Loading summary
Transcript36 lines
- [00:09]
A
On this Veterans Day, let's take a listen back at one of my all time favorite podcasts with Marcus Capone and what he's doing to heal wounded veterans and make their lives complete again. He truly is doing the Lord's work. And just so you know, FOX is partnering with with us vets to make camo our cause to help prevent and put an end to veteran homelessness. Go to Go Fox usvets to make camo your cause. Now enjoy. Kennedy Saves the World. So now, if you have worn the uniform and fought for this great country and you have suffered internal or external scars from battle, the federal government wants you to go a pretty pedestrian route, which oftentimes doesn't really reach and heal the trauma. And so men and women, service members are forced to go to different countries to get stuff which should be legal and available here so we can help the people who need it most, who defend freedom. So today we're gonna talk about veterans exploring treatment solutions with the founders of, of that organization. Maybe you've seen Marcus Capone on my Fox Business show. He's a veteran Navy SEAL. He was on active duty for 13 years, medically retired in 2013 with PTSD and a traumatic brain injury. He and his wife went through quite a journey to get to the place where they could properly heal. Unfortunately, that place is not in the United States. But Marcus and Amber Capone join me now. Capones, welcome to Kennedy Saves the World.
- [01:59]
B
Hi, Kennedy. Thank you.
- [02:01]
C
Hi, Kennedy. Thanks for having us.
- [02:03]
A
I'm very intrigued by your story. We talked a little bit about it on the Fox Business Network. But Marcus, obviously you saw a lot of combat, you were injured, and you had a lot of emotional trauma. So the VA basically sent you to psychologist after psychologist, and you did antidepressants and all sorts of sensitorial treatments that didn't really get to the issues that you were fighting. How bad was it?
- [02:39]
C
Yeah, I mean, well, you know, let's go back. You know, first I want to just to make, you know, make it clear. I was never, you know, I was never injured. Never injured in combat. I still to this day will fight the PTSD label. You know, I feel myself and, you know, all the guys I worked with, you know, we, we signed up for something we wanted to do. And, you know, I don't think there was anything that we did overseas in terms of, you know, a traumatic injury that, you know, I keep looking back on. But I just think of over the years of serving and constantly deploying, I think it's, you know, depleted us A bit. And when I left the military, I was having a lot of struggles prior to leaving, obviously, but they really compounded once I left. And I think, you know, you take years of being on this kind of bullet train and, and, and constantly going overseas and, and sleeping, you know, during the day and being awake at night, and it kind of screwing up your whole, your whole body. And then transitioning out of the military and then trying to find purposes. You know, this is like this perfect storm. And, you know, many of us, we just start to struggle. And for me, I started to isolate and then I started to become angry and then I started to become distant from not just my friends, but from, you know, Amber and the kids. And, you know, and then I started really, I would say, self medicating heavily with, with alcohol and, you know, I thought that, know, everything would kind of go away. And, and the more that I was hurting inside, the more help we were trying to find, the more frustrating I was, you know, more frustrated I was getting because, you know, the brain clinics weren't helping. We went to five in, in total. And I think they did a good job of diagnosing, but I don't think they did a great job of telling me, you know, this is what you need to do to heal. As, you know, and we talked about it, you know, on, on Fox Business. You know, I was prescribed antidepressants while still on active duty and up till 10 prescriptions by the time we found psychedelic medicine. You know, SSRIs work for some people. They didn't work for me. And you know, God forbid if I went on the road and I forgot them, it was a nightmare. And so, you know, you take, you know, any type of traumas I'd had, then you take transition trauma, then you throw a bunch of medicine at it. It's a recipe for disaster. And you know, Amber and I were just lucky enough to find a treatment center outside the US where these, you know, a lot of them are operating, a lot of them have been operating safely for many years that offered, you know, psychedelic medicine. And let me tell you, it was absolutely life changing. Life saving made it turned everything into perspective. I hadn't. I have not touched an antidepressant since the weekend that I went through treatment in 2017. I haven't needed them. And in all honesty, every day I become more aware of myself, become more aware of my family, my surroundings, of how I act. And the less and less I go through any type of depression and it just keeps getting better. So it's a lifelong healing journey that I work on every day, and I feel like I get better at every day.
- [06:03]
A
So how bad was it, Amber? And, you know, what kind of calculations are you making as a wife and mother as you feel your husband slipping away? You know, obviously, you have to compensate. You have to multitask. You have to do more and more. So what. What were the conversations that you were having with yourself as Marcus was on, you know, the precipice of just the ultimate darkness. What are you telling yourself then?
- [06:31]
B
At that time, I was really just in survival mode. I look back, and it's actually much easier to survive something than it is to survey the damage and start cleaning it up. And we also come from a community that has just this incredibly high tolerance for suffering. And so looking back, also, I think the level of dysfunction that we were living in was so unnatural, yet at the time, felt, you know, second nature to me to live like that. I knew that we were nearing the end. Whether that meant the end of our marriage, the end of Marcus's life, I didn't know how it would end, but it seemed like it was. It was destined to end in catastrophe. And as things spiraled more out of control around me, I found myself sort of becoming the eye of the storm and developing this. I actually started being very intentional with my thoughts and prayers and words and, you know, how I was approaching the situation. And when I gained this clarity and. And realized that there was one thing left to try that we hadn't tried, I really. It felt like I was putting all the chips on the table. It felt like we had nothing to lose, but it also felt like nothing was working. And so I didn't have a lot of hope in this, but I knew that we had to try it because if the worst did happen, I could at least know that I had tried everything. Losing Marcus felt imminent, and I wanted to start forgiving myself if the worst happened. And little did I know, it would completely shift our lives and give us this newfound purpose.
- [08:20]
A
Don't go anywhere more Kennedy Saves the World right after this.
- [08:24]
C
It's will taint country. Watch it live at noon Eastern Monday through Thursday@fox news.com or on the Fox News YouTube channel. And don't miss the show. Listen and follow the podcast five days a week at Fox newspodcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.
- [08:38]
A
So, Marcus, tell me about the shift. You know, you go to Mexico. So tell me. You know, it's like when you first walk through that door, what were your emotions before you Started your first treatment, and then what happened? You know, walk me through it. How did it go? So.
- [08:54]
C
So, Kenny, before that treatment, it got to a point where. And again, I don't know if you experienced this. And that's why I never wish depression upon anyone, because I think it's one of the worst things that you can go through is you have no hope. So you think that living here on this earth, there's just no reason, because there's really nothing for you to look forward to, and you have no purpose. You lost interest in everything you love doing. So surfing or playing golf or doing whatever that was gone. And so when you go through those things, you know, it's really. It's such a dark place. And, you know, I. You know, you. You do learn, of course, from all the hard situations and things that you struggle with, but I definitely don't wish depression upon anyone because it was so miserable. You also think, well, wait a minute. I've tried everything. Like, you gave me the antidepressants. You sent me to the brain clinics. I tried tms, transcranial magnetic stimulation. I've tried hyperbaric oxygen therapy. I've tried all these other things, and however many psychologists and therapists that I've spoken to, and I haven't gotten better. So now you're telling me this thing that I personally think is crazy. I grew up. I went to all boys Catholic high school. Amber grew up, you know, conservative Christian in the South. And you're telling me psychedelic medicine is going to help you? It was just at the time, I thought it was nuts, but, you know, I started doing some research, Kennedy, and it made sense that these drugs were intended for psych, you know, psycho. Psychospiritual use or psychiatric use.
- [10:29]
A
Yeah, once you start reading about it, it actually makes you. It makes you angry that, you know, that our government and therapists and doctors haven't been more honest about the healing that can follow proper, guided usage of things like that. And once you start reading about the history of it and how its intended use, and we got so off track as a country, and professions that are supposed to help people and supposed to heal people, and politicians who are supposed to look out for us, and a government that is supposed to take care of us and all of those institutions have utterly failed people who need it most. And, you know, it's sad and it's scary. It's enraging. So you finally, you get to Mexico. What's the first thing that you tried?
- [11:23]
C
Yeah, so there's retreats all over the World, right, where it's legal and, or unregulated. So in Canada they have obviously certain laws. In Mexico they have laws. In Costa Rica, Bahamas, all these different countries. Mexico has a law for ibogaine where it's either legal and unregulated. It's basically like a supplement.
- [11:44]
A
And explain to people what ibogaine is who have never heard of it or are just curious about it.
- [11:50]
C
Ibogaine, all ibogaine is, is a, is an alkaloid. So it's like a molecule that comes from a plant. The plant's iboga. Iboga grows in West Africa. It's been growing for thousands and thousands of years. Tribes have been using it forever for, you know, coming of age or, you know, stomach ailments or again, mental health issues. And they've been using it forever.
- [12:12]
A
Right.
- [12:12]
C
With no, with no, with no issues. Instead of the full plant, they like take out the, the part of the plant that I guess works. Obviously I'm not a doctor or scientist, but it works the best. It treats the issues that it needs to treat. So ibogaine, you know, is the molecule that they pull out of this plant that actually works, right? It works on the psyche, it works on the physiological portion of your brain. And so it's just like a drug. It's weighed, it's in powder form, it's in a pill. You take it like you would, but, you know, in 45 minutes to an hour, you're going on a journey, you're going on a real spiritual journey. And the thing with ibogaine, which is different from all the other psychedelics, you know, that we know about psilocybin or MDMA or, or LSD or some of these others that are being researched now, it's a very internal experience and so you really can't hide from it. And what, what happens during the six to eight hour experience, you're actually going back and reliving some of the worst traumas that you've experienced in your life or some of the things that are just hindering you and affecting how you're living every day. And so if you're an addict, for instance, you going to go back to a time in your life that caused you to become an addict. If you can't deal with people because maybe you were, you know, you were in a, you know, in a big fight or, or you were part of a, like a sexual abuse or something when you were younger, you're actually going to go back to those experiences and you're going to, I don't want to say relive them again, because that could be very traumatic. But as you know and as I know, the only way to, to defeat something is through. And so you actually have to deal with those things. I mean, that's what talk therapy and CBCT and all things try to do is they try to get you to like, understand and relive some of the stuff that is affecting you now. Well, psychedelics do that like immediately, you know, and so what can take 5 to 10 to 15 years can happen in a weekend or a week. And you know, and granted, you have to have the right preparation before you go in, so you have to have a therapist or a coach preparing you for the experience because this could be really traumatic.
- [14:22]
A
And do they? Do they. So, you know, the six to eight hours, are you awake? Are you talking to people? Are you conscious of what's happening? Or are you. Is it like being. Falling through the looking glass and being in a dream and surveying and feeling scenes of your life? So, so where are you in terms of consciousness and someone else directing you?
- [14:43]
C
Yeah, so, Kenny, so I'm going to say all the above. There are. There are, you know, several, or I should say many different psychedelics that do the same or similar things, but also different. Some you are in an awakened dream state. So with Ibogaine, you are literally going through a movie of your life. So I mean, you're seeing stuff when you're a child that you don't even remember. Some people see like generational experiences. You see yourself as a child, you see yourself as a teenager, you see yourself, you know, in the military. So you're like visiting. It's almost like looking at a hard drive of all these files in your life. I actually watched them refile in pictures and play in front of me like a movie. And some of the things that were very difficult, whether it was, you know, times with my dad that I struggled with, or times in the military where I lost a best friend, or times with Amber that I struggled, I watched those things play out. So sometimes you're actually playing out between you know, myself and this image in this, you know, movie, or you're above in watching it. So it's a bit of both. And. But the thing is, when you're done, when I was done, it literally felt like Kennedy. I had. If I was wearing a backpack. And a doctor said this to me, Mark, if you're in a backpack with £1,000 in there, it feels like they've all been lifted. And that's exactly, exactly what it felt like. When I woke up in the morning, I literally just felt like I had all this weight lifted off my shoulders. All the anxiety was gone. You know, just. It just felt like I wanted to live again. I had purpose. And I just couldn't wait to see Amber. And Amber flew in and she came down the hallway. I just couldn't wait to hug her and kiss her and just say, like, wow. Like, wow. I needed that. And I just turned her and said, this is exactly what the guys need. Like, we were being inundated with our friends, you know, guys that are separating from the military and really struggling, and some are suicidal and some are just everything. You could imagine what you're hearing about, right? I'm just. And we're experiencing it. I just said, this is what we need. Like, how do. How do we figure this out? Well, someone paid for me to go down there, and they're our friends and we need to do that. So we just said, hey, let's go raise some money and we'll start paying for our friends so they can get the same treatment and same healing. And little do we know. We didn't know what the heck we were doing, right? But here we are today, and it's just amazing to see the healing that's happening. And again, like you just mentioned, we could take anything and turn them into recreational drugs and abuse them, or we can take the drug what it's intended for. And man, these drugs are so powerful and they're so life changing. I really think it's going to be the future of mental health care.
- [17:28]
A
I do, too. And I think that this is one of the. This is such a massive paradigm shift that this is one of the things that could heal society in ways that nothing else has been able to. You know, all of the talking and the posturing and the fighting and, you know, the cultural trench warfare that we've engaged in, it's only made things worse. And, you know, it has kept us from healing. But this is one of those things that could be such a massive shift that, you know, that's why I want to keep talking about it, and I want to talk to people who really don't know a lot about it so they can grow more curious and learn about it and assume best intentions, especially with something like this that is so highly stigmatized. But, Amber, I want to ask you, what was it like when you saw him for the first time? How did you feel when you could see that he couldn't wait to hug you? How different did he look?
- [18:31]
B
Completely different. In fact, I was just looking through photos and this past week, the day or two before treatment and right after, and you can see there's a visible difference in his face. His entire look, his demeanor, his posture, his presence, his being, his energy, Everything changed. And I was instantly transported back to when I met him in 1997, and just how he presented himself and how I felt when I was near him was exactly the same. He had become someone completely different. But I knew instantly that I had him back.
- [19:10]
A
Did you undergo any of these treatments yourself because of the trauma that you went through?
- [19:17]
B
No, I, I didn't, and I haven't, and there are reasons for that, which probably are like a whole different podcast. But I feel like, you know, now we're serving our highest purpose and educating others and coming at it from a perspective of, you know, not having drank the Kool Aid, if you will, I think is important for me right now in our advocacy work on Capitol Hill and, and just, you know, broadly, I have definitely gone through my own sort of inner healing, spiritual journey that psychedelics can prompt. So I, I oftentimes say, I don't think everyone necessarily need psychedelics, but everyone certainly needs to be connected to a higher power and connected to themselves internally. And I promise you, I'm both. But the work is so important that will there come a day that I do this myself? Very possible, Very possible. But right now, I've chosen not to.
- [20:21]
C
Kenny, I, I, I'm just so excited that I wanted to keep talking, but I ran this morning very early when I were, you know, we live out here in Southern California in Coronado, and I ran into a retiring SEAL master chief. And I got introduced. I didn't know him. I got introduced to him this morning, and he said, oh, hey, you're the guy. And I said, what do you mean? He's like, you're the guy who's who, you know, started the psychedelic nonprofit. And I said, oh, yeah? He said, he said, you know, I've had like, 50 friends who've retired or gotten out of the military. Basically, call me and say when you're ready and you're ready to retire and you get out. Like, you need to look into this, because it's, like, helped all of us. He said I could. He goes, I think it's more than 50. But I just went, wow. Like, those are the kind of things that I, you know, keeps me going because this stuff is tough. Still stigmatized. There's still some people who think Amber and I are crazy, but it's good to hear affirmations like that, especially from people who like you, look up to still.
- [21:16]
A
Yeah, and those are the most powerful testimonials. You know, people who have lived the life that you're still processing and you know, they have had, they talk about suicide being a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Well, maybe psychedelics could be a permanent solution to problems that have gone underserved for so long. And you know, I'm glad to hear people within your community talking amongst themselves about this and, and I hope that those circles widen and I hope people learn about these things and realize the value of them. So what other psychedelics have you had profound success with and what else do you recommend to people?
- [22:03]
C
Yeah, well, the first ibogaine treatment of course was like the shapeshifter. I mean it definitely radically changed just how everything was, was going. But we have to be careful to make sure to let people know for, for, for some, in many, it is a one and done. For many of us, including myself, it's taken time. And so, you know, I would say for a year I stopped drinking and everything was good. And I'd say shortly after that I started having like slippages of depression. But those slippages never felt, felt, you know, they never fell back into like week long or two week long bouts where I wasn't getting out of bed. I could maybe slip into depression for a short period, maybe a day or less than that and bounce back out. But it was, I was also working on myself so I was seeing my therapist. Right. The integration is so important afterwards you have to, you have to integrate with your coach and therapist regularly, you know, for weeks on end. And you know, as the years go by, you know, I've, I've had ketamine protocols, you know, at a ketamine clinic, right. Just, you know, just to see. Because you hear about ketamine now as being utilized so well for, you know, major depressive disorder and treatment resistant depression. And as I was having some of those little bouts, it was recommended like, hey Marcus, I think you should try this protocol and I think the protocols were great. Try and think what else it's really been.
- [23:31]
A
The frog or the toad that Mike Tyson loves.
- [23:35]
C
The frog or toad. Well, the toad, the 5 Meo DMT is part of the ibogaine protocol. Now it's not everyone's protocol, but it seems to be a very popular protocol right now from, from the experts is you do the ibogaine and the ibogaine could be so dark. And for me it was, honestly, it was a, one of the Darkest experiences and most difficult experiences of my life. We're talking about, you know, throwing up and going to the bathroom and like, it's not fun. If, if anybody wants to do ibogaine for recreational use, that's a whole separate problem.
- [24:09]
A
No, I hope you. I hope you have a good tarp.
- [24:12]
C
The 5 Meo is a couple of days later. So because the ibogaine is so deep and dark, the five MEO is a very spiritual experience. It's very anti inflammatory. So they do that a couple of days later. And, and that was what really I would say, as Amber spoke about bringing you closer to yourself and closer to potentially a higher power. 100%.
- [24:34]
A
Well, I am so intrigued by this and I want to learn more. I want to keep talking to you guys. Congratulations on all the money that you've raised to send vets to places like this to get the treatment that they need and deserve. It is there. It may not be right here, but it is there. And veterans exploring treatment solutions vets, that is the place to go if you know someone who needs exactly what Marcus and Amber are laying down. I want to thank the both of you for being here and being so honest and so helpful. You guys are amazing. I'm so happy that you are together and your family as whole.
- [25:14]
B
Thank you, Kennedy. It's been a wild ride. I wouldn't trade it for anything now because we're paying it forward in such a profound way. It's just such an honor to do this work and an honor to be on your podcast.
- [25:29]
A
Go ahead, baby.
- [25:29]
C
Sorry, I was going to say thank you, but I want to end with, you know, our mission one day is vets goes away and we have access to these medicines right here in the US and that's why we're doing all the work and raising the money, speaking to senators and our congressional leaders, because we have to have access here for not only veterans, but people who need it.
- [25:51]
A
Listen ad free. With a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts and Amazon prime, members can listen to this show ad free on the Amazon Music.
- [26:00]
B
Applause.