I Didn’t Think I Deserved to Feel Better | Bailey Jo Still

Bailey, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to have you here. You know, I- Met you by the telephone about two years ago when you were inquiring about some medicine work for your husband and some of his friends. And when I was talking to you, I mean, I thought, "Man, this, this girl, she's in this. She, she knows what this is about." But, you know, unfortunately, you couldn't really join them because you're on some contraindicating medications and things like that. And, uh, you know, as I've gotten to know you, I've just realized that you have quite a story of your own. So these things pretty much start the same way, is, uh, I wanna get into your story, right? And, you know, I wanna know the events in your life that took place that eventually led you to this medicine path, you know, and how it was to get here, and we can start back as far as you want.

So I was thinking about that question 'cause I've listened to the other podcasts and get an idea of things, and what I initially thought brought me to the medicine was back pain, and that was it. And then as the medicine path has gone along and as I've grown in this, I realized it started so much sooner. Um, so we'll go back to, to childhood, right? Um, I, uh, I grew up in a household that I didn't learn to l- process emotions. It was pretty abusive. Um, to the outside world, everything was perfect and great, and on the inside it was turmoil and chaos. And, you know, I thought everybody's parents beat 'em, and you just knew not to tell. And so I learned how to internalize a lot of things and to take care of everybody else around me without learning how to take care of myself. Um, I was in survival mode, uh, always. And about 14- Is that about as early as you

can remember, uh, it being an abusive home? So my parents got divorced when I was four. They each got remarried when I was five. I don't remember too much from, uh, like five to seven as far as abuse. I remember chaos. I remember anger. Um, but as I got older, there was just like... I, it's weird wording it because I never wanna talk badly, especially in, in, in this space, right, about people who were trying their best and just didn't know how to do it. But- No, of course but at the end of the day, like I had a mom who had me on diets, the earliest I remember is second grade, who wanted me to be her best friend up until her real friends came around, and then I was a burden. And so there wasn't consistency, right? And I was told I was fat. I was told I was ugly. I was told I was unlovable Um, and that was my reality. That's

what I thought. And so I, I thrived in school. I did great. I loved going to school and having an escape. I was always reading, um, putting myself into stories and figuring out how to f- navigate emotions that way. I remember watching movies and thinking, "Okay, if something like that happened in my life, I could react like this because that person, that's a normal reaction." Like, I just could not put words to emotions because I was sad. I was in chaos, but I was told that that was love. I was told that that's how it was. I was told they were the only ones who cared for me, and so that was my reality. Um, when I was 14 or 15 is when I became pretty suicidal. I started cutting myself. Um, I, at the time, had the mindset of, "You think you can hurt me so bad and cause me pain? I can do it better." Um, and it was the release of endorphins

and emotions, and that's how I coped. Um- Do, do you feel like it was depression, anger- All of it and all of it? Now I realize there's a lot of anger 'cause I'm in a place in life where I'm processing a lot of anger that I had not allowed myself to. Mm-hmm. Um, but it was grief. It was wanting something different. It was knowing in my heart and in my, in my gut that, that this wasn't right. Um, I was always an, an intuitive kid. I always felt things a little bit stronger than everybody else, probably from navigating everyone else's emotions. Um, so it was this weird back and forth and this pull of everything in my head feels crazy. Um- Was there any safe space, a grandmother, a sister, a teacher? Um, a bathroom. Hmm. Uh, I didn't, didn't realize tears were gonna come. So I-

I would lock myself in the bathroom since I was a kid. Um, they thought I had stomach problems when I was... I mean, I must've been younger than sixth grade because that was when we moved to a different house. Just wanna do the timeline right of wherehou- what house we were at. And, uh, I, like, went to the doctor because they thought I had major stomach issues, but it was because it was the one place in my home where I could go in, and I could lock the door, and I could sit on the ground, and I could be alone, and I could be safe. Um, and that was- How often would that occur? Pretty often. Um, during the day, during the night, like when... It, it just was where I would go to. Uh- Mm-hmm and we- And were you growing up around stepdads or- So yeah. So I had a, I had a stepmom. So my dad and my mom, like I said,

got divorced. They both remarried, so I had a stepdad and my mom that I lived with. Um, my dad had remarried and when I was seven, uh, they had my brother. Um, and when I was nine, they had my sister with dad's stepmom. Um, but when I was seven, I lied about my stepmom. Um, I said that, uh, I had told her that sh- I had asked her if I could get a scooter, and she had said no, and she overheard me lie. Um, and she didn't want me coming around anymore. And so, uh, I went from every other weekend with my dad to once a week on Wednesdays I would see him for a few hours, and he would like, we'd go to the golf range and I'd go golf with him or we'd grab something to eat. Um, but I didn't know him. Uh, and during that time, part of, you know, with the abuse and chaos is my mom would tell me

that my dad didn't love me, uh, that he wanted nothing to do with me. And as I got older, that the only reason he'd want me around is to be a babysitter, uh, that he had a new family and I was no parts of it, and they played a lot of that back and forth. Um, so like, that safe space, right? I didn't, I didn't know my dad. I wasn't going to be honest with him. He had asked me a few times growing up if my mom had hit me because come to find out she had fucking hit him. Um, and I would say, "No. Uh, it's absolutely not. Nope. Nope. Nothing's going on." Uh, because you knew not to tell, because I didn't trust him. I didn't know him. Um, I had teachers that kind of figured out what was going on, like my early morning AP European history teacher, 'cause I would come in and my m- after my mom had been backhanded

me in the parking lot, and I'd come in, my face would be all red and tears coming down my face and, and he had a lot of love and extra time for me, but nobody Nobody ever did anything. I remember I called CPS one time and, uh, they said unless I could prove that it was my mom that had left the marks, like, parents can discipline the way that they need to discipline. Um, so when, uh, when I was 15, uh, again, I'm, I'm cutting myself and I'm feeling, again, not so I don't even know m- if it was suicidal so much as I just didn't wanna be there anymore. I didn't wanna be in that life that I was. I didn't know how to escape. I'm a kid. You can't get away. Um, so when I was 15, uh, some events happened where my mom got pretty drunk, um, went to drive us home and I told her that she was putting our life

in danger if she was driving all over the road and she started to beat me pretty good. Um, and, uh, she finally like just, just beaten the shit out of me. And, uh, she finally pulled over and I thought that she was pulling over to Let me drive and like for it to stop. And, um, instead she like made me give her my phone, and she fucking grabbed my head and slammed my head into the center console in the window, um, and proceeded to tell me that how awful I was and how fucking terrible I was, and that, um, nobody was ever gonna see me again. That she was gonna keep me hidden in my room and away from everyone and make sure that my life was miserable until I turned 18, uh, and that that was gonna be my life. And she started the pickup up again and kept driving. And I remember sitting there just listening to her go on and on about

how my life was gonna be, and I thought, "You know what? Even if my dad doesn't love me, it's gotta be better than this. Even if I have to go be a babysitter, even if like, whatever it is, like I can't do this anymore." Um, and then we got to the house, and I went into the house before her. And uh, my stepdad was asleep, and his phone was plugged in. Um, and I grabbed his phone and shoved it in my pants to hide it. And then my mom came in, and she made me hug her and tell her how much I love her, and that she's the only one that cares for me, and the only one who'd ever be there for me, and tell her how fucking great she was.

And then I went to bed, and she started a fight with my stepdad, and they started screaming and yelling. And while they did that, I texted my dad from my stepdad's phone, and I gave him a rundown, just a basic of what had happened. And it was like 1:30 in the morning and, um, because of God, universe, whatever you wanna call it, uh, my dad happened to wake up and read the text message. And, uh, he came and I packed up my school bag. I didn't even pack any clothes because only thing I cared about was school and doing well. Um, and I ran down and hid in the field 'cause we lived out in the country, and I lived in a... hid in the field, and my dad came and picked me up. And, uh, from there, I had to, uh, file for a restraining order. I had to go to court-ordered therapy. Um- And you're 15? I'm 15. And it wasn't so... It,

like f- it wasn't the abuse, it wasn't being hit. It was finding out that that wasn't everybody else's reality, finding out that if I had spoken up years before that, that maybe my life could've been different. Finding out that so much of what had been told to me was a lie, that it sent me into a tailspin. Um, I went from that AP student, straight A's, to I was sitting in class and I was so dissociated that I don't remember anything for that two weeks. Um, I ended up having to go to summer school. Um, and uh, when I went into all the court-ordered therapy and different things, they put me on antidepressants And they put me on a high dose of Wellbutrin. And I remember at one point going to pick up my prescription from Walgreens and the prescription-- or the pharmacist like looked at it and was like, "This can't be right. Like that's, that's a lot." And she's talking me-- she made

a phone call, and she's like, "Oh, okay. That's, that's right." And I felt in that moment like, oh, there's something fundamentally so wrong with me. Um And so that was a lot longer than I expected to go into all of that. But I was in this court-ordered therapy, and I was a mentally ill, messed up, whatever you wanna call it, 15-year-old who had just had shit happen to her. And I had a dad that didn't know me very well, a stepmom who didn't sign up for that, and I was 15, and my brother and sister were nine and seven years younger than me, and they didn't know what to do with me, and I didn't know what to do with me. Um, so it was just antidepressants and figure it out. And- And are they helping? No. Um, I was still cutting myself. I was still... I have found journal entries from then, the amount of depression and sadness, and I- it's not even depression,

just I felt worthless. Like, I, I felt like I had a mom who didn't love me. I had a stepdad who didn't love me. I had a dad who didn't love me. Like, I didn't think anybody loved me. Everybody just had to deal with me. Um, and nobody wanted to, and nobody knew how to. Isn't that funny how they just hand a 15-year-old kid a bottle of pills and say These will... You're depressed, these will make you not depressed. Yeah. Instead of just asking- Yeah "What's going on, kid? How's your home life?" Yeah. You know, maybe, maybe what, like, what's causing the depression? And it was just pills. And I mean, therapy in the midst of it, but it, it didn't work, right? And so by the time I turned 16, that house in itself was already in turmoil. Like, at... Now, my dad and then stepmom, they've been divorced for a really long time, and they should've been divorced then sort of thing. Um,

so it was just not, not a conducive environment for healing. And, uh, at 16, again, like, long story short, um, in the midst of all of this stuff, uh, and just dealing with things, and my, my stepmom and my dad were going through their own issues. And one weekend they... My stepmom took my sister to a softball tournament, my dad took my brother to a baseball tournament, um, and I had the weekend to myself, and I went to a different town where my best friend was. And I got drunk, and I cried all night long about my life and, like, how I didn't wanna be alive, and what was I gonna do. It was the first time I ever got drunk because I just didn't know how to handle emotions. And, uh, I came back at the end of that weekend and said... One of my stepmom's friends had seen me out, and so I got caught, and she told me I needed to find

a new place to live. And I said, "Okay. Um, clearly I'm not wanted here. Everything that I fuck- I've ever thought and felt is in this moment. I messed up and you immediately tell me to find a new place to live. Okay." Um, so I did. And they called me in as a runaway a few times and all these things, but I eventually, I was like, "I, I can't do this. Like, we... I can't live here anymore. This is not working." Um, so I was couch surfing and living at friends' houses, and still finishing my junior year because, again, school is important to me, and I'm listed as a runaway and, like, don't have a place to live. And I'm still, like, trying to get through school and just trying to figure out life. And at some point in the midst of all of that, when you're out on your own at 16, you can't get a place to live. Uh, so I started to

hang out with people who were older than me, um, people who were in their early 20s, people who were using drugs, uh, people who, who had had a lot of the same upbringing as me and had never gotten out. And they gave me a place to stay, and, uh, I started trying drugs. And I wasn't into it. I was like, "That's, this is dumb. Like, I, um, I'd rather go to school. I'd rather do my stuff." What kind of drugs did you start trying? Uh, well, the first thing I ever did was acid, which I loved. Um but as far as, like, hard drugs, it was doing heroin. Um, and we'd called it brown. Nobody called or called it H. Mm-hmm. Nobody used the word heroin. I think the first time that I smoked it, uh, they called it brown sugar, and I didn't ask exactly what- Were you about 16 now? 16 going on 17. Mm-hmm. I may have been 17 when I first

tried heroin. I think I was 17 when I first tried heroin. Um, barely 17. And I wouldn't-- I wasn't into it. I didn't like it. I was like, "This is dumb." And then somewhere in the midst of there, I got taken off my aunt and my dad's insurance, um, because I was out on my own. And my stepmom, without me knowing it, had gone and, and taken me off of his insurance. So I went to go pick up my prescription for that Wellbutrin that was so high that the pharmacist said I need to make a phone call, and I couldn't get it. And I started going through withdrawals and brain zaps, and I remember being in my psychology class in my senior year, and my professors or a teacher, all of a sudden it's like he's getting bigger, and the room around him is spinning, and my brain is just going. And, uh, I went back to my friends that had drugs, and smoking two

hits of heroin made all of that go away. Mm-hmm. And I remember saying, "I'm just going to do this until I can figure out my pills." Because at the, at that time, I didn't know she had taken me off of the insurance. I didn't know what was going on. I just knew I didn't have insurance anymore, had to go through all these things, um, to like figure out what was happening. So I was like, "Okay, until I can get my pills figured out, I'm just going to smoke a couple hits of this. It numbs everything out. I can go to school. I can handle my brain. This is what I'm going to do." And because, again, I mean, ego, whatever it is, I, I was a AP student. I was straight As. I was very smart. I never had to study too hard to pass the tests. Um, so I thought drug addiction couldn't touch me. I thought that I could do this until I

could figure something else out, and I wouldn't become addicted. Mm-hmm. And I used about every day for a year, and then somebody's plug in town got raided, and nobody in town had drugs. And all of a sudden, I started to feel like I had the flu. And then I realized everybody around me had the flu, and then it got so much worse, and I realized that I was addicted to heroin and those were heroin withdrawals. And that was about a year into using heroin, and it took about four more years of using heroin, selling, doing the street life, all of that before- Was it, was there ever any thought that, "Okay, I'm 17, I'm already smoking brown, going through heroin withdrawals," like- Whether this... H-how, how did we get here? Or, or was there even a, it's like, "Man, this, this can't be the way. We need to jump. Jump ship." There was a lot... Well, honestly, in the midst of it, because like I

said, I did a lot of acid, there was times when I did acid that I knew that I was fucking up. Um, in the midst of, of the heroin addiction, no. Like, if you're going through withdrawals, the only thing I'm thinking about is how I can no longer go through these withdrawals. Mm-hmm. Um, it was, "Oh, I can just do this and it'll make you feel better." Like, it... "You just smoke two hits and you're fine." Like, obviously that's sound logic. It works. That's what you continue to do, and then your tolerance goes up and whatever. But up until about four years into my addiction, um, I think that last year of being addicted to heroin, um, I was looking up rehabs and talking to a couple people that I knew that had gotten clean. Um, but there was a part of me, and this is, is a weird one, but it is so real. I was scared to try to get clean and find

out I couldn't. Um, I would rather just continue to use and never try to get clean, and have the idea that one day it could be different, than to try and fail and for that to be my life forever. That's where my head was. You know, I've, I've worked with a lot of people, you know, former addictions. And, you know, they're kinda... Seems like you, you get so far into it and then there's a crux in the road We either see the ending of this and we're gonna jump ship and try to get clean, or burn the boats and let's just go full steam ahead. So I, so I tried to get clean, couldn't stay clean, um, relapsed and then got clean before I stayed clean. That was a lot of word clean in there. But, uh, I had gotten to a point... Again, I'd been looking up rehabs. I was living with a boyfriend who was pretty abusive. We'd gotten together 'cause he sold

drugs for one person, I sold drugs for a different person. Obviously, we were soulmates, so we could sell more- You're selling heroin? S- I'm selling heroin, he's selling heroin for somebody else together. We get together and start selling more heroin, start selling crack, start selling meth to fund our addictions. And it's a- Now are you... What, what all are you using at this point? I'm using heroin at this point. I didn't like anything else. Towards the end of my addiction, um, when I was just deep in it and then couldn't wake up, I started smoking meth. But I am a problem, and even, like so much so that even the other drug addicts- I have a distinct memory after we'd smoked meth for a few days and done some runs, and my buddy Willie, who's also like clean and living a fantastic life now, he- we're in the middle of smoking meth and he looked at me and he went, "I think you should stick

with heroin." And I was like, "Oh, okay. I might be a, I might be a problem. Just stick with heroin." Right? Drug addict logic. Uh, but so like the, the crack and the meth selling were money makers. The heroin was fun. So, so take us through that life a little bit. I had no business being in it, right? Because now we're, you know, it's Grew up in an abusive home. It's such a, it's, it's such a trajectory for the type of childhood that you had for so many people. You grow up in this abusive home. You know, there's neglect. You end up on your own way too young. You know, you're battling what were once prescribed medications that you got taken off of, probably not really even knowing what a withdrawal really was up until that point. No. And then having to get into other drugs to replace that, you know, and life is starting to spiral pretty quick. Like, and now, and now, just

a few years later, we're, we're selling hard drugs. Not like we're selling dime bags- Yeah of weed. Never- I've never once sold weed in my life. Yeah. We, we- Yeah skipped ahead and went straight- Straight to- to the big ones straight to the big ones. I- So what, what... 'Cause now you're starting to meet some interesting people. Yeah. I, uh, you know, it's interesting because, so as I sit here, I have a little over 10 years away from heroin addiction, away from that life. Um, you know, we call- whether you wanna call it sobriety, clean time. Uh, and as I go along, that perspective has shifted so much the more I learn about myself, the more I look back. In the midst of it, I loved it, uh, at first. What did you love about it? Because I felt like I belonged. Because I, at the beginning... So how I started selling drugs, right, was because I was a 17-year-old girl, 17-year-old white girl, um,

in a, in a place that was predominantly Hispanic gangs that sold the drugs, so I could get away with a lot more. I had my driver's license. I didn't have a record. I was- Used your white privilege to your advantage. My white privilege. I, I used my white privilege. I used being a woman to my advantage 'cause we got other places to hide things. Like, I just... I was useful, and people saw that, and I felt like I belonged. I was trustworthy. They could, they could leave their two pounds of meth in my car and I wouldn't touch it, and that gave me value. And I wanted to be loved, and I felt like I had this place where I had this purpose and people wanted me around, and the community of drug addicts, like, it was part of what I really enjoyed. But You start selling drugs, right? So how it starts is, "Okay, well, I've got, I've got a little extra money. I'm,

I'm gonna buy a s- a larger amount, and then I'll sell to a couple people, and then we'll kick it down." And, um, and then you do really well for this drug dealer, and they introduce you to their plug, and then you start selling larger amounts for that person. And as it goes up the line of introducing to people, you get closer and closer to the devil, I, I guess is the best way to say it for me, is whether it's the cartels or, um... Like we've-- we were kind of chatting a little bit last night. Like I realized that I was selling drugs for the cartels that I saw on TV and saw on the news chopping up people and making women and children disappear. Um, didn't realize that in the moment. And- Wa- wa- was, was there ever a moment where you were sitting with yourself and just didn't like that, or was there ever a chill that went up your spine that,

that, that just The understanding of where you were Yeah. I, uh, there was one time I was sitting in a home of this woman that I sold crack for, and she was, uh, married or married to a key holder of one of the big gangs. A key holder is, like, the leader of one of the gangs, and he was in feds, so, like, the federal prison, so, like, big dog stuff. And, uh, she was basically the crack plug for the whole area. And, uh, she had rival gangs that would come and buy from her. And there was a couple guys sitting in the living room and a couple guys in the back, and a guy that I knew came in with a sawed-off shotgun and put it to all of our faces, um, and then went back into the room, um, to handle business, and you hear people yelling and screaming. Um, I don't think anybody got shot that night. Uh, I don't think so.

But it was in that moment that I look around and I realize everybody there is tweaked on meth, like, and meth is... As heroin addicts, we like, we like to nod out, we like to sleep, we like to feel good and chill. Tweakers are scary. Tweakers are scary. Um, and, you know, tweakers, like, with a little bit of crack and, and heroin when they're just using everything, like, they're scary. Uh, as Greg said, shifty. Shifty, right? They're shifty. They just... They're up for 17 days and nothing makes... You know, they're, for days people have... Their brains don't work. That's, you know, I've been around tweakers, and they, they just make me so uncomfortable because, it's just because when you look into their eyes, you can tell there's something, uh, it's not them behind. Something else is driving that machine. It's a demonic drug. Yeah. And, you know, like, we know people that have talked to their demons, right? On meth that have... They, they talk

to things that aren't there but that are there. Um, there's just a whole other energy of it, and they're not living in reality, or at least this reality at all. A lot of bent blinds in their windows. Mm-hmm. And there, and there was one guy who I used to sell drugs for, uh, that was fucking wanted everywhere, right? Just a hardcore felon and violence and kidnapping and burglary and robbery and assault and all of the things, and he was always so high that he thought that people were always out to get him. There was always something going on. And if you got people in a room that always think something is going on, things are always going on. Mm-hmm. Um, and it's scary. And I think it was more in that moment when I started looking around and was like... Honestly, this sounds shitty, but I looked around and I was like, "I am, I'm surrounded by losers." And then I went, "Oh, fuck. I'm

a loser." Mm. Because I was just in the midst of it. And as I, as I went, right, that's when I started, like, looking up rehabs, reaching out to people that had tried to get clean because all of a sudden it wasn't fun. And- Because I, 'cause I meant, like, I... You said the fur- the deeper you get into it, the closer you get to the devil. You know, and you're, you're like, you're in the- I, I assume you're finding your way into trap houses- Mm-hmm and like- That's all it becomes. So you're, you're probably s- starting to see some pretty dark things. Yeah. T- t- take us through an evening in a trap house for, for, for listeners that don't really understand what that is. I mean, you know, most people's exposure to this world It's through HBO Max. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Through, through TV shows. So, but, like, take us into it. Everyone's different, right? I won't pretend like I

was the hardest of the hard, 'cause I definitely wasn't. Um, I grew up in small town Washington State, and when you look around, like, these gangbangers are next to farms and cows. Um, but the cartel shit and the, the drug running. So there's... When you're talking about trap houses, the first one that comes to mind to give the details of was a guy who I think had a wife and four or five girlfriends who all knew about each other, um, because he was a dope dealer. Uh, and they were escorts, sex workers. Um, and he would, like, for better use of the word, pimp them out to whoever, so they would go out and make money and bring it back to him. So you walk into this house. It's a, it's in a trailer park in middle of nowhere, and it's sketchy. You pull up and there's like a couple different cars that run and don't run. Uh, some, probably some weird dog. Actually, probably

a couple weird dogs that aren't being fed well. Um, and this guy, you'd walk into this single wide trailer, and then he had his room in the back where you were invited into. Um, and you did not go back into that room unless you were invited. And the rest of the home, um, was whoever, like, 'cause he was in a gang, um, a couple of his, like, gang members. And they are... got foils in the corner and people loading over in here in this corner, somebody passing a pipe smoking meth. Um, there's usually people nodded out. Um, when you add the tweakers in, there's somebody spiraling, flailing through. Like, when I say flailing, I don't know how to explain it through a podcast, but arms everywhere, limbs everywhere, going through a pile of electronics to find that one charger or to splice it, just not making any sense. Mm-hmm. Um, and when you walk in trap house, you're going there either to get loaded or

to pick up, right? And so like- Trap house essentially being where the transactions are happening. Where transactions are held. Um, and there's, there's different ways to do it, right? Like, if you're the dealer and you go from trap house to trap house, like when I was selling, right? If I was-- I went in to sell, I'd go from one house to another, and you go in and you serve people, and they... You give your money, you serve them up whatever they bought. Sometimes you get high with them, and then you move on to the next one. Or you go to a place like what I'm talking about, where this guy is who I sold drugs for. So I'd go in, and you go into the trap house and, like I said, explain what it looks like. And then I sit on the couch in the midst of all these gangbangers and their weird shit that they're doing, and they all have guns. Um, there's usually,

like I said, sawed-off shotguns and pistols and everything laid out, and drugs laid out and The energy of it all, um, because everybody's got their own drug and their own shit going on, it's chaotic. And you sit there and you wait, and you wait until you're called. And you might wait 15 minutes 'cause he told you to show up five minutes ago, or you might wait three hours. Um, and it doesn't matter if you're withdrawn, right? So I go into there and I am sick, sick as hell off of heroin, and there's heroin on that table right in front of me. Um, and I know two hits off of that will make it all go away, but I can't ask for it because it's dangerous and you don't know who you're fucking with, and if you ask the wrong question, somebody might snap on you. And if they snap on you, you don't know what happened. And so then you wait, and eventually him or

one of his girlfriends will call you back to the room, and you go back there and you do whatever he says. So if he says, "We're g- we're gonna smoke right now," we're gonna smoke. Whatever drug he's doing, that's what you do. Um, and then you, like, hand your money and sometimes he will get you your drugs and sometimes he'll nod out on the heroin that he just smoked before he gives you a hit to help your withdrawals- Mm and then he passes out. And then you're sick off heroin watching this guy in front of you nod off on heroin, and you just wait until he decides that you can get the drugs, and then you leave. As soon as you get, you leave and you're in your car and you are smoking as soon as you're in that car if you weren't getting loaded inside because everything and you just wanted that so bad, and you'll do it again next week. You're literally in

an urban jungle. Jungle. And then while that society drives by these houses every day- Yeah goes on about their day, go to their Starbucks, never... Has no understanding. Yeah. That, that side that is literally right next door. And as you go through, like, get deeper and deeper into addictions and whether you sell drugs or don't sell drugs, right, your perspective starts to shift. And I remember, like, now, again, or before I did drugs, you see some shitty little house on the side of the road and, like, multiple broke-down cars and weeds everywhere and I'm like, "Ugh, gross," right? "That's gross looking." When you're in addiction, you're like, "That place looks fucking dope. That, that would be a perfect place to sell rock. That'd be a perfect place to have a house at." Like, your standards go- Prime real estate prime real estate. Like, your standards go down and down. Like, before-- When I finally went to rehab, I was selling drugs out of a motel

room. I owed money to people, um, because I had not come up, and so I owed money to the wrong people that I had to pay f- for before I went to rehab. Um, but I was living in this shitty little motel and calling it my one bedroom, and really in my brain was like, "Yeah," like, "this makes sense. It's a little one-bedroom house, and this is where I live and this is my life." You know, before we get into rehab, because that's- Did, did you... You know, it's like where we're at now, you know, you and me and our understanding of the world, we, we can see a lot of good in the world. We know the trap house when we see it. Mm-hmm. You know, we know that side of society. But did your world just feel, like, did the whole world just feel dark? Like, did you just see darkness- Everywhere or could you look out a window and see the kids

playing in the park and- No, I didn't give a shit about those kids. Oh. Like j- I, I didn't care. I didn't... If I stopped caring about my friends that I had loved for years that were my childhood friends because they did not do drugs. I didn't want anything to do with my family. My brother and sister, like they are my world now. They both have lived with me. Um, I call them my babies. But at that time, like, I wanted nothing to do with them. I didn't care. Um, I stopped answering phone calls because when you're waiting for somebody to tell you they can go re-up or that you can go sell them drugs, right? You're waiting for that phone call. Well, every phone call or text that comes in that's not them pisses you off. Like, I'm waiting for my drugs or I'm waiting to sell these drugs. I don't have time for you to say, "How's your day going?" I don't have

time for you to be like, "Oh, the kids had this." I don't care. I do not care about anything other than getting loaded, and I want to have enough drugs on me to get by. And if I'm in the middle of something and I think that there's gonna be a day before I can go pick up, I'm thinking about whether or not I have enough to last, and I'm thinking about what I'm gonna use later, and I'm thinking about what I'm gonna do after that, and I'm thinking about what I have for the morning and what's gonna last me for the afternoon and when I'm gonna pick up and always, that's it. I don't... Like I said, I don't give a shit about those kids or the sunny sky or what it looks like outside. Everything is dark. Everything is drugs. Hmm. And I was so spiritually bankrupt. Um, you know, I, I talked about like being spiritually cut off, but like I, I was

not just like neutral and I was cut off. I was actively a part of chaos and negativity and like destroying f- families and lives, and I was a kid who had no idea the extent of what I was doing at all. How old are you at this point? When I went to rehab, I was 21. So how did we get to rehab? Like, what, what led to that? I had gotten so... I mean, it's a small town, right? I mean, it's not small like Crete, but 23,000 people, small town, so I grew up there, and people knew something was off with me. I mean, it, you can only go so long with doing drugs before people start talking, and I- my face was picked out, and I had a couple theft charges from Walmart, right? Because, like, just in the midst of stealing stuff and trying to make money, and dumb things that I kept trying to be like, "No, no, no, it's not that

happening." Um, and, uh, actually, my mom, uh, at that time reached out to my dad, and they hadn't been in the same room together since I was, like, four. I have no physical memories of them together in the same room. And she called him and said something was going on with me, and I walked out of my motel one day, and he was there. And I was like... He lived in a different town. He lived four hours away, and I, like, didn't know him, didn't have anything to do with him. I was like, "What the fuck is this?" And he's like, "Let's, uh, let's go for a ride." So he picked me up, um, and we went to my, my mom's office, and the three of us sat in a room together. It was so weird, um, because like I said, no physical memories whatsoever. And they're like, "We know. We know something's going on." And they're like, "We know that you're on drugs. Uh,

like, we want you to go to rehab. You either have to go to rehab or you're gonna go to jail." Um, and at that time, I told them it was pills because I was not gonna say the word heroin out loud. Um, I was like, "Yeah, you know, I've been doing pills and I've been trying to kick it myself, and okay, I'll go to rehab." Um, and so- Did they believe you? No, I don't think so. No. I, I, um, as soon as I got to rehab and stuff, I told them heroin, like got honest after I had like a week or so of a little bit of clean brain. Um, but uh, you know, I told them it was pills, and that night my dad put me back on his insurance. Um, and the next day, I flew out to California, and I went to rehab in California. And I thought, uh, I thought rehab was gonna teach me how to do drugs and

drink on the weekend like a normal person. Like, I thought normal people were, uh, doing heroin on the weekends and figured out how to not do it during the weekdays. Is that... Like that was... Yeah, 21. Like I, I had no concept of like I can never drink again. What do you mean? Um, so I, uh, I tried that. I, I lived... I moved to the East Coast. I lived in Philadelphia for about a year overall, um, and I was drinking at that time. We were in the sober living house like drinking, pretending that we were not drinking. Uh, and I went back for the summer. My dad asked, uh, hap- now that I'm clean and sober, "Would you like to come visit?" And I had never been to his house, like his newer house. W- uh, af-after I moved out at 16, I wasn't allowed to see my brother and sister. Um, and then I started doing drugs, so there was no real relationship

there. And so he asked if I wanted to come see his house, which was a couple hours from my hometown. So I flew back for the summer, and I was there for about a month, and then I relapsed. I went back to my hometown and, uh, the day I went back to my hometown, I relapsed. Um, and within about a month and a half of using, it had taken me almost just as back... I had, I had gotten almost just as bad as it had taken the five years to get to. Like my- Did, did you just go straight to heroin or did you go out drinking and then- Well, I had been drinking in the East Coast it... But I don't enjoy drinking- No um, because it's not, it's not heroin. Uh, and that was it, right? Like, and now, like I go, you know, in a 12-step program. I don't drink now because it's, it's stupid to me. And but I have, I

come from alcoholic family, and that's actually part of my, my story is my family is a bunch of alcoholics. So I said, "I don't wanna drink 'cause I don't wanna become an alcoholic. I'll just do drugs 'cause I'm too smart to become a drug addict." So that was, you know, the mindset of it all. But yeah, no slippery slope. Like drinking is, is dumb and it leads to every dumb... It ge- drinking is a gateway drug. Um, but I fully relapsed on heroin. Uh, after a month and a half, I, I told my dad. I said, "Dad, I've been fucking up." And he said, "Yeah, I know." I said, "That's so weird. I thought I'd been so sneaky." Mm. And so I, I kicked it cold turkey. I guess not quite. I got a couple Suboxone that, uh, I'd been sporadically lasted. I cut it up into pieces and used weed. Box methadone? Uh, no. Or is that like methadone? It's like a- No, methadone

is more long-term for people. Suboxone, then they have Subutex can be used for a couple of days. Okay. Uh, so like when you go to rehab, they'll give you Subutex, and it- Gotcha can taper down. Some people, uh, the actual Suboxone prescription that, that you get from the doctor is for a, for a very long time. Right. Um, but street kids just go get a Suboxone prescription and then sell their Suboxone. Gotcha. And so I just got a couple of those. I don't remember how many I used, but I used a little Suboxone, a little weed, and kicked it hard And, uh, my, my origin story that to bring it back to like the medicine back pain, right? So my, my sobriety date i- is September 1st, 2016 is when I got myself clean. About 20... Well, exactly 20 days later, so September 20th, um, I was driving my car down the mountain that my dad, dad lived on. He lived about eight miles up

the mountain. And coming around a corner, um, my car dr- drug on gravel and it flipped, so I was facing up the mountain and I went off the mountain side to side. Oh. And I was not yet wearing my seatbelt, which is crazy because I always wear my seatbelt, but it was a cold morning and I hadn't my jacket and hadn't put my seatbelt on yet. So when the car went off the side, I went all around the car. Um, and I slammed my back into the ceiling. All of my windows shattered out except for my front one, which was just hanging. Uh, my shoes flew off my feet. My stereo deck flew out of my car. Uh, it landed on the tires with my driver's door popped open and I was halfway out of it. And, uh, I was okay. I was like praying. It was a slow motion. I, I was praying the whole way down. I remember my prayers being, "Please let

me not die, and if I do, let it be quickly. I don't wanna be eaten by coyotes." But- Did you stay conscious the whole time? I stayed conscious the whole time. Um, and, uh, so I get there and I realize, okay, all right. Like I've had a car accident, but I'm okay. It, it freaking hurts, but I'm okay. And I realized I was gonna have to climb up the side of that mountain for anybody to see me. So I started climbing up the side of the, of... And I say mountain. It was on the mountain, but it's like a ridge kind of on the mountain, right? But only went down about 30 feet. Uh, but I start climbing up and I find my bro- my phone on the side and I called my dad. It's 8:00 AM in the morning and I was like, "Dad, I need you to come get me. I was in a bad car accident." And he's like, "What?" I was

like, "I need you to come get me. My car just rolled off the mountain and I, I need to go to the hospital." And so I had to climb up the rest of the way up the mountain and my dad came and got me and, uh, come to find out I had compression fracture T11 and L1. Um, so I lost about half an inch of height. Uh, and the only thing they can do for you, when that is to give you pain pills. And I was telling them, I'm like, "I just got clean." Ah. And you just got clean. Just got clean. And like, "We don't know what else." They're like, "You have to have... That you're not going to be okay without the pain pills." And my dad, he was like, "Take them before the pain hits." Like y- I was crying and he was like y- yelling at me, not yelling at me, but like, "Take them as prescribed. Take them before the

pain hits." And I was so scared. I ended up making a week and a half long prescription last for three, three weeks and then used muscle relaxers and got off of it. So you were able to get off of it? I was able to get off of it. I- Why did they give you oxys? Yeah. Just, and they would... I think it was just oxy 10s. Um- Yeah but I was just scared. So that's, so, you know, um, sobriety date September 1st, break my back September 20th, and then I have had a best friend who is my best friend of 13 years. He was my first love. Uh, I don't know if I have to say it on the podcast. First person I slept with, right? So the first love, person I thought I was gonna marry. The day after I, um, got in my car accident, he came to see me and make sure I was good, and, uh, I was supposed to see

him that weekend, and he had gone home for the weekend to get more stuff for college and see his family. And I ended up not seeing him that weekend, and he was driving home late Sunday night, um, from home to back to college, and he fell asleep at the wheel and got hit by a semi, and he died. This is right after your accident. This is right after my accident. This is five days after my accident. Oh my God. So September 26th, I woke up, um, and my dad had texted me, and I, 'cause I was at his ranch. I have no car 'cause I rolled my car off a mountain. I have a broken back, and I also have a plane booked September 28th, which is two days from now, to fly back to Philadelphia because I was only coming for the summer, and I had relapsed during the summer and got myself clean. Clearly, I was not needing to be there, so I

was going back to the East Coast. So September 26th, I woke up, and my dad had texted me. He said, "When you go out to smoke a cigarette, um, I need you to give me a call." And mind, mind you, I just got clean, right? I'm like, "What else did I do? What did I do?" Um, you know, I know I messed up, so I got caught up, and I, uh, went outside and sm- lit up my cigarette, and I called him, and my dad had to tell me that my best friend, um, was dead. Uh-

And I was alone at the top of a mountain with nobody, and there's no fucking phone service in that m- in that cabin, so I had to go outside and call him. Uh, so I am freshly clean off heroin, and I have a broken back, and my best friend and the person that I thought was going to be my forever in one way or another, I just did not see a future that he was not there because he had been my rock through all of it. When I went to rehab and was in Philadelphia, he was the person I was texting all the time. Like, I met him in sixth grade. Um-

And he was dead, and I was alone. And I had to sit in that, uh, for about 12 hours, 10 hours, um, until my dad and my brother had gotten home. And again, I didn't know them well. I, I didn't know my dad growing up. We didn't have a relationship built. And being vulnerable sucked, and it was hard, and I didn't know what to do, and so I just held it all in. And then, uh, two days later, I flew to Philadelphia. And I got to my, my sober living there, and I was there for about a week or two weeks before I said, "I'm probably just gonna kill myself." Um,

that had- You told s- you told them that? Yeah. Um, 'cause I had always been an easy out because I had always felt like I didn't really wanna be here anyway. And then here I am trying to get my shit together, and my best friend's dead, and I don't, I don't know what to do. And I didn't know how to cry in front of people. I didn't know how to be vulnerable. I didn't know how to say those things. And, uh, I knew I needed to be closer to family, but nobody wanted me to live with them. Nobody wanted me there. I was a heroin addict.

And, uh, so I called my family and I said, "I need to be closer. Like, this is-- Like, I'm, I'm going to die if I, if I stay here." Uh, so I flew back and, and again, they didn't know what to do with me. They're like, "What? Well, you can't be here. Like, you have to figure it out," um, because I'd burnt every bridge. And, uh, so I called, uh, an Oxford House, which is sober living in this place called Tri-Cities, and, uh, which became my home, uh, because I knew one guy. I knew one guy a year before that who had gotten clean because he moved to Tri-Cities, and it was the one piece of little hope that I had, that this guy had gotten out of the game. He was a drug dealer like me. I used to sell drugs for him, and he had gotten clean. And so in my head, that was the one thing that I had that I knew

could be a place. And so I, I moved there, and I had my rent paid for a month, a pack of cigarettes, a bus pass, and a couple pairs of clothes. And I knew nobody. I didn't know anybody there, and I had no idea how to live. And, uh, I have about two months sober at this point after all the shuffling. So it's November of 2016. I moved there November 1st, 2016. And, uh, I remember sitting... I was in the fricking basement room of this sober living, and I'm in excruciating pain because that, the-- Like breaking my back, like I have had chronic pain for ever since then until I met Combo. Um, and I'm in pain and my heart hurts, and the person that I usually talk to i-is not a-available to ever talk to again in that way. Uh, and I called my dad And I just kind of told him how I felt, and I got kind of honest and real for

the first time. And, uh, my dad told me some scripture, and at the time, um, it was not what I wanted to hear. But his, his favorite scripture is, "Rejoice always, pray continuously, give thanks in all things." And I said, "You want me to be grateful? You want me to be grateful in all things? You want... Thanks God I wasn't a junkie. Thanks God my best friend's dead. Thanks God my back's broken and I don't know how to live without pain." And those were the prayers that I said. And in the midst of that, and with all the cynicism and all of that, I started saying those prayers and something started to change. And my, uh, my perspective started to change, and I started to get grateful. And I decided, something shifted, that I was gonna give this one last shot. I was going to try to be clean. I was going to try to work on myself. I was going to try to get

out all of the shit that made me want to be numb to begin with, and I was going to try to love myself To my life for the very first time ever. So I did that, and I went to 12-step programs, and I built a community. And I met a new friend who became my best friend, who became my husband. Um, and just started building my life, and things got really good. But in the midst of that, I still have pain every day. I wake up, I'm sleeping on the ground for about a week at a time because my back hurts so bad that I can't exist. Uh, and what are you doing for pain management, if anything? I'm stretching. I'm going to the gym. Uh, I did a lot of, lot, a lot of gym stuff. A chiropractor because I'm s- I'm a massage therapist, so I have massage. I have a chiropractor. Um- But you're not taking anything? I'm not taking anything, and

every time I go to the doctor, they tell me I can. They tell me that they can give me opiates. I had a little fender bender and just went to go get checked out, and they saw those compressed vertebrae, and they offered me opiates again, even though- Without you even asking without me even asking. Jesus. Um, and I, I go into every appointment saying, "I am in recovery." I was-- I went into every one saying, "I'm a recovering opiate addict." Like I, I, that's... If I have surgeries, I take the opiates as prescribed, but beyond that, like I don't have a need for them. I don't want them. So I am just... I'm rubbing CBD all over my back every night, right? I'm just doing whatever it takes. Um, and my life is good, right? But there is a certain point where you feel pain every day, all the time. It felt like two hot, like hot sticks, I guess. Like, like if you took

two metal sticks and stuck them into that fire and then brought them out and put one right into the middle of my lower back and right into my hip. That's what I lived with every day. And, like the pain was so bad that I broke my rib at one point, and I did not know that I had broken my rib until later on. I was telling my chiropractor, "Hey, I have had this pain for like a while, and there's this weird spot on my ribs. Can you like work on that and tell me what it is?" And he said, "Bailey, you broke your ribs, and it has re-healed, and that's the calcification of it healing incorrectly." Wow. Because my pain was so high that that's... I had had this pain in my ribs, but it wasn't worse than the other pains, so it did not register, and I didn't care about it. And so I had a broken rib that I... That now I can,

I can still feel that little, that little boy- bump because it had broken, and I just didn't know. And that's not normal or okay. But I thought it was because I-- because honestly, because I'm in a 12-step program, and I, I-- because I was a heroin addict, because I ran my life so far into the ground, I don't deserve to not feel this pain if the only option is opiates. That's not something that I can do. This is my life. And then we have some friends, like you said at the beginning of this, who had some life pains, who had some things. Um, my, my medicine story actually we talk about my husband and his friends, but it, it starts with my power lifting coach. Um, and I talk about it because I know that he gave me permission to talk about things. But one of, one of my favorite people and, uh, just like a lot of us, he dealt with a lot of

shit, and it got to the point where the pain was a lot and, uh, with pain was too much. The pain got to the point where there was not really any other options, and he didn't wanna be alive anymore. And, uh, somebody told him about a weird frog guy in Colorado, and he came down here, and he sat with combo, sat with Bufo, and he kept track of everything that he felt, and he journaled it, and he shared it with me And I got to see the change in this man that I cared about deeply. Uh, and I'd have said, "No, those medicines aren't for me. I'm on Adderall. I'm on my antidepressants. I, uh, that's not for me." But I saw something change in him, and that's when I first learned about Kambo. And I started looking into things, and then we go along with- Oh. And then we go along and, uh, and then my husband says it's Kambo, and he tells me

about it, and he said, "You know, I know that you can't," because Adderall, right? You have to be off Adderall and be off your SSRIs. He said, "But I started telling you, I feel amazing. I think there's something here that might help you with your pain." And I said, "You know, whatever." Because- Listen, so, um, when you, when you've lived with chronic pain and the only... You know, that's the thing about this. People hear me bag on doctors a lot, and I don't want to. I, I don't want to. But they don't... They're not like, "Hey, let's look at a yin yoga program, see what we can do for this back." Or, "Let's see if there, we can do any type of correlation between diet and inflammation to maybe..." Just something instead of just going straight to the fucking pain medication- Yeah straight to the pills. Straight to them every- You know? month. And then, and then what that tells you, because doctors, the men

in the white coat with the fucking stethoscope around their neck, these are the people we've been trained since childhood to trust. They have our best interest in mind. So when they tell us, "The only thing I can do is give you this pill that you will probably be addicted to for the rest of your life," right? When you opt out of that, you don't believe there's anything else because the people you trust have not offered anything else. It-- They say there's no solution. It is what it is. And I also, because he's my husband and my best friend, I was like, "You've never dealt with chronic pain. I'm really glad that your body feels better after Kambo, but your body has never been broken the way that mine has." Oh. And, but in the midst of it, we have had a, a very unique last couple of years. We ended up moving to a different state where I went from running my own business to

playing housewife half the time, and I got to do some, take some time for myself and do some trauma therapy and work through some things. And he said, said to me, "I think Kambo can help you." And I said, "I'm on Adderall. I'm on my meds. I can't take it." And he said, "You don't have a job. Why don't you get off the Adderall? Take a week." He's like, "If you can't do anything, you just need to lay around, your brain doesn't work, so be it." He said, "I think that there is something here, and I think you should try it." So we had-- he got ahold of you and asked if you had anybody that you recommended in Montana. Uh, and he did. Liz is, uh, an ER nurse, so that helped for me, too. I'm like, "All right, you know, might- she might know something." Uh, and so I got off my Adderall for a week, and Liz came and, and she served

me kombu for the first time. Did that make it way more comfortable knowing that she was a nurse? Oh, immensely, right? Yeah. And because I had talked to you. When I called before any of them sat, right, I called and asked you all the questions, and I was interested, and it sounded-- I liked the way that you spoke about things, and I thought it was cool. I thought it was great. I thought it was real. Not for me, right? Mm-hmm. I-- Because somewhere along the line, everybody else deserves to feel better, but, like, I'm okay in suffering. So she comes, and my... I told my best friends I'm gonna do this weird frog poison stuff, right? Tell them all about it. My best friends, we have a group chat. Um, the three of us just always talking and keeping up to date on life in there. And I told them I'm going to sit with this weird frog poison and got off my meds. She

comes, and she serves this kombu, and she did two gates on me, and I sweat profusely. Um, I purged a little bit. Uh- Were you scared? No. Uh, no, because I had the gist of what it was, and I honestly, because it's me and I'm weird, I was like, "Maybe I'm gonna shit my pants." Like, just if I do, like- Mm-hmm it's a cool story. It is what it is. Mm-hmm. Um, I wanna be the one that shits their pants, so then, like, I can just move on and never have to worry about it again. Uh, I didn't. I've yet to shit my pants. Nobody has shit their pants. Um, but so she comes, and she serves me, and, uh, afterwards I felt pretty good. Tired, right? I fucking-- I felt I was ready for a nap afterwards, but I felt pretty good. And then the next day I was messaging my best friends and, uh, and they're like, "What? What do you think? Like,

how are you feeling?" I was like, "Well, I feel really settled in my brain. I feel really settled in my body." And then I was, like, laying on my stomach on my bed just messaging them on my phone. And so I started to do a body scan And it felt like the two spots that had felt like they had a hot stick in them felt numb. And it's not that they were numb, it's not that I couldn't feel them. It's that the first time that I did a body scan and acknowledged them, there was no pain receptor firing off. And there was no pain receptor firing off in those spots for the first time any day in nine years. And I said, "Well, this is a miracle." I said... I t- I think I went back to- This is interesting. This is... I said, "This..." And I told him, I said, "Well, that's crazy and wild." Uh, and then a few days go by, and

I was, I did- What, what was their reaction to you saying that? They wanted to know more. Mm. They, they were interested. They were... They wanted to wait and, actually, they wanted to wait and see what I felt like a little bit later. Yeah. Um, so a few days go by, and I was doing some volunteer work. Every week, I would go and hang out with this old Vietnam vet, and he and I became friends and buddies, and I would take him for drives once a week 'cause he was legally blind and couldn't do it. And, uh, driving and, driving sucked, right? Because my back hurt, and I was always shifting and moving. Um, and I realized while Joe and I were out on our little drive that I wasn't moving and shifting, that my back felt good, that I felt good, that when I went to help him out of the car, my, my knees felt good. And I said, "There's something here." I

said, "I, I wanna do that again." And I can't remember, and then I say that 'cause I don't want to do it incorrectly, but I can't remember if it was after the first or the second combo session. But I had my d- regular doctor checkup, completely separate, nothing to do with combo, nothing to do with my back pain. I had my doctor for the last, at ni- nine years at that point for my antidepressants. And then she knew, 'cause I, I had told her I was gonna do this stuff. She knew about the Adderall, um, that I was getting off of it. Oh, actually, I need to point out, a week after sitting with combo, I went to take the Adderall again because I didn't plan to stay off of it, right? I was just gonna try it for this medicine. And I took it, and I almost had a panic attack. I was so jittery and out of my body and feeling weird that

I ended up laying on the ground and, like, doing some breathwork to try to chill myself out. And I said- It was a normal dose you usually take? It was a normal dose. Extended release. Mm-hmm. There's no reason for it to have affected me that way. Uh, and I s- as with how my brain was before. Um, and I said, "Well, guess we're not fucking taking these anymore." Interesting. And I threw them away. And my brain still felt fine and dandy. And so I did my regular checkup with my doctor, and in that checkup, I told her about the Adderall stuff, and I was like, "I, I'm good on that. I, like, don't need it. I'm gonna try this." And she said, "You know, we can hold off. You can always just add another prescription if you want it again." But we did my anxiety checkup and my depression checkup, where you answer the questions and your, my ADHD checkup, all of that, where you

answer the questions and it's like one to five, and, like, feel all the time or feel not at all, whatever it is. So I just do my normal. I just answer how I always do, and then she adds them up at the end. And she said "The lowest your scores have ever been. Feeling pretty good, huh?" I said, "Yeah, dude, I like, I feel great. I feel happy." She said, "How would you feel about maybe dropping down on milligrams on your antidepressant?" And- Are, are you still on Wellbutrin at this- No, this, no, I'm on Prozac. This does- Okay. So, okay, well, I guess we missed a, a part of the story of what brought me that's important here. When I got clean, stayed clean, like gave it that second shot, right? Like, "This is what I'm going to do." Um, so like fresh broken back, broken heart, all of that, I had come back and I... Nobody knew what to do with me, right?

And before I moved to Tri-Cities, I went to like a crisis counselor to try to handle all the things and talk about that, and went to a psychiatrist, and went to the mental health facility. And I said, "I'm freshly off heroin. I've got a broken back. My best friend just died. These are all the things I'm feeling. This is how I feel when this goes on. This is how I feel when that goes on." And they said, "Oh yeah, you're bipolar. Here's some antidepressants." Mm. Holy shit. So they just took that information and gave you... Did they tell you you're bipolar I or II? Bipolar I. Wow. Like, and, and for those, you know, just to

make this a little more un-understand, bipolar I and schizophrenia are often confused. Mm-hmm. Right? People know what schizophrenia is. Sometimes people don't understand bipolar. So they gave you a serious diagnosis just based on three events that you shared with them. So I'm 22 years old, I'm fresh off heroin, and now I'm bipolar forever And I believed it, right? Obviously. I, I 100% believed it. I'm 22 years old, fresh off heroin, know, know how to live. You tell me I'm bipolar, that, that makes sense. That, that makes sense for all of this. And for bipolar 1 too, because now that we got a bipolar 1 diagnosis, well, we got a medication for that. And also I have an excuse to be manic. I have, "Oh, I'm bipolar. It's this, it's that." Like I, from that day forward, I was bipolar. So before I had, had moved, uh... Before we moved to Montana and all of the things were going on, before I went to being a

housewife and trying combo, my doctor had told me, um, that I had maxed out my Prozac, uh, and the n- the next time that we needed to adjust it, not if, but the next time when we needed to adjust it, because it always goes up, you know? Every year, every two years, you go up in milligrams. There's never a, "Let's start working off of this." Not once, no. Um, she said, "The next time we have to change this, I'm gonna have to move you to a mood stabilizer." And I knew I did not want that. I fought back against that. Like something in me, I was like, "I... No." Like even if I'm unstable, I appreciate me. I don't want that. I already feel dissociated and, and not quite myself. Well, what's the difference between like an Prozac and a mood stabilizer? The Prozac is for the deep depression, um, and helps with to level out those deep depressions, whereas a mood stabilizer, I believe,

basically stabilizes everything. And in my head, if I do the Prozac, I can avoid the deep, dark lows, and I can enjoy some of the mania. And that's... I was like, "I don't, I don't want a mood stabilizer." That, for me, something about it was like this is gonna fundamentally change me- Mm-hmm even though for some reason I didn't feel that way about the antidepressants 'cause I'd been on them forever. So we go back to this, this check-in, right? And she said, "How would you feel about dropping down in milligrams?" And that was such a wild concept to me. And, and, Mac, uh, that's refreshing to hear that- Yeah somebody would actually offer that. She, uh, she is, was phenom- Even in the midst like there's all the doctor things, like I have appreciated that woman immensely. She's advocated for me in a lot of ways for women's health and different things that I needed. Um, but still a doctor and still the one that

upped all of the things. But she said, "How would you feel about dropping down on your milligrams?" And that was a concept I had never considered. Mm-hmm. That was not... And also that's not what I came to combo for. Like- 'Cause you thought you were gonna be on medication forever forever. I have told many a people I will be on medication forever. My, my stepmom, not the one I grew up with, but my dad remarried, and we love her. Um, and she had brought up a few years ago like, "You know, maybe you're not bipolar. Maybe you don't really need these meds. Maybe there's..." And I had n- I wanted nothing to do with it. I said, "You do not understand," because when they shift my medication, right? When I went from 20 milligrams to 30 milligrams, when I went up in medication on Prozac At that two-week mark, I wanted to kill myself. At that two-week mark, my best friends were dropping off care

packages on my doorstep because I wasn't getting out of bed to answer them until they were away to go grab the snacks because I could not handle life. So you want me to get off of those meds? You want me to get off of those meds? That 10 milligram up dose makes me wanna kill myself, and now you're saying I, maybe I don't need them? Like, I fucking was like, "Get fucked, dude." Like, you have no idea. No. So my doctor says that, and I said, "Okay, let's try it out." Like, that was mind-blowing. It was a mind-blowing moment. And so we dropped it down by 20 milligrams, and at that one, I had zero withdrawal. None. At that two-week mark, I was ready. I was waiting. There was nothing. So I sat with Convo again in, about a month later, and that's what I said. I don't know if that was after the first Convo session or the second. I sat a few times,

about every six weeks. And as I go along, I'm t- uh, about a month later after we drop the milligrams, right? We check in with my doctor because we're, we're messing with meds. We're checking in pretty often My check-ins are still the lowest they've ever been. Yeah. So the point I wanna make here real quick- Mm-hmm is, you know, people may hear this podcast and think, "Oh, wow, Kambo can help somebody get off their antidepressants." But we wanna be very clear here that nobody should try to even really wean off their antidepressants without a doctor's supervision. Not ever, for God's sake. Can you explain why? 'Cause I, I think that's very important for people to understand. It's... I think it's important, and that's part of why I wanted to say that I, I came to Kambo because of back pain, and it ended up being so much more. But again, there-- The way that my doctor friend de- explained it to me, the best I,

that I can explain to others, is that if you're taking these medications, right, it's going in, and it comes in and says, "I have a job to do." And so the parts of your brain that are supposed to do those jobs, they kinda go to sleep. They are no longer doing those jobs. And as you're bu- putting these medications into your system, it's building up this kind of scaffolding to kind of help your brain and build it up. And, and in the midst of that, you're supposed to be doing other things, ideally, right? 18 months to two years that you're on these meds, doing other things to build your foundation, um, to work on yourself, to figure out what routines and things you can implement. But if you're not doing those, or even if you are, right, but you're building a scaffolding, as you take away the medication, it is like taking away the scaffolding on a building that's being worked on, right? Um, there

is destruction first before it can be repaired. Um, and so as those things are coming down, your brain is going, "Oh, shit, we don't have anything to support that structure. I don't know what to do here. I don't know how to fill that." And that's when you spiral. That's when there's the ups and the downs and the all of a sudden everything is not okay and chaos in your brain, and it can kill people. Because, 'cause a lot of people, when they think of withdrawals, they, they think of, you know, they associate withdrawals with things like cocaine- Yeah heroin, meth, you know, uppers, that, that. But so, like explain what withdrawals from antidepressants feel like. So for me, the, the horrendous ones. I'm gonna-- I'll say before Kambo, 'cause let's just say how bad they were. The, the withdrawals of things, it's all of a sudden you're irritable. Nothing feels quite right It's like the energy that I have been living in has shifted a

little bit and everything's just got an edge to it. Um, I start fucking looking at all of the things in my life and going, "Is this... Do, am I even happy? Is this okay? Is this a life that I even want to live?" I will feel like there's just this darkness in my brain and I can't escape it. Um, and it's not that I want to die in that moment, but I am ready to do something to make that pain no longer be there. Mm-hmm. And it makes no sense because it's not you. It's not your bra- you cannot have a logical thought thrown into there. People can tell you this is your withdrawal. I can know that it's the withdrawal. My brain will still tell me, and w- without words, right? Like everything is just chaos. We should die. We, uh, we should die. Yeah. We should not be here. I just want to die. Nothing matters. Nothing has ever fucking mattered. You have

never actually felt happy. The happiness that you thought that you had, it was fake. You were faking it. You should die. That's withdrawal- Yeah off antidepressants. So kids, don't- Don't do this with- Don't. Uh, and why I was so scared, right? Like why for so lo- why I was so scared to ever even think about getting off antidepressants because that was the reality of it, right? We will go back to combo and doing these things and she said, "Your, your scores are lower than they've ever been still. Do you feel good s- sitting where you're at or do you wanna drop down a little more?" And I said, "Let's try dropping down a little more." So we dropped by 10 milligrams. So we first started with 20 and then we dropped by 10, and I felt a little withdrawal on that one. Um, in the midst of sat with combo, had Liz come over and served me. I think at one point we had come

to Colorado and I'd seen you guys got Serve Combo here, um, on our road trip to celebrate my nine years. And, uh, then, um, so I had a little bit of withdrawal as in... I don't even know how to explain it correctly 'cause I've, so I've explained what withdrawal from that medication was like before, but right. This one, it was like my body needed to get rid of things, but I did not feel it emotionally. I woke up one morning and I told Greg, "I think I just need to cry today." And I sat on my living room floor and just cried, but there was no emotion attached to it. I did not feel sadness. I did not feel despair or nothing is okay. I just felt in my body that like there's tears that need to come out, that my body is going through some sort of process and it just has to get out, and that's what the withdrawal was. And we go

on, and those things just keep happening. My doctor keeps saying, "Well, you're doing great. Let's keep dropping down." And then I get to, to 20 milligrams. I was sitting at 20 milligrams, and I was like, "I, I'm gonna just hold off here." Right. I- is she, is she like, "Man, this combo thing is interesting"? I think- Or is it just more of a- It's, it's more of a we're-- you're doing well. You're doing well. And because I have been s- it's me, I, I give way too many details to everything. She has been around from the beginning. Uh, so I met her when I had, like, four months sober or whatever in Tri-Cities. Uh, so she's known every, every one of my friends that have overdosed and died, and I've gone into the doctor afterwards. She knew about, like, she knows my sobriety, my struggles, all of it. And so when I said I'm gonna do this weird frog poison, like, she knew I was

doing that, um, and knows my support system and what I had done. So there wasn't too mu- and it was telehealth from Montana to Washington, so it wasn't like we're having deep conversations. Um, but just doing well and checking in, right? So I'm at 20 milligrams, and I have no, no plans to get off. We're talking about we might be moving somewhere else for my husband's next job. Uh, I'm going to combo school 'cause I just-- Oh, actually, we should back up a little bit. We should talk about what brings me to the medicine. So I'm sitting at 20 milligrams antidepressants. I have no pain. My brain feels better than it's ever felt. Um, there's something to this. I see how it's working for me to, to this combo, right? I see how it's working for me. I see how it's working for my husband. I've been telling my best friends about it. My best friend has, um, you know, we're all recovering addict. All

of my, all of my people are recovering addicts. All of my people have lived through shit, put ourselves through shit. And, uh, she has grimy gutter punk, right? Um, and all of the, the stuff that comes with it. And she has autoimmune stuff in her hands. Uh, she-- At one point in her life, she had, um, a staph infection in her blood and lived a couple months with half of her body paralyzed. And, um, she was coming up on seven years sober, and I'd seen all of these things that she had going on, and I've... I love her so much, and I said, "I think this, uh, combo might... I think it might do something, like, for your hands at least. I think that you might benefit from it." And so for her seven years sober, I had her come to Montana and for her birthday gift had paid for her to be served combo by Liz. And I watched the swelling in her hands

go down, and I watched for weeks how she was better Well, you're starting to think like, "What the fuck is this?" Yes. Well, what got me, and I've-- something that I really wanna make sure that I say on this podcast is that, you know, we waited for seven years so this, uh, this is like a, a birthday gift. This is what I get because, like, you put in all this work and, you know, you're in pain, and you have all this stuff going on, and I think that you've like, you deserve to have this, right? She sits with kombu, she sees what it does, and she looked at me and said, "Kombu shouldn't be a reward. Kombu should be accessible." Because we had built up, like so many of us in our heads, that like some level of suffering and pain is fine, we deserve this. We have to do so much good to earn to feel better. We have to exhaust every other option

before we can try something that might work for us. And it, it's okay for other people, but maybe I don't deserve it. It has to be a reward for effort put in to feel life without pain. And it changed my perspective. And I realized, um, that I wanted to share this, that I wanted to do something with this, that this is one person that I love deeply. There are so many people that I love deeply that have stories like mine, who have pain like mine, who have exhausted every option, who are playing Russian roulette because they have no desire to live, who are on the highest dose of antidepressants and have never felt happiness and think that they deserve to suffer and live like I... I don't want it to be that way. And in that moment, it changed it and I said, "I wanna go to school." And that brought me to Kambo School. And we'll go back to my story of the, the

20 milligrams of antidepressants. I, I go to Kambo School. It's a life-changing experience. When I, when I get to school here, eight out of eight of us had horrendous stories of things that they had been through. Um, like just- When we, when we go around the room that first morning, you know, at, at Kambo School, the first, first morning starts the same every school, and it's this... kinda the way the podcast does, right? It's like, I wanna know what happened in your life that ended you up here, and that was a pretty heavy morning. That was a very heavy morning. And every single person, no matter which part of life they lived, what their story was, they said, "This is the horrible thing that I went through. This is the medicine that helped it. I want to share this with others. I don't want others to suffer the way that I have suffered." I said, "I'm in the right place." So I'm in school and

it's life-changing. And, uh, again, but again, I have... I came to Kambo because of my back pain, and then I realized it could help other people. Um, and along the way, the antidepressant thing happened. Along the way, I am feeling more and more me and more intuitive and connected and a part of life, and other people are seeing it too, and they're seeing the energy change and the shift, and they're enjoying it and they're wanting to know more. Um- Are you seeing it in your relationship? Pardon? In your relationship- With my husband? Are you seeing it? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. The, uh... Because for me- Even though I, I have like, I c-came to Kombu to get rid of the back pain, and it got rid of the back pain, it's like Kombu came in and not just took the pain, but then said, "What were you carrying to begin with that caused that pain?" And as soon as that back pain's no longer there, that,

that stabbing in my f- in my body every single day, I'm able to meditate a little bit easier. I'm able to pray a little bit easier. I feel, I feel my emotions settling in. I feel my brain calm. So then when my husband annoys me, I can say- "Hey, you're annoying me," not freak out on him and not know how to handle my emotions- Mm-hmm where I let it become an argument. And in the midst of it, I'm serving him Kombu, too, and he feels good, and his body feels good, and his brain feels good, and we're able to communicate and share these things. And now, now I'm serving Kombu, and people are coming to me, and my friends, again, that have stories like mine are trusting me in this medicine because they know my story and where I came from, and they knew, and they seen the nine years of pain, and they see me not in pain. Um, and I'm sharing this medicine,

and it's beautiful. And in the midst of that, I went on a, on a trip back home, serving Kombu for about a week and a half. I took all of my meds with me. Um, I, I took them every day as usual. I got back home after being there a week and a half, and it was such an incredible week and a half, almost two weeks. And I get back to Montana, and I'm looking at my pills, like getting all my stuff out, and I realized I hadn't packed my antidepressant. I had been almost two weeks, and I had not taken a single antidepressant in two weeks, and I did not realize And I have had the best two weeks I've ever. But just like I'm gonna say, in that moment, I was like, "I need to let my doctor know immediately, uh, because this is not, this is not something I planned to do. This was unexpected. I did not want this." So I

let my doctor know. Um, and I actually, I called my doctor friend, like right away, and he said, "What, is it 20 milligrams?" He said, "You have 10 milligrams on hand, right?" I said, "I do." He said, "You've already gone through the part where you would've felt the withdrawals and the issues and the things. Like you are over that hump." He said, "Let's sprinkle a 10 milligram every three days for the next week and a half." And he said, "Monitor your symptoms. Keep, uh, in touch with me. Let me know what's going on," he said, "But then if you're ready to be done, be done." He said, "You've already been through the hard stuff. We'll do this to make sure that your brain doesn't like have any issues." And, uh, the other cool part though is the second thing I did after I realized that I had stopped taking my antidepressant is that I reached out to somebody that I had met in combo school,

Jesse, who had her amino protocols, who had met me at combo school and said, "I think I have something that you might benefit from." And I told her what happened and she said, "Let's get to work." And the next week I did a video conference call with her and did my protocol things and did my interview and, uh, she got me on an amino protocol. And- And for, and for those out there real quick that haven't, I can't... I think Jesse might be episode four. We did a podcast- Very with Jesse and highly recommend going to listen to that. It's a game changer. I, uh, I don't know nearly enough about aminos yet, uh, but I, I am so impressed with what has happened. So she gets me on her amino protocol and, uh, I sprinkled that 10 milligrams in, and 4th of July was the last day that I took- 4th of July 4th of July. I said- 2026 "Let freedom ring, baby." Um,

I was like, we're, 'cause we're stepping into freedom because, um- So, so July 4th, well then, like I said, like my, my sobriety date, September 1st, 2016. So I, for the first time in my life, when I'm celebrating 10 years free from heroin, alcohol, from addiction recovery, when I am celebrating the 10-year anniversary of my best friend passing away, doing it all as me. There's nothing in my system. There's no antidepressants, there's no heroin, there's nothing numbing me out. Um- Things that you thought you were destined to be on forever for forever. That I have, I have either had high-dose antidepressants or heroin in my system since I was 15 years old, and I'm 32. Wow. So I go into this as me, and I get to feel all of the emotions. And we have talked earlier this weekend, you know, about happiness, and I swear to you that I feel more happiness now off of those meds than I did when I was on.

I feel more level. I feel more me. Do you feel like you have more access to your heart? So much. I, I mean, and that, some of that came from combo school. My, my three by three, it was, I felt like I got ripped open in the most beautiful way and purged some sh- blackness out, and I felt like I could breathe into my heart bigger than I ever had before. So I wanna say that because that was the transformation that really happened in my heart. But it's like intuition, it's feeling others, it's giddiness, it's excitement. It's... Like, I look back, I realize I hadn't felt that, like, feeling in your stomach of excitement and happiness about, like, anything while I was on those antidepressants. And as I was dropping down and lower and lower and lower, like, I started feeling this giddiness and that happiness and the balance. And I don't act like I, like depression can't come or I don't get sad. Like,

things make me sad. Things happen. On my best friend's, like, on the date that he passed away, like, I got to take time and cry and write out stuff and feel those emotions and honor him and be in the midst of it, and it didn't take me down. I got to, for the first time, truly honor him without anything in the way. I got to feel things. I get to, I get to enjoy my husband more. Like, and whether it's not being on the antidepressants, the combination, the combo, and all the things, but I feel so happy and free and good in a way that I never thought that I would or deserve to ever. I, I... Yeah.

You know, s- stories like yours aren't supposed to have a happy ending You know, I've, I've met so many people that just the same, like the trajectory that they were on from a very young typically ends up in a very specific way. And it, and it's not a... They typically don't have happy endings, right? And, you know, that's why S- a lot of times I say we're the lucky ones because we found these medicines that a fraction of the fraction of the population we even ever hear about. Yeah. And, you know, it's not-- I'm not gonna pretend like they're a panacea for everything or a cure-all. There's a lot of people that come to these medicines, and they don't get the results that, uh, they're hoping for, but many do. And

you know, we say medicine, we're talking about plant medicines, amphibian medicines, you know? Um- But there's a way out that, that you and many other people that have sat across from this, from me at this table have demonstrated that there is a way out, you know? And, um Well done. I, uh, that's again, that, that's what I'm passionate... I, I don't have that interesting of a story in comparison to my best friends. I do not have the wild story in compa- comparison to the majority of the people that I love deeply. And when I think about that, right, and that I have the ability to share medicine with people who deserve it more than anybody I know, who deserve love and freedom from pain, whether it's physical or emotional, spiritual pain, um, more than majority, like these are the best people that you'll ever meet, give you everything off their back and have been through the worst of the worst. And I've had a lot

of friends die. By the time I turned 30 years old, I had lost over 30 people to either drug overdose or suicide And at some point, enough is enough. At some point, realize that there are failings happening, that people are falling through the cracks, that people that should be succeeding and have resources are not, that there are pains so deep that what the mainstream and the system is, is presenting is not working. And I'm tired of my friends dying on the streets, and I'm tired of my friends getting sober and k- fixing their lives and still not being okay and still dying. And I'm tired of my friends being miserable and feeling like that's okay and that they deserve it. And if I can sling a little frog poison and give a glimpse of something different, right? That has been, that has been my goal. And what has come from just wanting to offer a glimpse has been so much more. I mean, I'm new

to this. It's been five, six months. And the transformations that I have seen in these, in people that c-can trust me to share this with them, who have, who have no reason to trust anything at all or anyone trust that this may be something different and for them to get beautiful things out of it, things that they didn't expect, things that they expected and then some, um, like I, I couldn't ask for anything more. This is what feels right. The, there's gotta be something different, and I get to be a part of, of that difference. Like, no more dead friends. You know, we're gonna wrap this up soon. And usually when I end these things, you know, it's

advice that you might have for other people in similar situations. But instead, th-this time, you told me a story yesterday about a tattoo artist. Would you be open to sharing that story? Yeah. Just because at the end of it, he said he wants people to know. So here's our opportunity for people to know. So I have a buddy, um, one of the most incredible humans I've ever known for a lot of years. I've known him for probably eight or nine years, since my early sobriety. And, uh-

He has more love in him than anybody I've ever met, but he's never been able to feel it for himself. And he has spent most of his life since he was a kid not wanting to be here anymore, to not wanting to be on this planet, to just wanting to die, and actively trying to die. And, uh, and that sucks because he is incredible. And, uh, about a month ago, he was going through some... Maybe a few months ago, going through some shit, and I said, "Hey, why don't you, uh, why don't you come out and visit us? Why don't we fly you out to come visit us? We'll just take a week, and we're gonna, we'll fucking go do an escape room. We'll go do some arcade games. We'll just get... You need some time away."

And, uh, so he came out, so he came, he see us, and we are hanging out. We're spending time, and I had asked him ahead of time about combo, and he, uh, he explains himself. He says, "I'm not just a skeptic. I actively don't believe in shit." He said, "I am ant- anti-everything. You know, I don't believe in shit." And, uh, I say, "Okay, that's me. He knows me. I'm woo-woo. I can say all the things to him. We're good friends, so I'll just say my stuff and sound as crazy as I need to." And I'm like, "I think you should try this." So first day comes, and I, I serve him combo. And the first session was pretty good session. Like it just... You know, normal. We did layered. We, we started with a test point, and then I did a layered session. Um, and you know, just regular, normal, good. He felt decent. His body felt good.

Felt like maybe he needed something more. The next day, he woke up and he said, "You know, I, I don't know. I, I think maybe I should do it again." And I said, "Okay." I said, "Uh, you wanna sit?" And he said, "I don't know. I'll go back and forth." I said, "You just let me know if, uh, I'm gonna make you breakfast or I'm gonna serve you combo." And a little bit later, he said, "I, I think I wanna sit again." So I, I got him all set up, and I start the ceremony. And thing about his ceremonies is we're not, we're not doing it to medicine music. We're serving his ceremonies to the hardcore albums that he tried to take his life to, that he is no longer allowed to listen to because that's the one that he pulled the trigger to. Because this, freshman year, that's not the first time he's tried to pull the trigger and the gun squibbed, right? There's

a lot of... no, not a lot of reason for him to actually still be here. So we're serving this to this hardcore album, and the music's going. And, uh, I burned four gates, and I put all four on at once, and he says, "Ooh, hitting me a little harder this time." I said, "Yeah." So I sit back, and I'm watching him, and he's got his music playing, and, uh, he starts crying. And he starts crying more, and I can feel the energy of the room shift. Um, and I can see him riding it out, and he, he's... no, no physical purge. No, you know, no, no north purge, no south purge. He's just... and then I'm watching him ride the waves of combo, and I'm watching it rise up in him, and he's meeting it, and he's greeting it, and he is singing his songs, and he's pouring himself out.

And, uh, we get to the end, and he didn't want it to be over. I left it on for a couple extra minutes, right? It was just, we're sitting in this. I pulled the dots, docked him up, put on the dragon's blood, and we just sit. We just sit. And I will say, in the midst of that ceremony, at one point, probably about seven to nine minutes in That whole room, the energy was different. It was heavy. It felt dark. It felt like there was somebody or something else in the room with us. And, uh, I had to get Florida water. I do... I have my Reiki master. I started doing my Reiki and my prayers, and I, I have my prayers and my things that I do, and just talking to him and Combo, and I was like, "Leave it on the mat. Just leave it on the mat. Just gonna be like, 'Thank you, Combo.' Like, you're doing these things. We're just gonna

leave it." And I sprayed Florida water, and I felt, uh, full body chills. Um, and it felt like something just out the door, whatever it was. And he keeps going, and he's riding now. He's just greeting it. So then we, we get to the end, and I'm doctoring him up. And, uh, I don't remember which part, uh, he said first. Um, but it was a lot of, it was a lot. He said, "Well, I was a skeptic yesterday. Uh, I'm not a skeptic anymore." He said, "There is something bigger than me, and I feel connected to it for the first time in my life."

Said, "I desperately want to be alive, but more than that, I want to live And he said, "What the fuck do I do now that I know magic is real?" He said, "I have to tell people that this is, this is real. This, this is real." He said, "I don't know what that was. I feel different." And we kept talking and he said, "I felt like I had an exorcism." And I said, "Well, buddy, I felt something weird in the room, too." Um, and told him about it, and he's, you know, he called me just woo-woo and weird and all of that, and he said, "That was, that was fucking real." And he said, then my favorite part was he's like, "Well, now I gotta tell people about this, and I'm gonna be fucking weird about it because it just..."

I started to come up because my friend has been through pain, right? And I go into every ceremony, I try to enter it with reverence and awe and knowing there's always a potential and never the promise. I know what this medicine has done for me. I know what it has done for others. I can't guarantee what it's going to do in that combo session for somebody, right? I did not expect that That was the most beautiful ceremony that I have served until this point. And, uh, I felt, I felt changed and different afterwards because, because when I say I f- I thought I came to Kombu because of my back pain, and here I am feeling more of a full human for the first time ever because my buddy's got injuries and all these things, and his weird woo-woo friend that he happens to trust even though he doesn't believe in anything, um, said yes. And now he wants to live. And I won't say

that Kombu solves everything, but, and, and it's going to fix everything forever, but to, to provide a shift of perspective of something different than the suffering that you've been in for however long, that is magic. And then what the fuck do you do now that you know that magic is real? Mm. What do you do? I said you carry it to everybody else, my guy. Like, that's- Oh that's what we do. That's, uh, you know, something I tell people is that it's like when we're kids, we so desperately want magic to be real. And then, you know, we get to a certain age, and the world tells us that's just for kids. Then you go through enough shit and other trauma and end up enough, around en- enough weird people and- Yeah then you discover, hey, wait, wait. Actually, there is some magic. I like to say, I've always been weird, never been crazy. That's, that's what I've been finding out as we go along.

It's real. Bailey, thank you for being here. Thank you for having the courage, you know, to go through what you've been through and come out the other side and transmute that pain into something very beauti- You know, I got to, well, about two years ago I met your husband. A year ago I met you, and just seeing the massive transformation you both have been through, you know. And, uh, and your husband's story is just as wild. I wanna get him- It's something on here at some point. But, um, yeah, just for having the courage. Thank you for having me. Yeah. And letting me share. So you're working with Kombu now. Mm-hmm. Where can people find you? How can they, you know? Uh, I'm on Facebook, Bailey Jo Stow, B-A-I-L-E-Y. It's the only one on there. Um, I'm on Instagram at F-K-T-H-E-L-I-M-I-T-S. Um, but it's fuck the limits. It's been that way forever. Um, but I don't, I don't use Instagram super often, but that's Messenger

on, on Facebook or on Instagram, and my phone number's on the Kombu website. Okay. We'll put your information in the show notes. Awesome. And, uh, until next time. Until next time.