A 60 Minutes investigation explores how a retreat using psychedelic mushrooms is helping veterans cope with PTSD and other traumas, uncovering deep-seated wounds often stemming from childhood experiences. The story follows Michael Giardina, a Navy veteran who found solace and a path towards healing through this unconventional therapy.
On the west coast of Mexico, Michael Giardina, a Navy veteran, sat cross-legged on a cushion, and drank tea made with ground-up psychedelic mushrooms. Later, blindfolded and lying down, his body trembled when the effects of the psychoactive compound psilocybin kicked in. 'I went somewhere very dark right away... I was terrified,' he told 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper. 'But I kept coming back to... 'what a beautiful experience I'm having... I'm finally able to deal with these things.
'' Organized by the nonprofit Heroic Hearts Project, the retreat Giardina was on hopes to ease the pain of veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder using psychedelics, like psilocybin and 5-MeO- DMT. 60 Minutes documented the psychedelic retreat last March, interviewing and filming a group of veterans before, during and afterwards. To qualify, the veterans needed to have 'combat-related trauma.' But 60 Minutes found that many of them, including Giardina, had struggled before their military service. 'We realized that a lot of the trauma that they had experienced occurred long before they ever got to the military. In some cases, that trauma, the experience, may have led them to join the military,' Cooper told 60 Minutes Overtime. In an interview before the first psychedelic ceremony, Giardina told Cooper his father, a military veteran, and an undercover police officer, was emotionally abusive to him and his siblings when they were children. 'He'd kind of explode and yell and scream,' he told Cooper. 'He had seen a lot of stuff, and I don't think he knew how to deal with it.' As a young teenager, Giardina used drugs to cope with the chaos at home. He eventually lost friends to drug overdoses. When he turned 20, he wanted a change. He joined the U.S. Navy, serving overseas as an operations specialist in Oman and Bahrain. He said it was like being part of a 'family,' and he quickly climbed the ranks. 'I was told often, like, 'Hey, you're doing great.' And went from, you know, E-2 to E-5 very quickly,' he told Cooper. 'Wearing the uniform made me feel really proud about myself.' Giardina said the transition to civilian life was 'brutal.' He said he was 'living in a bubble' in the military and wasn't sure what to do when he returned to the civilian world. In 2009, his father killed himself. Giardina found his body. He said the experience caused him to emotionally 'shut down.' And in October 2023, just months before the retreat, his younger sister also died by suicide. He told Cooper that he had also considered taking his own life. Cooper asked Giardina what he hoped to get out of the retreat. 'Peace. Like, freedom,' he said. 'I feel like I'm stuck.' The next day, Giardina and the other veterans drank the tea mixed with psychedelic mushrooms. As the drugs began to take hold, Giardina's foot began to shake, then his hand, and then his whole body. He said it was like an 'exorcism,' and that he went to a 'dark place' almost immediately. He raised his hand for help, and a Heroic Hearts staff member sat beside him, telling him he was going to be OK. Giardina credits this intervention with giving him the opportunity to 'let go' of something he'd been holding back. 'I just needed someone to say, 'It's OK,' he told Cooper in an interview. 'It helped.' 'I can imagine that it's just a lot of stuff from childhood trauma and all the way up that I just needed to let go, and let someone just say, 'It's OK to let go.'' The Department of Veterans Affairs is now conducting nine clinical trials using MDMA and psilocybin to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and addiction. In December, 60 Minutes spoke to the VA's then top doctor, Dr. Shereef Elnahal, who was enthusiastic about the potential for psychedelics. 'The trauma they've accumulated, not just from their military experience but even since childhood, is brought back. They're able to deal with it during these therapy sessions with psychedelics,' he told Cooper. 'We think this therapy and these drugs actually get to the root cause of the trauma.' In one VA study, Dr. Elnahal said, most of the veterans who participated resurfaced trauma from before their military service. 'It could have been abuse, sexual abuse even in some cases, that was brought out and dealt with during this therapy,' he told 60 Minutes. 'And a lot of times people end up joining the military in part because of trauma beforehand.' Almost a year later, eight of the nine people who participated in the Heroic Hearts Project retreat, including Michael Giardina, said the experience was 'life-changing' and that their post-traumatic stress symptoms had improved. 'It was a lot harder than I expected. A lot darker in the beginning,' Giardina told Cooper in an interview. But through the darkness, Giardina heard a refrain: to spend more time with his two young daughters. 'Not just showing up at certain events or holidays⦠being there every single day. Like, showing love every single day.
Veterans Affairs Psychedelics PTSD Veterans Psychedelics Psilocybin Heroic Hearts Project Trauma Healing Therapy
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