If you're looking at iboga, I'm guessing there's a reason.

I don't know what that reason is yet.

Maybe you know exactly what's going on and you've been trying to change it for years. Maybe you've already tried a bunch of different things. Maybe you're just at the point where you know something in your life has to change and you're looking at options.

Whatever brought you here, I'm not going to tell you that iboga is going to fix it. I don't know you yet, and anybody making promises about what a medicine is going to do for somebody they've never even met is somebody I'd be careful listening to.

I'll tell you what happened to me. I'll tell you why I built this, what we do here, what happens for the year afterward, what it costs, and what I think this is good for and what I don't think it's good for. Then you can decide whether any of it makes sense for you.

Before we even get into iboga, though, I don't believe you need it to start changing your life.

If you know you owe somebody an apology, you can make it today. If you haven't talked to your kid, you can pick up the phone. If you've been telling yourself you're going back to the gym, you can go. If there's something you're doing that you already know is hurting you or the people around you, you don't need to come to Costa Rica before you start doing something about it.

Some people can make that decision and start.

Then there are stubborn motherfuckers like me.

I could understand something intellectually and still keep doing the same shit. I could know where it came from, know it wasn't helping me anymore, know it was affecting people around me, and still find myself right back in the same place.

If you know what I'm talking about, I want you to know something.

I don't believe this is just who you are now. Your life can look very different from the way it looks today. Mine does.

I'm not saying your story will look like mine, and I'm not promising that iboga will do for you what it did for me. I'm saying change is possible.

Before we talk, I want you to think about something.

You may have already scheduled a call with me. If you have, before we talk, I want you to think about something.

What is it you actually want to change?

You probably have a laundry list of everything you don't like about yourself or everything you wish was different. That's probably part of the reason you're here, right?

But I'm asking you something different.

What do you want instead?

For this exercise, imagine everything worked. You forgave yourself. You put down whatever you've been carrying. We went through the next year together, you did the work, and things went about as well as you could hope.

What would actually be different?

What would your relationships look like? What would you be doing for work? How would you take care of yourself? What would you look like? What would you be doing with your time? What would you be doing for fun?

And what about the things that trigger you now?

Think about the stuff that gets under your skin. Maybe it's something somebody says. Maybe it's feeling disrespected, rejected, ignored, embarrassed, afraid, or whatever your thing is.

What are the triggers that just don't trigger you anymore?

And maybe some of them still do. That's okay too. What happens if they no longer control what you do next?

What does this version of you do when life pushes one of the same buttons it's been pushing for years?

How do you talk? How do you move? How do you act? What do you do differently?

Maybe some of those questions matter to you and some don't. That's fine. I'm not trying to give you the answer.

I'm just trying to get you to think about what the healed version of you looks like.

And if imagining that is hard for you, let me give you a little trick I use to help jump-start that imagination.

Think back to when you were a kid and remember a toy you played with that made you happy.

And I mean a happy memory. We're not digging around looking for another shitty memory right now. I know most of us have plenty of those.

Just remember something you loved playing with.

Maybe it was Batman. Maybe it was G.I. Joe, a Barbie, a Matchbox car, LEGO, whatever. Now go find it.

You can buy the newest version online. You can go to a toy or collectibles store. If you want the exact one you had when you were a kid, look for it used. I don't really care where you get it.

I just want you to hold something in your hand that reminds you of a time when your imagination was completely free.

Because that's what I want you to use right now.

Don't worry yet about whether the life you're imagining is realistic, how you're going to get there, or everything that's standing in the way.

We'll get to that.

For now, I just want you to answer the question:

What do you actually want?

And if you haven't scheduled a call with me yet, go ahead and do it. It literally costs you nothing.

Okay. So what's stopping you?

You've spent some time here. Even if you haven't pressed a button yet or booked a call, you've read this far, so I'm guessing some of these questions have been bouncing around in your head.

You've been thinking about what you actually want your life to look like, right?

So I'm going to keep asking.

What's stopping you from living that way right now?

I'm actually asking. Think about it, because this is something I'm going to want to talk to you about when we get on the phone.

Maybe you know exactly what it is. Maybe there are ten different things. Maybe you've spent years trying to figure it out and you still don't have a fucking clue.

Or maybe the frustrating part is that you do know.

You know your triggers. You know the patterns you keep repeating. You know the reactions you keep having. You know what you need to stop doing, and you know what you need to start doing. You might even understand where some of it comes from.

And you still keep finding yourself back in the same fucking spot.

I completely understand.

I spent years knowing things about myself that I couldn't seem to change. People could explain them to me. I could explain them to myself. I could understand where they came from and see what they were costing me.

I was the reason for my first divorce.

Understanding wasn't always the problem.

Actually changing was.

So when we talk, don't worry about having some perfect answer for me. I'm not looking for one.

There's really only one thing I want you to be able to answer honestly.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how ready are you to actually change your life?

Not how badly do you want things to be different.

How ready are you to do something different?

Because if your answer is a 12, then I really am looking forward to talking to you.

And if you've read all the way to this point, you're thinking about these questions, your answer is a 12, and you still haven't booked the call...

Why not?

I've asked you a lot of questions. I should probably tell you a little about me.

I wasn't always sitting in Costa Rica with long hair talking to people about forgiveness and iboga. If you had told 20-year-old me this was where my life was going, I would have called you a fucking liar.

I was a heavy equipment operator. I became a cop at 21 after growing up with a father who was a convicted felon and drug dealer and absolutely hating cops. Eventually I became an Assistant Chief of Police. I got to a point where I couldn't keep working cases involving children anymore, and I basically thought, well, I watched a lot of G.I. Joe when I was a kid. Let's go try to be a soldier.

So I joined the Army, went infantry, deployed to Afghanistan, came home, was medically reclassed into supply, deployed again, left active duty for the Reserves, spent a lot of that time doing funeral details, and eventually medically retired.

After the military I spent years coaching people, and eventually my own life fell apart. I lost my mother unexpectedly. I lost a multi-million-dollar business deal and ended up incredibly in debt. I became severely depressed.

I tried therapy, medication, mushrooms, dating, ketamine. Nothing really worked until I did TMS. That actually helped me get back on my feet. And because apparently this is how my life works, I eventually became the director of a TMS clinic.

Then I experienced another loss and started sliding backward into depression again.

That scared the shit out of me.

The depression I had gone through before almost killed me. I didn't believe I could survive going through that again.

I had seen veterans talking about iboga and 5-MeO on different podcasts, and eventually I got to the point where I thought, I have to try this. I have to figure something out because I cannot go back there again.

Iboga whooped my ass.

There really isn't a better way for me to describe it. Both of my iboga ceremonies whooped my ass harder than anything I had ever experienced in my life. Then I had 5-MeO too.

I can only tell you what those experiences were like for me. I'm not going to tell you what you're going to experience or what any of this is going to do for you.

For me, I had to look inward in a way I hadn't before. I had to look at things that happened to me, things I had done, things I regretted, things I was ashamed of, and a lot of shit I had been carrying around for a very long time.

And with 5-MeO, in my own humble opinion, I got to experience the place where we started.

But then I went home.

I was driving the same roads. I had the same life. The same triggers were still there. And the weird thing is, I didn't really believe the healing that I thought had happened.

I went back to some of the same bad habits and the same distractions.

Then one of my clients invited me to church, so I went.

At the end of the service, the preacher started talking about guilt, fear, regret, shame, and all of that negative shit I had been carrying around in my backpack for most of my life. He invited the people who were carrying those things to come to the front.

Everybody started going up.

I stayed in my chair.

And I'm not saying that because I was trying to make some statement. I was sitting there listening to him name these things one after another and realizing:

I don't feel that anymore.

I really didn't.

I was literally the only person still sitting in my chair while the congregation was up front with the preacher, and that was the moment I finally realized something had changed.

I had let that shit go.

I didn't suddenly become perfect. I still had habits I needed to change, relationships to work on, promises to keep, and a life I actually had to live.

But the things I had spent so much of my life carrying weren't sitting on my back the same way anymore.

And that's when I finally had to ask myself a different question.

What am I going to do now?

Okay, I get it. The call is free. But this shit isn't, right?

Right. The call doesn't cost anything, but obviously coming to Costa Rica for the retreat and working with me for the next year isn't free.

That's not just the three days in Costa Rica. It includes the preparation before you come, the retreat itself, and then a full year working with me through the PROOF Model after you go home.

And I don't really look at those as two separate things. The retreat is three days. Then you go back to your actual life, which is where you're going to have to use all this shit. That's why the year afterward is part of the program.

Now, if you're current or former military, law enforcement, fire, EMS, a medical professional, teacher, public servant, another qualifying helper, or the spouse of one, you may qualify for the Jonathon Hall Scholarship.

The scholarship covers half of the cost, so your total would be $3,333.

It's the exact same program. Same preparation, same retreat, same year working with me afterward.

I created the scholarship for people who have spent a big part of their lives taking care of everybody else.

And I named it after my friend Jonathon.

So I should probably tell you about him.

Pfc. Jonathon D. Hall

Before anything else, I want to tell you about my friend Jonathon. Jonathon Hall was a combat medic. He was my medic, but more importantly, he was my friend.

I had barely arrived at my first Army unit after Basic and AIT when they told me to pack my gear because we were heading into the field for about two weeks. Our brigade commander was Colonel Steele, the guy from Black Hawk Down, and this was basically his version of a little two-week Ranger school for light infantry. We were living in the field, moving everywhere on foot, and getting our asses handed to us.

I swear I cannot make this next part up. Almost the moment I stepped off the back of the truck to begin the field problem, I stepped into a hole and completely destroyed my ankle. I thought I broke it. They did not send me back. This was the Army in 2009, so apparently I was doing the field problem with a busted ankle.

That meant I got to know Jonathon pretty damn quickly. He checked on me several times a day. I was a brand-new private who had managed to hurt himself almost immediately, but he never treated me like I was wasting his time or like I was a piece of shit because I got hurt. He just helped me.

What really stayed with me was watching how hard he worked. We would finish a movement and everybody would take a knee, pull security, drink water, eat something, or get a minute to themselves. Jonathon would start treating people. Then we would go on a patrol. He walked the same patrol everybody else walked. We would get back exhausted, and while everybody else finally got a chance to rest, people started coming to see Doc. So Jonathon went back to work.

That was him. He was always helping somebody.

Eventually he stopped being just the medic checking on my ankle and became my friend.

Later, we deployed together to Afghanistan. When Jonathon was hit, I was on radio guard and the nine-line started coming in. I was good on the radio. Really fucking good. I could track people and information when things were chaotic, including during firefights. But when I realized who that nine-line was for, I handed the microphone to the Staff Sergeant who was on duty.

It was not just another casualty report anymore. It was my friend.

I did not want to make a mistake on anything that had to do with getting Jonathon help.

Later, I gave his eulogy. Speaking in front of people was one of my biggest fears at the time. I hated it. But this was my friend, and somebody needed to stand up there and tell people who he was. So I did it.

I remember trying to hold everything in, trying not to cry, and getting through what I had written.

I remember thinking that someday I wanted to do something in Jonathon's name.

For years, I thought it might be connected to Warfighter Fitness. That was a program I ran where I helped young people believe in themselves, lose weight, get in shape, and qualify to join the military when they had been told they couldn't.

It wasn't.

It ended up being this.

Sometimes the person who has spent twenty years taking care of everybody else finally needs somebody to sit beside them and hold their hand for a while.

That is why this retreat is dedicated to Jonathon.

Because he was my friend. Because I watched how he treated people. Because I remember how he treated me. And because after he died, I promised myself that someday his name would be attached to something that continued helping people.

He spent his life helping others heal.

His name still does.

Okay, so what actually happens in Costa Rica?

First, you'll fly into SJO and stay at a local hotel. The next morning, you'll take an Uber to the retreat site. You'll arrive fasted, we'll get you situated in your room, and then we'll go into a traditional handshake dose so I can see how you respond.

We'll get you acquainted with the music, go back over the intentions you came here with, and then you'll have some time to rest before we go into our first planned iboga ceremony that evening.

The next morning, you'll have some fruit, we'll rehydrate, and we'll talk about what happened the night before. I'm also going to have you write down as much as you can remember while it's still fresh. Don't worry about making it sound good. Just get it down. That'll be important because we're going to come back to some of it over the next year.

Then you'll rest, and that evening we'll go into our second planned iboga ceremony, again fasted.

The next morning, we'll have some fruit, rehydrate, talk about what happened, and you'll journal again. You'll have the day to rest, and then that evening we'll go into our planned 5-MeO-DMT ceremony.

Afterward, you'll have the night to rest. The next morning you'll depart. If you want to spend some more time in Costa Rica, you can. If you're ready to head home, you can do that too.

And then you go back to your actual life.

That's when the PROOF starts.

If you've read this far and you're wondering whether this makes sense for you, that's what the call is for. You don't have to decide anything before we talk.

So what the hell is the PROOF Model?

The PROOF Model is what happens after you go home.

The retreat is three days. Then you're going back to the same house, the same relationships, the same job, the same bills, and a lot of the same triggers you had before you came here.

Remember earlier when I asked you what you actually wanted your life to look like? That's what we're going to work on for the next year.

We'll work on how you see yourself, how you respond to things that trigger you, how you communicate, how you set boundaries, how you deal with other people, and how you start keeping the promises you make to yourself.

I use books, exercises, and things I've learned over the years to help teach some of that, but the books aren't the model.

The medicine isn't the model either.

You are.

Maybe something that used to trigger you doesn't anymore. Maybe it still does, but you respond differently. Maybe you fuck it up completely, realize it twenty minutes later, own it, apologize, and try to do better the next time.

That's PROOF.

I'm not expecting you to become perfect. I'm sure as hell not. I'm looking for the changes that start showing up in your actual life.

Maybe you start turning away from fear and toward love a little more often. Maybe you're more patient with your kids. Maybe you stop shutting down with your spouse. Maybe you have the conversation you've been avoiding. Maybe you set a boundary. Maybe you start taking care of yourself again.

I have a pretty simple philosophy about this.

Hurt people hurt people. Healed people heal people.

I've been both.

The goal over the next year is for the healing happening in you to start showing up in how you live and eventually in how you treat the people around you.

That's really the PROOF Model.

If that's the kind of change you're looking for, let's get on the phone and talk about what's going on with you. You don't need to figure anything else out before we talk.

Okay, so what happens next?

We get on the phone and talk.

I want to know what's going on, what you want to change, what you think has been getting in the way, and how ready you actually are to do something about it.

If you're still telling me you're a 12, great. That's what I'm looking for.

That doesn't automatically mean you can come to the retreat. Being ready and being medically appropriate for iboga are two different things.

After we talk, if we both think this might be right for you, I'll send you the screening forms. We'll go through your medical history, medications, and anything else we need to look at. Depending on your answers, I may need additional medical information or testing before we can clear you.

Sometimes I'm going to tell somebody no. That's part of this too.

If everything checks out, we'll secure your dates, start your preparation, and get you ready to come to Costa Rica.

I can't wait to talk and hear your story.