EP 1:14 Psychedelics in Recovery with Steve

If I am newly in sobriety, I'm a crystal meth addict, because that's who's listening to this probably. How do I know that my basement has junk in it?

Well, I would argue that every human being's basement has junk in it, just from, just from the nature of, the nature of parenting practices. The nature of our culture.

Welcome to the Aftermath Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Dallas Bragg, a former crystal meth addict, now sobriety coach. Join me on my mission to increase awareness around the epidemic of crystal meth among the gay male population and create a repository of resources for current and past addicts, as well as and especially for their loved ones. This is The Aftermath. Trigger warning, this podcast will contain discussions pertaining to drug and alcohol misuse. If you feel triggered to use or relapse, please call SAMHSA's National Hotline at 1-800-662-HELP. Also, if you are new in your sobriety journey and you feel like you could be triggered by discussions around drug, alcohol, and sex misuse, Please do not listen to this podcast. All right, now on with the show. All right. Hey, y'all, welcome to the episode of The Aftermeth. I am super duper excited to welcome our guest, Steve Taylor, who is a psychedelic somatic facilitator. And if you followed any of my content, you'll know the special place that I hold in my heart for the use of psychedelics in healing, growth, But especially sobriety. Steve's passion for healing comes from his recovery from alcoholism, and it began in 2009. An investigator and experimenter by nature, he loves taking deep dives on various topics related to healing and spirituality. Steve's professional journey has mirrored his inner work. In 2018, after having been working as an addiction counselor in 12-step treatment centers, For 5 years, Steve became obsessed with addressing the root causes of addiction versus treating the symptoms. So listen to that part. If you're listening to this, pay attention to that part. Addressing the root causes of addiction versus treating the symptoms. This led to studying trauma and modalities such as Accelerated Resolution Therapy and Internal Family Systems, a favorite of mine. While staying connected to the spiritual principles of the 12 steps. In 2020, after 11+ years of sobriety, Steve intentionally began working with psychedelics himself as tools to access and process trauma. Those experiences were transformational for Steve and guided him to an apprenticeship with the Psychedelic Somatic Institute. While Steve enjoys holding space in traditional psychedelic-assisted sessions, He is most passionate about working with others using psychedelic somatic interactional psychotherapy. Wow.

That's a mouthful.

Steve enjoys being— yeah, it is. And you enjoy being silly with your family, basketball, and living on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Indeed. Indeed. Nice. Until I read this a couple of days ago, I didn't realize we're in the same state.

Yeah.

I just assumed you were in California or somewhere like that. So Steve, welcome to The Aftermath. Thank you for taking time out for us today.

Yeah, thanks so much for inviting me, Dallas. Happy to be here.

Good, good. So we do a wellness check-in to begin with on this podcast, just to kind of get things kicked off. So I would just like to check in with you. How are you doing today?

I'm doing pretty well. I feel, I feel good spiritually and emotionally. I've got some allergies going on from some of the pollen in the air. So that's, that's a bit annoying. But, but other, other than that, pretty good. I love going on walks. And it's a beautiful day. So I go on my walk, but I'm like, I want to go inside because I'm like itchy eyes and watering. But yeah, other, other than that. Can't complain.

Good, good. I went on a very long hike yesterday and I swallowed probably a pound of pollen.

Yeah.

So that's why I've— I'm pretty stuffed up right now too. But, you know, interestingly enough, I got a random call. It's hard to explain how it happened, but It just happened to be someone who practices somatic healing. And he was having me do all sorts of things to my body to get the pollen moving down and energy out and all kinds of stuff. But it helped. It helped. But I did end up buying some Benadryl.

Yeah.

So, oops. But, you know, I I admit that I want to be more patient and work through some, some of those natural forms of getting in touch with your body, you know.

Yeah.

Instead of just popping a pill.

Exactly. Exactly.

I want to, I want to take a note to the listeners that, yes, the podcast is geared toward gay men who are, have been or are addicted to crystal meth. Steve is not a gay man, but the sobriety route he is offering is important. And I think it's relevant and it applies to anyone who struggled with substance misuse, but especially if you are a gay man and you've had all this trauma growing up, there's a disconnection you have to yourself and to your body. And so I feel like this is going to be very pertinent and useful and helpful. So buckle up and pay attention to this podcast. So Steve, I guess I want to start with basic terms, which is what is a psychedelic somatic facilitator?

Yeah. So the way that I apprenticed was again with the Psychedelic Somatic Institute. And so some of what I share will be Kind of, and that was founded by Saj Razvi, who was a longtime trauma therapist and then started working in the psychedelic realm with MAPS. So some of what I say will be kind of his model, and then of course kind of my own, you know, conglomeration or my own model. But a psychedelic somatic therapist is is using psychedelics not so much to have the mystical or transpersonal experience, but to quiet the protector, to use IFS language, our protectors or our defense mechanisms, kind of our ordinary consciousness, to kind of quiet the mind so that we can access That, that material that's kind of deeper down, right? And so kind of an analogy that I like to use is that, you know, if we think of ourselves as a house and in the basement of our house is maybe our kind of our, our core traumas or our core material, which for a lot of us happens from about birth to age 7. Like, like a lot of that stuff in our family of origin, and it resides kind of in our subconscious mind or the basement of our house, right? And so, we go through life and in order to protect ourselves from the pain down there, we develop what I call this facade, which is, or what AA would call character defects, or there's a million different names for these terms, right?

Yeah.

But, so, we go about our lives kind of distracting and keeping that stuff down in the basement. And then, when it comes to our healing efforts, it's like we've got this stuff down in the basement. And now, when we want to heal and we want to get well, we're focusing on the upstairs. And so, it's like we put new paint on the walls and we light incense and we rearrange the furniture upstairs, but we have a hard time going down there because a lot of times we don't even know it's there.

Right.

Because it's outside of our conscious awareness. So, psychedelic somatic therapy is about going down into the basement and going there safely. And, it's built on— the somatic part is built on our nervous systems are super intelligent. And so, our body is self-healing.

Right?

So, you know, like if you talk to an emergency room physician, right? And I, and I get a, you know, piece of glass in my arm and I go to the emergency room, they kind of remove the obstruction and then kind of make space for the wound to kind of heal itself, right? If I, if I eat a donut and my blood sugar spikes, right? Like the body is trying to go back to homeostasis. It's trying to get back into balance. And so those same same mechanisms that our physical body uses to heal itself, we can tap into that innate intelligence of the body to heal emotional wounds as well. And so, psychedelic somatic therapy is just about accessing that material in the basement in a relational way with, with another person, right? And then tapping into the body's innate ability and desire—

Mm-hmm.

To want to kind of move and process that stuff out, right? So, that's kind of a lot there, but it's about— and I make this distinction because I think it's important when we traditionally think of psychedelic therapy, we traditionally think of the high-dose mystical transpersonal experiences with ayahuasca, with LSD, with high-dose psilocybin. Where, and those are absolutely beautiful where we get in touch with, you know, maybe what some would call like unity consciousness, right? Or realizing that, you know, we're all one and getting like spiritual insights and beautiful downloads, which are super beneficial and healing to recovery. And then there's also another way that we can use psychedelics.

Yeah.

in this lower dose to intentionally kind of go down into that core material and work with it directly, right? And because what I found is sometimes in those high-dose experiences, it's kind of like we're floating above our house and kind of realizing like, oh, there's so much more to the world and it expands our consciousness. But then when I come down from that experience, And I come back into my body and into my house, a lot of times that core material is still down there in the basement, if that makes sense, right? So it's like I can, I can have the mystical psychedelic experience, but I still can't be in a relationship with another human being because my core, like, attachment or family of origin trauma hasn't been touched or processed. Mm-hmm.

Interesting. I have like a billion questions. Yeah. So if I am new, newly in sobriety, I'm a crystal meth addict, because that's who's listening to this, probably. How do I know that my basement has junk in it?

Hmm. Well, I would argue that Every human being's basement has junk in it just from the nature of parenting practices, the nature of our culture. I think if we are drawn to addiction or substance use, there's— I think it's just kind of fundamental that there's some pain there that we're self-medicating. So, that's what I would firstly say. But I think like myself, a lot of, you know, at 10 years sober, I, and having been through some step work, I would have said, and I still would say that I had a great childhood, right? But, but I would have said there was no big like trauma that I could necessarily point to or was aware of. But so, so one sign of that is like, if you don't have a lot of memories before 7 years old.

Yeah.

Right? Is that's a big one. That's a sign of dissociation. Oh, and it looks like my video's maybe gone out a little bit. Can you still hear me? Yeah, not sure if my connection— You're back.

Your video's back in.

Yeah. So one sign of like, I got a lot of stuff down in my basement is like, if I don't have like a coherent narrative of my childhood or A lot of memories before 7. If I am— if my nervous system is kind of wired, right? So, one sign is like, you know, if I'm numbed out emotionally, right? So, a lot of us are maybe kind of on the— I call it hot or cold side. So, some of us kind of run hot, right? Where we're— Like anxious, the mind is racing, kind of always going. I maybe have a lot of tension in my body, or if I sit still, you know, those— yeah, I always got to tap my feet and, you know, have a hard time sitting still. Or maybe my partner describes me as not being like with them, like able to connect. If I have a hard time letting my walls down and be in relationship. Right? That's another kind of sign that there might be some ruptures there in the family of origin. But look, just the way that, you know, my parents, the way that I was just even like sleep trained, right? And like the way that we sleep train infants. So, mom and dad got to get to work in the morning. And, you know, they want to have maybe the privacy of their own bed. And so, we take a young Infant or young baby under the age of 2 who has a physiological desire to attach to mom and be close to mom and sleep with mom. And then we, at a very early age, well, if you're born in a hospital, we're immediately separated from mom. And then at nighttime, the sleep training practice, I think, has created a lot of numbness and dissociation in our systems because, you know, and stop me if this is going too far on a tangent here, but—

Yeah.

But so, what happens is, you know, the infant is left alone in the bedroom and they start crying, right? And so, when our nervous systems experience something threatening or scary, we go into fight or flight, right? Everybody's heard of fight or flight. And so, how that starts is for in that situation is like some fear and some crying, right? And so, the baby is crying for connection, right? And then, that crying goes from that stress into full-on screaming rage crying, right? And parents are taught to just don't go in and they'll cry it out and then they'll learn to sleep in their own bed. And so, the rage comes Ah, come get me, right? And then the infant's nervous system realizes nobody's coming and that connection is not available. So then what happens is a collapse, right? And so when we're overwhelmed or there's no solution to the situation, the infant realizes nobody's coming to get me. Its system will start to numb itself.

Right.

And so then it will collapse, go to sleep and disassociate from its experience. And so when that happens over and over and over again, right? Like, and then, or, you know, and maybe you were like me who, if most of the time addiction runs in families, right? And so that addiction can sometimes look at like chemical addiction, but it could also look at like, you You know, dad was addicted to work or something of that nature, right? But when that connection is ruptured early on, and we as infants learn to, when I'm stressed or upset, I can't really connect with another person. It's going to be unavailable to me. And so I think what we, what we often learn early on is I can go to sleep, I can zone out. I can go off into my head and disconnect. And then when we find substances as a teenager, when we're stressed or feeling that, you know, our emotional needs not getting met, people not seeing us for who we really are and lovingly accepting and connecting with us, that foundation of learning that I can disassociate from my experience, I think often gets wired in much earlier. than we ever realize. I think it gets wired in very early on just through some of these innocent parenting practices even. And with my own personal psychedelic therapy experiences, I was able to directly access those wounds within myself, right?

Okay.

So, another one, another phrase that we hear and is kind of common in our language Right? Is that the body keeps the score? And that is, that is, that is literal, right? Like our body and our unconscious is like a recording device, right? So we don't, we don't necessarily have conscious access. Like I can't remember those experiences in my mind, but, but our body records these memories as emotional experiences.

Right.

And so, so we can, we can access those. And even though we're— they're not consciously affecting us, right? Like, you know, when I'm having trouble connecting with my partner, I have no conscious awareness, right, that, that, oh, this is because my connection was ruptured as an infant.

Right.

But, but But our system absolutely remembers that.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Thank you for explaining that. And I think that should resonate, you know, with someone who, like you said, after 10 years of being without the substance, you realized there's more work to do, you know, and that's, this is something that's important if you're listening is Just because you've quit the substance or the behavior and you have all these different color chips and you have all this time and you can, you can go on social media and post, I've been 6,432 days sober, that doesn't mean that you have reached emotional sobriety, which was a term that Bill W. used, right? Yeah. So tell us a little bit about, because I think when you mention psychedelics, so a lot of users that I know have been using all sorts of different drugs, you know, a lot. Now for me, when I used meth, that was the first drug I ever used. But a lot of people have experimented with LSD or psilocybin, different things like that.

Ketamine.

You know, and they've had, they've used it in a different set and setting, but they have, they probably have a lot of times an idea or a stigma around having a bad trip or, you know, associating it with different things that they've experienced in their life. So what would you say to someone coming in? I know that you've really highlighted it's a low dose. What would they, what could somebody experience if they're going through this therapy? Could they notice a difference? Are they going to see things? Are they going to, you know, is the wall going to be moving or how would you prepare them for, for the experience? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you said it was, was set and setting, right? So, so the, the motivation coming into, and again, there's all kinds of different psychedelic work. But the way that I work is specifically with, yeah, the lower dose somatic. And so, with that, it's not about, yeah, the visual trip, right? And so, I guess I could say a little bit about the process, right?

Yes.

The first part is about establishing safety, right? And so, like, that is so important because if we're talking about accessing these core wounds from childhood that a lot of us are carrying unconsciously, when we go into that space, it's like we're not interacting with Steve, the grown adult. It's like my 5-year-old, vulnerable 5-year-old is there in the room.

Mm-hmm.

And so, the preparation in this type of work is absolutely important. And so, yeah, building trust with your facilitator, right? And, what we know about psychedelics is that they affect us differently depending on our mindset, right? Why we're using them, how we're feeling going into them, right? Because you're going to have a much different experience working with, say, ketamine in the safety of a trusted person's office that you have a relationship with and using it at, you know, a festival or in some other, you know, kind of setting. It's going to be a much different experience, right? And a much different, you know, our intention. So, these substances affect us. If I take a Xanax or drink, it's going to kind of do what it does to my body, whether I'm sitting on the couch or whether I'm, you know, at a concert, right? It kind of affects us very similar. But with psychedelics, like I said, if I'm doing it with the explicit purposes of healing and I set that intention and I'm in the safe presence of another person who can help me feel safe, Our systems will take us to those emotional places that want to naturally heal, right? And these substances have been used in ceremonial contexts for thousands and thousands of years, right? This is nothing new. It's just new to our Western medical, you know, like society because, you know, kind of the mental health field is realizing that the antidepressants aren't working and The talk therapy is really struggling to make a difference. But yeah, I mean, I, and I had, I had concerns myself. Like I said, at 10 years sobriety, you know, I really wrestled with this, right? Because I felt called. I felt like, and I think this is an important point for the listeners, is like, if you're, if you're really looking to do psychedelics because you are having that like Pharma 2.0 mindset or like, The instant gratification mindset of, oh, let me— oh, this is the new thing and this is something I can take that can, you know, just take my issues away. You really want to look at that, you know. Um, but if I'm looking at this, you know, as like, hey, maybe this is a tool that can allow me to, to feel and heal and grow and get past that certain point that I've— You know, I've gotten this far and then I, and then I just can't get over the hump, so to speak, right? Because they're tremendous tools for that. But if I have the intention that it's going to do the work for me, or I can somehow take this medicine and bypass around my emotions, you know, I've seen that backfire.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. I think it's important, and you use this a lot on your— in your information on your website, is, uh, doing the work, right? And that I think it's important to know that this is not a— this is not an easy way out. This is not a quick fix. This is actually harder when you start doing the work, because quitting the substance is a lot of times— for me, quitting meth was easier. than actually doing the work is unpeeling, unpacking, allowing those emotions to come up, dealing with them, you know.

Yeah.

That is, that is actually the, that's actually the hard way around, right?

Yeah. I would, I would agree. I would agree. Yeah. I would say that we kind of fundamentally, that these addictions are a means of avoiding our emotions. You know, and when we get, you know, when we're in a daily cycle or in a severe addiction, right, you know, at, you know, towards the end of my alcoholism, I was drinking just not to get sick, right? But, but, you know, also like into sobriety, we can carry a lot of behaviors and things that we do as these subtle means of not, not, not being willing to feel either. Right? Like, you know, and a lot of those addictions in our society, they're much less harmful, but they're also other means of avoiding deeper work, right? Like, I can go to 3 meetings a day and, you know, smoke a lot of cigarettes and drink a lot of coffee and avoid, like, sitting with myself. And, and, and, and getting to that deeper layer. So, um, yeah, there's lots of ways to go about it, but I agree 100% that, that psychedelics are not an escape. They, they take you inward, right? And, you know, especially, you know, like, like, um, I like the term entheogens, right? Which kind of, you know, some would say that, that, that means kind of like revealing God within, right? But, these substances like psilocybin where you can wear an eye mask and you can set that attention for healing and it's going to kind of take you underneath that facade or that mask or kind of show me where I'm BSing myself, right? And so, some of the hardest journeys that I've had have been on a mid to low dose of psilocybin. where it shows me like, oh, you're full of crap there. You're full of crap there. You don't want to look at that. You don't want to look at that.

Yeah.

You know, as opposed to, yeah, I'm taking this and escaping and just getting blissed out. And which is, you know, those experiences are beautiful too. But yeah, yeah, there's lots of ways to work with them.

So you worked with 12 steps, obviously, um, and you used it. It's that you used— you said you used it to get sober in the beginning.

Mm-hmm.

So how, how can one— if I, if I've been in— if I got sober through the 12 steps, if I've been using the 12 steps for, I don't know, 5 years, how do I reconcile, um, being in the 12 steps but using psychedelics? Because based on the 12-step philosophy if you use mind-altering drugs, and I put air quotes if you're listening, you're not sober anymore. So what, how are you reconciling the two? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I think that's something that the person has to come to inside of themselves. And so, you know, I think that it's something that, you know, such a big part of the 12-step is the fellowship. And that is super powerful, right? So, so, so I don't like to like prescribe things to other people, but, but I can share from my own experience that, you know, I felt called to work with these medicines and, and, and it was, and that was a fear of mine was how is my, is my community gonna judge me, right? And so, you know, there was—

Mm-hmm.

You know, sort of something that I had to wrestle with a bit there. But there's a couple things that come to mind, right? So, one is that something like psilocybin is non-addictive in nature, right? As far as it doesn't create a withdrawal if you use it A couple of days in a row, you're gonna build such a tolerance that you're not gonna feel anything, right? Um, and so, I've, I've, I'm sure because there's processed addictions, right? We can get addicted to every— anything.

Yeah.

But in and of itself, biologically, um, most of these medicines, um, are not gonna create any sort of physiological dependence where I need it or I'm gonna get sick. Right now, I would place ketamine in a different, in a more gray area kind of— like that one, I would be careful with ketamine, especially if you're new to recovery. Be careful with ketamine, absolutely. But as far as the 12 steps, there's a large fellowship called Psychedelics in Recovery. And they have online meetings and they adhere to a lot of the 12 steps. But when it comes to, you know, one's definition of sobriety and abstinence, they, you know, they support you kind of defining that for yourself. Right. And so, you know, there's all sorts of mind and mood altering substances, right?

Yeah.

Caffeine is a mind and mood altering substance.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sugar is a mind and mood altering substance, right? SSRIs are mind and mood altering substances. Suboxone is a mind and mood. So there's lots of, you know, mind and mood altering substances. And so, you know, my take is that it's an individual choice and that we need to check our motivations. If you're called to it, There's a lot of people that are out there doing it and doing it safely. But again, I think our intention matters, right? So if I'm coming to this because I think it's going to be the fast track or an easy way out, I think you got to check that motivation, right? Check that part of yourself that's looking for that and examine it. But there's an interesting history even with, with AA and, you know, Bill Wilson in Towns Hospital. What produced his initial spiritual experience was the belladonna treatment, which, you know, if you're curious, look up what the belladonna treatment is. But the white light that he saw was produced by, you know, a hallucinogenic substance that he received in Towns Hospital.

That's right.

And then you look at You know, what he was doing in the '50s and when LSD was exploding in the LSD research, Bill Wilson suffered from longtime depression throughout his sobriety and was seeking like, what can we help? And this is what I saw working in rehabs, right? It was like, we can, we can get people safe and off drugs, but we can't consistently produce a spiritual awakening for somebody, right? And so even the foundations of the 12 steps are like, Hey, these 12 steps are geared towards— we're trying to produce a spiritual awakening. We're trying to produce a spiritual experience that can relieve the obsession to drink and use drugs. And psychedelics produce mystical, religious, spiritual experiences, right?

Yeah.

So, why not use them as a tool? Again, mindfully, intentionally, with reverence and respect. But, you know, that's my take on it. And just my personal opinion is that there's a lot of— and I was one of them for 10 years. I think there's a lot of people in AA that have long-term sobriety, but are really suffering. Because if I'm doing a 4th step, and I'm writing down my resentments, I can only write down the resentments and fears and shame That I'm consciously aware of, right? And if I have trauma that's hiding in my subconscious and I can't access it, how can I heal from that, right? I can't write it down on a 4-step, right? And so I think that there's a lot of us that have long-term recovery, but still have a lot of emotional wounds that we haven't dealt with and that these are powerful tools that can access and help us heal those emotional wounds.

Yeah. Yeah. So having trauma that you're unaware of, it sounds similar to shadow work. Is that correct?

Yeah. Yeah. I would say so. I would say so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

The way I think— yeah, go ahead.

No, go ahead. Sorry.

I was just going to say the way I think about it is that, yeah, those shadow parts of myself that got created by that trauma or by those wounds, right? And then my psyche in an attempt to deal with that creates these shadow parts of my personality that I can't see, right? That I can't—

Mm-hmm.

You know, that I hide from myself. Absolutely. And I think in AA language, some of that would be like our character defects, maybe.

That's right.

Yeah.

That's right. Yeah. Yes. And if you think of it, if you think of a character defect as an unconscious way to, a maladaptive A maladaptive tool that you've learned throughout your life. There's something about the shift in the meaning of that because a character defect in and of itself, it's full of— it sounds shameful, right?

Yeah.

It sounds like that you're— there's something wrong with you. You're defected.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, so if someone comes to you, if they want to be— so I know you have a— maybe we could talk about this next— is your, um, your community, uh, your AF— um, is it a— you call it an association?

Yeah, it's like a private membership association.

Yes. So what is that like? What could I expect if I want to be a part of that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so really what that is, is just like working with me doing this work. And then also, you know, like a community where men are supporting each other doing this work. Because like I said, it's like, you know, there's a, there's a stigma, especially within recovery circles of working with these medicines. You know, a lot of times when When we're in the process of this work, talking to people that maybe haven't done it, it can kind of like go over their heads, right? So, it's like there's a powerful thing about connecting with somebody who's been there. So, the way that I've structured how I operate, I call it a private membership association just because of the sensitive nature of of the work that I'm doing. Right. And so I'm actually no longer— I still have my clinical license, but I'm not presenting myself as a licensed clinical mental health counselor anymore for a number of personal reasons and the sensitive nature of the work that I do. But essentially, yeah, what that involves is doing the work. And I offer like 3-month plans and 6-month plans where people can really customize their journey, right? And so, like here on the Outer Banks, right, is a really relaxing, beautiful place to kind of come and do some of this deeper work. Um, to where you can, you know, do the psychedelic-assisted sessions and then also kind of get, you know, some beach therapy at the same time, get some grounding and integration.

Nice.

Um, but yeah, I've just kind of, um, like, I personally, I kind of grew just a little burnt out on kind of the one-to-one talk therapy hour. And so I've found that people When people kind of commit or invest into a 3-month or a 6-month program, um, and, and really have some skin in the game, right? And that there's a, um, a deeper level of healing, right? When, when people, you know, we're doing this type of work. Yeah.

Yeah. So what could I expect if I work with you? What kind of, what is doing the work as far as specifically?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so it starts, it starts with the, the preparation and safety, right? So when somebody signs up with me, I have a course that they get access to, which, you know, has plenty of, you know, education around trauma and the nervous system, you know, how we can safely prepare for this work. It involves, you know, online preparation sessions. And again, this is— that is so important when you're doing psychedelic-assisted therapy that you feel safe with your practitioner and the setting, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, so the first part is all about, you know, getting to know the person, establishing safety. We don't just jump right into medicine work, right? So, That's kind of the first part is establishing that safety. And then, we meet in person and somebody over the course of their program is, depending on which medicines they choose to work with, it's about 4 to 12 psychedelic-assisted sessions, right?

Okay.

So, that again, that varies, right? Like, a psilocybin session is going to be much longer than a ketamine-assisted session. So, so it's, it's essentially, um, yeah, like the, the preparation work, and then we meet, and then of course following, you know, uh, that, that relationship online. And then also online integration groups where kind of like a 12-step meeting but a private container, right, where people that have, that have, you know, been doing this can share, connect, um, hold each other accountable.

Interesting. Yeah. So what medicines does it all include? Or what I have a choice of?

Yeah. So the medicines that I work with primarily are ketamine and psilocybin.

Okay.

Okay.

And what would be the difference?

So I would say that ketamine really is a relational medicine. So again, it softens those protectors and those shields and able to allow relationship in, right? And so ketamine, I often use at this kind of like as a frontline, kind of like to help build that relational connection. So So if I were to, you know, be in session with you and we were in, or I would call it ordinary consciousness, the consciousness that we're in right now, right? And we're in session. And I were to say, you know, you know, Dallas, I'm, you really deserve to have unconditional safety and love. And I'm so happy to be here with you.

Right.

In our ordinary consciousness, we might have parts of us that are like, ew, that's gross. What did you just say? Or there could just be some of this, we have these protective mechanisms. And what I've found is that when we're in the ketamine space, it kind of gives us direct access to that 5-year-old that really needs to hear that, right?

Mm-hmm.

And, or to that, to that, to that younger part of us that's like, oh my gosh, like, I didn't even know that that was possible, right? Like, there's, there's human relate— like, there's human relationships to where I can just fully be myself and you're gonna accept me. Right. And so, ketamine, I think, is really good to soften those relational protectors that we have from our wounds. And then, what I would say about psilocybin is that psilocybin really allows us to go deeper into ourselves and can really accelerate the our system's release of trauma, right?

Okay.

So, I think the way I typically work is ketamine at the start to really help build relationship and psilocybin once that foundation is set. And, all throughout the process, it's really, really important that people are doing what I call resourcing. Which is all of the coping skills that I know you teach and are super important, like, in our day-to-day lives, right? Because what trauma therapy and psychedelic therapy is inherently destabilizing. Okay. So, if I don't have the ability to Kind of get myself to a place of calm in my day-to-day life. Like, like I can, you know, go for a, go for a walk, go for a hike. I have a friend that I can have coffee with and just feel good or do some art or a meditation practice. Those resourcing activities are super important. When we're going through a psychedelic trauma processing, like, process. Because again, a lot of that, that stuff is getting brought up and then it needs to get integrated, right? And so, yeah, I just, I just really want to focus on that. Like, you know, if anybody hears this and, you know, wants to just go run out there and start working with medicines, like— You know, really, really take the time to, you know, do it intentionally. Yeah.

Yeah. And integration is such an important, it's important in this, in this realm because I see people going out and, and using plant medicines, psychedelics, one after the other, and then it's never enough. Like, you know what I mean? So I've done psilocybin, I've done— now I've done ketamine, now I need to do LSD. Well, now I need to do bufo. Well, now I need to do combo. Well, now I need to do some kind of other serpent venom, you know? And it's like, how are you taking the time to integrate what you got out of the last session? So I feel like if you— it's important to tell people, like, If this has sparked your interest and you go and you do psychedelics, the integration part is what you're going to get is the most important part. And that's what you're going to get from working with an expert like Steve. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's a fantastic point. And the way that I think about that is that, that, you know, I don't want to dismiss If people, you know, really view working with plant medicines as a spiritual religious practice, and, you know, maybe, maybe seasonally as the seasons change, they go into ceremony and, you know, but if I am chasing these medicines because I gotta heal, I gotta heal, I gotta heal, and I gotta chase the next medicine. For heal— because I'm still suffering and I need to heal. To me, that's, that's saying that there's something down in the basement that's not getting touched. Mm-hmm. And I'm using these medicines, I'm using these medicines compulsively because I go in the high-dose peak experience and I get all the, the, the spiritual insights above. But when I come down from that, I'm still back in my house and some type of wounding is not getting processed. And that compulsive, yeah, there's something compulsive about that, right?

Mm-hmm.

Because I think there is that distinction between this compulsive seeking of the next healing medicine journey and something from somebody that's maybe a longtime practitioner and it's a seasonal part of their religious practice. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And with our audience, and I know for myself, I like with your audience here, right? If we have an addiction history, there's like, and I've, I was in this like my first few years, I think of, I did go on to the next ceremony before I integrated.

Right.

And so, you know, like, like for me, the psychedelic somatic work was really big because it got at some of that really, really early stuff that the high-dose ceremonies didn't get to.

Yeah. Why do you, why do you think, I saw a lot of your, your information talks about the root causes, you know, Why do you think that a lot of these programs that are available to us as men aren't uncovering the root causes of addiction?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think that is fundamental just to our society as a whole, I would say. Like, I think that our, just like our like our medical system in general, I think, is geared towards that.

Yeah.

Right. And so, like, I think in, in, so I think it's like a broad, like a broad cultural thing, right? Like, you know, one of, I mean, I don't talk about it too much on my page, but I mean, one of my big soapboxes is kind of the pharmaceutical industrial complex. And I think that there's some interests in us not getting to the root causes of things. And I think just our disconnection from ourselves and like our bodies and our spirituality, I think that kind of like focusing on the symptom is there in the healthcare field, but also like just foundationally in how like we raise our kids or the education system, right? Like the education system is geared towards what do you want to be when you grow up as opposed to connecting to like what are your inherent gifts and what does your soul want to do, right?

Yeah.

So, I think that that kind of like focusing on the superficial as opposed to the root is prevalent in our healthcare system, our education system, our political system. I think it's just the consciousness that we're at, um, as a collective.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Agreed. Agreed. So you talked a lot about earlier about dissociation.

Yeah.

And a lot of that ADHD, I think in the same vein, ADD, ADHD, all of those tendencies are kind of related to what happened to us in that 0 to 7. If I am, if I'm listening to this and I feel disassociated a lot, I feel disconnected from my body. Sometimes I feel like I'm sleepwalking or I'm watching my life from another, you know, from outside of myself. Do you have any suggestions for some, some quick techniques, something that I can do to return to my body, to begin to connect to myself before I would go into therapy?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the fastest and always available tool is our exhale, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so, yeah, just coming to, right, like set the phone down, take a long exhale, release the tension in your shoulders, right? Like open your mouth a little bit, right? So like coming back to the body And the exhale in the breath, I think is like a foundational practice that I find myself doing all the time. So, I think that's like, if I only had one and that would be the biggest one is coming back to our body and the exhale, right? And just like noticing, like right now, wherever you're listening to this, like, Take a quick scan of your body, you know, like, how do you feel in your shoulders? Right? Or, you know, where, how does your, how does your core feel? Are you clenched up? You know, but yeah, coming back into the body if we can, and then finding some, finding some, again, some somatic therapies and practices that Can help us get back in our bodies, right? Like, you know, because a lot of our, a lot of the healing tools are of the mind, right? So I go into therapy and I start and I go up in my head trying to figure it out, right? As opposed to, you know, bringing awareness to the sensations or the emotions.

Mm-hmm.

I'm out of my body because my body is where the pain is, right? The body is, you know, the body is where the overwhelm or the emotions are. So I get it. It's hard. It's hard to be in there, right? But, but the exhale would be my go-to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. Okay. Well, let me ask you, Steve, what's something that I have not asked you that maybe you thought We should cover today.

Great question. Great question.

Or am I just an exhaustive interviewer?

Yeah. No, I mean, I think we covered a lot of the things that I get excited to talk about. I mean, one of the— I think one of the the interesting things or kind of what I'm interested in these days is just kind of like the whole idea of, yeah, like some of these substances like psilocybin, for example, just being illegal in general, right?

Yeah.

And so like when you look at, like when you look into, you know, some of the history and just how they've been used ceremonially for thousands of years. And then you look at the drug war or you look at something like psilocybin being Schedule I versus fentanyl being Schedule II. It's kind of wild.

Yeah.

And so, it's just exciting to me how things are changing and there's a lot more options available. You know, two people now. But yeah, so I'm just really—I could talk about this stuff all day. But you know, but yeah, you know, like one of the other things just just real quick is like yeah, just looking at you know addiction as. You know, the, the solution, our, our attempts at us, at a solution to the problem versus the problem in itself, right? And, and when— and, and that may sound strange to somebody who might be like really, really suffering right now. It's like, what do you mean? Like, of course, like, you know, meth is a problem, right? Like when I was drinking myself to death every day and, you know, like that, that is a problem. You know, but I just love your your message about you know like like once you know once you you you get the grace and and and are able to like you know put that down you know like there's there's deeper levels that we can go and and and I and last thing I would say is like you know if you're hearing this don't feel like and you know, the psychedelic-assisted stuff is not required, right? And it's not for every— it's not for everybody, right? Like, I don't know if it would have been for me when I was 6 months sober, right? Like, I don't know if I would have been ready for that.

Yeah.

And so I would just encourage anybody that, you know, if this is kind of scary to you, don't feel like it's It's something that, you know, you got to go run out and do. But also know that, that it is an option, especially for those that have complex developmental trauma and have tried everything, right? Because there's a lot of those people out there, right?

Mm-hmm.

That, you know, grew up in really chaotic environments, have been in therapy for— talk therapy for years and years and years and have tried every antidepressant under the sun. And are maybe feeling like you know nothing can work, and this is a powerful tool that's available.

Yeah, yeah, great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so where can we find you? I'm sure there's someone out there.

Yeah, so my website is sacredpma.org, and then you can find me on Instagram Steve Taylor underscore PMA.

Yeah, I do suggest you follow him. He has some great content. Follow Steve on Instagram, which is how I found, found him, found you. Yeah, and all the links to your Instagram and your page will be in the show notes. So with that being said, we can, we can close today's podcast. And I just want you to If you're listening, just know that in this podcast, we're going to present all forms of all routes to sobriety. And if you're, if you feel triggered by the talk and the discussion about psychedelics, think about what's in your basement, right? Maybe there's something in that basement that is causing you to be triggered and maybe on flight or fight about the use of psychedelics because we've been taught for so long that we're not sober if we're using them. Things, times are changing. Things are changing. And this is not just going out to a rave and taking a bunch of mushrooms. This is, this is with an ex— this is a, this is the use with an expert who knows what he's doing. So, um, anyway, I want you to just to close. Don't forget that we do have a Facebook community. The Aftermath. It's a Facebook page. Please join and join the discussion there. We talk about all kinds of different topics in or around crystal meth use. This is for, uh, over addicts who are have overcome crystal meth, those that are struggling, and the loved ones of them as well. We do have a newsletter. It's at my website, www.drDallasBragg.com. If you'd like to be a guest or you know someone who would be a great guest, just email me at aftermathpod@gmail.com. And finally, we do have a website, aftermath.net. You could go on there and submit questions. You can submit success stories. Loved ones can submit questions or success stories as well. There's all kinds of different categories on there. Submit a question or leave a voicemail at the number there, and we might answer them on the podcast. That being said, thank you very much. We'll see you next time. Bye.