The #2 NFL Draft Pick Who Almost Didn't Make It: Robert Gallery on TBI, Ibogaine, and Flow

On April 18, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to accelerate ibogaine research and expand veteran access. No Way Out recorded this conversation the day before — and it's the orientation event the policy statement isn't.

Robert Gallery was the second overall pick in the 2004 NFL Draft. By 2019, twenty years of head trauma had left him in a daily fog of brain damage, rage, and alcohol, with no clear way forward. He had the brain scan, the neurologist, the hyperbaric chambers. None of it moved the needle. Then he heard veterans talking about ibogaine and flew to Tijuana.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera, Mark "Moose" McGrath, Gallery, and Mark "Slider" Keller — who has personally supported over 400 veterans through ibogaine treatment — cover what reorientation looks like from inside the process. Not the policy. The experience.

They bring the Boyd frame: the flow states Gallery found on the football field, the orientation that collapsed after twenty years of grind and injury and retirement, and what ibogaine started and integration had to finish. Slider explains why he now calls ibogaine an oneirogen with psychedelic side effects — not a psychedelic — and what separates the people who hold their healing from the ones who don't.

Gallery built Athletes for Care to take what the veteran community figured out and bring it to athletes who are still suffering in silence. The executive order just made the conversation easier to have. This episode is the reason it matters.

Guest resources: athletesforcare.org | vetsolutions.org |

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

A promotional message for Ember Health.  Safe and effective IV ketamine care for individuals seeking relief from depression. Ember Health's evidence-based, partner-oriented, and patient-centered care model, boasting an 84% treatment success rate with 44% of patients reaching depression remission. It also mentions their extensive experience with over 40,000 infusions and treatment of more than 2,500 patients, including veterans, first responders, and individuals with anxiety and PTSD

Stay connected with No Way Out and The Whirl Of ReOrientation

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Transcript

Why Ibogaine Entered The Spotlight

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 0:21

All right. We have Robert Gallery with us as well as Mark Slider Keller. Our listeners are familiar with Slider's story. In fact, if you've listened to a recent Joe Rogan podcast, you may have heard a story about Slider, as well as our guest, Robert Gallery, and a future guest we'll have on the show, Admiral Hancock. That was in the news in the last week and a half, and yesterday the New York Times pushed a story out about one of the reporters going down to Tijuana to go through Ibogaine and DMT or FiveMeR DMT. We have a lot to talk about today. I I want to kind of throw out a direction of travel for today's conversation and see if you guys agree to this. But the direction I want to go is if you have John SpyTech, Clint Kubiak, Mark Davis, Tom Brady in a room for an hour, what would you tell them about your experience with Ibogaine working in the high performance industry, both uh slider and fighter aviation and Robert Gallery in the NFL? What would you tell them? That's the direction I want to go. But to get there, I want to start off with how we happen to know each other, where we run into each other. And I would like to ask Robert to start in about 2020, maybe 2021, and tell us what's going on in his life then and how he ended up down in Tijuana.

Robert Gallery 1:35

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I appreciate you guys having me on. You know, for me, after I retired uh from the NFL in 2012, and after that, you know, I went through everything that any high-level performer does, right? Your identity, lack of identity, you're, you know, we've done done the same thing for so many years in a row, right? The schedule, the the routine, the training, the thought process, and and as you guys know, as you get older and you get longer into your craft or your job, right? You you have to go dark at times, at least in my experience, to to stay at that high level. You get older, you injuries, you have, you know, you slow down, your your ego wants to keep going like you were when you were 18, 22 years old, right? But the your body just doesn't do it. And so, you know, getting for me, like getting into a game, right? It took a lot more preparation, took a thought process during those games to like, you know, go to that dark place to do what I had to do, uh, you know, playing offensive line. And so after retirement, right, I lost, I lost all those things. And on top of that, you know, I was dealing with the effects of all the hits I had taken, right? It was, you know, 20 years of you know, getting hit, especially at my position, it is you're hitting every single play. You know, it's you're you're you're using your head, right? There's no way to play football, especially as an offensive lineman, without using your head. And so, you know, the brain fog, the concussions I received, you know, the just got worse and worse, and the brain fog got worse and worse as my career went on. And then when I retired, now you're sitting in that every day. When you're still playing, as you guys know, you're still active and whatever you're doing, you you just got to get through it. There's no, you know, no one cares that you have brain fog. No one cares that you got your bell rung, you're seeing stars, or you don't sleep, right? It's it's part of your job, and that's what that's our thought process, and that's what we have to do. And so after all that ended, you're sitting in those thoughts every single day. The slowness of, you know, I noticed how the slowness of how my brain was working. And over time, I just, you know, to cope with it, it was it was alcohol for me. And, you know, it wasn't every day, it wasn't every week, but you know, I was definitely binge when I did, and that made it go away, made me social for a little bit uh in those instances. And um, but uh as you know, that that doesn't help. And then, you know, as the years went on, we're getting closer to 2018, 2019, things had gotten really dark. And and I didn't want to talk about it, you know, I didn't even tell my wife. Uh, she knew I was struggling, she she saw the struggle, she saw my you know, uh, my body language, she saw, you know, the rage episodes I'd go into. And, you know, I don't think she knew either really what was going on. And in my mind, it was, you know, I was I didn't know if I just couldn't handle being done as a professional. Uh, you know, I at one time I was like, am I bipolar? You know, I'm self-diagnosing what's going on because I was fine and I'm not, and you know, all these things. And it came to the point where, you know, I finally broke down because I didn't want to tell anyone I'm supposed to be the, you know, the the quote man of the house and and support my wife and my kids and and be this big strong guy that doesn't. We just don't talk about it, right? You deal with it, you move on. And it got to a point where I couldn't. And and so I finally broke down, told her what exactly what was going on, told her what was going on in my head, right? She knew she knew the struggle. She didn't know that, you know, until I told her that day I broke down that, you know, I was I thought it was a burden on our family, and and I'd be better off gone. They would be better off without me. And she, you know, obviously was confused and wanted to know what that meant. And it wasn't like, no, not me leaving, like me, I can't live like this. And that's what I said to her. I said, I can't, you know, I can't live the way things are going, you know, what's going on in my head, how I act around you guys. And so from that point on, you know, I it happened to be right when I got a brain scan and got to uh meet with a neurologist after that, and they told me, you know, here's all the damage you have, and here's the areas of the brain that that control these different things. So for me, it was an aha moment. Like, oh wow, there is really something to point to of what's going on. It's not just a messed up ex-athlete that now can't handle being done playing in the NFL. And so from that point on, I did, you know, a year, a year and a half of you know, modern medicine stuff of hyperbaric chamber and hormones and infusions and all these different things, light therapy. But in 2021-ish, my I started listening to a lot of military podcasts just because I, you know, in particular the Team Never Quit podcast with Marcus Lutrell and just the struggles uh that you know mostly, you know, the the veteran community was having listening to those guys and how they came through it and they they survived, but it was just over and over I related with what was going on. And it uh came to one episode with Marcus Neighbor Capone on there, and that's how I heard about Ibigain. And for me, it was I went from a very dark place at that current time to like just the same thing. The the switch flipped, and I was I was hopeful and I was like, man, this could work, I could be fixed, right? It's the the mentality of an athlete, of a veteran. You know, you you work on it, you fix it, and then you go back to work. And so that for me was the initial introduction to it and something that I thought, hey, this might this might help me because it helped these guys.

Slider’s Moral Injury And Meds

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 6:48

So I'm listening to a brief by one of the veterans you went down to Mexico with. So you're down there with Mark Slottrell, Mark Scapone, and others. And I'm sitting in this brief, there's about 25, 30 of us, it's it's on Zoom, and I'm listening to this going, this can't be real. And and of course, there's a photo of you, but just hey, there's a football player that was down there with this group. And you know, you're the big tall guy in the picture next to actually Mark Slatrell's pretty big too. So I'm listening to this, and my wife is in the room with me. And I'm just like, this cannot be true. And I turned to her, I'm like, does this sound right to you? She goes, Yes, Brian, this sounds right to me. So I thought about it, I forward the uh brief to Slider, and I think within 20 minutes or so, he goes, When are we going? And that's so we're talking, I think April, May, June-ish of uh 2021. So I couldn't let him down. I go down there, hold space for him down in Mexico. But similar to what you were talking about, Robert, I saw this with Mark and Slide Slider, and that is we're living in the same town. We were roommates, you know, going through flight training, was there when he met his wife at the hot tuna. You know, he was in my wedding. We we crawled in a bottle together in fighter aviation. You know, we were just tight, right? And uh I just moved back to town and I can't connect with this guy. I just can't find him. He's he's trying, we're trying to get him to go out, and he doesn't want to come out of his house. So he's he's in the dark, that dark place. And uh I was so thankful that I was able to be there for him to get him down to San Diego. And Slider, you want to take over from there? What happened?

Mark "Slider" Keller 8:18

Well, yeah, I mean, uh won't spend too much time on how I got there, but you know, I had some moral injuries, uh pretty pretty severe one in in particular back in 2005 when I uh, you know, weapons delivery went poorly and killed a bunch of innocent people. Um, you know, that's a weight I carried around for a very, very long time. Uh you know, and I didn't understand what that was doing to me. But uh, you know, a lot of things happened. Uh there was divorce in there, you know, uh a bunch of stuff. But, you know, it culminated in a panic attack for me uh after I got out of the Navy. And, you know, I got dosed up real hard with uh Atavan. So I was taking Adevan four times a day because of one panic attack, and I was on that for four and a half years. You know, that time when I went dark, um, you know, I was just crawling out of my own skin with anxiety because of the tolerance withdrawal I I'd developed from this Ada van. So yeah, I disconnected from everybody. I just couldn't stand being around people. I I couldn't handle any noise. Uh, you know, I just sat in a dark house a lot. That disconnection made things worse. You know, I was disinhibited pretty severely. Experienced depersonalization, derealization, just all these horrible, horrible things that I just, you know, just didn't want to be around anybody. Uh, you know, and that led to addiction, which got pretty severe, you know, in the worst of it. Um, you know, when I asked for help, I got cold turkeyed off of the Atavan, which just about killed me. So I went through about two and a half years of what they call a retaper. So I had to re-instate uh with Valium. And that was that two and a half years there was probably one of the hardest that was probably the hardest period of my life. There wasn't a day that went by where I wasn't doing the math on you know how just taking myself out made more sense than suffering through what I was suffering through, particularly since you know, when you're in that and anyone who's gone through benzotasopil can tell you this, you can't see that you're getting better. It looks like there's no end to it. So, you know, I'm grateful that I had a reason to go on. Uh, you know, my two boys are uh you know fine young men and the pride of my life, uh, and they are the only reason I'm still here. Right when I finished that uh taper, Brian, like you said, that's uh that's when you came to me and said, Hey, we heard this crazy story over here. And you know, I wouldn't have believed it if it wasn't you know another guy from the fighter community who you know I at least could assume was a crazy, you know. And at that point, I I mean I just couldn't even stand being in my own skin. I mean, every every day of my life, even though I was off of the stuff, finally the neurological damage it had done was profound. So yeah, you uh that was an act of love, brother, reaching out to me on that. And uh, you know, thanks for coming down to support.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 11:09

But I would not have believed that I would not have believed that story unless Robert was in there too, right? So the we you know, a few months later, we're down in Miami kind of trying to figure out what this microdose thing is, meaning the the event down there. And I don't know if Robert, if you were down there in 2021 or not, but Mike Tyson's talking about his five MEO DMT trips, you know, multiplied by 100, whatever he does a year. Um seeing Robert Carrart Harris speak about the Rebus brain and the tropic brain hypothesis. We're learning the science behind it. And then I think where I'm going with this is 2021 with a watershed year, watershed year, not just for Slider and myself, but also for you, Robert. That's kind of where all of this emerged from. And that's what, five years in the past now, where we've all kind of been part of this. But I want I want to go back to some of the things you talk about on another podcast, Robert, you know, the mental rehearsal, the things you did in at Iowa to get uh stronger and better. Talk about alcohol and maybe a slandery, we can bring up the parallels between what it's like to play in the NFL and what it's like to be in fighter aviation, because we drink a lot. I mean, that's that's how we recover. But Robert, can you go back and just share some of the uh mental preparation, uh those type of things that you were doing both at Iowa and or uh with the Raiders to get ready for games, and then maybe talk about how the NFL NFL players accept that type of uh woo-ish thing? So that meditation work.

Performance Mindset Meets Brain Damage

Robert Gallery 13:28

Yeah, you know, I I think like like everybody when I first started out, when I first got to college, I was just hanging on, right? I was a tall, skinny white kid from a small farm town in Iowa and just wanted to play college football, right? And I was there, I didn't, you know, I didn't wasn't this highly recruited guy. I just wanted to go and be the best I could be, and I knew I had a long way to go. And so when that started, it was just working every day. It was, you know, just you know, obviously it was going to school, had to do school, but when we were in the football facility, for me, I just wanted to be the very best I could be. And I wasn't very good my first couple years, right? I was learning, I was, you know, I showed up at 235 pounds, uh, and you know, by the end of my first year, I was up to 285. Uh so me, it was just immersing myself and working as hard as I could every single day. And that was, you know, there's when you don't know stuff, you know, it's almost better. You don't know, you know, what you're supposed to be or or you know, have this pressure on yourself. I was just trying to survive. And so it was like work, work every single day, right? Challenge the older guys, you know, not back down from anything, all the stuff that we all do to become the best at our craft. And as as the years went on, you know, it was lift harder, you know, do all these things. You know, then it turned into where the, you know, I was having success and I could flip that switch, right? Now, like everyone, when you're prepared, right? I'd been in this system for two, three years now with the same coaching staff, the same teaching every single day, the same consistency, the same message, right? Now you're having success and you can flip that switch to where things are going your way. You you know what you're doing, you're being successful at it, and then that's when you can take it to the next level. That's when it was fun, right? It got into my, you know, fourth and fifth year, and it was, you know, my skill was there. And then that's, I think for me, when I took it to the next level because I knew I was physically stronger, faster, bigger, and technically more sound than the majority of guys I played against. And at that point, it was messing with them, right? It was like, oh, I want to, I want to embarrass this guy, right? So you take a guy that you knew you were physically dominant on and your technique was better, and you drive him into the bench, right? There's a couple times I did that, almost got kicked out of a game. You know, that to me was fun. That was, you know, the arrogance uh and the ego of, hey, I've worked really hard at this for a lot of years, and now I'm gonna show you what I can really do. And so for me, it was just grinding, right? I I never really, especially in college, as I had success my last couple years, I never really slowed down to like enjoy the moments. You know, in the moment I enjoyed it, but I started winning awards and and to it was just on to the next thing, right? Because I was so focused on that's not good enough, right? Everything and and that was instilled in me with you know coaching and my parents in a good way, right? But it also looking back on it, you know, I you wish you would have, you know, enjoyed those things a little bit more, right? Winning, you know, national awards, and it's like great, okay, put it in the closet. You know, I got to go train for the next thing that's gonna happen. And so, you know, for me, it was just as I got into my senior year of of college, you know, there was some was some pressure after my junior year, right? It's like, oh, I could have come out into the draft as a junior and been a you know supposed a top 10 pick, right? And now there's I was like, oh wow, people were watching me to up to that point, it was just fun, right? I was it was the I'd go out there, I was stoked to play every single weekend, right? There was no pressure because I didn't I didn't know how good I was, you know, and I I knew I was playing well, but there no one was talking about it leading up to that. And so then when people are talking about it, you're like, well, my standard has to be even better now, right? The the one or two mistakes a game, they have to be zero, right? And so that's when the mental shift was for me. It wasn't as enjoyable, you know, because I'd watch film my senior year, and I'd have we'd have 76 plays in a game, and 75 of them were very technically sound, a plus on the on the grade sheet, and there was one minus, and it would just rip my soul out, right? And and I know it sounds dramatic, and but it was. I was like, oh no, I'm I'm I gotta be perfect, right? I'm uh I can't get beat or I can't have bad hands, or you know, it was just one of those things that I dwelled on, and and in reality, that's a pretty good percentage of doing something right. And it wasn't like those were catastrophic mistakes, right? That one or two mistakes was not a sack or you know, something catastrophic for for football, but for me it was in my head. And so, you know, it took me a little bit of, you know, that's when I, you know, I back then I wouldn't have called it meditation, but it was, you know, I had some a mentor that that told me, you know, he actually just said, lighten up, Francis. When he's left a note in my in my locker, he was an NFL GM, actually, Scott Pioli. He was there, he's friends with Coach Ferenc, and he, you know, he wrote that on his card and put it because he knew how much I dwelled on the stuff and and how much I, you know, how much it bothered me. And he's like, You're doing a great job. And it just that for me, just to sit and realize, hey, you know, things are gonna happen, things are not gonna be perfect. And so just the sitting and trying to be in the moment is when that started. And then then as I got into the league, you know, it was the my first year. For me, it was just like, man, I get I get paid to do this, right? It was like every day I'd come out, I think we were four and twelve my first year, but every game I came out with a smile on my face because I had made it to that level. And I'm like, we get paid to do this, right? You're playing on the biggest stage. So it was that thing that was new, that was exciting, right? And I still had pressure, right? It was obviously a very high pick. Uh it's put pressure on myself, but it was back to that, it was fun again. And and it's not fun to lose, but I'm like, man, I like I literally, this is my job, right? It was just that realization. And but as the years go on, right, and then you have a coaching change, you know, every year or every year and a half, you know, you're learning a new system, you're learning new things, right? The consistency is gone that I had in college. And so that's what I dwelled on was the consistency, right? And I think anyone, what no matter what you do, you're getting better at your craft, you know, consistency, you can consistently work on it, right? The same things, right? And that's how you get better. And so, yeah, the the mental part of it started to kick in, you know, two, three years in the league. We're we're in our second, third coaching change, you know, things aren't going, you know, going like I want them to do for myself or for the team, right? We're two and twelve, we're three and four, you know, just you know, bad year after bad year. So you equate that as an individual to, you know, to yourself and not only to the team. And so as time went on, it was, you know, just go back to work. To me, it was I didn't really learn until afterwards, till I got into Ibegain how to really be mindful in the meditation and that stuff. Back when I was playing, it was just grind, grind harder, right? I went back and lived with my buddy in Iowa in the offseason, lived in his basement and trained two times a day back at the university. It was just grind harder, right? That's how you fix things. And so that's kind of the mentality I took, you know, through those times.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 20:18

Is it safe to say that you you didn't come around to meditation and breathing exercises until later on? Is that is that correct?

Robert Gallery 20:24

Yeah, I would say to really be into it. Yes, there were times where, you know, walking into a game, I, you know, I'd take my deep breaths, but not not real breath work, not real meditation. Like I tried to be in the moment and it didn't happen until later.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 20:37

And that that never happened in at Iowa. And another question to you is in the NFL, are athletes actually practicing that now or are they starting to pick up on that? Where are they based on what you an asking?

Robert Gallery 20:46

Now they are, yes. It's come a long way, right? Like it wasn't, you know, people were talking about it. They see the science behind it, they see what it can do. Right. Even my old, my my old strength coach and very close friend Chris Doyle from the University of Iowa, we've talked about that, right? 20 years ago, and we just had this conversation. Twenty years ago, if I came into his office and said, Hey, I did this breath work and I think I went to a little different dimension, yeah. He would have told me to get the fuck out of his office and you know, or if vice versa, if he would have said that to me, I'm like, you're, you know, you know what that conversation will go like. But now we're talking about that. Athletes are talking about that, strength coaches are talking about it because, you know, it's it's real, it's there's science behind it, and people see the benefit of it.

Perfection Pressure And Early Mindfulness

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 21:28

So, next question is uh what role did alcohol have in in your day-to-day life and or your weak life at Iowa and in the NFL? And has that started to change at all for current players? So I'll give you some more background. Some people say that in fighter aviation, you crawl into a bottle in your early 20s and crawl out, maybe if you're lucky, in your mid-40s. So it's it's a culture of drinking, it's a culture of hiding uh your health uh because you want to perform. But can you talk a little bit about that if there's any similarities in plans pro sports?

Robert Gallery 21:57

Yeah, for sure. I think, you know, I think in college we're young, right? You know, you you hope it's still fun. It was for us. We're, you know, in our 20s, right? We're in college, we're playing high-level college football. You know, in my case, we were really good my last couple years, right? We built this program up and everybody loves you. And yeah, you you win a game, you go to the bar and take your girlfriend and your buddies, and you go drink as many beers as you can, right? That was it was the fun part of it. It wasn't, I wouldn't say it was necessarily coping back then for me. I know it is for certain guys, but everything was going our way. Uh, it was very enjoyable, and that's how we celebrated. And I remember drinking 15, 20 beers, and then you get up, you know, you got to go on Sunday, you know, get your workout in, and you could do it, right? Your body could handle it, you you could do it. And so I think as time went on, and then you as I got into the league, you know, it was some of the same. You're instead of maybe you're you know drinking for celebration, you're drinking your sorrows away, right? You know, we're we're 12 games into the season and we're two and twelve or two and ten, you know, you're you're drinking that away because it wears on you, right? Because now, you know, now the media's talking about it. Now everybody's got an opinion. Uh everybody, you know, the the social media started to pick up as the years went on, and and media itself, obviously in the NFL. And so, you know, it yes, it was a bigger part of my life in a in a negative way, right? To where, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna forget about all this for the next Four hours and we're gonna drink this 24 pack. And you know, for me, you know, I wouldn't necessarily say it was an issue. I was a binge drinker, you know, when we, you know, there wasn't a time where you go out and have two beers. Uh but I didn't, you know, thankfully, for the most part, didn't let it get to a nightly thing. It was the night after a game, right? Because two things, right? You either drink your sorrows away or you drink to try and go to sleep, right? Because right, we're so amped up for these games, right? Before the games, we're drinking, you know, we we had a group that was the old line, we'd sat and drank coffee for like two hours before the game, drink as much coffee as we could, right? So then you get done with the game, and as the years went on, now you're popping painkillers, you know, because your body hurts, and then you throw some booze on top of it, and and the sleeping pills wouldn't work. So I think yes, the the abuse was definitely there just to cope with the pain and and try and sleep. And then, you know, as as time went on, it was more and more, right? Then then as you're having, you know, if the the brain fog and these different things, you know, you you want that stuff to go away. That was definitely a part of it to step away from that for a little bit. And and so I'd say now people are more aware of it. I think people, right? It's education. I think it's people know, not that we thought alcohol was good for you 20 years ago, you know, but I think there's so much science behind it now, and people really dig deep into that, right? Just like, you know, we we it took us into our 40s to be like, hey, alcohol is terrible for you, right? It's the number one depressant in the world. It's terrible for your brain, right? And we didn't, you know, we didn't know what we didn't know back then, right? No one, you know, those studies weren't out. And so I think people are much more careful with what they put in their body. There's still, you know, there's still benjin in every level of sports, just like the military, but I think people are more aware and people make different choices for their body because they know how much it really affects you.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 25:09

So I'm familiar with the slider story. You know, he's drinking a lot, and then the ibogaine, he stopped drinking. I actually I stopped drinking too for many reasons, and I'm not going to confirm or deny why. But did you have a similar experience when you went down to Mexico and came out of there? Did you stop drinking by any chance?

Robert Gallery 25:24

Is that what happened? I did. And I and I tried to stop before. So when I got my brain scan, you know, it was uh, you know, the switch kind of flipped and I wanted to be better, you know. And I asked the, I asked that the neurologist, I said, what do I need to do? Right? Because I'm headed down a path that I'm not going to be here very long. And he's like, You need to stop drinking, right? Because they'd ask you, right? Just in all these meetings, you know, how how often do you drink? Uh once a week. How many drinks per sitting? How big's the bottle? You know, because that's what it was. I was drinking tequila at that time. And if the bottle was full, I'd finish it. And so that year and a half when I was working before I began, I was trying to cut back, but I still, like, like slider, I had huge anxiety, right, to be out in public, to be at my kids' uh school events, to do these things, right? I I couldn't put it down because that's what made the noise go away and made it, you know, so I could go to these functions and function as a human being. Uh, and but when I went to down for Ibogaine that first time in 2021, I haven't touched it since. And it to me, it just showed me I I don't need that and it completely took it away from me. And, you know, I it'll never come.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 26:30

Slider, is that true for you? Are you still drinking at all?

Mark "Slider" Keller 26:33

No, don't touch it. There's some great uh no alcohol beers out there now, too. They actually taste like beer. So yeah. No, I don't touch it. No desire whatsoever.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 26:43

I drink that Mic Ultra uh Zero. Does that sound right? It's it's alcohol. Zero alcohol. And I'm seeing more, you can find more and more non-alcoholic beer. It sounds weird. It's just hop flavored water, but it still tastes all right.

Mark "Moose" McGrath 26:55

I tried Gi January. I tried GI January and I just kept going, and now it's two 2294, 2,294 days. There's no there's no use for it. It's great.

Mark "Slider" Keller 27:06

And like you said, there's just no amount of see, I was gonna say, you know, everyone says, oh, have a glass of red wine because it's got uh antioxidants. Well, so do blueberries. The the alcohol, there's nothing good about alcohol. There is no upside whatsoever.

Robert Gallery 27:23

And I think for me too, when you feel good, right? Part of it was like even with the non-alcoholic beers for a little bit there, I'd have some of those. But I ate so clean, I still eat so clean that even those, you know, would mess with my stomach. But the, you know, the the world has changed too. Now there's just hot like hot waters. There's hot water, there's different companies that it's literally tea, uh, and there's nothing in it. There's no ingredients, right? There's all these things that that mess with my guts or make me feel bad. So, you know, the the first time you know I came home and we had people over after Ibigain at our house, I think I drank 24 sparkling waters. And then everyone left. And my I, you know, I kind of lost it, and I told my wife, I'm like, I can't even control this. And she's like, she just looked at me and she's like, dude, it's water. Like, you can drink a hundred of them. Like, there's nothing, you know, but I was it was just the the the over-the-top part of it. But yeah, I now it's like I take my case of sparkling waters and and I drink like I used to. It's just water.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 28:22

I'm wondering, Robert, how's how are the the you know, the NFL Player Association, NFL owners, are they interested in what you have to say? Are they, you know, are they looking at the things that you're coming back from um Tijuana with and saying, we we need to look at this? What what are they saying now?

Alcohol Culture And Quitting Overnight

Robert Gallery 28:39

You know, those those conversations are slow. You know, I have a great relationship with the Raiders. I've talked with with them quite a bit about it, you know, with the alumni people and in different levels. We've had initial conversations with NFL PA, you know, working on talking with different people within the league. But I think for us, you know, and for us as an organization organization, you know, if we're not attacking, right, and I'm individually not attacking the NFL for what happened. You know, I want people to have these resources to be able to do these things. But it is also a billion-dollar business, right? You learn very quickly, right? It was 20 years ago when I came into the league, you know, marijuana was a positive test, you know, on your drug test, and you were suspended, right? That has changed. The the league is forward thinking, but it's a slow process. So coming in guns ablazing, right? It's been talked about. They've seen it, right? I've done enough talks. There's other NFL guys now that are coming out and talking about it. It is being talked about in those circles, but at the end of the day, you know, it is a slow-moving process because of, you know, in my opinion, media, right? Like it, you know, I began being a Schedule One still, right? That's a business decision for the NFL. Now, can that change? And that's why we're all doing all this work. So I'd say there have been some initial conversations. I know it's being talked about. Different people have reached out and told me the conversations that are going on. And I think now it's just the educational part of it for those owners and those people that make the decisions to help push this thing forward.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 30:09

So curious about Aaron Rodgers in recovery, he went down and did ayahuasca, and that's still, I believe it's still a Schedule One DMT in it, right? So uh, and that's fine. The NFL didn't frown on that. Is that correct? Or did they?

Robert Gallery 30:20

Yeah, no, from what from what I understand, no. Yes, it's you know, and when I say it's schedule one, they're not suspending people for it or actively talking against it, but to uh the way it should be, it should be within, in my opinion, within these organizations because of the effect it has for inflammation, all those things. So for them to put their name behind it and or help facilitate people getting these treatments, that's that's where the talk is slow. They they they've been open and and plenty of guys have done different psychedelics that have talked about it, and there's been no repercussions or, in my opinion, in negative talk about it. But to to get it where we need it to be within being used, you know, as a form of treatment, and we're just not there yet.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 31:02

So I want to share something with you. It's on the screen right now, it's just the flow cycle, struggle release, flow, recovery, right? One area that I I say we're not doing well at, and that's what we're talking about, is recovery. That that from fighter aviation, we need time to decompress, we need to get away from things, we need that integration, right? When they talk about flow, and I'm and then I'm gonna make a connection to Ibogaine. I understand that uh theta brain waves are activated when you're on Ibogaine and maybe other psychedelics. But that's where we get the neuroplasticity moot uh slider, is that correct? Theta connected to Ibogaine?

Mark "Slider" Keller 31:40

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because uh you know ibogaine is different than other psychedelics. You know, I I don't even know if we want to call it a psychedelic anymore. I I would say it's an emergen with psychedelic side effects. Since probably nobody knows what an aerogen is, it means it induces a waking dream state. So yeah, theta, a high theta makes a lot of sense there.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 32:04

All right. So when when we talk about our process in fighter aviation, it's it's very similar to the flow process that we have there. We call it plan brief, execute debrief, right? So we have that debrief in there, that integration in there, that that learning moment. Uh in sports, you know, I teach my girls the same thing. You need to recover. That recovery time is important. And Robert, based on what you shared with us, you I think you agree you need that recovery time after the gym, after a game, whatever it may be. And the moment we start putting alcohol in it or putting something in that recovery time, that's a bad thing. So it is entirely possible that if we were to follow a flow cycle process that and remember, there's a fractal approach, meaning it can scale to over a lifetime of playing pro sports or after a season or after a game, you still need that recovery. And I think that's a great way to explain to leaders and organizations what is happening with the psychedelic assisted therapy movement, is it's a recovery movement moment for uh for folks. And in that is uh the ability to debrief and recount what happened and look at it from a different light. So I want to see if with Robert, does that kind of stick with you? Does that does that make sense for what you saw in the NFL?

Robert Gallery 33:19

Yeah, no, I absolutely. And I think, like I said before, there it's just, you know, as the years go by, we're we are more and more educated, right? I laugh, I tell the story of the meal I used to eat before my high school basketball game, right? I didn't know any different, right? My parents were doing the best they could with five kids putting food on the table. We didn't know, you know, all of that we know about processed foods and all these things. I remember going home and eating a box of mac and cheese and putting six hot dogs in it, right? It's right. It wasn't in my in my mind that, hey, this is not fueling my body the way I need it to, uh, you know, or lifting weights in the morning and eating uh, you know, a quarter or drinking a quart of chocolate milk, which is actually great for recovery, but then you know, washing down six cinnabons with that. You know, so I think it's more education and and we know so much more now of that flow chart and uh the things that what your body really needs and what's affecting it. And so that's why we're so much uh farther ahead than we were, say, even 20 years ago.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 34:15

That's great. Just thinking ahead here. When if you ever have the opportunity to sit down with leaders in an organization and just, you know, tell them what you experienced again, what what are the key lessons you want to share with them?

Robert Gallery 34:26

You know, I think the first thing, especially for a billion-dollar uh, you know, billion-dollar business, right, is to show them the science. I think that's the first thing that needs to be set in front of them when we get that chance, right? Because you can tell all the stories in the world you want, right? Because like you and I, right, when when Marcus Capone hooked me up with different veterans who had been through IBGAIN before I went, I was the same reaction that you had. I was like, there's no fucking way that this is true. But I had to believe at that point, right? I did. I bought in. I'm like, this but this has to work for me or I won't be here, right? So it was one of those things. I'm like, there's no way, right? I hear the story, and it's like, well, this guy's not lying to me, right? Marcus, I, you know, I didn't know Marcus before I uh Capone before you know I reached out. I didn't know these veterans, but the the respect I have for the veteran community, uh, specifically those guys he hooked me up with, right? It was instant. I could, you know, I they they had instant credibility in my in my household. My dad was in in the military, my uncle was in the military, so it was instant credibility for me. So I I did believe, but you're hearing it and you're just like, there's no, because you're in such a dark place, you're just like, there's no way. It doesn't take this way, it doesn't do that. So I think the science is the first thing I would show them, and what's is what we will show them. Then it's the lived experience, right? Then, you know, for me it would be you know having my my wife there to come in, right? Because it's easy for me to sit and say, oh, it did this for me, it did this for me, it took away the brain fog, it took away my rage. Or I used to sit in a chair and right, they're as anybody, they're like skeptical, right? Uh is he, is he, is this a fishing story, right? Is this uh he used to be you know be bummed out and sit out on his patio for what the story I've told and lived was like sitting in a chair rubbing my hands, right? Because I was so enraged and you know, I wanted to hurt my kids because they were laughing in the background, right? So for my wife to be able to share that experience of what it was like and how I was, I think that's much more powerful. And then then it's just you know bringing more and more guys in that have been through it to see and show them their stories and how they're different.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 36:32

And uh you set up a new community or uh nonprofit athletes for care. Uh, can you give us some background on that? And and you also mentioned vets a few times, Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions. Can you talk about what you're trying to do with the uh nonprofit and and who that really works for?

The NFL’s Slow Shift Toward Psychedelics

Robert Gallery 36:48

Yeah, no, after my healing, right, and I when I finally started talking about it, because I uh I went through my healing uh in 2021, right, came out of it, and I think like most people, you're telling everybody, right? I'm telling you, my wife, you gotta go do this, you know, because you're you're in that state after that, especially after that first time. Things were so dark, and now you're the all the anxiety's gone, all the ideations gone, all the negative thoughts, and you were just living life, and you think everyone should know about this. You know, as time went on, you know, things kind of came back down. I ended up going back again in 23, right? Because I'd gotten back to a dark place. But after 23, right, the the brain fog stayed away, the the rage, the suicide stuff. And then I started talking to my friends, right? Because, you know, like Slider and you guys, I disappeared, right? I had my my best friends from college I hadn't talked to for a very long time. And and they all wondered what happened. And it happened to be uh, you know, the first time was we were back for a football game, went back for a game in Iowa, and sat down with my three closest friends and apologized and said, here, here's what I was going through and here's what I did. And then I think being able to tell that story and the feedback they gave me uh, you know, led me to talk to other people about it. And the more I talked about it, you know, more people brought up things they were going through. And so that's why I started Athletes for Care was because I was like, holy cow, I'm not the only one that's going through this or has gone through it, right? There's tons of other guys suffering out there. And and it's all because of of what we did. It's all because of the TBI and the constant head trauma. Uh and so, you know, starting Athletes for Care for me is to, you know, to I I want to to mirror it uh of what you know on a smaller level right now of what Vets is doing and has done, right? Marcus Namber did not need to pick up my phone call when I when I emailed their website, they did not, right? They they served the the veteran community and they picked up the phone and called me an athlete that reached out. And so I, you know, they are one of my closest friends. I love them very much for what they did for me, and I see what they've done for the veteran community, and so I want to emulate that. And uh, you know, I think the guys that have reached out to us, you know, at Athletes for Care is the same. Like, you know, I'm gonna, no matter who it is, right? It's not even just, it's not just athletes, right? There's veterans that have reached out there or normal, you know, quote unquote working class people, right? So you at least touch base with them, give them the resources they need. But for me, it's to to show athletes specifically uh in our community that there are other healer, healing modalities out there, right? There's things we can do to not live in this constant, you know, you know, flight or flight, rage, all these things that more and more people I talk to are talking about. And there's a way to to heal some of those, right? And at the end of the day, heal our brain for some of the damage we did to it over all those years.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 39:47

So football is a violent sport, and you don't necessarily have to play in the NFL to have bring any type of TBI or even a CT. That I don't think you can identify until after death, actually, if that's still true. Um so kids that play football today, um they get concussions, girls that play basketball make a concussion, soccer. There's there's a lot of opportunities to get a concussion out there. When we were younger, you know, you hit your head, uh, rub some dirt on it, you know, go go back and play on the street afterwards. That's what's how we grew up, right? Today we're monitoring that in our house, right? The girls fall down on the basketball court, you know, they go through a concussion protocol. I will say this, I feel comfortable knowing that down the road sometime, as as they come and go, hey dad, I'm struggling with this, I'm like, I got a place for you to go. All right. But my point to that is is it's not just about being a professional football player. Kids are gonna have concussions. They're gonna have, you know, they grow up, they end up working in corporate America, anxiety, stress, PTSD of some type. It's still it still applies to them, right? It's it's they can still reach out to you and ask for help. Is that true?

Robert Gallery 40:53

Absolutely. Yeah, no worries.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 40:54

Okay.

Robert Gallery 40:55

I see that now as a father, too, right? I see what my kids are going through. For whatever reason, when I was young, I don't feel like I had these stresses. Yes, I was, you know, I wanted to be great and I wanted to do these things, but I don't, you know, I as an adult and a parent, you see the emotional stuff your kids are going through. And now some of that put on by us, probably, right? Right? Yeah, you know, our kids are in sports. You know, my wife played college basketball at Iowa, right? So there's, you know, there's an expectation in our household, whether we put that on them, they put it on themselves, right? So maybe pressure that that I didn't have. And so you see them emotionally and how they handle things, right? And like you said, it's not, you don't have to just even play in college to have TBI, right? There's any use sports, right? And it's so different for every person, right? This that as you guys know, the same person can have the same amount of head contact and have completely different outcomes. It's all the body makeup, and that's the hard part about this. It's not just, you know, it's not a chart that tells you if you do it for this long, you're gonna have problems, right? It can be all over the all over the book as far as who it affects. And so as we push these things forward, you know, it's important for society alone, right? To, you know, the trauma, trauma is trauma, right? Whether that's TBI, whether that's emotional trauma, whether that's stuff we do to ourselves, stress, those things. So this can help, you know, everybody.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 42:15

I know you brought this up on another podcast, but you mentioned that uh veterans, and it may have been you or or Brian Hubbard or Governor Perry, but the trauma that veterans have may not be connected to combat. It may be connected to their childhood. So is that something you brought up? And Slider, can you talk about that as well?

Athletes For Care And Who It Helps

Robert Gallery 42:31

Yeah, you know, I've for me, you know, and we've talked about that. That was a great thing about me being in that group with the different veterans was, you know, hearing those stories. You know, I grew up small town Iowa, two loving parents that were married, four siblings. You know, I had a pretty good childhood. Were my parents tough? Were they strict? Yes. But for me, I have never felt there was childhood trauma. You know, now, are there things I see as an adult and as a parent that I will change of how my parents did it? Absolutely. But I don't count, I don't, I don't see that stuff in my situation that it was trauma that negative effect negatively affected me. But there are definitely instances, right? That's the thing. Everyone grows up differently, right? You you grow up, we all grow up in different environments, different parents, different situations. And so that's part of stuff through this, too, that you learn, right? May not be what is affecting you that you think it is, right? It could be other trauma in the past that is brought back up during this experience. Speider?

Mark "Slider" Keller 43:30

Yeah, I've got a lot to say about that. Um, you know, I I I saw in myself, you know, that this moral injury I talked about earlier was a huge factor for me. Um but you know, there's other guys with moral injuries as well who manage to pull themselves out of it on their own. Uh, you know, in my case, I was medicated into oblivion, and that happens with a lot of the guys we see here. But you know, having seen, I don't know, 400, probably at this point, 400 guys through this program, I can tell you that that is a big component for a lot of people. You know, for me, my dad never talked about emotions. If you know about his childhood, you know, there's a reason he didn't talk about it. And you know, some of that's generational, but you know, someone talked about a feeling, he walked out of the room. So, you know, what did I learn as a as a young guy? You know, I'm sad. Well, I don't talk about it. You know, this thing is in my head and I keep thinking about it over and over and over again, it's eaten at me. Well, I can't tell anybody. You know, and the military reinforces this, you know, weakness is absolutely frowned upon. You know, we each feel like we have a duty to the guy to our left and our right, just like being on the line. You know, you don't want to let those guys down. So you're not going to tell them that you're not good today, that you're not weak. In aviation, you know, it's particularly bad because you know, if I raise my hand and say I'm sad at the squadron, well, now I'm benched. I've not only hurt my unit, I, you know, I've hurt my career. And you know, we just carry this forward to the place where you know we're outside of the purpose of being in the uniform. You know, whether it's an NFL uniform or a Navy uniform, that sense of purpose kind of and that structure kind of gives you a way to fake your way through it and hold it together. What I found when I went out on my own as an entrepreneur, uh, you know, there was none of that. It was just me. And I really, you know, with the benefit of a lot of healing and hindsight, I can see. That that's where things started to unravel. I see that here in the groups that we receive. I'm about to receive another one here in about 20 minutes. I promise you, by the end of the week, I'm gonna know about all these guys' screwed up childhoods. Um, you know, in the military might be a little bit different than in in sports, but it is astounding how many of these guys are uh gravitate towards the uniform. The same thing with cops and firefighters. You know, they had some kind of trauma in their childhood. They view the guy in the uniform who comes and calms things down in the house when mom and dad are fighting or you know, whatever it is. They view that guy as the good guy and they want to be a good guy. So they bring this trauma in, and you know, you just don't know. We're all young guys, just like Robert was saying. We're young. We go in, there's a culture, the alcohol, you know, in the Navy. When the flights when you're done buying on Friday, you better be over at the officers club showing the showing the squadron colors. You better roll the dice, you know, and it's fun until it's not. So yeah, a lot of that is childhood stuff. Absolutely agree that it is.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 46:23

Well, I think there's what we're learning from the research on it, they they agree too. Um, I do want to shift gears a little bit going back to Robert's comment on 2021 and 2023. Sounds like Robert went through the protocol twice. And one thing we didn't really hit on is integration, uh, how important that is in all this. Uh, and I'll give you some background. It is the the medicine is one thing. And we learned this from other guests on the show that it's it's more about the setting, which could include that recovery period, uh, that coaching period, that reflection period. Can you guys talk uh I'll actually, Robert, can you talk a little bit more about that, the importance of the uh setting, the uh the integration?

Hidden Childhood Trauma In Uniforms

Robert Gallery 47:00

Absolutely. Yeah, go on going through the process, you know, when when I first reached out, and it was a very short time frame from when I you know reached out to Marcus Namber and I was in Mexico, it was three weeks, you know, to be exact, because they had an opening with with that group. He thought I'd fit in there. And so it was, you know, there was I had the the initial meetings and the therapy sessions, but I also went cold turkey on my antidepressants and everything else. So I was not, you know, all there mentally going into it. But coming out of it, right, and learning all the things I did down there, that the the reintegration for me was huge. And some of it was was hard, right? They talked about meditation. I didn't, you know, I didn't know if I believed in meditation or could do it. I tried, right? I tried for years even afterwards to figure out, you know, because in my head, meditation was a certain thing, right? You're sitting cross-legged, you go to this place, right? And it took me in the middle of a snowstorm, you know, we we live up in the mountains, in the middle of a nuking snowstorm, right? I had microdosed and I was out snowmobiling in the backcountry in probably six feet of powdery snow. And at one point we're climbing this mountain, steep, the steep mountain, and every single snowflake was coming down. I could see every single one, like the edges of them. And I'm going up there and I'm like, whoa, what is going on? And I remember this the whole day, right? I remember being with my buddies. I remember just being in that moment, right, and seeing every single little thing, right? Noticing the greenness of the trees and everything. And then I talked to my therapist the following day and was telling her about it, and she kind of laughed. And I'm like, what are you laughing at? She's like, well, you that's a form of meditation, right? You're like you were in the moment. So it took examples like that for me, right, to figure out what that was for me, right? It's it turned into the activities I started doing, right? I was always pretty disciplined, you know, the way I ate, the things I did, but that went to a whole new level when I got back from Ibogain, right? Because I didn't want this feeling to go away, right? I bought a cold tub, I bought all these different things because it helped, right? And I just kept adding things to my toolbox. And then I learned new things, right? Then I took other forms of meditation, breathing techniques, all these things that were somewhat introduced and then talking to the community of guys who have been through it, what they were doing, right? You try and you see what works for you. And so for me, that's a that's a huge part of it, right? That's a huge part of staying, staying within the healing that you received, right? To to be able to, you know, have lost that ego and be able to walk into one of my kids' sporting events and feel some anxiety come in or all the noise, right? I still everything is so everything used to be so muted because of the ringing in my head and the ringing my ears and the brain fog. Now, right, it's intense. I walk into a gym and people are screaming and yelling and cheering. I'm up in the corner, right? And it's super intense for me, right? But I have that tool to close my eyes, do my breathing, it calms my system down, and that noise just kind of mutes out, right?

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 50:08

Robert, so I want to challenge you on this. I want to challenge you on this. Playing the game of football, you had to be in a similar state of flow in the moment, right? Where you could see everything, you could anticipate what's going to happen next. Is that true?

Robert Gallery 50:19

Absolutely. But but back then we didn't know what that was, right? Yes. You you come out, we come out the starting lineups, right? You'd get you run down the tunnel, everybody's screaming, you wave at your family, you do this, you're amped up, you headbutt the all the guys in the line for the first play. But once that started, everything, you know, kind of quieted down, right? When you're in that flow state, right? It the game, right? The 70,000 people watching the game, you didn't really notice them. But in that moment, you, you know, and not till you know years later did I realize that's what that was. But that's absolutely what it was. Uh, and that's what I think people understand now. Like, that's the education that guys know that that's what that is that are that are current players.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 50:58

Yeah. So it's that that being present, and we talk, you've talked about that already. You got to be present. You have to be present when you're playing the game. Things are gonna slow down, you're gonna see more, you're gonna be more attuned to the environment, right? You there's some risk and and great communication going on with your line and everybody behind the line and all that. So isn't it true that it is possible, let me throw it that way, or put it that way, that the reason you played football was to get to that moment again.

Robert Gallery 51:23

For sure. No, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's that's when it's fun, that's when it's easy, and that's that's when you know you're you're in it and you're prepared. But but absolutely, when you when that chaos slows down and and and you you know you know where that guy's going and you know where you have to go to to do what you gotta do, that's 100% a true statement.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 51:42

So that's where I'm going with this, is I think there's a connection between what happened to you in Tijuana, or what happened to you when you played football, what happens to us when we do the process in fighter aviation, when we plan brief, high security debrief and do it again, we get better all the time. We're always seeking that moment. We want to go back to it. And and I uh I don't know if you guys have seen the movie F1 with uh what's his name, famous actor. Brad Pitt, thanks. Um but the whole purpose of the movie is to get back to a flow state, right? That's what he's trying to do. And I think that's uh guys like us, when we experience that high flow activity in our past, we want to get back to it. And then sometimes we get derailed and we go towards the the drugs, illicit drugs, the alcohol, and things like that. There's another path, and that path is to recover, and that's the path I believe Robert and Slider are on. And that's what I'm suggesting here is if you're gonna sit down with executives of the football team of the front office and go, what does this look like? It looks like what you already experienced, but at scale, right? How do we help people recover after their head's been battered around a few hundred times in a game of football, maybe a thousand times? So that's Moose, I want to bring you into this conversation. Can you kind of, from your perspective, uh kind of wrap up what we're what we've been talking about?

Mark "Moose" McGrath 52:50

Yeah, so much resonates with me, you know, especially growing up in the city of Pittsburgh. I know so many friends that were football players that constantly are having issues with brain fog and bell ringing and everything. And these sorts of therapies are never being talked about. And I think what Robert's really coloring in the whole entire time is like there's a massive reorientation going on in lots of different areas and football's no different. I think that that kind of I think that reorientation, like its best days are are yet ahead of us because there are so many success stories, and it does seem right now that the climate and the environment is just right. I think a lot of people are very skeptical of the of the uh of the conventional methods that they've had up to now. Um, you know, like Slider was talking about being stuck on Atavan and trying to get off that, you know. I mean, I think that there's a lot of people that can resonate and relate to those things. These things were given to us by nature, and there they are. That's the beauty of it all, too.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 53:45

So, Robert, I want to turn it over to you and just kind of see if you have any questions to us about what we do or how we can help you out or if there's anything that you want to share with our audience.

Integration Tools And Finding Flow Again

Robert Gallery 53:53

Yeah, no, I I think like like all of us, right? I uh, you know, I'm not, you know, this is you know a nonprofit, you know. I started athletes for care to help people, right? But at the end of the day, it takes, you know, it takes money to to do these things, you know. So, you know, if we're looking for people to support that that believe in the mission, that like everybody else, right? So, you know, just your audience and and anyone else, it's not necessarily just supporting us, it's supporting this movement. That's that's why I was a part of the Texas Ibegain initiative. That's you know, why Slider and I talk uh very regularly about you know, athletes we're sending down to what we can do. This is all for the movement for everyone to rise. And so, you know, just these conversations we have, and and for me, you know, it's a a little bit selfish. And by that I mean, right, I lost that community just like you guys did. But athletes, you know, myself specifically and numerous other athletes, I would say the vast majority of athletes, right, they they have so much respect and admiration for veterans, right? And I think it goes both ways. I think I've learned with you know my group of veterans' friends, there's that admiration that goes both ways. And the fact that uh we can share our experiences, uh, a draw from each other uh in two very different things, right? And it was, you know, it was a veteran that told me, you know, grabbed me by the shirt and said, You need to shut up about just being a football player because I was having some imposter syndrome and and it was down at my, you know, down at my first treatment because I'm like, I'm just a fucking football player, right? And I kept saying that, and he grabbed me and said, You need to shut up about that. We're the we're the same, we have the same mindset, we do the same thing. Yes, I had to, you know, kill people or do do these things, right? But the mindset and how we uh approach things, right? So that it took that for me to to really feel a part of the community and and to realize, hey, there's that it is trauma. At the end of the day, it's trauma and it's it's injuries, right? My my TBI, right, probably right, and it's also probably a little bit naive on both sides because my uh my wife said one time, well, how how do how do these military guys have as much TBI as you do? You're hitting, you know, every single day of the week in a helmet in practice, not just games. You are thousands and thousands of times you're banging your head against another grown man with this plastic thing on your head. And for her, I was like, well, you know, she didn't understand either, like the the military, you know, even as simple as the the rounds, right, that all you guys shoot, or being in the plane, all these things, right? So it's the educational part of it. We're all very, very similar. And so bringing these communities together and doing as an athlete what the veterans have done, right, what you guys have done, uh, to talk about it within your community, that's what I I strive for in our community.

unknown 56:44

Right.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 56:45

I appreciate that. Are you heading back down to uh do this again anytime soon? Or you talk about this the way I talk about it. It's it's not fun, right? Being semi-paralyzed and experiencing this this type of thing. It's not a weekend experience that you want to go rave about and be excited about. But are you planning to do this again? Because I don't want to do it again, to be honest with you.

Robert Gallery 57:04

You know, as of right now, you know, I I'm with you. I, you know, I went that second time in 23. I was scared when I showed up in 23 that I didn't want to regress. So I booked before we even started in 2023. I said, hey, put me on the books for the next year. It was uh myself and a couple of the originals that were in our original group. So I went back in 24, right? But I was there for the first time for growth uh and not for survival. And and that that experience showed me, hey, you're done, right? Like that I was literally in my experience, told me I'd taken it far enough. So never say never, right? If I if I need it and feel a calling for it, but as of right now, I've got so many tools in my toolbox. I feel great, but you know, like you, I'm not it makes me nervous just even talking about it. Just I was with Marcus Luttrell. We went down and visited uh their family here last month, and we had this exact conversation. Man, it makes my stomach curl just even talking about going back down there. Well, let's take a moment to talk about scary.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 58:00

Let's take a moment to explain what's actually happening out there because we've got a slider down there. But can you, Robert, can you explain what goes on and those hours of uh I began?

Robert Gallery 58:09

Yeah, I think I think it's you know, until you've gone through it, you don't truly understand it. But for for me, a guy who had never done any psychedelics, right? It was right, being out of control was the first thing, right? These feelings in my body, the medicine interacting. But then when you get into it, right, it was seeing the you know, this movie playing for me, going through floating through space, this movie, this old movie of my life and all the things going on. And it's I I think it's lack of control, right? You know, you know, like Slider, right? He's in that in that aircraft, right? You were in control. You control where it goes with your movements and what you do. When you're on Ibegain, it it's doing what it's in control, right? It may not, oh, I don't want to feel this way, or I don't, I don't want to revisit this. Well, you're gonna, right? And so I think the lack of control for me was hard. And then just what it does to you physically, right? It was the you know, seeing these things hour after hour and to trying to figure out what they were. And and then to me, just the work it was doing on your brain coming out of it, and just the the tingling in in my brain of like, man, something was going on like there's ants or something up there doing work, right? Even days afterwards. So that that whole experience, you know, it's very hard to talk about and to really articulate what it's like, but it's you know, it's uh, you know, a ton of therapy and a ton of healing in in this 10-hour stint where you're melted to the floor.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 59:25

Yeah. Well, Slider's about to be introduced to a group that's coming in down there. So he has another week. And can you describe one more time, Slider? I know you you said this on the show before, but can you describe what it's like to go through this week with veterans?

What Ibogaine Feels Like Up Close

Mark "Slider" Keller 59:37

Yeah. Um, you know, I'm about to about to catch a few of them here right now, Vets group, as a matter of fact. Yeah, these guys come slogging in the door. Uh they're either, you know, anxiety ridden or or they have a flat affect. You know, it's what seems to be one or the other. Uh maybe some guys come in and they're you know over your overly jovial, trying to cover up how they really feel and all that stuff. Uh, but I'll tell you the the best thing about this, and this is why I love doing this work, is after the Ibogaine treatment, after the 5 MeO DMT treatment, which I I think is very important for most guys, um it's all rainbows and kittens coming out the door. Uh I can't tell you how many guys have looked at me, including last week. Uh, you know, a guy on Friday looked at me and said, if if this didn't work, I was gonna kill myself. I I've heard it more times than I can count now. Uh I can only wonder how many times guys didn't say it. We are definitely saving lives here. And, you know, I understand that our existing system in the U.S. needs the the hard science to back it because they just can't seem to accept the safety and efficacy that's encoded in cultural traditions. But yeah, we got to get this this to people. So, you know, guys like Robert got and you know, the compones are what they're doing is so important to our species.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 1:01:01

Well, hey, I I think that's a great place to wrap this up. Robert uh gallery, thank you so much for joining us today. We're gonna keep you on for a minute after we stop recording slider. Man, good seeing you. We'll be talking to you soon. Uh Luce, thanks for being here. Uh Robert, last uh thoughts from you before we sign off?

Robert Gallery 1:01:15

Yeah, just just you know, like everybody else, uh appreciate you having me on, uh, everybody else that's helping push this forward. Yeah, check out uh, you know, our website, athletesforcare.org, um, help support in whatever way, or send it to a friend that that needs help. And we're trying to build this thing to, like you said, just help help those guys like Slider gets to see every day. We're working on a group of athletes that uh that I'm gonna hopefully be sending down to him here pretty soon and just get more and more people healed.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 1:01:42

Thanks again for your time today, and uh we'll we'll knock it off there.

Robert Gallery 1:01:45

Thank you. Thanks, guys.