Amber Capone: The Psychedelics Saving Veterans from PTSD

Amber Capone, co-founder and CEO of Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions (VETS), shares the powerful story of how psychedelic therapy - starting with Ibogaine - helped her husband, Navy SEAL Marcus Capone, recover from PTSD and TBI when traditional care failed.

We dive into the science and controversy behind Ibogaine, the limits of VA mental health care, and how VETS is paving the way for safe access to psychedelics like MDMA, psilocybin, and ketamine for veterans in need.

Key Points:

• Amber’s leap from military spouse to CEO of VETS
• Ibogaine’s transformative potential for PTSD and TBI
• Risks and rewards of seeking psychedelic treatment abroad
• Bipartisan momentum behind veteran psychedelic initiatives
• Why careful vetting, integration, and support are critical

🎧 Listen to hear how psychedelics are changing lives—and the future of trauma care.

Chapter Markers:

• 00:00 – Introduction & why Amber’s story matters
• 05:56 – What was happening behind the scenes at home
• 07:57 – The struggle after service: Marcus’ decline
• 10:59 – Turning point: discovering Ibogaine
• 14:57 – What changed after treatment
• 20:20 – Starting VETS to help other families
• 25:06 – Not just Ibogaine: the expanded toolbox
• 31:21 – Addressing TBI and polytrauma
• 35:43 – The importance of screening, context, and preparation
• 41:46 – VETS’ evolving role in advocacy and support
• 45:16 – Bipartisan support and shifting cultural norms
• 51:54 – What “success” really means for healing veterans
• 57:57 – Where to learn more and get involved

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Transcript

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Before we dive into this episode, imagine it. Your spouse comes home from war but never really makes it back. You try everything, therapy, meds, the VA, and nothing works. So you risk everything on a treatment not approved in the US. You travel to another country and what happens changes everything. And that's what today's guest did. Welcome back to Divergent States, the podcast that cuts through psychedelic hype with grounded, data-driven conversations. I'm your host, Elite. Today's guest is Amber Capone. once a top producing real estate agent, now CEO and co-founder of Vets, veterans exploring treatment solutions. Her husband, Marcus, a former Navy SEAL, who came back from war and began to unravel. Traditional treatment didn't work. Amber didn't accept that answer. Instead, she found herself diving into the underground world of psychedelic therapy. It's a controversial space, and that's why she's here. So Bryan, before we get into this, have you ever come across Ibogaine treatments yourself? No, no, honestly, it wasn't until we talked to Tom Feegel that I had even heard of Ibogaine, to be honest with you. My take is, my first initial thought was, no way. No way this works like this. But we've had how many guests now, we've Tom Feegel, Kyrsten Sinema, and now Amber. Today, we're talking with Amber. These are all people ah whose lives were changed by either using it themselves or witnessing somebody else use it and saw what it was capable of and what it did. And I think that's what I'm the most excited about diving into today. I mean, this is an episode I've been dying to make since we started. So I'm super stoked. Yeah, have you ever considered it yourself? Would you try it? Yeah, absolutely. What would you hope to gain from that experience? Well, just kind of I guess some of the same things that... Can everybody talks about? Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's a powerful tool for addiction. It's really turned things around for people on that. And in the military, we drink like fish. And it's funny that we have that attitude because there's so many other stigmas around things like cannabis, psychedelics, these other things that actually you can use in a non-abusive way. There's not really a non-abusive way to use alcohol. And I'm sure there's a of people, well, I can have a drink, it'd be cool. Good for you. But at end of the day, No, it's all good. mean, it's ironic that, you know, the actual literal poison is is acceptable. Right. Even medicine that shows, as we've talked to several people, know, shows efficacy helps people out. It's so stigmatized. Yeah, so I'm happy we're going to we're going to get into it with Amber right after the break. You guys support us on Patreon. We're getting some big guests. It's just getting bigger. So patreon.com/Divergent States. ah You follow us on Instagram. Follow us on YouTube. Follow Spotify, Apple, wherever you're at. You want to keep this going. Support us. Share it out there. Yeah, so we'll talk to Amber, and uh we'll be right back. Amber, so let's get back before VATS, before all of this was going on. What did your life look like? Well, I'll give you the fast track version. I met my husband long before he was in the military. I was 17. He played football for my dad. We started dating. He decided he wanted to go to Bud's SEAL training. And I thought, military life is definitely not for me. Even though I come from a family of veterans, I five great uncles and six great uncles in World War II. I grew up in a very patriotic home, but thought, is the end of the road for us. And then I found out I was pregnant with our son. So I very quickly became uh acquainted with military life. Yet that was before 9-11. And my husband graduated SEAL training in October of 2001. So 9-11 had just happened and we had absolutely no idea what the future would hold, but had to again, quickly adopt to multiple. oh Excuse me, deployment cycles and training cycles. so uh life before Vets was consumed with just supporting him as he served our country. And uh life after the military, think we naively thought that it would get back to normal, even though we didn't really know what normal was. uh And we were met with the set of challenges that we just weren't prepared for. And of course, we didn't have the comfort of the military community because we were no longer part of that. And the friends that we did still have that were still serving or had transitioned out weren't really talking about the challenges that they were experiencing. And so you feel largely alone. And I was very afraid of losing Marcus because I could sense that he felt he was a burden on the family and that this was not the life that he envisioned after his service as well. And so was really desperate to help them. and didn't know quite how to do that. What do feel like was Marcus's biggest challenge after the military? When you say like, he didn't feel like this was the life he was looking for. Was it like, did he feel excluded in teams or other things like that? What was the biggest challenge? I would say just loss of purpose and loss of community. um We were very insulated, especially within the SEAL community. It's a very tight knit group of individuals and we like, you know, lived in the same neighborhood, worked out at the same gym, our kids played together, the guys hung out together, they traveled, they deployed, they trained, whatever. And so when you're away from that, you realize that not only do you not have that community, society didn't even understand. Society didn't, everyone says, thank you for your service, and um yet they don't fully understand the sacrifices that come along with that. And so we just felt very disconnected from one another, disconnected from society, of course disconnected from our community. And it was the perfect storm of loss of purpose, loss of passion, loss of community. identity, paycheck, all of the things. And there was really no one to fight on this new battlefield with us. And we couldn't even tell our friends that we were struggling because there was kind of this code of silence. You just don't talk about that. Right, what was the hardest part for you for watching Marcus go through all this? Just feeling helpless and how I could help him. There was also a lot of disconnect from the time that he spent away from home where, you know, we were married legally, but we weren't existing as a married couple. And so, you know, I felt very disconnected from him. I wanted to help, but didn't know how. And it was, it was really defeating to feel like we've come through this much. have so many friends who lost their spouses. overseas and mine's home and you feel this kind of like guilt that you aren't living a life that feels you're not excited to be living the life that you're living. That makes a lot of sense. I think people don't really ever talk about the difficulties that spouses and the military go through as well. Yeah, yeah, it's to me, the spouses and children are the unsung heroes of um the military community and the veteran community. And so that's why the programming that we offer now at VETS is so inclusive of spouses, and even children to some degree, and we're providing some support services for the kids who have parents in our program, you know, how they can navigate these new ways of being. It's the family support is something that's very near and dear to me. Yeah, family support is really important, especially when it comes to military families. I come from the kind of the same background. They're in San Diego, in fact. I know all about the, yeah. So I know all about BUDs and the Amphib base. so what did he, uh when was the first time you heard about Ibogaine treatment and how that could help? A friend of ours, Marcus served with the husband and I was close friends with the wife. They were clued in to some degree on the fact that our family was struggling and their family was also struggling. And so he was the first seal that we knew about that would leave the country and go receive Ibogaine treatment. Of course he was an active duty. We were all out of the military at that point, but She shared with me that it was really profoundly impactful, almost to the point that it seemed unbelievable. I think we were in such survival mode at that time that I didn't really understand what it was. I just knew that it was not available here. He would have to travel to Mexico. was something that was unlike anything uh offered here or anything we'd ever heard about. And reportedly, it was super effective. I really trusted them and they meant a lot to our family. And so that was really it. I didn't do the research. I just trusted him. And when I first approached Marcus about this, he thought it was crazy. He was like, no way, that's just nuts. And so we actually didn't focus on Ibogaine for about a year. He went to several other brain clinics and they were great for diagnostics, not necessarily for like... long term recovery. And so he was getting more and more frustrated that these clinics weren't producing favorable outcomes. And I could tell that he was becoming more and more disconnected and probably thinking like, nothing's ever going to help me. I'm committing all of this time and effort into these four, five, six week programs, not getting anywhere. And so I just I had actually made the decision to leave. thought like there's nothing that's going to help him at this point. I have to get out while I can. And in doing so, I came to the realization that my kids could bear the brunt of this for the rest of their lives if he didn't survive losing his family. And I thought there's the one thing that this other couple had told me about. I'm gonna re-approach him about it, but I'm gonna do it in a way that I haven't done before because I was like, really great with shame, guilt, know, pointing out all the things that were wrong and all the ways in which I was the victim. And when I approached him in love and a commitment to like join him in this fight and stick by him, no matter what, he was like totally on board. And so he agreed to go, that was in 2017. And I remember when he got out of the car, he was basically like, don't think that I'm gonna come back like a different person. Like don't get your hopes up. Nothing has worked this long, to this point. And so I felt like, you know, leaving him at the airport, like he was like putting all the chips on the table and I did not know what to expect, but I did fly in the next day to see him after he was dosed with Ibogaine. Unlike had been described to me, it was like a complete reset and completely the way I remembered him when I met him. at 17 years old. yeah, it was, it was wild. Yeah, I remember it wasn't long ago we were talking with Tom Feegel about all this and you know, he he'll tell you all these same things. And when you hear it, sounds absolutely insane. It's great to hear that. And then one last thing I just wanted to note there is you said something that I think is really profound. said you changed your tactics on how you approached your husband in the first place. um I think that's something that a lot of people can take away just from this front entry of that part of the conversation is that A lot of times what people need is just that support to know that somebody cares about them. Yeah, it was like just this this commitment to compassion and meeting him where he was at instead of where I wanted him to be or maybe where I thought he should be. Sorry was and if I wanted to make progress I had to stop being part of the problem and try to be a new solution because I was only perpetuating the behavior that I was trying to avoid by Guilting shaming condemning him pointing out all of the things that were not going right. No one was doing that to him more than he was doing it to himself. And so I was just creating this pylon effect and it resulted in all of the things that I didn't want to have happen. And so it was a real risk for me to be that vulnerable and to sort of put my heart out there when I had been so hurt so many times. But I thought like, what is the end goal here? What do I want the outcome to be? not just for myself, for my family, but for my kids, the right thing to do is to completely change my tactics and treat him how I would want to be treated. Well, and just one last thing I want to add to that. I saw in the military myself how so many relationships went, how so many marriages went, because people just don't know that or the courage that it takes to be that vulnerable, like you said, because you're sitting there thinking like, I'm hurting, I'm feeling the pain of all of this, whether it's alcoholism, severe anger, just all those things that get built into you when you're in the military. It just doesn't work. like, it just takes, like you said, a lot of courage to set aside those emotions, pain on your own, and not lean into his wound either. And to me, I think that's an outstanding story. I love to hear that. And I would love to see more people maybe try that. Thank you. You know, it was very healing for me, but I had, it was very healing for me for him to receive that vulnerability in a way that, you know, it was, it didn't hurt me. It was a risk to be that vulnerable and he received it in a way that was very healing for me. And yeah, I sort of had gone through my own healing, surrender journey along the way when he was really Struggling I was kind of finding my peace and so I was only able to to show up for him in that way because I was coming to terms with things in myself like insecurities and Wounds like things from childhood or whatever that had caused me to put up these walls in my own life and of course, you know the military certainly exacerbated all of that really drove a wedge between us just because when you're not with your spouse for 300 days a year, how can you maintain a relationship? Like it's practically impossible. And it is very difficult to continually be, you know, placed second, third, fourth in someone's life. Not just as a spouse, but as a family, like the mission came first, the military came first, the SEAL teams came first, like everything was ahead of us. And that, you know, comes with a high likelihood for resentment. And so I was working through a lot of that on my own, which enabled me to show up. So anytime I talked to a spouse who's like, I'm just so mad, I have so much anger. It's like, I completely get that. It is very hard to put that aside. But ultimately it's like, okay, well I want the end result to be this. Therefore I've got to try something new because what I'm doing right now is not working. Yeah, and then what they call the definition of insanity. it's really important to have the family there. you know, that's a lot of you can see a lot of the friction with the transition coming back is, you know, they are there, that's military first, it's the you know, the whole time, and then they come back and have a hard time kind of separating from that. Yeah, I mean, you're used to going to 100 miles an hour and split second. And I mean, you used to talk and just the way you need to in the moment, like those politics do not play well in the normal world at all. Yeah. Right. So just kind of going back, were talking about he had, you know, he went down and did his Ibogaine treatment. What was it like right after that? You know, he had mentioned he's not going to be a different person. So what was that like? You know, it's kind of like surviving a natural disaster. It's almost easier in the moment to survive. Like, I grew up on the tail end of Tornado Alley. We lived for a while in Virginia Beach. We had hurricanes. Like, you could survive when you know weather's coming. know, like you can get through the storm, but it's surveying and cleaning up the damage after that. That really takes a lot. You just take a beating. takes a lot out of you and you realize how much damage actually has occurred. And so, you know, it was this sort of dance of like, what just happened? This feels too good to be true. It's wonderful to sort of be reunited ah with this person that you've longed for for so long. But then you feel those walls going back up because you're like, we might not last, you know, it might be too good to be true, or there will be like a smidge of old behavior. energy that like comes back into the situation and you're like, see it. It is too good to be true. And so it's just this roller coaster of emotion. But ultimately, you know, I was seeing, like, so much improvement that it seemed it, I know, it really encouraged me to want to further investigate what the heck had happened to better understand like, The easy thing to do would have been for Marcus to be like, I feel great now, gonna get on with my life, the life that I thought I would be leading after the military. But the very first thing that he said to me after his, I'm again, he was still like kind of out of it. He was like, this is it. This is exactly what the guys need is friends, former teammates. And of course now it's not just the guys, there have been. There have been women veterans to go down, spouses that have gone down. um And so that, think that, you know, our community is so amazing at taking care of one another. And immediately he was like, we've got to do something. You know, we've got to, I wanted to know more, like what the heck has just happened. He wanted to help immediately. And so together we were able to put together an organization, put together some research collaborations with Stanford, with Ohio State, uh to better understand what these now friends of ours and Marcus had experienced. And then as word began to spread, you know, it's healing in and of itself just to be able to help other people. It's healing to have this sort of community coming together and everyone which wants to help more and more people. And so this sort of organic spark of a movement was just happening. And we realized pretty early on a couple of things. One, if you don't support the spouses, the veteran who's receiving this opportunity could actually become more destabilized or the family could become more destabilized. It's got to be like a uh two person effort and a couple. um And then we were never going to get ahead of the demand. The only way to do that would be to get the therapies into our healthcare system in the United States. And so, in the early days, just putting together the VETS model, which had never been done before. was like breaking new ground to take charitable dollars that would otherwise be taxable and use them for an activity that's being done internationally on substances that are scheduled here in the United States. Like, how are we going to do this? How are we going to protect ourselves from the liability? How are we going to choose the people who get to go because everyone's deserving? And then how are we ultimately going to use all of these pieces for the play in the United States? Because that's where it's at. Like what we're doing is a stop gap. It's not a long-term solution and it's not scalable. The only way to scale these is for the subsidy to exist through the VA healthcare system because the therapies are legal and available through our medical system here in the United States. So that's really like the ultimate crown jewel of success is not only having therapies like legalized here, know, MDMA was so close and might still, you know, pull through and become a prescribable medication. Well, how are people going to pay for that? It's going to be upwards of 10, 15, $20,000 for an MDMA series. Veterans can't pay that out of pocket. The only way to you know, receive true access is not only through legalization or medicalization, but it's through the subsidy that exists, either through insurance, other payers like employers, or the VA healthcare system. So that's really what we're primarily focused on. But in the early days, it was a grassroots effort. Marcus reaching out to his friends and saying, I think I know something that could help you. I don't want to over promise, but It's pretty wild what's going on in Mexico. We'll pay for you if you want to go. And it just, boosh, blew up from there. That's awesome. Is there anything you saw in Marcus just like, just right away that just felt different? Yeah, he was calmer, more present, uh like felt feelings again. He was thinking clearer, he was sleeping better. It just sort of became this snowball effect of, you know, performing again, wanting to live again, feeling connected again. And we've seen it replicated time and time again, where, you know, individuals are emerging from these retreat experiences, feeling reconnected to everything, to life, purpose, themselves, God, family, nature, the community, like they're just excited to be alive. And that's what I was seeing in him, this sort of like isolation and hopelessness had been replaced with this, like, I don't know, just this. excitement to be alive again. It's amazing. Yeah, really. It's really amazing. The more and more you hear about all these stories of people just coming in, you know, I was there was a movie I think we saw, I saw it, uh MAPS this year, um of a clinic down in Mexico. And it's kind of the same thing as first responders and veterans. And it's just amazing how maybe the first part of it, I think we saw, saw like, they think they showed a preview uh at the MAPS movie night. We were the premiere film at the MAPS conference, but they showed the whole thing. It's called In Waves and War. I don't know if it was that one. remember, I think I only saw like one or two nights there. they showed a, was, I think it was Monday or Tuesday night. They had a couple different things, but it was really, mean, there's still, it's really cool. The stuff that's like all of you guys are coming out and just seeing the people healed out of it. It's really amazing. And that's to me, the miracle behind it is, you have the VA therapies and like you said, five or six weeks. of doing these therapies and sometimes they don't even come out of it any different than they went in. Multiple times I've seen people worse. Yeah, that's right. After the VA has gotten involved, like I was telling you before the show started, I've seen people gain crazy amounts of weight, turn into almost completely different people, shut down, just not the same person. I witnessed that while even being in the military and seeing people come back from deployments, having issues, trying to go get them taken care of from resources that were on base and literally just becoming worse, like was not helping. If you think about like the side effects that come along with SSRIs and SSRIs are like the front lines of the fight against PTSD or issues that are facing service members and veterans, SSRIs, talk therapy. um SSRIs come with so many side effects. They take weeks to work if they work. And in many cases, they cause someone to experience incredibly challenging side effects. including a risk of increased suicidality. Why are we trying to combat the veteran suicide epidemic with medications that have a clear warning of increased suicidality on the side of every bottle? It just doesn't make sense. There's a lot of band-aiding going on, a lot of symptom cover-up. It's like, Mark has had at one point like 10 prescriptions in the VA system. He hasn't taken one since 2017. It's like a headache medication. something to sleep, something to wake up, something for depression, something for anxiety. Then there would be an undesired side effect that would cause another. It's just absurd. You're becoming a zombie. Yeah, you're taking medications to treat the symptoms of the medications. Exactly. Kind of touching on what you were talking about earlier, the access has been really one of the biggest points I've really tried to push out on the show is, um as you said, some of those treatments like MDMA can be, you know, four or five figures for a single treatment. So yeah, that's, I think that's really what's great about your program is how you're, uh you know, what 5013C that just sponsors these veterans trips to Mexico. um So besides like Ibogaine, what else, what other kind of treatments do you guys help sponsor? So we are advocating for research or providing treatment grants for domestic use of ketamine or international retreats that are offering Ibogaine or Iboga, psilocybin, 5-Meo-DMT, ayahuasca. Of course, we're really excited about the possibility of MDMA. and where that currently stands in FDA clinical trials. There are a lot of compounds that are making their way through FDA clinical trials, but it takes a really long time for that to happen and a lot of money. There are trials happening in the US outside of the drug development clinical trials, and many of those are not enrolling veterans because their health histories are too complex. They have multiple diagnoses. They're too high risk. They have a history of any degree of suicidal ideation. These things are automatic disqualifiers for trials happening in the United States. so VETS provides this grant funding that helps either fully subsidize or partially subsidize retreats that are happening internationally uh where these therapies are either legal or unregulated. And we go through a very thorough vetting process. when a veteran comes to us and says, we want to use the vets funds for psilocybin retreat in Jamaica. Well, if it's a clinic that we've never worked with before, we'll do a very thorough vetting process before we approve those funds. But honestly, most of our veterans are doing the exact same protocol that Marcus did in 2017, which is Ibogaine and 5-M-Meo DMT. um I, we're, just as focused, if not more focused on traumatic brain injury as we are PTSD because just the, the blast exposure of the post 9 11 era veteran and the complications that can come from that. I don't know if you guys are familiar, but, um, the New York times has done a series of articles most recently about a troop that. never saw combat, but they fired like long range weapons and were exposed to, you know, like a substantial amount of blasts and came home from a multi month deployment and their lives kind of spiraled out of control. And, you know, like, there's this mode of thought of like, well, they they didn't experience combat, they experienced a lot of blasts. So this is a topic that's very relevant to service members and veterans in this modern era. But because there's no like really diagnosis, let alone treatment or cure for these blast injuries, it's not being talked about enough. And so one of our driving goals at VETS is to highlight traumatic brain injury, mild traumatic brain injury, and support research that's looking at uh how psychedelics could impact cases of TBI, which is what the Stanford study did. And the results were absolutely remarkable. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because TBI is something that really doesn't get talked about very much. Like it's usually something you only hear when you're talking to a veteran who has those things and they're telling you. It's not something that really comes up in the normal conversation. It's always PTSD, PTSD, PTSD. But I mean, the micro traumas, just if you're shooting weapons all the time, you be shooting machine guns, shooting artillery, like you were just talking about. uh Mortar rounds, anything like that. Those things are extremely concussive. Or I mean, you also have all the guys who don't get combat recognition at all that are out driving the MRAPs and the Humvees and they're getting blown up all the time. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've met guys like, oh yeah, we got blown up three times a day. And it's like, they joke it off like it's no big deal, but it's like, dude, you were in a truck that like lifted off the ground, flipped over and you survived. Like that's not nothing. Yeah, I know. And it's like, if you can't see the injury and you can't treat it with SSRIs, you know, one of the things that I, that was really shocking to me whenever I started to learn about traumatic brain injury. And the reason I learned about traumatic brain injury was because one of Marcus's former teammates took his life and thank goodness his wife had the wherewithal to donate his brain in time. And it was the first time that I had heard the term interface astroglial scarring, which is the you know, blast like overpressure issue that so many veterans are facing now. um He had these micro tears in his brain, they're only discoverable upon death. And so I really started to deep dive into traumatic brain injury, which is of course exacerbated if someone has played contact sports or had, you know, accidents like lost, Marcus had a parachuting accident, accident once he was, you know, unconscious for a number of minutes, but You know, all of that adds up. And so I was looking at Marcus's medical record and they were asking all the right questions, but there really was no dialogue around why they were asking if he played contact sports, had losses of consciousness, could estimate the number of blasts that he had been around, had trouble remembering uh names or events. And like, he's answering yes to all of these questions, but he's not being given any sort of a traumatic brain injury protocol. So it's like, yeah, if, you know, there's no diagnosis or treatment or cure. Is it productive to have a conversation or just kind of pretend that it's not there? One of the reasons that Bets is so passionate about traumatic brain injury is because we feel inherently that there's like a medical misdiagnosis happening. It almost feels like medical malpractice to diagnose someone that's had a traumatic brain injury or a series of them with PTSD. And then they show up to their talk therapy appointments and they start taking the SSRIs. And like the real problem is TBI. And then they're frustrated that they aren't getting better. And then we wonder why we have it better. then we treat them with a medication linked to suicide. And we wonder why we still have roughly 20 veterans a day that take their lives with some estimates being as high as 44. This is like very, it just seems. So frustrating to me that we aren't having more conversations about this. And ironically, as you said earlier, having any sort of suicidal thoughts or tendencies or anything immediately nullifies you from being able to participate in any of these sites in America. That's right. But it's okay. We'll give you a bunch of medications that have clear suicidal increase. Like, it's absolutely ridiculous. Yep, 100%. The study that we did in collaboration with Stanford, 30 individuals that were coming through our program went for pre and post evaluation before and after Ibogaine. And I want to say like 29 of the 30 had some degree of suicidal ideation or previous suicide attempts. None of those individuals would have ever been enrolled in traditional clinical trials in the US. But because of the way we structured it with Stanford, removed the risk of, they were really just observing. They weren't dosing these quote unquote high risk individuals. The suicidality rates plummeted. 47 % of them were actively suicidal when the study began. At the immediate one week mark, after receiving Ibogaine, it plummeted to 0%. At the 30-day mark, it barely ticked up to 7%. So, you know, it's remarkable what this sort of deep work can do under the right container, which is another very important topic, I think, for us to touch on. There's such, like, that's as inundated with applications. I wish we could say yes to everyone. the resources are just so slim when you're 100 % donor dependent. And our fear is that veterans are going to become so desperate that they're like, if I can just get my hands on a bag of mushrooms, you know, if I can just find an underground provider, not realizing that set setting, dosing, sourcing, preparation, integration, community support, all these things are so critical. in the days leading up to and following a psychedelic experience. uh we take that as a great responsibility because so many of them are experiencing some degree of suicidal ideation. How do we continue to advocate for them or get them plugged into studies or advance these therapies in the VA whenever none of them would be enrolled in traditional clinical trials? Yet the outcomes, if the... you know, someone's willing to take a risk on treating them, the outcomes are so profound. I mean, that's really what's important there. um In the grand scheme of it is, you know, the mental health and people getting better, healing. And I can say from experience, getting a bag of mushrooms underground is not going to help you. Yeah. Yeah. What do they say? Like the dosing session itself is like 10 % of the healing. So much of it happens after. Right. And I imagine that guided session is a huge, huge part of it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. that's... I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Sorry. I was just gonna say, bet it's really important for us to offer one-on-one support with a coach. All of our coaches are licensed therapists, but they're working in a coaching capacity and not a therapeutic capacity. And so we give one-on-one sessions with these coaches, as well as group coaching. And then we teach people in our program how to meditate, how to sort of fill this space that's been created, how to bring their spouse in and have that support. how to then turn around and uh lend a hand to another veteran who's new to the program. So it's this continuity of care that I think has been so important in the outcomes we've experienced. And I look at the unfavorable stories that I've heard of veterans that are trying to do this at home alone on a Friday night or they accidentally take too much of something and they have all of this childhood trauma surface and they don't know what to do with it. Like that's, that would be really destabilizing. Yeah. Agreed. Right. um So yeah, it's kind of leading up. was going to, you you touched on the VA. um We've really seen kind of the tide shift on that lately with funding for MDMA and psilocybin trials. Center for what is an excellent legislation, even VA doctors being allowed to discuss the therapies now. uh What do you see that change coming from now? think that the grassroots veteran advocacy that has happened just sort of broadly over the last five years in particular has really led us into today. I don't think anyone expected the new administration to be so bullish on this topic, but there's just a new sort of outlook on health, I think. I think a lot of that comes from RFK and his willingness to look at more alternative, innovative type therapies and go to bat for that. I don't know how Trump feels in particular, like I wish I did, but it's really wonderful to hear Doug Collins, Secretary of the VA, go on our friend Sean Ryan's podcast and say, we need to find a way. It's so encouraging for- to say it's our goal for veterans to receive access to psychedelic therapies in the next 12 months. There's a lot of bureaucratic red tape, like will it happen under this administration or not? I don't know, but I've never felt more uh excited or optimistic about the future of psychedelic therapies as I do right now. Because it's not just one person in the administration. It's like Marty McCarty at the FDA. Doug Collins at the VA, R.F.K. uh HHS, people within the Trump administration that have signaled favorability. Look at J.D. Vance. His mother has spent a lifetime battling addiction. Ibogaine in particular is very effective at treating addiction. We just worked on a huge bill in Texas that will launch FDA clinical trials on Ibogaine 4. OUD and co-occurring conditions. So I just feel like we're primed. Let's, yeah, I think it really, we're finally getting to a place, especially as you mentioned Texas, and I think Arizona's got some stuff in the works too, for getting Ibogaine therapies here in the US, which obviously, you know, that's the main importance here for the PTSD and the traumatic brain injuries that you're talking. So switching it up just kind of a little bit, I was talking a little bit about criticism. Some people are worried about... that it's just medical tourism without oversight, that it can open the door to unregulated expansion, uh especially with people chasing treatment outside the US. Totally. I share all of those concerns. um As I alluded to previously, this is not sustainable. It is not the best option. But the ultimate goal of getting the therapies into the US is also not an easy feat, and it will take some time. And so in the meantime, Vets has established a very thorough vetting process to work with the highest caliber retreats operating safely in countries where the therapies are legal or unregulated. It's a double-edged sword because every time we share about the promise of Ibogaine or the mission of vets, which is honestly to continue to beat the drum, drive the conversation, change the narrative, desigmatize these therapies, raise dollars so we can help more veterans. It creates an onslaught of applications that we know we cannot address. And in desperation, it creates this sort of reality that people will... I just heard a horror story last week, a brand new clinic offering the lowest rate. Someone goes down there and is absolutely abysmal. They had to do like a medevac out. Her family had to get involved. It was... So when I hear about clinics that are operating in an unsafe way and using the work that we're doing to promote their business or something they have no business being part of, it is disheartening and frustrating. And it's just part of, I think, the advocacy efforts of trying to do it the right way. There will always be the bad actors. I don't know how to root them out. I wish I did. Ibogaine in particular, it can be a very predatory space. Even addiction centers here in the United States, the success rates are like three to five percent, yet they'll gladly take your $32,000 for the month. It's predatory. Absolutely. How do you do it? Sorry. Go ahead. no, no, no, I was just going to say, you know, it's very frustrating and difficult to deal with this, you know, in an international way, because we don't have any, uh there's no way that we can, you know, alert authorities. mean, it's frustrating. Right. I was going to kind of ask, how do you guys vet your clinics? a very in-depth vetting process that includes uh rigorous medical checklist, you the safety protocols, insurance, licenses, uh history of operations, uh patient referral or patient reviews. um Yeah, it's a, there are not many on the list because it is so thorough. You know, Ibogaine in particular has a cardiac risk. And so to have for ACLS medical trained medical professionals on site from start to finish to have heart monitors that are the current models, you know, there's all kinds of checkpoints that we're looking for when we are completing our vetting process. Yeah, are there any bad actors in this space that you guys kind of avoid or see a lot of? Let's put it this way. If you're asking me, uh, as Amber Capone outside of my role at Vets, there's just as many, if not more bad than there are good. And it's, it's, it's why the standardization needs to be developed in the United States because there are opportunists that are like, this is a quick buck. They're unregulated in many cases. So, you we're working with clinics that are licensed, that are operating as legitimate businesses uh in the country that they're incorporated in. And yet, there are so many more that are not. There are so many more that are just opening up shop to make a quick buck, that don't understand the medical... uh the real medical concerns around Ibogaine and you think about, know, something that we've seen hundreds over a thousand favorable outcomes. takes one bad one to sort of, you know, really jeopardize this entire thing. Knock on wood. So to be clear, you're saying that you definitely don't recommend Mike the shaman that lives at the end of the cul-de-sac. Yeah, no, definitely not. Definitely not. yeah, the underground in the United States. boy, that's another thing. know, it's like, someone asked me recently, what keeps you up at night? What keeps me up at night is having made so much progress and having brought like very unlikely allies to the table and worked in these massive ways, like the huge win in Texas and just some of the other like sweeping things that are currently happening. there's really nothing to shut down. Like it's already been shut down. I think Ibogaine is misscheduled. I don't think it should be a schedule one, but like all of these compounds are currently schedule one, no medical value, high potential for abuse. I don't think that pertains to Ibogaine. I think it's misscheduled, but it doesn't matter. It's scheduled. We're trying to now go up against impossible odds of rescheduling, descheduling, medicalization, drug development. I don't know what it looks like. But in 1970, it all got shut down like that. Well, there's nothing to shut down now. It's just going to completely impede progress if something stupid like that happens. All the underground stuff happening in the United States is some very, very dangerous practices. uh International travel, medical tourism, also very concerning. But yeah, so you kind of touched on earlier that you see these kind of underground shamans, or sometimes it doesn't work. uh What do you do when it fails? How do you support families going through that? Well, I'd like to say no one in our program has failed because we provide all of the support services. Now that doesn't mean that we haven't had individuals who've had very traumatic experiences because the retreat or the medicine dosing session has really dredged up some very painful memories. But supporting someone through that in a 99 % of the time when the support container is right. they come out the other side, despite how hard the journey itself was feeling much, better. And I can only think of a couple of individuals that have come through a program that have had, you know, really needed like intensive support. But we're equipped to do that. When someone goes to the shaman down the block. It's like you're in you're out, you know, it's more of a money collection, dosing session, good luck. That's not how we approach it. Right. And I mean, you know, they're tough conversations, but you know, they're necessary and good to have. um And Bryan, you've been kind of on the end of a VA treatment. it ever frustrated you to see that, you know, a lot of this isn't part of that path? I don't use the VA at all. Period. I've tried, I've went there and like, dude, I could go on for hours about my experiences there. At the end of the day, the vibe is like the DMV. You go in, it feels like nobody wants to do their job and I don't blame them. there's no incentives. There's nothing that's in a normal practice that would push anybody to actually try harder. And then they're dealing with people and the only options they have to give them, they don't work. They know they don't And then they come back in to complain about it not working. It's like, well, I know it's not going to work. going to the VA right now for most services outside of anything that's like financial or beneficial, like maybe taking business classes, things like that. Anything outside of that really is, I mean, for those that it's working for, I'm happy. But I mean, maybe like the physical treatments, the physical therapies, it's, I'm lucky enough to not have sustained any physical injuries that need continuous therapy. So I've not had to deal with anything like that, but everything that I've had to deal with as far as mental illness, other things of that nature, my experience with the VA has been very unreset, just not very good. Yeah, that seems to be a pretty common refrain there. So Amber, where is this all going? What does success look like for you? Success for me looks like a couple of different things. I think that when you're really suffering in silence, even the slightest shred of hope can keep you hanging on. Whether you're a veteran, spouse, I mean, you can be just, as long as you have a pulse, you just have a shred of hope. You think you can live to fight another day. And so even for the veterans that we can't. directly support. I just want the work of vets and our tireless advocacy efforts at the state level, at the federal level, really globally. We have countries, various countries, various stakeholders in different countries reaching out, like how can we support our veterans? I just want that shred of hope to exist that there are therapies that work, there are ways to access them safely. We are fighting for veterans every single day in the United States. So first and foremost, I hope that we can deliver that hope. And then when it comes down to the brass tacks, getting therapies here in the United States in a way that allows the subsidy to exist so veterans don't have to come out of pocket uh is my next greatest priority, that we can work with elected officials to find a way to at least get some research going in the United States. Like, let's just start there because I understand it's a very stigmatized topic. We can't just come in with anecdotal, like, just please believe us, make these therapies available. A lot of research has to happen before that and research takes a lot of time and a lot of money. you know, just starting small, expanding access, reducing barriers to research so that eventually one day, Bryan can go to the VA, Marcus can go to the VA and they can have their in a multi dose psilocybin session with therapists who actually understands and uh get on with their life and open up the funnel for the next person to come in because that's what is also happening. There's this stagnation because there's not progress. And then there's provider turnover because everyone is just so disheartened. And yeah, it's like a landscape of suffering. inside those clinics, yet at the provider level, they want to make a difference. So the ultimate goal would be that the therapies are available there, they're subsidized, and the providers are so excited, and there's new life breathed into the VA. It's funny that you mentioned that because you were just talking about one of the challenges Marcus faced, and I think most veterans face when they get out of the military, is that loss of purpose. You had a mission, you had something that was really important and you were driven to it. People held you accountable. um That's missing. You know, for a lot of people, they don't know exactly what to do with their life next. And I think that goes across the board past veterans. think veterans are a fantastic vehicle to get all this research and things into America, but there's so many people that could benefit from all these sort of things. But back to the point on purpose, if you're somebody that's gotten into the medical field or into therapy or anything like that, I imagine it's probably because you have a compassion and a desire to help other people. And when you're put into a situation where you can't and you know better, they're going through the same cycles that veterans are going through when they get out. eh It's a loss of purpose, a feeling of worthlessness, that it's all about the money, that it's just a machine. very disheartening. Yeah, that's exactly it. I never thought of it like that, but you're exactly right. Do ever think psychedelics will ever be fully accepted? I hope to think so. I think we kind of are living in a world where cars are driving themselves and AI has sort of come out of nowhere. And we're making like huge progress in so many ways that I never thought I would see in my lifetime. So why wouldn't we uh utilize something so revolutionary to deal with things that impact society to varying degrees, but like we're all one degree separated from some degree of suffering. We've probably experienced it ourselves from time to time. And so, you know, to think that there are tools out there that actually excavate to the root cause and allow someone to regain their livelihood and take back their life like, and then encourage other people to do it. I hope to think that this sort of spark in society is something that I'll see in my lifetime. And I think psychedelics are a big part of that. Nice. um So if anybody's kind of curious about what you're doing or want to help out or whatever, how could they get a hold of you? Our website is vetsolutions.org. Everything about us and every way to help us is available on the website. We have volunteer opportunities, we have an annual gala every year, we have our donation link, we're 100 % donor dependent. And so what I love most about our mission is we have some donors that just want to help veterans. We have some donors that really are interested in the science and want to further the academic research happening. We have some donors that are really interested in policy change. We have some donors that are super conservative and some that are very progressive, but they're all kind of getting behind the notion of veterans are leading a movement that could impact all of society. And so by supporting the work of vets, learning more about our mission, we can work together. and create this destiny that we all hope to achieve. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's great way to, you know, that's kind of the whole goal. you know, I really respect what you guys are doing. It's amazing. you. I've been looking forward to this conversation like for the past few weeks. Not gonna lie. Well, thank you guys. I'm really honored to be able to have this sit down with you and thank you for the work that you do as well. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, I appreciate it. I was going to say, if you want to stick around for a few minutes, we've got some like, Patriot questions we could ask you, just get a little more relaxed. All right. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little more relaxing. So yeah. So that was Amber Capone of Vets. Thanks for coming on. Whether you agree with the methods or not, you can't ignore the results. So Bryan, right before we close, get onto the Patreon section. Just want to kind of get your perspective on things. um Do you feel like the psychedelic, the conversation around psychedelics in the veteran community is shifting at all? Definitely. mean, it's clearly it's starting with the people who are more combat heavy, you know, starting with special forces, infantry, things like that. That's that's where it's really starting to spread. But I think across the board, even beyond veterans, um clearly, there's very clear evidence that this is working to help with traumatic brain injuries, it's helping with PTSD, that you psychedelic assisted therapies can be used to help repair relationships. The evidence is there. So at this point, it's like you said, you can disagree with the methods, but the evidence is clear. Right, you can't ignore those results. What do you think keeps most veterans from trying something like I have a game? Oh, I would say 100 % the stigma. And if not that, I would say if you're past the stigma and you're somebody that's like, yes, I want to do this, I would do anything to do this, then it's money. It's the financing to make it happen. Because I mean, you need a passport, you need to fly to these places, you need to spend time at these places, you need to eat, you need to do all kinds of things while you're there and then fly back and the continued therapies and things like that. Not everybody... I would say most veterans, most people don't have access to that kind of funding to go on a retreat like this. Yeah, that's been really like the biggest thing even um when I go now to Denver. um Company brought me along to show me their psilocybin therapy treatment area, one of the first legal ones in the state. And that was my main question I asked him, is there anything that's being done to help the most vulnerable to, are you building in free treatment slots or sliding scale? And no one really had a good answer for it. They keep falling back to FDA needs approval and that's et cetera, know, stuff like that. But I think that's why, you know, I respect Amber and Marcus so much is they really are putting their money where their mouth is and helping these veterans out to get that. Well, know, props to Marcus for having the courage to go and do this back in 2017. And not to mention anybody that went before him and brought that, you know, information to their family in the first place. Right. All right, guys. Well, that's our conversation. We're going to talk to Amber a little bit more over on Patreon. You guys want to join? It's patreon.com slash Divergent States. Got episode updates, notes, anything up there. You guys hit me up. Put something in the comments. Give us a like and share it out. We'll keep this going. We've plenty of fun things there for you to microdose on while you wait for the next full episode. Right. Well, dude, I'm kind of blown away at this this, you know, our lineup this season, like just this first year. I don't think anybody out there can come close to it. We've had Rick Doblin, Hamilton, Morris, know, Leonard Picard, you know, tonight, Amber Capone, like. we've got some cool ones on the way too. Yeah, Reggie Watts going to be coming on. Yeah, we've got Paul F. Austin, Joe Moore from Psychedelics Today. Hopefully get, you know, maybe false statements or Alex and Alison Gray, like we're just hustling. So you guys want to hear more of it? You want to keep this going? I mean, this is a living archive in real time of just the psychedelic Renaissance. So. forget about the subreddit. It's like, not on there and you found this first. Right. Subreddit. Tell us who you want to talk to, tell us if there's, if there's somebody that we're missing that we haven't mentioned that you think would be great. Yeah, mention it in a comment. Make a post. I'll be there reading it. So you guys join us there. If you want to hear any more, come on to Patreon. We'll be over there. See you guys next time. later. uh you oh you