Freedom from Heroin: Healing addiction with Transformation, Psychedelic Medicine, and Family with Sean Ballew
On today's episode, Sean Ballew details his path to and through addiction to heroin and the integral role, taking personal responsibility, transformational education, and psychedelic medicine played to him finding freedom.
Referenced in the show:
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Full Transcript
Sarah Marshall, ND: A couple of quick notes about this episode. I wanted to let you guys know that we had a few audio challenges including Sean using speakerphone and some rambunctious kiddos playing in the background. John story was just too powerful to miss, so hang in there. It's worth it.
Also, the topics of this episode are adult nature and could be triggering for some listeners, please as always, be compassionate and mindful with yourself and others and how you participate.
Welcome to HEAL. On today's episode, Sean Ballew details his path to and through addiction to heroin and the integral role, taking personal responsibility, transformational education, and psychedelic medicine played to him finding freedom. I'm your host, Dr. Sarah Marshall.
All right. Let's just dive in then. Shall we? (laughs) So. You know, the way this is going to go is basically just me asking you questions and sharing about your whole story.
Like the context again, to kind of remind you is this is Heal and the project is all about capturing people's stories of their healing journey and what does it really take to heal? And you know, the kind of the nitty gritty and even the dark side that we don't often hear about or share about is like, not to scare people, but actually to let them know that it's normal and that's what it's supposed to look like.
And I actually think that there's a lot of people who are really committed to healing. They want to get to the other side of things, and literally if they start feeling bad, they think, Oh, I'm doing it wrong. And then, you know, so it's like, what does it really take to heal? That's kind of the whole conversation here and you know, the whole journey of it.
So I invite you to just share your story and whatever components you want, and we can go as far back as you want or whatever works for you.
Sean Ballew: Sure. Okay. So I guess I'll go far back. I mean, to the beginning, how I got into it. How it started?
Sarah Marshall, ND: Totally
Sean Ballew: It started because I was a rebellious kid. And about about 15, 14 or 15.
That's when everybody, you know, me and my friends were intrigued and excited about, you know, what drugs and alcohol were. The interesting thing about it is, so being raised Mormon, drinking alcohol and smoking pot where like, no-nos. You know, they were the rough, they were the, you don't do that. So what kind of got passed around and tossed around was pills. So it was really big to go to Mexico, buy a bottle of Somas, you know, for dirt cheap. And they were sold around the high school for, you know, a dollar a pill, and they were everywhere,
Sarah Marshall, ND: And you grew up in Arizona. Right? Or was that in Utah?
Sean Ballew: Yeah. I grew up in Mesa, Arizona. Yeah.
So,
Sarah Marshall, ND: 'Cause not all of us are going to drive to Mexico that easily, but when you live in Arizona, that's like a normal thing to do. (laughs)
Sean Ballew: Yes. I forget Rocky Point is, like what? A four hour drive. So, yeah. so yeah. So Somas, Adderall, you know, pills were just easy to get. They were around. Everybody, you know, I shouldn't say everybody. They just were everywhere.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: And I still remember the first time I took something and I just was like, oh my gosh, there's relief. I feel great. You know, as a kid it's like all your problems, all my problems with my parents and family and all that, it just all kind of disappeared, you know, for a moment. And I loved it. And I remember at that time I was like, I'm going to, I want to try everything. I want to try everything except for I, for sure, you know, I've heard about addiction and so I just remember making myself a little promise, that I wouldn't, I wouldn't take it beyond recreational use. Yeah. You know, whatever that meant to a 15-year-old kid.
So pills kind of paved the way for the first time I drank, I think I was almost 16. I was a sophomore in high school, and I got, I mean, probably alcohol poisoning. I didn't go to the hospital, but I drank, we got Bacardi O, orange Bacardi O. And I drank almost the whole bottle. And at that age it was awful. I was puking, I was puking in my sleep. I was with a buddy, he was just trying to keep us all from getting in trouble and so kinda hdt me in his bedroom and I totally remember what's funny is the only thing I really remember from that night, it was my mom and my sister showing up to his house, carrying me to the car, and basically like carrying me to my bed and leaving me there.
Anyways, so, so that was rough. You'd think I would've learned a lesson, but I, I definitely didn't. High school kind of... high school stayed recreational. But I, I remember the first time that I tried, Percocet actually was the next big thing. And I loved it. It was every problem, every, if Somas helped, if drinking made a difference, if anything else helped, that was like heaven to me. And so I remember that feeling, but the good thing at that time was I was broke, so I could basically fund getting high, you know, once a week or, you know, maybe every couple of times a week. Not very often. And so that went on for, you know, basically all my high school years.
Then the big event that happened, and this was kind of one of the first turning points to kind of realization, but definitely not the end. So my dad died when I was 18. He had an aneurysm. It was unexpected. Nobody knew that it was coming. He was healthy. Everything was fine. And, and one day he was gone.
Now, I didn't have a close relationship with my mom and my dad was a workaholic, so he wasn't around a lot, but he was the loving, caring, parent in my life, if that makes sense. So, the night that he died, I was supposed to have dinner with them. It was his birthday.
No, no, no. It was my birthday. I remember now. So we were going to have dinner for my birthday and instead my buddy had gotten some drugs and, you know, got super high. I basically just forgot about it. Yeah. And, you know, woke up the next day, went to work, and I still remember getting that phone call and I, I was at work.
I had this weird feeling like it felt like I knew something was wrong. Anyways, my sister told me that, you know, my dad had died. I lost it. I got super emotional and my coworkers drove me home and, that week was, I mean, crazy full of grief and everything, but I remember going, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to clean up my life.
I'm going to stop doing all this stuff, drinking and drugs and all that stuff. And, that lasted, a couple months. I knew all my friends here were party animals, you know, into drugs and the drinking and all that stuff. So I called my sister, I packed my bags and I moved to Provo, Utah. Heart of Mormonsville.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: Which is funny cause I love, I love Mormons. I love my heritage. I love, I love all that, but I also have a really hard time with church culture. And so, Yeah.
Moved in with some roommates that were way older than I was. We got along really well. Things were good, but just not my, I think I was 18 they were like 25, 26 like looking for their wives, and it's like, I want to go to dance parties.
I want to bump and grind on some ladies, you know,
So, so yeah, after the semester I moved out, I moved into an apartment that was so awesome. The funnest. So it was the second semester of school, so, and it went into summer, funnest year of my life. We threw parties, me and I had no money. Basically, my buddy Dan funded this whole, PA system. And so we put on these dance parties and, and had fun and partied.
And I still kind of did drugs, but all of my friends up there didn't really do 'em. I had a few friends that did them, but it was kind of over here and over there. So I get some stuff here and I've use it there and I, I drink with these guys and you know, and then not for a while. And I kind of lived two separate lives almost.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: Until I met with a guy, met up with a guy from high school who I actually don't think did drugs the time, like, I don't think he did drugs in high school. But he was dealing, so he was dealing Oxycontin and, you know, got in real tight with him. We became buddies. I met up with the, the dealer, that dealt, him, and there was just stuff.
There was cocaine and Oxycontin and there just was everything all the time, and it was fun, and at that age, my body could handle it. And I would do it and everything was great. but I, I, I knew I wasn't, it wasn't making me happy and I would, I could tell I was doing a little bit too frequently. He, I think, ended up going to rehab.
Things kind of broke off with that crowd and things dissipated for me a little bit. Tell the next big thing, which was, I got a call from a buddy in Arizona who said his uncle got an Oxycontin prescription and he wanted to sell the whole thing. And my genius, 18/19 year old self, was like " Sweet!"
I can buy these in Arizona for $20 a pill; they sell for $ 70 to $80 a pill in Utah, I'm going to make a fortune. little did that last, so I made, I made one run . I picked up the pills, brought them back, and I remember the third person that I sold pills too, was trying to trade me his little sister's iPod for a pill. Which I think at the time that, you know, the iPods were $300 $400 or something like that.
And I just remember like having sympathy for the guy, realizing that I was a part of the destruction of society. You know what I mean? I don't know how I could explain it exactly, but it's like I just realized the extent of choosing to buy and sell pill is entirely different than choosing to do them yourself, if that makes sense.
Right? And I remember having, a real strong thought, like, I have an opportunity to throw flush all these down the toilet, or, or sell them and my life will go down a path that I don't think I will really like. The problem is I had spent my entire savings on buying everything that I could.
And you know, I think it was like six, $7,000 so I couldn't, I couldn't muster it. And so I remember going, okay, well I guess I'll just, I'll just stay high because I feel fine. You know, I don't think about it if I'm high. And so it was literally like that day when the true like addiction, I truthfully, I feel like it's not the drugs that make the addict, it's the need to escape reality. And so I think I've had that forever, still deal with that now, on some level, but that was when I became dependent on the pills, addicted acting like an addict needing it, needing it every moment of every day. So that went on for, there's a lot of stuff happened, start using the pills, really quickly wasn't making any money at all. Using more than I could sell. And that's when a friend of mine introduced me to heroin. But Hey, you know what? And at that point, you're so far in the addiction cycle, the step in the heroin is just a logical one. You know how bad it is. You know it's gross. You've heard the stories, you know people die from it, but you're so far in the desperation and need for filling the void that's there, that you know the dependency that your body has on the opiate, the transition is, is no big deal. It's, it's easy.
And, instead of $80 a pill, it's, you know, $10 a balloon, which, you know, was probably, it was basically $80 of Oxycontin was probably like $15 of heroin. And so it went way farther. So I started down that path. and that was a couple years. And,
Sarah Marshall, ND: And you're, what age at this point?
Sean Ballew: I'm like 20, 21, 22 right in there. I'm 32 now. So the timeline's a little bit, but it was around there, let's say 21. All my friends at this point, I kind of lost all my good friends. not lost, but just, I chose drugs over them. And so they stopped calling, stopped hanging out, see 'em at parties every once in a while.
I mean, everything was fine, but just, they kinda knew they could tell. They knew I looked weird. I got skinny. And I remember talking to a buddy because I started to get sick. I was sick all the time, sick when I woke up because I was withdrawaling, I would use, and I'd have to use so much the drugs were making me sick, so I'd have this brief window right when the drugs would hit my system that I'd feel good, and then literally probably 15 minutes later, I felt sick again.
Wait it out until withdrawal. Right. And so it was just this battle of 45 minutes a day where I actually felt comfortable and my buddy was like, Hey, you know, you want to start over is use a needle, start using needle cause I was smoking. I was like oh okay. All right. That sounds great. Let's start over.
And when I say start over. Like the dependency, the tolerance, everything just resets when you start using a needle. And so I remembered going home. He gave me a needle, he gave me the stuff, he kind of showed me how to do it. I went home, I started prepping it, and I remember having this really intense, experience, where I remembered being 15 years old, almost having a conversation with myself, kind of watching myself have that conversation with myself, remembering that I promised myself that I'd never cross the line. And this was a definitive line, that again, if I chose this choice, my life would get really bad, and my life had already gotten decently bad. So I went to the toilet, I flushed the drugs, I broke the needle, and I called my sister. and so that was kind of the, the real start of waking up to, okay, something's gotta give.
My sister broke down. And mind you during this whole process, my sister lived up in Utah and anytime I was feeling lonely, I just needed to be with somebody. I could go over to her house, I'd go to her house so high walk in, say, what's up, pass out on her couch for hours.
Wake up, she'd feed me, you know, never said a thing. Never said a thing, realized it was my journey. Every bit of her was, just a huge amount of love. She just was always loving towards me. When that happened, when I, I kind of had that epiphany, I, she was just the only option to call She was like, Oh yeah, come on over, you know, and I was I've been doing drugs for years. She was like, yeah, I know. I thought she didn't. And I thought it was. She's like, no, I'm not stupid. It's okay. Which made me cry even harder. Cause "you do love me, you didn't say anything this whole time!" And so, yeah. So I, I packed up my stuff, I moved in with her. I kind of, I told my roommates, what was going on.
Like, I've got a bail, you know, I've been using drugs. They're like, Oh yeah, we know, it's all good. But you know, go, go do your thing. They found a person to replace me in my room. Like that day so, everything was all good. I moved in with her for a little bit, knew I needed a, I wanted to move back home, to get, yeah. It's funny, as I moved to Utah to get away from my drug friends and now I need to move away from Utah to get away from my drug friends that, I just attract them everywhere. So I called my sister-in-law who was married to my brother, and, talked to her about the whole thing. She was incredibly loving and supportive and you know, great about it on the phone, but you know, I told her, I was like, I'm struggling like I'm going to be rough to live with.
Are you sure that you can handle this? You know? Yeah, I can. so I moved. I moved in with them and they had had a young kid. I think the Asher, my oldest nephew was like, I don't know, a year or two old, I don't remember exactly how, but he was, he was small. Within five days, she had asked my brother to ask me to move out, I took that really hard and actually, and you know, was very offended and very, you know, how could you do this?
You know, you said that you can handle this whatever. The reality is I was a really difficult person to live with and everybody's got their own problems and you can take something on, you can. But so moved out, I moved in with my mom, which is, has always been toxic, you know, living with my mom, just my personality; I'm very strong willed, rebellious. That's how it's been, you know, my, my whole life. So that wasn't a great situation. So it was only a few days, actually. Only few days I had made it probably, how long was I off drugs? A couple of weeks. It wasn't long and it was taxing. And I remember just being depressed, but like, okay, I'm going to get through this. And it was probably around that two week mark I got invited. Okay. Let me back up. Sorry. All my friends, so I'm, that's now, I remember. So I was 21 when I moved home because all my friends were on their missions. So they were all Mormon missionaries. They were on their missions when I came home. And so all my friends were either gone or they were kind of the drug users who had gone down the same path I had. So I kind of had stuck with for myself. I came home, I talked to somebody at some random event, and they're like, Oh, we're having a poker game.
I go over there and I ended up, mind you never do I ever win poker tournaments and I'm sitting there at two in the morning with all these guys who I just met who over hours, right? Become great friends. Yeah. Joking with each other on the same level. Everything's great. and I'm head to head with one guy.
I can't, I remember. I don't think I won, I think I, no, no, no. I did win because it's like literally one of the only times I've ever won and, you know, we're cleaning up the table and one of the guys is like, Hey man, we're going to Mexico tomorrow. you want to come with us? sure. Yeah. Like, I have nothing going on.
I have no job yet. I just moved home. I'm, you know, doing whatever. And I still have a little bit of money saved up. So, the next day I packed my bags, I show back up at the house. And my future wife is the one that rolls up in the car. And is like "Who's this guy?"
So that was the start of our relationship, but, which is actually kind of key to this whole thing, to a lot of the healing. So we meet, we go to Mexico everything's great, right? We're starting to hang out every day, and I'm, I start to realize like, I really love this girl and she makes me want to, be better, not be the, you know, the, in my mind, the piece of garbage that I was.
And so it kinda gave me something bigger to go after. And I kind of off and on been AA meetings and, and NA meetings, and the LDS church has an ARP meeting and I liked 'em. I enjoyed some of them. but again I remember, one of the last ones I went to was around that time I got real offended because I was still struggling.
Like I was still, I'd make it a couple of months and I'd use, and I'd make it a couple then I'd use. And just one or two times. But you know, I'd break down and, and I'd use, and I think at the time too, I was, drinking a little bit. I can't remember, but somebody stood up and basically like called me out like.
If you're not at rock bottom, you know, you gotta hit rock bottom. And so I just, from that point forward, I was like, okay, AA is not a safe place. I don't want to go there. You know, this isn't gonna work. And the big thing in AA, cause I was debating whether or not I wanted to get on Suboxone in the big, you know, groupthink there is that, you know, any maintenance drugs is, you're not sober.
And you know, at the time, I just was wanting to do something better with my life, but still very depressed and very hard getting out of bed. It just was, it was rough. It was a rough, rough time period. And so I decided to get on Suboxone and Oh my gosh, I was able to, start to create a life for myself and you know created some distance between the crappy feelings that I felt and I'd have energy and, you know, I felt good.
So it was like, screw this, I'm going to do it.
Sarah Marshall, ND: And how did you find Suboxone? Did you know about it already or did it happen through a program?
Sean Ballew: So in the, in the drug circles, everybody kinda knows about methadone and Suboxone. it's very, it would come around as like a, Hey, we're having a hard time finding heroin, so let's at least get some maintenance drugs so we don't end up in withdrawal, type of thing.
But this was like, okay, I'm going to commit to getting on. And you know, I got on, and, and it was, it was fantastic. I mean, for years it was fantastic. The decision that had me get on Suboxone actually was going to do the Landmark Forum.
So I was still struggling every couple months. Relapsing, and I went into the Landmark Forum.
Sarah Marshall, ND: And the Landmark Forum is a personal growth and development. Like a seminar.
Sean Ballew: Yes. So, you know, kind of like Tony Robbins, not really a transformational seminar,
Sarah Marshall, ND: but transformational education. Yeah.
Sean Ballew: I had no idea what it was. I had actually started to go see this, I call him a counselor. He's not really a counselor. He's more of a personal transformation coach actually. But he previously was a, a marriage and family therapy counselor. And he does mass muscle testing and, you know, does some interesting alternative to, to typical therapy than you'd think, and I've been seeing him for a while and, we've just been working through a lot of deep, dark stuff. And I think throughout those months in being with my wife, seeing Steve, and leading up to Lamar forum, I started to realize like, Oh, all of this drug stuff has been a need to fill a void that almost felt like a hole in my chest. Didn't exactly know what it was, didn't know why it was there but, you know, I was a rebellious kid. I didn't have the best relationship with my mom. My dad died. and I, I was just harboring all this pain. Working with Steve, working with the personal coach guy, we just started to crack through a lot of that stuff and I started to see it for what it was and almost like seeing it through a third party's perspective, the way that I was acting and what I was doing when before it was just kinda like, you know, I'm on a one way freight train doing what feels good and what I want to do.
And I still remember it was, it was the last session before I registered. He basically was like. All right. You've done great work. I don't remember how he worded it, but it was kind of like, it's time to graduate, go to the Landmark Forum, and, you know, maybe I'll never see again. You've done some great work.
So, I went and I was very optimistic about it, but literally had no idea what it was. I went to a, an introduction and. In that two hours or whatever it is. it was just like, Oh, there's something awesome here. And so during the course they asked you what you want to get out of it, and for me it was like, I want to get off drugs. And everybody was very apt to, to tell me like, this is not a sobriety course. This is not for drug addicts. You know? This isn't that type of thing, but, okay. All right. Awesome. Like anything's possible for you, so, so go into it with you going to be off drugs.
Sarah Marshall, ND: So you, you did the landmark forum and then what'd you get from that?
Sean Ballew: The biggest thing was , what I should say is I really had a huge resentment for my mom, my, my whole life. Just that she wasn't the mom that I expected, that she should have been some other way, that she didn't love me enough. She didn't tell me she loved me enough on and on and on. And the big thing that I discovered was, that I was doing drugs as a big fuck you to my mom. And then the bigger thing was the realization of how big of an asshole that makes me, right? And to really grasp the depth of how many decisions, how many things I had done in spite of my mom, in spite of, you know, she was Mormon. So I'm going to do drugs to spite her. I'm going to live my, I'm going to do whatever. And I mean, I was, I was bawling my eyes out. Just that level of awareness of, of the web, of toxicness, that that was. And I remember, you know, in the course, they kind of asked you to call, you know, call somebody and, you know, get complete, like work it out to let them know what .you've discovered, and I called my mom the first time. And, you know, it was like, you know, mom had discovered this. I just, you know, wanted to say I'm sorry, and you know, she went into. Well, you were a difficult child and you know, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I didn't say this, but I basically was like, F*** you, mom, fine.
And I called her again, you know, cause it's just like, that's still burning in my, it's burning in here, you know, like I still hold so much resentment. And the second call, I walked in with the realization of like, okay, there's nothing that my mom, my mom doesn't control my life and letting her, holding resentment towards her is only hurting me. I mean, it hurts her too, but the only thing there is to do is to let that go. And so I could see that. But that call didn't go so great either. Right? I still got triggered and it was the last day and I'd actually went up to the front of the stage and kind of worked this out with the, the landmark forum leader.
And the big thing was the ultimate realization that, you take offense to everything, it's a personal choice. The resentment that you hold, it's all you. Take responsibility for your life that you're a drug addict and that you've ended up here has to do with the things that you're not dealing with.
And it just blew me out of the water. And when I called my mom that day, I just was in such a humble place. And I remember. Or the first time ever that I called my mom and I just was like, you know, mom, I just, I know, I've called you a couple of times. I just want you to know that I love you and I'm grateful for the, for the mom that you have been and the interesting thing is her reaction wasn't too much different than the other two calls, but in that moment I just realized, I love my mom for who she was. Who she is and how she is. And it didn't matter. And she's not going to be any other mom than exactly who she is. And, that was the last time I had ever done heroin, was the last time before walking into the Landmark Forum, which I think was about a month and a half before. That cleaned so much that I had been holding that I didn't even know that I was holding onto. And if someone would have asked me like, Hey, are you doing drugs because of your mom? And then the hell no.
Sarah Marshall, ND: No, of course not, it's insanity.
Sean Ballew: My mom doesn't define anything in my life.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: And yeah. It just, it's just shifted. And so I actually had spent, after that course, I just was like, I'm, I'm going to keep on going to this thing. I want to know what else they have to offer. Like, what else am I not seeing? And the big thing was just to realize that the course, they tell you this, that like you have a view and everybody has their view and it's all individual to each person.
And the course allows you to kind of step outside of your view and see it through somebody else's perspective and to actually have that happen and then have that piece of me heal that was just like, okay, all right, let's keep on going.
So yeah, spent years, working with Landmark in a whole bunch of different capacities and there was a lot of healing that came through that, until I think for me, there was a realization that I wanted something more. I don't think I was sure I knew what that was. Now I believe it's a spiritual connection. Wanted something more and there was something a little bit, I don't want to say lacking, cause it's just not what that is.
Sarah Marshall, ND: It's almost like there was somewhere else to go as well.
Sean Ballew: yeah,
Sarah Marshall, ND: yeah,
Sean Ballew: Something moving me somewhere else and now things, things are great for quite a while. I partnered up with my brother. Who was a dentist and I told him to come down to the landmark forum and he could just tell that I was on fire, he was struggling in his business. We ended up taking his practice and tripling it, and I moved to Texas and I consulted with a doctor, helped him buy a practice, essentially transition management and everything. Did that for a year, moved back home. We bought another practice, adopted, my first son out of child foster care, had twins. I mean, just, life was good. Now, was it all butterflies and rainbows? Hell no. Right? Like... deep seated pain, waves of depression, but I just didn't deal with it the same way I didn't, I didn't turn to heroin or opiates to get what I wanted.
Sarah Marshall, ND: But you were still on Suboxone this whole time, right?
Sean Ballew: Yes. Yeah.
Sarah Marshall, ND: So that was a support there for you as well.
Sean Ballew: Yeah, huge support allowed me to create a gap between all of that and, and create all this, be a husband. and mind you, you know, marriage wasn't easy. Raising kids has not been easy. All that stuff. It's been, it's been a lot. In fact, I think the next big thing that occurred was having kids.
And I was so nervous and we had them. And in my, I've been doing personal work and still working with Steve and you know, every time there's something, you know, I feel like I, that's been the big drive is I think where I've healed along all this period of time is the.... when I start to feel resentment, anger, hostility, not being well, anything like that, it's like, Oh, let's go figure out what that is, you know?
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: Who am I mad at? What am I holding on to? And I think that that's been the one defining characteristic in all the difficulty that's actually had me continue to progress is the willingness to take responsibility and continue.
Sarah Marshall, ND: And I can also hear continuing awareness.
You know, how critical that is that you're willing to look, okay, where is this coming from? What is that about? And then in the looking, there's choice and then you keep taking choices around being self responsible.
Sean Ballew: Yeah. Yeah. Not always the best choices. (Sarah laughs) But I think at least, you know, three out of five have been and that's, that's how a lot of this has been, is three steps forward, two steps back, one step forward, two steps back, you know? But it's always been, over the course of time, it's been in the right direction. The interesting thing that's always been there is all the really difficult things that have been difficult for me always sparked that need to escape reality, right?
Having kids was the next thing that did that. The hard part is I've always had this desire to, to be. I want to be a good dad. I have this like one half that wants to like be a dad and mow his lawn and you know, iron his clothes and then this other guy that just wants to go live on the beach and sell tacos in Costa Rica or something, you know?
And, and so that was hard. I think when. After we adopted Van. What's interesting is that wasn't even a difficult decision, adopting Van. That was very just like, yeah, you know, we did foster care. He's in our house. He's not going anywhere else. He's going to live here.
This is my son. but then, so we, we did in vitro. We had the twins, and that was a big, just pivotal moment where,for me it was like the Costa Rican living on the beach selling tacos Sean died, right? Like he was gone. Right. I've got three kids. I can't ever go do that.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Are those the kids stumping and stomping out there in the background? We've heard it from time to time and I was going to bring it up, but I figured they'd come into the storyline at some point.
Sean Ballew: hopefully my son or wife will stop that at some point.
Sarah Marshall, ND: So that Costa Rican fantasy or creation was dead for you.
Sean Ballew: Yeah. Whatever that single guy do, whatever he wants, type of mentality. I dunno. Freedom on some level, I think is what I felt like I lost. I started to. I think that's when the depression really started to set in, again, right, where it waived. And I, and I just, it's like I allowed it to set in like, that guy's dead, this is all I have, I go to work every day, do the same thing, and all I could do is play out this 20 years of doing the same thing every day, taking a vacation twice a year, you know, and just hating it. And I started drinking pretty heavily around that time.
I'd probably been drinking for two months, about every day. And, I remember one night, I was sitting in my chair and my family went on vacation. They weren't around, they weren't there. And, I was really, really drunk and just sitting in the, it's sitting in the depression and not really knowing what to do.
And I just started thinking about suicide and like, what's the point? If this is going to be it for 20 years, just very selfish.
All about me, not thinking about my kids or my wife or anything, but just what, what's left for me in life. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I pull my gun out and I was playing around with it and kind of like, I don't want to say I was attempting suicide cause I wasn't. I just was really toying with the idea of it and being stupid and being incredibly drunk was anyways, I was very drunk.
I remember I cocked the trigger and was playing around. I was pointing it and, and just whatever, and I dropped, I shot, I accidentally, I shot the gun in the house, away from me up at the ceiling. I freaked out. I dropped the gun and some reality of the situation set in then, but I was so drunk, I just passed out on the couch.
I woke up the next day, I saw the hole, saw the gun, and just started bawling like, holy crap. I was incredibly close to to this happening. My kids, my twins were very young. Van, I think at the time was like 3ish. Very young. And, I remember that was there was another pivotal choice right there where I could have gotten the patch and patched up that hole and not told Erin about it and let it all go.
Cause I knew I couldn't bring myself to tell her what had happened, but I just was like, I'll just leave the hole. I got my gun and I set it away, At that point in time had called a couple of friends. and just kinda talk to him that people that have dealt with similar things or dealt with depression, just people that I really relied on.
One of them was a good friend that lived in Oregon. and we had talked a little bit and, you know, he was like, come out, come out to Oregon, come visit me. We're going to go on a psychedelic experience. And I was like, really trying to not do drugs . I don't know if I should, I don't know if that's wise. and he was like, trust me, this isn't, this isn't like that. It's not like that. Just come out, come visit. This'll be, this'll be an experience and he had sent me some, some research. He's like, just start reading some of this stuff. And what I started reading was a bunch of studies coming out from Johns Hopkins and all these places, and they're really pushing to legalize MDMA for the treatment of PTSD and Psilocybin for the treatment of depression, psilocybin, you know, magical mushrooms for the treatment of depression. And, and the research that happened back in the seventies with LSD, that kind of all got thrown under the rug and so I just started getting like really enthralled and curious about the psychedelic world. Like, okay, maybe, you know, maybe this could make a difference and help. But I kind of put it off. I just was like, yeah, okay, I'll come out, you know, sometime, whatever. And he was like, come out this day, pick the day, you know, like, yeah, okay, sure, sure.
I'll see you there. And it was probably two weeks later, my wife noticed the hole in the ceiling. And ask me what it was. And I just was like, gosh, shit. I was hoping this never came, but here it is. And I just like, well, I, you know, and I told her the whole story, or I got drunk, the gun went off.
And that was really, she was like, you've gotta, you've got to do something and you've got to stay here. I'm like, yeah, I know. I think the big epiphany was that, that weekend, It was about a week later when I was supposed to go to Oregon to visit my buddy.
And ... I tried to get out of it. He called me like, Hey, you comin', you know, I'm pumped. I got the camping site, like, we're going to, we're going to hang out. And, tried to put it off. He's like, do not bail. Do not bail. I'll be so mad at you if you bail. Like just show up, come. Got the, got the flight for the next day, hopped on the plane, went up there and he was like, okay, you know, picks me up.
He's a really good friend of mine. It takes me to the Oregon coast, like, Holy crap it, I didn't know the Oregon coast was this beautiful. Just it's amazing out there. And the way the forest meets up with the ocean is incredible. Anyways, he's like, okay, you know, tomorrow when we wake up, we're gonna take some MDMA and, we're just going to have an experience, you know, and, you know, I, I asked him a bunch of questions.
I did mushrooms once when I was like, well, I've done them a few times back in high school, like in the midst of all that stuff. And they were fun, but they were just kind of a fun, another drug and other alternative to what I liked. So I, woke up, took the MDMA and I remember like, what, 45 minutes later feeling the most loving, beautiful, feelings that I had felt as a kid but felt like they had died.
Felt like they were just gone and depression had taken over. And. It was just the first time I felt like since having the kids maybe even a little bit before where I remembered I could feel, if that makes sense. Right. And I, and I, in my mind, that was going to be on Suboxone the rest of my life. And, it just had me start contemplating like, is Suboxone just kind of numbing me out?
Is that? Am I just living this kind of jaded life? You know? That way I feel like there's no point. We took it, we ended up taking a couple of doses and were on it like all day, and it was one of the funnest days of my life and the love I have for him, and I called my wife and just poured out the love to her, and there was, it was just so much love that was present.
And, in, it was in that experience where I, I just, I had sat with what I had done with the gun and realized like, no matter how depressed, no matter what I want, this feeling is possible. Like everybody can feel this feeling and.
Maybe it had died or dissipated for a little bit, or it was just gone for a little while. But I remember going almost like, almost like if I had fought the dragon and won, as far as that goes, not that it can't come back. Not trying to say that, but like, since that time, it hasn't even been an option, you know, in the darkest of days.
And so that was, it was just incredible, incredible experience. I shared that with my wife. She was so happy. And, yeah, it started to make a huge, I mean, my life started to be better. It'd still have bad days. Things were still rough. I was on Suboxone, which led to, what was that now? A year and a half ago? Year and a half ago.
I ended up tearing the disc, my L5S1 disc. Yeah. I'm having my first migraine going to the hospital, thinking I'm having a brain aneurysm and going to the hospital for I start hallucinating in the day. I didn't know why. I didn't know what was going on. And, that's, Oh yeah, it was right after that.
But I called you. Yeah. So it'd been in the hospital twice. I felt I had never had, had a health issue in my life didn't know what was going on. Kind of freaking out. decided that, it was time to start seeing some doctors and start figuring this out. I went to some doctors, nobody really had any answers, I kind of lost a lot of faith in the regular medical system through that experience, everybody basically just wanted to rule out that it wasn't their problem. And when they ruled it out, it was like, Hey, see you later. And that's what I remembered you. And I was like, I'm going to call Sarah and see if something on the naturopathic side will make a difference.
And, it had made a huge difference. And, I think it was around that time. I think I had always been honest with you and shared with you when I started doing mushrooms, it was after that experience, I can't remember the whole timeline of it, but I really like got into psychedelics and really believed that they had something to offer, but I kind of used them more as a medicine, almost like, okay, let's take a dose of something to help relieve my depression.
I think I was a little bit reluctant to tell you at first, but I was, you know,
Sarah Marshall, ND: it's kind of a big conversation to, you know, open up into,
Sean Ballew: yeah. But between working with you, taking mushrooms, kind of, you know, medicinally, which they did, they, I would take them and I'd feel like depression symptoms relieved for, you know, sometimes up to three weeks.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: It made, it made a really big difference, but it seemed to always kind of keep tracking back and I'd always kind of feel crappy. And I couldn't think about, I couldn't figure it out. You were the one that was like, Hey. So I started reading some stuff and realized there's these rare instances where a Suboxone can start doing the opposite of what it's supposed to do.
And when you said that, it was like, why didn't it like. What I was feeling is I'd take my Suboxone and I'd start to feel like I was withdrawal and withdrawal. It never felt good, but yet my body still is dependent on it. I still needed it. And so it was a very, really interesting experience.
And, I think it was, it was months, right? So I guess
Sarah Marshall, ND: So, I mean, I remember this really vividly because I had never taken anybody through this process before, and it was like, you know. You called me right around new year's and by February I was like, okay, here's this healthy 31 year old male with no underlying conditions except this history of narcotic use.
And I just dug into the Suboxone research cause I'm like, he's on it. And what I've seen with other pharmaceuticals is when somebody's done with them, like when the body doesn't need that anymore, the drug itself starts to be the issue, you know? And it was like, that's what we started to talk about was just like, could it be possible that you've been doing the work and it's like, you just need to not have any opiates in your system at all? And we were sending you back to your prescribing doctor and talking to him about it, and he's the one that was like, sweet Sean, if you want to try and do something, go for it. So we had, you know, partnership and collaboration with your medical doctor around the possibility of investigating: is some of what you were dealing with actually coming from...and you were on a low dose at that point, even still, I think,
Sean Ballew: Yeah it was tiny, tiny
Sarah Marshall, ND: but yeah.
But it was like your body was just rejecting it. That was how it looked from over here.
Sean Ballew: Yeah. Yeah. That scared me. The idea of trying to get off of it scared the crap out of me. Cause I mean, it'd been eight years, you know where that was, that was life. And yeah, but it was, it was between working with you and kind of delving into psychedelics and getting off Suboxone where a lot started to, I don't know, dissipate. it's hard to describe a psychedelic experience if you haven't had one. but it's, it's like... to me, it's a very spiritual experience.
It's a very, the realization that things that come to you, seem far beyond yourself, far beyond your own thinking. So, I'd taken them basically recreationally medicinally for, for the better part of a year. And every time I'd kind of try to take them too much, it's almost like they have a spirit of their own.
They're not something that drives you to want to take them all the time. And if you do, if you try it, it's like the miraculous nature of what they are, fades a little bit. And so I had had a couple very awakening experiences.
And for me it was like I started to kind of research, religions that had, you'd been using psychedelics and kind of started reading about the Native Americans here that have been using peyote and the Peruvians had been using ayahuasca and, there's even Southern in South America, there's sects that have used mushrooms and accounts of people in Siberia using mushrooms and, and, the pagans, you know, use mushrooms.
Sarah Marshall, ND: There's accounts of Christians using belladonna and ergot, you know, a thousand years ago that they suspect had, right before they got to the poisonous levels of them, they had a psychedelic experience with them. Yeah.
Sean Ballew: Yeah, which, which started to intrigue me, a lot because I had just kind of, I don't want to say I was abusing them, but it's almost like you might have a better word for what I'm trying to say. It's like there was like a reverence that I started to have for them and, and I started to realize it's like to just do them on, you know, Saturday morning in my backyard was kind of...
Sarah Marshall, ND: disrespectful?
Sean Ballew: Yeah. See and I don't even know if I want to say it's disrespectful. It's like it's just not giving them the respect that they deserve. Maybe that's exactly disrespectful, but no,
Sarah Marshall, ND: I can get the difference. Yeah.
Sean Ballew: Yeah. Like not like there's anything wrong with anybody taking it.
Sarah Marshall, ND: They're not going to judge you for it cause they don't operate that way.
But yet there's this opportunity to bring a really high regard and a high level of respect to them.
Sean Ballew: Yes. And that's what I started to realize because when I would bring a little bit more respect and like write out an intention and, really think about what I wanted to get out of the experience, I'd have that happened.
Not every time, and not always in the way that I wanted it to, but it was very interesting. So I started to ask around and I wanted to go to a ceremony. I wanted to find someone who's doing a ceremony. And I came in contact with a guy, through a friend of mine who was also kind of starting to be intrigued with psychedelics and this guy led mushroom ceremonies. And, you know, here, just in his apartment. And wow was that incredible, incredibly terrifying, incredibly crazy. Very, very different in a ceremonial setting than it is in a recreational setting. It's, it's almost like staring at the, your pain. My experience in my ceremony, it was like staring at the painful things in your life.
And as you stare at them, you almost go through the eye of that needle and on the other side, like you've dealt with it. In the, in the experience, you can run away from it. And I've had this, I kind of had this experience before where it's like, you know, you can run away from this, it'll be waiting right here for you.
But almost like the only way to truly deal with the pain within us to truly face it. You know, you can numb it with drugs. You can numb it with exercise, food, pornography, whatever, sex, you know, anything you want, but until you're willing to really face the painful things and deal with them and there's some things that I have not been willing to face, and I'm sure there'll be plenty as my life goes on that are like ahhh, I don't know if I want to deal with that one right now.
But that's been my experience and it's been a... it's been amazing. It's been, I don't really want it. To me, even that experience is very sacred, so I don't really want to go into what happened, if that makes sense.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: And what I saw. But it was...
Sarah Marshall, ND: Would you be willing, I don't think this was the same time. There was one you shared about, I think was last summer where you had the visceral experience of confronting the feeling of anxiety in your chest and, and having a transformation with that.
Cause that. Was inside of we, you shared it with me when it happened and, and I watched you shift. It was like Sean was one way before that happened, and that was, I think right after you had done, we'd completely weaned you off of the Suboxone. I don't think you had, you either were about to not have any in your system or you didn't have any in your system at that point.
It was really synchronous with that time period.
Sean Ballew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it was right... I think it was right before, because it was one of the things that had freaked me out about getting off was like, Suboxone is my depression med, my anxiety med, my feel good med, my everything. So yeah, so I actually, this was a, this wasn't ceremony.
This was, I went on a camping trip with a friend and, we had taken some LSD and all my experiences with LSD have just been. I don't want to say they haven't been, awakening or, you know, crazy, but most of it has just been very fun, not very fun, more light experience, positive. And this one wasn't any different.
You know, we went, we spent hours rowing on the canoes and every, you know, I'm starting to have this experience. And actually remember I started with like, I want to have an epiphany. I want to have something amazing happen. You know, nothing was happening. And when you take LSD, it's a good 10 hours that you're in this experience.
And I think about six hours in, I was kind of getting a little bit frustrated and I just kind of was like, wow, okay. It just was fun. I just got to see some bright colors and some cool things, whatever. And I laid down in my buddy's camping chair and closed my eyes and just starting to have this beautiful vision of silvers and golds that started to weave throughout each other.
And they started to weave on my body, right? And, and I could see my body, you know, my eyes are closed. It's all happening with my eyes closed. And I started to, Oh. The thing I forgot to mention is that, so that whole, that whole experience was laced full of anxiety, like I could feel it off and on throughout the entire time.
But it's a normal feeling for me. It was fine. It was no big deal. And so I sit down, I'm sitting in the chair and I'm starting to see this, and it's beautiful. And the anxiety kind of starts to dissipate. And then it starts to get really strong, really, really strong. And then that vision, you know, I looked down at my body and I start to see the anxiety. As these gold, it's almost like it was liquid metal type of, I don't know if it's very important to me how it looks not that it matters to anybody, (Sarah laughs)
but it starts to, it starts to just kind of, those bars go into my chest and they start there. They're there and they're kind of moving around. The anxiety starts to get so, intense, and then those, those, the gold starts to dissipate all over my whole body and all over my, everywhere my head, everything.
And I started to see myself almost like Neo in the matrix when he first takes the pill.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: That's what it looked like to me. And then it burst and everything burst and that, that feeling, that deep seated, anxious feeling. That's been there my whole life, like a ball of uncomfortable. I don't know how to describe it? Marbles in my chest. I don't know how everybody experiences anxiety, but that's how it was for me. That's how I described it. It bursts and I have, I have never, since that experience felt anxiety, how I, how I used to describe it since. And so that was... I mean, to me, that was incredible. And I remember when I first shared it with you, I'm like, yeah, it's been a few days.
It's been a few days. I, this, this was a cool experience, but, you know, I'm sure I'll feel it again sometime soon and I haven't. Yeah. Now I use the word anxious, or, you know, anxiety. That's more of a, an adjective. To describe like, what am I trying to say? Like being anxious to go on a trip, being anxious, you know, but I don't have this like anxiety, you know, this burning feeling in my chest.
Sarah Marshall, ND: I even remember you sharing something to the effect of saying like, you just... even if you have body sensations in your body, it just doesn't occur to you as anxiety anymore.
It was like you could even have sensation there and it was the sensation, but the whole world of having anxiety was gone.
Sean Ballew: Almost like I realized it had been an interpretation. It had to just been a story about a feeling that I felt in my chest.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: That story was gone. The experience of it was gone, but I've actually...
Sarah Marshall, ND: So where are you now? With life?
Sean Ballew: Where am I now? (Sarah laughs)
Actually in probably the most peaceful place that I've been in.
The craziest part is during the middle, amidst all this COVID-19 stuff. I'm actually probably the, not like I'm happy that it's happening, but I'm in a happy place. I'm in a like, let's save the world. You know, if I need to step up and go, you know, take mass to the hospital, or, you know, deliver food to COVID-19 patients, I'm your guy, you know? And, and, you know, we've had to make a lot of work decisions and things, or we might lose our businesses and whatever, but I'm just in a very grounded place. Things are, for me, it's almost like I've lived the life of being minorly bipolar. It's been great. It's been awful. It's been happy and fun things happening. Oh, I'm depressed for a couple of days. I've probably been the most, even keel the last, the first six months after Suboxone was, was rough. And then slowly after that, it's just been a peaceful, I dunno. It is. The hard part is this. It's like where did all the healing come from?
All of these places, (Sarah laughs)
Sarah Marshall, ND: I know right?
Sean Ballew: Getting off medication and taking, eating healthier and taking supplements that I need, and working with psychedelics and working with a transformational coach and doing Landmark, and you know, it's, it's like it's, it goes on forever. Which brings me back to what I was saying before. I think that the one. I think the one thing that's gotten me through this is the willingness to take responsibility and to look within, to be willing to be aware of what I haven't been aware of.
To be willing to face the difficult things, to face the pain, to realize that the pain is not going to kill you.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: It hurts, but it's not going to kill you.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Absolutely. I was actually just interviewed on Monday for a natural health doctor summit and I was being, I was being interviewed this time and she asked me like, what do you think like some of the most important traits are for people who build resiliency and heal and restore their bodies back? And we talked about awareness being number one, that willingness to look, to see it, and then the next part is compassion. You know, cause you can look at it and you can have it justify your story and you can have it make it all worse and like see what a horrible person I am.
And look at this evidence of why my life is never going to work. You know? But I think that's part of what you're speaking to in the taking responsibility is like there's actually a lot of compassion in taking responsibility. I think it's integral, you know? Cause for a lot of people, responsibility is a word we associate with blame and fault. Not empowerment, you know? It's like I'm responsible. I did it. I effed up my entire life. This is all my fault. And that's not what you're referencing. It's like this deep compassion and willingness to take ownership and then act in the face of that is, that's what I've seen you do over the years, and that's what I've heard you share, you know, is that distinction between blame and fault responsibility. But like ownership of it and being like, okay, this is mine, and this is mine and this means I can do something about it. I can alter it. Or one thing you and I have talked a lot about is also just being willing to sit with and be with things. Like you said, like the pain hurts a lot, but it's not actually going to kill you and you know, in our social isolation and all of the things that are happening right now with the COVID pandemic, there's a, you know, a whole nother level of being willing to sit still and be with things. Because we can't even, I mean, I can't even, I'm watching myself, you know, it's like the first three weeks I was like, oh yeah, it's this next thing, and of course we need to do it and all of that. And like, I really did think I was going to go back. I'm in New York right now with my family and I really thought I was going back to Utah this weekend. Like I just, I just figured there's like no way I wouldn't like go back and then I'd be there for a while and then I'd go to the next thing. And like. Nope, I'm not going anywhere. And it's like just now I'm starting to be like, Oh shit. (both laugh)
I'm like, my travel bug is the way that I deal with stuff. I like get in a car and move. I jump on an airplane, I go to the next place. I like like rearranging my scenery and so it has been interesting to now watch like for myself, you know? I don't know that I'd go so far as calling it an addiction, but I can see those places where I will use my circumstances to escape what's happening right now in my life or whatever I'm facing. And there's been a big opportunity to just be with it and be with it and be with it, and be with it.
Sean Ballew: Well, the other thing that's interesting about that is. I feel like one of the things I've started to even appreciate is like addiction itself, like for myself. And reali- like, do you have to become an addict to learn things? No, absolutely not; really difficult way. Actually. A lot of people, a lot of people end up dead, you know, that go down that pathway, you know?
But, it has taught me so many things. It is the pain of addiction and what it's brought has taught so much has caused me to look within, has, I maybe wouldn't have dealt with any of the things that I have dealt with. I mean, I have a relationship with my mom right now, you know, like who knows had I not ended up down that pathway.
And it's hard, especially on the rough days or you know, and some of those thoughts come up. But it's like I'm just, I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for the painful things in life that push you towards growing, if that makes sense.
That's one of the things I've been able to sit with and be with a little bit, you know, in all this, it's like as if I'm getting stir-crazy too.
Sarah Marshall, ND: I can imagine there are going to be a lot of people who listened to this podcast in varying different states of dealing with their own addictions or people that are close to them and like, what's something you could give to them that's useful?
Like what do you see would make a difference for people that are like in the middle of it? They're on the journey.
Sean Ballew: I think the hardest thing for me was wondering if it would get better. Right? Not that this is how every addict is, but I think it's how most of us are, is, A: we don't sit with our internal selves very well. We don't like, you know, we want to escape reality. We want to feel something else. And in those moments, it's really easy to grab something into escape. You know? It's really easy to go to do that because you're not sure if it's ever going to dissipate. You're not sure if it's ever going to go away. If you're ever going to heal it. If you think about healing it, just like, holy crap, I don't want to feel this way.
But to realize like if you continue to work, it's not an easy pathway. I mean, I've been, I'm 32, so for what, 17 years. And I'm still in the midst of it. I've got some peace right now. Next month may not be, right? You know, it's, it's life, you know? And then that's the other realization is that it's life, but it's gotten so much better, so much more peaceful. It's almost like, I don't want to, I don't want to be cliche, like, it's going to get better. It's going to get better if you work at it. It's going to get better, if you try. And if you try, there is light at the end of the tunnel. There is peace. There is those moments that that you experience, for some of it's been with my kids or some of it's been those psychedelic experiences, interactions with people, you know, where you realize like, this is why it's worth the fight.
This is why it's worth that battle. Is for those moments, for those beautiful momentary experiences with my kids, with my family, with my wife, with my sister, with my brother, with my employees, with, you know, and if you're open to them, they can happen all the time. I don't know.
I mean, there's, there's so many things don't, there's that . If something doesn't work, try something else. Just keep on trying. Just keep on doing it. Don't get... Have compassion. That was one of the things that I discovered in one of my earlier psychedelic experiences was to have compassion for anytime I pick something up, I use something, I do something stupid to realize like...
This is life, and this is the way that you learn. This is your personality, this is how you are, and that it's okay. Like it's okay if you, if you relapse, it's okay. If you take something, it's okay. You know, it's okay right now. You need to escape reality today you know or whatever, right? Maybe you won't tomorrow.
Maybe you won't for the next five years. Right? But there's nothing inherently wrong with the way your brain is wired, the way my brain is wired that that's what I go to. It's the way that it is and that's okay.
Sarah Marshall, ND: It's a big deal. It's not, I don't think the most common conversation around addiction.
I know it's, it's growing. I know there's been a lot more of that building into the addiction community. But I think there's still a lot, you know, and there's different tools at different times that are useful, but the forceful abstinence, the forceful abstaining, the just absolutely at no cost do I ever, ever, ever do this again, can become its own process of self abuse. And it also can be useful. I mean, that's, it just really depends. That's that part of like where each of us are at, you know. And I have spent more time working with people around relationships too, you know, unhealthy relationships to food, everything from eating disorders to disordered eating, compulsive eating. I've had my own versions of that throughout my life. And you know, there was, I could tell myself all the time, like, I'm never going to do this again. I'm never going to binge again. I'm never going to, you know eat an entire pint of ice cream, an entire large pizza. And then I'm going to go walk all of the containers to the dumpster and put them underneath something so that nobody in my household knows that I just did that.
Now I invite my friends over, we do it together,
But you know, and at one level people are like, whatever, you ate pizza and ice cream. But at that time it was inside of a cycle of self hatred. And rejection and escaping my emotions and eating my emotions, like, you know, working through all of those things and now I really do actually have the freedom to wow. Oh man, I just ate an entire pint ice cream. There went thousand calories done. But it doesn't have that guilt and shame attached to it. You know, that's what it's now just like. I actually measured it as a barometer in my life. Like, okay, I've been eating a lot of ice cream lately, so what am I not dealing with?
Where am I not expressing myself? What's going on? Like it shows up for me as an indication of something else instead of the thing itself that I will beat myself up about, you know?
Sean Ballew: Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm glad you said that. Cause that's the other thing that I feel like addiction is. It's an expression of some something far deeper.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: It's not the drugs and alcohol that are the problem. That's not how it is. That's your bandaid.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.
Sean Ballew: And if realize that maybe you can start looking at what's underneath the bandaid.
Sarah Marshall, ND: And there's so many tools, you know, therapy and counseling, personal growth and transformation coaching, and there's a lot of research coming out about psychedelic medicine being a really incredible tool in that toolkit.
And the maps program has moved into, I'm pretty sure they're now just starting phase three clinical trials. the FDA is actually very on board to get a pharmaceutical grade MDMA available to practitioners that we really could see that as a, as a actual pharmaceutical option in the next couple of years.
And then I think that may open up the door for more of the sacred plant medicine to be accepted or decriminalized. And we'll kind of see. We'll see where that path takes us. But it's research I'm definitely really interested in, and thank you for sharing your story and being willing to just be so authentic about your journey.
I don't think very many of us get that kind of a glimpse into like, "Yup and then there I was doing heroin and then this was the next thing." You know? And I also just want to highlight, cause I think, for some people, when they, when they hear heroin addict, they don't think of the white 6'2" guy from the suburbs who runs a dental practice and has three kids and, and so like recognizing that again, to just keep creating that addiction hits us in all walks of life and all levels of life.
All colors, all shapes, all sizes. And yeah. So it's, I'm certain this is going to make a big difference for people. Thank you. Sean.
Sean Ballew: Sarah, yeah, you're welcome.
Sarah Marshall, ND: Awesome. All right, we'll sign off.
Sean Ballew: Alright, farewell Sarah.
Bye
Sarah Marshall, ND: Bye
Thank you to today's guest, Sean Ballew for his openhearted sharing and tool world of transformation. You can learn more about finding your own healing by going to SarahMarshallND.com or following me on Instagram at @SarahMarshallND. Special thanks to our music composer Roddy Nikpour and editor extraordinaire, Kendra Vicken. Thank you for being here. Until next time.