The PTSD Cure Veterans Can’t Get

can what can touch me? You know, little by little, the trauma those ignoring started manifesting in my life in a lot of pretty bad ways. Alcoholism, impression, anxiety, engaging, and risky behavior. Is an urgent need for new alternative approaches to therapy, and significant promise has been shown with

drugs as ancients as they are controversial. After a little while, almost hallucinated this hand just like stripping me out of that of the hell zone and immediately plopping me down into the serene sort of just like mound, And I was like, whoa what was that? That's and and the fact that you had a place you could go in your brain but you didn't know it was there, like that was and there there's a lot of places to Yeah, closed that door permanently. Yeah, I'm Greg Glad and this

is the War on Drugs. Well, man, Greg, how you doing today? I'm great, Clay, And how are you doing? I'm great man. You know, we're gonna be doing something special for you know, this episode actually the next episode. Like we thought we were gonna do an episode on kind of mental health or on drugs, psychedelics their impacts, and we started just digging in and it just wasn't too big. Yeah, it can't fit, can't fit in the bag. Yeah, yeah, we need a bigger back. Yeah. Two yeah, definitely. Yeah.

So we're doing two parts kind of talking about you know, personal experiences with UM, you know, combat veterans and their experiences with PTSD, and you know, treatments like psychedelics with ayahuasca, you know the efficacy of these and how much better results you're getting, you know, without having you know, just being pumped with a bunch of pills that which is like our only way that we know how to treat

you know, these types of mental mental health issues. So UM and then kind of getting more into the science of this, like why does it work? And then the impediments like why aren't we what's the problems with research, how do we do this? And you know, always goes back to just like this arbitrary enforcement of certain substances over others and why um and so I'm super super excited to dive into all this. Yeah, me too. I see why we had to split it into two. You know,

it's a lot to talk about. And I think the veterans they just you know, uh, we ask so much out of them and then when they come back, the way they get treated as far as you know, for whether it's healthcare and mental health or anything, I think is you know, it's shameful sometimes, you know. And yeah, and this is all the stuff I'm interested in. I got so many questions about Hiawaska. Yeah, yeah, I mean I kind of want to explore it, but I'm also scared of it. And you know, maybe that fear is

is I just don't know stuff or anything. Would you ever would you ever take the Hiawaska trip? Because I've heard these stories and they just sound terrible. It doesn't sound fun, Yeah, but it sounds impactful in your life, Like I would definitely be interesting. Like that's some of the stuff I'm just gonna ask about, maybe for my own charress. I'm sure listeners have the same kind of questions, like what what is actually happening? Like where do you go?

Like how do you know you're not going to be just grifted down when you go to Peru and some guys just gonna drop you off on a bus with thing and yeah, so like how do you ye? Yeah, like I just I don't want to go there, and I get roofy and up the Hiawaska trip. They stole my pants for yea. This is terrible. Well, definitely a lesson you'll learn, yeah, the other I guess yeah, yeah, anything they can kind of reveal some of yourself to you and preconceptions what you think, and that's what I think.

This this, This is what I hope for this episode, these two episodes, is that you know, we show people what think, what you think this is versus what it really is. And I'm coming to it with my own, you know, preconceived notions about stuff. So exactly A you're going to learn, Well, I got the guy for you. This is someone that has kind of like talked to talk, walk the walk, and a wide variety of different areas.

Jesse Gould. He's an army ranger veteran, and Jesse's also the founder and president of the Heroic Hearts Project, which is a nonprofit that's really pioneering psychedelic therapies for military veterans. So a lot of what's happened with the War on Drugs is really suppressed a lot of potential medications, therapist treatments,

and just research. And Jesse's you know, organization one of the ones really seeing the you know, amazing potential benefits psychedelics could have, you know, for treating and curing PTSD, particularly in veterans who have you know, and extremely in sobering, high depression and suicide rate. Yeah, I don't want to step on it because this is just an episode for pretty much everyone, and I think it's going to impact them. So let's let's shut my mouth and let Jesse start talking.

I can't wait for you all to hear this episode. Let's go to Jesse Gould. Jesse, welcome to the War on Drugs. Honor to have you here. I am immensely interested in this issue. I've heard amazing anecdotes about the efficacy of of ayahuasca therapy UM and you know, particularly with you know, this population of veterans coming back. You know, current therapies and treatments, either from the VA or others

are it's just absolutely failing this population. So really excited to talk about this and dive on into your story. So thanks for having us, Thank you for coming on. Yeah well yeah the Greg and Clayton. Pleasure to meet you. Thanks for having me on and giving this the Voice of platform. So looking forward to this conversation where you

both yeah and Jesse. You know, our our audience won't be able to see you, but I don't think you're the you know who people think about like selling all their possessions and moving down to you know, South America and doing ayahuasca. You know, yeah, he does it. He looks like, you know, he took a shower today, he doesn't, you know what I mean. You've seen fish less than four times? Yeah, yeah, yeah, your your story is amazing.

Let's just get into the story. Yeah. Well, I first want to confirm my did take shower this morning, mostly due to my wife. So you know, um, yeah, I mean you look like yeah, my story it's actually all too common for veterans where I was an army ranger, like you said, I was a non commissioned officer, so in charge of now anywhere from ten to twenty junior rangers overseas combat situations. M And when I got out of the military, generally speaking, I was ready to hit

the ground running. I had this background in economics, I just have you know this experiences rangers like what can what can touch me? What can stop me? Right? And so I was excited found a job in finance, kind of was starting to hit all the green check marks of what my life should be without really checking in on how I felt about it. And you know, little by little, the the trauma that I was ignoring that was really good at compartmentalizing just started manifesting in my

life in a lot of pretty bad ways. So, like I said, it's it's it's all an all two common veteran story of you know, alcoholism, depression, and anxiety completely just ignoring your situation, engaging in risky behaviors just for kind of lack of concern of your own life, bad relationships. I could go down the whole list, and there are a lot of veterans gonna be like, yep, have that one, and have that one. Fortunately I'm pretty lucky where I

noticed the red flags. I was coming into work completely hungover because I was still able to like do the work. Well. I think it just kind of perpetuated it. But it was just like I would wake up with like, you know, having fallen over a busted hand or something, just really stupid stuff that I was just like what are you doing? Like, like how's this is not sustainable? And so I went to the VA. Unfortunately, in the VA, you know, it's

it's overwhelmed. But then also like their main go to is put you on medication, to the point where like even the veterans I work with today, it's not uncommon for them to have a laundry list of ten different medications that they have to take on a pretty regular basis, which is pretty ridiculous, you know. So I was in that same situation of it was just sort of like, hey,

you're going through this, how about this medication? Without really understanding what was going on, without any real track to like overcome this stuff. It was just more of like, hey, you can maintain it and be functional, but you're not going to be great. And I just kind of walked away of like what's going on? Like even the professionals don't seem to have a handle on this and it

has to be more than this. Like I think it was just had my personality of I'm not I'm not going to just struggle with this the rest of my life. I'm not just going to maintain like I have to face it full off head on, and I didn't really

know how to do that. Around that time, heard about ayahuasca through the podcast, through the magic of auditory media, and kind of came in as anybody else probably here would have like, oh psychedelics, Yeah, that's that's really going to help without doing more drugs is the key to success, right, That's that's the story we always hear um. But I was just at such a bad and low and lower spot that I decided to give it a shot. Was I did that reflection in my life of like, all right,

well this isn't worth preserving, this isn't worth preserving. My job, like it was interesting at first, but it was just really became that corporate job where you just like looking at the clock and like, what am I doing here? Saved the company fifty cents today? Awesome? Good job for me? Right, And so it was just like all right, well, nothing's going nothing's worth saving here. I'm just getting more and more depressed and downhill. There's something in the Amazon, there's

something in the jungle. Let's let's give it a shot. So I'm not a stranger to just making big decisions and so, like you know, I'm packed up my stuff and bought a one way ticket just because I knew the script need to be changed. I knew there's nothing worth preserving in that life I had created in Tampa. I want to get back to a little bit because

you talked about some of the experiences with ayahuasca. Can you be just kind of talk us through what that was from your personal experience, I mean, as as you know, as detail as you as you feel comfortable with on what you experience, what realizations you felt you had, how it's helped you personally, and then kind of just moving

from there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, always happy too, And I always want to emphasize to anybody who's like listening for them not to focus too much on other people's like trip reports and stuff, just because the interesting thing about these experiences, this is very unique. You know, my experience is going to be different than somebody else's. Mind can be extremely hard somebody else can be very easy or beautiful.

And that's kind of the reason we think it works is because it's not a one size fits all solution. But yeah, I mean, my going that that disclaimer aside, my experience was it was all out warm. I had never done psychedelics before. I had no interest in doing psychedelics before. I hadn't even smoke we before. It was

just from like a drank a lot. But it was just from zero to like, let's find the toughest psychedelic out there, kind of going into that dumb ranger mentality, and you had no gateway drunk, you just barrel through the door, Yeah, through a smoke grenade. And so, I mean it was exactly as you would expect in that situation where I was like, what the hell's going on? Like why did I do this to myself? And it was just so overwhelming and hard to control. And this

over the course of the week, there's four ceremonies. They tend to like build upon each each night, and so like the first two ceremonies were just the most discomfort and fear and whatever, you know, things that you don't want to experience all compact into these two nights, and especially with ayahuasca, has a purging aspect, which generally takes the form of a puking can take other forms as well, But I was just NonStop puking in my bucket all night,

like and just in this crazy sort of psychedelic, chaotic state that's hard to relate to anybody else unless they've been there, and you know, the whole time, you're like, what's wrong, Like, am I having the fears come up? So it took me some time, you know, just kind of that strong headed of like I'm not gonna with us, I'm not going to surrender, and you know, I just I had to learn that lesson the hard way. And so then in the third ceremony it started off and

it was just even worse than a second. I didn't think that was possible, and I was, you know, like afraid.

But after a little while, I almost envisioned or hallucinated this hand just like ripping me out of that of the of the hell zone and immediately plopping me down into like the serene sort of just like lounge where even physiologically I I state transformed from being sweaty, uh, not being able to sit still, like just completely suffocating and overwhelmed to instantly calm, like heart rate down, feeling a cool breeze, slat sweat gone away, and I was like, whoa,

what was that? That's and the fact that you had a place you could go in your brain but you didn't know it was there, like that was, and there's there's a lot of places I didn't know was there and I don't want to go. Yeah, yeah, you didn't know it was a cool place to go. I got some other stuff out of the closet that was fall number. We'll keep some of the other stuff there. Yeah, we have a few bills to peg, so we're gonna go

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how you can partner to stand together. Go to Stand Together dot org. You almost highlighted how the cure works are how it untangles your brain like things that you'd you And of course everybody asked about what's the trip like, what's the trip like? And that's what I was thinking at first, but you put it into in the terms of its individual nobody's going to be the same and whatever you need to work out is what you need

to work out, and so somebody else might pull something different. Yeah. Absolutely, And it's been interesting because you know, our core mission is help the veterans on the ground. There there's for people who don't know, it's anywhere from seventeen sometimes people throughout the number twenty two. Sometimes there's bigger numbers of veterans that commit suicide a day, so there's just absolute need.

Our wait list right now is over a thousand veterans that have reached out to us to go seek psychedelics. And we're a small nonprofit, so that that number should shock every single person that we're not a VA institution. Where we're outside of this of the manifestation of the problem that has been caused by that. And that's part of the reason I've founded her own carts project, just because I had some you know, I felt I could

handle myself, but I don't. I don't want other people just like, oh he said this, let's go to Peru and figure it out. That's that's a recipe for disaster for anybody you know and you know anybody else that's like listening to this again, I want to caution you know with this, it's not just this magic thing of like, hey, I'm gonna take psychedelics and Jesse said that I'm going to be better. No, b B, be cautious if you if you want to do it, you know, you're the

you're the master of your own domain. But if you want to actually do these in an effective way for treatment and for trauma for therapy, what we say is you would really want to do an intention base so one that takes a lot of preparation. That's kind of what we designed in our program. There's lead up, there's um, you know, dietary sort of restrictions, there's getting your mind in that right sense. I didn't have any of this,

and that's why I started building it. UM. Now, what we do in terms of the centers we use, we do so full on vetting, so even to the point of sitting in ceremony where we see how they hold themselves, hold the space around it, what the what the safety precautions are, what's the schedule look like? What what's support do they have before and afterwards? This? If you're going to do this, this is a serious process, especially for people of trauma. It's not, like I said, just as

like poof, it's gone. Like it can be a very challenging experience. You can bring up a lot. So you want to make sure what where you're going is safe. You want to make sure that they have support mechanisms in place. Can you briefly talk about some of like how the long term effects? How you felt? You know immediately you know there's week's following and then you know, you know months years after, Um, do you need like a tune up sometimes like how does that all work? Yeah?

Absolutely so, I mean immediately afterwards of like what the hell? And again you know, like really wasn't a support system design it? Because it is you know, like it's it's hard for for that to happen. So all these things were kind of factoring into my brain which would later form pro Carts project. But at that time I was just like wow, Like one, it was just that wasn't what people told me what the psychedelics would be like.

That was cool, but that wasn't enjoyable, and that wasn't like a good well, I mean it was good in terms of the help, but too, like my brain felt different. I felt different. I just felt more in charge of who I was and in control without whatever that was affecting me almost you know, the demons that were like driving me to do bad decisions. So for the first time, I felt like really aligned and empowered of my choices

and what I was going to do. And so I started formulating this and like this is something I was missing and I want to bring to other veterans as well as just let them know, like hey, if you've tried everything else, maybe this this should be on your radar.

And no, no, no pressure. There's there's a great window after psychedelics where one you do get those downloads, there does seem to be the lasting benefits where like I said, you kind of have a better understanding of your negative patterns and some of these sort of holes and pits we fall into, and maybe with that understanding be able to like sidestep them a little bit. But beyond that too, you have to be diligent about incorporating positive life habits

while you have that motivation. Because most people feel great, we call the honeymoon period, and it's a perfect time to incorporate meditation, incorporate yoga, go for nature walks, you know, set up good systems with your spouse. If you don't do that, if you just go right back to your old habits, you're probably going to go over right back to your old habits and right back to your old traumas, right, And so there's that part of it, that's that continual

sort of process. Let's get into the hero Kards project. I want to I want to hear about this. So actually, how does this all work? You know, just kind of core goals and mission and you know, just kind of epicacy of everything. So, yeah, about the program. So for people who don't kind of follow illegal drugs, which is a very common thing to do unless you're a little bit suspect. Psychedelics as well as cannabis and M duma.

They're all Schedule one substances in the US in many other countries, which means according to that law, they have no medicinal value and they're extremely addictive, which is factually wrong on all sides with all those substances, but they're caught in that Schedule one because it's impossible to prove that they are not the way the laws work. But anyway, so we do about four to six weeks of preparation,

so really getting the person in that mind frame. They get one on one coaching, we do groups coaching, we do breathwork, mindfulness. They have connections to people who do yoga within the network, so leading up to that, they're starting to do better things for themselves, but they're also forming their intentions of why they're going and kind of focusing in words of doing this and then the aftercare

follow up coaching. More Group Zoom calls being in the network in general of supporting of people that understand where they've been and are actually wanted to talk about. And so we just connect people and just try to figure out what they're struggling from, kind of getting out of this dogmatic like you have PTSD here you go of what was your trauma? How are you feeling now? What have you gone through? What other things can we connect

you to? And that's the beauty of There's a lot of other great veteran organizations like one called Where Your Angel Foundation that does hormone replacement therapy for veterans with head trauma. And so if that if the veterans have head trauma, then they can go through that as well as our program or some other psychedelics like Iby Game that have been shown to be more effective with that. So again looking at somebody like a complex person that they are and not just this one size fits all.

I just wanted to say, appreciate your service and appreciate what you're doing for the well that have been in the service. And you know, the veterans listening is suffering from depression of PTSD. What's the best way they can find you in the Heroic Hearts Project. So for those that you know are suffering, we always say like hold on, like we are finally getting good solutions. Good resolutions, you know, suicides and never the answer. People do want you around.

So there's suicide hotlines. Always check those out, um and just hold on if they're looking for this or just more information about psychedelics, and they can come to our website herocarts Project dot org. We're on all major social media's mostly Instagram hero Carts Project. If you just you know, search that reach out um and you know if you're if you're interested, we have a veteran application beyond that

for people who just want to support. It is a nonprofit, so the only way we're able to send veterans is through donations. Each veteran costs about four thousand to send. Like I said, we have an endless list. This is a community again, a community event. We all need to work together. It's not just myself or my team. We all need to take responsibility for not only veterans, but other people in our community that are really suffering. That's great.

We'll put a linkum a description for vets and people want to help and support Jesse's cause because I think this is absolutely worth it. This is amazing work. Absolutely yeah, seriously, but no, Jesse, thank you man, a lot of great insight. Really appreciate it. Amazing, Yeah, thanks Jesse, Thank you guys. Clayton wasn't cheap to get so we had to cut a couple of commercials. We'll be right back. Somebody got to pay me, all right, Greg. I got a story and I don't know how to call it. I think

I think this is psychedelic ginger vacation. That's about the best I could put it. Um, it sounds like my nickname. That's that's a good that's a good album title. Once again coming up with some good album titles on this podcast. Man, Hey, if you need an album title, reach out to clayton Ning is our Greg Glood at the World Drugs Podcast. We own this one now we will sell it. Thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it works something out. Um. Yeah, I came across this story.

Learned a lot with this story. Apparently where the whole magic mushrooms thing came from. The origin story. Yeah, there's a lady Maria Sabina in the heels of Wahakka and she was like the mushroom Guru. She was healing people with the mushrooms. She were convinced that the mushrooms were from God for healing, and it was it was just you would hold these ceremonies and see people through whatever

trouble they might have, whatever needed to. She would have visions and the visions would tell her what was required to heal the person. And it was beautiful from what I hear. You know that the local church, he was a part of her church. It wasn't It wasn't like it was a separate thing. It was part of it. It was a religious thing for these people. And in fifty five, the vice president of JP Morgan goes down

there and he wants to try some mushrooms. Seem to have the best drugs, so well, you know, leave it to the wealthy people to seek out new and exotic drugs. So he was the vice president of JP Morgan, so apparently had an affinity for mushrooms and things of that nature, and went down here and sought Maria out. And I believe at first Maria didn't want to take him because there was nothing wrong with him. There was nothing to heal. So really it was just like strictly healing, like someone

has to be. It served a purpose, it was. It was for helping those people. And she was kind of like the guru that took you, and I guess it took some convincing and eventually she did, and you know, I guess they spend some time down there and they came back with their findings to the States and it sparked a boom that sent everybody and they MoMA down to this little last town in Wahaka and basically upset the whole ecosystem of this town. Like the word gets

out and then yeah, it's overrun by hippies. Here come yeah, here come the hippies come America. Yeah, and through your little thing up. Yeah. And um the guy, the guy from JP Morgan Wasson is his last name. He actually comes back several times and actually gets funded to go down there through a shell company of the CIA, because of course they're looking at LSD at that time for their mk Ultra program. So yeah, so they fund Wasson

going down there. Did he know about it? No, he didn't know that it was funded about because a lot I was gonna say a lot of the times they essentially just used people as yeah, yeah, they act research company or something like that. That's crazy. Yeah, And it just uh yeah kind of tore up this town and ruined these people in their city. And what happened to the woman They can't be too happy with her. No. Actually, like in Wahaka, I feel they message no, no, they

really kind of turned on her. Man. The publicity was, you know, terrible. The community blamed her for bringing, you know, the foreigners to the village, everything being defiled, the sacredness of the mushrooms and the ritual. You know, the tourists were having bad trips, running around naked, and you know, it got to the point where they eventually burned her house. That wow, they burned her house. Yeah. And and and to think where she went from where she was, she

was loved in the community. She was a healer. They respected her, and they loved her, and they loved what she was doing. And the one time she decides to give the mushrooms to someone who doesn't need to be healed, opened up this whole can of worms. I think she was even quoted as saying, like the mushrooms, I believe she might have called them the sacred children or something, don't have any more power like they had. It's harder because of her. Yeah, And I know that's kind of

what happens with a lot of these drugs. It feels like where they have these amazing, like actual like benefits. Yea, you know, they use them in you know Jesse obviously, like you know, curing PTSD, people used doing for marriage counsel for all this stuff like you know, ecstasy, MDMA, like they have these great benefits. Then it kind of gets out in the world, some people abuse it and then it goes completely banned, and it's like, yeah, and you know, that's kind of what I liked about Jesse

was doing too. It becomes like a part of a healing aspect. He's bringing people down that have PTSD, they're going through the ritual, you know, and so it's it's it's a whole thing, and you know, he's doing it the right way. He's showing people incredible things. I think about the amount of drugs and therapy and treatment that have failed people, it's amazing. We can't just balance that. It's just so frustrating our laws and our drug war.

UM disallows that. Well regardless, you know, I'm Maria Sabina stand here, Um I she you know what she was talking without healing, you know, medically, I don't know if there's certain ailments, but like from a mental health standpoint, you know, she was onto something with what she was doing, regardless of how she got there. And you know, um, you know, the religious aspects of it. Yeah. She you know,

she was definitely onto something with it. Yeah. Yeah. And to see you know, people kind of coming back around to that, you know, because I just towards the end of her life, I can imagine how she felt feeling responsible for, you know, just her place in her community being destroyed and also the community as a whole getting kind of desecrated and defiled. So yeah, Maria, you you were onto something. I think it's still a little bit magic in there, you know. I think I think the

children are still out. Yeah. Make sure you follow the War on Drugs podcast so you don't miss any new episodes or any of our quick fixed bonus content, and we'll be back next week with another episode of War on Drugs. Until then, thank you for listening. Executive producers for War on Drugs are Jason Flam and Kevin Wordis. Senior producer is Michael Epstein, Editing by Nick Massetti and Michael Epstein, Associate producer and mix and mastering by Nick Massetti.

Additional production by Jeff Clivern and Anna mcinteam. We should have followed the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Lava for Good. You could follow Greg on Twitter at Greg Glode. You could follow Clayton English on Instagram at Clayton English. The War on Drugs is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one. I'm your host, Clayton English, and I'm Greg Glode, and thanks for listening to the War on Drugs podcast m