These Four Former Pro Athletes Are Using Psychedelics To Heal Their Brain Injuries – Forbes

Retired MMA fighters Ian McCall and Dean Lister (from left to right, top right corner) attended a ... [+] plant medicine ceremony where they drank tea containing up to five grams of magic mushrooms, in this still image from a recent segment of HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

A segment on a recent episode of HBOs Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel begins with former NHL player Daniel Carcillo describing his plan to kill himself. Hes one of four athletes in the episode who after retiring from full-contact sports had been both physically and mentally traumatized by the long-term effects of repeated concussions, and has now found relief with psychedelics.

Carcillo, former NFL player Kerry Rhodes, and former UFC fighters Ian McCall and Dean Lister are part of a growing movement of people using plant medicines like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms to help heal post-traumatic stress disorder and the symptoms of brain trauma.

On the outside, it seemed like Carcillo, a two-time Stanley Cup winner had it all: a wife and children, a comfortable home, and a successful career in the worlds premiere professional hockey league. But truthfully, Carcillowhose on-ice reputation earned him the nickname car bombtold correspondent David Scott hed never felt more dead inside.

Pierre-Edouard Bellemare of the Philadelphia Flyers fights with Daniel Carcillo of the Chicago ... [+] Blackhawks on March 25, 2015 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Carcillo earned the nickname "car bomb" for his tendency to get in fights.

Depression is just one of multiple symptoms associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a condition of the brain that is associated with repeated blows to the head. Other symptoms include memory loss, confusion, personality changes, and erratic behavior. A definitive diagnosis can only be made in an autopsy, but a 2017 study showed CTE was found in 99 percent of former NFL players and 91 percent of college football players studied.

Diagnosed with seven concussions throughout his 12-year professional hockey career Carcillo says he likely experienced hundreds more, and went down multiple avenues trying to improve his mental health. After trying psychotherapy and different SSRIs, he opted for something outside Western medicines realm of treatment: ayahuasca, a South American brew revered by Indigenous cultures as a powerful medicine and containing the psychedelic compound N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT.

Im just trying to look for more peace of mind, less suffering, he says to the cameras from the Peruvian jungle before attending the ceremony. Four hours later, he emerges feeling changed, and calls it the most amazing experience of his life.

Months later when HBOs production team visits Carcillo, he says hes experiencing little to no depression and anxiety, while symptoms including slurred speech, headaches, head pressure, memory issues, concentration, and insomniaare all completely gone.

I didnt see him smile for years, says his wife, Ela. With her husband still symptom-free after five months, she asks Scott, how can you not believe this stuff works?

While the results of Carcillos experience are truly astonishing, Scott says its the way these experiences pair up with existing clinical research that truly makes the story.

Bilal Powell of the New York Jets is tackled by Kerry Rhodes of the Arizona Cardinals on December 2, ... [+] 2012. Rhodes, now retired, experienced many concussions throughout his career and went to Costa Rica to drink ayahuasca to help overcome the symptoms of brain trauma.

Athletes started emerging as potential patients who could benefit from these therapies, he says by phone from the Bronx. Their experience lines up with emerging science. For treatment-resistance depression and PTSD, these drugs can provide relief for a lot of people. Maybe not for everyone, and maybe its not going to fix everything, but better is better, and these guys hadnt found better in anything else.

Whats more, Scott suggests that had the federal government not shut down psychedelic research, which was in full swing before the war on drugs began, generations of people suffering from depression, addiction, and trauma could have been helped.

The segment directed by Jordan Kronick also features psychedelic researcher Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris of the Imperial College London. He says a single dose of psilocybin has been shown to produce enduring results in patients suffering from a multitude of conditions that run the gamut, from depression and anxiety to obsessive compulsive disorder and more.

When former NFL player Rhodes is featured, he gets emotional when recalling his first ayahuasca ceremony in Costa Rica. Like Carcillo, Rhodes says the experience changed him, eliminating his headaches and pain, bringing back his memory, and even removing his fear around CTE, leading to huge improvements in quality of life.

I hear stories like that a lot, but Im not surprised because thats how these drugs have been used for thousands of years, says Rick Doblin, the founder of the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS. Doblin describes what happened in America after the U.S. government shut down psychedelic research as an incredible exercise in cultural amnesia, and advocates for increased study of psychedelics through his organization.

McCall fought in the UFC and other professional MMA leagues for 15 years before finally tapping out. Injury after injury had left him snorting opiate painkillers including fentanyl on a regular basis, turning him into a self-described monster. Experimenting with psychedelics, he says, helped cure him of his addiction and suicidal thoughts.

Yushin Okami (white shorts) on the offensive against Dean Lister (grey/blue shorts) during UFC 92 at ... [+] MGM Grand Garden Arena on December 27, 2008. Lister, revered among grapplers as the godfather of modern leg locks, was defeated in what ended up being his last fight in the UFC.

Today, he is committed to helping improve the mental health of other former fighters by showing them how life-altering regular group experiences with psychedelic medicines can be.

Fighters are good people, McCall says, but theyre tormented. The Real Sports segment takes viewers inside a private ceremony in which a group of fighters including grappler and former UFC star Lister are guided through a psilocybin trip by a shaman.

Like any longtime mixed martial artist, Lister has experienced his fair share of head trauma, and describes the symptoms associated with repeated concussions like being stuck in a prison cell in your own mind. Before taking five grams of mushrooms (with McCall seated to his right), Lister was struggling with alcoholism, drinking up to 20 beers a day and taking Xanax every night.

During the deep journey (the only kind afforded to anyone who consumes five grams, or a heros dose, at one time) Lester experiences the kind of near-death hallucination only psychedelic travellers will be familiar with, and says to himself, If I wake up, Im going to do things different. Since the experience, hes steered clear of all drugs and alcohol.

Its so common with psychedelics, that sense of something really serious happening, maybe even death, says Carhart-Harris. The way it turns around, where people realize, oh, Im not actually dyingthats where the shift happens. Its like survivor euphoria: oh, I do have that second chance.

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These Four Former Pro Athletes Are Using Psychedelics To Heal Their Brain Injuries - Forbes