In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ of LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat interviews Matthew Butler.
Matthew retired US military at the rank of lieutenant colonel. 20 of 27 years in military was in the Green Berets or Special Forces with 42 months total and combat. After retiring in 2017 he battled with PTSD. He tried Alcoholics anonymous and antidepressants but nothing helped. However his first Ayahuasca experience has changed his life. Now he is an advocate for the cause.
Get in touch with Matthew via linked in
Transcript
Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.
Hi guys, and welcome to ayahuasca podcast.com Today we’re joined by our new guest, Matthew Butler. Matthew is a veteran who has worked with the Ayahuasca specifically. To get relief from his PTSD symptoms. And Matthew is now an advocate for Ayahuasca in the veteran community. Matthew, welcome to our podcast.
Matthew Butler: Thanks, Sam. Thanks for having me.
Sam Believ: Matthew so I spoke to you a little bit before we started recording. Can you tell a little bit about your story with with the US military? What what happened there and what brought you to Ayahuasca eventually?
Matthew Butler: Yeah, sure. I joined the Army way back in 91.
It was actually a couple days before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait the first time in the nineties. And I ended up retiring in 2017, so I ended up doing 27 years total. I thought it was going to just be three years, but ultimately I ended up volunteering for special Forces or the Green Berets.
So it was, I was in the Green Berets before nine 11, so about 20 years of my total, 27 years was in the Green Berets. And of that about 17 of it, before I retired, was during the war, the Global War on Terror. So I ended up with six deployments and 42 months in combat. When I retired in 2017 I describe it as like an iceberg.
On the surface everything looked good. I had a good job and a good house, and good cars and all the things that you. People tell you’re supposed to have, but under the surface, what was going on really was bad alcoholism some opioid abuse lots of run-ins with the law. I was getting in trouble getting the cops called on me a lot.
Lots of suicidal ideation and depression. So yeah, like my, full blown PTSD but I tried to hide it pretty well.
Sam Believ: So I think with veterans especially there, there is no clear route in between let’s say PTSD or depression, anxiety and ayahuasca generally, veterans seem to try and drink their problems away.
There’s not much spirituality in that community. How did you end up going on the path of plant medicine?
Matthew Butler: Yeah 18. My father had me arrested. We got into an argument and it got physical. He called the cops on me, which was, maybe one of the best things he ever did for me.
And I, I respect him for it Now. But yeah, so when I was sitting in that jail cell, you’re right, like the VA will tell you that, there’s no cure for PTSD. You just, you’re gonna have to live with, learn to live with these problems. And, the easiest way to deal with it is through the alcohol, right?
Because by drinking. I can get numb enough to finally go to sleep. So when I got arrested though, I was sitting in that jail cell and I was thinking, two big things came to me. Number one was I have a bigger problem than I am admitting to. And number two, what I’m doing is not working ’cause I’m doing all the things I’m being told to do.
I’m on antidepressants and going to therapy and meeting with groups and going to AA and doing all the things, but nothing worked. So I had to find a different route. So the first thing I did when I got out was really started to study PTSD and look for cures. And the one thing that kept coming up for me was ayahuasca.
I was talking to people about it and trying to find a way to connect with it. So I had a friend who introduced me to who was in this space and he asked me to come with him to Columbia. So I went to Columbia, my to drink Ayahuasca.
Sam Believ: When was it? Or y
Matthew Butler: actually I should say Yahoo.
Yeah.
Sam Believ: Yeah.
Matthew Butler: When was it? The the first time I ever drank was in 2021.
Sam Believ: 2021. First of all, I’m really happy you mentioning I was in Columbia, like our website actually still is ayahuasca in columbia.com because when I first. Started working with the, with Ayahuasca myself I was surprised that I was already living in Columbia, but I was thinking like, I need to go to Peru to drink Ayahuasca because it’s a proven thing, but because in Columbia it has a different name as you mentioned Yahoo or Ja.
It’s I think. I think it was basically not known by a large republic. So I do believe Columbia and Ayahuasca is as good as if, not even better than proven. And it’s cool that you ended up in Columbia and yeah. So you basically started working with medicine. You did the, how many ceremonies have you done so far?
Matthew Butler: I’m not sure. I’ve done a, I’ve done a fair bit. I’ve probably done about six.
Sam Believ: Okay. So when when did you start feeling the relief?
Matthew Butler: Oh, immediately. Yeah. I felt like immediate relief. I, I don’t, and one of the problems, one of the difficulties I have trying to explain this to other people is the fact that it sounds too good to be true and we’re conditioned.
Excuse me. We’re conditioned to believe that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. And, it sounds like everything that happened to me was miraculous, which, it really was nothing short than miraculous. But yeah, like I. It does sound impossible and it does sound too good to be true, but like overnight, like my drinking, my, my drinking problem, my, my opioid addiction, my all the things that were messing with me from A-P-T-S-D standpoint.
All of that seemed to, to go away like overnight, again. And we talked about this before the call. I think that the biggest thing that most people lemme say it this way, the big one of the mistakes I made going was the idea that, the, if I drank this tea that it would solve all my problems.
That’s not how it works. Drinking the tea shows you the solution to the problem, and then you have the work to do, which you pointed out beforehand. It’s the integration that we all do after the ceremony that counts. And but I started to feel immediate relief, but I just had a lot of work to do after that.
Sam Believ: Given that I’ve met a lot of people who’ve done many ceremonies, in the tens of them. And some of them still struggle with the problems they’re dealing with. So this is why as when we started speaking, I was immediately wondering what have you done differently?
Because obviously you did something right with the integration. To actually have a long term lasting effect. So can you share something a little bit in what it looked like for you or any specific routines or just ways of thinking?
Matthew Butler: Yeah. I’ll tell you like one of the big things that happened to me was I think I, I probably wrote down in my journal that night probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 25.
People that I needed to go and apologize to and make amends and I thought that those relationships were okay before ceremony, but in ceremony I saw that they weren’t, that I still had, some energy to clean up. And then I think that the biggest thing really is like finding a spiritual practice.
I began to study breath work and meditation and con connect to my version of the higher power. I really, truly try to understand, what that was versus just saying it in aa. There was just a lot of work and this is, as well as I do, but one of the things, one of the beautiful things about a ceremonial dose of psychedelics specifically ayahuasca, is that we end up getting neuroplasticity for 30 days following ceremony.
So all of those things that feel impossible before ceremony become achievable. After ceremony, so it’s easier to do the work.
Sam Believ: Yeah. I love what you say because believe it or not, this is exactly the same things I tell to people when we finish the retreat in our very last word circle. I talk to people and I tell them, the work begins now and you have the flexibility and if you choose good habits, as you said, spiritual practice.
They will stick. But if you go to bad habits, they will stick even so much stronger. Yeah, this is this is the good one. After you’ve done Ayahuasca, were you still going to AA meetings or you stopped?
Matthew Butler: I stopped. Yeah, I always felt like AA was just group forced abstinence that didn’t really solve the problem.
But by doing ayahuasca, I feel like it, one of the other advantages is it releases the trauma and the negative energy. To me it’s almost like an energetic reset button. And you still have the work to do, but in some respects, you’re not being troubled by. Those extreme challenges, the stream of emotions.
And so from that respect yeah, I, I stopped going to aa, I stopped going to counseling. I got off all of my antidepressants. There’s, now it’s just spiritual practice.
Sam Believ: Nice. I’ve never been to AA myself, nev, neither. I had alcohol problems, but we have a lot of people that come to our retreats.
Dealing with PTSD or also sometimes just alcoholism. And they see a lot of parallels because at our retreats we have word circles where people share after every ceremony. And a lot of people say it’s somewhat similar to AA meetings. So I guess AA would start properly working if they add some ayahuasca to it.
So maybe someday along when the legislation
Matthew Butler: moved. Truthfully, I don’t know if you know this, but the founder of aa bill w he much later in life after he started it, did his first LSD journey and he was convinced that it was the answer. So even the founder agrees that psychedelics are the way
Sam Believ: I’ve heard that I’ve heard that story.
I think in one of the books maybe How to Change Your Mind, and I saw one of the books in psychedelics. We just need one more. A in the aa. Make it aaa.
Matthew Butler: Yeah,
Sam Believ: just add ayahuasca to it. That would be a notable goal for somebody. Maybe if you’re listening to this podcast and you are working AA high ranks or legislation let’s let’s partner up.
We’ll make some big change. I also like the way you described the way the medicine worked for you. So it’s not the, that magic pill where you take it and all your problems go away magically. It is, it does show you how, what to do with your life and then you need to do the homework. The way I personally came into the medicine about four years ago when I started drinking it because of the depression, I.
I don’t think I have PTSD. I had some minor childhood trauma and just generally just not the best life conditions growing up. But what it did for me it, first it took away the pain and then showed me the direction. So I you describe it in a very similar way. Which just makes me happy.
So I’m not the only one who thinks that way. So you said you after working with medicine, getting this relief. You became an advocate for ayahuasca, and I’m assuming you, you want other veterans to work with it as well and it’s I find it challenging to, in some groups of people, at our retreat, for example, what we’re trying to do is lower the barrier of entry to ayahuasca means, lower, having reasonable prices.
Choosing the language that is understandable by most people, because I think it’s pretty conflicting for most veterans to, to go to those retreats where like everyone is wearing white and they have hats with feathers and all that kind of stuff. Certain new age spirituality. How would you go ahead and what would your language be in trying to talk to other veterans with PTSD to.
To encourage them to work with Ayahuasca.
Matthew Butler: I think that just the biggest thing that I could tell you is that unfortunately we’ve all been lied to about psychedelics. M-D-M-A-L-S-D, cannabis, peyote, ayahuasca, psilocybin. Specifically like LSD psilocybin in cannabis they have, they have such bad reputations from 50 years of propaganda.
Our federal government has, they sent in teams of police under the DARE program into every single high school for the past 50 years to try to, convince us all that these, these drugs, quote unquote drugs are harmful and dangerous and addictive. And if you do ’em one time, you’re going to wind up in an alley, with a needle in your arm.
And that just couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact the US policy for a Schedule one narcotic is it has to meet three criteria. It has to be, easily addictive. Something you could easily become addicted to, something that could be fatal if taken in the wrong amount and offer no medicinal value.
If it doesn’t meet those right criteria, it shouldn’t be on the list yet. Psilocybin, ayahuasca, LSD, are all on that list as a scheduled one, narcotic, and yet they don’t meet any of the criteria. They’re not addictive. Cannabis can be if you use it too much. But psilocybin, no Ayahuasca, no LSD. No, they’re not addictive.
There’s no, and as there’s no known recorded deaths ever from cannabis or psilocybin, even ayahuasca. There have been deaths in those ceremonies, as but that’s usually because somebody lied and didn’t tell the, the shamans and the Titus and facilitators about what medicines they were actually on.
It wasn’t the ayahuasca. It was, it was a lie in hiding other medicines that caused the death. But yeah, they, and they all offer medicinal value. They all heal, they all cure, they all bring us closer to God. So essentially, like I find the biggest resistance is in trying to explain to people that they’ve been lied to and conditioned to believe in something that is, is just not true.
Sam Believ: Yeah, this is very true. You need to, there needs to be like a, an informational campaign and to slowly change people’s minds. I would, I would hope that maybe this podcast will be heard by few people and other. Content that that is being created. And I, there does feel to be this change, gradual change now in people’s minds.
So it’s funny that you mentioned, addictive like how the class one drug should be specified and that neither Ayahuasca or some other psychedelics, they don’t really fit that criteria. And it’s what I like to explain to people is, it’s been a medicine for 5,000 years.
It’s only been called a drug for the last 50 years, and it seems pretty clear to me why. Where it comes from and how it ties into politics and stuff like that. So I can tell you my version, which I’m sure is pretty similar to your but I’d like you to try and describe why do you think government is so afraid of psychedelics?
Matthew Butler: I think I’m probably agree with you but my opinion is because once you do. The psychedelics, you begin to see the governments and other organizations for what they are, which are they’re generally after control, and so when you do psychedelics, they lose their control over you.
At least mentally. There’s still the institutions that we have to live within, but it, it causes a spiritual awakening. And a spiritual awakening is really hard for the government to get their, to get behind or to support. They don’t want you awake.
Sam Believ: They feel threatened, rightfully because when you do psychedelics, for example, when you do ayahuasca, one of the first realization that comes to mind is that we are all connected and, hurting another person is like cutting your own finger.
So this is really counterproductive when you’re trying to fight wars mostly that, that are paid for. And, that make a lot of money to a lot of. Powerful people. So of course they feel threatened and they ’cause what happened in when the LSD was outlawed is the Vietnam War was happening and people didn’t want to go fight that war anymore or work in big corporations.
And yeah, like from one point of view, it it’s all pretty clear once you start thinking about it. But also we need to somehow find a way to. To gradually change change our society because if one day nobody wants to work then we’re also in trouble. And you mentioned something about deaths that have to do with the ayahuasca.
I’ve heard about few cases and what caused them? And as, as you said, so I ask, is a very legal med sorry, very safe medicine because it’s been used for a long time. And in the jungle you have kids drink it and many generations of people drink it, but it used to be completely safe because there was no, I.
Other medications that people were taking. And as you probably know, in preparation to any retreat the they always say, the SSRI antidepressants, for example, they can be deadly. And some people, because they’re maybe so desperate or they don’t believe that the rules have have reason to exist.
So they lie about it, and yet it can cause the serotonin syndrome and and hypothetically. A heart attack and then the person can die another cause that, that, that have happened before is when you get a person that drinks alcohol and they also consume cocaine they learn that if you snore some cocaine, it makes you sober.
So when they go into those deep crevices of their subconscious on ayahuasca and they get scared. With stuff that’s, that comes up, they remember, oh, I can just do some cocaine and get out of it. And unfortunately that combination can also be deadly. Yeah. Yeah. The, and then they blame the messenger.
There was this interesting story here in Columbia half a year ago, that there was a couple that did Ayahuasca. Then a few days later they went to another city in Colombia, and then they were found dead Somehow in the news. They managed to connect the death to Ayahuasca even though it was days later and they, it was already completely out of their system.
So yeah, it’s just yeah,
Matthew Butler: unfortunate
Sam Believ: they always try to blame Glenda Ayahuasca when possible, or psychedelics in general. Yeah. What, yeah. What would your words be to, let’s say somebody who is on that side and they say no. Let’s say there’s a veteran, a friend of yours, and he’s struggling with the same issues you were struggling with, and you wanna tell them, go go to Ayahuasca, and they say, no, it’s just a drug.
What would you tell them in the quick summary?
Matthew Butler: I, I would actually send them. I usually send. People, some really good articles especially some of the stuff that came outta Johns Hopkins and some of the more prestigious that I’ve saved over the years. And say, look, read for yourself.
Actually, I’m a big fan of the, like you mentioned the book and the documentary, how to Change Your Mind. I enjoy sending them, there’s another one called Fantastic Fungi. How to Change Your Mind. There’s a number of really good documentaries out there and podcasts and if people are willing to, do a little bit of the research after I’ve told them, then they usually get at least curious, more curious at that point.
Sam Believ: So what I noticed this process to be is you plant a seed with people and get them curious. Yeah. And then after a few years later when they get in a.
Particularly difficult situation, then they might remember your words and then be like, you know what do they have to lose? Especially like if somebody with the gun in their mouth, which is very common with veterans. As you as you probably know then, like what else do you have to lose? Yeah, it sounds dangerous, going to, to a foreign country and drinking, this strong psychedelic jungle juice and but then what do you have to lose? Yeah, the, I believe the education is the key in spreading the word, and hopefully we’re doing that right now. Slowly but surely, as as people start to open their minds.
Yeah. I think that covers it pretty nicely. I wanted to talk a little bit about our, the veteran program that, that we’re planning to start here at LA Wire and basically since I mentioned the suicide problem, we do get two, three veterans every month that come through our retreats, and a lot of them get good relief and you can.
Find their, my podcast episodes with some of them as well here in this podcast. But that’s still nowhere near enough to make a dent. So there’s the statistics, the gruesome statistics is that 22 veterans kill themselves every day. And our plan is to eventually be able to organize veteran only retreats when we’ll get 22 veterans altogether.
I think it will be easier for veterans to share with other veterans. You have common language and there will be less stigma and stuff like that. Meanwhile, we’re just gonna work with what we got. But my plan is to eventually be able to do that and then maybe partner up with some organization and have them support the veterans financially too.
To be able to afford the experience. Our retreats are very affordable, but still, you need to fly it, fly over here, and to be able to do it legally here in Columbia. And hopefully meanwhile, the legislation also changes and you get more retreats opening up and less stigma on the subject.
Matthew any, anything else you wanna add before we wrap this one up?
Matthew Butler: Just thank you again express my gratitude for you and for the work you’re doing, and also to the veterans out there. You can look me up on LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever if you need if you wanna talk about it.
Like I said, I’m an advocate. I’m the representative for hippie and a veteran here in Utah which we work on trying to change these laws and yeah. If you, if it, if you hear it, if you feel it, you’ll know it when Ayahuasca’s calling to you. So follow that prompting and find your way to an Ayahuasca retreat.
Sam Believ: Yeah, guys, if you’re listening to this episode, maybe you’re already getting your calling take it seriously. I’m gonna put Matthew’s LinkedIn, link to Matthew’s LinkedIn to the show notes so you can find them and ask him for advice. And Matthew, thank you so much for coming. It’s it’s an important work you’re doing by spreading the word as well.
And someday maybe you will get you to come to, to visit us here at La Wire as well, since you’re already like and yeah. Thank you guys. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you in the next episode of ayahuasca podcast.