After the navy, I turned to alcohol and drugs; Here is what saved me

This trial also filed is based on a conversation with Shawn Ryan, a former entrepreneur Navy Seal and Cia, and the host of “Shawn Ryan Show”. It has been changed for duration and clarity. Ryan is not a health professional. Psilocybin is illegal in the Federal United States and in most states. There is no medical consensus to find out if he has advantages, including those described below, and the drug is delivered with risks.

When I left the navy, I was not ready for what came afterwards.

I was a seal for five and a half years. After that, I worked as an entrepreneur with the CIA. The tempo remained high. I did 60 days, 60 days off, sometimes 45 and 45. I still run hard, living in combat or leak mode. In the end, I crashed – hard.

I didn’t know how to slow down. I was not used to managing normal life. All I knew was the intensity. I needed this adrenaline strike every day – and when I could no longer get missions, I found other ways.

I embarked on sleeping pills. Ambien, Valium, Xanax, Lorazepam – You call it, I took it. In addition to that, I used opiates like hydrocodone and tramadol. Finally, I left the country and I started to live in Medellín, Colombia. This is where I really entered cocaine.

I would go to the worst districts that I could find to score. I didn’t want to be easier, I wanted the risk, felt something. When it has become boring, I would go to another country and start again.

At my lowest point, I was drinking two fifths of vodka per day. I woke up with hidden mini -bottles all around the house – under pillows, in drawers, in the car, in my coat pockets. After dinner, I would go to the freezer, I would remove a bottle, and that’s how I would wash my sleep medicines. Except at the end, they did not even sleep me.

In the morning, I would take a stimulant – Adderall or something else – to start the cycle again. It was my life. It lasted years.

The experience of death that changed my life

Finally, I struck a point where I knew that I could not continue. A friend told me about psychedelic therapy and I decided to try it.

The first was ibogaine. It is a 12 -hour experience. I essentially looked at my whole life taking place under a different perspective. Each memory, each trauma – everything is there.

After the effects of ibogaine opened, I made another psychedelic called 5-meo-dmt, sometimes called “molecule of God”. The trip is described as a death of the ego or a death experience.

It was the most intense and intuitive thing I have ever felt. I got out of that when I saw the world differently.

I could feel the energy flowing from the ocean, on the shore, through the trees. For the first time in my life, I realized that everything was connected. Everything is one. It struck me in a way that nothing else has ever had.

When I came back from this psychedelic experience, I no longer needed the pills. I didn’t need vodka. I left everything.

I have been sober for two and a half years. I stopped smoking cannabis. I stopped using stimulants. And for the first time in a long time, I was fully present with my family.

This experience has changed everything. It gave me a second chance.

This is why I started talking about it publicly on my podcast, the “Shawn Ryan Show”. I wanted other veterans – other guys like me – know that there is a way out.

Many of them have gone through the same thing – dependence, trauma, broken families, suicidal thoughts. When they hear that someone else has succeeded, they start to believe that they may also be.

Many of us come back broken. We get lost. We spiral. But healing is possible. Recovery is possible.

If you have a unique military story that you want to share, please send an email to the publisher, Jessica Orwig, to jorwig@businessinsider.com.

This story has been adapted from Ryan’s interview For the Business Insider series, “Authorized account.“Find out more about his life before and after the Navy Seals in the video below: