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Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 107 - Matthew Whiz Buckley

Matthew ‘Whiz’ Buckley is a decorated fighter pilot and the founder of the No Fallen Heroes Foundation, a 501c3 dedicated to saving and changing the lives of veterans, first responders, and their families with psychedelic assisted therapy. Whiz flew the F/A-18 Hornet for the United States Navy, graduated from the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN), and served in operations Southern Watch, Noble Eagle, and Enduring Freedom.

In 2021 he started a non-profit and went to Mexico with Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell (Lone Survivor). He sat with a sacred medicine called ibogaine (iboga)  and 5-MeO-DMT. This transformative experience saved and changed his life.

To connect with Whiz reach out directly to:

https://nofallenheroesfoundation.org/

https://www.instagram.com/official_whizbuckley/?hl=en

Duration:
58m
Broadcast on:
16 Sep 2024
Audio Format:
mp3
With thank you so, so much for taking your precious time and sharing it with me and our audience because you are just an incredible human being speaking on something that's so, so important. And I know the incredible work that you and your team are accomplishing. So we just want to recognize that we are thankful. We are grateful to be sharing this moment with you. Also me, your thanks for having me. I appreciate it and honored and humbled always looking forward to putting the ladder down and trying to help people heal and make the world a better place. Will you give just a little bit of background of where you come from some of the things that you've accomplished before we dig into the meat of what we're here to talk about today. Yeah, absolutely. I was originally born and raised in South Jersey, South Philadelphia, big Irish Catholic family up there and was always taught service above self. So I joined the United States Navy because I wanted to fly fighter jets for the Navy. I wanted to fly fighters and I thought it would be pretty cool instead of landing on a nice long runway like Air Force pilots that I figured I'd try and land on on a ship at night in bad weather. Right. Growing up, I had some kind of significant childhood trauma sexually abused as a child and my middle sister Monica was killed by a drunk driver at the age of 19. And I bring those things up because most folks who go into the military either had kind of a tough childhood or maybe they were kind of running away from something. So I bring that up because I went to went on to fly the F 18 Hornet for the United States Navy for about 15 years. I graduated from the Navy fighter weapons school, which is a lot of words for Top Gun. So that's the, that's what we call Top Gun it's the Navy fighter weapons school so I went through Top Gun to be a bad guy and adversary pilot so I was a. I was a bad guy pilot kind of pretending. I was a bad guy flying a bad guy airplane shooting bad guy missiles and implementing bad guy tactics. I did that did a couple deployments over to the Persian Gulf on board USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Kitty Hawk so I did I flew some combat sorties and in support of operations southern watch but I got a got to tell you right up front they were without a doubt probably the most boring flying I've ever done in my career a flying over Iraq just wasn't you know it wasn't bad at all the toughest flying I ever did as an Navy fighter pilot was at Top Gun or. Trying to land back aboard the ship you know after a operation southern watch mission so that was that was it but in 15 years of flying fighters. I lost 16 buddies. Wow and not one of those losses was due to combat bad weather stupidity mechanical issues and and a whole host of those in the opposite order so and also along the way I lost three F 18 brothers to suicide including a groomsman in my wedding Captain Eric. Captain Eric Swenson was one of my best friends and Marine F 18 guy beautiful bride and five kids and decided to check out on his own so four years ago. I decided to try and do something about veteran suicide we can get into that a little bit but my you know it's it's September 12 and my life took a big fork in the road on September 11th. I was scheduled for my first flight as a pilot for American Airlines and I was flying the F 18 Hornet for the reserves out of Naval Air Station Fort Worth so instead of flying for American Airlines that day I rushed rushed out to Naval Air Station Fort Worth with another buddy of mine a squadron mate we ended up along with the F 16 squadron next door and Air Force Reserve Squadron. We ended up sitting alert as they flew a combat air patrol over the United States so I went from potentially flying in an airliner that day to maybe shooting one down I bring that up because about a week after the attacks I got a photocopied letter from American Airlines HR that said Dear crew member your furloughed. You know my job my health care and all that stuff but I had to stop feeling sorry for myself pretty quickly people were dead you know people just an absolute horror you know get over yourself with get up your life but I had taught myself during my years on active duty had a trade. I was always interested in finance you know I was always my dad getting ready to go to work in the morning with the newspaper in my face is a meat my cheerios on the back of the paper you know where all these hieroglyphics and I'd ask my dad what those things were and he's like well those are stock quotes and I'm old enough that they were in fractions in the past so you know you don't join the Navy to get rich you know you join the Navy to serve your country and see the world but I was always interested in finance. After the attacks of 9/11 you know trading for me in the background had just been a hobby and and I enjoyed it and I had fun. You know when you think about it trading is a form of combat somebody's going to win and somebody's going to get their ass handed to them so you know I kind of applied everything I was doing as a fighter pilot to my options trading you know having a strategy implementing tactics that support the strategy contingency planning you know and what I'm going to do after I get airborne in a trade before something bad even happens already planned what I'm going to do if something goes happen and managing risk right you know flying a fighter jet off an aircraft carrier or being an options trader is risky enough let's try and minimize all known risks so I applied everything I learned as a fighter pilot to my trading and it worked pretty damn well because eventually I popped up on the radar of one of the largest volatility arbitrage firms in the country headquartered in the Chicago board of trade. And they brought me up there and I ended up being the managing director of strategy for a multi-billion dollar vol orb firm and you know no offense to the people of Chicago I'm a beach guy I'm a navy guy. I need warmth and beach and sand so after some years doing that I decided to move down to God's waiting room book Rotone Florida and I started my own financial company called Top Gun Options where I teach people how to trade equity options successfully and I also obviously manage my own money I bring up the Wall Street thing because that was another believe it or not that was another point of I will say trauma in my life because I went from ready room of a fighter squadron where you trust the women and men in that organization with your life or they're not in that organization they're gone and I went from that environment to a Wall Street firm where I couldn't trust you know a guy to watch my wallet if I went to the bathroom just kind of a it was a literally 180 degree twist from what I was used to and the mission of just being focused on making money just didn't you know I felt like I had to take a shower a couple times a day it was just gross I mean there was people that would push their own mother in front of a bus you know for a buck and it just did not it just did not resonate with who I was as a person so a lot of a lot of dark times alcohol drugs and that all kind of spun together I think starting the No Fallen Heroes Foundation about four years ago because back in the day I think around that time the government numbers were 17, 17 veterans were checking out on their own every day couple years later couple small community colleges right Duke University and the University of Alabama did a deep dive into Uncle Sam's numbers and they said not even close I mean Uncle Sam was essentially counting violent suicides but when these two institutions looked into the numbers and talked to humans they're like no no no he drank himself to death or she overdosed and Duke University and the University of Alabama actually said the numbers closer to 44 or 44 veterans checking out every day on their own when you think about that that's technically a mass shooting. Yeah I mean God forbid you know it's a horror whenever there's a shooting in a school doesn't happen every day folks. Could you imagine if 44 kids were being shot in a school every day this country would would flip the hell out but since it's veterans and we kind of chewed them up and spit them out. They're a little forgotten so four years ago is when I decided to try and do something to try and end veteran suicide so that's kind of who I am and how I got to where I'm sitting today. I love that so much because it just sounds like you've lived a lot of kind of multiple lives in different avenues of your life and first and foremost I want to recognize that we thank you for your service. I appreciate that. Of people like you and great people who put their own lives on the line that we're able to have this great life that we do have today. And I feel like it's done the political climate and all the unrest that you see in the media today. It feels like sometimes people forget that first and foremost. So at the end of the day I just want you to always know that we are thankful for you and thank you for everything you've done for our country. I appreciate that absolutely yeah I am pretty polarized country right now I'm an American first to know political party and we've really forgotten that you can disagree with somebody and still like them. Yeah, and I don't know where it went wrong. I think that's part of what's super sad about today society is just these polarizing views where people lose friendships people lose family members over political issues where you go. Hey, at the end of the day that's not what matters what matters is love what matters as community what matters is people doing the right thing at the end of the day. And we sometimes just tend to forget that. Amen, you nailed it agreed. Yeah. I want to ask you about just this idea of starting a nonprofit and making sure that the conversation is brought up. It feels like the conversation is starting to become a lot more positive. It feels like a lot more people are starting to at least be open to having the conversation right. One of the big approaches that people have had in the recent past is traditional medicine and all side types of drugs and big pharma influence around people just getting healthy. We use healthy in quotes because we both know that's not the only approach to people getting healed and I'm so so happy and grateful that you already talked about childhood trauma being part of it because what I found with the most successful people that I know is it's a people who are able to accept their childhood trauma for exactly what it is like hey this is something that happened to me. This does not fully define me as a person and developed good strategies around managing that trauma and moving on from it and finding their purpose in life. Amen. What is it about veterans who come back because I find them to be such strong minded people who have seen some of the darkest things that probably anyone in the world does and it feels like those people should be the most in tune with getting over something bad happening. Why is it so common for them to actually have vices like drinking like drugs and use those as a way of trying to get out of that trauma. Well because we as a nation we kind of we lie we break our promises to our vets right that hey we're going to take care of you you know when you get home and we got you type of thing. Man they're done with you. They're on to the next generation and trying to indoctrinate the next group of folks when you're on active duty or when you're in the military you're taught to a fault. Well not to the fault of what they want to a personal fault you're taught to compartmentalize. All right, if you and I were flying into a target in Syria to attack it. And you got blown out of the sky. I'm not going to stop and mid air and go I got a weep and I have to mourn Igor right now. I got to press ahead with the mission I got to drop my bombs I got to fight my way back to the ship. I'll mourn you later. Guess what there ain't a later. And there's another loss and then there's a lot so all these little compartments that we're told to just just put it away for now and keep pressing forward and focus on the mission. All those compartments man build up. Just like a whole lot of Jack in the boxes. They're all going to pop open one day and you know many veterans dealing with trauma, self medicate with alcohol with with drugs with bad decisions just poor behavior. Just trying to vent off all those compartmentalized traumas and the VA does a horrible job at trans the military does a great job turning us into human being that can do some pretty awful stuff to another human being. And then when they're done with us they do a pretty shitty job of transitioning us back to being that human. Right. If you're a 25 year old kid you know going from the streets of Fallujah, immediately to the streets of New York City man it's just it's a horrible transition but again, they're done with you. You know, here's the perfect example I flying an F 18 Hornet. I had a top secret SCI clearance special compartmented information above top secret. So you go from one day having that, the absolute trust of your nation and the government and the Navy and all sorts of stuff like that and the next day. You go to the VA now that you're out like hey this stuff's wrong with me and they're like prove it. Like prove it. You don't believe me it's like it's literally a court case years and years and years of fighting so you go from one day being the most trusted individual in this country to you're a liar. So a lot of people just give up. They just give up because you cannot fight a bureaucracy like that. A big thing I have to point out is trauma is trauma. What do I mean by that. When I started the No Fallen Heroes Foundation four years ago. I was embarrassed. I'm up at 30,000 feet in air conditioning. Right. I'm not an AV seal watching my buddies head get blown off or something like that. That could not be more wrong. Trauma's trauma. Okay. I started digging in and as I started to help more and more veterans, we had a lot of feet while not just female unfortunately male victims of MST military sexual trauma. Some of these women weren't even anywhere near a frontline or a bullet getting shot at them. But you expect the enemy to try and harm you or kill you. You don't expect that from your fellow servicemen or your squadron mate. Right. And a lot of these victims of MST were kind of we call trauma shaming. They were kind of trauma shaming themselves like well did. So the more I dug into, you know, a lot of veterans issues, I'm like, wow, we kicked over this rock of military sexual trauma, which is kind of, you know, the military on one hand pays lip service to it like, oh, we're completely on board. And then they bury it or they go after the excuse. It's, it's an absolute shit show when it comes to this stuff. So, you know, trauma, trauma is trauma. If something is hurting you, you deserve to heal. And that's just a, that's a human instinct, but, you know, very long answer to your short question is, man, we are taught to compartmentalize. We are taught to hack it. It's a culture of can do anybody who's, oh, I can't hack it or I'm weak. We will absolutely bury and destroy you. So it's a very, it literally is a bipolar type of atmosphere and, oh, by the way, especially on the aviation side of the house. If you go to your flight surgeon and say, you know what, doc, I'm just not, you know, kind of feeling too good. Okay, Wiz, thanks for telling me there go to your wings and you're never flying again, or, you know, years of all sorts of stuff. So on the aviation side of the house, we have to hide that stuff even more. It was so funny because it was a running joke in our squadrons, right? The flight surgeon would be like, I'm, I'm your doc and I'm here and you can tell me anything and we'd all just, it was a running joke. He was going to laugh at him and he'd kind of chuckle to knowing that if you said anything to him, you're done flying. The one thing you love to do, we're going to take away from you if you're depressed or you're having any problems. So it really is a, it's a tough culture. I'd like to say things are getting better, but not, not fast enough when we're losing anywhere from 22 to 44 veterans every day. And it just said to me on the outside, knowing that some of the people that we are losing, most of the people that we are losing are some of the bravest that our country has, and knowing that the tragic impact that it has on us as a society because we're letting good people go to waste by just not having conversations. Now, when in your life, where you like what was the clear moment to you where you were able to start having a conversation after all of the bad things happened in your life where you went out of your way to make sure that you were avoiding it or just the time when you became ready to do something about your trauma was you disappeared, you're muted. It was a conversation between me and God. It was it was a dark night of the soul. That's usually where people have a cathartic moment, you know, literally circling the drain, suicidal drugs, alcohol, and just at rock bottom. And it was either check out or get up, literally get up off of the floor that I was laying on, and, you know, had it not been for my, my beautiful bride and my three kids I wouldn't be on this podcast right now I wouldn't be here. So that's when I really, you know, I got up and I said, let's do something about it so about four years ago, starting the No Fallen Heroes Foundation, I said, I gotta, I gotta try and help. In the military, we have a phrase put the ladder down, right, when you make it to a higher rank or you get to do something cool you turn around you put the ladder down, and you help your squadron mates up so I wanted to put the ladder down to try and help veterans stay. No clue absolutely no clue what to do. Right, but I was going to do something you got to do something in the military you're taught move a direction make a decision and go if it's wrong, you at least did something. So, you know, I was racking my brains I'm like what do you do to help veterans keep from killing themselves what do you do help them buy a suit right a resume. I was clueless. And right around that time as God would would would map out for me a buddy of mine said hey there's a group of special forces guys Navy seals, who go down to Mexico, and they do psychedelic assisted therapy to heal their PTSD and their trauma. And there's a really cool group going in a couple weeks would you want to go and I said man go to Mexico and do drugs with Navy seals it sounds like a great weekend. You know sign me up for it, but I had absolutely absolutely no idea what I was getting into and I thank God that I actually didn't know what I was getting into. So, you know if any of the listeners or viewers have seen the movie loan survivor or read the book loan survivor I went down to Mexico of Marcus LaTrell Navy seal anybody drinks a black rifle coffee I went down with JT Jared Taylor. He's one of the founders of black rifle coffee another team guy who was teammates with Marcus, and an NFL player. Who NFL veteran his name's Robert gallery, he was an all American at Iowa, and then played for the Raiders for a bunch of years and he was, he was in a pretty tough place with all the, you know, with everything. We all were in a pretty bad place and I'll tell you what man three three and a half days later after sitting with a medicine called Ibo game, which is the most powerful psychedelic on the planet. And another medicine called five MEO DMT, it completely saved and changed my life. I was, I don't use this phrase sparingly or, you know, too often born again. He healed every trauma in my life, the medicine God whatever word you choose to use went in and did some deep, deep cleaning was not fun was not recreational. It was one of the toughest experiences of my life, but it was absolutely worth it. A drinker. I don't know if you can be a good drinker. I was a bad drinker. I came home from doing the medicine. Eight months to about a year I couldn't even smell or look at alcohol. It made me want to physically rich. You know, now I can have a glass of wine with my steak or my pasta if I wanted to but old whiz a glass of wine met a bottle or probably two. So it destroyed alcohol in my life. You know, I think Mark has told me he was on 15 medications with the VA, five to wake up, five to go to bed, you know, five for lunch. He hasn't taken a medication in three years. Wow. Brain scans guy showed me his brain scans from before the medicine when he was at the VA and it was dark and black and gray. Three months after the Ibo game, it was completely white. So I got home from that retreat and I said this, this is how I'm going to end or put a dent in veteran suicide. And we've never looked back. So right now the no fallen heroes foundations. We provide healing grants to veterans, first responders and their families. Why first responders. A lot of guys and gals after they get off active duty, they go home. They take off their military uniform and then they put another one right back on of a first responder, you know, at the state or cop or firefighter. But when they took off that uniform, as we talked about, they didn't take off the trauma. Yeah. And as a matter of fact, as a first responder, now you're just adding a hell of a lot more trauma. I have a, I have a 20 year marine buddy who's. I think it was Coral Gables or Miami fire rescue, 20 year marine, then he went into had a career and fire rescue and he said whiz my marine trauma is a joke compared to what I've seen as a first responder. So we help veterans first responders and their families, their family serve to gold star moms, wives, husbands, families, kids, the family serve too. So they, they experience a lot of traumas as a military. A family member. So we provide healing grants to all veterans first responders and their families. Veteran nonprofits out there that only give healing grants to Navy seals or combat veterans. But like you and I talked about earlier, my combat time was a complete joke. I don't even consider myself a quote combat veteran, not even close to that. But I suffered significant trauma as well. So we did it. We take a bigger tent at no fallen heroes to try and help everybody heal. And I did the medicine, as I told you down in Mexico, it always for the past two and a half years, it always made me furious to get on an airliner to fly to another country. We would also do medicine retreats down in Costa Rica to fly to another country to heal trauma that these heroes incurred serving this one. Yeah, we're having to flee the country. But thank you to the great state of Oregon. Thank you to the great state of Colorado. These medicines are now legal, at least at a state level. So I'm proud to say we've, we've knocked out two healing retreats in the great state of Colorado. And in October, we actually have a healing retreat in the great state of Oregon. So we're getting there. These medicines are starting to be approved at the state level, but of course, Uncle Sam ain't doing anything anytime soon. And I'll tell you why I've been to DC. A couple times, you know, to advocate for this. Thank God that so Marcus Littrell came home. His brother Morgan, also a Navy Seal, also with a lot of trauma, saw his brother and said, Holy crap, what happened to you, man, you're, you look great. He's like, I did this. Morgan went down, got his ass kicked, came home, completely healed human being. He's now Congressman. More in the trail from Houston, outside of Houston. So we actually have veteran, you know, veterans in Congress who have sat with the medicine as advocates, but I bring up Washington for this reason. And I'm not going to name the lawmaker, and I'm going to call him a lawmaker because he's not a leader. They're politicians, and they're, they're not leaders. This guy behind closed doors, man, he looked at me and he said, whiz that, you know, I really support what you're doing, but you're going to have a problem with that with big pharma. And you're going to have a problem with the alcohol and tobacco guys. I'm like, I'm going to have a problem. Isn't that your job, dude? Isn't that, isn't that what you're here for? But, you know, I tell people with the medicine, this isn't, this isn't going to come from them down. This is going to come from us up. This is definitely a we the people moment. You know, I have no problems with hippies, man, and all those type of people. But, you know, the last psychedelic or the first psychedelic revolution in this country just got stomped out and by the government and the, you know, peace loving people, right? Hey, I took these mushrooms. I don't want to go kill people. I want to love people. What did you take those things? All right, they're a felony now. Here's your rifle go kill people. So this time around. Maybe this psychedelic revolution. Now that we got Navy seals and fighter pilots and Aaron Rogers, you know, football, you know, maybe now this psychedelic revolution can have a little bit more. We the people moment, you know, and I tell people about this, they're like, you know, holy crap, your former Navy fighter pilot. We got seals doing this stuff. This isn't, you know, they're not, I'm like, these are medicines, man. Plants that God put on this planet for us to heal are not drugs. There's a revolving door between the VA, the Pentagon and big pharma. It's, there's no money in healing, man. They need you hooked. They need you in the same in every single industry because it's not just correct, you know, in the government. And what I find the most said is that there is this medicine available. And it's been around for such a long time and thousands of years, thousands of years. And the conversation and the effects are so powerful that people, people's lives change, but for whatever reason, people are just getting stopped from finding out about that. But before we spend the rest of time just talking psychedelics, let me ask you this important question because I've always thought this is a part of the puzzle that people just don't talk about enough. It feels like every single solution that anyone talks about always revolves around other people getting a therapist getting some type of treatment. And I think part of the power of this medicine comes through finding yourself within your own mind, sitting with yourself going, what is it that I've been through that is making me make these decisions. Why is it that we as a society, like jump so quickly on someone else helping us rather than even take the moment to think, Hey, the power to do something about this trauma might be within me, because it feels like there are certain times and there are certain civilizations that have had that introspective side of the world where they went the way that we heal our own is by looking within rather than looking outside. You nailed it bro and I'll answer it with a question, follow the money. It's an industry right yeah last month. The FDA denied MDMA being used for therapeutic use. One of the big reason. Yeah, one of the big pushes with the legalization of MDMA was psychotherapy right maps like us the company that was kind of pushing MDMA for legalization they went out of their way to say, Hey, you know, you do a couple of the treatments but you got like X amount of time laying on the couch talking to somebody and I think that might have shot him in the foot a little bit because the FDA is the food and drug administration they're not the lay on the couch psychotherapy administration they want to know can you take something and in what those things and how you're going to feel and what's going to happen. So, you know, five years ago me when I hear if I heard if I fast forwarded it today and heard me talking like this old me would probably kick my own ass but you are the medicine. Yeah, right. About a year ish after I got the foundation up and running I went through a very dark period with this foundation why because I remember going, why aren't these people healing. I mean, I feel great I'm helping this guy got a grant but this I was just I was so in it I'm I felt so bad. I was taking on all of this negative energy I'm like, I am failing at helping people to heal and I felt awful. I was going down to retreat in Costa Rica, and I sat with Iboga. So Iboga is a root bar from Africa, and it's got, I think 13 alkaloids in it, and in the West we take out one of the alkaloids it's called Ibo game. So I did Ibo gain originally but this time I'm like you know what I'm going to try the actual bark, you know kidding root bark. I'll tell you Igor, it was you know it was a it was a check ride it was like I was back at top gun, but when I got with God, you know God came to me. And I was like what am I doing wrong man I am failing I'm I thought you told me to go help people and God more or less said to me said Matthew, thank you for everything you're doing you're doing a fantastic job. You cannot heal anyone. They have to heal themselves. With my help, I got this he's like buddy, you can walk along the path with them hell you can throw them over your back and carry them once they get to the door. I want to heal and I'm here for it man I got him and I'll tell you man I felt immediately lighter I felt healed the next day could not be a couldn't have been any happier now I honest to God get it. You have got to want to heal and you're going to heal yourself now. And the infrastructure around healing might be required for example Ibo game can lower your heart rate a little bit so the retreat locations we go to you do an EKG to clear you you're actually hooked up to an EKG throughout the journey. There's two nurses in the room that are holding space. There's a cardiologist downstairs sleeping over that night and chase God forbid something happened in the room next door there's a defibrillator so obviously having a little safe container infrastructure is required but man. Ibo gain or even bokeh journeys were you know 12 to 14 hour one man lose rides you know it was it's it's you and the medicine and you're in it I remember on my first Ibo gain experience, you know Marcus and JT sounded like they were, they were in it man. They were like either in a firefight or somebody was hacking them in the shin with a with a shovel I'm like what the hell is going on over there right and I could barely move but I remember and I'm with God and God and I are working together to try and heal me and I and I remember just trying to move them like I gotta I gotta help these guys. They're you know they're purging they're like you know and God just gently you know kind of pull my head back a little bit he said they're getting exactly what they need son. Let's focus on you. I'm like no I'm an aviator man they're my ground guys I you know they need some close air support I tried to and again God's always gentle God is always loving a nice little gentle again. Matthew, trust me. They're getting exactly what they need. We have some work to do with you I'm like alright man and then away we went and the next day you know both of them looked like completely different people they looked lighter their eyes were brighter and at breakfast I'm like you guys good never better. Like sounded sounded like you were killing some demons last night and they both looked at me and they're like yep we did and they're gone. So long answer your short point man you gotta heal you you you're the pilot and command of your aircraft nobody else and these medicines are not a magic pill they're not a you know this is significant work. Let me be clear man I like to tell people that radical trauma might need radical healing these medicines can potentially be radical healing. There are so many other different healing modalities you can meditate you can hot yoga you can walk on the beach you can climb a mountain in Nepal. There are so many different healing modalities this is potentially one of them it is a it's a thermonuclear device for your trauma. That can be that can be very very challenging so you know I always want to reiterate all of that because this was not fun it wasn't recreational but it was it was absolutely worth it I mean we all still talk you know in text throughout the week. Yeah you know we we consider doing an annual knock the rust off you know I can tell when when I'm you know I'm an aviator when there's some rust or some ice building up on the wings man I can tell that I'm approaching stall speed but old me I'd be hitting a bottle or drugs or just spiral down now I know I can go maybe knock the knock the rust off it ain't fun it's not a vacation but it can it can knock the rust off there's always layers right there's always layers to shed to get down to that true soul that perfect that perfect soul it's it's so interesting because I remember you know being on my knees just begging for forgiveness for God for being just a shitty father or husband and a drunken and God just kind of a way it was gone all of that it was like a hundred pound backpack I've been carrying for decades he just grabbed it and said this ain't yours man it's gone and he looked at me and he said Matthew I don't make imperfect things he's like you're perfect just the way this yeah this shell and the crap and we can work on man but underneath I do not make imperfect things so there's always more layers you can you know potentially knock off to get down to that to that perfect soul it's so interesting the specific approach that you use to talk about this difficult topic because like the experience that you went through for whatever reason just because it's not a commonly accepted thing in culture today a lot of people just dismiss right away as hey this doesn't work because if it worked everyone would know about it right and this is a crazy thing to me because the same way that I talk about my psychedelic journey is very very similar it was like the most loving the most awful thing that has ever happened to me where I laughed I cried and I just knew that whatever happened was almost the same of a backpack that I was just carrying my entire life and that it's okay to let go it just felt like whatever that was I could get out of it and I wasn't stuck in it and defined me as a person and what's that to me is a lot of these lawmakers and a lot of people who are so opinionated about where the laws and the regulation around the medicine should go are the people who have never tried it the people were so close minded who go hey this will never work it's not even worth it not to mess with the system correct why is it that people are just so quick to accept the status quo as the thing that is right rather than question and like this is one of the things that I find as a foreigner I grew up in a country I grew up in Ukraine country with a corrupt government that is going through a lot I feel like it's almost easier for me to just go hey when I was a child we were taught not to trust the government like we were just taught that every single thing that someone tries to sell you is bullshit like make up your mind about it but when it comes to this for whatever reason almost everyone is like the same way hey I haven't heard about it so it can't be true why is it that we're so quick to dismiss man it's I'm glad in countries like that the people are smart enough to not trust the thing that the government says it's sad we're actually getting there or I'm going to say at least half this country is getting there the other half of this country believes hook, line and sinker anything that the government says I absolutely don't believe a word that comes out of the government as a trader now looking at all these kind of economic numbers in front of an election it's it's comical what's going on if you study American history we the people man we were a bunch of dudes living by ourselves and kind of lead me alone man I got my farm and I'm living and then tyrant the king in taxes and was like well shit maybe we should all get together and start some sort of gut first of all throw off this tyranny and then start a government reading the founding papers of this country all those papers wanted to limit the government so the in the sense of a limited government we were supposed to believe them like you guys are we put you there and we can take you out now it's too late we are just some sort of massive bloated bureaucracy that's just this this board that just keeps getting bigger but like I said half this country will believe absolutely everything I mean look at the you know I lost two three four social media cancer out that whole thing I had a buddy pentagon deep throat duties like in December before it really came out he's like dude this thing escaped from a level four lab and the only level four lab in China it's coming here at the pen we're all freaking out I'm like holy shit and of course if you said that it's just it's insane and it's sad because I see a lot of these people who were hippies in the sixties like anti government don't believe anybody over 30 and the government's the enemy and they were pro psychedelic today taking their fifth jab or that you need to listen to the government and you know we're shutting down Twitter and stuff like that it's like it's people have swapped roles in this country it's absolute insanity at this point but I think like we talked about before I think that's why maybe this time around it's like veterans kind of lead the way first responders talking about these medicines can kind of break down those those walls but when I have a picture on my phone it's teed up all the time to show people it's the harm to you and other scale of everything from alcohol which is on the left the biggest harm to your body and to other people from driving and everything like that and all the way to the right on this scale is psilocybin well felony schedule one psilocybin no harm to you or anybody else and then alcohol over here that'll kill you 100% legal like we thought we said a couple times in this brief man follow the money I mean you got tobacco over here you got alcohol over here and you got like Ibogaine psilocybin and cannabis somewhere in the middle it's absolute insanity but like we talked about earlier we the people don't write checks big enough to equal big pharma big tobacco or the alcohol folks the people who write the checks in this country write the laws so until that changes which it doesn't seem like that's ever going to change in this country we're just going to have to do this on our own that's what I tell you know General George Patton had a famous quote lead follow or get out of the way so we're just we're just going to keep on doing and you know I always tell people be the change be the change that you want to see in the world so that's what I'm trying to do so just down here at a gorilla level you know I call this the world's best Ponzi scheme because people go and heal they come home and they're like you they tell 20 people they're like you cannot believe what happened to me and how I feel right now so that's how we're gonna do it we're not gonna do it I stopped flying to Washington I got invited to another you know meet the lawmakers they'm like I'm good man I'd rather focus on going on a retreat or healing veterans and going to throw in another sport code on for absolutely no you know no good it's it's so maddening to be because I remember it was the last time I was in DC I'm talking to people at the VA and they're like we love what you're doing this we should be doing this you need to talk to the lawmakers popping my Uber go down to the other end of city and go and brief the lawmakers we as we love what you're doing you need to go talk to the VA I'm like are you fucking kidding me yeah who is in charge who's in the always I've always kind of felt that way as like this this system this just combination of people who are in power just feels at the end of the day like we are in a car no one is driving and as long as people get paid it feels like it's a jobs program too man you don't want to rock the boat if you're the VA or anything you're getting your pension I don't want to you know I don't want to rock the boat somebody needs to stand up that would be a person that I call a leader and say hey here's what we're gonna do and Joe Biden I know for a fact missed the most excellent opportunity I know for a fact that his son Hunter Biden went down to Mexico and did these medicines and that's why the guy is super clean right now Joe Biden could have taken that opportunity and said hey my son my son might have been a really messed up individual he went and healed himself with these medicines, which by the way I heard our veterans or he could have capitalized on that moment. Hell I would have supported the guy if he had done that. I mean the only pro psychedelic guy that was running for president was Robert F Kennedy and you know he's supporting Trump now but he was asked in an interview point blank he's like I didn't believe in that stuff it helped save and change my son's life he's like I am completely on board with psychedelic assisted therapy, especially for our veterans so until you get somebody who's going to go up there and literally rock rock the place where we're gonna have to do it on our on our levels down here. I don't think I'll see this in our lifetime with the FDA punting on MDMA. I mean when you looked at the just so sad. I mean literally when you have scores of veterans up on Capitol Hill testifying under oath that it helped save their life for them to say no. It's just in the veteran community we were it was like you know Benjamin go get my musket moment like are you are you kidding me are you kidding me, but they don't give a shit man I'm absolutely tough. Let me share with this real quick. I was talking to a congressman a money congressman inappropriate and I was laying laying into a man about you know sending money to you know wars in the Middle East or Europe and you know for the price of one tank. blah blah and he was like that's a different pot of money that's national security you know you can't I'm like dude when you take it out of my paycheck it's one pot man what you do with it here I don't give a shit. But there was a marine lady only Adam Mercer she was a marine. She started to pitch into the fight because she could tell I was getting agitated with this dude who didn't really it didn't register that when I said 22 to 44 veterans were killing themselves. He cared more about money. So ready for this so Julianna said you know what and I'm going to get the numbers wrong she has a memorized maybe I should as well so this will work because she said well congressman. The Pentagon I forget the number spends $10 billion a year on medications and everything for for veterans I mean if we healed these veterans and the guys looked at her and goes. All right all right now you're talking keep going. So she started rattling off all of these numbers that could potentially be saved and the guy sat up in his chair and was listening. And then you're ready and I'm like that's great man he doesn't give a shit about the veteran suicide he cares about the math. But I swear to God this happened and I got up and left you ready for this. This congressman after hearing all of the math goes. Well and you know what. If we heal all of these veterans they'd no longer be disabled right you guys say they're healed. So we wouldn't have to pay him disability. Wow. I'm like what the fuck. And that was it. I mean it's insane. It's insane that that actually happens. These people are so evil that if we finally healed you from your horrors that you incurred serving this country we're going to take your two grand a month that you're living off of because you're healed. Good luck. God that's insane. That's what I was done I'm like I'm done I'm done I got a left and she came out she's like he went when you got up and left you kind of realize that he sounded like Satan. They don't give a shit dude they absolutely do not give a shit and it's a national security issue for you know why because for a year I think the Marine Corps is the only service that has hit its recruiting goals. Every other service cannot recruit. You know why because the number one source of new recruits are veterans are kids I know hundreds I probably know thousands of veterans I think I can count on one hand. The number of veteran parents who want their kids to go in the military. Yeah. So now we have on that I can you have a whole generation veteran community. I have two boys they grew up wearing little flight suits coming to see their dad in a fighter squadron they wanted they grew up wanting to be fighter pilots. One isn't listening to me he's actually in the Air National Guard here in Florida and he wants to be a fighter pilot but the other one ended up listening to me. So most veterans do not want their kids to go in the military that's why we're having to lower the standards and let illegal immigrants serve to get their citizenship and people with you know convictions and it's a shit show man so not only is the treatment of veterans bad for treatment of veterans it's impacting our current national security. The Secretary of Defense the other day said that 17 Navy ships are parked right now because they're not they can't man them. They can't and then the Coast Guard said the same thing that Coast Guard commandants like we're parking a lot of our Coast Guard cutters because we don't have the crews. Yeah, and I saw it's, did I see this right because you are the person who would know this. They are actually paying back some of the benefits that they took away during COVID for people who aren't getting vaccinated because they can't get new recruits. They're trying to all the guys the US Navy seals, you don't get any more young and healthy on the face of the planet the Navy seals and they were pumping that gene juice into those guys, and a bunch of them said we're done. We're not doing that we're out. And they gave them dishonorable discharges and all that stuff. Now they're sending them letters begging them. Please come back in all forgiven can you forgive us for buddies again right can we and most of those guys are like you can kiss my ass man. Because they can go work for black water or they can go make a shit ton of money, maybe even for an alphabet agency as a wearing civilian clothes then they can as a seal so it's a nightmare man it's an absolute nightmare. Was I have to tell you this because I appreciate you so much as a person for the specific reason. The reason why you're so frustrating to those guys is because not only that you're a veteran and you're actually speaking the truth but you're also a guy who is so knowledgeable on the side that you are undeniable in the message that you're carrying and it's frustrating sitting on the other side of you trying to you a silly point on the numbers. And here is this is a conversation I keep having with my wife where because she was raised as an American we just see the world a different way and I feel like you see it a lot more like me. And I want to make sure that we ended with this one, the role of marketing in everything in spinning the story, because we saw it happen with MK ultra we see it happen with all of the resources being done now. And I talk about it specifically in the alcohol industry as well. I go hey, like psychedelics cause such a small amount of bad outcomes. So it's as simple as if you look at the data and you go, how many drunk driving accidents are there every year. Yeah, how the hell do we not limit the use of alcohol. And I go it's as simple as the pockets of great goose people are so deep that it's so easy to sell you a product at a party that we consider to be a thing that we just market as hey, every single person is doing this. It's sad to me going we are stopping people from getting real medicine and real treatment and at the same time we're pumping shit into the system. And we know that long term. I mean it brings down societies it makes the best of the best not want to serve in the military. Correct. How do we fix this is is the answer as simple as getting more people the proper medicine or is it some type of a change of a system that has to happen to make sure that people like you and people who do good work actually have the resources and the possibilities to change the system for the better to make sure that we don't run into the issues like part of it is doing this podcast right here. It's knowledge. It's getting the information out again. Five years ago me if I heard somebody talking about doing psychedelics I'm like you freak hippie, you know, cuz veterans ain't doing anything unless another veteran vouches for it. Right. If some hippie in a drug rug comes up to me like try some eyeball gain and be like get away from me man go take a shower. Now, hey, there's some my best friend you know team guys like dude go to Mexico with these guys I'm like I'm in. We only listen to each other because we trust each other. Right. So it was really interesting last was it July June or July we went to psychedelic science in Denver. So maps hosted an event called psychedelic science and man that was the future. You had the governor of Colorado is a Democrat you had governor Rick Perry from Texas who ran for president as a Republican on stage Rick Perry's like. Hey man five years ago me running for president if I heard me advocate for psychedelics I kick my own ass I'm like that's my line dude so you got Republicans of Democrats there. You got veterans you got hippies you got moms on mushrooms you had this you had about I think they said it was 15 about 15,000 people. From all walks of life in the United States stay at home dads or moms and veterans and athletes and politicians all aligned to the same mission. So it is a marketing thing it is getting out there and it's guerrilla marketing man it's me talking to you it's you posting this it's me reposting it. It is getting to the average everyday Americans. I've done a couple Fox hit some I've done local TV hit so it is you know it's a little engine that could we're really starting to see some momentum. And I'll tell you man I think that the FDA hunting on MDMA last month is kind of boomerang it's hitting them back in the face. Because it really does look like they're in the bed and they're in bed with big pharma which is the last thing that they need not that they're going to change running like that. But it is a perception issue that wait a minute I saw this veteran on TV saying this MDMA saved his life and the FDA said that he can't do it. What's going on here DC so they're you know it's almost like they're walking into an into an ambush here so the marketing is it's got to be word of mouth at this point. I'm actually getting ready to get airborne for a docu series called no fallen heroes extraction. We're going to follow you know three to five veterans first responders and family members who go and sit with the medicine and what their results are it's going to be six episode docu series launched on a streaming service so we're we're doing our best to get the word out there but like we talked about earlier just being the change that you want to see in the world is pretty good. It's a pretty good way to start whenever whenever you get on an airliner to go fly in somewhere one of the first things that the flight attendant says is if we lose cabin pressurization put the mask on yourself first. Because you're no good to anybody else if you're done so let's let's get people to put the masks on themselves first save themselves and then we're going to end up changing the world and this country because like we talked about earlier. And this is a we the people moment the same the same coming from DC literally whenever I land at Reagan or Dulles or whatever I just I feel it I just feel this weight of the beltway once you go into that place it literally is a different society so everybody outside of the beltway we're going to press forward we talked about Oregon we talked about Colorado I know Arizona's close I know you would have thought California would the lead the way on this. They're stuck they're stuck in lag a little bit I think Gavin's getting on board. Couple states in northeast jerseys passing I think illegal use of a suicide in Massachusetts so I'm not too happy living in here in Florida with Governor DeSantis he's a fellow Navy veteran he needs to be leading on this issue Governor Abbott Texas is leading on this issue as well the Dell School of Medicine as a psychedelic branch the University of Texas Dell School of Medicine has a psychedelic branch and they're actually doing a study right now on long term grief with gold star moms and wives and from I got a buddy who's in the know and he's like when you read this with you're gonna have tears in your eyes the work. All the women have done with these medicines will be transformative so long answer just moving in the right direction. There are two people in the mainstream who have been pushing for this for a long time Rick Rubin is the maps guy right? Rick Dobblin, Rick Dobblin and one of the biggest proponents and as stupid as it is Joe Rogan out of a comic for whatever reason he's driving a lot of change in the positive direction. And make sure that we recognize the hard work and the uncomfortable conversations that they're having around this medicine that is so so powerful and at the same time so so beneficial to your community because at the end of the day. These are the guys we should be taking care of and these are the guys we should be so so proud of. And agreed with thank you so so much for your valuable time and sharing your powerful message with me and our audience brother we really appreciate you and we love you. Thank you your appreciated bro fights on. Yes sir.