MDMA Therapy For Trauma & Relationships: Science, Safety & Real Results | With Jonathan Robinson

There's an amazing intersection between science and the healing journey. And I don't think enough people really understand how incredible it is to walk down a path that maybe you might have discovered and might have helped thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people through your work. One of the things that I've been a big fan of over the years, as many of you know, is the exploration of any and all modalities to figure out how to heal this brain of mine. From ayahuasca in the jungles of Costa Rica to psilocybin in Vietnam to things like ketamine and MDMA, I have tried everything to try to make this brain as optimal as possible growing up with an ACE score of 10 and having severe childhood trauma.

When I found out about Jonathan Robinson, today's guest, I was so excited to have him on and to talk to us today because we're going to dive deep into understanding the massive practicality of some scientific pharmaceutical interventions and our healing journey. Jonathan, my friend, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Michael.

This is going to be really interesting. I'm super, super excited about this. I will say, this is for me, I am not a doctor. Do not ever listen to anything that I say, just for full transparency.

Jonathan, for those who are listening, why should they listen to us today? What are they going to get out of our conversation? Well, they're going to learn about probably the most effective method, according to science, for healing trauma or PTSD and also for healing and enhancing relationships. I do mostly work on MDMA therapy, and I've come up with a practical, inexpensive, and safe protocol for helping people heal trauma in a single session.

It's amazing. And just for social proof, because I know sometimes people will hear these things and they'll immediately jump out. They're like, OK, this is whack. Where's the where's the proof?

Where's the evidence? I mean, you've been on Oprah. You've helped over 600 individuals and hundreds and hundreds of couples. You're one of the first people to the forefront of this medicinal approach.

Like for a better way to phrase not a better way to phrase it like you're the OG. So bringing you in here is like we're going to the root core of this experience for healing for people. So why don't we rewind a bit and start in the beginning of this journey for you around your master's thesis in 1984 and what it was about this journey into this pharmacological approach that first caught your attention and where were you headed with it? Why was it something that you wanted to spend your effort and energy and understanding better?

Yeah, you know, like you, I had a very difficult childhood, to say the least. My brother and sister are in and now mental hospitals. And I discovered MDMA as a way to heal myself originally. And then when I went to graduate school, I decided to study it.

Back then, it was legal, and we found out that it was incredibly effective in curing trauma, which I knew from my own experience. But it was also very helpful for me in relationships because, you know, I had a lot of stuff about relationships. I didn't really know empathy or understanding in a way that I do now. So it was helpful in that regard as well.

So I studied it. Well, long story short, in the last 40 years, it's been studied a lot as a breakthrough medicine, according to the FDA, for healing trauma. It's actually been proven to be 35 times more effective, not twice as effective, 35 times more effective than antidepressants for trauma. And instead of taking two years to talk about your trauma or whatever, I can often help people in a single afternoon.

And I think we need that type of improved technology now to help heal people. hmm when you first started to walk the path what i guess what i'm getting to there's so many different approaches that have been made in trying to understand probably at the time i would assume you can tell me if wrong it's probably geared more towards ptsd than cptsd a lot of what we see today what were the early evidential findings like what were the things that you were seeing where you were like, ah, there's something here?

Well, I found that a lot of people have been sexually abused and have flashbacks and trauma around that. I saw that people have intense anxiety, sometimes a hard time sleeping through the night. I worked with a former Miss America who hadn't slept through the night for 40 years. And after one MDMA session, she was sleeping through the night, having recovered from her sexual trauma.

So that's what I was seeing. And it took a while for the FDA to do these studies that proved it was that effective. But one of the things I like about MDMA therapy is that it's a little bit like a Swiss army knife. It's effective for, it's been studying mostly for PTSD, but it's effective for anxiety, depression, addiction.

It really kind of greatly accelerates any type of therapy because it makes you fearless and feeling good and open. So things go in deeper and the healing and the methods you use during the therapy seem to really hit a very deep place in the brain. Which is kind of the segue to where I was going. Two parts before we get there, you mentioned that you found that it's profound in healing trauma, right?

Can you define what healing trauma means so we can have kind of a baseline of what that looks like for people? Well, trauma, as you know, is really where you have an event that you really can't digest emotionally because it's too intense or too disturbing. And a lot of times there's repercussions, people get triggered easily when their trauma is, you know, triggered in some way. So what I look for is are the repercussions of the trauma still happening in their daily life?

You know, are they afraid of sex? Are they afraid of, you know, cars? Are they afraid of something? And if that can be alleviated through MDMA therapy and they no longer have those symptoms, I would call that a cure or a relative cure.

I also give people methods that usually take under five minutes a day that help them after in the integration session be able to handle difficult emotions more elegantly. Hmm. When I think about this and efficacy around things, there are so many placebo effects in the world. And we obviously know about the Newsweek study that came out a few years ago about placebos and SSRIs.

But you have this direct one-to-one comparison here between MDMA and SSRIs and MDMA being 35 times more effective. What is actually happening in the brain? Are there, I don't understand it enough to even eloquently ask the question that I want to ask you. Is it repairing parts of the brain?

Is it refiring neuron like synapses? Is it adjusting neurological connections? What's actually taking place when someone is ingesting this medication? Yeah, mostly three things.

One is it reduces blood flow to the amygdala, and that's a part of the brain that makes us feel fear, that makes us feel defensive, and it really shuts that part of the brain off. So the effect is that you end up being fearless. So normally if I had you or somebody who's been traumatized talk about their trauma, it would normally re-traumatize them. It's very scary to talk about that.

On MDMA, you can talk about your trauma the way you talk about the weather. You know, it just makes you feel totally safe. That's one thing. The other thing it does is it floods your brain with serotonin, which makes you feel really good.

So you feel totally fearless. You feel really good. No defenses. And a lot of therapy's effects come from creating absolute sense of safety with someone.

And from there, you can reach deeper parts of the brain that almost like rewire it, that make relearning much easier. There's like a window of relearning, just like kids can relearn stuff or learn stuff really quickly. It kind of opens up that learning window very deeply that allows change to happen much more easily. Why?

Okay. I think about this a lot because I've had to literally get on an airplane and travel to other countries to have some of the experiences that I've had. for the life of me, I cannot understand how we could have something that had efficacy, that was being studied, that was being researched, that was showing to be proven effective and safe for people, then become, I assume it's the war on drugs and Nancy Reagan, but how, what happened from this is legal to now it's kind of quasi whatever it is today?

What transpired in the last 40 years that this isn't something that's available and ready for every single person in the United States? Yeah, great question. Well, what happened was that it was proven to be safe and very effective back in 1985, but there was a guy at the FDA who decided to not look at the studies and just say, well, this is a drug that makes you feel good, so we'll make it illegal. Now, it's not addictive in the way that other drugs can be addictive, but people can abuse it.

They can abuse, you know, coffee. Totally. So I'm one of them. So, you know, it was just made illegal and then nobody wants to make an illegal drug legal again.

Marijuana is a felony in most of the country at this point. So, but the FDA is considering it. They called it a breakthrough therapy. And there are studies to make it a medically prescribed drug.

And that process takes a lot of money, a lot of time. Big Pharma is very against it because they stand to lose billions of dollars by having a more effective treatment than, say, antidepressants. So there's a lot of politics involved. Not to say you can't abuse a drug.

You can abuse anything. But eventually, it will probably become a medically prescribed drug just because a lot of my clients are cops because they've been traumatized and also veterans. So there's push to make it a medically prescribed drug. So that does take time.

Yeah, and hopefully it goes that direction. I mean, most of my family is in the military. One brother was a police officer currently in the military. another brother was retired military currently a firefighter i come from a pretty violent background military was my path but i ended up getting injured and couldn't walk that path for myself and so you know played sports a lot and i've had like 10 concussions and sports while not the military are very violent but i also come from a very traumatic household and growing up and it was wildly difficult and so i think about the use case for these and i think about the idea how much it could transform somebody life almost in an instant And it just breaks my heart that it not more readily available One of the things that I curious about when you think about the argument for and against it, how do you convince people?

Let me phrase that. I don't want to convince people. How do you help people understand that this is not as dangerous as they think it is? Yeah, that's a great question.

Well, you know, I have two books about one's called Ecstasy as medicine and one called Ecstasy for Couples. So I've led about 750 journeys over 40 years. MDMA is so safe that I can actually lead these journeys over Zoom because out of 750 journeys, I've had zero challenging outcomes. That's better than if somebody takes orange juice.

Somebody drinks orange juice out of 750 people, somebody might react to it. Now, you have to differentiate between that and all the other psychedelics, LSD, psilocybin, ketamine, ayahuasca. Those all, you know, 25% of the people taking them have very challenging experiences. When people take pure MDMA, basically nobody has a challenging experience.

It makes you feel good. It makes you feel open. It makes you feel safe. A funny story I share is my parents wondered why I was working with this, you know, quasi illegal drug.

And it's a funny story. So I said, well, the only way to really know what I'm talking about is to try it. And they said, OK, we'll try it. Well, they're conservative.

I was a little surprised. And I gave them the medicine, told them how to take it. And a year later, I asked them if they'd taken the medicine. They said they had.

And I said, well, what happened? And they said, well, we waited like 20 minutes and nothing happened. So it didn't work. Well, it ends up it takes maybe 45 minutes for this drug to take effect.

So I asked them, well, what happened after the 20 minutes? And they said, well, we had nothing planned that night. So we ended up sitting on the couch and then their eyes light up and they said, and we ended up having the best night of our entire marriage. We ended up talking about how much we love each other, and we'd had some arguments the prior week, and we worked all that out because we had no plans and we were able to talk it all out.

And we ended up cuddling, and it was the most beautiful night of our marriage. The only problem was that the drug never took effect. Well, I'm laughing the whole time because that's exactly the effect of the drug. And it's not like you hallucinate or anything.

It makes you feel like your best, most open, most loving self. And that's a really good place to do therapy. You know, when I work with couples, couples therapy is a long, slow slog. You know, I was on Oprah for my work with couples.

And so I, you know, she said my book, Communication Miracles for Couples, is really great. So I did a lot of couples therapy. But it's a long, slow slog. With MDMA therapy, it's actually really easy and very pleasant.

So, you know, I tell people you can do the slow, long, expensive way or you can do the faster, easy, more pleasant way. It's really up to them. Yeah, I think most people would probably want the faster, more pleasant way because I'm not a couples therapist or a couples coach. I've worked with a few couples over the years.

But generally speaking, when couples are coming to you in that moment, they're probably not in this place of happiness and joy and love and hugs and kisses and cuddles. Right. Absolutely. That's the other thing is that, you know, trying to work out problems with someone that you are feeling kind of distant and resentful to is almost impossible.

But working out issues when you're close, when you're feeling connected is actually pretty easy. And so that's why I like to do that type of therapy with couples on MDMA. Hmm. Where do we, you know, I think that we live in this very interesting time where a lot of people have access to not only information, but access to trying things on their own.

Personally, I've never taken any medicinal journey by myself. I maybe it's fear maybe it's because my mother was a drug addict maybe it's both but I've always had a proctor I mean even going to do the ayahuasca retreat doing psilocybin's doing different medication like it's always been with someone why does that matter why is that important because I think people sometimes get the impression if I just take this drug I'll be fine yeah well you In my books, I do talk about how to make use of it, taking it on your own.

But when you have a skilled facilitator, what's the difference is that you can really dive down deep into the issues and kind of a little bit rewire somebody's brain in a certain way, which is hard to do on your own because you just feel really good and you want to bliss out. But I take advantage of that open state to look at some of their trauma, to really dial down that trauma in a way that is very effective, and also to get clarity as to what they can do to move forward in their lives in a way that isn't impacted by so much anxiety and other issues.

And why couples? You know, I'm just super curious. Is that, did that just kind of happen by happenstance? Was that a focus for you?

Why did you end up going in that direction? Well, originally in the 1970s, a therapist discovered the value of MDMA with couples, and it became a couples therapy drug in the Bay Area and in Texas. And that's how it got known. And then it got into the rave scene, which was a totally different thing.

So I got into it because, you know, I was kind of a nerdy, traumatized teenager. and when I took MDMA, it opened up a whole new world of empathy and understanding women and knowing what intimacy is really about. So I was interested just on a personal healing way. And then when I got on Oprah for a book about couples therapy, I just realized that the couples that I worked with without MDMA, it took two years to really have a breakthrough.

with the couples I worked with with MDMA, it took five hours during one journey. And it was much more pleasant for me also and much more pleasant for the couples. So that's how I got into it. A real breakthrough was when COVID hit, I looked to see, can this work over Zoom?

And I was skeptical, but it actually works better over Zoom than in person. And the advantage of that is that makes it more convenient for everybody. I can charge less. And it's actually, I think, more effective because Zoom creates another level of safety and focus that doesn't happen when people say, come to my office.

what what creates the long-term impact of this because i i think there's things i've tried where in the moment you're just in bliss and heavenly and you you feel empathy and love and connection to the universe and then a month later six months later a year later those effects tend to wane or now be non-existent is is there something more long-term applicable here well yeah that's a great question, Michael. And when I work with individuals or couples, there's at least one integration session after the journey, you know, which lasts an hour, and that might be two or three integration sessions.

What I do on the MDMA journey is I try to find what are the simplest ideas and methods that they can use after the journey to deal with their specific issues. So let's say you have an airplane phobia or a trauma over sexuality. Well, the MDMA is likely to dial that down anywhere from 20 to 80 percent just from that session. Let's say 50 percent.

That's great in five hours. Then I give people a very precise method that they can use after their journey if fear of flying comes up or fear of intimacy or sexual trauma comes up, that they know exactly what to do in that moment to better handle that fear or that uncomfortable feeling. So that's a major part of what I do. And a lot of psychedelic therapists really are missing that ingredient.

I also give people a way to make sure that they're using that simple method, which might take a minute or two or five minutes a day, to be able to use that long term. So that involves really motivation techniques as well. Do you find, I think, you know, people want to walk these paths for a myriad of reasons. Is there anything that you've noticed over the years that tends to be the most predominant reason why people want to sit down with you and have this experience?

Well, for individuals, I would say it's trauma work, whether it be sexual trauma or violence, things like that. I get that a lot. For couples, you know, a lot of couples are at the place where they're blaming, they're shaming, they're complaining about each other, and they're just stuck. so one of the things that's helpful is I do record the sessions and people see what it's like to be loving and how effective that is for working through their issues but I'd say the number one thing would be trauma number two might be what I might call anxiety disorders where people are just anxious a lot.

And I've had great luck with that. Number three would probably be addictions. And it's also can be very effective for that as well. One of the chapters in your book is about sex and MDMA.

And I think that a lot of people, unfortunately, and a lot of the people I've coached over the years, we have childhood sexual trauma. There is a part of that in our experience. Right. And and this is such we live in the most over sexualized society on planet Earth that no one talks about.

Right. And it's like sex is everywhere, but don't talk about it. And, you know, as I as I was reading what you wrote, I just thought to myself, there's something about the honesty about this experience that I think is missing for a lot of people of like sitting across from a partner and talking about the things that have happen to them and being open and honest. How does this impact people's sexuality?

Like, I just want to really poke a pin in that because it's one of those things that even for myself, as I was working through the sexual abuse that I came through, there were a lot of questions and a lot of confusion and things in my early 20s and late 20s that I had to discover through plant medicines and different pharmacological approaches. But I don't think that I ever really had the, I guess I would call it the feeling of safety around a deeper dimension of having that conversation with people.

So what is happening when you're sitting down, whether an individual or a couple, and they're having this healing experience around their sexual identity, I guess for lack of a better way to phrase it. Well, first of all, it's incredibly moving to witness. I feel it's a great honor that I get to do this work. And as you said 40 of women in America have either been raped or attempted rape and about six percent of men have been sexually abused So it something where you know so many people are facing trauma in this area, but nobody talks about.

And then you have the whole, you know, sexual exploitation thing going on. So it's really great to eliminate the fear around it and have people talk about it like they're talking about the weather. And to be able to share that openly kind of releases that burden. The other thing I have couples do particularly is talk about what they like and don't like in incredible detail.

A lot of couples have never talked about that. And in fact, some couples, you know, since I do my work on Zoom, you know, they haven't had sex in seven years. they're three hours into the journey, you know, on Zoom with me. And they say, hey, you know, we feel like making love now.

Is it okay if we take an hour and, you know, do that? And I say, yeah, you know, it's your time. And they turn off the Zoom and they meet me back an hour later, usually with a big smile on their face. And they say, that's incredible.

You know, we haven't been able to do that for a number of years. So there's a lot of sexual issues that tend to get stuck because people can't talk about it openly. And when you can talk about it openly and solve some true issues that are there, it really releases a lot of energy and potentially releases a lot of love. I would imagine it also probably releases a lot of shame.

Yeah, yeah. Well, shame is part of the cork that keeps a lot of the stuck energy down. And I use humor a lot. A fair amount of our sessions are people are laughing, you know, they're enjoying themselves, even though they're talking about, yeah, we haven't had sex in nine years, you know, like that.

But it's all light, partly because of how MDMA works, and that facilitates very open, honest, and real discussion. Okay, so if they're leading this path, I always think there's a reason why people get to this place. And I know that you talk about the six relationship traps, and I would love if we could explore that a little bit. Because I, I, you can tell me if I'm wrong, because I don't know.

I don't live in your world. I'm just making a base assumption that if people don't understand the foundation of how they got to where they are, MDMA probably isn't going to solve their problem. I could be wrong. So I don't know.

Talk me through the relationship traps and what is happening to people kind of leading up into this space. Yeah. Yeah. I understand that people don't learn.

There's no courses most people take on how to communicate effectively or how to have a good relationship. So it's like flying an airplane. If you don't know how to fly an airplane, you're not going to be able to step into the cockpit and just fly it. It's complicated.

So the traps most people eventually fall into are what I call blaming the partner, which when was the last time you blamed your partner and they said, oh my gosh, now I see what you're talking about. Oh, thank you. Literally never. Never.

Exactly. Shaming your partner doesn't work. Complaining, you know, once again, that doesn't work. Explaining your behavior or trying to persuade your partner, that tends not to work.

So what I show people during the session is what actually does work for solving problems and feeling connected. You know, I wrote a book, as I said, not just Exit Cee for Couples, but an earlier book called Communication Miracles for Couples. And there's like a new language that works to create connection. If you look at the word intimacy, the instructions are there, into me see.

And by speaking vulnerably about what you want and being able to give your partner empathy, you are able to solve problems in a loving, caring way rather than in a way that's divisive. So I record the sessions. You hear what it's like to talk in this new way. And then in the integration sessions I do, we practice a couple of very simple methods that allow couples to communicate much more effectively.

For example, understanding how people feel. Like, you know, a lot of times women might talk about their stressful day or what they're having trouble with. men immediately try to fix it. That doesn't work for most women.

What works is saying that must feel blank or that must really make you feel blank. They want that empathy, that understanding. I don't have couples come into my office and say, we understand each other really well. That's why we want a divorce.

So one of the things MDMA does is it helps couples really understand the reality of their partner in a way that they really kind of get very deeply. Okay. I have an interesting question then. You open up that floodgate of acceptance, of love, of empathy, right?

We are impacting the amygdala, turning it off so we're not in fight or flight. We're getting flooded with serotonin. We're having this kind of amazing euphoric experience. do you ever see that on the backside of it, couples will come out of this and, and it's not necessarily acceptance or maybe it is except they go, yeah, I get it.

I understand, but we still have to end this because I don't want people to necessarily, or is MDA literally a miracle cure, right? It's not a miracle cure that way. I would say for the couples that come to me, like a lot of couples come to me kind of on the verge of divorce. 15% of them, approximately, decide or get clear, like, we really don't belong together anymore.

But they do it without blame, and they do it without animosity, which is really key, because if you're going to actually separate, and there might be kids involved, you still got to work out a bunch of stuff with your mate. Would you rather work it out with love and acceptance and rationality, or screaming, blaming, and making your partner wrong. So even in those situations where people do get clarity, like, hey, you know, we had a good run, and now we're not, we have different goals now.

Let's separate with as much care as we can because we're going in different directions. That, to me, is not a failure. That's a success because they could have had to spend five more years screaming at each other, and then decide with animosity that we don't belong together. Yeah.

Could you imagine couples being required to take ecstasy at MDMA before divorce court? Like how just different that world would be? Because it's funny because I see like a lot of divorce content recently, and that's probably just because of some of the podcasts I've been listening to and people I've been researching for upcoming episodes. I've never been married.

I've never been divorced. I don't know that world. But the one thing I see a lot is like, man, there's so much anger people have towards each other. The resentments, the things not said, the don't you remember 18 years ago.

Right. And and I can't help but think to myself, it does come back to that communication. I've spent a lot of time learning how to communicate. And Jonathan, I'll tell you this.

I'm a young man. I'm 40. I am still screwing it up constantly. Right.

But when I can sit and learn from someone like you, I think to myself, okay, there's a path here. I think two things feel really true for me. One is growing up in the home that I grew up in, communication is not a thing. And I think that's probably true for a lot of people.

And secondly, we didn't have access to information like this. I mean, to sit with you, that's a goldmine compared to whatever the hell it is we're trying to learn in Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus, which apparently even has been stolen. So that's a whole other conversation for another day. But, you know, what do you think are the most important things that people need to focus on in communication with each other?

Right. But before even coming to this moment and they're sitting with you, how do we mitigate the risk of, hey, we need to go talk to Jonathan. We might get divorced. Yeah.

Well, you know, couples often wait six years on average between when they have the first real trouble and then they seek counseling. That's crazy. It's understandable because marriage counseling generally does not work very well. And it's long, slow slog.

What is so important is really understanding people rather than trying to change them. Once you understand your partner, it's really easy to then communicate better. So I give people very simple techniques, you know, such as how did that make you feel or what you're thinking about that to help them to understand their partner. And when you have that mutual understanding and empathy, which is a learnable skill, some people learn in five minutes, especially on MDMA, then couples find that they can work through problems a lot faster than the methods that never work, such as blaming, shaming, and complaining.

I'll give you one story. My wife and I, I wouldn't be married if it weren't for MDMA. About 10 years ago, my wife started being angry at me for everything, for how I closed the refrigerator, for how I walked through the house. And this went on for like three months and was very unpleasant for me and her.

And we had no idea what was going on or why. So I hired a counselor to live with us for three days to try and ascertain what's going on, you know. And after two days of watching, he said, I don't know what's going on. She's mad at you for everything.

And he suggested that we take MDMA together. So we did. What came out, and this is something that's really interesting. Sometimes MDMA will reveal stuff that's stuck that you don't even know is there.

So it came out that her aunt had died three months earlier, and she had not taken the time to visit this beloved aunt. And she was furious at herself, but she was taking it out on me. And when she realized this, she cried for like half an hour while I held her, and all her anger at me dissipated, and we were back to our loving relationship. Now, me, the counselor and my wife had no idea that this was going on, but it was released through an MDMA session and saved our marriage.

That's incredible. man I think about how often if people have the opportunity to do something different that it could really change what's happening in their dynamic for themselves personally because I'm sure that was just a huge relief for her to have that expression and be able to cry that emotion out and release that physically right and then the other side for me you're like fuck finally right and so it's like you know I actually resonate with that a lot because on the other side of it In my own personal journey I have been the emotional recluse I have been the guy who is stoic through everything who doesn cry I mean there was a period of time I didn cry for 15 years which is really intense as a reflection of what I come from.

And there's something about that openness, the receptiveness to the idea of let's just see what's down the rabbit hole, for lack of a better way to phrase it again, that I think is just so incredible. You know, John, there are people who have a lot of fear about stepping into this world of any kind of drug, whether that be a natural plant medicine or a pharmaceutical or chemical compound. I was one of those people. And for the longest time, I had friends around me who, including teachers and people in my life, would be like, you have ADHD.

Like, you need to treat this. You're a freaking maniac, dude. I'm like, I don't take drugs. I don't do it.

Right. And then I'd have people say, hey, you might actually be depressed. Maybe you need to work through the fact that your mother cut your finger off and that you were homeless and that you were sexually abused. I'm like, no, nothing is wrong with me.

Nothing is ever wrong. Then why are you 350 pounds smoking two packs a day, drinking yourself to sleep and crippling debt, brutal anxiety, five panic attacks a day? I don't know. Well, I don't know either.

Maybe you should try something different. But there was this huge wall of fear in front of me. Just every single time someone would bring this up, I'd be like, I can't do that. And I realized, now this was my experience.

I was like, oh, because you're holding on so fucking tight and trying to white knuckle yourself through life that if you let go, you might explode. But that might be the very thing that you need so you can put yourself back together again. That was like my coming to Jesus moment around drugs. Yeah.

And I'm curious, what would you tell people who are just they're deep in fear about this? They're like, man, I hear this. Congratulations. You know, I'm a victim of the just say no campaigns.

Like, I don't do this. What would you say to them? Well, you know, there's good drugs and bad drugs. Most people are okay with drugs.

They take the most common drug in the world, which is caffeine, which is definitely a drug. They take aspirin, which is definitely a drug. So the problem becomes when people associate MDMA is anything like LSD or mushrooms or ketamine. It's a completely different experience.

And those drugs, they should be a little bit, you know, worried about because people do have challenging experiences on those drugs. So out of the 750 sessions I've done with MDMA, nobody's had a challenging experience. Now, there are people who feel really tired the next day. So it's not that, you know, it's all a panacea and there's nothing to worry about.

And there's supplements you can take to help with that. But it's really a very pleasant experience. and other drugs, yeah, some people are going to have a challenging experiences with those other drugs. Actually, it'd be a good time to mention it.

I have a website called XTC, the letters XTC, asmedicine.com. And if people put in their email address, they get 10 ways to avoid bad psychedelic trips, you know, especially if you're taking those other drugs. And they also get 12 questions that lead to instant intimacy with anyone.

So I think nowadays, you know, there's a lot of stress and we need to have very quick ways to connect with each other. These 12 questions can help. And obviously an MDMA session that's guided can help a lot, but those are offered free on my website. And guys, go to xtcasmedicine.

com or pop over to thinkunbrokenpodcast.com because that'll be in the show notes. I'm curious because a thought came up as you're talking. I interviewed Dr.

Anna Lemke a few years ago. She wrote a book called Dopamine Nation. And I think that we are living in this brutal time of dopamine addiction, worse than it's ever been. Like we're probably out And here's the crazy part, Jonathan.

I don't even think we're at the apex yet. I think it's about to get a lot worse. And I don't think people really understand. Is there any dopaminergic response that happens with ecstasy?

Like, I think, again, coming to the idea about addiction, is there any potential someone would become an addict because of the way that it would impact you, like a heroin or a cocaine? Yeah, great question. Well, you can become addicted to anything, but the good news about MDMA is that despite the fact that it feels really good, hardly anybody ever gets addicted to it. And the reason is because the more you take it, the less effect it has.

So if you start taking it every week, by week five, you're not feeling anything. So that makes it kind of anti-addictive for that reason. Um, so that's why it hasn't been considered an addictive drug the way alcohol or all these other drugs can potentially be. Um, and that's really a good advantage because, uh, when something feels good and makes you, uh, more sane and, and more clear headed, you know, uh, the tendency is to abuse it, but not many people abuse it because of that reason.

Yeah. Well, that's a good thing, right? Because my brain goes to that. Like what else do I have to deal with being addicted to as someone who is definitely addicted to a lot of things and has worked through a lot of addictions, right?

And the last thing I need is to be addicted to something that makes me feel good. And I think that's part of the problem with heroin. I've never tried heroin, but everyone always says, well, you do heroin once and you're chasing the dragon. So it's great to hear that that's not a part of this experience.

I want to talk to you about your vision of the future. You know, as we're looking down the barrel of a really weird time. And I think life is always weird. It's never not been weird.

It's always kind of been in a silo of like, this is the weird thing that's happening in this time. My personal thought, I don't think life is any more or less crazy than it's ever been. It's just at a faster clip than it's ever been. And so I'm just curious, what do you think the future holds for this modality?

What do you see in front of you? What do you believe will happen? What do you hope will happen? Well, I think two things will happen.

One is science will eventually catch up. You know, you couldn't study these things for a long time because they were illegal. And now people are studying it, showing incredible results. So that's gotten big pharma interested.

So what's happening is Big Pharma is now trying to patent versions of MDMA. And once they can patent it and make billions of dollars, it will become much more available because money talks in this world. And MDMA is not patentable. So it's made it very hard for people to spend the millions and millions of dollars it takes to show that's effective.

Now, it has been shown that's effective. And then Big Pharma kind of stepped in and made it more, you know, said, oh, you know, here's a hole in the study or we don't like this. And so I think it is going to be made, either MDMA will be made medically prescribed or a very similar drug called RMDMA, which will be patentable, and then it will be just like antidepressants, but 35 times more effective. Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing that far away?

is getting involved? I think there's good and bad to it. And mostly since it will be much more available to people, and mostly I think of it as good, but that's just, you know, how capitalism works. One of the things I've done in the underground area is make this type of therapy available now.

You know, I've trained 500 people in my training on how to be an MDMA therapist so that people can get this type of therapy now inexpensively and conveniently and even do it over Zoom if they want. That's brilliant. And guys, you're going to want to reach out to Jonathan directly to learn more about that if that's something that you're interested in. And, you know, I think that my hope that people have in listening to our conversation today is hope, right?

I mean, you look at the way it's impacted your childhood, your parents, your marriage, hundreds of people that you've served and worked with over the years. And I just think that I hope that it gives people hope. And I say that because even though I might have my own view of the world and I don't necessarily believe myself to be an optimist, I think I'm a realist. I kind of look at the world and go, did someone do something cool?

I can do that too. I also know that the world's really hard and really dark because I've been on both sides of that coin. It's a hard time now. And it is hard.

And it's always been a hard time and it will always be a hard time. And my thought, my hope is we can just make those times a little less hard for people, especially like us who have had to navigate the world of trauma and like everyone who has had to navigate the world of relationships. um before i ask you my last question i'm just curious if there's anything that you feel like you would like to share that we have not covered yet well you've asked really great questions and i think um you know it might be that some of your listeners have specific questions that probably can be answered in in the ecstasy as medicine book um i make it available for i think 99 cents on Amazon so everybody can have access to it.

So there's nothing that stands out for me other than the importance of integration when doing this type of work. So it's not a silver bullet, you just take it and you're done. It's something that involves a specific protocol that in my 750 sessions, I see it just works really well and I want to share it with the world. That's brilliant.

I love that. I mean, I get it because I just, I want to share this with the world. This is my way to make that impact and the mark. My last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Well, let's say there's levels of unbroken. You know, I was a depressed, suicidal teenager, and then I became less depressed. You know, That's less broken. But I think finally, we're really trying to head towards what I would call enlightenment or awakening, where you have deep peace inside and you can access the love and peace that is our true nature at any moment or more moments.

so that you feel that safety, you feel loving, and from your love and peace, you can best contribute to others in the world. Brilliantly said. And I wish more love and peace on everyone, myself included, and to you, my friend. Thank you so much for being here.

Unbroken Nation, thank you so much for listening, my friends. If today's conversation brought you any value, make sure you go to thinkunbrokenpodcast.com.