How Do Psychedelics Treat PTSD? - Dr Martin Polanco & Michael Higgs
Michael Higgs (guest), Chris Williamson (host), Dr. Martin Polanco (guest)
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Michael Higgs and Chris Williamson, How Do Psychedelics Treat PTSD? - Dr Martin Polanco & Michael Higgs explores psychedelics Help Special Forces Veterans Confront Trauma, Heal Brain Injuries Former Navy SEAL ‘Punky’ and physician Dr. Martin Polanco discuss using psychedelics—primarily ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT—to treat PTSD, traumatic brain injury (TBI), addiction, and suicidality in special operations veterans. Punky recounts decades of cumulative trauma, emotional suppression, heavy medication use, and eventual suicidal crisis that led him to Dr. Polanco’s program, The Mission Within. They explain how psychedelics, in a carefully prepared and supported setting, can surface buried trauma, reduce brain inflammation, promote neurogenesis, and catalyze deep psychological and spiritual shifts. Both emphasize that the medicines are catalysts, not cures; sustained healing depends on integration work, lifestyle changes, and community support.
Psychedelics Help Special Forces Veterans Confront Trauma, Heal Brain Injuries
Former Navy SEAL ‘Punky’ and physician Dr. Martin Polanco discuss using psychedelics—primarily ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT—to treat PTSD, traumatic brain injury (TBI), addiction, and suicidality in special operations veterans. Punky recounts decades of cumulative trauma, emotional suppression, heavy medication use, and eventual suicidal crisis that led him to Dr. Polanco’s program, The Mission Within. They explain how psychedelics, in a carefully prepared and supported setting, can surface buried trauma, reduce brain inflammation, promote neurogenesis, and catalyze deep psychological and spiritual shifts. Both emphasize that the medicines are catalysts, not cures; sustained healing depends on integration work, lifestyle changes, and community support.
Key Takeaways
Special operations culture discourages seeking help, worsening hidden injuries.
Operators avoid medical and psychological care to stay deployable and protect their reputation, leading to masked physical pain, unmanaged brain injuries, and untreated mental health issues that can culminate in breakdowns and suicidality.
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Many veterans’ core injury is mild traumatic brain injury, not just PTSD.
Repeated blast exposure, heavy weapons use, and overpressure create chronic brain inflammation and hormone dysregulation that present as anger, insomnia, depression, and anxiety—often mismanaged with alcohol and multiple psychotropic medications.
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Ibogaine enables ‘shadow work’ by revisiting life events without retraumatization.
Ibogaine affects dozens of neuroreceptors, promotes neurogenesis, and facilitates emotionally detached review of childhood and combat experiences, allowing veterans to see others’ perspectives, contextualize trauma, and move toward forgiveness and self-understanding.
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5-MeO-DMT adds powerful emotional release and mystical reconnection.
Following ibogaine, 5-MeO-DMT can trigger intense emotional catharsis, ego dissolution, and experiences of unity or “God,” while also reducing brain inflammation; together, the two medicines synergize physiological repair and profound psychological/spiritual reset.
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Preparation and integration are more important than the trip itself.
Coaching before treatment (intentions, expectations, safety) and ongoing integration afterward (therapy, coaching, sleep, diet, mindfulness, community) determine whether the benefits last; the psychedelic event is framed as ~30% of the healing, integration ~70%.
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Psychedelics can dramatically reduce medication load and restore functioning.
Punky arrived on 12 psychotropic and pain medications and now uses only blood pressure meds, with normalized sleep and improved cognition, illustrating how targeted psychedelic work can help reduce polypharmacy when carefully managed and tapered.
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Asking for help is the critical, but hardest, first step for operators.
Almost no veteran at The Mission Within self-refers; someone else usually throws them a “life ring,” so changing the narrative around help-seeking and strengthening peer networks are essential to reaching those most at risk.
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Notable Quotes
“We were all terrified. I was never terrified overseas, but what we were terrified of was ourselves—what the medicine’s going to show us.”
— Michael “Punky” Higgs
“There’s nothing in Western medicine that with one single treatment can take you and give you that perspective.”
— Dr. Martin Polanco (on ibogaine and addiction/PTSD)
“We don’t know shit about each other because everyone keeps up the veil… there’s still a degree of separation between the true you and the face that you’re putting out.”
— Michael “Punky” Higgs
“I got to basically relive my entire life over again without the emotion attached to it.”
— Michael “Punky” Higgs (on his ibogaine journey)
“The experience itself might be 30% of the healing, but the integration of the experience is 70%.”
— Dr. Martin Polanco
Questions Answered in This Episode
How could military training and culture be reshaped so that emotional openness and early help-seeking are seen as strengths rather than liabilities?
Former Navy SEAL ‘Punky’ and physician Dr. ...
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What safeguards and standards should be in place to prevent misuse or unsafe administration of powerful psychedelics like ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT?
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To what extent can psychedelic-assisted therapies replace or complement long-term psychopharmaceutical regimens for PTSD, TBI, and addiction?
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How might similar psychedelic protocols be ethically and effectively adapted for civilians dealing with childhood trauma, complex grief, or treatment-resistant depression?
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What would a fully integrated system of veteran care look like if psychedelic treatments, brain imaging, and long-term integration support were all standard components?
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Transcript Preview
Yeah, it was terrifying. Yeah, you got a bunch of frogmen going down, Navy SEALs getting in a van to go do drugs they've never even heard of before. We were all terrified. I was never terrified of overseas, right? (laughs) I was never terrified ever in my life, but what we were terrified was ourselves, what the medicine's going to show us.
Give me the story of how you guys first met.
So we met in context of, uh, treatment with psychedelics. So I was running a program, uh, for special operations guys called The Mission Within, and we had been working with veterans since 2015. And, uh, I had treated some of, um, Michael's or Punky's friends, so he was trying to refer, uh, another buddy, uh, and, uh, I don't want to get too much into the details because it concerns just medical information, but I'll let Punky really dive into how far and how deep he wants to go.
Yeah, pretty much what Martin said. It was, uh, it was two years ago. I had, um, four years out of my retirement and, uh, was in school and it was finally the, uh, the train of life finally caught up with me. And, uh, I had reached out to Martin to help another friend of mine to get into a program that I had heard about from a bunch of other friends, but didn't really know too much about. And it was a psychedelic program. Uh, and it came around at just the right time for me and just the right time for my friend as well. Uh, then I've been involved with Martin ever since.
What do you mean when you say that the train of life had come around?
Yeah, for me, um, you know, it's a 30 year- 30 years in the SEAL teams, you know, and the- and the normal, I- I say the normal life traumas that we all have that we kind of run away from, like, we're always moving target, uh, until life catches up with us. So, uh, you know, childhood traumas as a kid, um, and then life traumas as a young adult, two divorces, had a- a spouse addicted to opioids, living in that kind of tumultuous world. And a da- uh, a daughter addicted to opioids as well at the time during the- the big opioid epidemic. Uh, and at the same time, the war kicked off. So it was like fighting, I felt like I was kind of fighting on two different fronts at the same time. Uh, then a bunch of losses overseas of friends and then a bunch of moral injury, then a bunch of blast injuries to my noggin. And then masking all that with pain pills and, um, psychotropics and everything else, just trying to keep the wheels turning and keep myself moving forward. And eventually just kind of all caught up with me.
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