This episode is sponsored by yet another incredible
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veterans, listen to episodes 558 and 1055 of
the Behind the Shield podcast. Welcome to the
Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name
is James Geering. And this week, it is my absolute
honor to welcome on the show, renowned addiction
expert, speaker, and author, Dr. Gabor Mate.
Now, in this conversation, we discuss a host
of topics. From his perspective on the national
addiction crisis, sociopaths in power, the corrosion
of empathy, first responder mental health, proactive
programs, the healing power of psychedelics,
and so much more. Now, before we get to this
incredible conversation, as I say every week,
please just take a moment. Go to whichever app
you listen to this on. Subscribe to the show.
Leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single
five -star rating truly does elevate this podcast,
therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of over 1 ,200 episodes
now. So all I ask in return is that you help
share these incredible men and women's stories
so I can get them to every single person on planet
Earth who needs to hear them. So with that being
said, I introduce to you Dr. Gabor Mate. Enjoy.
I want to start by saying two things. Firstly,
thank you to our mutual friend Trevor Miller
for making this connection. And secondly, I want
to welcome you to the Behind the Shield podcast
today. Thank you. As to Trevor, he just had a
big article about him in the New York Times magazine
just the day after we speak here on his work
with the program PTSD. Thanks for welcoming me.
Well, very first question, where on planet Earth
are we finding you today? Well, finding me in
Vancouver, British Columbia, where I'm nursing
five broken ribs, having fallen off my bicycle
on my way to go swimming three days ago. So I'm
not particularly having the best of all possible
times of it. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I
didn't help that for people listening that there
was an issue even jumping on this call too. So
I'm sorry to add even more stress to your day
today. Well, likely. You never know what life
is. My wife says it turns on a dime. Absolutely.
I'm actually on my way home. As soon as we finish
this conversation, I'm jumping on a plane to
the UK. And even that, the plans, you had family
members fall over and people with cancer and
all kinds of stuff. So, yeah, life is a dynamic,
unplannable experience. Yeah. Well, I would love
to jump in because I want to be mindful of your
time. Obviously, we've got an hour and usually
I would kind of start the beginning of someone's
life and kind of walk their way through. But
I would love to pick out some of the areas we
talked before we hit recording about, you know,
the first responders specifically. But as we
sit here in 2026. What is your perspective on
the addiction crisis in general? Are we trending
in the right way, or do you feel like we're still
regressing at the moment? Well, these dynamics
fluctuate. But in the last year, in the U .S.,
there were fewer overdose deaths than the year
before. So that's good. But on the other hand,
Any given year in the U .S., still twice as many
Americans die of overdoses than died in the Vietnam,
Afghan, and Iraq wars put together. So those
numbers are just horrendous. And this is in a
country that has spearheaded the so -called war
on drugs since the 1970s. And people ought to
be able to think for themselves, well, maybe...
We don't have the right approach. If after announcing
the war on drugs and persecuting it with such
ferocity for decades, the number of people overdosing
in our own country is going up, and the continued
violence over drug trafficking such as we saw
in Mexico just a couple of weeks ago continues
unabated, is it possible that we're doing something
wrong? So, also if you look at more generally,
if you get beyond the definition of addiction
that is drug -related, I mean, drugs are one
obvious target of addictive drives, and I worked
with the highly addicted population here in the
group for 12 years. But people can also be addicted
to gambling, to shopping, to pornography, to
sex, to gaming, to the internet, to their cell
phones, to bulimia, to self -cutting, to any
number of behaviors. So if you look at the gambling
specter that looms over the society, it's huge.
And it goes well beyond the issue of substance
abuse. I had Johan Hari on the show a couple
of times, actually, and we kind of unpacked the
origin story of drug prohibition. You know, when
you learn about the story of Harry Anslinger
and job justification and the failure of alcohol
prohibition, which you would think would be a
massive red flag for prohibition of something
else. We're at 80 plus years now, longitudinal
study of whether that works. And I would argue
that it's an epic failure and spending. My whole
career as a first responder, as a firefighter
and a paramedic in these communities watching,
you know, the homelessness, the sex work, the
gang membership, the overdoses. There's no question
that it isn't working, this war on drugs. What
is the resistance to the progressive answers
that, for example, Portugal have? I sat with
Jao Gulau in Lisbon a few years ago. and witnessed
it with my own eyes and heard of the incredible
success that they've had. As you sit there in
Canada, as I sit here in America now, what are
the forces against this massive worldwide conversation
of changing the way we view addiction? Well,
first of all, I don't agree that it's a failure.
It's a massive success. The question is what
you think the assumptions are. If the assumptions
are that we should diminish drug use, downgrade
the drug trade, then it's a failure. But I can
ask you a question. Was the Iraq war a success
or a failure? Depends how you look at it. Depends
who for. One of you. or overturning a regime
with weapons of mass destruction was a failure
because there was never a regime with weapons
of mass destruction. As we all knew then, anybody
had a chance to even open their eyes, one little
slit could tell that the whole thing was based
on a pack of lies. If the attempt was to create
a democratic country in the Middle East, of course
it was a failure. failure achieved at the death
of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. But if the
intent was to stamp the male fist of the American
empire in yet another part of the world and tell
them, you guys are not in charge, we are. And
if the intent was to enrich what President Eisenhower
called the military -industrial complex, It was
a huge success. Now, if you go back to the war
on drugs, in terms of entrenching military -equipped
law enforcement institutions, enforcing the power
of the courts, intimidating minority populations,
segregating millions of black kids in jails,
for crimes for which white kids don't get nearly
the same degree of retribution, such as cocaine
possession, to enhance the coercive powers of
the state, and, frankly, to keep a whole industry
of private prisons and busy lawyers and judges
flush in business. It's been a major success.
Not to mention it's been a major success in criminalizing
the drug addict, of demonizing a section of the
population. People need to have enemies. People
need to have people to blame. And so you can
channel that into politically useful areas. And
everybody's worried about... being tough on crime,
nobody's going to look at the actual conditions
that create the crime. So I would argue it's
been a major success. Yeah. And this is the problem.
So I'm going to go straight into something that
I've been thinking about recently. I actually
heard it was on the Joe Rogan podcast and there
was a guy called Sad Guru who was traveling around
on a motorbike and they were talking about, you
know, I've met the guy. oh you have yeah so you
know exactly what i'm talking about and he just
made a comment you know he was saying about you
know people having trauma and joe said oh yeah
apart from the heads of drug companies or something
like that and he said no they have it too and
then they went on with the conversation didn't
even linger on that but it made me think when
we in the first responder for a profession for
example talk about our mental health we talk
about You know, the firefighters, the engineers,
the lieutenants that are actually on the streets
responding to these things, you know, police
officers, et cetera. But we're not looking at
the chiefs, you know, and the fire chiefs and
the police chiefs, some of whom seem to be completely
disconnected from the well -being of their people.
And they're not advocating for them. If you look
at a more macro level, you look at, for example,
Richard Sackler from Purdue Pharma. Whose deliberate,
you know, misinformation really was one of the
biggest parts of the amplification of the opioid
crisis that to this day still takes 100 ,000
American lives every single year. And the question
is, well, how could you sleep at night knowing
that your products, you know, nicotine or weapons
or whatever it is that you are profiteering off
the sickness and the deaths of Americans, Canadians,
British, etc. So you touch on this on your latest
book. Talk to me. About the the mental health
of some of these people in these positions of
power, you know, I would argue presidents, prime
ministers, too. And, you know, how detrimental
that can then be when someone with so much influence
is not addressing their own trauma. And then
that kind of hatred is being or that greed is
being perpetuated down the line. Yeah, well,
we have here is a combination of. individual
psychological factors, and then social and economic
priorities. So there's a professor here at the
University of British Columbia who I quote in
the book, he has mentioned the myth of normal,
and he says that not all psychopaths are in prison,
some are in the boardrooms of corporations. And
if you look at it objectively, nobody in their
right mind with any access to the least bit of
information and objective research can deny that
there's a climate crisis going on. Every day
there's new reports of more scientists sounding
the alarm about possibly irreversible climate
changes with all kinds of effects on human life,
animal life, nature, the oceans, the glaciers,
and so on. And those changes have already caused
the deaths of a lot of people. Or take an example
like smoking, which nobody doubts anymore, is
a significant risk factor in lung cancer. Or
we can take the example of junk foods, which
we know... are a significant contributor to diabetes,
to obesity, to heart disease, to strokes, to
all kinds of metabolic problems. Now, none of
the facts around climate change, smoking and
cigarette smoking and harm to human health, or
junk foods and its harm to human health, none
of those are vaguely scientifically controversial.
That's the first fact. The second fact is that
these truths about tobacco, climate, and food
have been known for decades. The third fact that's
true is that the corporations and the CEOs and
the executives of the corporations have known
these truths for decades. And the fourth fact
is that they've knowingly denied them and tried
to discredit the science showing the link between
lung cancer and smoking, link between junk food
and ill health, diabetes, and the link between
human activity and climate change. So they deny
this knowing that millions of people are going
to die. which they have. Millions of people have
died and more will as a result of all this denial.
Now, if you or I, James, were to go out and kill
one person, we'd be charged, we'd be tried, we'd
be convicted. These people have killed millions.
They're heroes. They're rewarded by the system.
Now, so this one person, this professor at UBC,
he said, not all psychopaths are in prison, some
are in the boardrooms. So what I'm saying is
that we have a system because of the materialistic
ethic, because the only thing that matters is
power, profit, privilege, and performance. Therefore,
everything else is secondary. And so that The
very people who are the least concerned with
human dignity, human life, human health, are
the ones we put in charge to run our institutions.
And then we wonder, now, what happened to them
personally? It's pretty easy to tell what happened
to them personally. They're shut down from their
emotions, they're shut down from their truth,
they're shut down from their connection to their
humanity. And in the midst of normal, I looked
at two cases of two politicians. One is Donald
Trump. And people think I'm sort of anti -Trump.
I'm not anti -Trump. I'm just telling how it
is. He is somebody who literally said in so many
words, I'm quoting him, the world is a horrible
place. It's dog -eat -dog. Everyone is against
you. Your friends want your wealth. Your friends
want your wife. Your friends want your house.
These are your friends. Now, if that's the world
that you believe in, how are you going to have
to be? You're going to have to be grandiose.
You're going to have to be suspicious. You're
going to have to be aggressive, acquisitive,
greedy, accumulate as much power as you can for
yourself, and you have to absolutely lack a conscience.
Otherwise, you'll be eaten up. How did he come
to believe in that world? Because that was his
childhood. His niece, Mary Trump, who's a psychologist,
says that Fred Sr., Fred's father, was a sociopath
who treated his kids horribly. And this is where
Trump learned that this is the way the world
works. His elder brother dealt with it by dragging
himself to death. Now his opponent, Hillary Clinton,
who was quite capable of going into and destroying
a country, bombing it, killing tens of thousands
and rendering a country utterly dysfunctional.
And who put up with the sexual escapades of her
husband by blaming the women. She had also a
very traumatic childhood, where her needs were
not met, where she was beaten, where... If she
complained, she was told not to be a coward,
she had to suck it up. So what I'm saying is
that the American public had the choice between
two traumatized people in the 2016 election.
The question is, which trauma did they choose?
They chose the Big Daddy trauma because there's
so much fear in a society, so much insecurity,
and so much need for protection that Trump's
grandiosity... appears to people as power that
we can rely on. It's a very compensatory mechanism.
If I look at him psychologically, he's the least
secure person I've ever seen. Who needs to have
their name on buildings? I mean, if you had a
neighbor, let's say, James, you had a neighbor
whose name was Smith, and who then put a big
sign on his house saying, Smith, power, and gold
letters. And the neighborhood high school had
to be named Smith High School. What would you
think of this guy? But these are the leaders.
And Trump is only the most exigious example.
What I'm saying is that in this society, we elect
traumatized people who then pursue traumatizing
policies. See, and people would say, oh, this
is a political conversation. I couldn't disagree
more. People use the word politics to stop people
having the conversations that are needed about
the human beings. And I've said this, I mean,
I only came over here 22 years ago and I got
to vote. I think it was the Trump Clinton was
the first one, if I'm not mistaken, if I got
that right in my head. And I ended up going independent
because everyone kept saying the phrase is the
lesser of two evils. And I would say, well, there's
340 million people in America. what is wrong
with the system that you're presented with two
people and you use the word the lesser of two
evils so and then as you look at the exact examples
that you've given hurt people hurt people. I
mean, it's blatantly obvious the narcissism and
the nastiness that's projected when you look
at the revered leaders of our history, you know,
all nations, you know, they were strong when
they were compassionate and they were kind. You
know, there were times when we went to war, like
World War II, and, you know, the allies did incredible,
incredible things. And they had some great leaders
at certain times then. But, you know, going around
the way we are now, and even, you know, I know
you've been a voice on this too. It turns my
stomach. that a generational conflict like Gaza,
and I've always mirrored this with Ireland. I
grew up next to a military base in England, and
I had to sweep under my car in the morning to
make sure there wasn't a bomb from the IRA. That's
not me being dramatic. It's just geographically,
we were right next to a base. But I understand
the backstory of why there was that conflict
in the first place. But I've always said, if
the IRA bombed the mainland, which they did many
times, and then the British went in and flattened
the entire city of Belfast, men, women, and children,
how would the world react? But 20 ,000 children
are killed in Gaza, and there's so little moral
courage because of these figures that you said
have been presented to us that the American people
can't separate between the back and forth of
militant combatants. And this incredibly, you
know, genocidal number of children, not to mention
innocent women, innocent men, children that are
killed in that conflict. And I think this is
something that we have to look in the mirror.
If you're not appalled by, you know, imagine
20 ,000 of children in your home, your schools,
your community were killed, and that doesn't
move you. And yet you go to a holy building every
Sunday or Saturday or whatever religion you lean
into. I think it's an incredibly nauseating barometer
on how we've been driven away from what used
to be a pretty strong moral compass. You know,
there's a lot in what you say. First of all,
as to the comment that this is a political discussion,
I said nothing about politics. Exactly. I didn't
say anything about do I agree with Trump's policies
or Clinton's or anybody else's. I just said...
These are the forces that shape the personality
that lead our culture. And the more hurt they
are, the more damage they cause. If you look
at somebody like Hitler, he was a severely abused
child. Severely. So that's the first point. And,
you know, I'm not talking about politics as policy.
I'm talking about in certain cultures, certain
people get elevated. Because they project a sense
of strength, but that strength is really grandiosity,
which is a compensation for a lack of self -respect.
That's what I'm saying. I'm just stating an obvious
psychological fact. And you can find them all
around the political spectrum. As to Ireland
and England, well, as you are probably aware,
The IRA didn't all of a sudden arise out of a
pumpkin patch. There'd been a history of brutal
British suppression of Irish independence and
culture and mass starvation and all kinds of
depredations for hundreds of years. Similarly,
Hamas did not arise out of a pumpkin patch. Not
to justify killing of civilians, but the Palestinians
had suffered massive killing of the civilians
for 80 years, which has been documented by Israeli
scholars. And there was an article in the Israeli
newspaper Haaretz just two weeks ago about how
more documents have been found about what Israel
did to the Palestinians in 1948. They keep finding
more and more evidence of the massacres, expulsions,
oppressions. And I've been there. I've seen it
with my own eyes. Three years ago now, two years
ago, four years ago now, I was in the West Bank
working with Palestinian women who had been tortured
in Israeli jails. And so that when you look at
Gaza, and then it's not just a question of killing,
it's also... They don't let in anesthetics so
children, when they have to have their limbs
amputated, it's done without any pain medication.
I just poked my ribs a few days ago. I get to
take pain medication. Somebody gets their arm
blown off and they need an amputation. They don't
even get an aspirin because the Israelis don't
let in medications. So we're talking about levels
of cruelty that are beyond imaginable. And I
suppose the more general question is, this has
been going on in human life for a long time.
In my country, in your country, in the Middle
East, elsewhere, everybody's capable of being
a victim and everybody's capable of being a perpetrator.
There's no, nobody gets a pass card. that you're
going to be good and everybody else is going
to be bad. It just depends on the circumstances.
The question I keep asking in all my books, including
this most recent one, The Myth of Normal, is
what gives a rise to healthy human development
and what distorts healthy human development?
Going back to your fire chiefs, when I looked
at the first responder culture, I noticed a number
of things. First of all, the people that go into
it tend to be very dedicated, very idealistic
in a certain sense, and they're really committed
to making a difference. So they care. Number
one. Number two. Sometimes what they have to
witness is horrific. Even if their own lives
don't come under threat, which often it does,
but just by what they have to witness in terms
of human suffering. Sometimes human cruelty.
So that takes a toll. But that's accompanied
by a kind of male -matchel culture where we're
not supposed to have feelings. We're not supposed
to be vulnerable. We're not supposed to crack
under the pressure. We're not supposed to be
upset and have issues. And it's kind of considered
a... slanderously female -like concept that we
should have feelings and we should have vulnerability.
So not only are people exposed to a lot of deep
stress and potentially traumatizing influences,
they're also totally discouraged from dealing
with it. And it's considered a weakness. And
you can tell me if this is wrong, but this is
my general impression. In the myth of normal,
I actually talk about a case of a female first
responder who, in her firehouse, underwent all
kinds of misogynist harassment. They would throw
tampons into her bed and make sexual comments.
It's like the feminine is denied, and the feminine
is our emotional vulnerable part. So people are
denying their own feminine parts, and males hate
to tell you. I don't hate to tell you. As human
beings, we all have what we call feminine and
masculine parts. And there's this cult of the
masculine, of the tough, invulnerable masculine.
And our mutual friend, Trevor Miller, who you
mentioned, he works with veterans. And what breaks
down when people heal from a post -traumatic
stress disorder. What breaks down and blessedly
is this facade of male invulnerability. That's
the culture. Now, your fire chiefs, they're the
most extreme of it because they're the ones who
get to be at the top of it. So I would argue
that in most cases, not in all cases, but in
most cases, the people who make it to the top
are the ones who are the least open to the caring,
vulnerable side. So there's no culture of caring
and support. There's not to be. This is hard
work. What we're seeing at the moment is there,
don't get me wrong, some excellent leaders out
there who are advocating for their people, who
are fighting for healthy work weeks. I mean,
I don't have to explain to you the impact of
sleep deprivation on mental health, for example,
not to mention cancer and testosterone and everything
else. As you discussed earlier, smoking, fast
food, et cetera, we know the science is there
for how detrimental that is to human health.
It's the same with shift work. And at the moment,
we're in a recruitment crisis because people
haven't changed, because we haven't acknowledged
the issues and acknowledged all these funerals
that we're having and said in this 56 -hour work
week and then this mandatory overtime, it's now
80 hours. is a massive contributing factor to
a lot of the issues that we struggle with but
as we talked about with some of these you know
psychopaths in the boardroom we're also seeing
that in the chief's office in some places where
they are unmoved by not only you know the the
fact that they're not going home to their families
but there are suicides and cancers you know numerous
deaths and these men and women just go home at
five o 'clock every night and they kind of shrug
their shoulders and go oh well And it's the same.
I see it as the same thing. The good leaders
still have that heart of service and they feel
it when their people are suffering and they fight
for them. But the poor leaders, to your point,
I feel they're so disconnected and so mentally
shut down that we need to have a conversation
about mental health in the fire service leadership.
Because if you're not fighting for your men and
women, and God forbid, you're even burying your
men and women and it's not moving you to action.
That's an empathy issue. That is borderline sociopathy,
I think. It is an individual level. On the systemic
level, there's what we can call the patriarchy.
And the patriarchy, often people think that men
are in charge. Well, no, it's not about individual
men being in charge. Although, if you look at
the power structures, they tend to be elderly
men. elderly Caucasian then for that matter.
So that's undeniable. But Patriarch is less of
a declared ideology than an underlying dynamic.
And basically it glorifies what we consider to
be masculine and it demeans and controls what
we consider to be feminine. I knew a therapist
friend of mine, very well known, whose clientele
includes, who gets to charge a lot of money,
because his clientele includes the heads of corporations.
And he says, these guys are a mess. Underneath
the facade of success and power, they're really
broken human beings. Because they're... are so
separated from their emotions. And again, these
are the people that the system rewards. And these
are the people that I hear people make comments
on that, you know, that interact like yourself
with some of these men and women. And they're
like, and it's never enough. It's never enough
power. It's never enough money. It's never enough
sexual attention, whatever it is, because that
void is unfillable by that point. That's the
whole point is, and all addictions to whatever
are rooted in this emptiness inside. And you
can never fit from the outside. And in fact,
the more you get from the outside, the more insecure
you get. I mean, I think it was like to be in
the consciousness of an Elon Musk. I wouldn't
want to leave his mind for a second. There must
be sheer hell in there. Not that he knows that,
but to need that much power, to need that much
money, that much recognition, how empty do you
have to be? Absolutely. I talked about Portugal.
They had such an incredible model and not only
turning everything around, but then even for
their law enforcement, you know, they're not
walking around wearing military gear or, you
know, that kind of thing. And I think people
in America forget, there are lots of countries
where the police just walk around, you know,
interacting with people like American police
officers did, you know, a few decades ago. I
want to get to the psychedelics. But before we
do, as far as systems, if you were king for a
day, and you could actually implement something
directly into Canada or the US, what needs to
change so we can actually start addressing addiction
as a mental health element address generational
trauma you know give proactive tools to get people
out of addiction you know what what are some
of the best systems that you've seen around the
world that you think need to be in northern america
as well the problem of being king for a day is
very hierarchical and it needs you imposing something
on others because you've got the And that by
definition doesn't work. But if I could give
advice, if that's what you're asking, that people
might actually listen to, I would say, look,
just look at the actual science of addiction.
And I don't just mean the science in the narrow
sense of the neurobiology of the addicted brain.
That's easy enough. You can show brain scans.
But what shapes the neurobiology of the brain?
So it turns out, I'm speaking pure brain science
here, is that the human brain is shaped by interaction
with the environment. And that begins before
birth. So you can stress pregnant women, and
those stresses will affect the child's brain
development in such ways that they'll be more
likely to... develop mental health issues, they
can predispose to addictions later on. So in
my book on addiction, in the realm of omnivores,
in the appendix on prevention, I say that the
first, the prevention of addiction is to begin
at the first prenatal visit by taking care of
a pregnant woman and looking after their stresses.
And so from the moment of conception, till birth,
and for two or more decades beyond birth, the
brain develops an interaction with the environment.
So, for example, the opiate addict is desperate
for a hit of morphine or, you know, opium, fentanyl.
Why? Because they want what the opiates provide.
Now, we have our internal opiates. They're called
endorphins. And they're essential for pain relief.
They're essential to give us a sense of pleasure
and reward. And they're essential for caring
and loving and connection. Now, we have an internal
endorphins. And as with any developmental process,
if the conditions are right, our brain will develop.
and will develop these endorphin circuits. But
what if they're not? So if you look at the science,
what happens to addicted people, particularly
severely drug -addicted people, is they didn't
have good conditions for development. They had
abuse and adversity and rejection, all kinds
of stress and trauma. So if you want to prevent
addiction, let's promote the healthy development
of human brains. which means let's have a trauma
-informed society. Let's look after young families
at risk. Let's give them support. Let's make
sure that in the schools and institutions where
kids are cared for, and don't forget, the brain
keeps developing into adulthood, children treated
in such ways that promote healthy development.
It's not about teaching them who won the war
of 1812 or... which battle of the Civil War was
won or lost by which general. Those learnings
can come later. Am I building a brain that's
curious, that's open, that can receive information?
So what I'm saying is that if I could create
a healthy environment, I would have a trauma,
and I talk about this in The Myth of Normal.
I'd have trauma -informed medical education so
doctors know what the hell they're dealing with.
They don't. They just look at diseases, including
mental health conditions, as diseases, but not
as the manifestations of people's lives. They
look at addiction as a genetic, at the very best,
they look at addiction as a genetically determined
brain disease. Society doesn't even do that.
Society says addiction is just a bad choice that
you made. You go to jail. This is nonsense. So
if you understood these mental health conditions,
including the affliction of addiction, as an
outcome of stress and trauma, then we would do
what we can to provide the right environment
for children from conception. And when people
did behave in ways that are harmful to them or
others, we would find compassionate ways of treating
them. Portugal is one example where they don't
criminalize the personal possession of drug use.
It's not that you're allowed to sell drugs, but
if you possess them for personal use, you're
not a criminal. You get treatment. And I don't
know too many places. There have been programs
here and there, but there aren't any societies
on a large scale. that have really adopted trauma
-informed policies. You mentioned about developing
brain. There's a shift as the fire service becomes
understaffed to now go into high schools and
persuade high school kids to come straight at
18 years old into the fire service. A lot of
us, when it was very competitive, took a few
years to even get a job as a firefighter. And
in law enforcement, usually in the States, you
have to be 21. What is your perspective as far
as the, ideal is the wrong word, but is there
a cautionary tale as far as how young a first
responder could or should be rather than kind
of holding off and then letting the brain mature
a little bit more before they do and see the
horrific things that we do in our profession?
Good question. But let me reverse the question.
Given how emotionally challenging the work can
be, given how much maturity it requires to make
the right decisions, given what a collaborative
effort it is, Your own stresses and traumas are
likely to be triggered sooner or later if you
keep doing this work. What attributes would you
like a candidate to possess before they enter
this work? And I doubt very much that by age
18 most people have developed those capacities.
They'll have to have lived in the world of it,
I think. And I would make the same case for law
enforcement. I'd certainly make the same case
for medical personnel. I mean, doctors, science
kids going to university and learning the physiology
of the body. How does that prepare them to understand
human beings? Which is what they're dealing with.
They're not dealing with physiology. They're
dealing with the whole creature whose psychology
is inseparable from their physiology and their
social relationships. So I think... Anybody in
these important people professions needs to have
more experience before they get trained in the
specific skills of the profession. I would argue.
Yeah, no, I agree. And it's interesting. I credit
Jake Clark from Save a Warrior for opening my
eyes on the prevalence of childhood trauma or
childhood struggles in a lot of us in uniform
and incarcerated men and women as well. Having,
you know, what normally happens in the fire service,
you do a psych test, you know, and it's the MMPI.
And then, you know, you either pass or you fail.
You might do a polygraph like I did several times.
Have to lie your way through that because, you
know, if you if you're going to be a good responder,
you've probably done some naughty things when
you were younger. But what I've realized now,
OK, well, if the aces on average are six, why
are we not having a conversation at the front
door and say, look. you've probably been through
some things that's why you wanted to become a
firefighter or a police officer or a soldier
or whatever it is that that is going to be a
strength if we talk about it from day one the
same way as we're going to do push -ups and sit
-ups on the drill ground you know whatever that
looks like counseling whatever so that Now we're
forging that post -traumatic growth. We're creating
more empathy. We're creating a higher level of
performance with a calmer mind rather than, well,
let's just wait. And then if James breaks, we'll
send him to a psychiatrist and hopefully get
him before he takes his own life. So that proactive
acknowledgement of. the attributes, as you said,
the life skills that we've got once processed,
I think there's a beautiful opportunity to actually
forge not just mental health, but even a higher
level of performance in our profession. I don't
doubt it. And what's the adverse? The adverse
is you get these high levels of burnout and PTSD
and alcoholism and addictions and suicides even,
I imagine. That's the outcome when we don't act
proactively. So I don't know what case can be
made against it. Well, I think the other thing
is that then it makes doing the exact same work
exciting. If I know that I'm going to be a better
paramedic, a better firefighter, and arguably
a better husband and father, if I do the work
right from the beginning, that excites me to
go to counseling, to meditate, to do breath work,
to maybe watch what I eat and exercise more.
But if it's just a last -ditch attempt when I'm
drowning, then it becomes a very sad conversation,
and it's not driving people towards treatment
then. That's right. That's right. The real issue
is, This is both science and it's common sense.
Why are we having such a hard time convincing
people? That's the king for a day question as
well. All right. Well, we mentioned Trevor. So
he's a founder of Ambio and I've had Marcus Capone
on here. A lot of the, the seal. you know family
on here and then uh more recently there's a couple
of non -profits now for first responders the
siren project and the 343 fund also sending people
to you know trusted um ayahuasca retreats in
in mexico talk to me about how you first came
across that treatment and how important do you
think that is in the overall mental health conversation
you're making me weep bitterly at the moment
because um this friday i was going to go to Costa
Rica to take part in some ayahuasca ceremonies.
But if you haven't done ayahuasca, it makes you
retch. And you can't very well go through the
night retching with four broken ribs. That would
be counterproductive. So I had to cancel the
trip. Okay. It was not meant to be. I became
aware of psychedelics. See, I worked for 12 years
as a physician in Vancouver's, or North America's,
most concentrated area of drug use, which is
the downtown east side of Vancouver. And in that
few square block radius, we have more people
ingesting, inhaling, injecting drugs than anywhere
else in the Western world, including anywhere
else in North America. And it's quite a horrendous
scene for people that visit it. There's all kinds
of historical reasons why Vancouver's downtown
east side has become kind of a, drug use capital
of North America, but people there are in the
streets injecting, especially before we had better
treatments, people were dying of HIV, hepatitis
C, suicides, infections of all kinds. And I was
a doctor down there for 12 years. These are my
patients. And that's when I wrote my I think
it was my third book. It's called In the Realm
of Hungry Roast, Close to Condors of Addiction,
which points out that what I've talked about
before is that addiction is neither a choice
that anybody makes. Nobody wakes up some morning
and says, hey, my ambition is to be an addict,
number one. Number two, it's not an inherited
brain disease. The arguments that it's genetic
are scientifically. Alcoholism runs in the family
not because alcoholism runs in the family. Alcoholism
runs in the family because trauma runs in the
family. And drinking is a response to emotional
pain. And so my mantra under addiction is don't
ask why the addiction, ask why the pain. And
furthermore, I point out that all addictions,
whether it's gambling, shopping, eating, booing,
self -cutting, as I said before, are the same
addiction process, are different targets, but
people want inner peace, they want a temporary
sense of being alive, of connection, a sense
of ease. These are necessary human attributes,
and the real question is, why don't they have
them, particularly with trauma? So I pointed
out all the historical and scientific evidence
of trauma and all that, and after that book was
published, I was traveling with a book tour,
and people kept asking me, what do you know about
ayahuasca and the healing of addiction? And I
said nothing, because I didn't. And nobody in
medical school talks about that kind of stuff.
Next visit, what do you know about ayahuasca
and the healing of addiction? I actually got
annoyed with the question. For Christ's sake.
I just spent three years pouring my life and
heart into this book that I know is going to
make a big difference out there. And you ask
me about the one thing I never heard about, you
know. And then somebody said, you know, you could
actually experience it yourself. So I did. Up
here in Vancouver. And I got it. I got that under
the psychedelic influence, two major things can
happen in the right context. One is you can actually
feel all the pain, all the trauma that you've
been running away from through the addiction.
The isolation, the broken heart, the sense of
hopelessness, which create the emptiness that
the addiction tries to fill. And you can also
experience the truer, present self that's quite
content to be in the world and doesn't have to
run anywhere. So you can experience both the
need for the addiction, but also the self that
doesn't need the addiction. And for a lot of
people, it also brings up a lot of emotional
memories and processing of traumas, of woundings
that they had dealt with. So it can show you
your traumatized self, and it can also show you
your true self. And so that's in a nutshell.
Now, do I think it's ideal for everybody? No.
Do I think everybody should do it? No. Do they
work every time and for everybody? No. But they're
a whole lot better than almost anything that
Western medicine has to offer. So in the right
context, with the right guidance, the right leadership,
the right safety, the right integration, the
right support, and the right selection of participants.
It's like it began for predilection, for example,
in the article in the New York Times about our
friend Trevor, or Ayahuasca. I've seen him save
lives and change people's trajectories from self
-destructive to self -enhancing. I've seen people
heal from illnesses. So the potentials are vast.
And, you know, there's also limitations. I'm
not an evangelist for psychedelics, but I sure
value them. And I have a chapter in the Metanormal
just on my own experience with psychedelics and
what as a physician I understand about their
potential use. One thing that really amazed me
because I've had so many people on here that
have had success with MDMA -led psychotherapy,
Ibogaine, Ayahuasca, 5 -MeO -DMT. And more often
than not, the soldier, the firefighter, the police
officer thought it was going to be combat, thought
it was going to be those horrific calls that
we run on. That was going to be the nucleus of
their pain. And more often than not, it wasn't.
Most of the time, it was their formative years.
And, you know, so again, a lot of these areas
weren't accessible for them in the talk therapy
that they were trying. Obviously, it certainly
wasn't addressing it with the SSRIs or whatever
they were prescribed. And they were finally able
to get to, you know, to use a princess and a
pea analogy, finally able to get the pea under
the mattress. And that's where so much of their
healing seemed to have really begun. Well, you
know, that's absolutely accurate. People think
that PTSD is about what happened as an adult.
So 80 soldiers go into battle, and they all witness
horrific events. 20 come out of PTSD, 80 don't.
Who are the 20? The ones who are traumatized
in childhood. And that adult experience simply
triggered their unresolved childhood trauma.
So there's research to that effect, by the way.
So what you're describing is absolutely accurate,
that the real traumas, that they hadn't considered
traumas because they thought it was just normal,
happened in their childhood in the way that they
were treated, in the way that sometimes badly
mistreated, or the way they needed to get their
needs met. And so they were wounded, hurt by
that. Trauma means a wound, and you can wound
kids in many ways. And one of the points I make
in my book, The Myth of Normal, is that so much
of what we consider normal in our society is
actually harmful. A lot of the ways that we raise
kids are considered normal, but they're harmful.
And a lot of people think that in normal childhood,
then they struggle with a mental health issue
or a physical health issue. confront the fact
that no that childhood i had a lot of pain that
i didn't know what to do well let's expand on
that talk to me about the myth of normal what
made you write this particular book and what
people what can people find within the pages
of that so that book i have to say um it was
a 19 week new york times bestseller it's bestseller
in england in germany hungary published in over
40 countries And it took me 10 years to write,
10 years to collect the material for it. I'd
written books on specific subjects, like I was
diagnosed with ADHD in my mid -50s, so my first
book is on ADHD, Scattered Minds, which is an
interesting subject that most people also get
totally wrong. I'll be doing a webinar on it,
if anybody's interested, on May the 12th, actually,
a free webinar. on ADHD. So that was my first
book. And that made me interested in child development
and how does the brain develop. Then I went to
work in the downtown Eastside with this evicted
population. So I wrote in the realm of funny
ghosts and addiction. I wrote a third book called
When the Body Says No, which is about the impact
of emotional stress and emotional self -suppression
on physiology. Because the mind can't be separated
from the body, scientifically. So the impact
of emotions and suppressed emotion on diseases
like cancer and autoimmune disease. So whole
mind -body unity. And then I helped write a book
on parenting called Hold On To Your Kids. All
these were on discrete topics. But I wanted to
write a book that brought it all together. Because
here's the deal. Ultimately, we're not isolated
creatures. We live in a culture. And while as
a physician, I'm largely trained to see disease
as the outcome of individual physiological problems
or predispositions, in actual scientific fact,
as has been shown by decades of science, human
beings are what's called biopsychosocial creatures,
which means that our biology is shaped by our
emotions, which is shaped by our social relationships.
And somebody might say, we also are biopsychosocial
spiritual creatures, we also have spiritual needs.
And that health... rests on a balance between
those four quadrants. And so, for example, in
Canada, Indigenous women have six times the rate
of rheumatoid arthritis than a Caucasian male.
Now, these people never used to have rheumatoid
arthritis. It's an outcome of being an Indigenous
woman in a patriarchal, racist culture. So you
can't say that the joint inflammation is just
a result of a physiological process. That physiological
process reflects the stresses of life in a certain
culture. We've known for decades and decades
that children whose parents are stressed, the
more stressed the parents are, the more likely
the child is to have asthma. In other words,
the inflammation of the child's lungs is not
just a physiological event in an isolated organ.
It's also the impact of the parent's social situation,
which affects the physiology of the child. I
mean, I could go on. PTSD. We know from the Harvard
study six years ago that women with post -traumatic
stress disorder have double the risk of ovarian
cancer. And the milder the symptoms, the less
the risk. Which means that this malignancy...
isn't just an isolated development in an isolated
organ. Because nobody develops PTSD sitting in
a room by themselves. PTSD is, by definition,
a social event. It happens in a relationship.
It happens in a context. So I wanted to write
a book that brings together everything. The mind
-body unity, the importance of child development,
how the brain develops in the direction of the
environment, what children need, what they don't
need. what addictions represent, as you and I
have talked about, what mental health conditions
represent, how physical health conditions are
very often manifestations of a whole life lived
in a certain context, and how we're going to
push the healing of all these problems, and how
politics, in a sense of who's in charge and what
kind of people are in charge and what kind of
decisions they make, they also impact people's
health. And who are the people that we elect
to power? And you and I talked about that a little
bit earlier. All that is covered. And I just
had to bring everything together under one umbrella.
And so it took me 10 years to put that work together.
I just love how diverse the topics were. And
especially, we're running out of time now, but
the kind of body keeps us to a score mentality
of the impact of psychological trauma on the
body. And you look at my profession, we have
done a good job of identifying the carcinogens
in our job. as far as the actual chemicals. So
in a good department, they'll clean gear, they'll
change out gear, they'll put a big hose on the
fire engine when we drive into the station to
try and get rid of the fumes. But we still die
of cancer constantly. But if you look at shift
work, it is a carcinogen. And back to the science
that no one wants to acknowledge, it is irrefutable,
the impact of sleep deprivation on physical health,
on mental health. But also, as you alluded to,
in my profession and on a broader scale for the
entire nation, how many young people are we losing
to cancer? So many. And yet, what is a common
denominator? Yes, there's chemicals in our food,
in our air, in our water. And of course, that's
contributing as well. But also the stress. I
mean, stress causes cancer. Stress causes autoimmune
disease. And as you said, with the arthritis.
And we see that so prevalent in modern society
now. Stress is a major contributor to cancer.
It's not even controversial. And especially the
stress of... suppressing your emotions, because
that really messes with the immune system. So,
for example, if you say to people, does smoking
cause lung cancer? Most people say, yes, it does.
Well, actually, no, it doesn't. it contributes
to it in a major way. So that out of 100 people
who smoke, I should say out of 100 people with
lung cancer, about 80 to 90 will have smoked.
So smoking is a major contributor. At the same
time, out of 100 people who smoke, only 15 or
20 will have lung cancer. So smoking was the
cause of lung cancer. Everybody who smokes will
have lung cancer. Because if A causes B, every
time you see A, you see B. So there's going to
be something else going on. What is going on
is emotional stress. And the more stressed people
are emotionally, the less cigarette it takes
to trigger their lung cancer. So that, yes, smoking
is a major risk factor for lung cancer. So stress.
That's interesting. I never thought of it that
way, but that's usually what people who smoke
for. The initial couple of hits, obviously, they
get that big kind of euphoric response, and after
that, it's an addiction, and it's normally when
they're stressed. They'll go grab a cigarette.
So, yeah, I never even thought of it that way.
Oh, yeah, I know. And with nicotine, it's like
cocaine. It's a stimulant. It elevates dopamine
in the brain, and dopamine is an essential brain
chemical for feeling alive and feeling euphoric
and relaxation and so on. So people, smokers,
are trying to change their brain biology to get
away from the emotional distress that they're
experiencing. Well, I want to be mindful of your
time, respectful. For people listening, where
are the best places to find any of your books?
Well, I mean, there's my website, www .gabalmaty
.com. There's my Instagram site, gabalmaty .com.
There's my website where all my events are listed.
I do travel and speak quite a bit. I do online
events. So my books, they're all over the place.
They've been published now. probably 45 languages,
certainly the online sellers, but local bookstores.
So, you know, I'm easy to find. And on YouTube,
there's dozens of my interviews. So all you have
to do is Google my name on YouTube and you'll
find plenty of podcasts and interviews. It's
impossible to avoid me. If you really want to
find out, I'm too easy to find. Well, I want
to thank you again, firstly, for being flexible
at the beginning of this interview, but more
importantly, for being so generous with your
time and carving out an hour. It's been incredibly
insightful. I can't speak highly enough of the
myth of normal. I mean, like I said, the diverse
topics that it covers, yet obviously everything
is interrelated, was just so interesting to read.
So I want to thank you so, so much for being
so generous with your time and coming on the
Behind the Shield podcast today. Thanks for the
hospitality. Take care.