EP 2:3 Ketamine Treatment AfterMeth with Bodhi

Hey y'all, this week we are talking ketamine treatment as a supplement to your recovery. If you listened to me and heard my story, you will know that I hold a very special place in my heart for psychedelics, specifically ayahuasca and psilocybin, 2 substances that were key to me turning away from crystal meth. You know, many of you will resonate with the dullness and the hopelessness that can sometimes show up once you've quit using meth. The real work on trauma and personal growth that have been muted when by the meth are now front and center, and it's loud in recovery. And many of us aren't equipped to deal with the rawness of that. Some choose psychotherapy, which is wonderful. During COVID I had no insurance or means to access therapy, but I needed help. I was on a spiritual path, but I was stuck. I mean, life seemed so mundane and boring, and the only, quote, fun that I had experienced in recent years was through my active meth use. And that had been taken away. So I was searching for some type of meaning. And that's when I discovered a cacao and breathwork ceremony, which was my first experience with plant medicine. The cacao opened my heart and the breathwork gave me a high that was sweet and beautiful and natural, not like the darkness and the seediness of meth. I went on to try mushrooms and then I went to an ayahuasca retreat. The ayahuasca retreat opened me up in such a way that I felt my connection and meaning I felt that I was connected to everyone on the earth and the earth. During the ceremony, the medicine took me to different scenarios in my life and showed me where I was lacking love. I left that weekend with a broader and new perspective on life and myself. And I had a newfound energy and I had a love for personal healing and growth. Let me at it. Let me have it. So it was, it is my pleasure to bring you a discussion today around how ketamine A substance that is being misused by so many in the queer community is actually being used for good. Ketamine could be the missing link for you. I don't know. Research shows that just how effective it is in treating PTSD and trauma. And as you'll hear, ketamine isn't for everybody, but I'm proud to use this podcast to bring to you all routes to recovery, not just one. And all routes To bringing a life of peace. And isn't that what we're all seeking anyway? All right, enjoy.

And it's valuable to have a therapist with you, especially when you open up, because you can— they can document everything. Because when we're in the IV clinic, you're under the medicine for about 45 minutes. And just like in that dream state—

The Aftermath Podcast is an outreach tool to help men who have sex with men break free from the addictive patterns associated with chemsex, otherwise known as crystal meth or Tina. I'm your host, Dr. Dallas Bragg, a former crystal meth user, now recovery coach. Here you will find a repository of tools and resources intended to eradicate the epidemic that is plaguing our MSM population. Please note that the views expressed on this podcast are not to be taken as medical advice. Also, we will be talking about drugs and sex. So if you feel triggered to use, stop listening and contact your local emergency system and/or your support network. Let's go. Welcome back to Aftermath Podcast. Today we are talking all things ketamine treatment for addiction treatment, for trauma treatment, for whatever else we find out, because I'm very unfamiliar with ketamine. That's one of the substances that I didn't ever do, believe it or not. I don't know how. I don't know how I never came across K, but I've heard of Special K. I've heard of K holes. I've heard of all the stuff on on the other side of using it. So I'm excited to present to you guys in a just another route to recovery. And a lot of you have been brainwashed or fear or had some fear around using a quote, mind-altering substance in your recovery. So I hope today will change your mind. Don't forget that there is a study guide that comes out every week with the podcast. If you're interested in that study guide, you can get on my mailing list, or the link to it will be in the show notes. If you have not rated and reviewed the podcast, please remember to do that. I would love a 5-star review from you, but be honest. And if it is less than a 5-star review, tell me why. I would love to know because I am receptive to feedback. Okay, enough about me. I'm going to introduce my lovely, lovely guest, Bodhi, and she's going to tell us about herself. All I know about her is that she's a goddess. That is what I know about Bodhi, but she's been a friend of mine, a really close friend of mine, for a very long time, and I'm just really excited to present your expertise and your medicine and your beauty to the podcast, Bodhi.

Oh, thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I've been so excited to be along on the side, in your sidecar, as you've been moving through these processes. And I'm so excited to be here with you and just to see the success of what you're doing, because I know that it's helping a lot of people. So I'm definitely, um, really excited to share my You know, professionally, I'm a psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist. And so I work legally with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy at a clinic here in Charlotte.

Mm-hmm.

And I also have worked with psychedelic substances for 25 years, both recreationally in the early days, but then in Central and South America working with the indigenous Learning the traditional ways of working with these medicines. And then in the last, I guess, 6 or 7 years, I studied, I finished my license. I'm a licensed clinical mental health counselor in North Carolina. But I— and then that time, what I saw with working with the psychedelics is that it is incredible for helping relieve trauma. And, but when people are working through the psychedelics, they'll often have somatic releases and trauma kind of resolution. And so I spent the first part of my career as a licensed counselor being a trauma specialist, and I was a certified trauma professional. So I worked with, you know, EMDR, which is kind of the gold standard of trauma work outside of psychedelics. And then in the last 2 and a half years, I've been working Mostly with psychedelics because it works, um, so much more quickly. The pharmaceutical benefits and the, and the way that it helps work with the neuroplasticity of your brain and rewrite things and stop kind of looping patterns and things like that, it really, really helps. And so I've switched fully to that work at this point. Um, but I do have a lot of experience with You know, kind of working with and without it. So I think that would be a useful part of our conversation today. And I don't know if you know this, but when I first came out of grad school, I worked as an addictions counselor at a clinical mental— at a mental health facility that's in West Virginia. So I was mostly working with people that had opiate addiction. We're actually named the highest OD rate per capita, the city that I was working in. So it was a huge, a huge issue. And we had incredibly brilliant people who were really taken down by this. But that was my first, I guess, 2 years of work was with people with addictions. So I do actually have a lot of experience with that as well.

Yeah, I guess I did not know that. I did. I forgot too that we had a West Virginia connection.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. I was in Huntington, West Virginia. I worked for a company called Prestera, which was their kind of mental health conglomerate.

Yeah. Yeah. Opioid addiction, terrible in West Virginia.

Oh man. Yeah. It was unbelievable. It was unbelievable what it would do to these incredibly smart, incredibly creative Humans.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you've seen The Wild Wonderful Whites of West Virginia on Netflix, it's all about their, their opioid addiction. And I knew some of them, and I was— I always tell people, like, that is a reality documentary that was not staged, that was not scripted. Those people, that is how they are. That is what they are every day. Um, yeah, so funny. Well, yeah, so wow. I mean, what a list. of credentials that you have, and I'm so glad to bring you and your expertise to the show because I dole out my, my uncredited expertise all the time on here. So it's good to have somebody else. Um, so you mentioned, you mentioned EMDR, and I want to talk about that too at some point, maybe if we get to it. But you mentioned that what you're doing is good for the neuroplasticity and for breaking away from the patterns, interrupting the patterns.

Yes.

And those 2 things are really what is so essential to getting away from a crystal meth use, addictive patterns related to that, because we, you know, we, we use the crystal meth and it fuses in our brain, it fuses with sex. You know, as well, which a lot of people think I'm only using crystal meth. A lot of gay men think I'm only using crystal meth for the sex, but typically it is for a trauma release, a relief from the trauma we're carrying around, right?

Mm-hmm.

Internalized homophobia or whatever it was we came from. There's a loop and there's beliefs that we have about ourselves that we have created this neural pathway to say I'm not enough. I'm not hot enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not whatever enough. Whatever it is, all of us have— I would guarantee you, all of us who are using crystal meth on a regular basis and are gay men, we have some flavor of I am not enough that comes with us. So that being said, that's— I wanted to establish that as the importance of what you're doing. And because there are some men who are stuck in that loop And they just can't seem to, to get their way out. And there's no amount of talk therapy that seems to help. So can you tell us a little bit of the difference? Well, first of all, let's, let's start with 101. What is ketamine? I mean, I knew— I, I think that it was started as an anesthetic, right?

It was, it was. So in the, uh, it began in the 1960s. Um, they were using it as an anesthesia, and it— and they found that it's actually such safe anesthesia that they would use it for, for example, a baby that would come into the ER and maybe have a broken arm.

Wow.

And they would put them out. And so it's very, very well known. It's been studied a lot, lot, lot, and it's safe for just about everybody. And so that's one of the real benefits of this particular psychedelic. And it's not a typical psychedelic because it's not working directly on the serotonin Or it's not a serotonin, it doesn't plug into the serotonin system the same way that, for example, mushrooms or LSD or MDMA work with that system. It's actually a dissociative. And so the way that it works is that it calms down the nervous system and calms down the body and you become very relaxed. And at There are different levels of the amount that they would give you. So there's this, you know, the anesthetic amount, which is going to take you all the way out and you're not going to become conscious. And then at a lower amount, you are in a deep kind of theta brainwave state where you're still awake, but it's a very dreamlike state and you're able to— and you're kind of dissociated and aware. And then there's the psycholytic level where you can still You can still talk and communicate, but you are super relaxed and super open and you're able to do therapy in a different way. And some people talk about it like the difference between doing trauma therapy with or without the ketamine is kind of like the difference between doing a root canal with or without anesthesia.

Hmm.

Because your body is super relaxed and it works on your nervous system in that way that you're not getting the same type of triggering.

Hmm.

That where your mind is trying to push down, like, this feels terrible, I don't want this, your body's not having that kind of reactivity. So it makes it a little bit easier to access some of that. And all of these, you know, help to kind of reduce the activity in what we call the default mode network of your brain. And that's kind of your conditioned responses to everything. And the way that I look at it is in that traditional kind of idea of the iceberg, right? So the tip of the iceberg is sticking out of the water, and that's the part of your mind that you're conscious of all the time. And that's the part where you're, for example, doing affirmations and this kind of stuff, and it's like not really changing anything. Or you're doing all this talk therapy, and it's because underneath the water is all of this subconscious stuff. And like you were mentioning, you know, deep kind of core beliefs around shame or around I'm not good enough. And maybe those aren't conscious in your mind all the time, but they're running your life. And so when we do the psychedelic work, it's like you're lowering the water and you can see more of what's going on inside of you and more of what's going on in your subconscious mind. And then of course, when the drug is out, you know, the water comes back, but you can't really unsee what you've seen.

Mm-hmm.

The real work with the therapy is that we're helping the person access those parts of their mind. And then during the session, we're really kind of gathering information like what's going on in there, you know? And then afterwards, we're doing a lot of integration. And this is really why it works. I mean, there are pharmaceutical benefits that just help without therapy. But to transform, to make real changes in your life, the therapy is like super important. And that's kind of what the research has shown. And what's interesting about ketamine is they had started it as an anesthetic in the '60s. And then in the '90s, they were doing some post-operative research and they were just, you know, researching what happens to people when they take different types of anesthesia. And all of these people who had had long-term depression or suicidal ideation had gone into surgery. They came out of surgery and across the board, when they had done ketamine, they were feeling better. And they were like, well, this is weird. What is this? You know? And that's when they started studying it as a— in its usefulness for mental health conditions. And so then it became—

Interesting.

You know, actually, it is the number one thing that we know of right now for treatment-resistant depression and for suicidal ideation. As a matter of fact, one infusion of ketamine can pop someone out of deep cycles of rumination around suicidality. And, and it's really incredible. It's actually really incredible.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it sounds like we should be using this more widely, right?

Well, you know, I think, um, the mainstream is starting to accept it, and I think it, it is a lot more acceptable among, um, you know, as far as like the medical field, because they've been using it forever, right? They know that it's safe. They know how to use it. I mean, these doctors have been using it for a long, long time. And so I think that that gives it a little bit more credibility as far as they know that it's long-term going to be safe for people.

Mm-hmm.

And then we can just see the magic of how it's changing people so quickly. I mean, I have several clients who either had suicidal ideation or had gone through just extreme stress and trauma just last year. And both of them said, They're all saying that they wouldn't have made it through the year if they hadn't gone through the ketamine treatment. And one thing that I think is really important is talking about the difference between using ketamine off the street and using ketamine in a therapeutic way. And I don't know if you want to go into that right now, but I do think that it's a really important distinction. And, you know, ketamine off the street, first of all, you don't know exactly what you're getting, which is always the problem.

Right.

But then on top of it, without the correct set and setting, which is important for all psychedelics because you're opening yourself up in a certain way that you really need the safety and you really need to know that you're going to be cared for, and you really need to know that the energies around you are going to be, you know, safe, and somebody's not going to all of a sudden start freaking out or all of a sudden start talking about something really fearful. You need to have that kind of protection because you— when that water comes down, you are very open and vulnerable and exposed. And especially because this is a dissociative you are much more vulnerable than you would be in other situations, you know, because you're not fully there for it.

Yeah.

And so it's very, very important that when you're using it, you're using it in a safe environment where you know that you're safe, you know that you're going to be cared for by the people that are around you. And, um, and then on top of it, you know, ketamine, because it's a dissociative Unlike other psychedelics like mushrooms, mushrooms take you kind of further into your issues and make you feel more—

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The dissociative puts you into more an observer mode and it makes you feel really good. And so it has that tendency to be able to use it in an addictive way. It has this addictive quality because you can get away from things with it. If you're using it on your own. If you're using it in a therapeutic way, we're going in to get things, you know, we're going in to look, but we're using the dissociative property of it to be able to look at these hard things with more of an observer position where we're not getting so triggered and our mind is not shutting down the trauma or shutting down the information because it's too too hard to deal with. We're utilizing that ability to kind of come into that observer mode and feel really calm in your body so that you can really look at this stuff. But we're intentionally doing that. But when you're using it on your own, it would be very easy to intentionally use it to get away from things. Yeah.

So I wanted to, especially with ketamine, bring that up because if we If you already have addictive tendencies and you think, well, I'll start using this to help me with my depression on my own, or I'll start using this to try to do some work on my own, ketamine specifically is pretty dangerous to do that with, um, in that way.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so this is— so a dissociative means that we become You— so what I think of it as, you step out of yourself for a moment. Is that right? And then you're going to step out and you're going to be able to see kind of everything. I don't know, you're— does it— when you look at yourself, do you see like past situations and they make sense now? Do you see— do your beliefs about yourself all kind of align and you say, oh, that's why my life is the way it is? I mean, is that kind of— What do you see when you step out?

Well, you know, it's different for everyone, but what, because you're, what's so trustable about the mind that I've learned in doing this work, and it's actually just shocking how trustable it is, is that when that default mode network kind of slows down and things open up, the mind is always wanting to heal. It's just like your body. It's always trying to heal itself, right? But our conscious mind and our conditioning may be blocking that. And so when that gets out of the way, whatever the next step is in your particular prescription for healing is what's going to come up. So we may go in and be like, okay, I think it's your, you know, childhood trauma, or I think it's your negative beliefs about yourself. And we can kind of have that general intention, but I encourage people to really hold that loosely because what ends up coming up is the next thing. And oftentimes it's not something that we can access. through talk therapy or through just our logic about why we think we're blocked up, you know?

Yeah.

And so in that way, it's kind of an adventure, you know, because we're going in and we're like, you're going to open up and we're just going to find out what it shows us. And oftentimes it's archetypal images, symbolism. The closest thing that I can give people to the experience of ketamine is if you are You know how when you're about to go to sleep or you've just woken up and your body's super relaxed and you could move, but you don't really want to. And you also have that feeling of maybe I'm dreaming, but you know you're awake. Have you had this experience before? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of like that.

It's much like that.

And so you're having these kind of dreamlike images. Some people see a lot of imagery. Some people don't see imagery at all, but they'll have like a lot of somatic releases.

Mm-hmm.

And it really just depends on the person and what they need next. And so sometimes they'll see past memories and they'll all of a sudden, all of this stuff will come out about their dad that they didn't realize. And they're like, oh, this is why this happened. And they'll get some kind of insight, right? Sometimes people's bodies will just shake and shake and shake and they're releasing fear that's been stored on their nervous system for However long. And when the mind gets out of the way and quits holding that down to try to not look weird, the body's like, oh my God, thank God the mind's out of the way. I'm going to get this discharged off my nervous system.

Yeah.

Sometimes people have what we call numinous experiences, which allow them to connect into something that's kind of higher than themselves. And they all of a sudden have a sense of purpose or a sense of meaning or a sense of like, oh crap, there's more to life than I kind of expected here, you know? And we really don't know. We really don't know what we're going to get when we go in. But when— what is—

like I said, it's trustable that your mind is going to show you what you need.

And it's valuable to have a therapist with you, especially when you open up, because you can— they can document everything. Because when we're in the IV clinic, you're under the medicine for about 45 minutes. And just like in that dream state, If you're by yourself just doing the ketamine, you may not remember everything because it's like 45 minutes of this nonlinear kind of experience, you know? And so having the therapist there, we're asking questions like, what are you noticing right now? And then we're bullet pointing stuff. And just like when you wake up from a dream and write in your dream journal and just bullet point some stuff, it'll start pulling the content back out.

Yeah.

And then after they come off of the ketamine, we're sitting there with them for about an hour just fleshing out. Oh, you saw giraffes. Okay, what else was going on with that? You know, and we're fleshing it all out. And then we do sessions to see like, how does this apply to your now, your life right now?

Yeah.

How does the— how do these images, what do they mean to you? You know, what is this, this piece of you know, information, how does that apply to how you do everything in your life? And these are the kind of things that we're doing to help the person take that subconscious material and make it conscious, which is a big part of shadow work. And one of the things that is super useful, with or without the ketamine, is the Internal Family Systems type of therapy, where we're working with parts work. Yeah.

Yes.

And I think especially for people with addictions, working with parts work and understanding yourself as my mind is in parts, you know, I have this inner child, I have this part of me that's this critic, I have this part of me that's this internalized parent who makes me feel bad about myself every day, but really learning that you have this authentic self that is observing and watching all of that.

And that can kind of take leadership over these parts so that these parts aren't driving the bus of your life and your life isn't being run by a 4-year-old that's pissed off. You know what I mean?

That's right.

And yeah, and so the ketamine really opens you up to seeing your own mind in that way because, and that's why the IFS works so well with it because that is how minds are. And then when you have that framework of understanding it, And then you get to see your own mind. You get to kind of really see what the inner workings are.

Okay, well, let's put a pin in everything you just— I gotta catch up here. It's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot. So back to the iceberg analogy, metaphor, I don't know which one it is. Um, the iceberg that you said.

Yeah.

So what I'm— what I have experienced and what I think a lot of our listeners will experience is that How many years it can take in talk therapy to get that water down, to understand what is below the surface that's running my life.

Yes.

This is what I think a lot of the— you listeners have to understand is that the beliefs that you've accepted about yourself are producing your reality and the life that you have for the most part. And if I, if I speak out of turn, uh, Bodhi, or if you— if I say something that's not right, let me know, because you're the credentialed one. I just speak out of my, my ass. But so the thing is, is that if you are wearing a lens— so I'll take myself as an example. The lens that I've worn most of my life was I am not accepted. Okay. Um, That came true in every relationship, at work, in, in my meth experience, even down to when it was time to have a 3-way, 4-way, an orgy. I was not accepted, right? There was something— somebody didn't like me, or I saw— I picked up on some nuance that said I wasn't— I didn't belong in this room, right? I'm, I'm taking this back to meth reality here, but, um—

Oh, that's great.

That's the lens that I, I interpreted. So my default system, my reticular activating system 2, was always looking for ways to prove my beliefs. If I believe— if I, if I believe I'm not accepted, that's what my world reflects back to me.

Yeah.

So I think what talk therapy and what— and anything else that you try to do to get down to what the beliefs are, it's harder to lower that water because you're looking at everything through that lens. But it sounds like you're saying ketamine takes that lens away and helps you step back, and then you can start making sense of why everything is the way it is.

Is that right? Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't— I wouldn't say that it takes the lens away. I would say that it turns down the volume.

Oh.

On the lens, you know what I mean? So it's still there, but you're lighter shade also.

Yeah, exactly.

It's not like This is reality. It's like, maybe, maybe there's more to this than this reality, you know? But I wouldn't say that it takes it away for you. But I would say, man, there's so much around that that I want to say. I want to start with my definition of trauma. So trauma in my view, is not what happened to you. It is actually what you started to believe about life because of what happened.

Yes.

And those core beliefs begin to happen. And, and this, you know, a lot of people say, well, I didn't have very much trauma. I had a pretty good childhood. They, they're thinking trauma has to be like a car wreck, a terrible divorce, you know, something just life-altering. And the truth is, It can be that your 3rd grade teacher looked at you funny and your mind started believing, I'm not likable. And that turned in and then became, and then you start looking for, I'm not likable. And then you start creating that mirror in your reality. And then all of a sudden this is running your life.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and it doesn't have to be. that you had this terrible, terrible thing. It really is about, it really is about the perception that you end up creating.

That's right.

Based on the experiences you had. And sometimes that can happen ancestrally. You can come in with these filters on and there's some evidence that this is even in your DNA. So something really crappy could have happened to your great-great-grandfather. that made him believe, I'm not safe, I'm powerless, I'm helpless, or I'm not good enough. And that if no one ever shifted that in your line, that, you know, so you don't have to have a terrible trauma to look for or even try to dig out. It's about the beliefs, you know what I mean?

Mm-hmm.

And I think a lot of people get confused about that. They're like, well, if I have this, then it must be that this terrible thing happened to me that I can't remember, or that it must be that, you know, maybe I'm just crazy because nothing bad ever happened to me, but I have this weird response to life. Like I have a social anxiety or whatever. And I just wanted to tell people that what we found is it really is about the beliefs that happen.

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And if this ancestral talk is too woo-woo for you, it's also proven in epigenetics. Yeah, I mean, it's all scientific, scientifically based, and if you don't believe it, just go do your own research. However, uh, because I have some of that, um, and so this belief— so let's say you have a belief, I'm not likable, or in my case, I don't belong, right?

Mm-hmm.

When we go and we use— when a gay man uses crystal meth, you talk about lowering the water in, in a different sense. You are alleviated of any of those beliefs for a moment. And it, it, it— there's something— this is also according to Dallas— that there's something intelligent about this substance that also knows what your belief is and escalates it. So for me, yes, there were times when my I'm not, I'm not, um, accepted came true, but for the most part, when I took that first puff I felt like I was accepted anywhere, like I was invincible. There was nothing wrong with me. Everything was perfect. And the man sitting in front of me wanted me no matter what, no matter what I acted like, no matter what I looked like, you know. And it just felt like I'm finally accepted. Finally, you know, after 39 years, I was finally somewhere where I felt 100% accepted. And to me, that's what we get addicted to. And so back to what you're saying about the street drug of ketamine, right? I can see getting addicted to the temporary escape from everything that you're feeling, what you know you're feeling and what you don't know you're feeling.

That's right.

That's right.

Well, your mind's been committed to not feeling that your whole entire Life. You know, this, if you're talking in terms of internal family systems, you know, we have these, or just in terms of shadow work, you know, we have these parts of ourselves that got hurt. And maybe it believed a child, a child part of yourself is like, I'm not accepted. Well, then we create this protection mechanism that's like, I will never feel unaccepted again.

Yep.

So it creates a management system. I'm always gonna act this way so that I never feel that again.

Yeah.

And then if something slips through and you do end up feeling that, then you get the firefighter, which means you're going to do whatever it takes to shut that shit down, you know? And that might be do meth right now, that might be scream at somebody. It doesn't even matter if it's socially acceptable. It's just like, I will not feel that feeling. And so because our minds are so committed to not feeling these terrible feelings again, then things like meth, things that allow you to just feel open and excited and bust through with all of this energy, um, are very, very addictive in that way. And I, and I agree with you. I think it's, you know, there are the pharmaceutical kind of brain addiction pieces to it, which are true. But I think that the emotional— what it does for you emotionally and breaks out of that shame cycle is really what hooks people. And I think that this is the way it is for any addictions. What I found with my clients is shame is the hook that keeps it going.

Yeah.

It starts with some level of shame. I'm not good enough. I don't fit in. I'm a piece of crap, you know, and especially with gay men of any age, really, but certainly over 20 at this point, you know, anybody that you're having to deal with cultural shame and fear and all kinds of very uncomfortable, uncomfortable feelings and beliefs about yourself and your place in the world. And so of course, these things are going to be very, very Appealing to be able to avoid that underlying anxiety, that underlying feeling that's constantly kind of over your shoulder, you know.

Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. And if it wasn't true, then these guys wouldn't be triggered by going on Instagram and seeing a hot guy, and they want to look like them, or. they feel left out because it's a group of guys, and all of a sudden they feel lonely, they feel isolated, they get reminded of blah blah blah blah blah, and then it leads to wanting to use. Now you may think it's because you're horny, and the thing is, is that meth and sex are fused together, and so you, you can't think of one without the other. That is true. But there's a reason why a lot of these men, when they— the more they do crystal meth, the more they're doing it alone.

Hmm.

They're isolating themselves because it's an escape, right? It's an escape from what they're— and I'm so glad that you brought up this, this notion of, well, I'm not traumatized, I wasn't molested, I wasn't beaten, my parents, you know, I lived in, I lived in a posh family and we— everything was fine and, you know, I was given what I— everything I needed. That does not matter.

Right.

And in fact, emotional negligence to me is more harmful than the opposite.

Yes.

And if you grew up in a family where no one talked about their feelings, you know, or something like that, and your belief was my feelings don't matter, then you start to— then you start to react and you project that on the world. My feelings don't matter. I don't matter. I'm nothing, you know, or whatever that translates to. And you may not know that because you think you don't have trauma, but it sounds like ketamine can help you get there and quickly too.

Well, you know, yeah, I mean, for the depression that has had—

that's treatment resistant, I mean, it works So much quicker than anything. And especially if you're having ruminating thoughts or suicidal ideation, it can happen even in one infusion where it just breaks that cycle of patterning. And because of the neuroplasticity and because of the way that it works neurologically, it reduces inflammation in the brain, which helps. And then it also helps kind of rewrite the way some of the neural pathways, and that can just break that cycle of whatever you're looping about, you know. And, and there's a lot of studies, they're doing a whole lot of studies around addiction, um, and using any of the psychedelics. One of the things that, um, I don't know as much about ibogaine, but I do know That ibogaine has had probably the best short-term, like all of a sudden, like you go, you do this treatment and within, you know, a week of treatment you have now do not want to use these substances anymore. And it, but that is not quite legal in the United States yet, but there are some really good places, especially in Mexico where they're doing really good work. But ibogaine's like actually dangerous. Like you have to really go through like a physical kind of medical system before you can actually use it because it's so hard on your system. But there are a lot of studies around all different types of psychedelics and especially pairing it with IFS, which is that Internal Family Systems therapy, that is really helping people. And I've had clients actually who have had alcohol problems their whole entire life, were military, lots and lots of trauma, did one big session with a macrodose of mushrooms and Bufo, which is a DMT. And I saw, they were telling me that immediately they just stopped drinking.

Yeah.

And they never wanted to again. And they were drinking every single day, split in a fifth.

Yeah.

And so sometimes the interrupters of these kind of, um, medicines can really make a quick change. And it's not always that way, but it has the best chance because of the way that it works pharmaceutically.

Right, right. Yeah. And I've shared on the podcast that, you know, part of my recovery journey really escalated once I did ayahuasca. Psilocybin, cacao, which is something that you do.

That's what I'm drinking right now.

Yay.

Yeah.

So if you know, by the way, if you know of any ibogaine experts that I could talk to, I would love to talk to someone on the podcast about it too, because I've been hearing a lot.

Yeah. Hearing a lot about it.

Yeah. So also psilocybin is also being studied Um, to help stop smoking as well. You know, there's a lot—

It is.

There's a lot going on here that we should pay attention to that could be an option for a lot of you listening. The thing, the thing is that, you know, if you've, if you've been trying, if you've to a point and you've done the meetings or you've done SMART Recovery or Dharma or whatever, and, you know, it's been— you're to a point where you're still looping, you know, you still are depressed, you still get triggered all the time, there's something down there There's something going on, right? That, that you are either aware of or just not aware of because it's a shadow. I mean, this is all shadow work pretty much, isn't it?

It is.

And shadow work doesn't mean that it's darkness and terribleness that's in there. It's really just what you don't see about yourself.

Right. Yes.

Right. And that can actually even be good things. And especially if, if you, if what's at the top of your thing is a lot of shame. Usually it's actually what's in your shadow is that you're amazing and creative and you literally can't see it because of the, because of the filter in that top part of your mind. And so, yeah, the shadow is just what you can't see.

Yeah. And the lens I was talking about, right?

Exactly.

Yeah. This is the way I see everything. I'm never going to see myself the way I am.

Exactly. And this is what people find, you know, it's like they don't, A lot of times, especially those who have kind of lived in the dark, so to speak, you know, they've, they, they, their conscious mind brings them into these very dark situations where there's a lot of shame and a lot of guilt and this kind of stuff. Their conscious mind is conscious of their darkness, right?

Mm-hmm.

And a lot of times when you do the shadow work, it's what they call the golden shadow. It's like their problem is they can't see what's great about them. They can't see the good. And this helps to rectify that in a certain way where they can actually see and have compassion for themselves. Because there are several different points that I wanted to make, but like one thing is our subconscious mind is our body. So our body—

When you— and by the way, not to interrupt, Yeah. When Bodhi is saying somatic, just in case you are out there and you don't know what somatic means, it means in the body, right?

That's right.

Soma just means body. And when everybody, anybody says somatic, they're just talking about body and they're just, you know, it just sounds cool. But, um, they're just talking about your body. And, um, is your body.

That's right.

And so your body is your subconscious mind, right? So subconsciously, your brain is beating your heart right now. Subconsciously, your brain is breathing your air right now. And because it makes more sense adaptively as humans that we don't have every single thought in our head conscious all the time, because we would be crazy, right? If every, every single— we need to like, okay, there's a cat over here. Okay, this thing's behind me.

Okay, this, you know, and the cars come in at this velocity.

Like, we can't be thinking about all of that stuff at the same time. And so we kind of it goes into our default mode, right? We, we think we know things. We can, we create little boxes for it. We create concept and then we layer concept over reality and we're moving through our life with these concepts. The problem is, is that our concepts can be wrong. Our concepts are mere the way those filters that we've created that make it easier for us to just kind of get along may have distortions.

Mm-hmm.

And so when we can drop below the layer of concept and move into these psychedelic realms, and it helps our body rewrite some of this programming, and we can shake off— we have like physical somatic body-level discharges of energy that have been held onto in the body. And if you've done any kind of study around trauma work, a lot of what causes PTSD is this undischarged energy of a scary or a bad experience that you had, but because you couldn't physically respond either with fight or flight, or maybe your body froze and you're still stuck that way, your body is still responding as though that's happening, even though maybe it's 10 years down the road.

Yeah.

And when we do the psychedelic work, that part of your mind that keeps you from letting that go out of your body, discharging it out of your body, can get out of the way. And sometimes your body will start shaking a lot or doing whatever it needed to do to get that resolved or finished.

Wow.

And so there's a lot of— I've seen so much of that happen, certainly with the ketamine. It's like as soon as that— because that default mode network You know, we're taught as children, don't move. You know, like sit still and quit flapping your arms around and quit moving. And what you're doing is discharging emotional energy because emotions are just energy in motion in your body, right? And when we get taught like sit still, don't do that, that looks weird, don't make that sound, what we have done effectively is it's caused ourselves to be set up for things like PTSD. Because sometimes when an experience happens, the response of the body is to scream this really weird scream. Well, if you're in the middle of Walmart and that happens, you're very unlikely to scream that really weird scream. And it stores, and it has to store somewhere in the body or the energy system, if you want to go a little bit more Eastern in your thinking. But both of those things are kind of where the psychedelics are really good at getting it to the underlying layers and allowing that stuff to rise up and leave so that it's just not under there bothering you anymore.

Yeah.

And sometimes when we have these, what's beautiful about it is while the beliefs are what are causing that conceptual overlay that you talk about where you're seeing things a certain way and it's distorted, sometimes because those somatic releases happen, those conceptual overlays will just change. Because now it's not having to protect you anymore from that feeling that's always trying to resolve itself. Now the feeling has left, so that protective mechanism doesn't have to work as hard because there's nothing there for it to keep down. Do you know what I mean? So a lot of what the healing happens with psychedelics in general that I've seen is that, um, when those deeper layers are able to be released, maybe through crying Maybe through screaming, maybe through shaking, maybe through whatever the body needs to do. Once the mind gets out of the way, then the mind just doesn't have to work so hard. And then you notice these subtle little differences like, oh, I'm just not triggered by that anymore, or, oh, I just don't feel as anxious around people. And it's not that you had to consciously change the belief or consciously work through it like you do in regular therapy. It's just like It's just not that way anymore. And it's— and that's the beauty of it and makes it so much faster because the mind and the body are always, always in your service trying to heal you.

Yeah.

And it's our maladaptive responses that keep that from happening, in my opinion.

Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, maladaptive responses. Um, yeah, I think of— I've used the example on the podcast like the acorn becoming an oak tree, right? Like, you're programmed to always move forward to your highest potential, right?

We're no—

we're no different. We're all programmed to do that. And it's always, always— there's no break. It's always moving that way.

Mm-hmm.

And we get in the way when we label things in our lives as negative or bad, when a lot of times it's part of that healing process. Well, I would say 100% of the time. It's part of that curriculum. It's part of everything pushing you toward your highest potential and your highest healing. Um, yeah, and that's what I believe anyway.

Um, well, speaking—

can I speak on that for a second?

Because I feel like you just hit on like one of the most important parts of healing is I believe after watching this in my own personal healing, but with hundreds of clients and doing all of this work, um, judgment is what causes the fragmentation of consciousness and creates the negative response. Like, if you could go to the root, root of any problem, it's always going to be that we've judged something as bad.

Yeah.

And this is like, if you see what they call PTSD and what they call trauma responses are responses of avoidance. And it's because our mind and body have decided that thing that happened was super bad, and I don't ever want that to happen again. And so I'm going to do whatever it takes for that to never happen again. And then it creates all these avoidance behaviors and patterns that become maladaptive in our lives. And it's bottom line about judgment. Now, when you have this this part of your mind, you're like, I don't judge that, but your body definitely still judges it, right? So you have to do that subconscious, um, you know, you can tell yourself, I don't feel ashamed of all the sex I had whenever I was on meth, right? You can tell yourself that mentally, right?

Right.

But if in the moment you felt shame and it's stored in your body because you didn't process that out, your body's still going to be responding in the same way. So you do have to work on it. from what we call a bottom-up kind of way. And especially with shame, because shame is a, um, it's a, it's a partially frozen state.

Hmm.

It's when you feel shame in your body, it creates you kind of shutting down and curling up and feeling like, oh, something's wrong with me. And developmentally, shame is really great for us. I did this like deep dive on shame because I could understand why we had every other emotion, but I'm like, why shame? Like, that seems like like so maladaptive to even have that emotion. But what they found was, is that babies, from the time that they can crawl until they have the cognitive awareness for, um, kind of cause and effect, shame actually keeps you alive.

Yeah.

Because when— as soon as you can crawl away from your mom, what babies care about is that the people that are taking care of them approve of them. and care for and want them. That attachment is the prime directive of a child. And if you are crawling away and you're crawling toward the electric socket and your mom goes, no, you're not stopping because you're like, oh, I'm going to get shocked. You're stopping because mom doesn't like you right now. You think mom's mad at you, right?

And you go, oop.

Yeah. And what happens in your nervous system is it hits your gut and then you kind of curl up and it gives you enough time to pause. where your parent can run and grab you before you actually run out in front of that car or do the other thing. And if, and the problem with our culture is that parents don't realize that once the child is old enough to understand, they don't need to keep doing that to them.

Yeah.

And so then we parent utilizing shame. Oh, you're a bad girl. And you're like, oh God, they don't like me. And then, and then we start motivating ourselves and conditioning ourselves to make ourselves do or not do things based on shame.

Yeah.

And that stuck feeling in your body, that's what gets freed up when you do the meth because you get so much energy, it unfreezes all of that stuck shame feeling. And then you're all of a sudden like, I'm free. And then the problem is you become so free and you still have all the judgments of yourself that you do whatever you do. And then when you come back online and your mind has all that judgment, then now it's even more shame.

Yep.

And then it cycles. And then you want to get out of the shame again. Well, I know how to do that.

Yep.

This chemical will do that. But then it just creates more of its own self. And so when we can get in the body and help work with that initial shame, like you said, the deep beliefs that are physically in the body, as shutdown and also mentally, you know, making you look at it through that filter, then that will change the whole cycle. And when you don't feel that, you don't need it because then you feel that freedom without it and you have full control of what you're doing and you don't end up doing things that you actually are not in your own value system, you know, but when you take something that Fully opens you up like that, your value system is not online. And then that's why you end up feeling guilt and shame later, because your own value system gets wrecked.

And that's why we do the things we do, our own mess. And then we remember it later and we're like, who was that? Wow, I watched that. I talked about that. You know, I drank this, whatever it was. Um, I keep going back to that example because that related to me. But, um, you know, the one— I want to give an illustration for the listeners to what you're talking about in terms of allowing that stuck emotion. And where— an example of— so what, what I do with my clients is I ask them, what pisses you off? You know, where are you triggered in your life? Right?

Mm-hmm.

Because I'm not talking about triggered to use. I'm talking about when are you most like— when do you lose it, right? Because I think that's going to be a very clear sign of a belief you have, right? Like, if, if you say what pisses me off is arrogance, is an arrogant man, right? There's something about that that we can trace back. If you remember the first time you felt that feeling You— we can trace back to find out what it is you believe about yourself, right? And there's something there. Um, and, and again, I'm not a therapist or anything, but at least what I like to do is get these guys ready to go to therapy with a direction, right?

Right.

But if you want to know why you keep going back to crystal meth, a lot of times it is what is triggering you, you know? What is it that makes you— because there's something there that's stuck. There's some, there's some, there's some energy that sucks. So for me, I've mentioned on the podcast too before, is that one of the biggest triggers I used to have, and you know this from us being friends, is that being left on, quote unquote, being left on read. Or, you know, with my messages being read but not answered. Or someone acting interested in me, not just romantically but as a friend, and then dropping off the face of the earth, not answering my messages, you know, that kind of thing. It hit my gut like a knife. Yeah, I mean, it sounds— and it's, you know, a lot of guys would call me insecure or immature, blah blah blah, and they'd make some stupid excuse. Well, I'm busy. Well, you weren't busy the last 3 weeks. All of a sudden you stopped talking to me. There's something more there, right? Anyway, I don't know.

Or you have friends with ADHD. Don't respond or think they responded.

Right, right, right, right, right. And right, but there's something about that, right? And it goes back to that I'm not accepted. That's what it was about, right? It was a reminder of—

I'm not—

so there was once in the gym and I looked, there was some— I don't know, it was in between sets or whatever, and I looked and this guy had not— still not answered me. He read my message and didn't answer me. The emotion starts coming up, right? And I just thought, you know, this is gonna— this is an example for me to let it ride. I don't care where I am. Like you said, like, you can't scream sometimes when you're in public, but you want to. I said, I'm gonna let this fucking thing ride. And this emotion came up through my body, and I was literally— was shaking. Like you're saying, somatically, I was shaking. I started to cry. I had to hold on to the machine. I didn't care who was looking at me either. I had to hold on to the, the machine because I was like— and it came up and erupted almost, it, you know, like a, like, like I say, a wave, and it crested, and then it just went slowly back, dissipated. And I, I, it was like the first time that I just let it come out.

Yeah.

This, this betrayal, this feeling of being left out, this rejection, this loneliness, this all this stuff that came along with it. And I knew it was from something that happened with my father, you know, early on that was still stuck. And that came out. And there's something about that experience and some other things that happened after that, that it just alleviated that. And now I think now it's more of like, for one thing, I don't notice. Number 2, I'm doing it to people now.

You know.

You know, and then number 3, it's just like, I think, well, they're busy, or, or they're not interested in me anymore, or their life is whatever, or they have ADHD, or whatever it is. Like, there's something about it that, that is released. And so I just wanted to give that as an illustration to the listeners so that they could kind of put like a practical side to what you're saying as well.

Absolutely. I mean, you know, when the mind has a really An unhappy experience or an experience that it judges as bad. And it feels really bad in the nervous system. It's usually when you're a child because you're, when you're a child, you don't have the framework to understand, oh, dad is just in a bad mood or dad's drinking right now.

Or, you know, whatever.

You're just like, it's always about you. Or dad is traumatized. Dad is traumatized and he really just doesn't know how to act right now. And this has nothing to do with me. Because when you're a child, everything has to do with, A, you, but it also has to do with, if I'm not accepted, I will not survive. And that's the truth until you're like 12. If, if you get kicked out of the tribe, you're going to have a hard time surviving out in the woods with the wolves, you know? And that's what your body thinks. And so as soon as you get this disapproval, and especially from your caregivers, this hits Like fight or flight. This hits like, I'm going to die. And you know that it's a childhood trauma when you are as an adult, when something hits like that, like somebody not texting you back, and then you're like, oh, and you feel that like shaky and oh my gosh, and you get into that fight or flight response in your nervous system. You can tell that it's a childhood response because That is when that would have been a survival issue, and your body is still seeing that as a survival threat, even though you're now 45 years old or 35 years old, and you know that you can survive without this person liking you. You know, and so it's point—it's always pointing back to something that really is a need. You know, and a lot—I think a lot of times we judge ourselves so much because. You know, like you said, your friends are looking at you going, God, you're so insecure. And it's like, oh, I'm so insecure. Why am I like this?

Yeah.

And there's always something very real underneath there to look for and to love and to have compassion for and really letting go of the judgment around it and going into whatever it is with curiosity and compassion.

Yes.

Is, is going to be the answer to most of this, no matter whether you're accessing it in the gym because it just got triggered, or you're accessing it in therapy, or you're accessing it with the psychedelics. Um, you know, curiosity and compassion are the 2 things that heal us the most, especially in our internal work, but even in our external, how we're feeling with other people.

Mm-hmm. You're, you're saying a lot of things that, um, I have said, so I— it's, it's affirmation for me.

Hey, validating, validating Dallas.

I like to be validated. Um, yeah, I always say, you know, curiosity over condemnation when it comes to this.

That's right.

When you're trying to learn about yourself, um, and saying I'm experiencing this instead of I am angry or or whatever, whatever it is, right?

Yeah.

And the, the protective mechanisms that we have, like you mentioned too, is that— so I'm only making this about me because I'm trying to illustrate some real life too. But, you know, to say, uh, where was I even going with it, is that I'm not accepted. So in order— yeah, like you said, in order to do anything possible to not feel that same feeling I felt— and I know the exact day it happened with my dad. It took a lot of meditation to get there, but I remember the exact day that this incident happened. But in order to not feel like that again, I became abrasive and I pushed people away. And any tiny sign that there was any delay in texting me back, I would block them. Block them, delete them. You know, you don't— you know, I— it was just like— I was doing whatever I could and being angry about it too. But I was, I was creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know. They're not going to accept me, so I'm going to do whatever I can to prove, you know, and, and not feel that and not feel that rejection. That's why I've never— I've always been the one to break up.

Right.

In the few relationships I have, I've been the one to decide it because I see it going south, I'm breaking it up. before it breaks up with me, because I'm not feeling that, right?

I will reject you before you get the chance to reject me.

That's right. And they're all— they're probably in, you know, total love with me. Well, yeah, I mean, I have 2. 2. I've been in a couple, but, you know, um, you know, there was a couple where the guys were like, what? You know, they were fine, they were happy with me, and I'm like, no, no, I'm doing, you know, whatever. I'm I would just break it off. And one clean swipe, you know, just like I did with my divorce to my wife. I was like, okay, I'm gay, bye. You know, a week later I'm out, you know. So, and, and some, um, lacked so much sympathy. Um, but I just, I didn't— I'm doing everything I didn't know. Here's the thing, you go through life doing these things and you don't realize this.

Right.

You peel back, peel back, peel back. It's all in that one incident, that belief, or that energetic stuckness that's there that hasn't been released. And you can trace all that back to why you're doing crystal meth. Now, you may have done it the first time— a couple may have introduced it to you, or an older man, or a man may have introduced it to you. You may have stumbled upon it. Whatever reason you got to it was sex. I get that. But the reason you keep going back is not the sex. It is alleviating the pain around. And then you've— then you've subjected the brain to the highest level of dopamine it could possibly, just about possibly ever get. And so you talked about the parts. You know, something else that I do with my clients— again, I don't go too far into IFS because I'm not a therapist, but I'm saying this part of you wants you to use meth because it thinks That, that's what it thinks, that it's giving you a break. It thinks it's giving you what you want, this pleasurable experience, this relief from the intrusive thoughts and the way that you see yourself all day long. That this part, this addiction, or this addictive pattern, or whatever you want to call it, this part of you that wants you to use meth isn't out to get you. It's out to protect you. It's out to help you.

It's trying to help you just in a maladaptive way.

Yes. Yes. More validation for me. Thank you.

That's right. No, that's absolutely— every single behavior that we have is trying to meet a valid need. And, and it's just that whenever we adapted to that behavior, it worked that time. The problem is, is that it, at some point it becomes maladaptive and it's not working anymore. Or it's not working the same way. It worked at a point to do the thing, and it was the best thing that you had in your toolbox at that time. Whether you were 4 years old, whether you're 16 years old, whether you're 25 years old, it was like, of all the things you could do, this was the best thing to survive mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.

Hmm.

Always. even if it's the most degrading behavioral response, it was the best thing in that moment. And the problem is, is that it over time becomes something that ends up hurting you.

Yeah.

A lot of times, these responses that we have, and not just using things that obviously are hurting you like long-term meth use, even just the response of I'm going to reject you before you reject me. You know, these trauma responses in the beginning that worked, it's like, oh man, I won the lottery. I figured out how to not ever feel that again. But then it ends up creating the problem over time. And that's the sad thing about these ego responses and these protective mechanisms. They think they're helping you and they're actually causing the problem after a while. Yeah. Yeah, you know. Yeah, exactly.

Thank you. Well, we have gotten off topic a little bit from ketamine. Well, off the ketamine.

But I think this is perfect.

This is exactly what we needed. This is exactly.

Well, and I think that that's what it opens you up to. I mean, the things that we're talking about psychologically that, you know, it allows you because I've, you know, worked with talk therapy and CBT, motivational interviewing, you know, getting people into, um, you know, 12-step programs. You know, up until we brought the psychedelics in, 12-step programs were the very best process that we had for reducing and actually stopping addiction and then people not going back to it.

Mm-hmm.

Once— but with the psychedelics now, we have a whole new world of availability to really make these changes. And a lot of it does have to do with the way that it works with the brain. Even, you know, there's studies that have shown that, you know, the ketamine works with the dopamine receptors and the serotonin receptors, helping them rework themselves so that it's not creating the same loop cycle, you know.

Yeah.

And certainly the ibogaine and the psilocybin You know, they're literally working with those receptors in your brain, changing them so that the things that make you feel so attracted to it just don't feel that way anymore on a physiological level. You know, so there's a lot going on. One thing that I do like to say with any of these talks is, you know, psychedelics are not for everyone.

Mm-hmm.

And there are reasons for that. If you've been, if you've had a psychotic break, Psychedelics can open you back up to that. And so that's not, you know, that, that would be something that you would really want to talk to your doctor, your therapist about. If you have a, what we call a personality disorder, if you've been diagnosed with that, you may not be the best person for psychedelic work because you've got to really strengthen your connection to your authentic yourself before you can really open those doors and really be able to do the work.

Mm-hmm.

And there are some physical things that you would want to talk to your doctor about, like if you have heart problems or blood pressure problems, this kind of thing, especially with the ketamine. And if you've been using SSRIs or other drugs, doing things like the psilocybin or MDMA can really be dangerous. Because it can cause you to have serotonin syndrome. And so there are, you know, you would definitely, before you go just, hey, I'm going to go try to use psychedelics to fix all my stuff, make sure that you are in a safe environment, make sure that you are with people that know how to help you if your trauma comes up. Because one of the other things that happens and people say they're having a bad trip, you know, they'll go and do, for example, some mushrooms. And they're with all of their friends, and all of a sudden the trauma arises, and they're not with anyone who understands how to help them, and they're shaking, or they're having some kind of looping pattern that happens in their mind, and they're not being in the right set and setting. And that can actually re-traumatize you and make you more traumatized. And so you— the set and setting, who you're around, the energy you're in, all of that is So super important to this working as a healing effort. And, and so that I think that it's just super important for everyone to understand that, you know, going and just trying to do it yourself is not going to give you the, the same benefits as it would that the research shows that the benefits are. Does that make sense? Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so in other words, kids, don't try this at home, right, with ketamine. Can you talk to us about what a— what is a K-hole?

I can talk to you.

I mean, I have heard that term, you know. Um, I don't know like medically what that is other than, you know, you've taken enough where you're going into, you know, anesthetic and other Other areas, but I can tell you from experience, you know, you're going into on a woo woo level. You're going into other dimensions, you know, and I think that we we don't understand. I see a lot. You know, we humans have very little understanding of the mystery of what's actually going on in the. dream world and in the multidimensional level of reality.

Right.

And I think that, you know, when you go into a K-hole, you know, you can feel, you can feel, um, completely like frozen. You can feel, and you, and sometimes you might even feel like you're gonna die because your mind, it just gets loose and you're going into other, um, You can see things that are not of this reality. You can go into places where your mind's just not in control anymore. And you just have to ride it out. There's nothing— once, once you've gone that far, you can't really get back until your mind brings you back. And so, you know, the K-hole experience—

Yeah.

Can be very terrifying for people. You know, because your mind no longer has control over where it's going and what you're experiencing, and especially in your body, you can feel really heavy and like no control anymore.

I mean, it is an anesthetic, so right. So it sounds like you're under anesthesia almost.

It you know, it kind of reminded me. of that, uh, there was a movie back in the, I guess, '80s or '90s, The Serpent and the Rainbow, where they give them the medicine where it's like your mind is awake and you know, but your body can't move and you're— and you really can't do anything about it. Um, I think that it's like that for a lot of people, but, you know, the K-hole experience is different for different people. But I do think that, um, you know, you have to be very careful about how much you're taking and—

Yeah.

Um, and what you're taking, you know, certainly ketamine lends itself because it's a powder to having all kinds of things going on in it, um, that can be dangerous, especially if you're getting it off the street.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's, it's used in part of that, that new, like, I don't know what it's called, that pink cocaine or something like that. It's like a mixture of all kinds of different drugs in one. Um, so a lot of my— a lot of the listeners will identify with a psychotic break because crystal meth puts you into psychosis quite, quite a bit. Um, would that be then something that you would have to be— would that disqualify them from using ketamine, or just be something that—

Yeah, you just need to carefully monitor it. And, um, you know Drug-induced psychosis is different than having a psychotic break, not drug-induced, right?

Okay.

Um, and your therapist would need to talk to you about that and just see where you're at, you know, because what we wouldn't want to do is induce it again, um, on accident with medicine. And so you just need to report that. Um, and because sometimes when it happens, you know, even when the medicine wears off, you can be still in that state for a while. And that's kind of what people are trying to monitor. You know, we don't want— because people with psychedelics have had psychotic breaks and then, and not kind of come back from it. And this isn't— this is rare, and this is not— and if you've had a psychotic break, you know, induced by not sleeping and this kind of stuff from mess, you know, you're— it's not going to be as big of a deal as it would be as if you had one just randomly, you know, um, outside of, outside of drug induction.

Yeah.

But it will— it would— you definitely need to report that that has happened because once your mind has kind of gone there, the chances of it going there again are a little bit more.

Yeah, good. I'm glad I asked that. Let's ask that, uh, is ketamine treatment something covered by insurance?

Most ketamine therapists do not take insurance for it because the insurance companies are just so very, um, particular about what you can do. And ketamine right now is an off-label— they call it off-label because it's For anesthesia. So if you're getting the same— if you're getting the same ketamine but you're getting it at the hospital for anesthesia, they would have covered it. But because it's for now, you know, mental health use or for this, they're not covering it yet.

Most, most are not, but some are starting to, and that's changing— policy's changing around that. So you would probably just want to talk to your own insurance company if you, if you do use insurance to see what they will cover.

Because some of them are changing it due to the research.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. Well, Bodhi, this has been a very lovely, deep, and I think very helpful discussion. I mean, we went into really some— I, I think some foundational concepts into helping men better understand what it is, what it is they're, they're facing, what it is they're dealing with, what it is that is causing them to, to just loop. I just have these men every day saying, you know, I just don't understand. I don't understand why I'm going back. I don't want to, right? Um, and this is very— this is foundational and impactful, and I, I really appreciate you you coming on. And then we could probably do a whole other hour because we haven't talked about EMDR, you know, we haven't talked about a lot of things. Um, but I wanted to know, in terms of ketamine, have I missed anything that you think that we—

No, I mean, I think, um, you know, the thing that I think that I've kind of hit and I think is the most important is that you're doing it alongside therapy. And, um, even just going to the ketamine infusion clinic, you can get quick relief, but the therapy actually gets to those beliefs where you're not going back to the same problem, you know, gets to the shame, gets to the maladaptive protective mechanisms. And, and the integration with psychedelics is actually, in my opinion, more important than actually doing the psychedelic. Because I'm sure you've met people who They have this big experience.

Yeah.

And then 3 months later, they're right back to where they were, and it's just a cool experience they had once. And it's because they didn't do the integration and taking that information and bringing it into their lives and making the micro changes that you have to make. Because what I— what is so important to understand about psychedelics is they will open the door of perception and show you But you have to walk through the door. You're the medicine. Your internal healer is what's doing the healing, not the drugs, not the psychedelics. You're the one that has to make the changes and do what it shows you. And if you don't do that, you're going to end up back where you were, you know.

Mm-hmm.

And the psychedelic— and the psychedelic can make some changes in the brain, but the thing is, is that if you go back to the same exact patterns, your brain's gonna go right back to those patterns and it's gonna be very easy cuz that's what your brain is used to, you know? So it can, it does help loosen everything up and— Yeah. Gives you a better chance of really changing the patterns, but you have to change the patterns. And that means becoming mindful in that moment, making a different choice, and it gives you a better reason to, you understand. You can see things better because of the psychedelics, but in that moment, you're the one that makes the choice. Am I going to take this or not? Am I going to go into this situation where I know it's going to trigger me or not? And the psychedelics definitely help you with that, but they will not make that choice for you. And it is you that's always doing the healing. Yeah. Yeah.

Are you saying that we are our higher power?

I believe that what animates us and makes us alive is, uh, it's bigger than us, but it inhabits us. I'm setting you up. I believe that we are, we are ultimately in, in touch with that, and it can help us to heal. But it is what animates us. It's what makes us alive. You know, and we are in touch with it all the time.

But we have free will and we decide.

That's right. And the thing about your higher power is it whispers. Fear screams. Your conditioning screams. It makes you feel fearful, you know, and it's hard not to listen to those. Yeah, to those fear responses and those trauma responses and But if it's making you feel fear, it's not your higher self. Your higher self is just going to constantly be reminding you and pressuring you and telling you. And, and your higher power is always talking to you, but it sounds just like your thoughts in your head. So you just think they're your thoughts, you know, but there's, there's always something there with you helping you. And what everybody always ends up finding out through, as they go through their healing processes, that they were never really alone with this. Every single time, whether it's through meditation, through breathwork, through yoga, through psychedelics, sooner or later they come in contact with the fact that there was always something there for you trying to help you. And the sooner that you can open yourself up to that, you don't have to call it God. I don't care if you think it's Captain Crunch, as long as what that is is helping you be more compassionate.

Mm-hmm.

And more authentic. If whatever you're listening to is helping you, that you think is bigger than you, is helping you to be more authentic to yourself and more compassionate to yourself and others, then it's probably taking you in the right direction. And it doesn't— you don't have to be Christian or religious at all, or even woo-woo at all, you know, to, to be able to see that.

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. And, and I believe that higher power is our higher self, um, a lot of times too. So I, I was setting you up because I have this— I have this platform where I say, you know, your higher power is you. Because, you know, if it's 3 AM and you're on your phone and you're about to make the go to the guy's house to use There's no lightning bolt or hand that's going to come down and take the phone out of your hands. You ultimately make the decision, right? You might have help, but you make the decision. That's exactly right. So anyway, that's exactly right. So are you, are you accepting, like, can— yes, we're accepting patients.

Uh, yep, we accept, uh, clients. Uh, here in Charlotte. And, um, and we're working on, um, a program, a group program, so that it can be a little bit more financially accessible for people. Um, and then we— and then—

All right.

Usually the protocol is that you do 6 sessions. That's what the research shows that really creates the long-term change. And years later, you're still kind of changed. Um, and that also includes the integration therapy sessions in between. So it's about 12 to 14 sessions altogether over, you know, up to a 6-month or—

Okay.

6-month period or maybe more. Um, and people really, uh, really, I mean, it's, it's actually unbelievable how quickly and how, um, efficient our minds are at healing ourselves whenever we're given the right tools.

Yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree. Thank you so much for being here.

It was my pleasure.

I really enjoyed it very much, very much, very much. Um, good, good. If we— if, uh, the listeners want to connect with you, do you have any— do you want me to put some, um, social media stuff in the show notes? Yeah, it's sacredrootsfindyouonline.com.

And, um, you can find me and, uh, and my contact information's on there, and we can do a consultation and see how I might be able to help or point you in the right direction. And the other thing that I want to say is that at our Sacred Roots, uh, community, every Monday night we have a psychedelic integration group. Even if you haven't done psychedelics with me.

Okay.

If you have done it on your own and you need somebody to to you about it. This is a— it's a donation-based— there's a therapist there and a psychedelic integration coach, and we can help support you. And I think if you have done the stuff on your own and you need support, this is a really good resource for everybody. It's from 7 to 8:30 every Monday night, and you can find the information on the website.

7 to 8 Eastern Time, by the way. So I have listeners all over the world, so can they Can somebody, can somebody attend virtually?

Absolutely. We do have some, we do have Google Meet link that we let people kind of join in if they need to. And, um, you know, and if they're out of state because of our laws, I can't obviously do therapy with them, but I can give them resources, you know, if they want to do a consultation and ask questions, you know, I'm super happy to support.

Okay. Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I love you too.

Very much. I love you.

You're doing good work, sir.

Um, all right guys, we hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have— yeah, thank you. If you have more, uh, you want to add to this or you have questions, feel free to— oh.