What Hit Me The Hardest About The Psychedelics Conference
Still thinking about it ...
It’s 6:36 PM.
I just got home, ate some dinner, and am now sitting down to squeeze out my daily post before we retire the kiddos for the night.
I spent the week at MAPS.
MAPS is a conference all about psychedelics. It was an interesting and fascinating experience.
I admit, sometimes I feel out of place because even though I’m fascinated and blown away by this field, I see myself as a bit of an outsider. So many of the people there are healers, therapists, breathwork instructors, and doctors.
I’m an entrepreneur. A lot of the people at this conference don’t seem as interested in building a business as I am, or at least that’s how they come across.
Anyway, it’s late and I want to play with the kiddos. So I’ll give you some lightning fast recaps.
But be sure to sign up for Juliana’s newsletter. She’ll give much more in depth breakdowns, since she went to like 20 seminars while I went to 4 lol.
Okay okay. LFG. 🔥
Psychedelics And Addiction
Without question, my favorite event was the presentation on using psilocybin in the treatment of addiction or substance use disorder. The three presenters each did studies. One was with crack cocaine, one with tobacco, and the other with gambling.
In every study, the results were overwhelmingly positive.
Set and setting played a big role. There was a lot of preparation work, and participation was a major factor because people have to want to get better. But there’s no question, psilocybin helps. A lot.
I find it very exciting.
It will take forever, because the addiction treatment field is pretty set in its ways. And truth be told, I’m still navigating my own feelings toward using drugs to treat drug addiction. I want to keep learning more.
But regardless of my feelings, the evidence is clear.
I’m excited to see where it goes.
Psychedelics And Emergency Responders
Okay, let’s get personal.
The reason why psychedelics interest me is because of my wife. Jules struggled with a brutal eating disorder since she was a little girl. It’s very challenging. It’s worse than you think. Words can’t describe the kind of suffering that an eating disorder can bring to someone.
A psilocybin retreat in Costa Rica more or less treated her. Now, it’s not a quick fix and I’m purposefully not using the word “cured,” but I can say without question that it was a miracle.
When she came back from the retreat, she was different. I’m so grateful for that experience.
I’m a believer, simply through watching Juliana and sharing experience with her as her partner. The more I learn about these natural medicines, the more obvious it is to me that our problem is that we no longer know how to cope with trauma.
We treat trauma with pills and self help books and a bunch of other bullshit. We no longer heal from trauma, because doing that requires going inward as a community.
After seeing the results on Jules, I started looking into a lot of studies for emergency responders. My father was a Philly medic for 30 years. He’s seen more fucked up scenes than most war veterans.
Countless gunshots. Car wrecks. Mangled bodies. Stabbings.
People thrown through windshields. Brain splatter. Compound fractures. And more.
There are a few cases in particular that really affected him. One was when he responded to the call for one of my friends who died of a heroin overdose. When I told him Gid had died, he already knew. (The truth is, I’m not sure if I think he was affected by it because I was so affected by it, but I think about it all the time.)
Philadelphia has a terrible heroin problem, so this was a common occurrence.
But there was this other girl who died of a heroin overdose who my dad tried to save. This girl did something to my dad that changed him. He still hasn’t told me about it. I’m not sure if my dad will read this or not, but if he does, I want him and all the other emergency responders out there to know that I see you and I value you on a level you can’t comprehend.
At the conference, I discovered a program called First Responder Collective. When I was speaking to the guy who runs the program, I had to hold back tears just because I know what these guys go through and how much it can destroy them from the inside. He had healed, and all I could think about was my dad.
I think I might reach out and volunteer for them or do something to help spread the message and the work he’s doing.
These cops, medics, and firefighters go through it. We ignore them until we need them, and then they become the most important people in the world.
When their shift is done, they just go home and try to process the horror they’ve just lived through. We take them for granted and we neglect them when we no longer need them. It’s horrible.
Idk, for some reason I’ve felt very emotional about it all week.
Love you pop.
Okay That’s It
There’s more I want to write about, but I’ll save it for next week.
It’s 7 o’clock and I still need to work out and jump in the cold plunge.
Love you guys. Have an amazing weekend. I’ll talk to you next week.
Tim
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