of human condition and things like that. So I can find gratitude in those things that have happened to me because they made me who I am, you know, and and if you get to a point where you can look at yourself in the mirror and show a little self-love, uh, you know, uh, then where does that come from? That's an accumulation of all of the moments that you've lived in this life. And I hit 56 years old this month, last well, a month ago, and that's 56 years worth of moments of and and and lessons. And you can bemoan them and bitch about them, but it's not going to make your life better to do so. You know, it'll it'll make your life better fulfilled to just find some gratitude in the things that happened, even the bad, and say, it taught me this, or it made me this, or it led more towards me being this kind of human being.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

I'm glad that you summed it up that way because it means that I have not been mischaracterizing it whenever I've shared your story with somebody. Where it's like, there's something that, you know, there can be things that happen to me that I would not wish this to happen to my worst enemy. And maybe I could kind of wish that it didn't happen to me. And I'm certainly not going to say I'm grateful that this thing occurred, but I can recognize that this is part of who I am now. And when I look at myself who I am now, I've gotten to a place where I actually love myself and accept every single thing about me, and I'm proud of who I am. And therefore, it's almost like the transitive property, right? Like if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. So this is part of who I am. I like who I am. So I guess to apply that logic, we can find gratitude in it. Not that I'm stoked this thing happened to me. I'm not happy it happened.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

I'm not uh even necessarily grateful that it did happen. I'm grateful for what I became out of it, right? And that's a good way. That's I think that's a good more important to sort of recognize that that if you're you love yourself and you find gratitude for yourself and love for yourself, that you are the product of all of those experiences, good and bad. And so without the bad, I wouldn't be this person that I love. Right? I'd be somebody entirely different.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

So yeah, I mean it's it absolutely. There's it's not an easy concept, and it's not an easy thing to do. It's as you say, easier said than done sometimes, you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Well, you mentioned forgiveness too. And yes, we have talked about that extensively in the course, but the whole purpose of this podcast is for the people who haven't gone through the course with you. So I need to ask you questions to elucidate it. Talk to me about like forgiveness versus maybe the word is atonement. Because like I I talk about this all the time, right? Like, I believe in second chances, I believe that everybody can be saved, but I also believe in the death penalty for pedophiles. They get another chance in their next reincarnation. So, like, how do we how do we balance like forgiveness with justice, maybe is the word?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Yeah. I mean, man, the search for justice in this world is uh sometimes a zero-sum game. Justice is very hard to find, and justice is is is personal, right? It's subjective. It's people's your opinion of what justice is for something is not what the other person's opinion is. You know, I talk about the guy that uh set the IED that uh that took me and a couple other guys out. You know, how do I how do I forgive that? Well, what happened to me was justice to him. You know, I was the invader. I'm the fucking bad guy. I'm in his country with a gun. I'm the one hunting people in his country. I am the bad man as far as he's concerned. And so that was justice that I got blown up. For me, you know, do I go, oh, I I hope that the team hunts him down and whacks him, that would be justice for me because I look at it from my viewpoint. And if you can part of forgiveness, I think, is is learning to look at things from other viewpoints and other people's viewpoints, you know. Um, remember when you study you talk about you've got their viewpoint, your viewpoint, and if you can take a third party approach to it. But I think that looking from their viewpoint is very important as well. You know, I now understand that, yeah, okay, I I know what we were trying to do in Afghanistan, whether we accomplished it or not, you know, uh I know what we were there for, I know what the the mission purpose was, I know what we hoped. To do for that country and those people. But I also understand that we flew in on airplanes covered in guns and armor and wandered around and that we engaged in some serious death and destruction and we dealt out a lot of misery while doing some good things, building schools, building roads, building bridges, etc. But we were, you know, I mean, we could call fire in from the sky for God's sake. And and if somebody was doing that to my culture and my country, I'd probably think, hey, I should start setting some IEDs for this son of a bitch, you know, like, you know, so I I managed through work and through the courses and and the the medicine to come around to be able to look at the other side in a lot of these things. And when I can see it from someone else's side, it's much easier to to have some forgiveness. And if not real full forgiveness, understanding. I get it. I I get it. I I got it. I I know what you do, what you did. You know. I'm not happy about it, again, not happy, but I understand it.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

You know? And I I think that's that's kind of maybe that's far enough of a place to get to. Because in our context, we talk about forgiveness and letting go, and really just the idea is to not let this be another rock in your backpack that doesn't need to be there.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yeah, I mean I think that, you know, understanding if not forgiveness, at least understanding is enough for you to not harbor anger, maybe. If the thing is, is you know, like we say, it's like drinking uh drinking poison and hoping that it hurts the other person. The only person you're harming by harboring that stuff continuously is you. Uh and and first off, I love this guy and I don't want to do that to him. Um and and I'm not harming you by hating you or being angry at you for what you did to me, but if I can come to understand it, then I can perhaps put some of that anger down and just be like, okay, I don't need to carry this. You know, it's in the past, it it happened. Uh I understand why you did it. I understand what led to it. Um and not in this case, with the, you know, the ID maker, the bomb maker, etc., the guy who dug it, the guy who planted it, the guy who set the trigger, everything. I can have some actual forgiveness for it for all of that because I my understanding led me to be able to have forgiveness for that. But you know, in some cases, yeah, it's going to be just understanding, but understanding might be enough for you to let go of the anger or the rage or the damage or the trauma a bit, you know.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Speaking of letting go and not carrying things. So this is a story that I didn't bring up the first time around. I want to make sure that we hit, and you even mentioned it before. Talking about the biological shrapnel.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Yeah, well, so that's a a very clinical term for um shrapnel that enters your body that is not necessarily parts of the bomb or the explosion, right? You you if you set when a bomb hits somewhere or a hand grenade goes off, it throws out fragmentations of metal. Um with an IED, what happens because they're sitting underground is you they launch out rock and dirt and whatever they were buried underneath of. And in some cases, when somebody has directly stepped on it and their extremities, their legs get blasted, some of that shrapnel is is bone, right? So uh when Bobby triggered the IED and he stepped on it, I was only about, I don't know, five, six feet off of his shoulder. And uh and I had, you know, um uh ballistic shades on, I had a helmet, I had body armor. Uh I'm loaded for bear, right? But uh my sleeves were bare and my face was bare, and uh I took some shrapnel in both my arm and my face, and the shrapnel when I got to the hospital at Kandahar with the rule three, they were like, Yeah, we're they're picking some stuff out of me and they're like dropping it into a metal container. And he said, I said, What is it? And he's like, Well, it's biological shrapnel, it's rock and and some bone. And it's not my bone, so you know whose it is, right? And that's I mean, it's tough. It's uh it was at the time it was a big, big shock, but it's you know, uh it's a violation of your body, and anything shrapnel-wise, is a violation of your body, and it doesn't really make a difference whether it's shards of bone or metal, and in and in honesty, the damage done by shards of bone and a bit of rock is probably less than had I'd taken a bunch of metal to the face and the arm, right? So again, gratitude, you know, it wasn't it wasn't a bunch of metal shrapnel that took me out because the likelihood is that I would not be here, you know.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Well, that's for sure. Opportunity for gratitude. But what I found really interesting about this part of your story was how and you correct me if I'm misremembering this, but um you had that the wound on your arm that like never fully the scab sort of never fully healed because you were always picking at it and picking at it, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Yeah. So I mean, one of the things that that happened to me psychologically was that I yeah, we we get that attachment to to a trauma, attachment to a uh an incident, maybe, right? So so to me I had an attachment to this explosion and this this trauma that had affected me. And one of the things I did was I would scratch at the scars on my arm until they would uh bleed and and scab up a bit. Then once, of course, they've scabbed up, now you're scratching and picking at them more, and and it was a very much a psychological effect of me just trying to keep sort of this alive in myself. I don't know necessarily, but it disappeared when we went to Peru and Dinayahuasca. It was incredible to me. We didn't even notice it, Sherry and I. And then it was like a couple months later, and and one of us was like, hey, I haven't oh wow, that's that's gone, right? Like it, and so that's why I know it was definitely a psychological thing. Uh, and I think it was, you know, we talk about, we've talked about it a lot of time with veterans and first responders who who get wounded or get injured or have have trauma and they attach themselves to that trauma because once they leave the service, uh uh they're no longer a soldier or a police officer. What are you? Well, you're now a wounded guy or a wounded veteran, and you attach yourself to that trauma. And for me, that was part of the attachment, I think. Uh I had a piece of Bobby's leg bone that sat in my forearm, uh, and it sort of a few of them pushed out over over time, right? Like they would just push out. Um this one particularly, my body sort of encapsulated and it left a lump in my arm for the longest time. Uh there's it's barely there now. I can just sort of see a little scar from it. But yeah, it was it was there for a very, very long time. And I and I think that that was sort of uh wanting to keep the trauma alive, maybe keeping a bit of Bobby alive, maybe keeping the incident alive, you know, because the incident had taken out my career, a career I absolutely loved. I'd still be working, hopefully, in special operations, but I'd still be soldiering today if I could. Uh it it took me down because uh it was it well, it broke my my my psyche and it and it certainly screwed up my body. So I attached to it so heavily that I just didn't want to let it go, right? And and the the uh uh the medicine, the ayahuasca just sort of took that away.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Yeah, I just I thought that was like so poetic, this physical representation of the the mental attachment to it, and then the medicine helping you to let go of it, and it finally heals, and your body literally lets go of these fragments it had been carrying.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

I tell the story of that night that we were in the the Maloka and Michael, the the shaman? Yeah, the shaman had come in and he sat in front of me and uh and and Sylvie came and sat in front of me and she sang Ikoro and then she moved on, and then he came and sat in front of me and he sang Ikoro. And I remember, I told you, I remember like he just grabbed me by the head and he pulled my skull up to his face and he starts going. And then he tosses me back and he grabs a bucket and pukes his guts out. And I remember you and I asked him the next day what the hell was that? And he said you had some things you were not willing to get rid of, so I took them. Right? And uh I I just I I tell that story, and it's so funny because I know that my attachment to those traumas and those injuries were really solid, and and I know that he's right. There was stuff that I was still sitting in that Maloka, even on night three and four, ceremony three and four, and I was like, I'm not quite ready to let go yet, right? And and so he was like, no, I'm taking that shit from you.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Yeah, dude, that's that's something I've been sitting with quite a bit lately. Is just those things that like I say that I want to move past, and like deep down inside, I'm like, do I though? Like, there's there's a a clip circulating right now of Theo Vaughn on his podcast telling a story of like a man who asked Jesus to heal him, and Jesus says, Do you really want to be healed? And Theo's like kind of wrestling with it because he's like, Man, I know that part of me kind of doesn't. And um, yeah, I don't know, dude. Just something I'm thinking about quite a lot right now as Cordy is three months pregnant and I got a lot of shit to sort out.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Jerry and I were having a big chat about this over the last week, a couple of nights we talked about it, you know, because we we're not well, we're not actually mentoring and stuff right now. We're still, I mean, a most of our friends are veterans and stuff like that, you know, uh, just even friends online and stuff. And and so I talk about you guys every time. You're still actually community and all the rest of it. And I just uh I was saying the other day to her, I said, you know, the the thing about plant medicine and about psychedelic therapy and about a lot of this stuff that's not traditional modality stuff, is that it winds up feeling like last resort because people come to it when nothing else is working, as I did, right? It was my last last hope, let's go. But but that's a necessity because if you want this stuff to work, you have to want it to work. You have to be willing to fucking put your shit down and walk away from it. And and that is not an easy thing. There's so many people that are so heavily attached to the trauma they've been through or to their service or to their experience that that suggesting to somebody that you, you know, how desperate do you have to be to be prepared to to walk away from that completely, right? And so there is an element of desperation there, but I think I think just by its nature, it's sort of almost imp almost has to wind up being sort of the last resort because you've come to it as a at a point where you're like, I don't know what the hell else to do. I need to get rid of this.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Yeah, I think you're right.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Gotta get rid of this now. And that's when people are down to ambio doing uh iboga, ibogaine, and five MEO, or they're going to Peru and doing ayahuasca, or they're going and they're doing psychedelic therapy with psilocybin or any of them, you know. It it's it's a state of coming to a point of being like, okay, I have tried everything and it's not working now. I'm desperate. And we we call, you know, we talk about having to be called to the medicine, but maybe some of that desperation is is you've reach that desperation and the medicine says, Come here.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Yeah, come here. Yeah, I think you're right. You know, I think you're right. It's it's like, you know, that phrase like if you're looking for something, you're like, oh, I was the I found it in the last place I would have looked. Well, yeah, it was the last place you looked. You stopped looking after you found it. Exactly. It's kinda I it's almost like that where it's the last resort and then it's the thing that works, but you wouldn't have come to it if those other things would have worked that you tried to do.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Nobody says, hey, I'm feeling a bit fucked up, I'm gonna do ayahuasca. People are like, I'm feeling a little bit fucked up, I'm gonna see a psychologist, I'm gonna go see a therapist, I'm gonna go get on some antidepressants, I'm gonna get on SNRIs, SSRIs, etc., etc., etc. And when that, if that doesn't work, you know, then you start to it's like you and I have said, you know, all of a sudden you you just notice a clip on Instagram that happens to be about psychedelic therapy or something, you go, oh, what's this, right? But you're at a point of sort of desperation, of looking for help, right? And and having not been able to find it, and then you come to the medicine or you come to a program, and it's like, holy shit. But you know, when we would tell people all the time, you and I, that you have to you have to be willing to put everything down, you have to be willing to walk away from that and and leave your trauma behind you. I that's a hundred percent true. And you know, I the reason that modern therapy didn't work well for me and everything else, all this stuff, I didn't want it to. I I I I understand myself enough now and love myself enough now to be truthful about it. I just didn't fucking want it to work. I wanted to wallow in my injuries and wounds. I'm not, you know, I'm not good enough to be a soldier or to serve in special operations anymore. I'm just gonna lay here and wallow, and that's much easier to do when you have all this traumatic weight to lay under, like a blanket, you know, and how do you get rid of that? Well, you have to get desperate and you have to decide that you really do want to get rid of it.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Do you think that there's any shortcut to that point?

SPEAKER_00 35:37

I don't know. I mean, I I think so. I mean, we've all all the stuff that we've put out uh onto the internet, you and I, about uh and and so many others, about uh psychedelic therapy and what it's done for people and all of the positives and all of the uh success stories and all the rest of it. I think that they're part of shortcuts because then maybe people will see it before they get to, you know, the point that I was at being fucking taken down by the RCMP on my front lawn and a felony takedown at gunpoint. You know, you don't want to get to that point first, you want to get people before that. Um but I also think that they have to have it in their head that they're willing to I'm willing to to dive into this, you know, and I'm willing to accept that it might work.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

That's kind of the thing. And the the reason I'm asking about this the other day, we were talking to somebody who's saying how, you know, his 15-year-old son keeps fucking up and he's trying to get him on a on a better path and everything. And he's like, I can see the path he's on is inevitable. Of like he's gonna get in a lot of trouble and he's gonna get arrested. We're talking about like, how do you actually reach someone like that? Because I think a lot of people, myself included, are so hard-headed that like I won't learn a lesson until I've made the mistake and felt the pain of it. And then I could look at all the advice everyone had always given me and been like, oh yeah, that's what they were talking about. But it's meaningless until I've like felt that pain. So that's why I'm asking, can we it can you accelerate that maybe where like you don't have to actually lose your wife and kids to get your shit together?

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Sure. Well, I mean, I I've had that saying forever heal out loud so others don't suffer in silence, right? Uh, or so others might not suffer in silence. I've been very open about my healing, I've been very open about my traumas, about sexual abuse survival, about combat trauma, about all of it. And and I and I do so because I think that, well, first off, it's kind of cathartic for me, to be honest. There is some some uh something for myself in it, but also it it it is because I can maybe help someone, maybe somebody's gonna see that and go, oh, I get that. I'm I'm right there. I've been there and uh and and nothing's working. What do I do? Well, maybe I could try this, right? I mean, somebody, I didn't just, you know, this didn't just happen for me to get into this. It was uh Gabor Mate, you know, hearing Gabor Mate speak, uh, and then a couple of uh U.S. Special Operations guys speaking who had already delved into this. Uh guys who, you know, even though I didn't know them, I had nothing but respect and time for them, and I was like, wow, okay, maybe, maybe this is the answer, you know. Uh so you perpetuate that by continuing to to tell the stories and tell the the the good, right? I mean, there's a there's a saying that uh a smart man learns from his own mistakes, a really smart man learns from other people's mistakes, and that's what we're trying to perpetuate, right? Learn from me. Learn that you don't have to get to a felony takedown on your lawn. You can get some help before that, right? Like that's don't ideally, yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_02 38:44

So oh man. All right. Well, hey, we're skipping ahead a little bit of my plan, but I was gonna ask you about the Tobyism. So heal out loud so others don't have to suffer in silence. That was number one. I think we hit that. It's pretty self-explanatory, but I like it. Uh break this one down for me. Grace versus slack. Explain that.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Yeah. Well, actually, and I mean I don't I don't get all the credit for this. I I a buddy of mine, uh Chase, uh talked about it, and and I just sort of expanded it. But you know, you when you get up in the morning and you don't feel like going to the gym, uh, and you just don't feel like it, and you're like, I'm just not gonna go, that's that's slack. That's giving you a cut, you know, that's that's slack. You get up in the morning, I get up in the morning and my hip, which needs replacing, is aching like a bitch, and I'm like, I don't think I can do it. It it's gonna do damage to me. That's grace. You know, there's a it it's sort of almost like, are you being lazy or do you really need this? Right? Is this a are is this an excuse or are you coming up with excuses or do you really need this? Grace versus slack. You you need to offer yourself grace. That's important. When you're mentally needing a break, you need to give yourself the grace of the break. When you physically need a break, you give yourself the grace of the break. If you're just not feeling it and just can't be bothered, well, that's slack and a little slack on occasions, not the end of the world. But it's an equation you sort of can ask yourself when you're saying, uh, I just don't think I can do that right now. Why am I saying that? Is do I need grace or am I just looking for some slack here? And how much slack have I had lately? You know?

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Yeah. Have I used my slack allowance for this month?

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

All right. Uh so by the way, toeyms are phrases that I've heard so often that they've just become a staple of our program. So heal out loud so others don't have to suffer in silence, classic Tobyism. I know you gave your buddy credit, but I give you credit for grace for slack. My personal other favorite tobeism that I'll give you a chance to comment on if you'd like to is that you gotta fuck with the dick God gave you.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

A lot of people go through this life wanting things to be different, man. You know? Everybody wants to be, you know, everybody wants to be, you know, I I I wish I could be this, I wish I could be that. And some of those things you can change, some of those things you can affect, you know. I wish I had bigger biceps. Okay, go lift weights. You'll get bigger biceps. You know, I wish I had a bigger dick. That's not happening. You know, the way life is the way your world is, is you have to fuck with the dick you got. And and that's just reality. And change the things you can change if they're good for you, and accept the things you can't and just let it go. You know, some of this stuff we talk about, Tobyism. Some of it's like that 12-step stuff, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:33

Lord, give me the I was gonna say that's that's the serenity prayer right there. Uh Lord give me the what is it, the grace to accept the things that I can't change, the strength to change the things that I can, and the discernment to know the difference, or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

In other words, you've got to fuck with the dick you got.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

And it's it I just sort of, I mean, uh like I said, bumper sticker philosophy, right? How do you take that? How do you take a large concept in thought and make it six words so it fits on a bumper sticker, you know?

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Dude, we gotta make these. We're gonna sell them on our website.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

I'm not the brightest guy in the world. I need it dummy down for me, kind of thing, right? And and so yeah. I just uh it's you know, there are things in this world that you cannot change and you'll have to learn to accept. And they're the things that you know you were given in this life and that you're stuck with, and you know, so be it. Learn to accept it and and maybe have some gratitude for it again, right?

unknown 42:32

Dude.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Oh my god. All right, on this very serious note that we're on.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

I was wondering if you're gonna pick that one up or not. I wasn't sure if it was gonna be safe.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

100%. I told Cordy my idea this morning, and I was like, I don't know if I should do that on the podcast. And she was like, You'd have to do that. Alright, for real. Recentering, refocusing. Uh since our last talk, you went and did IBogaine down in Mexico. Remind me where where you went? You went to BMX.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Actually, I was in Toronto. I was in Toronto. There's uh I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

Yeah, no, there's uh I'm so used to it just being in Mexico.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

A guy I know who has uh done a lot of time with the Buity. That's the Boody tribe.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

Yeah, this was with um uh Jay.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

Remind me his name. Yeah, Jay, I can't even pronounce the last name he goes by because it's his Buidi name. Uh he's he's been indoctrinated of the Buity tribe in in Gabon in Africa. Gabon, yeah. And and uh and has been trained by them to give uh iboga, not ibogain, iboga, the the root, the African root that Iboggain is then synthesized to ride. Right. So yeah. I went and did it uh because you know I had done so much healing with uh with the experience with with you and and and with becoming home, and I'd done so much stuff and I'd made so much progress. But prior to all of that, I mean my way of dealing with things was alcohol, right? It was part of my way. I would just hammer. Back the booze. And where my booze had gotten lower after the healing, it still was way too much. And that was habit. And that was probably at that point now had become addiction. Not so much a dependency, but an addiction. And so I was like, you know, maybe I'll give this a try. I keep hearing about Iboga or Ibogain and its uh assistance with addictions and stuff like that. So I talked to Jay, who I had, you know, sort of known online for a solid year or more, uh, just because I know a lot of people in the plant medicine circles that I don't necessarily ever meet, but I talked to, and and Jay was like, hey, it happens that I'm running a ceremony, and uh, do you want to come and try it then if you're interested? And I said, Yeah, I'm in. So I flew out and I did it. And I went from 20 ounces of vodka or booze a day to zero uh in a weekend. Um and uh and stayed completely sober for 13, 14 months, didn't didn't have a drop, didn't bother me. It wasn't really like I was like, oh, I'm Jones and there was no none of that. Uh and then at 13 or 14 months, we were both like, okay, you know, maybe it's time to see if we have a relationship with alcohol that can be healthy or not. It's up to you, right? And and and if you cannot, then the answer is you're back to zero. And you know you can do it because you've already done it. Uh and and so, you know, allowed ourselves, yeah. And now it's like, you know, want to have a glass of wine with dinner, have a glass of wine with dinner. But the there's no call to me that that that I have to get drunk. And I and I and I think maybe I've probably been in the last year impaired, really, once or twice. And that's because I was with at a function with friends or family or something, and I had allowed myself a couple more, and I was like, whoa, okay, yeah, I don't need that. Because, you know, I just I really don't. It's it's it's a relationship.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

How did you how did you feel about that after? Like when you actually got like impaired? Like were you mad at yourself or like was this one line?

SPEAKER_00 46:07

There's a question of disappointment, right? I mean, in the morning, especially, you're like, ah man, am I this this could be a slippery slope, right? Like, you gotta watch. I don't want to get back to, I won't ever get back to, I won't be that guy again. I won't, you know, so you know, the next morning the instinct is to sort of give yourself shit. But then when we talk about forgiveness, forgiveness to yourself is very, very important. I mean, forgiveness to yourself is probably the most important. Uh, and so, you know, I was just like, okay. Next time, do better, you know. Next time just sort of recognize that, oh, wait a second, yes, this is a party, but you don't have to get a buzz. You know, it's if you want to have a social drink or two in amongst everybody, that's fine over the course of an evening, but it's not not a requirement to get, you know, impaired or feel impaired, right? So, yeah, it's it's very interesting to have gone from uh a dependency and an addiction to what is now a relationship that is sort of a uh a give or take. You know, we talk about our world travel and we're like, you know, we're gonna go to some places where uh we talk about going to some places like you know, in Turkey, yeah, you can get a drink, but it's not that easy, etc. And I'm like, yeah, that's okay. You know, it doesn't bother me.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

It's not it's probably yeah, that's that's another reason to get rid of the vape, too.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

I bet 100%, yeah. And it's like, you know, it's exactly those are sort of things that will anchor you or or s or can make your decisions for exploration and uh limited. And I and I I don't have that anymore. It's like, you know, if we're gonna go somewhere where you can't drink, okay, we're going somewhere where we can't drink. All right. Good enough. You know, like and that's that's such a huge change for me. You know, I mean, I probably as a as a uh a trauma survivor from a young age, I probably started drinking, well, I did start drinking, you know, weekends and partying and stuff, probably when I was about 14. You know, so I had a lifelong habit there. Uh and it's it's very interesting to have been able to walk away from it for a fair while and then to come back and have it be completely different, to have it be sort of a, hey, wait a second, I'm in charge. You know, and part of that is looking in the mirror and saying, hey, I like this guy. Right?

SPEAKER_02 48:18

Yeah, you don't you don't have something to run from or to medicate or to numb anymore.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

I'm not hiding from anything anymore. I'm not trying to bury anything anymore, I'm not trying to escape from anything anymore. I'm not going to uh, you know, I go to the gym five days a week and lift weights. And if I had uh too much booze into me, well, that's gonna impair my ability to go and lift weights tomorrow morning. And I get a massive high out of lifting weights. I just love it, you know. I get I get a rush and I feel good, and uh, I don't want to give that up, you know. Like so there's there would be a trade-off if I went back to drinking. Yeah, there's a trade-off. I'm not gonna do this anymore. Well, this feels good and is good for me, right? Where, you know, the drinking, sure, it could feel good sometimes, but it doesn't feel good the next day and it's not good for you. So which one am I gonna hold on to?

SPEAKER_02 49:07

Pretty easy mouth when you look at it that way. Yeah. You you said a second ago uh at that. So like you did all this healing with the ayahuasca, the mushrooms and everything, but you still were drinking so much. You said you had an addiction but not a dependency.

SPEAKER_00 49:21

How how do you what's the difference in your I don't know that might not be the right word. I I think that that I had a physical, like I just I my body would need it alcohol, and it was not even so much anyway.

SPEAKER_02 49:33

Right, like like a chemical dependency. If I don't drink coffee today, I have a headache from the withdrawal.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

Yeah, it wasn't about you know, oh, I need it so that I can forget this or I can do this, or I don't have to deal with this or whatever. It was uh I really I've been drinking heavy for so long that I need to have a drink or my body's not gonna be happy, I'm not gonna sleep, I'm gonna be a mess, etc.

SPEAKER_02 49:56

So that was not a you need to get rid of spiritually or emotionally, it's like the I've altered the chemistry of my body to run on five percent ethanol at all times.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Absolutely. It was no different than when I, you know, the the eight times clinical dosage of the uh SNRI I was on prestique, you know, of 400 milligrams a day. My body was dependent upon that, had a chemical dependency upon it, and coming off of it was the worst feeling, the one of the worst experiences of my life, you know, just pulling myself away from that. And and the psilocybin absolutely was instrumental in my being able to do it. But uh the microdosing, but man, it was that dependency was like, wow, this is hard, you know.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

That's a real thing. Yeah, yeah. So having done both, well, having microdosed, done ayahuasca, and now done iboga. I know most people listening to this, if they're interested, would probably be looking at ibogaine, not iboga. Like most people are kind of doing that. So I know you can't speak exactly that, but how might you kind of categorize the similarities or differences and and what that experience was like? And of course, you can only speak with the order that you did things in.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

I mean so So I was actually thinking about this this morning when we were walking Titan. Um it ayahuasca is massive, you know, it's like it's a big thing. Like, you know, the the uh with the psilocybin and the microdosing, it's incremental and small. And do you do you notice how much you're changing, etc.? You walk out of the jungle and you're like, holy shit, I am not the same human being, you know, because uh and and with psilocybin and hero dosing could be the same thing, but when you talk about microdosing, you know, it's it's incremental small changes, and you're you're engaging in habit changes with it, lifestyle changes with it, and so you don't necessarily notice how much you're changing, and at the end of it, you know, you do it for a long period, and at the end of it, you're like, oh wow, I'm not that dude anymore. You know, there's a it's funny.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

I I find it's like it's like half my job is just to point out the changes people have made because they don't see it themselves, they don't give themselves credit. It's like the thing of like boiling a lobster, like you don't drop it into boiling water, it's like you heat it up and it doesn't notice it. That's probably a bad analogy, but yeah what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

And the ayahuasca is massive. It's like, you know, this is it's it's it's it's a difference between like, you know, uh taking penicillin for something or a surgery. Ayahuasca is the surgery, right? This is a this is a big event. Uh and I boga was sort of the same way, but uh less I don't know, there was less psychedelic to it than than I felt with the with the aya. I I think that of all of them, I was the most absolutely the most transformative in my life. I mean, absolutely the most transformative night terrors and nightmares, gone. Rage, gone, anger, gone, much of my depression, gone. Um, you know, and that was five ceremonies, and those were huge factors in my life, huge factors. They were costing me my marriage, they were costing me my uh time with my children, they were cost they did cost me my job in the military, all of that. And and they all changed in five nights, you know, like so that's a huge, huge effect for for like we used to say in the service, effect on target. Uh ayahuasca is big bang for the buck, you know, like effect on target is.

SPEAKER_02 53:28

I mean, hey, to give credit to the IBOGO, the IBOGO, though, like you had one objective and 100% success on that one objective.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Absolutely. But as you know, and I know, uh, intention is everything in this game, right? Like you have to have intention. And yes, ayahuasca may show you something that's different from your intention, but you still went into it with intention. And in in your heart and in your mind, that's what you're seeking. And I think that there's gonna be some effect on that anyway, right? So and I walk into I I Iboga and and Jay's like, what are you looking to heal, etc.? I'm like, I'm good, dude. I just came out of the jungle and proved I'm good. I gotta get off the booze, period. Okay, and that's what I'm after from it, right? And so huge effect again, yes, absolutely. And one, you know, I I did two ceremonies. The second ceremony really was not as transformative or effective. I didn't really feel it as much, but the first ceremony was like, boom, okay, hey, I don't need a drink. I'm not I'm not craving a drink. That's weird, you know. But yeah, uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:25

Doesn't surprise me then that the second was pretty like lackluster.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

Well, and so when I talked to Jay and and and he had another guy had come up from Mexico, another practitioner, uh, about it, and they were both like, dude, you've been doing psychedelic therapy for years, and you did just did ayahuasca in the last year. I I don't know what you're looking for the medicine to to do for you that hasn't been done, right? You were looking for something and you got it.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

Yeah. That's exactly it. I was gonna say, when when you said the iBoga was like kind of less psychedelic, I feel like that's probably why all like I've told this story before, you know. And I when I was drinking ayahuasca for the first time, I was like, where are all the visions? Where's all the cool stuff I'm supposed to see? And the medicine was literally like, you've seen all the fun colors on LSD, you're here to think about shit. Like, I'm not gonna show you colors just to have fun.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

Yeah, and and one of the things that you know, people who are gonna be sort of listening to this, and like you said, they'd be more knowing about Ibogain, right? Uh, particularly because like in Waves and War just came out on Netflix, right? About uh the boys at Ambio. It's a hot topic right now. Um it's there's also the five MEO that that goes on to the end of those ceremonies with with uh most Eibogain ceremonies for for first responders and and trauma and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

Did you do that?

SPEAKER_00 55:40

I did not do five MEO. Um Okay. You know, I know some guys who have, I've heard their stories, and uh and and I know that it was very transformative for them, hugely, hugely so. Uh, you know, I mean my friend Gordo, who runs all the way, uh, he just came back from uh Ambio with a group of five uh five or six female Canadian vets who were all sort of uh certainly they were had all been involved in um they had all been involved in uh sexual trauma, military sexual trauma, right? Uh a couple of them in combat stuff. Uh and so it caused, you know, I mean, huge trauma. And and he took them down, which I thought was amazing because it was just a group of women doing this, right? Doing uh uh I bogane and five MEO and and the the results have been spectacular, you know. Unfortunately, Canada is not uh keeping up with this very well. We're not moving quick enough. Uh we're actually starting to look like we're going backwards in some ways. I heard the other day that uh Veterans Affairs Canada will no longer even be paying for uh ketamine therapy, which is I just I I can't get my head around it. I know we're we're we're sitting in an age of budget cuts in this country right now, and Veterans Affairs is no no safe, no, no safety from being victims of these budget cuts. But for Christ's sake, cutting therapy? Are you insane? Like, come on, do better.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

Especially like the most cost, one of the more cost-effective options available for people.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

And done with a doctor and uh, you know, like like that's not you know, this is why how people wind up in Chad's basement in North Vancouver doing, you know, doing ayahuasca instead of going with uh a practitioner, a proper practitioner.

SPEAKER_02 57:33

It's funny you say that. We we've got a guy who like just signed up for the program today, who shout out to you, you'll you'll be listening to this. Uh he was looking at a five MEO retreat in Vancouver that was like $8,000 or $10,000 or something. And Cordy was like, it's like 15 minutes to do 5 MEO DMT. Like, what are they charging you for?

SPEAKER_00 57:55

Well, you know, I mean, this is it. Once it becomes a hot topic and a topic of conversation, it becomes a you know, sort of a thing where, you know, even the president of the United States is signing executive orders to to open up some some research and stuff. When you get to that point, of course, all of the the grifters and charlatans are going to look to make money, right? And uh this is this is as I've said it a zillion times when I was actually talking to a guy at the gym about it today, and I'm like, this is not something you would ever party with. None of these substances are something you'd party with. I mean, psilocybin share. Remember you and I, I don't mean saying to you once in the group, I said, yeah, you can use psilocybin and you can work with psilocybin, and they're two different things, right? Totally. Uh, and I used psilocybin when I was a teenager, and I've worked with psilocybin in in my adult life. They're two different things, but nobody is going to do ayahuasca or or iboga for fun. These aren't these aren't ever going to be party drugs. So they're obvious and they obviously have medicinal value. I mean, Jesus, just just anecdotally out there, you can tell that this stuff is doing stuff for people. And we continue to bury our heads and and and ignore it, right? And we could very well be making it safely accessible. People are gonna do it anyway. We could we we could make making it safely accessible, you know. And I as I've told you a million times, my my concern with with making it safely accessible is of course we put it into a clinical setting and we take all of the spirituality out of it, all of the magic.

SPEAKER_02 59:30

100%. 100%. I'm I'm glad that the government is kind of like moving to accept this stuff, but also it's like, oh, the government, like the same people who run the DMV, we're gonna trust them now to run this. Like, are you fucking kidding? Yeah. The people who can't do anything right ever.

SPEAKER_00 59:47

Right. It takes you five months to give me my tax return. I'm gonna trust you to give me ayahuasca.

SPEAKER_02 59:51

Yeah. Yeah, dude, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 59:53

It's uh yeah, so I mean, I'm I'm not a big government guy. I'm I'm uh at heart a little bit of a libertarian, right? I want I want the least amount of government crap in my life as I can have. Um but you know, uh, if that's if their involvement is what it takes to make this actually for us to be able to help people, you know. I mean, I live close to Vancouver, which has got uh Vancouver's downtown east side, which is the streets are just covered in attics, like passed out uh opioid addicts, etc. If if Ibogaine can help this, then why the hell aren't we doing it? Like we we we just talk, oh we'll just make more safe injection sites, we'll do this, we'll do this, we'll but there's I I understand harm reduction is important, but if there's a treatment available, then why aren't we doing something about it, right? Because it is, you know, because back when Timothy O'Leary and and and and all the hippies were you know hammering away psychedelics, the government freaked out and said, scary, all of that stuff's bad. And and what did we what did we reap out of that? Well, okay, yeah, people weren't doing psychedelics for fun for the last 40 years, but also we lost out on an opportunity to get research for the last 40 years. And we're we're so far behind on the research now, and and still have that attitude that these drugs are scary and bad and that they're drugs and not medicine. They can't be medicine, they can only be drugs. Well, I got news for you. SNRIs are drugs too, you know, and medicine. Uh you know, so we're so far behind on it, and we're so scared of it still. We got this scared attitude about it that that it it it's you know, no, we can't we can't do that. Well, people in Peru have been doing ayahuasca for thousands of years, and their warriors have been doing it for thousands of years to recover from trauma, you know. Uh I I can't imagine that you can even do shit for thousands of years if it's not doing something.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:56

To me, that that is the value of like the research and the government adopting it and stuff, is just that it's becoming normalized and people are seeing it as a viable option and getting more access to it. And so, kind of on on that front, the last thing I wanted to ask you about just from your personal experience before we weigh in further on all the politics and the bullshit of all this. What do you think, kind of with the perspective that you have now, is there anything that you would have done differently in terms of like the order of events? Or if not, maybe what how would you kind of characterize the value of like the approach that you did take of microdosing as preparation and integration and things like that?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:37

I think I mean you were with me in Peru. I think that my time in Peru would have been much worse had I not done all the work I did with microdosing.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:45

You would have a rough time.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

Uh first off, we had to get me off all of the medications, right? And I mean, at one point in time, not necessarily when we met, but at one point in my past, that was 26 pills a day. You know, not 26 different meds, it was 26 pills a day. That's a cereal bowl of goddamn pills every day. We had to get me off all of that crap. And so the microdosing certainly helped me with that, but it also really got me in the right headspace to go and accept the medicine. And uh, and I think really not have the traumatic, brutal experience improve that we were all sort of expecting for me. I mean, I I think everybody was sort of like, this is gonna be good for Toby. This is gonna be hard and ugly. And and I did not find it hard and ugly. I found it extremely transformative, I found it extremely healing, and I found it in some ways almost gentle. Um, you know, when what I was expecting was to be sort of tortured by the medicine. I was expecting this to be not be to not be what it was, and I and I can attribute that, I firmly believe I can attribute that to the to the microdosing programs we did prior and the work I had done for my own mental health, uh uh to create some better habits, to get into a better headspace, to get into a space that I was willing to accept medicine and accept help and accept that I needed help, and that not just accept it, but I wanted it. I was looking for it, right? So I went to the medicine actually looking for that help. I went there saying, I believe you can help me. And not only do I believe it, I I want it. Like, help me, please, right? And so I don't think I would change the order I did it in. Um trying to come off of the alcohol without fixing the night terrors and the rage and all the rest of it would have not worked, I don't think. I think I did it exactly the right way. I eased my way in with uh microdosing and I did a lot of prep work and I got myself into a really good headspace to then go and do the big surgery, which was the the aya, uh, which then uh cleared out so much of that crap that I could then look at the vestiges that were left that weren't good, like the alcohol addiction, and say, Okay, now I can look at this, now I can take care of this, because the root of that addiction has already been sorted, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:08

Yeah, it's it's well like not not to not to take anything away from the eye boga, but again, it's like you had one it was almost like a vestige of your problems that was left over, and it was just like this cleanup operation because you didn't need the alcohol anymore to solve those problems. You had solved it already. And this is what we talk about like, hey, I'll do all this work, and then hey, there's this one last thing I haven't been able to figure out. Can you help me with that? Instead of just, hey, can you do all my homework for it?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:36

100%. I know guys who've gone to Ambio and have done the the IBogain and and Five MU and had the same sort of transformative experience, right? For me, that wasn't what I was looking for when I went to iBoga. It was just to get rid of the last of the last issue that I didn't know that I could actually do myself. Or and also, hey, let's be honest, in life, some people want to hit an easy button. And and when it came to that monster alcohol, I really would like. And I and I asked for some help and I got it and uh and it worked. So yeah, I think the order I did it in was perfect. You know, I think that preparing doing going into something like any one of these heavy things, uh, whether it be Ibogain or or ayahuasca without preparation is is a mistake. Or can be a mistake. It not necessarily for everybody. My personal experience was that preparation was was amazing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:33

Alright, man. What else would we need to talk about so that we don't have to do a part three?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:39

Well, you know I love talking about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

Because I dude, I I know, but I I almost feel like now I'm the one who's like keeping you trapped in these fucking stories because I keep bringing it up. And this is why I wanted to have a place with just everything captured so I can just send this to somebody and they can listen to it and absorb all the wisdom. Oh, dude, a hundred percent. But it's it's a testament to how fucking good you guys are that like you're a living example of this, and you were able to distill it down into the bumper sticker wisdom that we can pass off to other people and hopefully be that shortcut that I'm still not sure really exists.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

The life change is just I I some days I just look back at it and I'm just like, holy shit. Like before I before I just when I met you guys, like the the change between who I was then and who I am now is completely different person. It's insane. Like I can't quantify it sometimes when I try to explain to people and I'm like, like, oh yeah, night terrors, but you don't understand. It was four nights a week waking up screaming, go back to sleep, wake up screaming, go back to sleep, wake up screaming, get up, walk around. That should clear it, right? No, lay down, wake up screaming. It was four nights a week. It was Sherry getting punched, sherry getting grabbed, it was rage, holes in all our walls, all of this. And that all is now I look at it and I'm like, who the fuck was that monster?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:55

I was gonna say, does that almost not even feel real to you? Like that happened to someone else, or like that was a dream that you went through?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:02

I just I look back at it, and and the thing is is my life is so goddamn great now after all of this work that that it's hard to remind myself of how bad it was and and and and where it was. Uh and and I mean that in itself is is a testament to the work and how great I feel, that it's hard to remember how bad it was because brother, it was just crap, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:24

But testament to the brain damage, Toby.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:26

100%, yeah. You know? Uh and and it and it's funny, like uh I just when I think about it, you know, rage-filled, aphasia, addicted, pill-dependent, addicted to alcohol, night terrors, having trouble speaking, having trouble communicating, having trouble uh not not being able to deal with other human beings, like not being able to go to fucking Walmart. I used to joke that I go to Walmart out of spite, just to force myself, right? But now it's like, man, you know, we're we talk about travel, and I'm like, wow, Tokyo for a couple days would be kind of neat. I'm like, really? Like, I wouldn't have said I was I don't I don't like being in a room with six people, let alone, you know, in a city with six million, you know. So it's yeah, it's it's it's hard to quantify and remind myself, but when I do, it's just it's incredible the the change. And and a lot of that's the medicine, a lot of it's me too. I I did the work, you know. Sherry did the work, we did the work together. Like we did so much work and we put ourselves into it completely. And I think that that's something that I would tell anybody who's looking at this stuff, man, is you have got to surrender yourself to the process, you know, and that's again another one of those sort of 12-step things, right? You have to surrender yourself to this. You've got to admit that you're powerless. You sort of at some point walking into this have to admit I don't have dominion and control over any of this shit anymore. And I need to put that down. I need to surrender myself to this process. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:58

People really don't really don't like that. Especially men operator types, because surrender sounds like detrimental. Sure, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:05

And so don't use the word surrender for yourself. Use whatever, you know. But but at the end of the day, I I had to come into this saying, yeah, I'm pretty fucked up and I'm not getting better, and everything I try isn't working. And now, years later, after the work, I understand that it wasn't working because I didn't want it to. I wasn't willing for it to work. But so I was in my own way on it. But I came into it saying, and and I'm desperate, and I need help, and I want help and I want to get better a little bit. And then when I started to do the work with the microdosing, that want to get better went from me a little bit to, you know, where I got to Peru, and I could I could sit down with the medicine and say, I'm here. Fucking help me.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:48

Wait, say that again. So you feel like the microdosing helped you want it more and more.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:53

Well, here's the thing. I'll put it this way. I mean you do BJJ, right? When you get better practicing, you see results, you want, you want more of them. When I go to the gym and I lift weights and my muscles get bigger, I go, I look in the mirror and I go, fuck, that looks good. I want more of that. How do I get more of this? And it was the same thing for me psychologically, I think. As I started to get a little better with the microdosing and I started to feel like I was healing, uh, it was like, hey, wait a second, that felt pretty good. How do I get a little more of that? How do I get a little more of that? Right. And to the point where I was like, well, how I get this is by healing. And this is helping me to heal. And maybe the next step, the ayahuasca, is going to help me to heal big. I'm kind of open to this. I like this. I I like this feeling of healing. I like feeling like a better human being. I like feeling like a human being that I like, you know? So you you get some some real sort of well, gratitude, but you get some real sort of joy out of feeling that you're getting better, right? In the gym, you're getting stronger. Mentally, in these programs, you're getting better. And and if you give you can start to pull value from that just from recognizing that you're you're doing a little better. And then and and you use that as fuel to want it more. You know, hey, I f I felt better last week. I had four good days out of seven last week. Man, I'd really like to have five. You know? How do I have five? Well, I keep doing what I'm doing. Maybe add to it a bit, maybe go a little deeper, maybe try to be a little more honest in my journaling, maybe try to be, you know, maybe try like what can I do? Maybe make my intentions a little different. How do I get five days? Okay, I got five days. How do I get six? You know, how do I get six good days a week? You know, when it used to be one. And and that's that snowballing really can help. And I think that it really helped me when I got to to it put me in the in the the headspace when I got to Pru where I was like, I know that that that there is a world and a life on the other side of healing that that could be amazing. And it turns out I was right, because it's pretty amazing, you know. But I I I uh don't don't tell Sherry I was right. She never says I'm never right, but but you know, it it just was like I know that maybe there's maybe there's hope there. And as I've said to you a million times, hope is one of my favorite words when it comes to healing. If you can give people hope, and this is part of the healing out loud, if you can give people hope, the power in that is uh just incredible. Because hopelessness is what leads to suicide, to depression, to alcoholism, to drug addictions, all of that. That's hopelessness. People who have hope don't generally, unless they've got, you know, chemical uh brain imbalances, don't generally find themselves in those situations. It's when they lose hope that that that you get there, right? Uh and when I mentioned Gabor Matt Mate, that's where I found hope. Before I even talked to you, that was just listening to him. I was like, holy shit, maybe there's some hope here. Maybe maybe this isn't as good as it's gonna get, which was my mindset before I met you and before I got into this was this is as good as it's gonna get gonna get, man. Like I this post-Afghanistan, post-war, post-combat, post-soldiering, this is me and this is as good as it's gonna get. And boy was I fucking wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:19

Well, I'm very glad that you were proved wrong on that, man. And uh I I hope this is gonna sound cheesy. I hope this podcast can give someone else hope who listens to it. I hope so too. Thank you very much, dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:30

And bro, I you know, I I it sort of stepped a little back from the uh advocacy world and and that stuff because all of this healing, it was like Sherry and I both sort of came to the point we're like, I want to enjoy this for a while. Uh we well, that's the we want the reward of this of not doing working with anybody, etc. We want to just get to be us for a bit and see how cool this is to be us healed and better and healthy. I mean, we've got the best marriage of any almost anybody I know. It's just incredible, right? And and get to reap the rewards of that. But that being said, people can find me on Instagram, and I'm always available, you know. I can make myself available. I don't I don't seek out advocacy right now, but I'm also always available because it's part of the healing out loud. It's uh uh when you decide you're gonna heal out loud, you make a bit of a covenant with those who are in trouble out there. I'll answer the phone, kind of thing, right? So I won't answer the phone because I hate phones, but I will answer your messages.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:38

He'll text you back, dude. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Toby. I really appreciate you. I love you guys. Love you, brother.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:45

It's great to talk to you, and and I'm always available, man. We can do part three if you want someday. But it might be from Thailand.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:50

All right. We uh dude, hell yeah. We're better in person one day, man. Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:55

You know, you never know. Depending on what happens, maybe I'll see you in Austria this summer.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:00

That would be sick, actually. All right, man. Thank you. Let's call it. So that uh should be it for me and Toby for a while. Like I said, I I feel like we captured most of the wisdom that we have. Hopefully, I do see Toby, and of course I'll continue talking to Toby because I love him. And hopefully you love him too. And he he really did mean what he said at the end there. Um, he truly is somebody that you can reach out to, um, somebody who is there for a lot of other people online. He's had to take breaks from that or step back from that over the years for his own mental health, but he really does want to be somebody who gives back to other people. So if something you heard him say in this episode or in our previous one really resonated with you, I definitely would encourage you to check him out on Instagram, follow his page there, and maybe send him a message saying that you heard him on the show and you want to talk about XYZ thing. Uh I'm I'm sure that he would uh have time for that. And I'm sure that he would steer you in a good direction. Thank you for listening to this. Keep on healing out loud so others don't have to suffer in silence and keep on fucking with the dick that God gave you. All right, I'm so sorry. Please God forgive me for the foul language. All right. Peace out. That's enough for this one. God bless you. Talk to you soon. Bye bye.