Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #124 Daniel Carcillo

Episode Date: November 11, 2019

Daniel Carcillo is a Canadian former professional Chicago Black Hawks ice hockey left winger. He is a two time Stanley Cup champion and his on-ice reputation led to him being nicknamed "Car Bomb". On this episode we discuss more than just his upbringing and the game of Hockey. Daniel gives us a glimpse into the real issues regarding the leagues neglect for dealing with head trauma and how plant medicines have helped improve his brain function. You don't want to miss this one.   Connect with Daniel| Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/danielcarcillo13/?hl=en Twitter | https://twitter.com/carbombboom13 Chapter 5 foundation | http://www.chapter5foundation.com/   Show Notes Steve Montador | http://bit.ly/2o8y572 NHL Concussion Settlement | http://bit.ly/2o0f86L How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan | https://amzn.to/2o10Wue Fantastic Fungi | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxABOiay6oA The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide by Jim Fadiman | https://amzn.to/2oRP25C NFL Cannabis Study | http://bit.ly/2oKvbpg Tripping Over The Truth by Travis Cristofferson | https://amzn.to/2pDm5uF Curable by Travis Christofferson | https://amzn.to/2oM9eGk Lou Malnatis | https://www.loumalnatis.com/   Show Sponsors Waayb CBD www.waayb.com (Get 10% off using code word Kyle at checkout)   Onnit - Tech Apparel Get 10% off all foods and supplements at Onnit by going to  https://www.onnit.com/kyle/   Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on: Website | https://www.kingsbu.com/ ( Supplement List & Newsletter) Twitter | https://bit.ly/2DrhtKn Instagram | https://bit.ly/2DxeDrk Get 10% off at Onnit by going to https://www.onnit.com/podcast/   Subscribe to Kyle Kingsbury Podcast iTunes | https://apple.co/2P0GEJu Stitcher | https://bit.ly/2DzUSyp Spotify | https://spoti.fi/2ybfVTY  

Hello, friends. Today's guest is my good friend, somebody who I've spent, I don't know, maybe 48 hours with, and I can say is definitely a brother of mine. Daniel Carcillo, the car bomb himself, came on the show. He flew himself out from Chicago. He stayed at my house. We went super deep for about five hours in the evening after eating a nice meal that Tosh prepped for us. And I got to find out all sorts of cool shit about this guy. And we dropped in for a killer podcast, which, I mean, to be perfectly honest, we could have recorded the whole fucking conversation we had at the house for five hours. And it would have been insanely awesome.

I try to distill a lot of those nuggets into what he's gleaned from his journey post-NHL experience and everything that he's into now. And one of the cool things that we talk about on this show is his work with a company called Decriminalize Nature. And they're working to decriminalize all things nature, all psychoactive plants and plant medicines that are found in nature, from peyote to wachuma to ayahuasca to iboga to psilocybin mushrooms. And first, we heard about Denver decriminalizing psilocybin mushrooms. Obviously, that's a big place, but they weren't one of the first to make cannabis recreational. And so not that far out in the woods to see that happen there. Oakland became, I think, the first big city to decriminalize all plant medicines. And what's cool is companies like Decriminalize Nature, organizations rather, are working actively to help other major cities. And

Dan has been a big part of that movement in Chicago. And it looks like right now, it's going to go through. So keep your fingers crossed. Chicago will be the largest city in North America to decriminalize all plant medicines. But we dive into that and so much more on the podcast. Remember to support us by leaving us a review, click subscribe, that way you don't miss an episode and for sure help us out by digging into some of our sponsors. Wave is absolutely one of my favorite CBD products I've ever taken. They have one of the best tasting flavors that I've ever had is the cinnamon flavor. It's a 100% organic USDA certified organic farm. They use a hundred percent CO2 extraction. That means no nasty additives or

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Check them out at onnit.com slash Kyle for 10% off. And remember, if you hit up kingsboo.com and leave me your email address, you're going to see literally every supplement I take. And don't worry, I'm not just a homer putting out only Onnit supplements on there. I show you the Onnit supplements that I take most consistently for cognitive function and pre-workout and sleep. And of course, I include everything else, some of which are in the legal gray area. So you can get all that cool information by leaving me your email. I'm not going to bombard you with a ton of emails. You'll get one monthly newsletter after the welcome letter, which is going to let you know which guests I have coming up on the show,

what cool wisdom and information I've gleaned from the guests, and anything that I find to be fascinating from the books that I'm reading to the different protocols that I'm trying out right now. So get that all at kingsboo.com. Thank you guys for tuning into the show. And I know this is going to be a good one. Check out my boy, Daniel Carcillo. All right. We've been clapped in. I'm fucking very excited. It's a really cool thing. I'm positive that I watched you in the Stanley Cup final. And I would say, if I'm being perfectly honest, I'm a casual fan of hockey. I like watching, I don't have like a favorite team,

even though I'm from San Jose and I've fought at the Shark Tank. You know, but I follow the guys, I'm buddies with a few. And, you know, we talked about sharing some experiences with Colin Wilson and a lot of, I got a lot of love for the game. But it was only when a friend told me everything that you're into now where I was like, holy shit, I have to get him on the podcast. This is phenomenal.

And it's cool how those, you know, how small the world is. We really realized that there's only a few degrees of separation from anybody. But we got you here. You came in last night doing some work with your business partner. And then we had dinner and got to talking for about four hours and went pretty deep. We should have had a fucking mic set up for the dinner conversation. No doubt. Well, let's jump in. We got a lot to cover. One thing I always like to do is just get background. So talk about life growing up. You grew up in Toronto. Yeah, I grew up in a small town, King City, Ontario.

About when I was growing up there, 10,000 people. It's now exploded to 30,000. But very, very small community. Everybody knew each other. Never lock your back doors, never lock your car. And everything revolved around the hockey rink. So from a very young age, if you weren't playing hockey, you weren't like you weren't a cool kid. You weren't in the in crowd, so to speak. And from a very young age, I rink and just unload all of that stuff. And hockey was, it's probably like the best anger management, you know, Theo Fleury talks about it a lot. And you can, you can really get a lot out on the ice. And what I was really attracted to, I think is

now in doing all of this research, understanding that flow state. And, you know, when you're playing hockey and you're so singularly focused, everything just, all the exterior stuff just disappears. So I really love that aspect of it. And then obviously growing up in it, the more camaraderie that I had with teammates and how connected we were and singularly focused on doing that, doing something, executing something, that same goal was really attractive to me. And I was never a kid that was like, I'm going to make the NHL. And so I have other interests in life, for sure. But that's, I don't know, my higher power just chose me to do that.

And a lot of really amazing things have happened in my life. And I have everything because of, you know, because of hockey, because of this game. But there's been a lot of suffering too. And it's brought me to a point of trying to heal myself the last three and a half, almost four years. Spiritually, mentally four years, spiritually, mentally, physically, you know, and I think that's, you know, obviously why our paths crossed. Yeah, that's it. I mean, that when you think of total human optimization, which is on its tagline, like, that encompasses all the things, you know, it's not just the physical, it's not just about fitness. Yeah, it's funny, you know, when you're talking about some of the childhood stuff kind of

lights that fire, you know, and it's not, I don't want to paint with a broad brush and say that anybody who fights in the NHL or fights in MMA had it tough growing up, but I would say that probably the majority did, you know, probably the majority had something that lit that spark inside. And it's, it's a really cool thing to see if you learn how to funnel it and then you get other tools after hockey but let's let's talk about some of the i mean there's no doubt you've you've been outspoken about the nhl's treatments of players and the issue around concussions and so we're going to get into that i want want to talk about the medical history of your career, what it's done, the place it puts you in, some of your friends that are no longer here, and then we know, I kind of touched upon it at the house this morning, but, uh, you know, when I left the game, uh, physically I was in a pretty bad place, uh, mentally a much darker place. Um, and, uh, basically in, in doing treatment, um, you have

to prove that it's not a preexisting condition. So what I did was I went to a chiropractor who just basically did a whole body scan, x-rays and CT scans of my whole body and handed me a booklet saying, all right, you got two horizontal tears and you're in both ankles, arthritis in the ankles. I've had my ACL done on my left knee, my MCL done four times, no PCL on my right knee, my MCL done five times on my right knee, arthritis in both knees, orthoscopic hip surgery on my left hip, had my abdomen stapled back to my pelvis. I have no labrum in my left shoulder, arthritis in both hips, arthritis in my left shoulder, arthritis in discs in my neck, numerous tears, and seven diagnosed concussions, two broken noses and three lost teeth.

And I've mentioned it before, you sign up for that. I think you know that when you're playing such a physical game at such a competitive level that there is going to be some physical ailments. What almost killed me were those seven diagnosed concussions and then the mental health complications that followed and the cognitive dysfunction. We just never were told about anything. We weren't told about the risks. And then you delve in after I see some of my friends pass away, they had 10 keys for the same deadbolt. You know, after, after my friend, Steve Monador passed away,

I went into a dealership and in Chicago and they said, Oh yeah, I talked to the managers. I talked to Steve every day. I'm like, why, why is he calling you every day? You know? Um, and he said that he would go into a restaurant or a mall, forget where his car was and they'd have to beep it for him every day. Um, so these things start to really weigh on you and scare you. And especially with what I saw him go through when he was the Blackhawks, they cleared him for four concussions in just over 12 weeks, a lot of ultimatums. And then when he was suffering, nobody was there to help him. So things have to change. Things definitely have to change.

And what you want to do is you want to try to honor, I want to try to honor Steve Monador's legacy, you know, because there's a case moving forward now against the NHL. And I think it has the potential to change the world, to change the world as far as how we look at sport-related concussion, which I told you yesterday, there's no such thing. Like if you get it, if you leave here and you get into a car accident, you're probably not going to call me up and say, hey, I just got one of those car accident concussions.

Right? Like if your grandmother falls and she gets a concussion, she's not going to say, hey, honey, I, you know, I got one of those fall concussions. What do I do? You know, so you start learning and delving into these terms and why they were created and they were created to confuse the public, to confuse jurors when these cases do go to trial. So now, you know, it was a lot of fighting. It was a lot of frustration, a lot of anger, a lot of sadness over the last three years. And I think that came through a lot in my messaging. And six months ago, I was like, ooh. You might have been a little strong. Yeah, I came in hot and everybody's telling you.

But that's who I am. And social media is a weird thing because everybody on there is just doing so well. And I wasn't. And I wanted people to know that. Yeah. I want them to know when I'm sick, you know, because I think, I think now in talking about this and I haven't talked about it a lot, you're probably the first guy that I'm really going to go in depth with what is, what I've done the last six months to turn my life around. You know, it's been a super long journey, but really, really rewarding. And now in a place of gratitude for all of the suffering.

Yeah. Because now we're sitting here being able to, you know, really vibe on a deep level about brain health and about, you know, fitness and about the nootropics and just plant medicine. Yeah, I want to dive into all that for sure. I'm sure we'll spend the bulk of the conversation there. But talk a bit about how that verbiage and language is used to withhold treatment. I mean, you guys pay a significant amount of money each month to the NHL Players Association

for insurance. Talk about how they word things in a way to withhold the ability to treat you guys. Simple things, pre-existing conditions. So I'll just, you go to a dentist, right? I went to a dentist to fix my teeth. And I told them, I'm like, you can't say that I'm a grinder because of hockey. You can't say that my bottom row of teeth are basically null and void

because of all the Red Bull and you're getting home and you're still jacked up when you're going to bed and you're grinding. I ask people to just say, hey, he's coming in because he is a grinder, not because of hockey, right? So as soon as you say that, they cover the claim. But anything with a pre-existing

condition, they really, they won't cover it. And they won't cover any of my post-concussive syndrome treatments. They won't cover anything from like a brain plasticity center. And that's just the NHLPA. I pay over $2,300 a month, okay, in an insurance premium where I really get nothing back from it, but my family's taken care of. So that's okay. And that's, that's one side of it. And then I have these two workers comp cases open with the Blackhawks because after I saw what happened to Steve, you know, everybody was kind of saying, you know, you should file, you should file for workers' comp. You know, they don't acknowledge head trauma. They don't even talk. They don't say the word concussion, right?

So there's really no treatment. There's no diagnosis. There's no proper understanding. There's no care. And you have to, you've got to almost do the research on your own, you know? And in seeing, you know, what was going on with me and then what happened with Steve, it scares you into, you know, a place of, whoa, I thought that I'd be covered. But again, now the Blackhawks, I send in my bills to them after the NHLPA insurance denies me, and then they deny me. And they say that it's unreasonable treatment. That's why they won't cover me. So I asked them, what is reasonable treatment?

You're a league, and you're a team, you're an entity, one of the biggest entities in that league that refuses to acknowledge a link between repetitive head trauma and CT. So please tell me what the treatment looks like that I should be doing. doing you know and um they want to settle these cases these two concussion cases for ten thousand dollars and i want them to cover my treatment for the rest of my life so i will not waver on that yeah um and just to put that in perspective 10 grand is exactly how much it costs for you to go to the neurology center correct yeah that's just That's just one place. Yeah. If that 10 grand is tax-free. Yeah. And we'll get into that. We'll get into the efficacy of some of the treatments that you've had because you've, and I think a lot of us do this when we really want to dive into something. Usually there's some catalyst for that, right? Like you have to lose your health to make health a priority, or you have to lose your cognitive function and your everyday sense of peace and have that

replaced with anxiety and depression to really want to dive into that. And of course that is the case here, right? But then you learn everything and you reach for whatever's out there and some stuff sticks and some stuff doesn't. Yeah. I mean, the last three years, I almost got, I feel like I almost got caught in big pharma for concussions with all these treatments. None of them are evidence-based. They work for three months and then they disappear. And I've been told if you do this and you put the work in and you leave here and you don't get hit in the head, you'll be like this for the rest of your life. You know, a lot of these treatments talk about neuroplasticity, neuroregeneration.

Plant medicine, okay, is neuroplasticity and neuroregeneration. Spinning around in a gyroscope in a certain way, I don't know. You know, show me the evidence. Because I could show you the evidence of plant medicine and how it's helped me in tons of studies. Double-blind placebo studies even, you know? So I want to see that, you know? And to your point, yeah. I mean, things happened in my life in that last year of my career where it really pushed me and opened my eyes. You know, my last season was 2015 my son was born in november steve passed away in february after a year and a half really struggling and after that happened

i was just spiritually mentally done you know um and uh i remember i got a phone call when i was getting dressed my phone kept buzzing and buzzing. I never checked my phone, you know. And it might sound, you know, it might sound weird or bad, but, like, I knew Steve was not in a good place. I just didn't know how to help him, you know. And so Missy called me, and I picked up the phone., and, uh, I picked up the phone. I don't know why I picked up the phone and she told me that Steve's gone.

And, you know, I'm like, wow. Um, I kind of knew I was going to get that phone call, um, at some point, you know, um, it really hit me. It really hit me hard. I tried to go into the room, get dressed. I was kind of sobbing. Um, Johnny Taves was like, Hey man, what's going on? Come, come in the the room, get dressed. I was kind of sobbing. Johnny Taves was like, hey, man, what's going on? Come in the other room, you know?

And I told him, like, Steve's gone, you know? Tried to, you know, he gave me a hug. Gathered myself. Don't show, right? You got to be tough. Like, don't distract anybody from the game. You know, we got a game to play. but meanwhile life is happening you know and uh and so i you know i got my stuff on sucked it up went around did a few laps and then i'm just like i saw a steve monador jersey

in the stands boom like just bawling my eyes out you know in warm-up and got right off the ice after about two or three minutes, walked right down to coach Quimbo's office and just, and, you know, just bawling. He hugged me. He's like, I just found out, you know, go home, you know, take your stuff off. And super impactful with, with everything that I saw him go through. And then it really, it really starts, you start to wonder like, wow like wow okay I've been through addiction I've been through all this you know I've had six concussions and then fast forward to March the month later guess what happens they I haven't played a game for 20 or 30 30 games and then they stick me in in a game against

Philadelphia Flyers because we're already in the playoffs and you know my job is to protect these guys and so here you go Dan you know and I end up getting my seventh concussion and I wanted to fight I want to feel something else you know I don't want to feel this sadness and this and this this frustration and so I wanted the guy to hit me. You know, that's how much pain I was in. And after that seventh concussion, I remember the symptoms were just really, really bad. I couldn't look at my phone. You know, I couldn't sleep. Light sensitivity, speech, surge of speech, loss of appetite, really just loss of motivation to even go into the rink. And, you know, that scared me into thinking about, you know, retirement. And I did,

I ended up retiring after that season because of my symptoms just never went away, you know, and ended up winning the Stanley Cup that year year my second stanley cup and i was so angry at the league and at the blackhawks like that they called me for the banner raising right to come in a suit and i didn't go i just did not want to be there I was one of 25 guys that won the Stanley Cup last year, you know, in 2015. And I did not want to go to that rink. Like, that's the place that I was in, you know. And so you continue on this journey now. And I fell into addiction after my career.

Signs and symptoms that I didn't recognize, that I've never been educated on, wondering what the heck is happening to me. You lose that sense of self, your purpose. It's just like the onslaught. And then my grandfather passed away. My number one fan. Nobody in my family or even around me, these are the first two deaths in my life. Plus retirement. Plus a kid being know, all this stuff's coming at me and I couldn't handle it. I just wanted to numb out. And so I did for a while until I had the aha moment when my son was starting to put two and two together when he was six or seven months old. And he's like looking at me one day. I'm like, oh, boy. Starting to formulate thoughts. You know, I'm like, okay, I'm going to go.

Packed a bag. went to malibu you know and uh and got healthy and then ever since then it's been a journey to to just regain my brain health and regain that impulse control those impulse i had a lot of impulse control issues uh regain my sleep communication with my wife um you know empathy yeah like i was just fighting everybody and everything around me for you know um for a good three years until about six months ago um when i got introduced to well let's talk about that you know yeah you did a um a post recently i mean it'll be by the time this comes out it'll probably be a couple months ago on Twitter that just blew me away.

And so you had the scan. Was the scan right before the plant medicines or right around? Because that was about six months ago, right? April 3rd, yeah. It was at a time where I'd exhausted all options, treatment options. I'd paid well over six figures

out of my own pocket. Um, and I was in a position where I couldn't do that anymore. I don't know how that's sustainable for anybody. Um, and so, um, I go in QEEG, uh, basically maps your neurological pathways of the brainwaves delta theta beta and um uh compares those results to somebody your age okay um and i got that test and that test sent me into really bad depression anxiety and then ultimately because the test results were shit brutal man um just no good and it's like okay i've tried moxacupuncture, functional neurology, craniosacral, ART, uh, simple stuff like reflexology, changing my diet, um, you know, certain drugs, um, and nothing, nothing worked, you know? So that was, that's where, and I talk

about this a lot, hopelessness sets in without any other options, right? And thank gosh that I had this trip planned with a former teammate of mine, Riley Cote, to Boulder, Colorado. And he wanted to introduce me. Now that I didn't have the rink, Jet Ice, with the little kids and the rink inside of the practice facility at MB, now I was able to kind of like, okay, I can start dipping a toe into other things. So these parents don't think I'm off the reservation, you know, and, um, ended up going there and, uh, and it saved my life. You know, I didn't do that QEG thinking that, okay, I'm going to go get plant medicine and then I'm going to come back six months later. I'm going to retest and it's going to look sick.

I just, I went there searching. I was at the end of my rope, you know. I'm a 34-year-old man. I have a car, a roof over my head. I have three beautiful children. I have a beautiful wife. And I want to kill myself. What is that?

You know? So I had to figure out how to break myself out of that and um they introduced me to a hero dose psilocybin psilocybin yeah and um oh 90 minutes of like a dry heave purge which was like the anxiety and the depression coming out. And it showed me that I was stuck in this loop. You know, I didn't recognize the farm that I was on, but I was stuck in this loop. And Jeremy from Boulder Hemp and Riley were just there to guide me. Riley came to me. His face was skewed out. He looked like a reincarnation of God. Oh, wow. And Jeremy, when he put his hand on me to kind of calm me down, it was like, whoa, how big is your hand, man? It was like super warm and comforting.

And what I found there was that anytime I walked away from them, I got back into that loop. Anytime I was connected to them, I felt so good. But I kept wanting to walk away. So I felt this pull. But I kept wanting to walk away. So I felt this pull of like good and evil. And then the next morning I wake up and I feel different. And I'm not stressing about the same things anymore.

It seems like, you know, that I've, I really like that analogy from Michael Pollan of the fresh snow. Yeah. Right? That you can go, now you can go, now it's all open for you. Right? Now you don't have to continue to live the same way where I was fighting everything. So my cortisol levels were spiked and just super impactful. And then I'm like, okay, I'm a science-based guy, okay?

If I do a workout to my trainer, you tell me why I'm doing single leg. Tell me, for my VMO? Okay, great, I'll do it. Tell me, and then delving in, like, okay, why do I feel this way now? So then delve into the research. You wanna talk about neuroplasticity

and neuroregeneration? Plant medicine, psilocybin specifically, does that for you. And you can't deny science. You could go to John Hopkins University publications. There's over 60 studies. Try to deny that. You could deny me all day long, my anecdotal evidence. You can't deny science. And so that Hero Dose saved my life, no doubt in my mind, no doubt. And I've been on a path ever since of continuing to grow my own medicine now. I'm growing my own CBD, researching more about mushrooms and not just psilocybin. Turkey tail, lion's mane, reishi, cordyceps. Shown in double-blind placebo studies to break up amyloid protein. Amyloid protein that causes Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, CTE. All that shit goes up. You look at CTE, you have abnormally high levels of amyloid beta plaque and tau proteins, which are both linked to all neurodegenerative diseases.

For sure. Yeah, that's a big word. Yeah, and for the pollen thing, for people who haven't read How to Change Your Mind, it's a great book. And he basically, he correlates the plant medicine experience and with psilocybin specifically to like a mountain that everyone's been snowboarding and skiing on, right? And so there are grooves. If it hasn't snowed in a while, there are grooves of where people take their paths. That's how our

brain works, right? Neurons that fire together, wire together. So we hit those same paths and then it's very easy just to jump on the same path that you've done a hundred times and everyone else has done, right? So that fresh powder allows you, when there's enough of it, to choose a new lane, to choose a new course in life. And it's such a beautiful analogy. My view of the world was skewed. I thought everybody was out to get me. And the way I was raised in that hockey world, and I was a fighter, I'm going to fight. I'm not a flight guy, even in the real world. And it just allowed me to think of things differently. And then what it did was it allowed me to think of things differently and then and then what it did was it allowed me to change my negative self-talk which I think was huge for me you know I'd wake

up at 8 a.m. and I'd be like oh what the what the fuck like get up at 7 30 you know whereas now it's like I wake up at 8 a.m. I'm in a pretty good place thank gosh I'm not getting up at three yeah like I have been the last you know two or three years you know and so i'm able to pat myself on the back and i'm able to motivate myself now which was not the norm i operated out of anger strictly out of anger out of frustration um i thought that that's how you had to play the game you know and um it couldn't be further from the truth like now i think about energy i think about hate anger frustration and i think about love happiness and like being in the moment you get so much more energy yeah from being happy so why is everybody teaching these athletes specifically in hockey if you're not suffering you didn't play hard you know i mean i don't think

that that adage i don't think that that type of thinking has to exist anymore i think athletes could be more conscious in turn they'll be more creative they'll be more focused you know um so i would like to try to educate and in that shift you know give guys maybe another another avenue to think about how they're actually playing the game um when i went to rehab when i was 25 in my career spirituality totally changed how i played the game because now i was thinking about wait a minute like i'm actually punching this my goal is to knock this guy out and then it's like why you know? And it was hard for me to do it. Because now I was so present before I was numbed out.

You know? And I always say this. My first five years in my career, I was a bad person. I was a bad teammate. I only cared about myself. And I would slit your throat with my skate if it meant getting to the NHL. And then I had all those injuries those first five years that I, those major injuries. And as soon as I found spirituality when I was 25, I went to the Stanley Cup finals four times with three different teams in my last five years in the NHL. Show me anybody else who's done that in the history of the NHL.

Nobody. Why does that happen to me? Some kid from King City. It's because I changed my life. Not that I hate to quote Drake, but when you're living the right way, your luck is a sure thing. Yeah. You know?

Because there's no reason that i should have gone to the stanley cup finals four different times with three different teams so specifically when i left the blackhawks i started with la kings got traded to the rangers guess who we met in the stanley cup finals la kings it's like you know you start you start correlating and thinking about the past when you're in the present moment all this stuff is just coming to you even like now right i'm in the present moment i don't i don't know why i find myself here in austin and you know uh talking to you and i've been following you guys for a really long time super interested in what you guys are doing changing consciousness you know um so yeah it's just it's been a it's been a, it's been a pretty cool journey, like how it comes

full circle like that. Yeah. And you've worked quite a bit with the plant medicines the last six months. Yeah. You said your post yesterday was that you had the inclination with how good you've been feeling and how much your life has changed to go and retake the test. Yeah. I guess I didn't finish that story. Yeah. So I went to retake the test and yesterday i got an email saying that i have zero abnormalities brain is fucking perfect clear clear and the reason i really love plant medicine is because i feel like i did it myself i did yes riley called me yes he helped save my life um but when when i work these medicines now, it's on my own. Yeah. Because I want that, you know, and I want that for people.

I want people to be able to heal themselves, you know. Obviously, these treatments, they have their place, right? And I'm not knocking them. SSRIs, they have their place. They give people with depression a fighting chance, right? But there are alternative ways to heal yourself and so that's kind of that's my message you know look at every option look at everything so that you don't lose hope and you don't slide into that suicidal ideation right yeah um really it is just about options and knowledge. If we're aware that these things exist and we're aware of what their potentials are, that's where we really can see, you know,

like, hey, I've tried everything else. Maybe I will give that a shot. Right. You know, and we see the efficacy. Right. I told you, you got to see the trailer, but this last weekend in Sedona, we all watched Fantastic Fungi. Unreal. It's a documentary that's coming out specifically on on all mushrooms

including psilocybin paul stamets is in it michael pollan dennis mckenna uh who else roland griffiths from from uh he's one of the leading researchers at johns hopkins they just did a 17 million dollar facility that was funded in part by tim ferris and a few other people craig nuremberg one of my homies from ffs was was a donor unreal and um the movie is just fucking incredible and he gets into the science behind all these different types of fungi including psilocybin including the research that's coming out because of the movement and as we see this shift it's really cool to fucking witness it to know like we are rogan talks about all the time like what a special time to be alive we got to see the cell phone invented we got to see you know the internet invented and

if you go back in time 200 years ago a thousand years ago two thousand years ago life didn't change much generation to generation it was very much the same and now we're on a fucking rocket ship ride you know and maybe we'll even see super intelligent AI, like if you follow Nick Bostrom and guys like that. Maybe we see that by the time we die. But nothing is more impactful or important to me than these tools that help reshift our consciousness. And this is a conversation we had last night at dinner was the beautiful thing about all these tryptamine-based psychedelics and even some of the non-tryptamine-based, you know, you have MDMA, which is not necessarily considered a true psychedelic, ketamine as well. Many of them have the ability to heal the brain on a physical level, but where they go further is that they're healing you consciously. They're healing you mentally, emotionally. They're healing

you spiritually. They're allowing you to see a bigger picture that was previously not visible, right? And that was a huge message I got on way too much acid on a mountain in Sedona was that God is in all things. It is conscious, but I don't perceive that. I'm not aware of that if I'm living in a state of fear. If I'm in panic, if my cortisol and adrenaline are jacked through the roof, that connection to source is gone. And if God and source are words that bother you, if you're an atheist, that's fine.

Just think of that as your highest knowing, your intuition. No one can deny that. Like when shit just starts clicking for you, you're tuned in. And that's what happens in a state of flow. That's what happens in a state of peace. If you're in fucking panic and you're go go go all the time getting you know caffeine's the world's favorite drug right if you're hopped up on that

shit and you don't have a practice of stillness you can't tune into that right and i think that's one of the greatest things that these plants teach us is how to find that peace and build the bridge. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, staying in the moment, you know, it's, they've really helped me to stay in the moment. And when I'm in the moment, then I can recognize when my depression and anxiety are starting to creep into my life again, because I know my triggers.

I know my signs when I'm isolating, I'm not texting or calling anybody back and I'm either oversleeping or undersleeping. Those are my three big triggers. And, you know, I'd love to get to a point in society where we're not like, oh my gosh, I want to kill myself. Now I need to get treatment. You know, there can be preventative measures that you can take. And that's why I love the plant medicines. Because as soon as I'm feeling that, or when I need to go in for messaging for this business that I'm creating, I can go in my basement with $10 in my hand and go into my own mind and work it out. And come out of that five, six hours later with a totally new perspective and a way of thinking. And I truly believe, even when my anxiety and depression

come now, because there's good and bad days, it's lessened, less intense. I truly believe if I keep working with these medicines in a shamanic manner, I will not suffer from anxiety and depression. Yeah. I believe that, you know, because I can feel that. No doubt. We talked about that too. Like the, you know, there's no doubt. Microdosing has its place and it's fantastic. And I recommend the book, Psychedelic Explorer's Guide by Jim Fadiman often because of the fact that he spent 30 years researching it. And there's a lot of benefit to that. I'm going to have to put that.

I won't pull out my phone. But last night, I'm pulling up. We're trading info for sure. Wait a minute. What's that one? What's this one? What's that one? But when it comes to the hero's dose, the ceremony level. Last night, I'm pulling up. We're trading info for sure. Wait a minute, what's that one? What's this one? What's that one? Yeah.

But when it comes to the hero's dose, the ceremony level, it just unpacks so much. Right. It's doing so much more for us than we can possibly realize. Can't fight it off at five grams, right? No. It's coming. It's forced surrender, whether you want to or not. The longer you spend in resistance, the harder it is.

Well, that's like the so-called, people talk about bad trip. Try to work with these medicines. They will show you your biggest fears, and they'll put it right in front of your face. And so I think there's this view in society of these medicines is like um like what the anti-war culture did with it you know but really they are not in my experience they're not that easy to work with you know and and you really have to be motivated enough to to start to start working with it you know um you have like a warrior spirit and i can feel that and so do I. And so, you know, I'm definitely interested in other plant medicines as well. You know, we touched upon like the decriminalize nature Chicago movement that we have going on and that will help decriminalize all etiogens. Not just psilocybin, not just MDMA through maps, ketamine through maps, you know.

That's like a really amazing place and to your point like i'm so grateful i was born in 1985 internet wasn't invented you know you got to see it before it happened you still have to remember uh you know phone numbers you knew like where your buddies were by where all the bikes were in the front lawn um and then you had a pager yeah and then you had a flip phone 143 and yeah and you were like i'm a huge music guy and i was i remember record play at the right time on the radio if you wanted to burn uh a song off of the radio you know right as soon as that dj stops talking uh and then there were cds now there's the mp3s now there's these phones my last trip with plant medicine really showed me um how addictive

that is yeah you know and um and how to how to use it in a healthy manner not in the morning not right before i go to bed, using it correctly. Because I hear these terms like digital dementia. And I see it. I see it in my kids. Give them a phone, try to talk to them. Austin, Austin, Austin. He's gone.

He's gone. And you can see that. And then, you know, there's studies that are coming out now on the white matter of your brain and what these screens are doing to people, you know? So it's funny that like the mushrooms showed me that, you know, they showed me that pull. And I was like, well, I shouldn't touch my phone because that's not allowed. And I was like, you know what? Maybe I will. Open up Twitter. Dark. Oh my gosh. That place is so dark.

You know, Instagram, a little bit better, more positive. I get more shit on Instagram, I think. I am talking about things that are ruffling some feathers for sure when we do these Q&As with my wife. Yeah, I mean, it's great. If you're ruffling feathers, that means that you're triggering people. And if you feel triggered, that means there's something inside of you that you should probably look at. That's the way I say it. Like with this TBI stuff,

all these hockey fans hate me, hate me because I'm offering this new way of thinking and I'm offering this new way of treatment. And I'm actually showing them how badly these people, human beings, are suffering for their entertainment. Why should I care? You guys get paid enough. Yeah. Well, we get the same shit in fighting. And you look at the NFL.

I played football since I was 10, finished at Arizona State. I even had a feeling around when they changed the hitting rules in the NFL where it was like, I know they need to do this, but it's going to change the game. Right. And the whole thing is you see what happened to junior sale and a laundry list of other people. And you're like, it has to change. It has to change in some way. It's not going to, it's not going to ruin the game. It's just going to change the game. But most importantly, it's how the game gets changed off the ice. Right. It's how it gets changed off the field. It's how it game gets changed off the ice right it's how it gets changed off the field it's how it's get changed outside the octagon right where we can be a bit more preventative yes also open up what's in the medicine cabinet you know what are the tools we use to treat these things i had uh i told you this last night but we had alex gray and allison gray on the podcast

and um you know of course they, they're the visionary artists that have done some really amazing artwork on the medicine. They've been on Rogan's a couple times and on Aubrey's show. And so the conversation we had was in large part around the entire modern history of psychedelics. And it was fascinating. But when it ended, we had other great conversations. One of the things we talked about is this study they retroactively looked at nfl players with cte and compared it to all the players who were um known cannabis users and known thc users specifically and what they found is that if these guys were smoking before during and after cannabis they had way less injury from the trauma

and they were able to get back on the field faster. Mortality rates too. Yeah. There's another study on that with mortality rates for TBI, people that are using cannabis and people that aren't. So you think about those things, you know, and maybe it's not an invitation for everybody to be walking around stoned, but if you like it, just know it is helping your brain.

And if you are going to get walking around stoned, but if you like it, just know it is helping your brain. And if you are going to get hit in the head, maybe there's the right dose you can find where you are able to sleep better. You're not blown out of the water. I mean, fuck everybody. It's funny, like I was in California when it was medical and we were voting for recreational and a lot of elderly people were telling me

their horror stories of eating too much of an edible. And I'm like, look, I've fucking been down that road it's not fun i'd rather have seven or ten grams of psilocybin than have too much thc like no fucking doubt right you know so i mean there's but you know with these tools there's a right way and a wrong way to do anything there's a right way and a wrong way to set up a ceremony um and you know i mean uh fatima talks about that in the Psychedelic Explorer's Guide too. Like most of his research is on microdosing. Of course, he's gone deep. And he lets you know the best practices

in getting there. So if that is something you're interested in, I think it's really important to actually do your homework and investigate and learn as much as you can before you set forth on, you know, a fucking big journey, right? Yeah.

I mean, well, for all these people talking shit about cannabis and wondering, like, about the war on drugs, go and look at the U.S. government. The U.S. government in 2003 took out patents on all cannabinoids as antioxidants, anti-inflammation, and neuroprotectant. Specifically, why is the US government taking patents out in 2003 if they don't know that this stuff works? Just ask yourself that question and it blows up every other argument.

There's not many medical research studies because the war on drugs. And the big pharma, you know, and like the more I'm in this cannabis space and farming, man, the more you realize everything around us is geared to make us sick. And it's, it's all like the food that we're eating. Right. And you really have to seek it out and be diligent to get around it yeah perfect example of that is like people seem to have this uh this inclination there's two things that are going wrong one we put all our faith in our doctors and like western medicine is great for a lot of things i have a working shoulder because of the surgery i got on it right um but you look at other you know so we we so we give blind faith to our doctors

and we give blind faith to our government. Like why would they put aspartame in gum? Like that would be illegal if it was bad for me. But you look at other countries, in particular the Nordic countries, and aspartame is completely banned throughout the entire country. It's not allowed, right?

It's a neurotoxin. All it takes is your body temperature raising to 102, right? It's a neurotoxin. All it takes is your body temperature raising to 102 degrees Fahrenheit, and it's a neurotoxin. That's an artificial sweetener that becomes a neurotoxin at 102 degrees. It's not allowed in the country. There are more Kentucky Fried Chickens in the world

than there are McDonald's, right? What had to happen with Kentucky Fried Chicken to get in many of those countries? They had to change the Colonel's original recipe because the MSG in it exceeded their, their countrywide law by like 30 times the amount that they would allow. Right. So you think about that.

There are places, I mean, even fucking Kraft Mac and cheese, you're not allowed to have a food. That's that's. I don't, I'm not sure if I'm wording this right, but you can't have food that's marketed to children that has anything fake in it.

So they couldn't use yellow food coloring. They had to use, I think it's Amaretto, Anato. They had to use Anato, a natural food dye to make it yellow, the cheese yellow. They could not use yellow food dye. And what happened? Kraft fucking did it. And they sell mac and cheese in that country and they still turn a profit by making that one change. No one's being held accountable here. Right. And there's big money going into Congress

to make sure they can get shit through. Big, big money. So, I mean, it's not a conspiracy theory. It's not, you know, everyone's out to get us. It's about money and if you follow the money you'll understand like okay so what how do we empower ourselves it's by understanding this it's by if not becoming an expert or a master of these things at least becoming aware and following masters and experts who can break it down right i mean it goes back to like the plant medicine and de-learning everything you think you know you know it wakes you up to everything around you um wakes you up to a new way of thinking like a new way of operating you know uh and then you start realizing you start correlating like i'm not perfect you know i'll go to mcdonald's and i'll have a burger sometimes, you know, and that I think that's OK.

But I also understand every time I drive past McDonald's, that pull, my body wants me to go in there every day. My son asks me to go, you know, once a month might be okay. It's everything in this world, the more I'm in this cannabis space, it's just not sustainable. And we're in an amazing part of history where I think everybody's starting to, most people are starting to wake up and you talk about faith in that white coat. No, no, no, that's not happening anymore you know why because you're killing you're killing young people with the drugs that you're giving them these young people see that you are killing them these young people know that if you push cannabis the big pharma won't fly you to the caribbean if you're not pushing their stuff yeah so now that what are they doing people are seeking out different avenues like you

like on it to get their information functional medicine doctors alternative medicine doctors you see that whole world blowing up it is and it's amazing it's amazing and with that we see a shift with you know general popular the gpop the general population we also see a shift among western medicine where people are now being becoming bit more okay with some of these other treatments, right? And it takes a long time. Travis Christopherson, who wrote, what's the name of the book? Tripping Over the Truth. And it's largely around the metabolic theory of cancer and how a ketogenic diet can help a lot of ailments. He has a new book coming out. You pull that up for me, Ryan? It should be out soon.

If anybody knows, just yell it. Curable. Curable, that's right. And he gets into all the haphazard way we've done medicine and how indoctrinated that is and the ways that we can make that shift very quickly. And he talks about all sorts of stuff from fecal transplants to fucking you name it, Like whatever has real efficacy that has really had an uphill battle in becoming an

available treatment for people. Right. Well, think about plant medicine. What does it do? Gets to the root cause of your problem really quickly so that you don't need to take the daily drug to manage your symptoms. Yeah. That's something Garbamonte talks about a lot, that the root of all addiction is trauma. Oh yeah, man. And so, you know, it's not just a chemical issue you have with a specific drug. You're leaning on that crutch because you don't want to face the thing that you may not even fucking remember at that point. Right. But that's one of the beautiful things with the medicine, the plant medicines is you can, you know, all is revealed. You pull that curtain back and it allows you to process things with new eyes and new perspective. But let's talk about that movement a

bit because, you know, I'm from the Bay Area, born and raised. And when Oakland passed the legalized nature, I was like, holy shit. I posted it to the gram. It was like the fucking, all I did was a repost. It was still like the most popular post I ever put out there. For sure. And of course, my mom's like, you moving back to the Bay, boy? I was like, nah. Come home. I like it here in Austin. But I follow them now online. And Legalized Nature had posted a thing where they say, any city you're in, you can start this movement.

You can get behind it. And I'll let you fill in the blanks. This is really cool it's kind of been made into um a package you can take because they know the way yeah to get it through so talk about what you're doing with chicago yeah so decriminalized nature um ended up uh getting in contact with them i believe i saw it on um again you know you delve into the research and i came across it. And then Oakland and Denver had successfully done it. They already have a resolution. All you have to do is bring it

forth to your alderman's office and adapt the language a little bit, just basically take out Oakland and put in Chicago. So I called them, tried to get connected with somebody in Chicago. There was this kid, Leo, who actually brought forth the resolution a day before. And he happened to bring it to Brian Hopkins' office. And Brian Hopkins, I just happened to teach how to shoot a puck when I was training at MB and training all the kids. And so I called him up. And I had his number. And like that's a God wink in itself, right?

I'm on the right path here. And I'm like, hey, what's up, Brian? Remember when you said, if I teach you how to shoot, you'd do anything for me? I want to bring forth this resolution. I want to talk about it with you. And I want you to look at this DNO fact sheet. And i want you to look at all of the medical studies uh linked to um addiction linked to recidivism uh linked to um you know obviously the opiate crisis and it's not i see this as the first step as the first step in allowing people to feel comfortable enough it's almost like a stigma smasher that you can actually work with these medicines without fear of repercussion. Yeah. Right. Not so much legalization, just decriminalization. And so, yeah, we brought that forth. We've had really great discussions with Brian and his assistant, John. Is he a member

of city council? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So he's a city council member. We were going to bring it forth on the 18th to the city council to have it submitted to the committee. But what we want to do is not just go to Brian. We want to educate every single city councilman and woman on what this can do for the city of Chicago. Talk about the South side and recidivism, the inmate population and how these plant medicines can help. What happens when you take them? You're more empathetic. You're actually in the moment and thinking about what you're doing. It can help. And then one of the big things is the opiate crisis in the Midwest. So those two things that we're super interested in. I just got an email yesterday that we're going to adapt some language to include the opiate and the

recidivism. And after that, they're going to bring it forth. And I talked to a lawyer who's on the team now, and she's actually a sitter. I have a psychiatrist who's going to come and talk. I have a veteran who's going to come and talk. I have myself as anecdotal and Leo. And we are just going to tell our story to the committee and how these plants have saved us. And then you correlate that story back to the science. How can they deny it? Can't, right? And if you do, that's okay.

Well, you know, we'll try again. Yeah, you can keep trying, right? Yeah, for sure. I think that's, it's such a beautiful movement. And it's empowering to be able to get involved. If you've been touched by these things, to get involved with your city council and with decriminalized nature and really start to push the dominoes forward, right?

As soon as you find a new treatment, it's like, all right, how do I use my platform to get this out to people in the right manner so that it can help? Because it can help. And that's what I'm all about. I'm all about, you know, free information. Here it is. Let's help people. Let's help people recognize signs and symptoms. Let's help people move into proper diagnosis and care.

However that looks and whatever that looks. And it always goes back to brain health. This thing up here, man, operates everything. So getting that right is really important. Well, fuck yeah, brother. It's been so good having you here it's been even better getting to have you at the house i'll definitely be seeing you chicago yeah for sure and uh yeah i mean i want wolfie to meet bear for sure i have one

question i had a laundry list of uh questions from my blackhawk friends my blackhawk fans and um so they wanted to know what i'm just going to ask one here because we got a jam i got another podcast okay deep dish or thin crust thin and what's your and what's your favorite you just lost every fan in chicago all right so so then where's your favorite thin crust in chicago uh loom alnati's yeah fuck yeah loom alnati's is the shit and if you want to try it they will ship on dry ice we figured that out the last time i was in when i was living in cali and fighting uh my buddy from chicago uh brad title bomb he fucking mailed us four big ass deep dish pies so i'm a deep dish guy yeah and uh they shipped on dry ice you bake them in the oven and they taste just as good as in

lumal notties like i was floored and obviously different ovens will cook it different but right there's a way you can get on that if you really like to throw caution to the wind and eat the best pizza. Yeah, my son loves pizza. Where can people find you online? Instagram, Daniel Carcillo, 13. Twitter, Carbom Boom, 13.

Facebook, Daniel Carcillo. Chapter 5 Foundation. So I have a foundation that helps athletes transition into life after the game. Chapter, next chapter in your life, five, because that was Steve's number. And yeah, you know, I'll be speaking at a Hope for the Day gala in Chicago here coming up and just doing these mental health talks. We're going to start a little bit of a tour of universities, TBI related and brain health and recovery in Canada in the spring. So, you know, I just recently filed LLC called Open Mind Plant Health. We're going to be a plant health based company. We're going to grow all our own CBD, CBG. We're going to grow all our own mushrooms

and we're going to grow all our own specialty herbs to be put into the product line that has helped me regain my quality of life. Well, I can't fucking wait to try them. I hope I get it ahead of time before anybody else does. For sure. Dude, you've been fucking awesome. It's been an absolute pleasure getting to know you. And we'll do it again in the future.

Same, man. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for tuning in the show today with Daniel Carcillo. Remember, you got questions, we got answers. Hit us up on Instagram. We've linked to his in the show notes. Mine as always is at Kingsboo Twitter at Kingsboo. Do not DM me. Just write me on any regular posts and I will answer your question. It could be about anything and have no reference to the post. That's fine. As long as I see it, I'll answer it. Ask it a second time.

If a week goes by and I haven't answered your question. Also, kingsboo.com, visit the website, leave me your email. You're going to get a supplement list for free, as well as a monthly newsletter. Once a month, I'll tell you any and all cool shit that I'm up to, the books that I'm reading, the information I'm gathering, and anything that I find out to be fascinating. Thank you guys for tuning in. Much love to y'all, and I'll see you in a few days.