Joe Quattrone 00:34
Mike Hardenbrook is recognized for his novel approach to habit change, employing innovative neuroscience based methods to foster personal growth. Over his 15 year career media outlets such as NPR, Fox and CBS have featured his work. Despite his professional achievements, Mike faced personal challenges in altering his alcohol habits, he found few effective resources to assist them. This led to him embarking on a journey of research and personal experimentation. From this, he developed groundbreaking strategies that combine the mind and body creating a holistic approach to lasting change. Best Selling Author and habit expert near iaao endorses Mike’s methodologies praising him, praising them as a compelling guide to lasting change. Adam contests the former CEO of RE MAX commends Mike’s exceptional talent in delivering influence that brings about results and drives positive change, diving deeper into Mike’s transformative techniques at hardenbrook.com.

JM Guthrie 01:33
Welcome back to the FUZZEE’-ish podcast. I’m your host JMG and my boy Joey Q. We’re joined by our friend Mike Hardenbrook for his second go at the FUZZEE’-ish podcast. Really excited to have Mike back on the show today have enjoyed following him and his story and just all the things that he has going on in his life. Since the first time we had him on. If you remember, he wrote a cool book about alcohol and 66 days and trying to wire your brain through more of a neuroscience path to not drinking, which is a super cool story and something that aligns really closely to me total but the dude’s got a lot of other stuff going on too and also has been totally successful in so many other business ventures that we dabbled in but just wanted to chat some more with Mike today maybe have him on the show more often. To talk about just the world that he sees in the various lenses and chat about ways that maybe we can improve what we’re talking about on fuzzy ish and really the mantra around me total, like Welcome back to the show, but

Mike Hardenbrook 02:42
welcome. Thanks guys, fun to be here. You know, it’s such a nice little refreshing thing to get an intro because you know, I know we’re just sitting here talking but unlike normal face to face, you don’t usually get the buildup people saying nice things about you so it’s a nice step forward.

Joe Quattrone 03:00
I feel like I feel like wives should do that every time we go to bed at night like and you know he’s done such an amazing job over these past six months yeah, it’d be pretty fun I mean you’re you’re just done I don’t get the height man stuff for my wife doesn’t know Erica must be treating you well. Do

JM Guthrie 03:16
we have like the site? You know, the rapist sign? Yeah, no, no, I feel you I think I think we’ve talked about this before affirmation is definitely my language. So I’m here for some some good talk and some positive reinforcement. But yeah, totally Mike. You’re in a different venue today. You look like the king of the doctor and the first one so that you know the corner with your legs crossed. I appreciate casual spot today, too.

Joe Quattrone 03:42
Got some vague Vegas vibes going on? Yeah, maybe it’s just the stickers on them. That’s

Mike Hardenbrook 03:47
yeah, I got the kids Christmas stuff in the background. I decided to leave it up just to stay festive, but we got the Chicago skyline behind me.

JM Guthrie 03:57
Yeah, this dude’s living in their urban dream when I follow him around on Instagram and some of his other channels. He’s like out doing these cool city things in a cold Chicago City today.

Joe Quattrone 04:09
That is literally cool. I don’t know how cool that is. No Yeah, it’s

Mike Hardenbrook 04:13
doing the opposite of what we usually do here in Chicago. We usually spend our summers here and winters in Scottsdale, but you know, we got married in October so we just decided why not stay we’re kind of doing a year of nomad family travel. So this is four months here and three months here. We’re going to then skip out of the cold weather and head on over to Spain.

Joe Quattrone 04:33
You have a second guest we’ve had that’s had a nomad lifestyle. At some point though. I feel like maybe that’s going to be catching fire lately. I don’t know if we had diamond well, who did Nomad stuff out in Bali. I forget. I think episode nine or something like that. But super cool, man. Super cool.

Mike Hardenbrook 04:49
Yeah, we love it. I mean, it’s not anything new for us. We’ve been doing this for 10 plus years. Usually we’ll, we’ll sort of get it out of our system, settle down for a few years and then It comes back and you start planning and, you know, we love to travel, but we, we especially love to travel where we end up staying, and living like the people that live there. So whether it be in the country, you know, in a specific city or a different country, it’s just a whole different experience where you’re actually going to the grocery store, you’re living like your neighbors are. And it’s a good experience for the kids as well, you know, the world is their classroom.

JM Guthrie 05:26
I mean, that I said the same thing to die. I am in my head, in theory, that sounds super awesome in practice, and the idea of, you know, taking our three kids and my wife and I in our jobs and just going on the road, I think I would be okay, my wife is so type A, and like such a planner and so rigid in her thinking that I don’t think that’s, that’s in our cards, but I do I want to keep hearing about your your travels, because I it certainly sounds awesome.

Mike Hardenbrook 05:57
It definitely comes with its challenges. You know, it’s not all the photos that you get the post, yeah, when you’re traveling a lot, you tend to want to stay in places that are quite as big as your regular home. So then you got kids that are a little bit on top of each other, including in your space all the time, and you got homeschooling. But you know, there’s a lot of upside. Like I said, we got all these world class museums and installations here in Chicago, tons of parks and things to do and places that they’ve never seen. So you know, you have to weigh it, but it definitely comes with challenges when you have a small family. I’m not going to sugarcoat that. What do you do with the kids? You homeschool them? Yeah, yeah, Priscilla, my wife does the homeschooling, they have much better programs now, you know, since the pandemic, but before that, we would also travel with our kids, when they were younger, as well before the pandemic, and do the same thing. Homeschooling online. Oh,

Joe Quattrone 06:53
I know, my sister JMG knows my sister’s criteria. She works for K 12 stride, which is like the biggest homeschooling company in the world. So I know that their program is getting significantly, you know, better over the past 10 years.

Mike Hardenbrook 07:05
Yeah, it seems to be I mean, the kids seem to be scoring well, when my daughter is 12. And she’s writing a book. So you know, go figure. That’s crazy,

JM Guthrie 07:13
dude. So, so interesting. All of this kind of comes back to that one of the things I wanted to dive into with you today, and you posted recently about sort of, for the first time, kind of taking a step back for yourself and figuring out what it is that you want to do with this next chapter of your life. And that wasn’t super clear at first. And so you were kind of going through different sorts of personal journeys, but also going into certain experiences and having these conversations and kind of looking at your different opportunities. And I think it was a couple of weeks ago, you posted that you sort of felt as real, as alive. And as sort of rejuvenated as you ever had. Can you talk to us about that, maybe give us a little bit more color on the things that you had been sort of working through and where you’re headed next. And just that experience generally? super fascinating.

Mike Hardenbrook 08:08
Yeah, sure, I can, as best as I can, you know, it’s probably a story that’s still developing. But I would say, it really started with the book that I wrote, and no willpower required. And that as weird as it sounds, I started writing that for myself, I didn’t really write it to put it out. But as it went on, I started posting a little bit about it, because I wrote it longhand. I had more and more people come to me, I love that. gotta write their

Joe Quattrone 08:36
plug for our YouTube audience. Yeah, willpower required to go get coffee.

Mike Hardenbrook 08:42
So as that unfolded, I realized that, you know, there was really a demand for other people like me, and so at a point, I got to thinking, you know, I really Oh, this is the book that I wish that I had. This is a book that I wish I could have used. And so I really owe it to people to write this book. But nonetheless, I still had my day job. It’s not like I can just say, Hey, okay, this is really of interest to me. But as time went on, I realized that my passion really lies around helping people like I am mission driven, and purpose driven to help people. And the way that I’ve always made money is through marketing technologies and software’s and to be quite honest, that just does not get me up in the morning saying, Yes, I can’t wait to sell more marketing software to other businesses. So that really started kind of the path of going about technology

JM Guthrie 09:36
services, because that’s what I do for a living. I mean,

Mike Hardenbrook 09:40
I just don’t think I just think it serves its purpose in my life. But I think some people get to a point in their life that they just realize they want something else. Maybe you call it a midlife crisis. I don’t know. You know, but it’s all getting way closer to home than you even realize. And maybe that’s for a future episode. But

Joe Quattrone 10:02
keep going, man, you’re, you’re striking a chord, at least with one person in the audience who got on the show, it will

Mike Hardenbrook 10:09
Honestly, that’s all I really go for. That’s anytime I post anything online or, or do anything, it’s as long as it can reach one person and then make a difference. It doesn’t matter to me, like, how many copies are sold, or how many likes a post I’ll get, because I mean, I don’t even get that much engagement, but I could just keep doing it every day. Because all I hope is that I can reach one person and make a difference. So fast forward a little bit, you know, things have come along. And I’m really feeling like this is where my direction is going to be. So really, the book is launching next month. I’m planning on doing some more development of that work, and potentially working with people on a one on one and small group basis. And I don’t know if that does that kind of thing to bring us up to today. With enough detail. I don’t know if you asked me some other questions? If no,

JM Guthrie 11:06
I mean, I thought so. Yeah, I mean, I’ll add a few things to sort of the question because my perspective was skewed by some of the commentary. So I at least was your audience of one on most of that. So you’ve you’ve your, your mission accomplished on a daily basis, because I’ve been following along pretty intently. But now you mentioned other more active, like, it looks like you did some pretty significant mountain biking at some point in your life too and those sorts of things are coming back as things that not only are still a passion, but need to be more of a priority. So it just feels like the work that you’ve been going through at a more general level, is now also encouraging and enforcing things that have mattered to you and other chapters of your life that you’re still passionate about. But you also want to have conviction about actually acting on it, which I think is something that people really struggle with, and is an interesting, sort of part of the story as well.

Mike Hardenbrook 12:04
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think there’s definitely a transformation happening within me. And this is one of the topics that we talked about, before we hit record, which is, you know, some of my work rooted in psychedelics have definitely given me a different lens to view my life and how I view the world. And that has affected the directions that I’m starting to take and the paths that I want to go down. Hmm,

JM Guthrie 12:30
yeah, it’s a good segue, because that’s a topic that we definitely wanted to click on today to was just this idea of psychedelics. And, you know, I’ll be honest, and I’ll just I’ll say it as candidly as this, we’re on a show where we talk about the determinants of alcohol and substance, right and the in the ways that we can improve our lifestyle and really the lives that we live by removing the bottle from it. We’re also not people that are going to judge and have been very clear on all of our episodes. And really, it’s a core theme of mine totally. Other people’s products or practices that they choose, that helped them to remove that the sort of bottle vise, that all being said, a person who’s not informed is going to be like, what you’re not drinking, but you’re, you know, consuming psychedelics like, Is that the same? Is that sort of the same path that I haven’t gone now with the bottle? How is this better for me? Can you just like for the novice, the person who doesn’t know anything about it, kind of just give us a sense for what even this micro dosing world is, and what people like yourself are finding as the benefits to not only their personal, obviously, journeys, but also the interactions and relationships that they have with others and just the world generally.

Mike Hardenbrook 13:55
Yeah. Let me go back to some of the comments that you just made, which would be probably the question around deciding not to drink, but then also doing other substances. But if you think about it, a lot of it has to do with our social conditioning, it also has to do with the labels that we give to these, whether or not you want to call them drugs, or you want to call them medicines, because these medicines do affect the mind. But they also if you look at the spectrum, alcohol being the worst, and you have every drug in between, like something like psilocybin is literally on the lowest rescale that entire gamut that you have there. So I think it’s really also about if you’re looking at Med medicines, and you would probably broaden that. And you wouldn’t question whether or not a doctor would give you an antidepressant or in any anxiety or a lot of these other things actually have much more potential for harm. So I think part of that when people go down that route and think about it, it just really kind of depends on how you view them. And you know, because you know, I guess drugs, illegal street drugs or whatever you want to call them versus medicines, I view them as medicines. Yeah,

JM Guthrie 15:11
no, I think that’s and I agree, actually, I’m a subscriber to that thinking, as well. But people don’t even there’s people that are going to listen to this show. So at least one of them is going to be like psilocybin. What is that medicine? Continue. And I know that you’re not a professor on this. But at least, you know, more, I think, than the other two of us on this show. I think it’s a great opportunity to talk about just at least at a broad level, what that world looks like, and what folks like yourself are finding to be helpful in regards to that as medicine in their life for all the things that we’ve already, you know, touched on today. To some degree as well. Yeah,

Mike Hardenbrook 15:55
So I mean, psilocybin is my mushroom. Psychedelic mushrooms are magic mushrooms, whatever you call them, even though that’s not my favorite term. But I think it really comes down to how you use psychedelics. Do you use them in a recreational sense to disconnect? Or do you use psychedelics as a tool to go inward to change the lens, and then there’s also things like, psychedelics are really good catalysts for creating neuroplasticity to then ingrain well unlearn bad habits and ingrained new habits that are healthier, that make you live a more healthier life and a happier, more joyous life. So that, you know, there’s different ways that you can approach and use these just like, for example, MDMA, you know, or known as Molly on the street, you know, ravers and people that party, you’re going to use that in a much different way than if somebody’s in a therapeutic setting with a therapist and taking it in a controlled environment, you know, set and setting with music and introspection and, you know, covering their eyes, that it’s going to be a much different kind of use of the same drug.

JM Guthrie 17:21
Yeah, I totally agree. And, as I mentioned, really, I, I agree, and I, and I find myself and Joe and I talk about this carry as well, just about subscribing to the idea that these more natural substances or medicines, are creating positive outcomes, and to your point, have the wrong labels or or put into the wrong categories due to just society, as you mentioned, as well. So I, we agree,

Mike Hardenbrook 17:49
I got some notes if you guys want to get really nerdy, yeah, no,

JM Guthrie 17:54
I was just about Yeah, so I was going to actually ask you to go a little. So if, if you mentioned, there’s different ways to consume sigmat mushrooms or psilocybin, specific to whether you’re just trying to use it recreationally to get away, or if it’s actually going to turn into some sort of, they call it a program, when you get into these sort of micro dosing strategies, is it? What is the general term

Joe Quattrone 18:22
for sort of like stalking supplements or something like that? Like,

JM Guthrie 18:25
yeah, like, what are you? I want to make sure that at least I’m talking about it, like, I know what the heck it is, versus Yeah,

Mike Hardenbrook 18:31
quite, quite honestly. Like, I, psilocybin is not my go to, and neither is microdosing. But I think it’s effective for a lot of people. I’ve tried it, it just wasn’t for me, I’m, I tend to go for the deeper experiences that happened. Few and far between, and I draw what I can integrate what I’ve learned in those experiences in my life, but what I think is interesting, so

JM Guthrie 18:55
I may ask you that, let me just make sure I understand that. So you would prefer to have a big experience quickly, and then be able to draw back to that in a more you know, sober state versus being in a consistent state under the influence of psilocybin? Yeah,

Mike Hardenbrook 19:15
Well, the micro doses are sub perceptual, which means you’re not going to notice them. So you really, it wouldn’t be any different than I think a good comparison would just say, you’re taking an SSRI or something like that, you’re not going to feel it immediately. Over time, you might feel a marked difference. You might feel negatives, it just depends on who you are, you might feel a lot better. I think the same thing goes with an anecdotal level, which by the way, I’m not any kind of expert other than doing self research for myself and self for us. Yeah. And

JM Guthrie 19:50
we appreciate that as

Mike Hardenbrook 19:51
you’re doing it for us, too. Yeah. But I think, but yes, so to answer your question, I prefer more. I guess they’ll say I’m all macro not micro. In my experiences, I like the bigger mystical experiences. And there’s actually, in those notes that I’ll tell you some, some interesting studies that relate to that along with alcohol.

JM Guthrie 20:16
So, before we get into your notes, if I’m, if I’m, if I were to be interested in figuring out whether I liked micros, or macros, or whether I liked mushrooms, or Mali or, you know, a macro experience for where would I like? How do I? If we’re thinking about it as medicine? Are there doctors out there that are helping people to understand what the right prescription or program is for them? Is it to your point, more of a self experience or self journey to find the right place using either community around you are probably the information you can find? Because that’s the thing that I think is really important that we’re able to pull together as a, as a message, or at least assist in the message for the people that are listening to this is? How do we make it feel more like medicine, and more tried and true, or at least practiced, than just something that maybe they’ve had an experience with that a show or a rave? Or, you know, with friends in college? Around? Maybe along to? Or some other substances?

Mike Hardenbrook 21:27
Yeah, yeah, for sure. There. Unfortunately, as most people know, it’s still illegal. And mostly everything is underground. However, there are a lot of people in this underground that are formally trained in psychotherapy and other different therapeutic practices that have worked with these medicines for decades, even, you know, these, these things were made illegal. You know, like in the 50s. And 60s, however, like a lot of the work continued behind the scenes and was passed on to other people later on, so that you’ll find just because it’s new, everyone that’s working with it is not new to it, there have been people that have been fighting to get this legalized, which is finally sorting, coming through its renaissance and looks like it might be a very good possibility of many of these becoming legal in a therapeutic sense. But yeah, for right now, it’s basically you have to go through, you have to maybe get lucky with somebody that you know, that might be able to make an introduction to somebody. And in those senses, they’re just like regular doctors, there’s good doctors, and there’s bad doctors out there, there’s ones that are doing things that they shouldn’t be in, ones that are life changing. And that’s sort of the same thing going here is that you would find somebody that would, you would work with that would be in a controlled setting. At least that’s how I’ve always done it, I wouldn’t sort of do self exploration by buying this on the street and like doing it at home. And that’s not really the way that I work with this. Yeah. And I

JM Guthrie 23:11
i think that, especially when you start talking about it as being medicine, and not something, a street drug, doing it in a controlled environment, sort of aligns better to that than buying it on the street, and then trying it out yourself, which kind of aligns to the other thing. That makes sense. Yeah, one of the things that we’re really working on bringing, sort of, to the show and centering around is outcomes, right. So what are things that our guests are seeing from an outcome perspective, due to the decisions that they’re making due to the improvements in their mental illness due to having one less drink at night, due to having a few less drinks a month due to potentially, you know, not drinking anymore, and stacking a bunch of days past even the 66 that you talk about? Talking about some of the outcomes that you can truly sort of tie to these experiences, right and to the decisions that you’ve made to write your book to have this self reflection to go on your Nomad journey, but then also to find yourself into these macro controlled environments to have these psychedelic experiences to what are the what are the positive outcomes that you’re seeing, or even what are some of the negative outcomes that you’re seeing? That’s something that we’re really trying to click into deeper here on a fuzzy – ish podcast.

Mike Hardenbrook 24:40
The easiest way to anecdotal evidence would be from your own self work. So I mean, there are a lot of stories of others that I’ve heard, but I can easily tell my own which was probably about five years ago. I went through the well. Actually This is an interesting story. A friend of mine, who I went to college with, had an opioid problem, which I didn’t know about until later. And he had gone through many last ditch efforts. And it was really, you know, a bad situation and he went to Peru and did an Ayahuasca journey and it really just turned his life around 180 degrees. And you know, he sustained that. From that addiction for a very long time. But through him, he introduced me to somebody and I had not Ayahuasca but what I ended up doing and this is probably what I did.

JM Guthrie 25:40
Yeah, the listeners, the one person who doesn’t know, quickly, what is Iowa? Casca? Because somebody Oh, yeah, sure. What in the heck is that?

Mike Hardenbrook 25:48
Sometimes I get so in you get, ya know, for Yeah. And so Alaska is a combination of different plant medicine that’s combined through a process in, in the Amazon and other locations. And it, it brings on a it’s hard to explain it’s like, trying to it’s for a caveman that goes into the future and sees everything goes back with limited vocabulary and tells all the other caveman what he just saw. You just sound crazy trying to explain that experience. But I would say the biggest thing it does is, it brings on a mystical experience. And, yeah, so it’s a very powerful psychedelic with its own. It’s, I would say you can’t do that. You would never do that psychedelic recreationally. You know, it is very

Joe Quattrone 26:45
well planned the trip and do a whole like 10 day retreat kind of thing. It’s

Mike Hardenbrook 26:50
ceremonial, you’re not going to be it’s not euphoric, you’re not going to be out there. You know?

JM Guthrie 26:58
Is it in the same way? Same world DMA? Is it in the same world as peyote? Is it sort of in the CMT? Like,

Joe Quattrone 27:05
that kind of thing? So

Mike Hardenbrook 27:06
but its base is DMT. And, yeah, it would probably be the same like, you know, the sphere or universe they experienced would be very different, but still, you know, yeah. So a lot of people go down there, like it says, down to Peru as a spirit quest are, you know, you know, looking for what’s out there. What’s the unknown, huh?

JM Guthrie 27:36
Very interesting. Alright, so sorry, I segwayed you off of your story.

Mike Hardenbrook 27:42
Oh, that’s alright. So fast forward, I thought of him. I met somebody and we weren’t going to do ayahuasca. What we were going to do is something called Five Meo DMT, which is the venom from the desert Sonoran toad. And, you know, some people in mainstream media, like Mike Tyson talks about how this changed his life and a number of other people, but it’s kind of like Iowa, Tosca, times 1000 strong it is, it is the most potent of all psychedelics. Okay, but it’s very fast acting and only lasts about 15 to 20 minutes, and your body metabolizes it and you literally feel exactly I’ve

Joe Quattrone 28:28
heard before. I’ve heard some of these little tiny windows, like 15 minutes can feel like three or four hours or five days and stuff like that was your experience. Time is

Mike Hardenbrook 28:39
there’s no concept of time in those psychedelic spaces. So yes, they could feel like 15 minutes, they could feel like days, they could feel shorter than 15 minutes. Yeah, you really don’t. Well, you’re not even in your body. So you’re not thinking about the concept of time anyways,

JM Guthrie 28:55
let me just go ahead and say, Well, you continue your story of like,

Mike Hardenbrook 28:59
I feel like this is going to just scare people off, though. No,

JM Guthrie 29:01
no, I think people really I think, I mean, you’re, I’m hearing about the ceremonies, in a lot of different venues, I’m hearing about them in my like community around my house and sort of my what I would call my familial community, I’m hearing all over the place in my social community past sort of that first level, and then especially from an executive leadership, excuse me, perspective, it’s enormous in the professional world, and in particular, in the sort of executive leadership, these experiences that you can go and do probably all different levels of these, these DMT experiences, and what the impact is on you as a human which ultimately allows you to be a better leader or executive in the future. I subscribe to it because I know people who like yourself, who have had meaningful, impactful experiences and ceremonies that have then allowed them to Have the outcomes that you’re talking about and still tell him a story. That said, for me personally, the idea of not knowing where time is like that, generally just, it doesn’t scare me. It’s just like, I don’t think I would like that. Right? I’m not sure that would help me. And maybe I’m completely wrong. And maybe we have to do a ceremony at some point. That’s not the most potent, that at least kind of leads me into jams.

Joe Quattrone 30:25
Jam is not a big fan of the afterlife. He doesn’t want to go to heaven or purgatory or hell doesn’t exist.

Mike Hardenbrook 30:33
I mean, this isn’t relevant. And let me let me jump in on Yeah, because all my life, you know, this is kind of funny, but I grew up my mom’s Catholic and a whole nother story is that my mom was actually a Catholic nun for like, 10 years. So obviously, I grew up with God in the house. But I personally, as much as I wanted to believe I just couldn’t fully believe and fast forward to this experience that I was that my first experience is that I walked away with a definite, unwavering belief in God in it, and to this day, you know, five years later, like that, that wasn’t even what I was seeking. But that’s what I got. Wow,

Joe Quattrone 31:15
That’s pretty profound. Do well, there’s

JM Guthrie 31:17
another outcome. Yeah. My dad, I mean, maybe my dad would send me to the ceremony. Because my dad is, as Joe knows, a conversion camp. He’s really religious and raised me in a very religious family. And I would say, maybe I’m in the same place as you were five years ago. So if he’s here in

Mike Hardenbrook 31:37
I don’t go to church. I’m not religious, but I believe in God. You know, after that experience, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Quattrone 31:44
Wow. Well, Huberman just came out as a Christian. Did you just watch that? Recently on a podcast he was on? I don’t know what his church going status looks like. But he prays every day, he reads the Bible. That’s pretty interesting to me, one of the most famous neuroscientists in the world, you know? Yeah,

Mike Hardenbrook 32:02
no, I didn’t see that. But that’s interesting to know.

Joe Quattrone 32:05
I have got a quick question. Shoot, I had lost my train of thought. Keep going. Sorry. Yeah, no, I

Mike Hardenbrook 32:14
say something. Because you know what? Like, I think some people might be thinking, Well, why do all this crazy shit, right? Like, why would somebody do this? I mean, maybe they’re thrill seekers. Maybe they, maybe they want to do drugs or something like this. But, you know, so, you know, after I wrote the book, I really, because of them, these medicines have changed me in such a positive and transformational way, including saving my relationship. And now, we’re married. I attribute it very much. I mean, I did the hard work, but they changed my perception of, of everything. And so I went to this conference, after reading the book, to keep learning more about where the future of mental health is going. It’s called a wonderland conference. About 3000 people come this way in November, and you’ve got anywhere from underground people to main, mainstream, medicine, pharmaceuticals, venture capitalists, you name it, you know, you got kind of everybody that’s got their eye on this industry. And so they had a lot of doctors, they’re giving presentations, and a lot of them related to the effectiveness of psychedelics, when it came to alcohol use disorder. And so back in the 50s, they did six trials with 500 people. And after they did just one dose. The people that didn’t receive the placebo, the ones that got the LSD, were two times more likely to reduce their alcohol consumption. So I basically made like 60% of the people and proved that I took LSD. And because they did placebo, and obviously placebo, when people think they’re going to do better 38%, but still basically double that, if just one single dose. And these were people that were addicted for 20 years, like reduced their amount of alcohol, and it was long standing for over six months, they tracked it for the more modern one. This was interesting. So they did psilocybin, and these people were drinking pretty heavily, right. And they gave them two doses over four weeks, and they reduced their drinking days from 45% of the days they drink heavily. After those two doses and four weeks, they read instead of 45% of their days drinking they went down to 10%. Drink heavy drinking days, and that was tracked over six months. So a significant reduction just off one single dose of LSD or two doses of the psilocybin. So what is today

JM Guthrie 34:59
There’s definitely two differences, like you took it on two different days over that period. Okay,

Mike Hardenbrook 35:05
right. So they did, they spaced it for weeks apart. So they did one journey. They waited four weeks, then they went on another journey. And they showed that they went from like, mostly half of their days were heavy drinking down to 10% will

Joe Quattrone 35:18
it seems that I think I remember a question. Now, I’ll set it up a different way, though, because you went there, how different is, you know, doing LSD and coming off alcohol then using like naltrexone. And, you know, my, and that’s for those that aren’t aware, it’s like a pill you take over and over and over again to kind of wean you off of alcohol. My guess is the reason why the government doesn’t want the FDA to clear something like, you know, microdosing LSD or even using LSD in general is because it’s harder for them to continuously make money off of like, some of these subscription drugs or synthetic drugs, or what are your thoughts about that?

Mike Hardenbrook 35:55
I think there’s definitely truth to that, I think. I think that’s why also you’re seeing pharmaceutical companies going to these conferences, because they know it’s coming. And so it’s probably either they gotta get on board or that they’re gonna miss it. You know, I don’t know how I feel about naltrexone now that you bring it up, though, because it really requires somebody to take it, it doesn’t really change their habit. And I think the hardest part is getting people to take it. Because if you want to drink, you gotta take it. And then you know, you’re not going to have fun. And

Joe Quattrone 36:30
yeah, putting too much too much control in the alcohol abusers hand not like monitoring them enough.

JM Guthrie 36:37
So in a non medical read out, is the read, are they are they suggesting the reason that a heavy drinker after one of one of those two trials, whether LSD or mushrooms is not drinking as much because they got really fucked up on that a couple times. And that sort of covered what they were looking for. Is it a mental reset? Like, what’s talked to, what are people achieving? Or what do they think people are? Are they finding through those journeys versus drinking that creates that, obviously, very significant change or percentage that you mentioned? Yeah,

Mike Hardenbrook 37:26
I mean, just to clarify, again, this is all just hypothesis, dude,

JM Guthrie 37:30
we’re here talking. Yeah, dude, we’re not holding you as an MP. Well, I think I’m what I’ve

Mike Hardenbrook 37:35
asked is the basis. So what I think there’s a couple things, I think there’s a biological element to it. And I think that there is also a psychological problem. So I don’t, to your point of getting messed up and just feeling like I’m good for a little while, you know, I think that it could be disproven because look at the guys that go and get totally smashed on doing all kinds of cocaine just are gonna drink the next day or whatever. So, you know, I don’t know that, that. That’s probably the reason I think it’s, there’s a direct correlation number one in this was actually part of the study is that the more the mystical experience that was achieved as far as the intensity, the longer standing improvement that they had afterwards, with either lowering their alcohol intake or abstaining, so there has to be like, This shift in the mind of a new basically looking at things through a new lens, you know, or different pathways in the mind connecting, I certainly have experienced that myself. So I think that that’s one, I think, you also have the proven element that neuroplasticity is something that you experience for a couple of weeks after a big psychedelic experience. And so if you come out of one of these experiences, and you start putting into place good habits, then you can start to replace those bad ones. The same goes with if you come right out and you start smoking a bunch of cigarettes, you know, the next couple of days right afterwards, you could make it that much harder for you to quit than when you first did this experience. So I think there’s that neuroplasticity element.

JM Guthrie 39:21
There’s a pop artist who talks about that exact example. In fact, Oh, interesting. Put him on blast here. But ya know, I mean, I wasn’t when I was, so I will say mystic experience instead of getting smashed, because I think that that obviously is the way to define it is very different, right? Like so if you’re raging on coke and just trying to stay up all night. That’s a totally different Chase than what you’re going for with a psychedelic. And I think what’s interesting is, however you want to describe it, and what that direct correlation is to addiction or alcoholism, the reality is, it sounds like the depending on the intensity of whatever that experience is, there’s an enormous brain reset that happens due to probably a lot of different factors of the mystic experience. And if nothing else, and this is again, me as a, as a non informed person who’s listening to you, and there’s obviously been talking to some other people about this, it’s like you take the focus away from the addiction or the alcoholism, and you’re like, holy shit, and now focused on all these other things that you want to make right? Or focus on to, to move away from the mystic experience or move back into less mystical experience. If you decide to, not microdose, like we talked about, Does that make sense? Does that sound crazy? Or is that aligning to kind of what you’re saying? Yeah, I

Mike Hardenbrook 40:59
I think to develop on that idea is that we as humans like to take on problems head on, right, and if we don’t take them head on, then maybe we find other ways to cope with them with alcohol could be one of those things. What I found in the psychedelic experiences is there are ways to take on problems without a head on experience or a head on strategy. And when you find different ways to address issues within your mind that you might not even be aware of sitting there hampering and causing you to have bad habits, you don’t really address them. But within these experiences, there tends to be ways in my experience to first of all, bring them to light, what you actually have to work on, and ways that you don’t just have to, you know, pound against a wall to knock it down. There’s other paths around it that I’ve found. And then you come out of that experience being like, wow, I see that completely different than I did before. And I didn’t even think that that was a big deal. But it is. And so like for that, you know, just for example purposes, those sorts of things, I think all happen when you do these experiences as well, which let you kind of maybe address the problem at its root.

Joe Quattrone 42:24
Even if you could, it could impact stubbornness, because I feel like a lot of people’s issues are that they just don’t want to change in general, like the old habits, Die Hard kind of mantra. But it sounds like what you’re talking about here is that this opens up some channels in your brain and maybe allows you to be more open minded to change. Well, I mean,

Mike Hardenbrook 42:43
I think so. Yeah.

JM Guthrie 42:45
I think the coolest thing for me, and this is something that I like, I’m desperate to continue to talk to you about on this show. And probably offline as well, is just how closely this aligns to what we want to talk about at a general level specific to the me total movement in the sense that everybody’s path to finding the total or finding temperance, when it when it comes to addiction, or even in particular, alcohol is different, right? Nobody is the same. It’s like a good ad in computer programming or DNA. Everybody has something different. It’s not that none of us are the same. There is no equal. And so it takes different experiences, and different processes, and in some cases, different products, and in some cases, different medicines for us to get to this place, which is what we call me totally. But is this clarity of mission and this clarity of person and this clarity of relationship and this clarity of who we want to be and this whole idea of one better day at a time that I’ve been able to achieve personally by removing alcohol and talking to my therapist every week about things that I struggle with and him helping me to find the right things to focus on. And that’s been enough. But for some that’s not and I think what’s so interesting about this is that everything that you talked about is just another path that helps people to achieve this world that all three of us are living in which is this one of not non alcohol dependence and clarity on the things that we need to focus on to be better people and better humans and better dads and better spouses and better colleagues and better leaders and on and on and on. And that’s fucking cool. And that’s something that I’ve Can’t you know, I My mind is blown to some degree about how closely all of that world from the craziest ones down to the lower more microdose examples are helping people to achieve a better life. And that’s something that we want to be not just subscribers to, but also support around here.

Mike Hardenbrook 45:12
Yeah, you know, I got to riff off, that is that probably my biggest fascination with psychedelics is the treatment for people that maybe have tried other things and, and have not had the success that they’re looking for. And I think that the research is really starting to develop now. But like you said, there’s no one way we’re all different. So if AAA works for somebody, awesome, if somebody has to go to an inpatient, that works awesome. If somebody can read a 30 day book, awesome, if somebody can read my book, awesome if somebody just needs an accountability partner, or does a challenge. Here we are, they all work man, like they’re all in the same, like some, like a lot from the AAA circle really doesn’t, really doesn’t like some of the other solutions. But some of the other solutions might say the other direction, but in my mind, we’re all working for the same purpose. And that is to help people get away from this thing that’s damaging their lives and move into a better place to be the person that they see themselves as being the best version of themselves. So yeah, it’s it’s a difficult prop problem, but I love that we’re all talking about it.

Joe Quattrone 46:27
Right? The rising tide lifts all boats. I love it. Well, anyway, I know James, gotta get to another thing. But Mike, where can I send your Washington mystics? Jersey? Because I feel like you’re the mystical Shaman.

JM Guthrie 46:39
Let’s get him a mystics jersey. Love that. I’m missing the eyes. Yeah, I’m on that. I will send you

Mike Hardenbrook 46:46
my address. Yeah, please.

Joe Quattrone 46:50
We’re gonna get you a team sponsorship. One of these days. You’re gonna be the most famous mystics fan out there. Yeah, dude.

JM Guthrie 46:54
I mean, I just couldn’t agree with everything you just said. And what honestly has me almost just a little shocked is that everything you just said is the reason why we’re doing this show. Like, there are so many people out there that feel like oh, man, I don’t fit in the 12 steps, or oh, man, I don’t have 30 days or I’ve tried all these different things. I’m trying to mod. I’m trying to do this through moderation. And the fact is, the same thing doesn’t work for the same people. And so I just love that this is another topic area and a branch of what we’re talking about. So thanks so much for sharing, and really being vulnerable around this topic. And like I said, I’m excited to talk to you some more about this because I think it’s gonna be a big part of what we’re doing.

Mike Hardenbrook 47:40
Absolutely. 100% Everything you just said love it. Yeah.

Joe Quattrone 47:43
All right, guys. Adios.