Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Jesse Gould on Saving Veterans One Heroic Heart at a Time EP 150

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on the PassionStruct podcast. My goal is if we can provide more veterans, help and healthcare and prevent more suicides, whoever wants to be involved with it, as long as it's not limiting other involvement, then so be it. People want to are able to make money, but that shouldn't limit people from doing it. In a community access, it shouldn't be so cost restrictive that the same people who can't have access won't be able to have access. And that's kind of what we're fighting for. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their

Starting point is 00:00:34 wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 150 of PassionStruck.

Starting point is 00:01:11 Recently ranked is one of the five most popular alternative health podcasts in the world. And thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. And if you missed my interview from earlier in the week, it was with Kathy Heller, who is the host of the popular podcast, The Kathy Heller Show, which has over 30 million downloads. And the author of the book, Don't Keep Your Day Job.

Starting point is 00:01:37 And if you missed my episodes from last week, we had on Dr. Michael Slepian, where we launched his new book, The Secret Life of Secrets. And we also had on Dr. Scott Schur, who is one of the foremost experts in the world in hyperbonic oxygen therapy, which can be used to treat neurodegenerative diseases, recovery from cancer, traumatic brain injuries, as well as achieving peak performance.

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Starting point is 00:02:26 And if you haven't checked out our YouTube channel, we now have over 800,000 views on it. And it has over 300 different videos that you can check out. Just go to John Armyles and subscribe. Now let's talk about today's guest. Jesse Gould is a pioneer in psychedelic therapies. As a former Army Ranger and founder of the Heroic Hearts Project, he has spearheaded the research in acceptance

Starting point is 00:02:49 of Ayahuatha, Silo-Syban, Ibo-Jane, and ketamine therapy for military veterans. Jessie's mission is to help military veterans or suffering from mental trauma and spread awareness of the benefits of psychedelic therapies. That can be offered as alternative treatments, a pharmaceuticals. Today we discuss the four by four by 48 challenge

Starting point is 00:03:09 that we both recently undertook and the significance of it to both of us. We go into Jesse's experience in the army and why he discovered the heroic heart's project. We go into detail on numerous psychedelics and how they can be used to treat trauma, including MDMA, Psylocybin, Ayahuatha, as well as Kedamine. Why the federal health system is failing those who suffer from PTSD?

Starting point is 00:03:31 The reasons that Big Pharma has worked against these medalities and the stage two and three trials that are currently underway, as well as legislation, the formally approved of a choice and so much more. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your hosting guide on your journey to creating an intentional life now. Let that journey begin. So, Estadac, to welcome Jesse Gold to the Passion Struck podcast. So, good to see you again, Jesse. John, great to see you. It seems like almost yesterday. That was a great event that we made at.

Starting point is 00:04:07 Well, a lot of times listeners ask me, how do you find your guess? And most of the time, I would say it was through networking. But in our case, we met under completely different circumstances, where we both did the four by four by 48 challenge. And maybe if a listener isn't familiar with that, you could tell them what the challenge is and we can talk through some of what happened.

Starting point is 00:04:29 Yeah, so I believe it is originally created by David Goggins, who's a military influencer. So it's four miles every four hours for 48 hours. So it's total 48 miles over the course of two days. So on the point of every four hours, everybody gets up even at 2am and runs this. And so it was another veteran organization run by Andrew Mark called Warrior Angel Foundation. He has a ranch outside of Houston. And this from our conversations, he wanted

Starting point is 00:04:57 to get a few different organizations that are all in the space of providing a voice for veterans, providing mental health for veterans, get us together, get the community together, do this sort of crazy event together, possibly bringing some funds, but really the conversation. And like I said, the community was the big piece of it. It's interesting.

Starting point is 00:05:16 Over the weekend, we had an event for aspiring high school students who might want to go to the Naval Academy. While I was there, I ran into Admiral Buchanan, who was the former Commodanimid shipment. And I told him I had just done four by four by 48. And he said, man, that was one of the worst weekends in my life when I did that. And he goes, what was yours like?

Starting point is 00:05:37 And I said, well, it took on a couple additional dimensions because the one I wasn't doing alone, I was doing it with a bunch of former special forces veterans from both Canada and the US, but I said to make it even more difficult, they decided that we would sleep intense, have Native Americans attend, who would be drums until four o'clock in the morning, and on top of that during bone broth, he was just like, what in the world were you guys thinking? I thought it was such a special event and for me it really opened up for me a much better understanding, not only about what we're going to talk about with you today about your foundation, heroic arts project,

Starting point is 00:06:17 and what you're doing to help veterans with PTSD, but also Native American culture, which I thought made it an interesting twist because they are very aware of psychedelic drugs from their centuries old culture of using peyote and other things. How did you find that experience? It was amazing. It's my body always, my first struggles, but then remembers of going through this stuff. And so it's almost like a nostalgic feeling when I'm not sleeping and my bones and my muscles are aching. But having the Native American elders just really added a very unique and beautiful element to it. And these were very notable, like chief playing, who's well known, and part of many great associations. There's obviously been tensions in the past

Starting point is 00:07:05 between the sellers in the US and the natives and continuing issues there, but we're at a point now where we're all just trying to heal our communities and get past certain mental health blocks and it's universal. And so we had just a lot of conversations there about, everybody that was there had this warrior spirit. We're all united by that same sort of spirit.

Starting point is 00:07:25 And so can we just find a way to work with that and bond on that besides our differences and different ethnicities and backgrounds and what can we bring us together and work towards the help of our people. And so having that and just having them bring their ceremonies and song and dance and everything like that was just an amazing thing. It just really added to the whole package of what that weekend was. Never fails to amaze me that the more veterans I speak to, especially those who served in combat, the more I see that we all have overlapping symptoms. And in most cases, about 90% overlapping. we all have overlapping symptoms. And in most cases, about 90% overlapping. So to me, it's also a great vindication that the things that we're going through

Starting point is 00:08:11 aren't isolated to just us, which I think if any veteran is our first responder, et cetera, is listening to this that they understand as these things are so much more common than you and your isolation may think they are. So I thought it would be a good place to go into. You can use this as a way to introduce your military service. Why did you end up going down this path of looking at psychedelics and then how did you

Starting point is 00:08:36 create the heroic parts project? Absolutely. So my path has really stood out of many, many different hats, many different lives, but after college and after working in finance a little bit, I joined the military, I was an Army Ranger at first battalion, and I had multiple deployments to Afghanistan. I went in and listed, so as a non-commissioned officer, I ended up being a section leader,

Starting point is 00:08:59 so in charge of many individuals. And overall, I had a great military experience, learned a lot about myself and leadership. When I got out the wear and tear of that military life and being in that situation and what it does to you both psychologically and physically, I started feeling those sort of subconscious wounds,

Starting point is 00:09:17 those mental health issues. And as much as I try to ignore it, as much as I try to just push past it, it just kept showing its head and really starting to affect my life in a negative way. So I found myself, I was in Tampa, Florida at the time, and having, on the outside, all sorts of great stuff, great job, great community, but on the inside, I was just being torn up and it's really making bad decisions and unhealthy decisions

Starting point is 00:09:39 that I had these red flags that I knew if I kept on that path, it probably would end well for me. And so I tried to pursue health, mental health, I tried to change my life, I tried to drink less. Certain things helped, certain things were a little bit insurmountable given depression, anxiety, and all that that I was going through. And I went to the VA, and unfortunately, the VA was very much just sort of a quick check

Starting point is 00:10:02 of what was going on, and then the fast track to whatever medications that was was currently in Vogue and and it was more of a maintenance program than than any sort of healing or understanding what was actually going on under the behind the scenes. And so I just found myself in a spot where I was struggling and suffering. I didn't really know why, but also the professionals didn't know why. And so I didn't know what to do, but it was just getting worse. Like I was getting more and more sad and depressed towards the end.

Starting point is 00:10:29 And it was just kind of, I didn't really care. You know, I wasn't suicidal, but I didn't care at certain point of, oh, if I put myself in a risky situation, if something happened, then something happened. Around that time, I heard about psychedelics. The one I heard about was ayahuasca. And I had never done psychedelics, never had an interest. I didn't self-identify.

Starting point is 00:10:45 I had the same notions as a lot of people. This person does psychedelics. They're doing a drug. They're doing it recreationally. They're doing it to escape. They're doing it to get high. There's no mental health benefit there. It's just sort of this weird false profundity.

Starting point is 00:11:00 But like I said, I was suffering. And I heard some of these stories of people actually going to the jungle or taking psychedelics and having pretty big changes, pretty big shifts in their mentality and overcoming certain mental health hurdles. And so, you know, I had nothing to lose at that point. And I decided to give it a shot. I did more research, felt more comfortable, and eventually went to Peru and went through these ceremonies and it was over the course of the week for indigenous ceremonies using the psia wasca and it was

Starting point is 00:11:32 very challenging but just very profound and very healing to a point where after that the continued healing that I saw from it, the being able to overcome a lot of the issues and seeing my life in a different way led me to found her own cards project to educate and then also connect other veterans that are in similar spots to these exact modalities. Not pushing it on anybody, but just in my own community there's so many that had taken their life or actively taken their life and we're kind of at the same spot and they've tried everything else and nothing was working.

Starting point is 00:12:06 And so it was really for that group. And since expanded just because the mental health pandemic and the veteran community and even more so is so severe right now, everybody's just looking for answers. I think that that's a really good call out, just to mention suicide prevention. Because I saw in some of the articles that you appeared in, that they were citing

Starting point is 00:12:28 that during the 20 year war on terror, that there were 30 to 40,000 suicides, and I actually interviewed a classmate of mine, Chuck Smith, who's a former Marine, and he did a TED talk on this, which has gotten millions of views and won't let you put out information unless they validated. And the number he came up with was closer to 145,000, which they independently validated, which to me was just shocking when you compare that to the roughly five to 6,000 who died in

Starting point is 00:13:02 combat. And then you look at this on a worldwide level, and there are over 800,000 people a year who are taking their life due to suicide. So it really is something that affects not only veterans, but many different communities around the world, which is only getting worse given the two years we've just had. So for you, when you went through this experience, I guess one of the questions that would come to my mind is, was it short lasting and did you have to do it again, or once you went through those four treatments, did it have a long lasting profound impact? Yeah, so everybody's, this question is pretty common. It should be just because it's our

Starting point is 00:13:43 understanding of how it works. And especially it's different from sort of the Western tradition that we're used to where you take medications on a monthly basis, some things like Tylenol you take it, cures your headache until you have another headache. So psychedelics kind of works differently with the mental health side of things. So for me, and for most people when they have these big experiences over the course of that week, no matter what, they're going to have lasting changes. They're going to have lasting perceptions of themselves and understandings. A lot of them are able

Starting point is 00:14:12 to overcome, you know, hypervigilance or depression or anxiety, and it won't come back or it won't come back as fear as it had before. But trauma is complex, and we all process trauma differently. So some of us have many layers of trauma. A lot of veterans have, you know, there's a correlation between those that suffer of PTSD and childhood trauma. And so that can be deeper and trickier levels. So there are people who commonly do come back to it. But again, it's a different relationship. That's one of the things we teach with hero carts. Is that if you are going to go to one of these bigger experiences with still-sive in mushrooms, ayahuasca, ibogaine, you want to give yourself time. So go into it with intention and preparation. We do about a month and a half of individual

Starting point is 00:14:54 coaching, preparation, getting people to write mindset, breath work, mindfulness activities, going into it. The actual retreat, you want to make sure that the retreat centers themselves or they know what they're doing They have a history of doing this. They're safe. They have safety protocols They have specific protocols specifically for different types of trauma and then the after side and the after side is what we call integration So generally speaking With these psychedelic experiences it really sort of gives you a brand new perspective on yourself For a lot of people,

Starting point is 00:15:25 it almost zooms them out so they see their life in third person so they can see all these negative patterns and cycles and where this trauma comes from helps them process it. But it's a lot to download. And there's a lot of understandings of like, hey, I've let myself go, I need to get back in the shape and you eat healthier, I need to treat my spouse better. But a person still has individual responsibility to incorporate that into their life. So that's the integration phase. What did you just download? What experiences did you have? What profundity? Are you taking home? And how do you effectively incorporate that into your life to actually a math change?

Starting point is 00:16:01 That way you create these structures at home that keep you on the right path that support your mental health. If you go straight back to the bar right after this, even though you're not being clienty, but if you went to that and you want party with friends, obviously the benefit is not going to take hold because you're going right back to your old patterns. With Psychedelics, there is a proven dynamic that increases brain plasticity, so connections, which allows you to overwrite negative sort of behaviors and rewrite new positive behaviors, but you still have to enforce those. You still have to do that. So that being said, the integration, after a big experience, we want

Starting point is 00:16:37 people to sit with that for six months to a year, because even six months later, they're still like understanding their new sort of perception, their new sort of way of interacting with the world and how the sort of this was working with them if there's deeper levels for those that have more trauma than oftentimes they do go back, but then they're going back with intention, they're going back to resolve other issues or deeper issues. So again, it's kind of more of a learning yourself, connecting to yourself,

Starting point is 00:17:05 connecting your trauma as opposed to having the same exact issue and then just meditating that and repeat the cycle. So it's sort of we have to change our perspective of it. It's really there's always progress there if you do it correctly. And but for each person, it's going to be different. Each person has, like I said, process of trauma is different and have different interactions with it in their life. Right now, there are two forms of psychedelics that are going through stage three trials, as I understand it. One is MDMA, which is ecstasy, and the other is cytosybin, which comes from magic mushrooms. Do I have that correct? Yeah, I think still cybin is still in phase two, but it'll get it'll get to phase three

Starting point is 00:17:49 pretty recently, but yeah MDMA is set if it follows the same course to be prescribable by therapists in probably mid-year March 2023 and then still Simon. We're expecting to be prescribable poor depression right now. That's the one that they're testing for in 2022 2024 2025 Okay, and I also read that there's several states that these are now legal to use

Starting point is 00:18:19 Each state has its own laws and each state has the right to do it federally These substances M.D. May psychedel, and cannabis are all still schedule one substances, so they're the most controlled and federally illegal. So that's why federally, you know, cannabis is still having issue in terms of monetary exchange, the VA can't prescribe it, all this kind of stuff. Same thing with a lot of these.

Starting point is 00:18:40 But on a state-by-state basis, obviously, no, there's medical cannabis, similar to psychedelics. So there's no state right now where correction. So most states are decriminalized. That means if you have a personal possession, not most states, but a few states are decriminalized with psilocybin and some other psychedelics. So for instance, if you go to Denver,

Starting point is 00:19:00 or you go to a kind of more on a city basis right now, but we're working on a decriminalization in California. But in these cities like Denver, like Washington, DC, if you have a personal possession of psilocybin or other substances, psychedelics, not like meth or anything like that, then you won't, please won't rest you, they won't charge you anything like that.

Starting point is 00:19:23 So it's just you can have your personal dose, bills like California, which is still in progress. It would allow personal possession, but then also community access. So if you go to a community group where people are doing like a civil servant and ceremony, then they'll be able to have that in a little bit bigger dosage.

Starting point is 00:19:39 The one exception is Oregon, which passed measure 109 the other year, not last year, One exception is Oregon, which passed measure 109 the other year, not last year, but the year before. And that's actually allowing a prescribed mobile model as well as a community model of just psilocybin, just mushrooms. So by the end of this year, they're still trying to figure out

Starting point is 00:19:59 you should be able to go to a therapist in Oregon and get prescribed or have access access to suicide in for the sake of mental health issue or just for the sake of some sort of reaffirmation of life or something to explore. You'll also be able to access it from a community. So it'll be community centers. It's going to be licensing to control safety and quality and all that kind of stuff for the centers and for the practitioners, but it's just different models.

Starting point is 00:20:27 And for people who are hesitant about this community side, the reason why this has been a big effort is because most of these psychedelics have a long history of being used in communal settings. Oftentimes, the protocols that we use in medical models have been preserved by indigenous communities, by sacraments, by tribes, all this kind of stuff. So there's a much longer history actually of using psychedelics in this setting than there is actually an medicinal setting. You mentioned before, sort of these PEOD circles, it's the exact same sort of thing where native Americans use PEODs as sacrament. There's a lot of tribes in Mexico and also in the US that have used

Starting point is 00:21:04 psilocybin mushrooms as sacrament. Iowas waskas big in South America. So that's kind of why we're we're allowing for that. So it's just not taking control and changing it to something that's not. We will be right back to my interview with Jesse Gold, Oprah Winfrey. She's living, breathing proof of the power of passion running running away from home at age 13, starting a media empire, and now worth $2.6 billion. All to say that, when she makes a big move, you can learn a lot by watching. And after she made $60 million in one fell swoop, I did some research on how, and my eyes were open to a market out there worth $1.7 billion. That for the first time we all can be part of no Oprah-level billions needed.

Starting point is 00:21:53 How? There's a startup that's blowing the whole thing wide open called Masterworks. Powered by passion like all good startups are and eager to change the world. To learn more, go to masterworks.io and use promo code passion. That's masterworks.io promo code passion. See important regulation, A, disclosures at masterworks.io slash CD. That's masterworks.io promo code passion. And we know all these promo codes can be so difficult to remember.

Starting point is 00:22:27 So we put them in one convenient place on passionstruck.com slash deals. Thank you so much for supporting the sponsors who support this show and make it free for our listeners everywhere. Now back to my interview with Jesse Gould. Some of the studies I was researching are pretty astounding. I saw one that came out from the National Institute of Health that showed that the MDMA intervention is having almost a 66 to 67

Starting point is 00:22:57 percent success rate in helping the recipients with PTSD symptoms. It's pretty astounding results. Yeah, absolutely. For those MDMA results, that's a huge jump. And you generally don't see that in FTA trials. Currently accepted treatment is talk therapy with SSRIs, which in terms of getting over PTSD has less than a one and three success rate. So less than 33% whereas with this MDMA's trials, and this is third

Starting point is 00:23:26 state trials, as tight as you can get a trial and it's passed through everything else, 67%. That's more of a double jump to get there, which is a huge thing in any sort of mental health or any sort of health dynamic. And the other thing with the MDMA trials, they are working with patients with treatment resistant PTSD. So traditionally, these are the hardest. These are the ones that have already gone through other types of treatment and just had to no avail. So these are the hardest cases and it's still having that huge success rate. I'm sure a lot of your audience is still like the hair psychedelics that have that same sort of hesitation stigma and that's understandable,

Starting point is 00:24:02 you know, it's a it's own sort of sort of past, but this is not a question of if this is going to happen, it's just a question of when. The medical establishment for the most part is already warming up and already accepting in some circles that psychedelics are going to be a pretty big part of future mental health. So now is a question of how do we integrate this into medical systems and the community systems, and how do we have proper support to make sure that it's safe. So I know I understand that people are afraid of this

Starting point is 00:24:33 and they have sort of that fear based kind of stuff of a psychedelic, so just gonna go throughout our community and all that kind of stuff. That's not the case, there's been proven areas where that doesn't happen, but on the other side we are seeing some amazing healing that we've never seen before coming from psychedelics for mental health. And so as long as we progress forward and have an open mind about it, this is already happening. The former director of NIH already acknowledged that psychedelics are going to be a big part of

Starting point is 00:24:59 mental health. Major universities like Johns Hopkins already has a psychedelic center. We're working with University of Texas Austin. So in Texas, Texas, Paso, a psychedelic bill, the University of Texas Austin, Dell Medical School has a psychedelic center, Stanford University, Yale, you can name it. They are all, and the top researchers are all acknowledging that we're seeing some amazing results from psychedelics.

Starting point is 00:25:24 So it's just a question of like, okay, let's change our understanding of what we think we know and let's see how we can effectively and safely incorporate these into sort of our modern ways of treating people. Why is Big Pharma doing everything they can to block its adoption? So it's changing now. Big Pharma, it's like any economic incentive. The reason why there's only now been research. So for people who don't understand the the progression, because these are scheduled on substances, it's the tightest restrictions and that within certain

Starting point is 00:25:56 funding bills, federal funding bills, it also prevented any sort of research funding into scheduled on substances. And it also put a stigma a lot of universities that would be able to study it. So for the past 50, 60 years, there's been absolutely no research in the psychedelics just because one, there's no money. And two, there's this huge stigma that you'd lose other funding and research

Starting point is 00:26:17 if you went into it. So it was just pretty much black labeled. But generally speaking, if there is money to be made, then companies will push past it and change laws and take those legislation. The hard part with psychedelics is that most of them are open source. You can grow mushrooms in the ground. And if they're that effective, then that's not a good economic model.

Starting point is 00:26:35 Unfortunately, that's the case. The reason why it's shifted is that somebody did find a way to make money off of still siphon in terms of patting a certain synthetic process, which will probably be used for the medical model. So now that there's money to be made, it's sort of shifting the dynamic that it has the incentive to do it. And it makes sense. Pfizer has not been a hundred million dollars on getting a substance through the FDA trials, and they can't make money off of it. That's just a losing bid. And so that's sort of the shift of it. So originally, pharmaceutical or big pharma was doing that because one, it's a direct competitor to their SSRIs,

Starting point is 00:27:10 SNRIs, but two, there was just no way for them to exploit it and make money off of it. You're going to see sort of a shift in that and that's already kind of happening as they understand different ways of incorporating this and making money. For instance, you see kind of the same sort of trend with VAPE. We kind of think VAPE pens and all that kind of stuff are replacing cigarettes, but it's Philip Morris and it's all these companies that are actually behind the scenes that have all the patents that are still making the money. So the same big players are probably going to be updated to be the same big players. They just have to figure out how to make it into their economic model. Yeah, it's just a different delivery vehicle for the same big players, they just have to figure out how to make it into their economic model.

Starting point is 00:27:50 Yeah, it's just a different delivery vehicle for the same stuff that they were doing before. Well, at the end of the day, as long as my goal is if we can provide more veterans help and healthcare and prevent more suicides than whoever wants to be involved with it, as long as it's not limiting other involvement, then so be it. People want to are able to make money, but that shouldn't limit people from doing it. In a community access, the shouldn't limit, shouldn't be so cost restrictive that the same people who can't have access

Starting point is 00:28:13 won't be able to have access. And that's kind of what we're fighting for, is that we don't want this to turn into something that is just making people a ton of money, but then the same communities that aren't getting a benefit from it will continue not to. We're trying to change that paradigm to where people have more access to actually effective tools as opposed to just access to mediocre and sub-parcall tools. Okay, so maybe we'll talk about

Starting point is 00:28:39 each one of these protocols and my understanding with MDMA and correct me if I'm wrong. For the listener who's sitting there, how would you prescribe ecstasy? My understanding it's a three-time treatment. The dosage has very much been studied and regulated on what they're giving the participant and then they are closely monitored by medical staff. That's pretty accurate. And so right now, it's in terms of the MDMA trials for PTSD. Because it's going through clinical trials, it has to be very strict in terms of the protocol, in terms of the dosage, in terms of everything that's done.

Starting point is 00:29:17 It has to be by the book, and that's what they get approved for. Once it does get passes the FDA and becomes prescribedable by therapists, it will be a little bit more leeway and a little bit more opening up in terms of like protocols But for the by the book they have two people at a time while the person's going through the MDMA Like you said they take a certain dosage that they find to be effective and then they do like therapy talk therapy around it And so the reason why MDMA can be effective, I know we all think it's ecstasy in this kind of stuff.

Starting point is 00:29:50 With that, there is this kind of, the reason why people take it during parties because it makes them feel good and sensory is on high and all this kind of stuff, but they're not really like thinking, they're not in a spot where they're focused on inner stuff, they're distracted. The difference with this is, MDMA is a heart opener.

Starting point is 00:30:06 It does breakdown walls, it does build trust naturally. And so it actually augments the job of the therapist. One of the hardest things for a talk therapist, one is building a rapport, building a bond, building trust with their client, and then getting deeper because we build these walls to protect ourselves. And so with these substances like MDMA want it makes them feel good,

Starting point is 00:30:30 but too it builds that trust and it breaks down those previous restrictors. So the therapists are able to get deeper and deeper and they're quicker able to establish that trusting relationship. So that's why we've seen it to be most effective because these veterans, especially that are so good at compartmentalizing, are now opening up and now able to feel emotions and talk about what is really driving sort of the PTSD symptoms and some other things. How is the psilocybin administered? It depends on the different trials and it depends on on where it's happening. If you have like the John's Hopkins trial, they've done a couple and for like the depression, they'll have a specific dosage. You'll go in, the person will put on like blind like eye shades, they'll take the certain

Starting point is 00:31:15 dosage of suicide and they'll generally have like music playing in the background because the music kind of helps drive the experience. And then with the hallucinogenics, the therapy tends to happen internally on its own because it brings up to the surface trauma naturally. And so then afterwards, the therapist will talk with the individual about, okay, what came up, what feelings came up, and then help them process it. Because it can be kind of metaphorical or almost like a dreamlike state. Sometimes it can be very precise. So whatever comes up, they'll talk with the therapist and help process. But a lot of the work is actually done internally

Starting point is 00:31:48 with the psychedelic itself, with the hallucinogen. If you're doing it in a more traditional setting, this comes back to like Mexico. Oftentimes, it'll be weak to, or fewer days. You'll go into sort of a traditional ceremony. There'll be preparation, generally a fire ceremony. You'll go in, you'll have your mushrooms, and then you'll just kind of be in your spot.

Starting point is 00:32:09 And again, it's a very internal sort of experience, but on the outside, it'll be music and led by the healer, either live or reporting. If you're with a group, then you'll have more of a group therapy dynamic. I also understand we haven't talked about it yet, but there's also ketamine, which I understand one of the modalities is a nasal spray. Yeah. So, yeah, so on that list

Starting point is 00:32:34 that are more popular today are ketamine. I began in ayahuasca LSD2 has been shown to be effective for therapy, but because it's synthetic, it's a little bit trickier, and it has a lot more baggage for obvious reasons. So ketamine is interesting because it's actually a schedule three drug, whereas all the other ones are schedule one. It's schedule three because originally it's been approved medically for use because it's dissociative anesthetic.

Starting point is 00:33:01 So they use it in military, they used it for sort of a pain reliever or after severe physical trauma. People under a big ketamine dose, they'll kind of dissociate by the time, so that they can do all the surgeries and get them back to a good state. So it already had that sort of dynamic where it was used medically and pretty common, but it's only in the past, I'd say, 10 to 20 years where it's really caught on as a helpful for mental health issues. And so because it's schedule three, that allows people to use it because sort of the medical

Starting point is 00:33:34 model, even though it's approved for this, you can, if it's somewhat related, use it for other medical purposes. And so if you've seen in the last five years, ketamine clinics have really sprouted out, sprouted up all over the US, and you're actually able to do it legally than the US in a clinical medical setting. It's a little bit of a wild west, and there's a few different protocols

Starting point is 00:33:53 of where they're doing, so I might don't agree with, so I think are very beneficial. But essentially at its core, what happens when you are at a certain dosage of ketamine, there's two main things that happen in a very simplistic basis. So one, the reason why people have found ketamine to be effective is because there's

Starting point is 00:34:11 this chemical benefit. So for about 70% of people, mid 70% of people, if they take ketamine administered dosage, they can have immediate anti-depressive effect, an immediate anti-suicide issue, an immediate anti-suicide issue effect. So people are actively suicidal. Oftentimes can go get ketamine dose administered, and they'll be like, it'll relieve their depression, relieve their suicidal thoughts.

Starting point is 00:34:36 And then that will last about three to four months. So that's a huge benefit because there's nothing else that that works that effective. And like I said, it's about 70 to 75% of people have that. The other side of it is that a certain dosage, ketamine in that dissociative state almost has a somewhat psychedelic dynamic. So in certain dosages, when you take that much and you have music going on, the same kind of thing, eye shades, you'll actually go into a almost

Starting point is 00:35:01 psychedelic experience where you'll see stuff. Sometimes you'll feel stuff. Tra trauma will come up on the surface. So for, that's called ketamine assisted psychotherapy where you have psychotherapists that are trained in that modality, they can put people in that specific dosage and the same sort of thing is what happens with the MDMA or psilocybin. These traumas come up, they see it, they interact with it, and then the therapist can use that to augment their practice. These things that might take them years to get to can happen in a matter of sessions. And so that generally happens in sort of either the IV or intramuscular. Those are different types of injecting it. The again, we're getting back

Starting point is 00:35:42 to the economic, there is the nasal spray. The reason why ketamine wasn't catching on originally because it's open label, so it's very cheap. But if you just buy ketamine, like if doctors buy ketamine, it's super cheap because it's not patentable. But spravato, Johnson and Johnson were able to patent a certain chemical change of ketamine called S ketamine. And then they made spravata, which is a nasal spray. And because they're able to do that, even though it's, functions essentially the same. Chemically, it's very, very similar.

Starting point is 00:36:15 They're able to make money off of it and charge a lot more for it. And so that was the driving factor. So the nasal spray, it's going to be a lighter dosage. And so tends to use kind of more of that chemical benefit as opposed to that ketamine assisted psychotherapy benefit. So that's what's being used within the VA, this nasal spray where it will get people to do a somewhat sort of dissociated state, but not to the same levels. And so again, it can be beneficial in terms of that chemical benefit, and it can kind of with the dissociation help out a little bit with the psychotherapy. But my mind and from what I've seen I don't think it's

Starting point is 00:36:49 as effective as if you were to use the proper dosages with intramuscular or intravenous and sometimes losenges. I just wanted to describe and experience one of the participants I was talking to at the 4x4x48 challenge went down to Central America to do Iowaska and that experience was very normal and opened up for him kind of a feeling of comfort. But then he was also given something else that caused a much more potent reaction that lasted for about 15 minutes and I can't remember what that was, but he said that really triggered for him to remember extreme traumatic situations, which he was, he then processed through for that 15 minutes.

Starting point is 00:37:33 So, what's the difference? Iowaska comes from the Amazonian region. It's essentially the combination of two plants and it's the simplistic form. One is a vine called Iowaska and one's generally a leaf called shakruna. And when you brew it together, it causes this very thick drink that is ayahuasca, and it has a psychedelic property. The main psychoactive component of ayahuasca

Starting point is 00:37:56 is called DMT, and DMT is the psychedelic. DMT comes in many different plants and animals as well. And so you can actually synthesize it, and so you can have it in a smokeable form. And then there's other types of DMT. So the one he was referring to is one called 5MEO DMT. So a slightly different chemical structure, but still the base DMT. If I'm not mistaken, die methyl-tripped in mean. So it's part of the triptomy family.

Starting point is 00:38:21 And so the 5MEO DMT actually comes from plants, but it can also come from the snorin desert toad. So the snorin desert toad actually has these excretions. Somehow somebody figured out that if you take these excretions, dry it out and smoke it, then you have this intense psychedelic experience. And so because they're chemically different,

Starting point is 00:38:41 they're similar, but they're also different experiences. Five MEO DMT has become rather popular because a lot of people sort of refer to as the God particle. When you smoke that or when you when you intake it in whatever form, it has like you said a rocket ship, the whole experience lasts 15, 20 minutes. Oftentimes it can just be sort of a mess of stuff. But the 5MEO in particular tends to more often have bringing people with these feelings of connectedness, love, feeling love within themselves, feeling connected to the source,

Starting point is 00:39:14 many have religious experiences. And so it can be a very intense sort of thing, which is good for certain people because it causes that breakthrough, especially for veterans who have become so Closed off to themselves that they don't feel anymore. They don't feel happiness They don't feel anger. They don't feel anything and so something like this Which is such an intense experience can break them through and sort of bring back that love bring back that ability to feel and bring back that

Starting point is 00:39:39 Connectivity to life in general which they've lost from their their service. So the difference with that DMT by itself will be people have had benefit from it, but it doesn't, as always, have that same loves kind of stuff it can, but not to the same regularity as that one. And again, it's sort of this quick download of an rocket ship of information. I'll lost the difference in, because you ingest it, the experience has lasts about four to five hours.

Starting point is 00:40:09 So it's not as intense as a smoke-bulb version, but you're still in this DMT world, which has a very unique feeling. Each psychedelic has its own chemical thing that causes the psychedelic. They're all similar in some ways, but they all have very different feelings. So the DMT in Iowaska, when you're in that,

Starting point is 00:40:24 you're almost in the DMT world. And for four or five hours, which you can't really tell time, but it allows you to process it more, which is why I prefer it for people who are especially new to this. Because there's benefit to that quick sort of thing, like I said, breaking down walls, but the real long lasting benefit for, especially if new people to it is being able to be in this space and having trauma come up, being able to identify it, being able to sort of reframe it in their mind, and being able to see themselves in different ways, all things that these longer experiences like diowasca are so silent journey offer. It's that time being able to process it and then also reframing is really the big benefit. Sometimes people add different ones, but that's why we really like the Iowaska, but we have these other tools depending on where

Starting point is 00:41:09 the person's at. And again, we have to kind of get out of that mentality of like you have depression, you have this, therefore this is the only thing that you should take. What we sort of go about is understanding more where the person's coming from, A much more holistic version of John, you are here. This is your trauma. This is what you're struggling from. This is how you're feeling right now. This is all other life considerations. You have a family, you have the support system,

Starting point is 00:41:34 all this other kind of stuff. When we have that information, we can better assess what might be the next step for you. And it's not going to be a black or white thing. There could be a few different options. And then it's which one everyone you're more drawn to. Because they can all be beneficial, but we try to get away from that. Like you are depressed, therefore, still sirens you'll answer. It's more, it's a lot more different understandings of what tool is best for you at that moment.

Starting point is 00:41:58 Yeah, and one of the interesting things for me is I looked at lots of research on psilocybin and ayahuasca. There was basically no physical long-term side effect from it. In fact, finding people who've even overdosed is extremely rare if nonexistent because you're far more to stumble upon a poisonous mushroom than you are to have a side effect from the the magic mushrooms. But one of the things it did say is that some people can have persistent, distressing alterations and how they see the world. How often do you think that side effect occurs and is it fairly rare? So you make a good point. There's no magic film this game. And there's always risk with anything you do, right? There's even like Tylenol.

Starting point is 00:42:47 If you look at his six of how many people overdose on Tylenol, they're actually out there. But the benefit is in terms of the cost benefit analysis of like you said, things like psilocybin and ayahuasca, it's virtually impossible to overdose. I don't think they've even actually experienced it. And there's no addictive properties. It's not like you take this and you have to do it. Actually, it's counter to that because anybody who's gone through one of these experiences, the last thing they want to

Starting point is 00:43:13 do is another eye-alosmic experience because it's challenging. It's physically and mentally demanding. And so they might go back, but generally begrudgingly of like, oh man, I have to get through this again, which is a great sort of thing. It's one of those things that help you overcome stuff that you're not addicted or you not wanting to do it every single day. But beyond that, there's other considerations with both these psychedelics. You can't be on certain medications, so that's a risk. If you have health issues like heart conditions or just had major surgery, this is probably not the best step because it can add a lot of stress to your system.

Starting point is 00:43:46 So there are those cases. In terms of the mental psyche, a lot of times it's been overblown. And that's kind of a lot of the propaganda against psychedelics. I remember growing up, and there's always that, the rumor of like somebody had a friend of a friend who took too much acid,

Starting point is 00:44:04 and they turned into a glass of orange juice and were always afraid that somebody would pour them over. Or I remember as a kid, it was like, if you took acid four times, they would clinically call you insane, or you'd be clinically insane. And all these urban legends that have been promoted by propaganda.

Starting point is 00:44:20 So that's not to say it's without risk. Like there is cases of people really having traumatic events. There are cases of people freaking out on it, but never to the spot where they're going to die or anything like that. And you can vastly, vastly minimize that with proper intention, proper preparation, and vetting the people appropriately. If you do those things, then the risk is extremely, extremely low. Anytime people bring up bad trips,

Starting point is 00:44:45 there's always a commonality in terms of they weren't prepared. They didn't control their setting, they had all sorts of chaos or a concert or they're with other people that didn't know what they're doing. They didn't have any trained people who could help them out. All these things that could add sort of these chaotic factors. And so when they get into it,

Starting point is 00:45:04 and they start having a really hard time, and there's nobody to calm them down, and they just get it all hyped up. And once you get up to that state, it gets harder and harder. And so then they'll go to a hospital until it comes out of their system, and then they might experience that

Starting point is 00:45:16 as a very traumatizing event because they didn't have control. But if you have these situations, like what we do with Hero of Hearts project, where we have that preparation, where people get in that right mind frame, we do an intake so we make sure that people are appropriately healthy and they know what they're getting into. And then at the place, when anytime you see the ceremonies, it's quiet

Starting point is 00:45:38 besides the music, people are in control to have their little like corner. And then there's people who aren't taking the substances that can help them. If they're having a really hard time, just go over the reminder of the breath, hold their hand if they need that, remind them that it's just the experience and we've never had what I call a bad trip. We've had very challenging trips. We've had veterans who have been deployed 15 times and they will say that this is the hardest thing they've ever done, but within that hardship, they're able to actually overcome a lot of trauma. We're extremely glad of having gone through that with all that kind of stuff. So we can mix challenging with a bad trip if people go in with the right intentions. So in terms of what you're saying, there is some risk of a very small risk, like I said, of people who do report that stays with them or

Starting point is 00:46:26 lasting hallucinations. Again, I think you can take that out with proper dosage and with proper vetting. So we don't work with people with history of mental illness. We don't work with people who have family histories of psychosis or schizophrenia. We generally don't use synthetic ones like LSD just because there's a natural sort of limitation of the dosage with psilocybin like natural mushrooms in ayahuasca. And I think if you get to like those huge huge doses of LSD which you can only really do with the synthetic, then that it's still early stage. I don't think that's necessarily that great for you. But otherwise like I said through for the hundreds of vets that we've worked with, with all this proper preparation and protocol, we really haven't had what we would call like somebody either retraumatized or a bad experience.

Starting point is 00:47:15 Virtually everybody has had at least some sort of positive input from it, the degree to which various person the person. And some there's a occasional person that, because of the way their brains wire, they just don't really have a psychedelic effect. And so they kind of walk away. They still tend to be better, but they don't have that as profound as other people. But we've never had people that walk away that are just like,

Starting point is 00:47:37 oh, this ruined my life. On those same lines, given you have gone through this treatment, how has it allowed you to personally move on from the trauma that you experienced? I think that was another one of those lessons from this weekend is we're all veterans, we all have our history. It's always part of you. It's always your traumas is what develops you and makes you who you are and that's always going to be with you. You're not going to forget that kind of stuff. But the question is more of how big of a effect does it have on your life, how big of an impact,

Starting point is 00:48:08 how much does it affect your day-to-day and your emotional well-being. So the thing with this process and myself included is that those things are still there and I still have to be diligent on a day-to-day basis. I put rules in my life to where I don't drink too much to where I'm only able to drink with friends and social settings and stuff like that. I generally don't buy six packs at home, so I don't go down

Starting point is 00:48:28 into that hole where I'm just drinking all the time. And then other stuff like if I'm feeling anxious, then all of the way sort of crowds. So there's certain things that are always there. There's certain things that get better, but it's really our understanding of ourselves and our understanding of the trauma that allows us to be better adaptable on a day-to-day basis. And that's really what most people come away with. As they see their trauma, they're able to store it in a different way in their brain towards not as overwhelming to them and just make positive life changes, but it's not holding them down. So for me, yeah, I mean, there's like hypervigilance that definitely helped out and resolved that.

Starting point is 00:49:05 Other things, I'm just more conscientious of things that used to really make me anxious or depressed and if again, that spot still out to happen or avoid those situations. And so I'm much better in terms of self-awareness and emotional awareness than I was before. If you're a veteran and you're facing many different problems that you need to work on

Starting point is 00:49:24 around this area, how do you help identify the prioritization of what they should do first? I think the first thing they should do is just take the time to dive into what they're feeling, whether through journaling or meditation or just taking 10 minutes every morning and just explore that. If they're feeling angry, if they're feeling sad, just sitting with the emotion is the first step to helping emotional intelligence and touching to your intuition or what the trauma's coming up.

Starting point is 00:49:54 It takes years to develop and gain that psychedelics can really help. And that's often what happens. People go in, we train them to go in with intentions. When they go into the psychedelic experience, it could show them something vastly different or some other trauma that they didn't even know is there. Then it's reevaluating. This is something I need to work on now. This is what I was shown. So let me focus on that and then sort of reassess. And the more you go into that, the more in tune that

Starting point is 00:50:19 you are with what you're expressing and what emotions are telling you. Because emotions are messengers, they're all signals. There's a reason that you're feeling anxious. There's a reason you're feeling sad. Sometimes it's a little bit hard to perceive, especially for people who have anxiety. It might not be attached to something specific, but more of a lifestyle, like existential kind of thing. But the more you understand where all these things

Starting point is 00:50:39 are coming from, then the better it is. So people who don't know, and they're just like, I just feel bad, just starts sitting with yourself and then look into some of these techniques. Cognitive behavioral therapy can help sort of reframe your mind, if you're interested in psychedelics, you can reach out to us,

Starting point is 00:50:53 they can kind of bring clarity as well. There's a lot of other things that aren't SSRIs, and I'm not demonizing it, there's a time and place, and they can be life saving, but definitely try a lot of these mindfulness techniques and they they can really help and breath work is always key. You might sound a little woo-woo, but the breath is always the key to everything. Maybe surprise how much that can really help your emotional stability and calmness. So check out Wim Hof, check out, I just read the book, Free by James Nasser. Definitely recommend that. Another really good person is Mark Divine, who's a former Navy SEAL,

Starting point is 00:51:29 who's also an expert in the breath work. Yeah, absolutely. If you're someone listening to this podcast and you feel like you want to take the next step, how does that process work with heroic hearts? Absolutely. There's no, like I said, there's no pressure, even if you're curious, start looking into it.

Starting point is 00:51:47 And you never know we often have people that are, that are curious, but it's not the time or place for them, but they have the seed planted and then they'll come back in a year and two years and like, hey, I'm ready. So just do yourself a favor, educate yourself. This is coming no matter what. And so the more education you have of the tools out there, even if you don't feel like you need them, then you might have a friend who needs them. And so for those that are interested, they can go to our website, hero-parts-project.org. There's a veteran sign up. They just fill out that

Starting point is 00:52:14 application. And then when we have retreats, different psychedelics, we send out an announcement, then people can sign on, they will have requirements, all that kind of stuff. It's for combat veterans at this time or veterans who have suffered, excuse me, military sexual trauma. And there's more information on the website. We're on all social media, especially Instagram, Hero Hearts Project. So if you just want information, just go to those websites, go to those resources. But if you're interested in joining us with a program, we provide financial grants, sign up to the application, and then we'll send you updates. And if someone's listening to this and they want to help support the cause of legalizing this, do they reach out to their congress members or senators or what steps can they take? Absolutely. So in terms of support as well, if you're on that side, HeroCards project is a 501c3 nonprofit, all of our ability to help veterans come

Starting point is 00:53:08 from generous donations, each veteran costs about 4,000 to provide a grant to go to there. And at this time, we have almost 1,000 veterans on our weightless. So this is a huge problem and we need your support financial or time if you can help us. If you're interested in being politically active, brokerage has also been involved with a lot of these policy measures. So you can reach out to us and figure out how you can be involved, but like you said, John, the most direct way is you can reach out to your politician, hey, what bills are going on with psychedelics? I heard about this. I heard these states are doing it. What can we do? There's local decriminalized nature campaigns in most states.

Starting point is 00:53:46 Or like I said, if you're a veteran and you just want to be an advocate, every state that has these bills, we're always looking for veterans willing to speak up about it. So reach out to us and we can sort of put you on list and connect to the right people. Well, Jesse, that was just some amazing information and great insight for anyone who's listening or viewing this. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I truly appreciate it and the work that you're doing as well. John, thanks so much for having me. It's been a pleasure and thanks to your audience for listening and let me know if you have any questions. We're here to help and provide safe access or responsible access to all these medallys. And yeah, John,

Starting point is 00:54:23 I look forward to the next, uh, whatever event that we do. Hopefully it's a little bit easier on the knees. Yes. And shin splints. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, until next time. Big thanks to Jesse Gold. And all things Jesse will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you buy any books from the guests who are on the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you buy any books

Starting point is 00:54:46 from the guests who are on the show. It all goes to help supporting the show. Transcripts are in the show notes and videos are on YouTube at John R. Miles. Evertiser deals and discount codes are at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. I'm at John R.iles at both Twitter and Instagram

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Starting point is 00:55:25 You're about to hear a preview from the PassionStrike podcast with one of the most prominent podcasters in the world, Kathy Heller, whose podcast don't quit your day job has over 30 million downloads. I am so passionate about helping people get out of that moment when they're at a job and they're like, well, turns out it's not really

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Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Jesse Gould on Saving Veterans One Heroic Heart at a Time EP 150

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