‘I want to reset my brain’: Female veterans turn to psychedelic therapy

Plumes of incense swirled through the dimly lit living room as seven women took turns explaining what drove them to sign up for a weekend of psychedelic therapy at a villa in northern Mexico with sweeping ocean views.

>>Ernesto LondoñoThe New York Times
Published : 22 May 2022, 06:02 AM
Updated : 22 May 2022, 06:02 AM

A former US Marine said she hoped toconnect with the spirit of her mother, who killed herself 11 years ago. An Armyveteran said she had been sexually assaulted by a relative as a child. Ahandful of veterans said they had been sexually assaulted by fellow servicemembers.

The wife of a Navy bomb disposal expertchoked up as she lamented that years of unrelenting combat missions had turnedher husband into an absent, dysfunctional father.

Kristine Bostwick, 38, a former Navycorpsman, said she hoped that putting her mind through ceremonies withmind-altering substances would help her make peace with the end of a turbulentmarriage and perhaps ease the migraines that had become a daily torment.

“I want to reset my brain from the bottomup,” she said during the introductory session of a recent three-day retreat,wiping away tears. “My kids deserve it. I deserve it.”

A growing body of research into thetherapeutic benefits of psychedelic therapy has generated enthusiasm among somepsychiatrists and venture capitalists.

Measures to decriminalise psychedelics,fund research into their healing potential and establish frameworks for theirmedicinal use have been passed with bipartisan support in city councils andstate legislatures across the United States in recent years.

Much of the expanding appeal of suchtreatments has been driven by veterans of America’s wars in Afghanistan andIraq. Having turned to experimental therapies to treat post-traumatic stressdisorder, traumatic brain injuries, addiction and depression, many formermilitary members have become effusive advocates for a wider embrace of psychedelics.

Psychedelic retreat participants often paythousands of dollars for the experience. But these female veterans and spousesof veterans who had travelled to Mexico for treatment at the Mission Withinwere attending for free, courtesy of the Heroic Hearts Project and the HopeProject. The groups, founded by an Army ranger and the wife of a Navy SEAL,raise money to make psychedelic therapy affordable for people from militarybackgrounds.

The Mission Within, on the outskirts ofTijuana, is run by Dr Martín Polanco, who since 2017 has focused almostexclusively on treating veterans.

“I became aware early on that if we focusedour work on veterans, we would have a greater impact,” said Polanco, who saidhe had treated more than 600 American veterans in Mexico. “They understand whatit takes to achieve peak performance.”

In the beginning, he said, he treated maleveterans almost exclusively. But recently, he started receiving many requestsfrom female veterans and military wives and began running women-only retreats.

With the exception of clinical trials,psychedelic therapy is currently performed underground or under nebulouslegality. As demand soars, a handful of countries in Latin America, includingCosta Rica, Jamaica and Mexico, have become hubs for experimental protocols andclinical studies.

Polanco, who is not licensed in the UnitedStates, has been practising on the fringes of mainstream medicine for years,but his work is now drawing interest from more established specialists inmental health. Later this year, researchers at the University of Texas atAustin and Baylor College of Medicine intend to examine his protocols in twoclinical studies.

The use of psychedelic treatments is notcurrently part of the standard of care for treatment of mental healthconditions at Veterans Hospitals, according to Randal Noller, a spokespersonfor the Department of Veterans Affairs. But with special approval, it ispossible they could be administered as part of a research protocol, and theVA’s Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention is “closely monitoring thedeveloping scientific literature in this area,” Noller said.

In Mexico, two of the substances thatPolanco administers — ibogaine, a plant-based psychoactive commonly used totreat addiction, and 5-MeO-DMT, a powerful hallucinogen derived from the poisonof the Sonoran desert toad — are neither unlawful nor approved for medical use.The third, psilocybin mushrooms, may be taken legally in ceremonies that followIndigenous traditions.

During the course of a weekend retreat,Polanco’s patients start Saturday with a ceremony using either ibogaine orpsilocybin. The initial trip is intended to trigger disruptive thinking anddeep introspection.

“You become your own therapist,” Polancosaid.

On Sunday, participants smoke 5-MeO-DMT,often described as something between a mystical and a near-death experience.

Dr Charles Nemeroff, chair of thedepartment of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at the University of Texas atAustin, which recently started a centre for psychedelic research, said the hypeabout the curative potential of psychedelics has outpaced hard evidence. Therisks — which include episodes of psychosis — are considerable, he said.

“Currently, we have no way to predict whowill respond or not therapeutically or who might have a bad experience,” hesaid. “There is so much we still don’t know.”

The women at the Mexico retreat understoodthe risks. But several said they had lost faith in conventional treatments suchas antidepressants and had heard enough inspiring stories from friends to takea leap of faith.

By the time the seven women gathered in acircle for the mushroom ceremony on a recent Saturday, each had signed ahold-harmless waiver. They had filled out questionnaires that measurepost-traumatic stress and other psychological ailments and had undergone amedical checkup.

Leading the ceremony was Andrea Lucie, aChilean-American expert in mind-body medicine who spent most of her careerworking with wounded U.S. veterans. After blowing burning sage onto cups ofmushroom tea served on a tray decorated with flowers and candles, Lucie read apoem by María Sabina, a Mexican Indigenous healer who led mushroom ceremonies.

“Heal yourself with beautiful love, andalways remember, you are the medicine,” recited Lucie, who is from a MapucheIndigenous family in Chile.

After imbibing, the women lay on mattresseson the floor and put on eye shades as soothing music played on a speaker.

The first stirrings came about 40 minutesinto the ceremony. A couple of women lowered their shades and wept. One giggledand then roared with laughter.

Then the wails began. JennaLombardo-Grosso, the former Marine who lost her mother to suicide, stormed outof the room and huddled with Lucie downstairs.

Lombardo-Grosso, 37, sobbed and screamed:“Why, why, why!” She later explained that the mushrooms had surfaced traumaticchildhood episodes of sexual abuse.

Inside the ceremony room, Samantha Juan,the Army veteran who was sexually abused as a child, began crying and pulledout her journal. It was her third time at a retreat administered by Polanco,where she said she had confronted a lifetime of traumatic memories that led herto drink heavily and lean on drugs to escape her pain after leaving the Army in2014.

“I’ve learned how to give myself empathyand show myself grace,” said Juan, 37.

Her goal on this retreat, she said, was tomake peace with a sexual assault that she said she had endured in the Army.

“In today’s journey, the focus isforgiveness,” Juan had said shortly before taking the mushrooms. “I don’t wantthat kind of grip on me anymore.”

As the effects of the mushrooms wore off,there was a prevailing sense of calm. The women swapped stories about theirtrips, cracked jokes and got lost in long embraces.

The jitters returned the next morning asthe women waited for their turn to smoke 5-MeO-DMT, a trip that Polanco calls“the slingshot” for the speed and intensity of the experience.

Seconds after her lungs absorbed the toadsecretions, Juan let out guttural screams and shifted on her mat. Bostwicklooked panicked and unsteady as she shifted from laying on her back to aposition on all fours. Lombardo-Grosso vomited, gasped for air and joltedviolently as a nurse and Lucie held her steady.

When she regained consciousness,Lombardo-Grosso sat up and began weeping.

“It felt like an exorcism,” she said. “Itfelt like sulphur coming up, black, and now there’s nothing but light.”

That night, Alison Logan, the wife of aNavy explosive ordnance disposal expert who was on the brink of gettingdivorced, looked downcast. The trips, she said, had brought her sadness to thefore, but provided no insights nor sense of resolution.

“It felt like a lot of pain without anyanswers,” she said.

But the other participants said theirphysical ailments had vanished and their mood had brightened.

Bostwick said that she was “mystified,” butecstatic, that her migraines were gone and that for the first time in a longtime she felt a sense of boundless possibility.

“I feel like my body let go of so much ofthe anger and frustration and all the petty stuff that we hold on to,” shesaid. “I was overflowing with negativity.”

During the days after the retreat, Juansaid she felt “full of energy and ready to take each day head on.”

Lombardo-Grosso said the retreat had helpedher make peace with the loss of her mother and tilted her outlook toward thefuture from a sense of dread to one of optimism.

“I feel whole,” she said a few days laterfrom her home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “Nothing is missing anymore.”

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