Getting Real About Anxiety, Addiction, and Psychedelics

Max, welcome to the Human Journeys podcast.

Thank you. Jason, welcome to the Human Journeys podcast.

Yes, we're doing something slightly different. We've both hosted the Human Journeys podcast, and we're going to do, I guess, a dual combination version of the podcast, both of us sharing our stories.

We do work together. So this is I was thinking, most people go for most colleagues, go for a beer to get to know each other. But we're we're recording a podcast for the world to see talking about our deepest, darkest secrets. So good team bonding, exercise.

It's fantastic. Team pointing. I'm very excited. Jason.

Yeah, excited to hear your story.

Who you truly are.

So yeah, the Human Journeys podcast is, you know, the personal stories behind psychedelics. We all come to this space generally if there's a there's a reason for it. Not most people aren't in it for the money. There's either you almost there's a handful, but generally there's a motive, either a personal motivation or, you know, an altruistic motivation for someone in your life has been affected by psychedelics.

So there's there's a reason we're here generally. And I think we're here to share our stories of how kind of how we got here. I could go first.

You can go first, but maybe let's hear you know a bit about you. And, like, you know, before psychedelics, maybe I'd like to. I'd be interested in that.

Yeah, well, picture it, 1978.

Imagine. All right. Just age myself. I'm from Montreal. Mixed heritage family, quasi raised by Holocaust survivors. My my mother's side were Polish Jews, and my parents were divorced, really, really young. So I grew up in my grandparents house a lot in Canada. And so most of my childhood memories are in my grandparents house, and they were proper Holocaust survivors.

So there was that as some sort of background coloring, not too traumatic. But if you if you dig deeper, I could see how it directed or colored how my personality got shaped slightly, which obviously your environment does and your family does and wasn't anything too severe. My mom had more direct, you know, maybe survivor trauma. But I do see in this ties into how I ended up getting here, how that background, my family background of some sort of like, background tension and, thing it it led to things that I had to work out.

And that eventually led to my human Jordan story and getting to psychedelics. So, yeah, suburban life in Montreal. Great. Canada's beautiful life was great. I was an athlete and then discovered and fed my writerly side and made a career switch in my 30s to focus, left the business world behind and focus on building up my writer's career.

And then that was going successfully. And then, I guess we could say in about 2019, 2020, I started to feel like the background mental health status wasn't. It reached a point where I could no longer just say, okay, things are things aren't great, but there are. Right like that. Something kind of needed to be done.

Was it something that you sort of thought about a lot before 2020, sort of mental health, or did you look at other avenues to like psychotherapy therapy or anything?

Meditation.

So yes and no, I'd never done traditional therapy. Maybe I did a couple steps session once with an ex, but I had, you know, added yoga to my life. I had already gone to India, wasn't full time Yogi, but I had started to build a kind of like holistic practice, slightly. It wasn't it wasn't super intentional. But, you know, I was starting to add those things.

So I, I had a kind of mindfulness experience. I had gone to a meditation retreat in India and I had practiced yoga. So I was starting to like, build these tools out. And despite that, it was things were starting to like build at the edges and, and somehow mindfulness and self-awareness can make it can get you to seek an answer and a solution quicker.

But it can. Some almost make things more difficult. Like, I don't know, like ignorance is bliss. And in my case, my mental health issues weren't like flashing red lights and the alarm wasn't ringing. But I noticed this accumulation and I noticed what my default setting was because I had, I guess, practice looking inwards and I. What I would notice is that my default setting was no longer joy, and my default setting was slightly anxious and slightly negative, and sometimes more than slightly.

And I, I wrote an article about it for States of Mind, actually, where I shared it, and there was a moment where it kind of everything spilled over and I just couldn't take it anymore that like it was, I was tired of it and I was I wasn't even sad. I was like disappointed and exhausted of noticing that this person's default was no longer joyous.

And I know this other version of myself, this kid, this younger, this person. And I know how amazing he is. And I know the shining light that you know, that's in him, that was in him. And then I would notice for days and months and years that that was no longer like my default setting. And I was so.

Just like it was it was it was a shame that that was no longer me. And and I remember there was this moment where I had gone out to the movie theater with some friends, and I'm watching the movie, and my mind just kept going to its shitty anxiety habits of thought, and I kept seeing my mind going there, and I'm like, what the hell is going on here?

I can't even sit and watch a movie. And then I got home and I sat on my couch and I cried because I was so fucking tired of it. And that was the moment where I'm like the I knew, okay, now I need you can tell yourself it's not so bad. It's minor, things are fine. It's just a little bit of background anxiety.

And then I'm like, no, no, no, this is not. And that started that, that that moment there I sat on my couch alone in my apartment like ugly crying out of like, exhaust exhaustion was like set off the chain of events that led us here today.

Thank you for saying that, Jason.

That's my brief intro dive right in.

Yeah. I mean, as in like, do I get my intro now?

Would you want to go maybe into your experience, whatever you feel like I think I think that's that's tell me, tell me.

I can just give you my origin story. I mean,

So I was brought up in London, born and bred south west London. Plays for Fulham.

Quite posh area now for them. Has a has a has a club.

Yes. My it's my favorite club. It's Fulham through and through London's originals. So we're actually the first professional London team which is a good factor though for all the football heads out there.

So yeah, from there and my, my parents split up when I was quite young. So when I was around four, they, they split up. And actually one of my, my sort of first memories or a memory that I can recall, it's, actually the moment, I think I think it's what it was. And I did sort of ask my father if this was a true memory, and he did corroborate and say he was, but it was essentially him leaving the house for, I guess, the last time that we were sort of family units.

And I'm going going to the front door and basically like crying when he was leaving. So I remember that. And so anyway, they split up and then what a does that for. I was four, four, five something.

I have a very similar you as well know the same. Exactly the same I remember, I remember I was six and my sister was four.

And I have like one of my first memories is it's not, it's not, it's not banging at the door. That's quite Hollywood. Dramatic, but but it's amazing, right. And these things mine was a slightly different. And they were, like sitting me down to tell me to break the news. And my and my sister wasn't in the room.

They're like, we're telling you because you're older. And like my I think my dad was like, on one knee with a hand on my shoulder and my, my, my, my mom and my dad were like, breaking the news to me. And that's like my first one of my first memories.

Does it bring up a like a is it a feeling or like, what's the do you remember how you felt in that moment?

It's a it's a feeling that's come up often through life of a like like so behind that is probably some serious divorce trauma that you felt and that's there and that's, that's kind of nameless. But this other feeling of like a heavy burden and responsibility, like the weight of it because it was I think it was also delivered in a, in a way of like managing it for your my sister wasn't there, and I think I was already thinking about not like how I'm going to tell my sister.

So like, a heavy burden was also there.

Yeah. Yeah. Remember. Yeah.

Thanks for showing that interrupt.

No, no no, please. It's, Yeah. I'm not glad, but it's nice that you can relate these kind of experiences of others. Right.

So. So you're banging at the door.

Banging a door. So anyway, my pants split up, so I'm kind of, you know, spending time my mum time.

My time. My dad's, but to not go too much into the weeds of my family like, that was not the first of all. So that was the first of many. So, you know, my my father gets I don't know who gets married first, second time. But anyway, both my parents get married again. You know, I have a step family, stepfather, stepmom, and they divorce again years later.

Both.

Both?

Yeah. Both.

Nice.

And now. Then they got married again. So they're both on their third partners.

Third time's a charm.

Sorry. In third time's a charm. Yeah, well, now you know I'm not gonna go. Yeah. I'm not going to this, but, No. And so just to kind of give you a snapshot, like, just my, my upbringing was had a lot of goods.

You know, I love I love my family. I love my parents. I love my siblings, step siblings, half siblings. I love everyone, you know, I've got very good everyone. My family. I'd say nowadays it's I'm very grateful for that. But it was just very chaotic. It was a lot of, you know, changing and, you know, psychological abuse from different people.

And so it wasn't easy growing up. It was just I yeah, I never felt safe. I never felt safe. And, and I think that that's, you know, a big part of the reason why sort of in my teenage years. But even actually before that, I sort of started, you know, misbehaving quite a lot at school. Before that, I was quite a, you know, gentle, kind kid.

Like, I didn't really bother people. Quite shy, very shy even. And then some from the age of like, you know, ten, 11, 12, I just sort of had this need to, you know, please people and be the center of attention. And, and I knew I could do that by being the joker and causing mischief and this kind of thing in school.

So that's kind of how my sort of behavior started. But then that sort of manifested in, in, in drugs and like a lot of people in, in London, at least within my circles, you, you start experimenting with drugs quite, quite young. You really do. So, you know, cannabis, 12, 13 drinking just before that. And that honestly, is quite normal if you ask a lot of London kids,

I don't think I, I didn't start I think I smoked weed until I was college.

Yes, yes, we, we, we were young. Yeah, we were young. And, I remember the first time I did spliff, like I had had a friend of mine and we kind of had this weed, and we were trying to roll it up in this thing, and we couldn't really roll, but we had this kind of really loose spliff and we tried smoking it, but it wasn't even the effects that got me.

It was more just like the thing of doing something that was like, taboo or like. And that's why I got my rush, you know? So, so that's kind of my segue into into drugs and, you know, slowly or not, slowly but surely you quite quickly, it's it's accelerated. And I got to a point where I was completely addicted to drugs physically, mentally, progressed quite quickly.

So it was kind of, you know, cannabis and then, you know, 13, 14 started going to, you know, raves and experimenting with MDMA, ketamine and these kind of things and sort of at mephedrone, all these things. And so, you know, by 1415 I was doing a lot of ketamine, doing a lot of other drugs. Then it was like, yeah, but it's to me, honestly, if it feels like this, it felt normal because wasn't just me.

I was doing it with a lot of my friends and, you know, from different schools as well. And so it felt normal. But then when I, when I, when I think about it and I see, you know, I've younger siblings and I look at them when they were like 13, 14, 15, I was like, I was doing that shit.

You were aged like, what the fuck, man? Like their kids?

Yeah. They're kids. So are you.

Yeah. No. So it was I was like, no wonder my brain is like so fried, like like, honestly. So, and then it was, you know, benzos, opiates, and then, you know, in the end it was, you know, having a crack at the very end.

But this was that sort of 17, 18. I got clean very young. I probably won't go into the whole war stories now, but, you know, big family intervention because it just became apparent that I had a big problem with drugs. I hid it for a long time as well as I could. But, you know, when you watch his and jewelry and, and, I don't know, closed designer bags go missing in households, people begin to look at the skinny kid and who's like, you know, behavioral issues and okay, well, maybe it's Max.

And that became apparent and, you know, family to mention end up in a in a rehab at 17. And that was kind of like my journey into recovery basically at 17. And this was, you know, 12 years ago now, essentially. But, you know, we can get more into that and how, you know, where psychedelics came into that.

But that's kind of my, my sort of childhood and adolescence. And so really, the last 12 years I've, I've essentially been in recovery. So actually all of my adult life I've mostly been clean for the most part. So I've kind of just had, you know, two lives really.

So see it that way.

Yeah, I do, I really do, yeah, I really do.

It's just, I mean, not two lives. I mean, because actually the psychedelics gave me gave a different dimension to my life, which we'll get into. But, yeah, the person I was when I was, you know, an adolescent using drugs, abusing drugs to who I am now, there's there's this, like, chalk and cheese. You can't you can't compare.

Really?

So we'll pause there. Chalk and cheese and cheese and say, yeah, I love speaking to the bread.

Yeah. Americans or North Americans usually say that.

Yeah. Makes me so as a as a writer, whenever I think I just know the English language and I'm done with it. And then I speak to people from the UK and then I'm like, thank you for blessing me with a new discovery.

It's a lot of depth to the English language, has a lot of depth.

Yeah. Two lives. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes when you. I don't know how you look back on on your on that other chapter. Is there any shame left.

Sometimes. Not really because I've done a lot of work on that through 12 step based programs. Done a lot of you know. Yeah. So look at looking at my parts and things and making amends to people that have harmed and, and you know, so these kind of things like I but sometimes these memories come up again through interactions with family or friends and like the feeling of shame does come up sometimes.

But for the most part, I wouldn't say so. No. Like, I've, I've made my peace with it. Personally, I have, and I believe most people that I've harmed that process have not everyone, but most people have. So yeah, it can come out in small ways, but not not what it was when I first got clean, like I had had, you know, I was crippled by shame when I first got clean, crippled, I didn't know what to do with it.

And even before I got clean, just like generally like I hated myself and hated what I was doing. And and for me, the solution was, was to use more drugs. That was it. That was the solution. Always. So, but but nowadays, not so much. No.

Yeah. Maybe it's the fact that it was the fact that you were so young.

Gave you minimize the opportunities for shameful. Like I don't know as an adult you'll have more complex relationships or more relationship, more opportunities for destruction.

Yeah for sure. Yeah. Yeah. No I got, I got lucky that I was able to sort of Alicia get clean at a young age. I get, you know this this could have gone on for longer.

It was either like, it could have gone on for longer or I was going to die quite young. It was really one of those, like, I can't say, you know, I've got people who were Myers back then who died. A lot of my friends in recovery died through this, either through overdoses or suicide. You know, these this is kind of usually the way the avenues that are at sort of our disposal when, when addiction it's it's that like it's death institutions or jails or whatever.

So it's it's interesting the contrast. So, I don't know anyone who's like an officially an addict or, you know, I dated a girl who was from the South in the US, and she knew, like, you know, like, like four of her friends had died of an overdose. And it was, like, completely foreign to me. And, and, you know, so our origin stories and reasons are maybe different, but we both ended up in a similar place trying to do similar things.

So, yeah, I was just kind of playing with that contrast, you know, I wonder, but if at its root it's the same kind of problems, like, I see my problems as trying to fix bad habits that formed over time. And in my case, they didn't manifest in extreme ways. My personality maybe lent itself to like, moderation and control.

And I think even that goes back to that moment of my father giving me the responsibility to take care of my sister. And I see how that's shaped me and how it's like, made me responsible, even as I'm totally irresponsible, I'm still responsible. And I think that, like, kept me in control, making sure things were going in the right direction so that my issues were kind of like pushed kind of the to the periphery.

And they just became, like manageable issues. And my life was going ahead in a, in a more or less steady way. And I was able to. So that's kind of how it manifested for me. And then for you, it manifested in me in a, in a more outwardly or more extreme way. And I was just like playing with how they're similar and at their roots.

I don't know, like we have a very similar origin story. Children of Divorce. Yeah. Yeah. You know, our past just kind of like, went a little bit differently and then came back in, like, what would you say?

What was the cause of the addiction? Like? It was just. Was it escapism? You know, it was at such a young age. I wonder, was it just the fact that was just a couple like, you know, you just stumbled upon the wrong group of friends and someone offered it to you, and then all of a sudden you developed a chemical addiction.

I mean, you can never I, I, you know, people say it's, you know, it's it's, Yeah, it's nature or nurture. I mean, it's I think that there's, there's it's multifaceted is the answer. Like, I mean, I can only share from my experience, I think the drugs. Yeah. Sort of gave me a way to, to kind of feel okay with myself because I just, I just didn't like who I was and didn't like my environment.

And it gave me a way out. So, yeah, some form of escapism and yeah, it just kind of made me feel all right, like it was just kind of the solution at the time, you know, like it was like, okay, I have I have a negative feeling or I wasn't even thinking that I've negative, I'm going to use it was more like, that's just kind of what I was compelled to do was to use because I felt shit all the time, basically.

So, yeah, they say it's, you know, the drugs are only a symptom of whatever we're dealing with. It's kind of deeper, maybe depression or I don't know what. All I know is that at that time, it felt like the solution. Like I thought I felt I found the medicine, like, you know, the first time I used different drugs, I was like, wow, this is it.

Like, I can, you know, like, if this is what I can do for this, my life, I'm sorted. But, yeah, people like me, you just can't use these things like normal people. It's, it becomes compulsive and, I harm myself and other people in the process. That's the problem. Like, if I didn't do that, I'd still be using.

But the reality is that I would just harm myself and other people.

And how did it was it, it an effort, was there an effort to get past your ego. And you said people like me. And is that why. I mean I'm kind of addiction ignorant but you know I'm part of the steps is you, you kind of like, declare yourself an addict.

Like I'm so and so that is that an important part of the problem is acknowledging.

Yeah, yeah. Accepting that you have a problem. I mean, is really the only thing you need to go to meetings this kind of accept that you have a problem. Or in other words except that you're on addicts. People have issues with that term addict or.

But yeah it's that just at least just simply accept that I have a very problematic relationship with certain drugs. My thinking is, is, is is, for lack of a better word, fucked up if I, if I don't find other solutions to deal with that, I can very quickly get into sort of compulsion and resentment and obsessive thinking that can be really destructive.

So when I say that, I mean that and my sort of outlet for that was, was were drugs. But, you know, it can be other things could be sex, it could be gambling, whatever behavioral process, addiction doesn't matter what it is. It's just, anything to kind of soothe that kind of hole. And that's how I described it when I, when I first got clean, it was kind of like a real big, like hole in my stomach that needed to be filled and drugs filled.

That. And, so that's what they did. But, with psychedelics is different. You know, maybe we can talk about that. I mean, I'd be interested maybe to to hear why psychedelics for you like, like, how did you land on. I always it sort of like a journey psychedelics. Like, why did you.

My gateway drug was, was, microdosing psilocybin mushrooms.

So after that evening in my living room, which we'll call that like, you know, that was like the tipping point. I went to my sister and he was through all the things we've been through is my is my best friend. And.

Getting a little more emotional even just saying that. And, I told her that I needed to do something, and, we had a real talk, and I'm like, it's not. It's not good over here. And, she suggested I go on medication because she had been on anti-anxiety meds for for several years after her first child. She had some postpartum, and that led to some stuff.

And I said, I hesitated, and I said, let let me try something else first. And this was in 2019 or 2019. Microdosing was not as popular as it is today, but I had heard of it. You know, I'd been to Burning Man, you know, I, I, I knew a bit about the psychedelic world enough to know that it was something that I could try, but there was no home delivery microdosing kits yet.

So I decided to add, like that winter, there was a lot of things going on with my family and some tough times, but I decided to do some work on myself. So I went to yoga more. That winter. I meditated a bit more and I started to micro dose and I added that to my, you know, mental health practice, this attempt to snap out of wherever I was.

So I started microdosing. And then along with all the other work you do, like there's no silver bullet, there's nothing fixes anything overnight. But the combination of like mindfulness awareness, just like being aware of the topic of mindfulness. And I had an app I was practicing very loosely and not as much as I should have, but I understood how to like, check in with myself.

And I started to notice that what I was doing was starting to work. And I think that microdosing was part of it. And what I've noticed with psychedelics for me, is that it I'm better able to access the present moment and I'm better able to, like, sit here with you instead of sitting here. Through a filter of all my bullshit with you and trying to connect.

To speak with you. Like it's. I'm. I'm better able to be here. I'm like, here and not like, in here. And that's always how I describes, my experience of the world and, and my, my mental health problems is like getting like, what is anxiety if not getting caught and taken away by a thought pattern for an hour or for a minute, you're just like, what?

Where was I? I was doing like I was doing life, but I was doing it through while this thing was happening. And that's what I'm still trying to fix, always trying to fix. And I find that psychedelics.

Like, facilitate being here a bit more. And, that that was my that was my beginning. Psychedelics made me realize that I, I'm made me remember what it's like to be here and not in here, along with mindfulness and yoga and Buddhist practice and all that. But yeah. So plant was seeded with microdosing.

Yeah. Did you then decide to do a bigger dose or was that was that something that was of interest to you or would you, would you been fine or just the microdosing like, was that.

No, this was stuff. Work still needed to happen. But I did get the seed planted. That okay, this is something that's working. And then that once, you know, once you open up the the doors, you start to pay attention to this space, you start to learn about it. And I got more and more comfortable with the subject.

Microdosing is a good starter kit. Also, I would recommend it to people, especially if you're apprehensive and you don't have a psychotic or, you know, drug friendly background. Microdosing can ease the tension around entering psychedelics, and you get comfortable with the thing and you start to have a relationship with it. And that's kind of what happened slowly over the years.

I didn't chase it, but then, you know, opportunities presented themselves to have bigger experiences and had a bigger solid. I gave myself like a I did one year on New Year as I just didn't go out and I stayed home by myself and I gave myself a psilocybin ceremony.

Wow.

Yeah. Alone in my apartment. And, that was interesting.

And went to Colombia in my travels, did my first ayahuasca ceremony. And slowly over the years, I tried not to. I resisted the urge to to chase the bigger, to go after the bigger things I like. My personality was a bit more slow and steady. And then slowly, over time, bigger experiences happened and continue to learn and learning about the space.

I ended up working in the space and so some a lot of blessings happened through psychedelics. And I do feel that I'm I, I can get much quicker back to here instead of in here. Even talking about it is reinforcing the learning you have. These conversations are important to remember what we learned.

Yeah. Did you get any other sort of maybe different messages from the bigger doses?

Any big shifts perspective or spirituality or.

I've never had, I think a lot I, I needed to kind of peel away my control and the I think control is still there. So basically all of my big psychedelic experiences have been me just battling through myself to let myself have the experience. I've basically never had a big spiritual experience, and I've done ayahuasca twice, and I've done bigger psilocybin ceremonies and it's always like, I think I'm still stripping away at the internal controls.

Like my last ayahuasca ceremony was just purging. I didn't do anything else. I was just shitting myself for five hours and and just so like and I and I think that's just because that's what needed to get out of the way.

Yeah. Physically and metaphorically. And mounting the armor.

Yeah. Yeah. And like, you know, and and they say that, you know, the medicine will give you what you need.

And I get like, that's what I needed is to just let myself, like, strip away the protections and the controls and, and I think that's working. I do feel like the next time a bigger experience happens, I'm going to be going go in much lighter. And I think maybe some deeper stuff can happen. But does it need to sometimes.

Does it need to? Right. Yeah. I think people have these sometimes unrealistic expectations of what scientists can do. And I think at least that's my this is my opinion. If you go into these ceremonies or context where you're going to take ayahuasca, also decide on a big dose and you think you're going to have this huge spiritual experience.

It it might not happen. It might, you know, you just don't know what's going to happen. It doesn't need to happen. You know.

Exactly doesn't need to happen. Like you don't need that. But yeah, like I've what was yours?

Mine was would it was first was said and, a bit of context, like, I see I get clean sort of rebuild my life university or do all the good stuff that young people should do.

And so clean through college.

Clean. Yeah. Yeah, I think college. Yeah. I mean I had so I had a relapse, which I'll get to, which is why I started, I started taking psychedelics partly why I am see, I get clean and I, you know, get six months clean and I relapse a year clean relapse and went to college in Sydney, Australia.

And I had almost three years clean at this time. But, I got back into bad habits. Yeah. I wasn't going to meetings just, like, isolating a lot more, acting out in different ways, and ended up relapsing just like it. Just give you a sort of insight into the kind of thinking I have sometimes. Like, I, no, no, no worries that add a bit more drama to the story.

It's, I, I was kind of as I was acting out and I was like, okay, like, I'm in college, I want to make a bit more money, you know, like I need a bit more money. And instead of getting like a normal kind of, like, job at a cafe or whatever. So, like, I'm going to start selling drugs.

I was like, I'm going to start. I'm going to start selling ketamine as a recovering addict. Yeah, yeah, I should do I'm gonna start saying ketamine. I was, you know, I had I sort of still had like I could I basically create a new account on dark web and I was like, oh, God, maybe I should start selling some, some heroin as well.

Like, they have the China White in Australia. I've never tried China White. So that's, that's kind of that sort of start buying that anyway. So I buy all of this ketamine, this sort of, you know, sort of China white heroin from, you know, stuff. Most of the heroin. And Australia comes from Southeast Asia. So it's different to heroin.

You get in like Europe, which comes to Afghanistan or states. And and anyway I was ketamine and heroin and it, it comes to my parcel comes at my dorm and take the parcel open up and like, okay, well, I've got to know if it's good stuff. Right. So I take a key, I you can snort this, this kind of heroin.

I thought it and that was it. That was me gone for three weeks. Man. That was me for three weeks.

Holy.

I was just gone. I've really, like, really zero. Like very little recollection of the three weeks. But anyway, I wake up one morning alone in my dorm and this voice comes into my head and it's basically says like, don't use today, don't use.

I've never had it before in my life. Never used to be like an intervention or something. And always comes and I get up and I take the drugs from my table, put them in the in the in the toilets, flush them, go downstairs, have a cigarette, and even then, like, the cigarettes tasted so disgusting. So I could feel like the cancer, like permeating through my body.

And since then. Anyway, since then I haven't used. I haven't smoked cigarettes that day and I get clean again and I'll sort of maybe 4 or 5 months clean then. And I still kind of struggling mentally, like I was clean, but they dry drunk or like, you're clean but you're not living a spiritual life. You're just like same sort of mental issues and thought processes still very toxic.

And I kind of had that and actually was a friend, friend of mine who's not in recovery, who for some reason I forget why he mentioned psychedelics. He was like, have you ever considered the psychedelics gonna work for you? And I was like, no, I'm an addict. I can't use a chemical to like, you know, deal with my chemical addiction.

And, anyway, he put me on to to to something. I forget what it was and like it was basically it was through Reddit, a subreddit. I came across Psychedelics in Recovery, which is a group of recovering addicts or alcoholics. What, like me, who use psychedelics as part of their spiritual programs, polar recovery. And I kind of reread this, and I was looking at, you know, the Imperial Studies Compass Pathways.

I was thinking, wow, there's like a lot of research going into this. I was I was really interesting. Join a few PIR meetings, recovery meetings, and kind of talk to these people who were using psychedelics and like, wow, they actually like pretty normal. Like they seem really serene. And anyway, I decided to take set aside. And the main reason I want to try is because, as I mentioned, I was, you know, I'd relapse.

I didn't have this kind of spiritual experience that seemed to be promised to me through the steps, which you can get without saying. I'm not saying, you know, you can get there with psychedelics or whatever, but for me, I struggled coming to terms with the idea that there was a spiritual solution to whatever I was dealing with. And I thought, okay, like I listened to these people in PIR, like, maybe this could be a good way to, I don't know, get different perspective, like try something new that might help me.

And, you know, with the advice of many people, I did set aside on my own, had someone's number in case something went bad. And yeah, like it's things fundamentally changed from that moment. Like it was a set aside. And I mean, 3 or 4g of this, species called Psilocybe subaeruginosa. They grow the endemic to Australia. So they've actually grown within 100m of world living like you find them everywhere.

It was amazing. And something, you know, like something changed. Like something flicked like it was one I experienced self-love for the first time in my life. Like, I was like, I could. It's almost like something inside of me was hugging me. And, you know, like with with a drug, like heroin, for instance, or opiates, you have that feeling.

It's not the same feeling, but you have that feeling of like you have a warm hug from someone you really love. That's kind of how it feels like the psychedelics. It was like it was that. But I it was. I felt love for myself and for other people, and I just had this sort of connection to the universe or to nature, like, I, I next day I went outside and I was looking at these trees and I was like, oh my God.

Like, you know, trees are just so beautiful, like plants and people and aunts and aunts, aunts, aunts and spiders. Like, you know, I don't kill spiders anymore. I feel bad, I feel generally bad. I can't do it. It was kind of like, you know, if you if you take a picture on a Polaroid and, you know, the, the sort of the, the, the picture comes out and you're kind of like, slowly but surely, you know, the image gets color.

And that's kind of what the experience was like. My psychedelics was like things were revealed to me, which I don't think I would have got had I not had that experience. It was just this a very cathartic experience. And obviously the fear before that was, will this experience or the fact that I am using a drug? Well, that made me want to use other drugs.

That was a genuine, I know, taking a risk. And but it had the opposite effect. I was like, man, like I actually I want, I want to work with steps again. I want to work the steps on to go back to meetings. And I did that, and I kind of just basically worked the steps in conjunction with psychedelics.

And I just had these very powerful psychedelics, but also while working steps and a lot of things were revealed to me, yeah, sort of acceptance for who I was and by extension, could accept other people for who they were, just like had a lot more love to give, a lot more love to give. Because before that I had very little love to give a self-centered, a lot of hate, not even recovery, a lot of hate.

Like, I had these, you know, I'd have these mad political beliefs because I just wanted to identify or belong to something that's a fundamental I wanted. I belong to something. But psychedelics gave me something. Just I felt like I belonged to the universe in a very sort of like, non cringey way. That's really how it felt like I really it like experiential belonging.

Like you were just you were experiencing the world and you felt you saw it. You felt you saw the, the world for the first time. Really?

Yeah. Like at a much like, you know, deeper level. Like it was. Yeah. It's it's, it's, you know, it's hard to describe as you know, with, you know, it's it's hard to describe, but it's just really felt like a sort of switch was flicked, you know, and since then I've.

Yeah, my perspective on life has changed immensely just from that one experience,

which is, which is I, I, I find that fascinating. I really find that so fascinating that one experience can do that.

Of course, I also love because other people have done that and maybe have had bad experiences. Right. So, you know, what have I say? It's it's it's still taboo subject within recovery circles to, to use psychedelics for good and bad reasons, like, you know, like for some people, you just like it is not the right thing to do, which it isn't.

Don't need to go into details. Why, but, but for me, it was the right thing to do. I can I can say that honestly. So, Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. I'm. I'm just trying to imagine what it's, what it felt for you. I mean, you're saying for the first time to feel self-love, the first time to to see the world through a, like a a loving or or, you know.

What? There was relief. Relief. And like. Yeah, I think like, I also like an acceptance that like also, you know, that I, I, I don't know like it's acceptance that life is what it is kind of thing and I can't change much like it's, it's, it's weird to describe it like real like a real acceptance of like life and not trying to fight everything and, yeah, being better, just accepting people as they are people and things and situations and just kind of have this, like this, I guess, this belief with his faith that like, things will be okay no matter what.

Of course, I don't always operate like that. Like, you know, other areas of my life is stressful, were relationships. I can go back into that thing of like trying to control outcomes and whatever, but I can I can always go back to that experience and be like, wow. Like, you know what? Like I don't have to overcomplicate things so much, you know?

Yeah. And we, we I mean, even just talking about it now, is it like a reinforcement mechanism, like you can you can feel that moment again.

I feel my body. Yeah. I can feel my body. It's it's that feeling and like. But it's kind of like this, this like this kind of love. And I think that's what they call in, in, in the Big Book, in mostly God consciousness.

It's kind of like this. I just there's this love coming out and like, yeah, it's it's it's hard. It's like a feeling I have. I don't always have it, obviously I wish I did, but I, I just don't because life takes over. But also, you know, the fact that, you know, I'm also very, you know, privilege, like, it's I was lucky enough to be a situation where I could have that experience and, you know, like, I'm not was in a situation where, you know, you know, there's a war in my country or, you know, it's.

Yeah, I'm also accept that, like, I could have this because I was privileged for sure. But very grateful that I could have it and I could I could use it in my life now, you know.

Yeah. And also, I mean, you're you're you're privileged, but also, you know, take credit for you. You did some work to get yourself there.

I mean, you, you got yourself clean. Like that moment of insight came without like when, when you got clean and you tossed all that, all your stuff. And that was an internal moment of insight that came just from you. So there's like, there's, Yeah, you deserved it. You deserve the privilege.

See, I, I yeah, that when I, I, I think a lot of it's luck as well.

That's also a thing I, I think a lot of it is luck. You know there's a lot of. Yeah. As we know, there's a lot of people who try psychedelics or try to get clean or try to, you know, whatever, haven't got there for whatever reason, have died or haven't, or just in that continuous cycle of despair and, you know, mental health disorders or, you know, whatever it might be.

And like, so I think a lot of it is luck and situations and, you know, sliding door moments. I really do believe that, that's just my, my belief. I, I, I can't I yeah, like, it doesn't feel right for me to take credit like I want to say thank you. I appreciate that genuinely. But I, I, I also yeah it's it's hard for me to take credit for I think a lot of it is like I do.

Humility is good.

Yeah I do. Yeah I do. So I don't know I like did you, do you feel like, do you think like you, you came to psychedelics by luck or like what was the.

I think it's, my yeah. I mean, yeah, I understand, you know, the free will versus not the bait we can get, you know, how, how and why do things happen. But I think that I put myself, my personality, my view of the world being slightly open to things, even if maybe people in my environment weren't being an adventurous person.

You know, I've been living nomadic around the world for ten years. Like one of the reasons I probably was able to be open to psychedelics as a possibility before most people were in my circles, was because I'd put myself in these different situations and I was open to the world, and I had an adventurous spirit. And as even though my my childhood did instill some traumas in me that I had to get over, it also did instill some personality traits that made me feel confident enough to go out into the world with with a measure of internal security and a sense of security.

So like, yeah, you know, our paths are, you know, we contain multitudes and our traumas even have blessings. And, yeah,

yeah, for sure. I mean, it's yeah, on that point, like, I, I remember when I first got clean in meetings, people would often say, I'd say like, you know, I'm so grateful to be an addict. And I'd be like, like, what the fuck are you talking about?

Like how? But now I get it, I get it, I get it, and I'm so like, I'm just so grateful for everything that's happened to me to this point now, because I can honestly say I. I'm proud of the person I am. Jenny. I can say that. I can really say that. And probably the person I am, I'm I love the people that in my life, I love my life, I genuinely do, and I think I do because of the sprints I had and things I went through and things I worked on and all my experiences, they formed the person I am.

And I'm just ultimately grateful to be alive. Who knows for how long. But, you know, just for today, I'm very grateful to be alive, to be here with you, speaking genuinely, I like I really feel that, but of course, yeah, you know, these things can change also, like, you know, it could be a traumatic event that happens tomorrow.

Who knows? Like, I, you know, just. I try to take things day by day. That's kind of been my, you know,

you shared a mantra before or kind of mantra before we entered the room, like, yeah,

a mantra that was always, well, from very early stage of my recovery, that was always, you know, put on me was, you know, a day at a time.

And I for me that, that, that really is the heart of it, a day at a time. It just simplifies, for me at least, simplifies everything. Because the moment I think too far ahead is I get anxious.

Or for me, it's a moment, like a moment at a time. Yeah. My my past with psychedelics has kind of been I've done a little bit of Buddhist studying and a little bit of mindfulness studying, and I think they're really good for me.

They go really hand in hand the day at a time, the moment at a time. The the ability that psychedelics can bring you to the present moment. And, you know, Buddhist and or meditative teachings are also about being coming back to the present moment, coming back to the present moment. And I find for me, this is how I always see psychedelics and how I kind of see everything, even how you said your moments of kind of revelation after your first time was psilocybin.

What I was thinking is that you were able to love the tree you were looking at, because you were seeing it.

Actually seeing it instead of seeing it through all of our garbage.

Yeah.

And for me, maybe the the root solutions to our things were quite similar. Like, I'm, I felt better because I was experiencing the world without my anxious thought filter. I was just, oh my God. I remember the first time after my first ayahuasca experience, barely. I didn't really have a psychedelic experience.

I just kind of purged. Actually. It's a funny psychedelic story. I went to an ayahuasca ceremony in Colombia, in the mountains, and we went to see a shaman, and we were at the curandero's house, and everyone's around the fire and everyone's ayahuasca in except me. Like one girl needed, like she was having, like, an exorcism. They had to tie her down.

Everyone's going out and I'm just sitting there waiting. Nothing is happening, nothing is happening. And then I'm lying down after, like two hours and they kept coming up and nothing's happened. I'm like zero. And, my internal controls were strong. I don't know, the got the dosing wrong. Just I'm just like. And then after like two hours, my just my stomach starts to hurt and they're like, go, why don't you go under the tree?

I'm like, I'm just so I'm under this tree. No spiritual, no psychedelic experience, and I'm just having stomach pains and I'm like, ayahuasca sucks and I'm just lying down under the tree. But then finally I purged. And then when you purge on ayahuasca, you're okay. And then this moment of clarity and I just saw the world quiet.

It was like maybe the first time in years and decades in my life just saw the world experiencing it, looking without the chatter that had was causing me so much suffering. And for me, it wasn't. It didn't manifest in like, joyous love. It was just, wow, quiet, just experience in the world. And it was I can still remember that experience.

And I wonder if, like, yours was just like some other modified version of that where you're, you were experiencing the world in, in a, in a real way, removed from all of our stuff. And you filled it in with, with some self-love and that, you know, that was the way you you're, you're coloring of it. But I think at its core, psychedelics allow us to experience the world and appear in a more pure way without our shit and filtering through it.

Yeah. Yeah, partly. And I think also just allowing us to. Yeah, yeah. To see things differently. Like you just. Yeah. It's like.

The shifting perspectives which I get on psychedelics are crazy, like looking at things from other people's perspectives or interactions I've had or why they are this way. I'm like, I can really put myself at least to the best of my ability in their shoes, and it just makes me kind of, yeah, sort of build compassion for them and empathy and all these kind of things and sort of what you shared with.

I had a also a similar experience quite recently, also in Colombia with I was one went to the same place and I had a like my second night. Simoni was terrible, like also purging, shitting. I think I lost about ten kilos that whole night of six days. And I got to a point where I was just feeding, you know, so sick the whole night.

Went back to my cabin sort of after the ceremony kind of officially ends. And I was just lying there, lying there. And I thought, one point as diocese, my girlfriend, I feel like I'm dying. I was kind of had my phone. I was like, I can, I could holy sort of hardly hold my phone in my hand. But I got to a point where I was.

I was so tired I couldn't think anymore. And then I could feel something moving in me. And and suddenly I just experienced this, like, vitality for life. Like I'd never had it like that before. I just this, this, this, like gratitude to be alive. And I put my headphones on, I put some music and I was just. I don't think I'd ever been so happy ever in my life in that moment.

Just like hearing the music, feeling my body, just feeling all these emotions. My body's and I don't know, it was it was kind of this. Yeah, this experience, which I think will stay with me for quite a long time because I don't know what is with you. You know, you're sort of relationship psychedelics now, why you use them?

Like for me, it's it's kind of like a reset I use as a reset. You know, when I feel the moment is right to take them, I'll take them maybe to work through something specific, but it's usually to just kind of also remind myself of like, like what is important to me, my life. And usually it's, you know, friends, family, relationships.

I don't know, like, yeah, the sort of self-love or this love I can give out to people just like, focus on the fundamental things that I, that I think are important to me in my life. And psychedelics can help me do that, access that. That's kind of states of consciousness. And I had that with ayahuasca, just like it just reminded me of how amazing it can be to be alive and how lucky we are to be alive, at least given from my from my lens, the life I have.

I'm sure a lot of people in the world don't feel that way given the circumstances, but I could say that for for for me, I just felt so grateful to be alive in that moment. I really did. And and yeah, it was, I think, you know, nowadays, like I most of my work has been with psilocybin for the most part, I would say.

But I think ayahuasca, ayahuasca, I think with any psychedelic, every every experience reveals something different. It's it's I don't same for you. But for me it's there's always a new message that there's like recurring ones, but there's always something new.

Also I'm gonna. Yeah, I'm going to take what you said because mine have been generally just like I said, just trying to peel away the layers of resistance.

And, I think I'm ready for.

A different message or a different. So I'm, I'm thanking you for reminding me the kind of the gratitude. And that view of things hasn't really been part of my experience. I think I've just been wanting to get lighter, wanting to be more present, and I think that's been part of my work. And the last psilocybin experience I had when I went to the Netherlands, my intention was really just to just to get lighter, just to like release the the internal clamps.

And I think it was a very light intention setting and it worked. And my feel like my default setting is much more chill. It's not it's not as nowhere near as tense, like checking in like what is my background and default setting for my from for me today. And it's often just much lighter. And that's what I really going back to that moment on my couch.

That's what was that was my problem. And the I'm grateful and I'm proud to say that I've changed my default setting. I still have ten towards negative thoughts and I still. Yeah, right. But I it's it doesn't go there as quickly. And I catch my brain wanting to go back to a bad habit. And it and my brain is such this amazing creature, this amazing machine I have in my head.

But it's so terrible sometimes. And I love my boat. It's like it wants to go back and grab on to some bad thought and now it can't even it doesn't have much to grab on it anymore because I'm I've done the work and I'm. And then I just like come back to this a little bit more of a chill default setting.

So yeah.

Yeah it's it's yeah I, I relate a lot to that. It's kind of like.

If I'm having, let's say a bad week or negative thoughts or compulsive, compulsive thoughts or whatever like I can. Yeah I can, I sort of use my experience psychedelics, not just them, but let's use that as an example. I use that as kind of like a, a sort of map I can go back to and just like a reminder of, like just kind of snapping out of it and reminding myself the message I got in those experiences.

And also I can go back to, you know, 12 steps or whatever work I've done in that. It's it's like I have like I just have tools now with psychedelics, sort of 12 steps or other. You know, it's not just that, like, you can be, you know, I say mindfulness, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, you know, whatever it might be, you know, it's we we sort of use tools that work for us.

And I'm just like, just amazed that or how I just feel so lucky that we have all that I have. I can access something like a psychedelic and have these experiences. I think it's just it's so incredible. And there's like so many amazing people who can facilitate these amazing experiences, like, you know, the one I had in Colombia recently, like the family who ran that place were just some of the most humble, loving people I've ever met in my life.

You know, I just feel so blessed. Like I said to my girlfriend, like, even if we didn't have ayahuasca ceremonies, I would have got so much I would just being there with them and also with the group I was with, just the the connections I formed with, you know, people with psychedelics. They're doing so many together, all sort of the similar to the connections I formed, actually with people I met in rehabs, because you connect with people at very, very deep level very quickly because you have group therapy, at least in a group therapy, you're talking about, you know, all your deepest, darkest traumas and harms you've caused to people and your war stories, and

you're detoxing together like shitting, vomiting together, opiates or benzos, what it might be, you know, kind of tangentially similar

and so on is you're puking and shitting together, gets intimate. And, I mean, I guess we could, like, thank God for being an addict. Like, you're that friend who said he was. He was grateful for it in some way.

Our difficult paths give us the opportunity to do amazing things and to learn and to grow and to change. Our lucky you are to be in the careers we're in and to have these conversations. So, I don't know, we I think we're done, but I guess we could end by, I don't know, being grateful even for our traumas.

Yeah. Big and small. T's.

Yeah, yeah. Our rock bottoms, like, give us opportunities to to come out.

Yeah. And to end up here. Thank you very much for. Yeah. Being you and having this conversation with me, I think we can confidently say to the listeners, we've definitely got to know each other a bit more here.

Yeah.

And and hopefully, yeah, people listening can get something out of it or relate to something. And, Yeah, I appreciate you facilitating this.

Yeah. No, thanks for doing this, Max. We're gonna get some nice food afterwards.

Yeah. And celebrate.

Yeah. Thanks, Max.

Thank you.

All right.