Episode 517 Charlie Powell Psychedelic Therapy for Combat Veterans Transcript

This transcript is from episode 517 with guest Charlie Powell.

Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Have you ever felt like you have tried everything to get your life back after the service, but nothing truly fixes what’s broken on the inside, the meds you’re prescribed, numb the pain, but also steal your soul. The therapy sessions feel like band-aids on wounds that need stitches. If so, you’re not alone and it’s not your fault.

What you want though is to wake up every day feeling alive. Connected to your family, your connected to your mission, your purpose, without the constant weight of whatever the trauma is that you’re dealing with, dragging you down. Today, Dr. Charlie Powell shares how a life-changing decision and yes, a controversial one involving psychedelic medicine helped him heal after nearly two decades of battling PTSD, chronic pain and emotional isolation.

If you’ve been searching for answers and feeling like you’re running out of options, this conversation will give you a little bit of new hope, new tools, and maybe [00:01:00] even a new path forward. But before we dive into this episode, make sure you’re subscribed to the email newsletter at driveonpodcast.com/subscribe You’ll get my five favorite episodes sent straight to your inbox. No fluff, just the best insights to help you drive on. I also wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something deeply important to our community, the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians impacted by the global war on terrorism.

If you wanna learn more or find out how you can support the mission, visit GWOTmemorialfoundation.org Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

Scott DeLuzio: Dr. Charlie Powell, uh, welcome to the show. I’m really excited to have you here. [00:02:00] Uh, looking forward to this conversation. But, uh, tha thanks for taking the time to come on the show.

Charlie Powell: Oh man. Thanks for having me. You know, uh, I’ve been looking forward to this and, uh, you see the, uh, back window of a truck here because, uh, we wanted to make sure we had good connection for this ’cause I’ve been looking forward to talking to you too, bud.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, absolutely. The, um, topic of, of, uh, that that’s coming up here for the listeners you have this docuseries, Healing Heroes. And it’s an incredible thing because you get to kind of follow the journey of some veterans, some first responders, kind of seeing what their experiences are dealing with the whole mental health system, I guess, dealing with PTSD.

Going from, you know, maybe diagnosis stage, go working through different types of treatments that are available out there. And you know, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show and, and kind of talk about this, what, what was interesting to me is that, you know, there are a bunch of options out there and when, you know, coming from a [00:03:00] patient standpoint, when you go into talk to the, the doctor about the different options that are available to you, gosh, you don’t always know what is the right option, what’s not the right option. Sometimes it’s scary to be like, geez, if I, if I. Let’s say I, maybe I try to use some of the medications that they’re, they’re offering.

Is that gonna mess with me? Is am I gonna, am I gonna be, you know, a, a zombie after taking these medicines? I, I don’t know what, what that reaction is. You know, I, I have no idea, but I. kinda have to trust the doctor and say like, what, what do you think? And, and then they give you a recommendation and then you try something.

And maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, you start to get frustrated and try something else. And, um, but the nice thing, the reason why I’m, I’m going on that down that rabbit hole is when you have a series kinda like what you are or, or have put together, you get to see firsthand, like, what is it actually that this person is [00:04:00] going through?

And maybe you can find out that yes, this is working for that person. Maybe it didn’t work for that person, but you might say to yourself, Hey, after seeing that, maybe that’s what I’ve been missing and that’s what I, I need. Right? And so that’s what what is drawing me to this is that there it is kind of like.

Backstage sneak peek. Look at some of these these treatment options and, and the different people who are going through it. I know I’ve kind of rambled a little bit about what this, the series is. I’d love to hear from your words, share a little bit about the series, uh, the docuseries and, and kind of what inspired the, the creation and kind of what what came from it.

Charlie Powell: I will, I would, I’d be glad to. And, um, first of all, you know, I, I, as a multi boarded physician for 26 years, I will tell you that, uh, the, a lot of things we reveal on the show just. Weren’t, weren’t even known to me. I mean, I ran a large healthcare system. I trained constantly and some of the modalities I utilized for my healing weren’t there.

So let me give you some background on how I got there. I, I was, I, I [00:05:00] joined the military when I was 19. When I went to, uh, combat Medic school in the Army. Uh, the day I graduated desert Shield became Desert Storm. And, uh, 19-year-old grows up real fast. I, I basically, uh, spent the next 16 years in the military, but had a great career.

I mean, I loved, I loved being n About four years into it, I transferred to the Navy because I got a scholarship from medical school after finishing up my undergrad, my off time and on the GI Bill, it was wonderful. And then when. I finished, uh, my training, uh, then things started to heat up again in the Middle East, right?

So I ended, uh, in 2005 right amidst of the Afghanistan conflict, getting, getting real pretty hot. So, you know, it’s interesting, I, I definitely left the military with some baggage, but I really didn’t think anything of it. Probably about a year after I got out, I started noticing isolation. I started noticing irritability.

I. Didn’t like my job and I was doing the same job I was doing in the military, kind of, [00:06:00] but a different atmosphere. You know, there’s something that I call the final trauma when people leave the military, and that is just leaving, uh, leaving that comradery. Right. Leaving that, uh, that brotherhood, that sisterhood that, uh, you get on the outside.

And What do you mean? I, I I, I work till the job’s done. No, it’s five one, it’s time to go home. There’s no economy outside of a paycheck some days. And you feel like the odd, odd person out. So

Scott DeLuzio: It’s a loss really,

Charlie Powell: it, it really is, it’s a huge loss ’cause we think we’re wrong. I mean, I always, always had a, a lot of satisfaction, uh, whenever we were at duty stations of being the, the refugee Christmas, the refugee Thanksgiving, you know, those that couldn’t afford to go home and, uh.

Nobody hangs out from work. And I’m just like, what do you mean y’all don’t wanna hang out? No, y’all wanna come to my party? Okay. You know? Um, but uh, that camaraderie just isn’t there. It’s interesting just to, you know, yank the wheel real quick. I actually heard a great quote in December when I was at a gala for Veterans Benefit, and it was [00:07:00] PTSD and veterans wouldn’t be half the issue.

It is if we just didn’t leave the military. That’s a profound statement if you think about it. Right. You know, ’cause you have the community you support. But anyway, so, um. Over the next couple of years after getting out, wound up back at the va, uh, was originally diagnosed with depression, which isn’t uncommon.

You know, a lot of the symptoms are the same. Irritability, everything was pretty similar. Got tried on several different medications, had side effects to all of them, the zombie state. And if anybody that’s listening this has been through this, knows what I’m talking about at certain dosages, sexual side effects, I mean everything.

You name it, I had ’em and I, we finally found a medication that worked. But unfortunately I couldn’t sleep at night. So then came the sleeping pills, and then the sleeping pills caused a hangover. Then they switched to a different one and it just, it became a cascade. And I left, uh, I left the military with some bad nerve damage with, from an injury that, uh, caused what’s called a neuropathy and neuropathic pain.

And, you know, that [00:08:00] medication stepped up over time as well. Uh, so after 18 years of being out and building a huge healthcare organization, uh, which I, based on a lot of military principles, a lot of military leadership and culture built around it, wow. It was greatly successful. But, uh, finally I sold it, uh, I believe it’ll be three years ago this June.

And, um, it was, uh, one of those things where I had everything you could have thought I ever wanted. I did very well in that sale. It was, it was, it was a huge organization. I had the cars, the house, the kids, the wife, the money. I was most unhappy I’d ever been in my life. And the last several years have just been dark, man.

I, I’d come home after work and uh, sometimes go straight to bed and true, I was coming home eight or nine o’clock at night or weekends. It was hard to get out of bed ’cause I was catching up for the week and I was saving myself for work, just being a shell of myself, like a projection. But anyway, [00:09:00] after all the years of being on those medications, multiple therapies, I mean, look.

I am not knocking the great people at the VA because there’s some really great people there that took good care and, um, I, I’m really kind of knocking the system a little bit and I’m doing that with love, but then again, I’m not because I had to live with it for, for 18 years. But I will tell you that, um, I was pretty much to the point where I had to get off of the original medication that controlled my, my symptoms because it was starting to cause a central nervous system tremor.

And that tremor suddenly about a year previous to that, had got it to where I couldn’t operate anymore. So I was losing everything. So, I mean, you put, you put any caffeine in me at that time, and I sounded like Catherine Hepburn. I mean, not, it was not great. And anybody that knows my reference just now just dated yourselves big time.

Right. But

Scott DeLuzio: The gray hairs just started sprouting even faster.

Charlie Powell: right. And, um, so I, um, I, I, I just, I, my neurologist said you gotta come off of it and I. [00:10:00] No, it’s the, it’s one of the only things that reduce the night terrors, such just once or twice a week. And, uh, my night terrors were coupled with sleep paralysis, which is not a good combination. And anyway, I, um, a, after all of this I, I decided to stay on with a company that bought my organization for a year and helped with the transition, did my year, and started opening my mind to other treatments.

And a very good friend of mine who’s no longer with us, he. Introduce two words to me that I did not think belonged in the same sentence, let alone together. And that was psychedelic medicine. Like, whoa, come on dude. No, I’m from Western medicine, man. I’ve been doing this for 26 years. I’m, I have multiple boards.

I know it don’t, if it was anything good to it, we would’ve done it a long time ago, or pharma would’ve perfected it or something. Right?

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.

Charlie Powell: that’s the ego that comes from Western medicine. And, and I say this with, again, all the love in the world back to, to, to my trade that I worked for, you know, over [00:11:00] half my life doing is that, um.

We think we’ve got the best when you have technology and when you’ve got front end research and everything, but we shouldn’t neglect. Some of the things that have been proven for hundreds of years beyond that. So I wanna start off and give a little disclaimer if you don’t mind, and that is that not everybody needs the power of something like psychedelic medicine.

I’m, I’m gonna go into a little bit more. ’cause for some of you listening to this, you might go, what? I mean, if you listen to any other big podcast out there talking about ibogaine, ayahuasca, psilocybin, you know, it’s out there and you hear the success stories. But not everybody needs it. Some people just need the stages of healing and to understand and learn how to neuro regulate themselves.

And and that’s kind of how we kind of got to the show and I’ll jump forward to that in just a second. But back in August of, uh, 23, I went and, um, I went and did iga. And I had to go to Mexico to do it. Of course, it’s, it’s not legal in the us It’s legal in almost every [00:12:00] other country in the world. But the US and a few others, it’s still considered schedule one, uh, which is experimental narcotic, uh, but it’s not narcotics.

It’s a psychedelic, but it’s experimental. And so I, I was to the point, I remember, I, I talked to my wife and I said, I, I’m gonna go do this. She goes, why? I said, I think you know why, and ’cause we never talked about. The struggles, and most people don’t talk about the struggles.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

Charlie Powell: It’s the conversations that aren’t had that probably need to be had.

I didn’t know she was awake during the majority of my events and just laying there real still. She didn’t wanna meet. She didn’t want me to feel bad for waking her up or disturbing her and feeling even worse about that, about, I didn’t realize how common of a situation that is out there where families just aren’t talking about it.

They don’t want the veteran or the person suffering from PTSD. To feel bad about causing any more problems, and the veteran doesn’t want their family to know how screwed up they are. The person with PTS doesn’t want their [00:13:00] family to know how screwed up they are. They don’t talk about it anyway, so, um, I went in August 23.

Scott DeLuzio: they fee, they feel like a burden in those cases. Right. They don’t want to, they don’t wanna burden somebody else with those things, especially not a loved one, which you know, is not

Charlie Powell: thing you wanna do is have anybody that looks at you in a positive light know just how broken you are.

Scott DeLuzio: right, right.

Charlie Powell: and we Hide. ’cause look, besides just the inner stigma, there’s, there’s the stigma from the rest of the, you know, people out there like, oh my God, he’s got PTSD. And I remember I had a CEO that worked for me for a, um, a period of time until this one comment was made and that CEO said he was going out to visit one of my doctors who was very open about his situation with PTSD.

And he goes, is he gonna go postal on me? Yeah, he was fired. Soon after that, I was done. You just, you just, I tried to reeducate, don’t get me wrong, I just, just fire him. I, I do try to educate people, like, come on. It’s not like that. But, um, no, that’s, that’s just a mentality that can’t be propagated. ’cause that’s why [00:14:00] a lot of people don’t go seek care.

The stigma behind mental health, the stigma behind PTSD, it, it’s viewed in western society as something less than physical health, which is crazy when you think about it. When you think about it. What are we here for? In my opinion, experiences, good, bad, whatever, anything we can gain from, but just don’t label ’em.

But what is this body here for? It’s here to get our mind around to have those experiences. So why aren’t we giving some attention to that too?

Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah, that’s a good

Charlie Powell: till it, yeah. I mean, seriously, we wait till it breaks and then we wonder why we have a problem. But anyway, so, um, lo and behold. I, I went to a program that was, uh, it was very good.

I prepared for four months to go into it, and I wanna stress again to anybody out there that’s considering this as a modality of healing. Not everybody needs it, but if you choose it and it’s right for you, it’s only 20% of the solution at best. If there’s work before there’s work, after all the medicine does is help break some of the walls you build up around your traumas to expose the [00:15:00] ones you may not realize or to help you process them, maybe a slightly different way, but if you don’t have the tools to process ’em, when you stir ’em back all up again, you’re not gonna do anybody any good.

But anyway, so I had a profound response. I, I, I, it’s a very personal response. It was a very personal story that my response was, in most people’s opinion, legendary. I mean, I came home from that 10 days and, uh, my kids, my kids said, dad, even your eyes are smiling. My wife said I was the guy she met 29 years ago.

Then two weeks later she said, nevermind, uh, I thought I had screwed up. And she said, no, you’re better than him. Like, this is the best version of you I’ve ever met. And that’s when I did it all. I walked away from work. I walked away from my career. I walked away from the us. I moved out of the country to learn more about this, to dedicate why in the hell is it’s not in the us.

Why are we [00:16:00] not studying it? Why is this something I began specifically curing 10 times more than US treatment centers do opiate addiction. Why? Right. I. I’ve got my theories and, and I, I won’t, I won’t drop those on your show. I don’t think that’s fair. But what I’ll tell you though is that I knew more people needed to be at least aware.

And not just psychedelic medicine, I wanna stress that, but just the steps of healing, gratitude, forgiveness, loving yourself and the things that we take is so very basic. Uh, no super important. But I started seeing the benefits of things like cold plunges. Right. And, uh, you know, now we know the physiological effects of cold plunges on the body.

We know it helps reset the central nervous system to get out of the fight or flight response constantly. That we live in the triggered state when we have PTSD. We also learn, we have control over our bodies, but, uh, I digress. A lot of other things, sound therapy, meditation, watsu, I mean, a lot of modalities I got exposed to in that treatment program that.[00:17:00]

If it wasn’t for the advice, I received minutes before I hung up the phone with my counselor prior to going down, which was just say Yes. And what he meant was just say yes in your experience because anything experience is there for you to understand. Don’t turn anything away, let it happen. But I took that quite literal. Anything I was invited to in that place. Uh, you know what’s, what’s Qigong? Well, we reach up, we grab your chi, we put it in your heart. Well, your heart’s not there, but you know what? I’m in. Let’s go. And, uh, you know, I, I, I experienced it. I enjoyed it. Some of it I kept, some of it didn’t. I decided what tools to carry home with me.

But lo and behold, I came home. It was a great experience, but I was very disturbed with the fact that I. We built and ran a huge medical complex. Lots of physicians and lots of knowledge. I mean, I was constantly learning and this was nowhere in anything that I had done. But yet after nearly two decades of being on medications that were [00:18:00] causing debilitating side effects for me, and still at best, were only partially treating me and multiple therapies and group sessions and everything else, one dose.

One sitting. A lot of work before, a lot of work after I was off of everything and the best version of myself that everybody says ever existed. So what do you do about that? Well, you could sit there and just say, thank you, appreciate it, and go. But I think we have kind of a responsibility when, when we find a way out of that desert.

We are responsible for reaching back through and try to pull some others through. And again, I’m not advocating psychedelic medicine for anybody. I’m telling you that’s what I needed to heal. But an effective program, a multidisciplinary program is what’s needed. So anyway, uh, after going to several conferences, I remember I was at one where Governor Rick Perry and, uh, Senator Crenshaw from Texas were, were, were speaking and advocating.

I began [00:19:00] research. I’m like, here’s two lawmakers that are having to bury it on page 247 subparagraph, triple A, you know, whatever, and asking for 15 million outta this multi, multi-billion dollar deal. And they got it still narrowed down to 10 for iboga research and it’s, it’s, anyway, it just got polluted.

But I figured if these two guys as influential as they are, well what can I, what can I do? I don’t wanna be a provider anymore. I, um. But I decided on a whim, I’m gonna make a TV show. Why not? Hey, why not? Look, I’ve grown up watching it since I was two years old. My face right into it, watching Mash and, and, and Marcus Wellbe.

Oh my God, I’m really dated down. But, um, you know, it was, um, I know you can touch a lot of hearts that way. So I came up with the concept of Healing Heroes. No Mind Left Behind. And the scope there was to take. And what we’ve done is we took six. Of this nation’s heroes. Some of ’em veterans, some of [00:20:00] ’em first responders, police officer, and a fire department and fire department.

And we put them through a very similar program that I specifically designed for veterans and first responders in the stages that I felt like were better for them after reading everything I get my hands on. And I figured what better way I could tell my story a million times. But how much more impactful would it be to tell the story of six people, interview their inner circle and their family back in the states, and then bring them down, put my money where my mouth is, fund all of this myself with all this stuff I didn’t have or didn’t need anymore.

Help them and tell their stories, and then retell it and follow them over time. The 10 days that we had them down in Tulum, Mexico, that we did their treatment, these six individuals. If you took the top 10 days of my career over 26 years, they wouldn’t have added up to one of those days. And I had 10 consecutive days of just watching a transformation of [00:21:00] 10, I’m sorry, of six absolute heroes that were amazing.

And every sense of what they went through. And all while a hurricane was barreling down upon us in Tulum, Mexico. But, uh, I told the story of the background. So anyway, uh, the goal of all that was to tell the stories going forward and it’s, they’re miraculous stories. I mean, even the story about the making of the series.

But, um, I got a little surprise I get to bring out on your show and that’s that. Um, we decided about three weeks ago. It’s not gonna be a series anymore. It’s no longer gonna be a docuseries. It’s, uh, it’s gonna be a movie and, uh, we started the conversion for a release for November 11th, 2025 in theaters on Veterans Day because we want to have the biggest impact possible.

We can go to streaming later, we can do the series later, but the story behind, behind these six, they really deserved a spot in the limelight. So sorry for the 15 minute answer, but that gets you caught up to [00:22:00] speed.

Scott DeLuzio: No, I, I get it. And I, I appreciate the answer. ’cause some of that backstory was, was really helpful. Uh, especially knowing about your history and your experiences, you know, the good and the bad, uh, uh, experiences that you had to go through. Kind of make sense, like why, why would somebody want to. Come up and, and, you know, make a series like this or a movie or, or anything.

And you know, as you’re talking, it resonated a lot with me because that’s kind of part of what I like to do with this show is share people’s stories where, yes, they were hurting, they were in a bad place and they had to figure something out. And a lot of people who are listening. Or or the E either. A lot of people who are listening are in this place, or they know somebody who’s in this place and they want.

To get some sort of [00:23:00] help, some sort of resolution. Like I was saying, when you go to the doctor and the doctor is giving you you know, options for various treatments, you don’t know what they, they are, you don’t, you’ve never gone through these things. They might be scary. You don’t know. You know, I, I remember when I first realized I needed some help after coming back from Afghanistan, I picked up the phone and called the, the, uh, vet center, uh, to.

Make an appointment and I had no idea what I was signing myself up for. I didn’t know if I was gonna be walking in and they’re gonna walk me right into a padded room with a straight jacket. I had no clue what it was. I mean. I, I had never gone to any sort of mental health anything ever. And so I, I didn’t have any idea what I was getting myself into, and that was just talk therapy.

And that, that to me was scary. And, and, but I, I did it. I went in and figured out, by the way, it’s not that scary. It’s, it’s, it’s okay. You know, there’s no padded rooms. There’s [00:24:00] no, I’m not getting locked away or anything like that, but, you know, part of what I like to do with this is share these stories that other people have so that it kind of brings down some of those walls that you are kinda like what you were talking about with, with some of the, the medicine that you utilize to bring some of your own internal walls down.

It kind of brings down some of those barriers so that people can kind of peek over and say, Hey, geez, this might be something that sounds like it might work for me. Um, or. Even better. I didn’t even realize that this type of thing existed. And so maybe if I go and try this, this might help. ’cause I thought before I tried everything and gosh, I, nothing seems to be working for me.

Well geez, I didn’t know about this other option that’s out there and so lemme go try that and, and see how that works. You know? And so, so all of those things to me are. super strong reasons to push this forward, to keep getting messages out there, telling stories sharing experiences, [00:25:00] those types of things.

And that’s what it sounds like you’re doing with these six individuals who went through this, this type of treatment. And, you know, I don’t know. I obviously, I haven’t seen everything, you know, it, it’s, you know, to be determined on, you know, uh, release dates and all that kinda stuff. And, uh, you know, I, I haven’t had that sneak preview opportunity.

But with the, uh. The, the varied individuals, the varied experiences that they went through, the varied issues that they might be having. I’d imagine there was a varied response to the, the treatment. You know, probably largely positive, but I, I would imagine some more positive than others. You know, and, and so, you know, it gives you a little insight into like, what, what is this?

What, what does this entail? You know, you, you mentioned, you know, something that I was unaware of. You said, you know, you went down to Mexico for 10 days. I. I didn’t know if it was a day trip, if it was a weekend. I, I [00:26:00] didn’t have any background on that prior to this. And so, like, there you go. That’s just one more piece of, of the puzzle that, uh, you know, helps fill in those gaps.

And you know, there’s a lot of, lot of disappointment I think here in the US when it comes to these treatments. You know, I know you’re mentioning Texas and, and the kind of things that they’re going through down there. You know, to. Go through, uh, and push through some of these treatments that are not being pushed through on the federal level, but they’re, they’re trying to do it in on the state level.

You know, I, I think there are that there, it’s definitely the time to look into these to see what kind of benefits they, they can get and,

Charlie Powell: And I wanna be clear on stuff. The two not only when I said earlier, it’s not for everybody.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, that’s right.

Charlie Powell: I’ve, I. I wanna be very clear, this is not something you visit Shaman Jane down the street for who’s got some shrooms in her freezer. Right? [00:27:00] Um, this has to be trained professionals and great treatment centers that have great reputations and great backgrounds besides just them saying they have it.

Um, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll lift it up and just say this much. I’ve seen the best, the absolute best that these medicines could do or these treatments can do.

Scott DeLuzio: Uh huh.

Charlie Powell: But I’ve also seen the worst. And folks, if you’re considering what I went through at all, please find the best providers. ’cause it can literally rip families apart if you find a bad one and put people in a worse position.

So it’s not to be played with. Please exhaust all of your treatments that you can do here and at home. And if you feel like that’s what you got left, lemme tell you something. The six people that were on the show, I didn’t learn this till we did us tour number two to go talk to all their families. Three of them thought something bad was gonna happen to ’em down there.

They barely knew me from Adam. They, two of ’em thought they were gonna have their organs harvested. One [00:28:00] of ’em thought they were gonna be sold into sex slavery. They were like, but they were so desperate. They didn’t care.

Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.

Charlie Powell: They were willing. They were willing to do that. I would just tell you that, um, there, there’s some great things out there that we at Western, Western Medicine should not think that we know it all. And that, you know, if you do get the courage to go see your doctor and your doctor’s telling you , Hey, here’s a treatment for you.

Here’s what you can do. Hey, that’s great. But if it doesn’t work, don’t give up. There’s multiple treatments, there’s multiple things that can be done, um, and there’s gonna be some things even your doctor doesn’t know about. don’t give up. There are other things, but anyway, sorry I derailed, so go ahead.

Scott DeLuzio: No, you’re, you’re good. And, and I, I, I appreciate you bringing up that point too, because like you said earlier, you know, the, the medicine that you went down there for. For those 10 days, that was only 10 perc or sorry, 20% of the, the treatment you were, you were saying. There, there’s, there’s work that you need to do before there’s work that you need to do [00:29:00] after.

And if you’re just going down to, you know, the guy down the street who’s, uh, you know, selling it out, out of the trunk of his car or, or whatever, you know, whatever, whatever you might be getting, you’re, you’re missing out on that 80% of the treatment and. Also who even knows what it is that you’re actually getting dosage wise and, and things like that.

You know,

Charlie Powell: And, and, but it’s, it’s also important to note too, though, it’s a lot about what they’re doing. ’cause when you bring down those walls that are protecting you, you’re very influenceable. And if you don’t have good people guiding you and grabbing you afterwards I’ve seen things go bad. I have.

Scott DeLuzio: Right. And, and, and so you don’t, yeah. You don’t want them, uh, the, the people who you are with to be influencing you to go in a direction that you don’t want to go in.

Charlie Powell: Right. Or, or thinking and, and even thinking they’re doing the right thing. Right? They, they, they, they think, oh, I, I’ve, I’ve seen this done a few times. Like it’s not medicine where you watch one, do one, teach one. This is, this is some in depth stuff that requires a lot of [00:30:00] training to it, right? But um, yeah.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. It’s like I’m, I’m not a doctor, but I watched er once and so I, I, I think I know, you know, enough to be able to do this, uh, you know, heart transplant or whatever, you know?

Charlie Powell: here’s, here’s my favorite sayings. Now I’m not a doctor anymore, but I still play one on tv.

Scott DeLuzio: Sure, yeah. Yeah. Right.

Charlie Powell: But, um, let’s try that. But yeah, it’s, um, it’s one of those things that, uh, you know, PTSD isn’t just talked about, but I will tell you, I believe there’s a lot of misdiagnosis out there. If you think about, I’ve challenged my doctors since I’ve been back, uh, because they said, what have you done?

Why’d you do that to yourself? Why would you take such a risk? And it’s real simple. That’s all I had left because I had everything else and I wasn’t happy or at peace and nothing else worked. But, um, then I start to asking ’em, I’m like, alright, let me ask you this and is there anybody medical listening, I’d ask you this question.

What process in the body breaks down with age or with infection or [00:31:00] trauma or something that intervenes to cause depression. It’s not. And you’d say, okay, well then, well, what does cause depression, anxiety, insomnia, mood disorders, whatever. Well, you know, stressors in life, divorce you know, loss of a loved one, loss of job.

And, you know, I’m like, right, right, right. Trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma in its own sense.

Scott DeLuzio: Right.

Charlie Powell: And it pretty much has a commonality. Now, do they meet the diagnosis of pre PTSD? Probably not, but I would argue and say that the majority of mental health issues we have in the US or anywhere in the world for the matter, are related to stress traumas or traumas.

But here’s a stat for you. 55% of Americans will expand. Experience a mental health issue at some point in their life. And you said this earlier, so that means either you or somebody you love is gonna have an issue at some point in their life. And, uh, it may not have a certain [00:32:00] label as the other next one, but it’s important that we start to look at this differently as a nation.

I think it’s important that we start focusing on mental health as a preventive and keeping the mind healthy, and then also not being ashamed of, you know. I’m talking about it when we get back. There’s

Scott DeLuzio: Right.

Charlie Powell: many people that came home that didn’t come home.

Scott DeLuzio: sh Yeah, they, or it came home as, you know, shells of themselves and, and were not. You know, they weren’t whole, they weren’t the same person that they, they were before. I’ve heard this time and time again talking to people that, uh, you know, they came home and they said, their spouse was like, you’re not the same person that you were when you left, you know, nine months ago, a year ago, whatever it was.

And when you have somebody who is. In that situation, do they do? How do, how do you find that person again? Where does that person go? What, what happens to that person? They’re still in there, I would imagine. It’s not like they just, you know, [00:33:00] packed up and left. But, you know, they’re, they’re, it’s like they’re, they’re a little kid who’s scared and they, they’re hiding under the covers so you don’t see ’em, you know, and,

Charlie Powell: hiding behind a facade. They’re, they’re, they’re projections of themselves. You know what I would say, first of all is that they hear it. We hear it, and we know we, when we hear that stuff. But I would also let everybody know, you’re not in a desert. You’re not all alone. If you looked at just military veterans with PTSD.

Here’s how many of us there are. We could be the population of Phoenix and Philadelphia. Yeah. That’s how many of us there are guys, gals, don’t be ashamed of it. Don’t be ashamed to ask for help. It’s okay not to be okay. ’cause the fact is we’re all not okay. And we’ve been through some stuff that, uh, another interesting thing, a lot of people associate PTSD with special forces, and I’ve heard people say, well, I, I didn’t make it into the seals.

I don’t, I don’t deserve that diagnosis. I’m like, oh, no. In fact, half the members that we had on this, on the, on the movie, no, [00:34:00] no show or movie is, but they, their traumas were from things you experience in everyday life, rape, childhood trauma, childhood abuse, but all had her roots somewhere in childhood.

But, you know, anyway, I digress. I.

Scott DeLuzio: Well, and so talking about childhood and, and where that very easily could be, where a lot of people’s. Source of, of their issues. Could, could, could be coming from, you know, like you said, it could be a rape or it could be, you know, some other issue that they had. Maybe a, a traumatic loss that they had of, you know, a parent or a sibling or, or something like that, where that, that’s a trauma.

Right. And that’s, that’s a, a big thing, you know, if you’re 5, 6, 7 years old or something like that and you, you, you’re having to deal with, uh, that type of loss, that’s, that’s pretty significant at a young age. And you know what? What does that do to your worldview when within the first five years of life you’ve already lost somebody who is really close to you?

Are you just now expecting that everybody that you’re close to is just eventually gonna be gone? [00:35:00] And you know, why, why bother making even any, uh, close connections with people, you know?

Charlie Powell: Or you’re, or you’re a control freak. ’cause you want to control the possibility, you might lose anybody

Scott DeLuzio: That’s true too. Yeah. Yeah. Lot, lots of. Lots of things like that. But I, I guess my, what my point is, is something that you touched on earlier and you just briefly kind of glanced on it. Um, but it’s, it’s maybe even getting the, the stigma away of mental health and start teaching people at a young age how to cope with things that are stressful or traumatic or, or whatever, so that you don’t end up getting, going down this path.

Charlie Powell: we, uh, so Keegan, who’s one of the cast members who was, uh, he was Army corpsman, wonderful guy. One of the best responses I’ve seen from the treatments. He actually said at the end of the recording in Tulum, Mexico, he goes. Why aren’t we teaching these things in schools Now, again, do not think this shows about the medicine.

It, that’s just one of the tools we had to use to, to help these, these, uh, these men and women. [00:36:00] But, uh, we were teaching ’em core values, priorities. How do you fix your life? How, how do you identify your passions? How, I mean. We got down to the basics that we should have picked up in childhood, but some people did or didn’t, and we gave them tools.

So imagine this, I mean, if you want to go carve a masterpiece and you got your hands, you’re probably not gonna carve that stone too far. And what a trauma is, is divine by Levine is something that caps sat yet too fast, too much or too soon. And the too soon part means you just don’t have the tools to process it.

So the goal is to give the people the tools, have them re-experience it. And then reprocess it. You know, my definition of trauma is different. The, the, the Dr. Powell definition of trauma, and this will never make it in any textbook, but it is, um, things from our past that are tied to negative emotions that shouldn’t be, that are occupying time in our present.

The only thing that’s real and robbing us of our future. That’s my definition of trauma. Okay. [00:37:00] And what’s interesting for me, none of my traumas came. Well, I thought a couple of ’em would come from, from war, but they didn’t, or, you know, deployments. Mine were as a trauma surgeon when, when I worked as a trauma er at, at a very major hospital.

When you, when you’re at war, you kind of expect it’s you against me, it’s me or you. It, Hey, it is what it is. We all agreed to this, but that 6-year-old little girl who’s a paraplegic and the rest of her family’s dead from the drunk driver that hit them. Yeah. And guess how many times that scene every day?

We have a nation that’s played with stuff like that when you have a country that matches so much and, and what we have experienced leaving the military, a loss of community. And so for so many of us, loss of purpose ’cause they’re in a new job role and making less money sometimes lost when you lose community and purpose.

That is a, that is a, that is just the prime conditions to set you up for PTSD in my opinion. Uh, or any mental health issue.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

Charlie Powell: Well, do you see that happening in our country [00:38:00] too? Think about what the pandemic did. Think about, uh, the, the separation, the isolation. How many people even know their neighbors anymore, right?

How many people love their job? Let’s see. A raise of hands, right?

Scott DeLuzio: Right,

Charlie Powell: I do, but I’m lucky. So

Scott DeLuzio: You know, and, and that’s, that’s a good point that you bring up, is that, uh, you know, a lot of times you’ll see people like, I’m just talking about my neighborhood right now. I, I’ll, I’ll see people who, they’re walking their dogs or they’re going to get the mail or, or whatever. I don’t know who they are.

And, you know, I’m, I’m just as guilty about of this as, as the next person. You know, I don’t even know if they live here. They could just be, you know, taking a stroll in the neighborhood because they like the neighborhood. It’s got, you know, nice parks and, you know, other things like that around, you know, I, I don’t know.

I don’t know why they’re here.

Charlie Powell: Or they could be Casey, my house.

Scott DeLuzio: They could be doing that too. That that’s the other possibility. And, and then, then, you know, army Brain turns on and I start, you know, head on a swivel. I’m, look, look, where’s, where’s your [00:39:00] buddies? You know, you know what, what’s going on? You know, so I I, I, I think there’s there’s a lot of pieces here that we can kind of take a look at, but you’re, you’re right.

I think that that sense of community and sense of purpose are, are really huge. And I’ve heard that time and again from people who. Struggled with their transition out of the military, that purpose and community, that the, uh, that comradery that you lose after leaving the military. The sense of purpose.

I mean, being in the military, that’s a pretty damn big purpose. You’re, you’re serving and protecting your, your country, right? That’s, I mean, that’s pretty damn big when you get out and you’re pushing papers at a, you know, whatever company who gives a damn about that

Charlie Powell: uh, fortune 400 company that you’re gonna see some Christmas bonus of 50 bucks,

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.

Charlie Powell: but I, I, I would, I would tell you this too though. When, when you lock, when you look at that loss of community. It, it’s interesting. It, it’s a bigger piece than we know.

It really [00:40:00] is. I can’t even go into to a full explanation of it all, but I’ll, I’ll just leave it at that because I’ll, I’ll do a dissertation for an hour on lasso community, but, um, it’s a

Scott DeLuzio: That could be a whole nother episode. Maybe another

Charlie Powell: episode, another time, another place, right.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right. But yeah, for sure. So, so community purpose and then you know, the, the isolation piece is, is big too. There’s, there’s so many things that go into it, but, you know, if we, if we can address these things, I think before, before they become an issue, so we know how to deal with these things.

Gosh, what a better place this would be, would, would set

Charlie Powell: our kids the tools of, of managing how to manage your emotions, how to manage the, you know, the things that come in front of you, how to look at life a little bit differently, right? We don’t teach emotional intelligence, unfortunately. We just have to learn it by experience and hope.

We’re lucky enough to, to get some, some material on it that crosses our paths. But we don’t teach emotional intelligence. We don’t teach EQ in our schools. I think that’s, that’s a big problem. But, um, we don’t give our tool, we don’t, [00:41:00] we are not giving our population the tools they need to heal. And that’s a big part of what this, the docuseries Now movie is about.

It’s about teaching those tools and like, Hey, don’t knock it till you try it. And I was not a believer either. And look at this guy and look, you don’t get more abnormal and crazy than this guy where I sitting right here as a 54-year-old retired US physician who made it in in private equity and big world and in in corporate world, and decided to walk away from it all.

I’d do it all over again. I would do it all over again, again and again for what I’m into now. This has just been a lot of fun bringing this to the forefront.

Scott DeLuzio: Well, and I think another key point there just to kind of tie this up a little bit is, is that sometimes it, it’s about the journey that you go through.

Charlie Powell: yes.

Scott DeLuzio: To like you, you can appreciate what you have now because you’ve gone through the swamps and the, the nastiness and the [00:42:00] muck to get there and you can now appreciate the. The good things that you have, the good things that you’re doing, the the, the stuff that’s on the other side of that swamp, if you will. You know, so that, that you can look back and be grateful. That’s another piece of it probably too, that people are missing is, is gratitude and,

Charlie Powell: Big time.

Scott DeLuzio: and, and just being able to yeah, just appreciate the struggle that you went through and knowing that

Charlie Powell: in the present, not what you lost in the past, but what you don’t have in the future. Right. But no, that’s a huge part of it. And what, what I would tell everybody out there is just be aware of that. Be aware that, uh, there are other modalities out there. I.

Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. And that’s, again, that’s, that’s one of the purposes of this show. Getting out the information for folks so that they know about it. I mean, obviously these things have been talked about on other shows, other platforms, things like that people have heard of, of these things. But how do they work?

What do they do? [00:43:00] What are the experiences like you know, and, and showing people like you’re doing who’ve gone through it, been there, done that. And this is, this is the before. This is the during, this is the, after talking to the families, talking to the, the individuals themselves. Getting to know those details I think is really important, which is why I kind of wanted to shine a light on the work that you’re doing and, and, uh, you know, hopefully this, this is something that helps a lot of people, uh, you know, down the line.

So, you know, i, I really do want to thank you for all, you know, all the, the work that you’re doing and all the, the stuff that you, you guys are up to. And you know, hopefully you know, when, when this is out in the, the theaters, we’ll, we’ll get to a chance to take a look at it and you know, I, I’m really looking forward to it.

Um, but thank you again for, for your work and, and helping to spread awareness for the various, uh, you know, uh, modalities that are out there and, and, uh, encouraging people not to give up. I

Charlie Powell: Well, I appreciate that and I encourage everybody. You know this November when the movie hits healing Heroes, no [00:44:00] Mind Left Behind, please check it out because it’s not just about these six, it’s about you picking one of the six you might identify with more than another. It’s about learning that traumas don’t have a hold of us, we’re holding onto them, and I would challenge anybody out there.

My final words to close this up real quick and just simply say that think about some of the best lessons you’ve learned in life, some of the biggest steps or advancement you’ve made in life. And I’d be willing to bet it came with some hardship. So if you are suffering and you’ve dealt with some major hardship to get where you are right now, imagine how big the blessings could be too once you can convert that.

So keep up the fight.

Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. Keep up the fight. I love it. And, uh, thank you again. Uh, look, looking forward to checking out the film when it comes out.

Charlie Powell: Hey man, so thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it and thank you for what you do. ’cause we need more people that are, that are caring about the community and bringing the glue of veterans and everybody back together.

Scott DeLuzio: Excellent. Thanks again.