How Psychedelic Therapy Helped Aaron Baty Reclaim His Life

Richard Zwicky: Hi everyone, it's Richard Zwicky with High on Healthy, the show where we know there's no one path to healthy, so we look at them all. Mental health has often or usually approached addiction, trauma, PTSD, depression, and anxiety as distinct and separate problems. But there's a current school of thought that says, No, What if many people's addictions are actually attempts to regulate overwhelming emotional effects and the effects of exactly those things? PTSD, unresolved grief, shame, or just general nervous system dysregulation. And people are grasping at solutions and turn and become addicts in one form or another. And then conventional treatments fail because they're failing to get to the root issues, the true problem, leaving everyone suffering, the addict and the people around them. And increasingly, veterans, first responders, and others who are dealing with trauma have been turning towards psychedelic assisted therapies, which we've discussed at length on the show, and obviously they have profound benefits for many. We have to find the right ones for the right people. But one of the least understood most controversial substance of all which has gained a lot of understanding and is going under more approval is ibo which is a naturally occurring psychoactive compound derived from the root of the African ibogga shrub and has been used for generations for treatment for ceremonial practices in Africa. Joining us today we have Aaron Baddy who is a retired military officer and I'm going to let him speak to his bio and background because I want to tell you about before we get to IO gain and its role in his life. Aaron, tell us about the man you were before your military service and how things changed you during your service.

Aaron Baty: First off, thanks for having me very excited to discuss this so a little bit about me. I am the son of a special operations soldier. My father was a non-commission officer in 10th special forces group. I lived in Berlin, Germany, west coast of the United States. So I was the common military brat. Got interested in joining the military while I was in college in Drexel University and that's when I found the army and from that point started my career as an infantry officer and moved on. Shortly after joining the military is when I got married started having a family so started two major careers kind of at the same time. But yeah,

Richard Zwicky: And in the course of your military career people often associate trauma as being a single catastrophic event

Aaron Baty: So yeah, world traveler, really enjoyed that. Been in the military, my whole life, whether as a dependent or a service member.

Richard Zwicky: But the reality is much more complicated than that. How did your experiences accumulate over time?

Aaron Baty: That's a good question because when you're at the VA or you're talking to a psych doing CPT or CBT, they always want to bring you to one event and let's talk about this one event. And it's not just about this one really bad time. It's just years and years of having stressful things happen and finding out that you're not actually able to process it in shride. You're always putting things in the rucksack because you'll get to it later because you got more things to focus on. So, very shortly after joining the military, I was introduced to, the wartime footing. And even in Ranger school, Pat Tilman was killed. And I was a new lieutenant. Didn't know much about it. And it had such a profound effect on the Ranger Training Brigade personnel because they had just put him through the course a few months before. So, having not even gone to combat yet, you're seeing the effects of someone dying in action and what it does on the people that, help train and coach and mentor them. So it was just a trauma at home taking the trauma like you had mentioned before from childhood that was never addressed and it just is compounding over time and it gets you to a I don't know if I want to say breaking point right but there definitely becomes this one day you wake up and you're like I don't know what's going on I don't feel right I just don't know right it's the big I know where why I'm at, how to get out of this thing. And yeah, it was intense overtime. I'll just say that

Richard Zwicky: No, understandable. And for just as a data reference, 61% of us of people suffer some form of adverse childhood experience. And it could be trauma, it could be abuse. But the challenge is when it happens and nothing is done right away to help you cope with it, you never learn the coping mechanism. And so that compounds and then subsequent challenges just build upon it. And you touched upon, there's childhood, there's moving around, there's all sorts of effects as you move from one to the other.

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Richard Zwicky: And it strikes me, common comment that veterans have is feeling as part of them never came home. Where's home in that situation? And where was home? Nothing could come back to it.

Aaron Baty: I mean I 100% right. So, a very simple introductory comment when people talk to you about is, "Hey, I'm and this is where I'm from." And even at that point, I'm from X because I've always been a traveler, right? So when I retired out of the military in 2023, I would keep hearing this comment of back or welcome home. And to your point, what is home, I've only known this military lifestyle my whole life. I'm coming back to something that is more foreign to me than the military was. And the redeployment feeling like you're home. I didn't actually have that until February of this year, So, just the system is it's always stretched to be prepared to meet the overseas requirements and then pivoting really quickly to become a normal person here back in the United States when you're dealing with family stuff and not even having a hometown to go to or a hometown best friend that I grew up with that I could reach out to. I didn't have any of those things. So it was very much a feeling of being alone.

Richard Zwicky: And that loneliness must have been compounded by other experiences which were weighing on What happened and when did you realize something needed to change?

Aaron Baty: So our come to Jesus moment between my wife and I happened in 2015 in Fort Levvenworth, Kansas. So I joined the army in 2003, did three years in the 82nd Airborne as an infantry officer, then went special forces selection, and then I was in third special forces group from 2008 to 2013, as a team leader and, progress in the ranks. When I went to Fort Levvenworth for my major's course, intermediate level education, that was supposed to be the finally we can hang out as a family, take the vacations, do all the things in the back of your mind you said you were going to get to when things slowed down. And it was perfect, right? You're living on base. You have this great neighborhood. Everyone there is in the same boat. So, kids go to school at the same time. The dads and moms go to work at the same time, come back, and it's a really big reunion slashparty. It was supposed to be the best one to two years of your life. And I couldn't have felt more detached, distant, from my wife, from my peers. And I had no idea what was going on, truly, I felt it was just like, " man, I just miss being with the guys or I'm on a training post and I'm so used to doing operational stuff that it's too slow for me." and you start sorting through these excuses or reasons in your mind of why you could be feeling this way. And I went quiet. I tried to deal with it myself. I started drinking a lot more, right? Because sleep started being an issue. What was supposed to be in my mind the best two years with my family turned into the most stressful period between my wife and myself. Which in the moment you're mad about, Because you feel like you're wasting an opportunity to connect. But it was that reality check of we've been rolling really hard for the last x amount of years and so many things have changed and we got to address it. But at the time there also wasn't really good resources to reach out, So when I got back from a particularly difficult deployment in 2011, I remember going to WAC Military Hospital on Fort Bragg and just, in your cryptic way because you don't want to say things out loud, but you're like I just don't feel I get hit by an IED in 2010. I can tell you things haven't been feeling right since then. So you're good to this one thing. And in the test they give you I almost felt embarrassed to have even said anything, because you draw a couple shapes on a piece of paper, ask you a couple questions, ask you to remember three things and then after a 15minute, Q\&A, they're like, "Hey, we don't find any indicators of TBI or any brain stuff." and for me, that was about as far as I was willing to go outside of my comfort zone. And I just said internally this isn't an external thing. You just couldn't handle it or whatever happened was just maybe a little too tough for you, A lot of negative selft talk. But I started to believe that.

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Aaron Baty: So, I went more internal. And it stinks to say, but the reality is if it wasn't my wife calling me on the carpet and saying, "Something's got to change or we can't continue this." As hard as that is to hear, and as much as a man you feel like a failure for your wife having to get to that point, it was the beginning of where I am now, but it was still the beginning of a very long and difficult journey to quote unquote figure out what's wrong with me.

Richard Zwicky: And those moments of reckoning are difficult and

Aaron Baty: So, agreed Yeah,

Richard Zwicky: But when somebody cares enough about you to speak up and say something speaks to how profound their love for you really is. And it tells you there's so much inside of you that they can see that you're missing yourself. And that's incredibly powerful and must have been as hard as it was to hear, it must have also underlying that must have been releasing a flood of emotions as well in terms of this is what love is.

Aaron Baty: I didn't get to that part till a lot later in my journey, but it was very much that it was the first time we were true and open with each other when I'm sitting on my bed and you said, I'm just crying, the only time I had cried in God knows how long. But it was just no matter what I do, I don't feel close to you and the kids. I've been dreaming about these moments for so many years, and all these things I want to do, I don't even know how to do it. And you just feel lost, And for me when my wife was there for me but firm I took it more negative right what you did you kind of let her down why' you put her in this situation and just negative selft talk but now being on this other end and looking back not just my wife but all the people that were there during my healing journey or process that at certain points would step in and now you see them guiding you on the path that you needed to be but it was the acceptance that kind of love is out there for you. I didn't let myself accept that until I finished my ambio journey, but you're right, it is there. You just got to be able to see it and accept it for what it is.

Richard Zwicky: And that's a critical piece is accept it because a lot of times people receive that and they flee. At that point you'd gone to the counselors you tried various things or thereafter and they pinpointed okay this that event and it wasn't touching you right it wasn't the underlying problem it's like looking at the symptoms and not the disease what made you turn to Ibeain and how did you get to that It's right.

Aaron Baty: All right. So, after that 2015 conversation, I said, "Hey, I'm on board." I do want to get better. Like I'm not saying I don't. However, I still have a career. We're getting ready to deploy this summer and I got to get ready for that. And I know my assignment is going to have me at third group again for at least another three years. So I promise I will go through therapy. I'll reach out to folks, but I'm focusing still on the job. And it wasn't until 2018 where we were able to move from Fort Bragg down to Tampa. Which was a deliberate move, If I stayed in Bragg, I would have stayed operational and I never would have truly looked for help. For me, I kind of felt like I was running away Escaping because I felt like I was abandoning my teammates, right? I wasn't feeling. Anyways, get here in 2018, didn't last three or four months in the job before I ended up going to Nikico at Walter Reed. I was just really in all the way up to suicide suicidal ideiations having the plan just ready to move forward with it. And it was that one month at Nikico where I got the education that really set me on this journey for healing of you're not weak. You're not unable to process stuff. Let me tell you what TBI are and what it does to the body. Let me tell you what PTSD and does what it does to the body. So instead of hey you're overreacting and you should stop doing that. Why am I so anxious and angry behind the wheel or in the grocery store or name your setting. And when I was able to hear a mental health professional or a doctor, give this back to me where I was hiding ing this in my head, but all of a sudden they were hitting points where I was having friction. I was like, okay, there is something to this. So, Nikico was a good way of, hey, I need to get out of the active duty side or the operational side. They put me in a non-deployable billet, kept me at SOCOM for a couple years to help me start taking care of myself. Did another impatient treatment. Been in counseling and therapy, for the last eight or so years. Eventually I had a gallonsized ziplo full of medications for sleep anxiety, mood regulation, like you name it. I was on pills. When I retired from the army, I was 255 pounds because I was drinking and I was on so many pills to help me regulate. I was just maintaining, right?

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Aaron Baty: And it wasn't until a teammate of mine from third group that I just really looked up to and respected and he reached out to me one day out of the blue and was like, I just got back from, Mexico where I did this thing called Ibane and I thought of you as soon as I got out of it. And you're like, Again, don't know how to take that, right? A buddies calling you saying "Man, I know you're messed up, but I got this thing that might help, but it was so much love was behind it because it was coming from that person, I immediately let the guard down and I'm like, "Okay, tell me more." and then a couple other friends had gone through the ambio journey and had reached out to me as well. So, I said, "I don't know what this thing is, but the guys are coming back and saying it's helping them with a lot of the things that I'm dealing with right now. I'd love to give it a shot. But even that wasn't an easy sell. Once I heard about Ambio and I did the initial screenings and then I approached my wife and I was like, there's this opportunity for me to go to Mexico. I've got it scheduled for this summer. I wanted to do it as soon as I retire. And she wasn't supportive at all. And she's a nurse practitioner in mental health now and she was a labor and delivery nurse at the time. But even back then and in the way that I was, it was still like, you're just going to go to Mexico to do some drugs, what's this thing all about? And I actually delayed it for about another year and a half. And I was actually in a worse way. I had lost my job the summer before. I had a road rage incident that got me involved with the local authorities, last October. And I was still trying to maintain so much, but I was still falling apart, right? And how I got to Ambio was actually through that, really kind of just hitting I don't know where else to go. Like I thought Nikico had me feeling better. I thought when I did the VA impatient, I was feeling better. And for those moments, but nothing was sustainable. Nothing had truly been addressed. I just been given. Different tools to speak in a certain way about how I'm feeling, but nothing was really scratching the edge or actually having a true impact on that healing process. So it was through that back and forth that got me to Ambio in February of this year.

Richard Zwicky: We've had a couple of individuals veteran associations on before who have gone through the Ibame treatment and Whiz Buckley did a show actually I think August last summer also on it and how he came out of Popcon Flight School and he had incredible challenges as well and how it transformed his life. It's not an isolated story. Why is it not advocated for sooner? It's proven it's working.

Aaron Baty: That's a great question. Because when I walked out of it, it was the immediate thing is like, everybody needs I gain, my god, this is so fantastic. The pessimistic side of me says it's because private industry hasn't figured out a way to monetize it yet. And

Richard Zwicky: It's always a factor.

Aaron Baty: You know what I mean and make a bunch of money off of it, which I've got my own feelings about that. I don't know why people aren't so comfortable with it. I think a lot of it has to do with the stigma of when you say psychedelic, people immediately think Woodstock or late 60s, early 70s kids just getting wasted in the tent and, recreational in nature. It doesn't have the respect yet that I think it's going to get for a natural plant herbal medicine that interacts with the body in a unique way that doesn't fix but it really gets into those crooks and nooks and crannies where you're hiding stuff and it brings it to light.

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Aaron Baty: So, I think it's going to have to have more people that have gone through it that then are able to articulate what happened and then show the benefits over time at ease some of the reservations that people have because, right now big pharma's got a good lock on it, With all of the pills that people are on, they're not doing much. They're masking the problem.

Richard Zwicky: No, they're monetizing bandates. And it is ironic, you touched upon it earlier, indirectly, but it is ironic that it's perfectly socially acceptable for anybody to go out and drink to excess. And people get addicted from that. But it's not socially acceptable for somebody to turn to a psychedelic to relieve the pain and allow them not to do any of those things after. Yeah.

Aaron Baty: Correct. It's counterintuitive that drinking is baked into the culture. Any culture that you're especially in the States or the military, you surround yourself. Whenever you get together with folks, alcohol is always there And that was the only tool that I knew that if you told people how much I drank, they'd go, "Wow, it's a lot." But they wouldn't really think twice about it. But if I was like, "I'm going to Mexico to do a psychedelic," they'd be like, " my god." Okay. It's a different understanding of it.

Richard Zwicky: It's judgmental and there's a lack of curiosity which is a lack of critical thinking in general which is a shame. So when you'd heard about it from your friend and your wife was hard against it at first when everything aligned and you were ready to go and able to go to Mexico. Were you hopeful, frightened, skeptical? What was your mindset going down there? It was like, I just need to try something different something that's going to work,

Aaron Baty: I was in the mindset of if this doesn't work, I don't know what else I'm going to do Because you're doing all the things people are telling you to do and you're truly giving it your all and you're still not getting the effects that you're looking for. It can be soul crushing over time. It just makes you numb. So, was I excited that I might be as happy as some of my friends were that got back? I haven't felt that way in decades, So, do I dare to let myself be hopeful? No. Absolutely So, I put in these guard rails. If it doesn't matter if it works or not, I'm still trying. But, yeah, secretly, man, I was so hopeful something was going to give, right? So, I took the integration or the pre premeating seriously. I did the homework before. I was very open with my wife and Lindsay who was my coach about what it is that I was trying to do. But even while I was in Mexico and, when we were having our one-on- ones before the fire ceremony, I was talking a lot, because there was this anxiety inside of me of man, could this be the night that you start to feel better or is this just going to be another one of those sorry this isn't for you? And you don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill, but to see that there's hope out there and to maybe hope that it's for you is liberating and terrifying because I had allowed myself to feel hopeful that I was going to get fixed, before and I'm still in the same fight afterwards. So, How do I do it? What am I going to be like when I get back? All these I don't knows that the medicine quickly addressed and put an answer to once I finally got to meet Yeah.

Richard Zwicky: You just touched upon the one thing which often gets overlooked is it's a ceremony. And it has its roots in the ceremonial practice in Africa whereas people are becoming more and more familiar with ketamine but there isn't a ceremony attached to that today when they get treatment. How important was the ceremony part

Aaron Baty: I would probably say just as important as the actual medication itself. What one thing that I took out of this experience, because when I showed up on Monday, the first thing they do is bring you to a sweat lodge and you're in there with a shaman and a handful of your teammates that you hadn't even met yet. You guys just got to Mexico, dropped your bags, and they brought you over there. But to be locked in a sweat lodge with fellow warriors that you didn't know, to start doing chanting and breath work, and it brings you back to old cultures, old warrior type things, and it pulls you out of the now and brings you into this lineage of people that have been there before. And there's something strangely soothing about that, right? So to keep something like that, the ceremony is a must. It's a 100% not just the ceremony but the individual needs to be prepared and ready and open for the journey. So I came out going everybody needs it as the cloud is faded away and reality's crept back in. Not everybody needs it. There are people that it will help everybody, but it will only help people that are ready to accept it or in a headsp space that needs it and has truly gotten to the point where they're ready to surrender to whatever this medication is. And the ceremonial practice and

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Aaron Baty: Being around folks doing that brings you into this community. So, you're not on a solo journey, right? I was solo coming in but the practice itself was with your group even if you were next to each other and on your own journey. It was all about the community and it was all about the ceremony and the rituals and the respect to mother earth for providing this thing to you. That is kind of how the healing begins in my mind right like you do all of that before the medicine even hits your lips. They talking to the medicine communicating with it days before you take the medication and that I think is setting the conditions for a successful journey. So I am a huge advocate and fan of the ceremonial and ritualistic practices that go with it. I think wherever this goes, it needs to stay with that level of respect for what it is that medicine is and how we came to get it how previous cultures and civilizations have honored it, and how that tradition is now being handed down to us. Got to be 100% respectful for that opportunity.

Richard Zwicky: It's interesting that you mentioned it was a group of other people with a military background who went through it which already says there was a common community in background and of course being a ceremonial practice from areas which would have been in villages and Small. Communities across Africa. Those roots were sealed that way. They were built that way. And the whole practice was thought through. So bringing together individuals of a common background allows you to recognize also I guess others are struggling with the same things. You don't have to know the details. You just know they are. And that helps, Anytime we're trying to overcome a challenge, recognizing and understanding that others do as well is part of the healing. So you came out of the treatment. I don't know did you go through one course or multiple, and how quickly did things with your family change, right?

Aaron Baty: For me instantly right when I got home life was amazing, I was just so thankful to be back. That I would reach out from time to time and ask the kids or my wife how am I doing? Have you noticed anything different? And I think a lot of them they were kind of just waiting to see if this sticks, is this just because I'm under the medicine or is there some real change in it? But I have to say that for me, right, I can't say from them, but from my lens, what I wish that I was able to do more with my children, I have done that since I've been back from Mexico. Even to just articulate how I've been feeling, let them know where I was. Truth be told, these are things that I've done that I wish I didn't that I'm ashamed of and these are things that I'm super proud of you guys for doing. I don't know what they took from their childhood, especially because I was where I was. But I'm like, Right now is It's an opportunity, right? So why don't I just tell them how I feel? Why don't I just say I love you and I see you and just have a different type of conversation than I would have had before. And I know with one of my kids, we've connected on such a deeper level since I've been back. It's been very nice. My older son, he lives nearby, but he's coming to the house more with his girlfriend for dinners and we're talking about different things and it has opened up a new way of communicating with my family that before the medicine I was like did I burn all the bridges before? Is it too late? Because of course now I'm coming out of this but all my kids are leaving the house in the next year. So I'm like is that too late? But again, that's old thinking. The medicine kind of gives you that everything is what it's meant to be in the time it's supposed to So, take a deep breath. You weren't perfect. Acknowledge it. But understand that everything that happened brought you to this point. And that is The good, bad, and the ugly brought you to this point. So now you have the ability to make that positive change if you want. And it's up to you. And the medicine has helped me take it was a big ego death, but it was a lot of seeing myself and accepting myself and coming out of it truly loving myself and saying, you're not a bad person after all. Just taking that burden off of myself has allowed me to be freer and more open with my family. I've gotten my wife coord connected with the vets organization and when she feels called to it, she's already got a spot for her. So, at some point she's going to take her journey as well. But yeah, I very thankful for the opportunity I've had to kind of reconnect with my family just in the last few months. To the point that you brought back with the redeployment or reintegration. I was having a conversation with one of my daughters and I had asked her that question, so have I been since I've been back?

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Aaron Baty: And the way she told the story was very much kind of like I left on a work trip and came back, but I was a little bit happier. And her response was so foreign to me because that wasn't how I felt the old me went to Mexico, but the old me came back, right? The military, I'm not feeling good guy who just couldn't be happy, couldn't enjoy it, was always hypervigilant and ready to throw down at a moment's notice. The guy that came back was the one that could make jokes and giggle and laugh and be silly when they were little kids, before life got intense. And I really felt like I left that old guy in Mexico and the original version of me before he got all scrambled, came home. So, she saw it in a linear way. And for me, I saw it as two separate distinct things. And I can truly say right now I feel like I finally come back from deployment. I see the world in a different way and I'm just happy to be home. That means a lot of work, but I'm finally back.

Richard Zwicky: And circling back to an earlier comment you referencing home which is a change where you were, right?

Aaron Baty: You're right. Yep. You're absolutely right because before it was duty station or whatever, but now, we've been here a while. The kids have graduated high school from here, but yeah, I have a home now and I am at peace with that and to the point now where I can now start unpacking certain things that have bothered me in the past. And just, bringing it to light and then the power of saying something out loud that's been bothering you for years and then just watching it kind of go away because the power in that was holding it inside, the negative power. And when you bring it out to light, it's therapeutic.

Richard Zwicky: It is. And that's something for anybody who's dealing with a challenge is actually when you can say it out loud even to yourself honestly and openly you start shedding the burden. But I think that point is sometimes one of the hardest steps to go through. Right.

Aaron Baty: It's very hard. And for me, always you're going through the motions, you're going to your appointments, you're doing the homework, you're trying to use the stuck point, just the stuff they teach you, but I didn't know to what end. How do I know when I feel better? Because I couldn't describe what feeling better felt like. I didn't know what that was. Being under the ibeane and doing the 5meo, I saw what happiness was. I felt It stayed with me for a good time. And even though that medicine's worn off, I know what that achievable goal is So now when I have to get back to work I know why I'm doing it and what right feels like and how I know I'm on the right path. That was a huge change, too. Yeah.

Richard Zwicky: And we are running out of time but one last question because you use the term reintegration a few times. Why is it more important than recovery?

Aaron Baty: Because you're not broken, right? It's just things were so off frequency or however you want to label it. You just weren't your original self. And now that I am and the nervous system reset was amazing, to know how to be settled into peace. Now it's really being able to identify what are old habits and old feelings that are creeping their way back into your thought process and what are new habits that you're trying to cement and concrete in a healthier practice. And that is iterative in nature and you have your highs and lows and without I would say reintegration is the most important part of this entire journey, right? Because you feel amazing when you're under the medicine and when it's still in you, but when it's gone and you don't have anything to move forward in a healthier manner, you're going to reserve your body's just going to go back to what it knows, The body keeps the score. So it is just a reintegration process of understanding who I am where I fit into this thing and truly what actually now do I want out of life and how do I go about get that instead of where do I need to go to just fit the mold and grind now I can look at myself and say what's going to make me happy and

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Aaron Baty: How do I get there and not think it's a selfish thing to do that but just truthful how can I capture this bliss and move forward with it? And that's a reintegration challenge for sure.

Richard Zwicky: And you said it in a different way which I'll just circle back to. You reintegrated with the child you were originally right? And that's your true self.

Aaron Baty: We do.

Richard Zwicky: And that's a powerful person to rebecome. Most of us lose that.

Aaron Baty: And I think that a lot of our struggles are trying to reconnect with that old version of oursel before the world came to us and made us change or made us put up guards to get through life. It's that who was when I was a kid and I was just loving and I had interest in doing these things because, I don't remember much of my childhood and I don't remember much of my military service and I always thought that was more of a brain injury thing. Think it was an anxiety thing. I'm living through life in such an anxious manner that I'm moving from one task to the next. I'm never stopping to process it. Now that I've been able to sit back and reflect a little bit, a lot more of life has come back to me. And it's mostly good, right? We focus on the negative because that's the thing that gets us into our defense mode. But there is so much good stuff out there and so many positive things that the body's now like, "Yeah, we can go back and appreciate that and reook at it." So, it's been a pleasure. No. Yeah.

Richard Zwicky: Aaron thanks so much for joining us on High on Healthy today. It's been a greatation.

Aaron Baty: Thank you so much.

Richard Zwicky: And thanks to everybody for listening. I'm Richard Zwicky with High on Healthy and we'll be back again with you soon.