Ketamine Therapy: The Door That Brought Me Back To Life

 

Ketamine therapy has become a turning point for many who once believed change was impossible—and for Chad McLean, it opened the door that changed everything. After years of addiction, trauma, and self-destruction following a devastating military accident, Chad found healing and clarity through his recovery journey and the transformative effects of ketamine therapy. He shares how this experience helped him break lifelong patterns, rediscover purpose, and channel his renewed strength into Mental Joe, a movement that uses apparel to start conversations about mental health, addiction, and healing. His story is a raw and inspiring look at how courage, compassion, and a willingness to do the hard inner work can transform even the darkest moments into light.

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Ketamine Therapy: The Door That Brought Me Back To Life

Welcome to another episode of the show. I’m joined by someone who’s using creativity and courage to transform pain into purpose, Chad McLean, the Founder of Mental Joe, an apparel company. Mental Joe isn’t just an apparel brand. It’s a movement to normalize conversations about mental health, addiction, recovery, and sobriety. Through bold designs, and raw honest storytelling, Mental Joe helps people express their struggles and triumphs while reminding them that they’re not alone.

Chad’s personal journey through addiction, mental health challenges, and ultimately recovery, inspired him to build something that gives others hope, strength, and community. In this episode, we’ll dive into Chad’s story, how sobriety shaped his mission, and how he’s helping others wear their recovery with pride. Chad, welcome to the show.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

From Military Trauma To Addiction: The Genesis Of Pain And Escalation

Let’s start with your story.

Do you want to do the 10,000-foot version? How did we got here?

Sure.

I grew up in Billings, Montana. Right out of high school, through that graduation cap in the air and before that, I was in basic training before that thing hit the ground. I had some military trauma there. I was in the 2nd Range Battalion, which is part of Special Operations. We did a knight jump and that’s where everything fell apart for me in my life. I’m burnt in and what I mean by burnt in is my parachute ended up collapsing and burned into the ground. It completely destroyed my back and my knees. Through that experience is where pain pills and alcohol came into my life.

Give me a little more context on being burnt in and what happened there. What was the mission? What was the plan? What happened?

We did a big mass tack jump into Spokane Airfield Base. It was a night jump. You would imagine probably five C-130s in the air and probably 3 to 400 guys in parachutes jumping out in combat. It was a big airfield seizure. Our specialty was jumping into airfields and taking airfields over and providing security so then other planes could land and people could come in the whole 9 yards. We’re the first in approach, so a big training mission.

When I say burn in, as I said my parachute collapsed. How it collapsed was I looked down below me, as I’m holding onto my risers. I looked down and I saw another parachute below me. They teach you an Airborne school to run off the canopy. I know it sounds goofy as hell as you’re in the middle of the air trying to run off a canopy, but that’s what they teach you. As I’m doing that and I look up, I see my chute completely collapse. As it collapsed, I came in as a dark on the ground. I still don’t remember the length of it. Maybe it was 200 feet in the air or 10 feet in the air, but I know I completely destroyed my back as I hit the ground there.

You’re being burnt in. You didn’t hit the ground at full speed.

It was full speed.

How far up?

That’s the thing. I don’t remember it.

How did you not die?

I don’t know. What’s interesting is that it’s sad, but there’s a lot of what they call burn-ins in the military. It’s very common for guys to burn in their chutes to collapse. Sadly, it’s part of training. They chalk it up as like, “We lost three guys blowing up their backs and knees. This jump will med board amount and we’ll call it a day.” It’s part of the training.

You’re unconscious. What happened next?

I’m lying on the Airfield and I don’t remember the timeline. I don’t remember if it was 5 minutes or 10 minutes or a half hour. I was laying there for, but I did come to everything below the waist and was completely numb. I couldn’t feel anything. I laid there and I got some feeling back eventually. At that point, I’m nineteen years old. I’m in this top process of like, I got to get up and continue the mission. I got to go find my squad.

I get up and I go find my squad. I carry on the date. Never addressed the fact that I survived, and that’s a whole other issue of, “Holy shit. I had this near-death experience.” They never addressed that but I was nineteen and I got a mission to do. I got to get back with my squad and how do I do this? I finally got back with my squad.

Did you go to the hospital?

Nothing. It’s literally, you have a mission to do. For me, where I say the wheels fell off is, I’m in Special Operations. I’m part of this group that’s one of the most elite infantry units in the world. My whole goal is, how do I continue to be an operator? You go down to sit, call and talk to the guy. Before you know it, here’s your 800 milligrams of Motrin. That kind of takes the pain out and before you know it, now you’re using your paychecks to go off base to go buy pain pills to continue the process. It’s being an operator.

Again, I came from Billings, Montana. My dad was an abusive alcoholic. I came from a single family with my mom running it. I was like, “There’s not much for me to go back home to. I got to be this operator.” My goal was to go to a special force then delta and obviously that never happened. From there, everything starts spiraling.

Did you drink prior to this point?

I drank.

Anything like alcoholism, abusing pills or anything like that?

Nothing. My dad was an alcoholic, so I saw that for what it was. I tried to stay away from it as much as I could. Again, I’m from Billings, Montana. You’re drinking, on horses and you’re fighting. That’s part of growing up. It was part of culture that we thought was normal. It never was a problem until this job.

Tell me about your journey after that point. You started popping pills. How quickly did it escalate? How quickly were you addicted?

Very quick. It was weird. I don’t want to ever say I was addicted. Everyone’s going to use that terminology but there’s always a shut off point. I knew when the back went out, it was, “I can pop pills to get me through the week or the next day.” I slowly try to win off the alcohol would escalating itself. It was always this give or take between pills or alcohol. It got to a point where I was popping the pain pills and drink into a point where I was starting to spiral. I was fighting in the barracks. I’d fight outside of the barracks and I was spending all my money.

Back then, we had pagers. We didn’t have cell phones or anything like that. If you had to make a phone call to your parents or someone, it was within a team room on a team phone that was monitored. I was hopped up on pain pills and alcohol and I went to the PX and stole phone cards because the only way back then was these little phone cards. You had to tear them out and had this little security code on it and you go to pay for and call.

As I’m walking out of the PX, the military police stopped me. He said, “We saw you stealing phone cards. We got to take you in.” They take me and they do all the work and they’re like, “You’re part of 2nd Ranger Battalion.” I was like, “Yes, sir.” He goes, “Fuck. We’re not going to mess with you because what’s about to happen to you when you go back to your company is not going to be fun for you,” and it wasn’t. I made an example of big time.

What did that look like?

It was probably the roughest month I ever had in the military. Come Monday morning, they pulled me out in front of our entire company with just 15,200 guys. Essentially, the first sergeant said, “Do you want to tell your brothers what you did?” I said, “This is what I did.” Again, there’s no backstory. I stole phone cards. That’s it, and I just got hammered. That’s everything from being hazed, from getting woken up at 2:30 in the morning and hung outside a three-story window and what we call a fart sack but it’s a sleeping bag.

They throw you out there and they wrap up duct tape and hold you there. I had to recite the Ranger Creed before they pulled me back up. I get yanked out of my bunk at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning just beating haze and you name it. It was essentially an organized prison if you want to put that. I ended up leaving the ranger battalion, which for me, I want to be part of the Special Operations community. It was a huge ego hit. I went down the road to what they call a leg unit, which is straight infantry, which is not airborne.

You’re just humping your home on your back, which is a big rucksack. I did that for the last year and two or three months and then I got out completely. I had a chance to re-up and maybe go into special forces. There was a contract on the table, but I didn’t think I’d be able to pass the physical because my back and these were just shot. Again, no one knew about this. I just kept it to myself because in that community you don’t say you’re hurt. If you say you’re hurt, now you’re deemed this coward or you’re hussy or you can’t do this or you can’t do that. Now you have this whole other encompassing thing that’s around you. It’s this weird teeter totter that a lot of guys play. Sadly, it’s in the community. It’s just taught that.

Rock Bottom: A Moment Of Clarity And The Path To Healing

When did you start having mental health issues? We have the addiction and the pills. That all started. I would imagine that it continued to escalate.

It just escalated. Everything was a spiral. I’d get into a relationship and it would be good and then the patterns would start. I would sabotage myself and before you know, I’m on pain pills again because I was lifting and my back went out. I got to get back on the pain pills because my backs hurt me. What happens? I’m going to drink more because that’s just easy to numb everything out. Those cycles just continue for like many years. I probably made one or two bad decisions for being in prison several times. They were kept on the rails but not fully on the rails and that cycle lasted for many years.

What would you say was your rock bottom?

My rock bottom I’d say was a few years ago for me. The story is me and my wife went out to meet a friend for some dinner and growing up in a household where you always feel like you got to prove yourself or you got to fight out of the corner. The wife didn’t have my back in a conversation. I lost my shit. I was like, “Here I am. I’m fighting again alone. I have no one supporting me.” I left and went home. I left her there at the party and stewed. Meanwhile, I’m sober. She comes home 3 or 4 hours later drunk as a skunk, and we get in a huge fight.

I walk into my bedroom, grab the gun to the head, tension on the trigger and I’m just staring at her. We were more than probably a foot away from each other. I’ve got the gun to my head and at that point, everything just stopped. It’s the weirdest shit for me to ever say because it’s literally my life pause. At that moment, it was the clarity of like, “What am I doing?” To the point where I remember pulling the gun away from the head and shucking it back in around coming out of the chamber. I’m like, “Shit. This was loaded. What am I doing?”

Did you know it was loaded?

I didn’t. Normally, I try not to keep it loaded because we got two young boys and things are always in the safe. There’s no reason to have something chambered but it was chambered. That round to this day sets on my desk. It’s a nice little reminder. My wife called 911. Sheriffs come pulling up to the house and guns drawn because all they hear in the call is male with the gun. These guys are coming up to the house and she’s sitting inside. I’m outside on the back of my truck bed.

Thankfully, I had my 2nd Ranger Battalion shirt on and two of the sheriff’s reformer rangers. They immediately put two and two together like, “We have a brother that’s spiraling. What do we have to do with this guy?” At that point, they threw me in an ambulance. I don’t even remember what they dope me up with but I was out. From there, I was impatient. I say cuckoo bin just to draw attention to it, but I was there for about six days.

Ketamine Therapy: The Door That Opened To Recovery And Understanding

What happened after that point? Can you say it was your rock bottom? What happened next?

Days later, I finally got a call from Cari, my wife and we’re able to talk about it. I just told her. I was like, “I’m broken. My brain hurts. I don’t know why I think the way I do. I continue these patterns, but I can’t get on my way. I know there’s tools out there, but the tools aren’t working. I need to reset. I need help with it. I don’t understand this.” Cari started doing a bunch of research and she found ketamine therapy. I was like, “I don’t care.” I always say it was like a petrified dog.

 

If someone said, “Take this and eat this. It will clean this up. Let’s go.” I was so tired. I was worn out. I went and sat for ketamine therapy. Roughly, probably I always say there’s that window about the sixth to about the eighth ketamine session. Everything started turning over for me. My mind slowed down. I could zoom out and make decisions and look at things in a slower manner.

I started seeing all the repeat behaviors I did in the past. It will be four years that I’ve been completely off of any pharmaceuticals or any antidepressant or mood stabilizers. For many years, I was on some Wellbutrin to Paxil to Effexor. I was always on something, then hiding pain pills from family members when the back would go out and things of that nature. It’s been years since I’ve not touched any of that shit.

That’s interesting. For you, ketamine was the path. I got sober in 2011, and in my first ten years of recovery, I always like completely against anything other than abstinence. Abstinence was what worked for me. I wasn’t open to ketamine or any of the other psychedelics but I’ve just become more open to it after that point. I became more open to it because it’s helping so many people like yourself. I think about it, is it all so good for someone? What came first, was it the addiction or was it the PTSD?

I don’t even know. That’s probably someone with bigger letters that I have to describe. The PTSD probably even comes from childhood from the abusive father or from the checked-out mother. Let’s get the hell out of dodge and go to the military because that’s where I can learn to be “a man.” It’s all on the fence together, to be honest with you.

It’s like the pills and the alcohol is all the solution. It’s an easy way to numb out without having to dig deep into your trauma and figure out what’s underneath it and why you are feeling the way that you’re feeling.

It was a repeated thought pattern for many years and I never knew it. Now, I’m more present than ever. I was close to 300 pounds. I was on one bad weekend and a bowl of ice cream away from waddling down Target aisles. I was a miserable human being. I hated life and people. I don’t want to be around anybody. If you came at me the wrong way, you probably were getting fist to cuff real quick. I was a great bar fighter back in Montana. I wasn’t undefeated but it was one of the hobbies of who I beat up. That was gross. It’s just sad. I needed help but I didn’t know how to do it.

Going back to the question why I asked what came first, was it the PTSD or was it the addiction? The reason why I asked that is because our experience is, we offer a Ketamine assisted therapy at Camelback Recovery as well. It seems like we’ve seen people relapse. It’s almost like they’re too early on in recovery. I don’t know if that’s a thing. Ketamine can be addictive.

Ketamine has that addictive tendency. That’s one of the things that we always preach about. I love ketamine for the therapeutic uses of that. It saved my life. It changed it around but again, you got to be willing to do that hard work. I always say psychedelics are great, but what is it for? It’s to open up the door so you can look in the mirror and go, “I’m a piece of shit. How do I change this?” We all have our embarrassments. We all have something we’re scared to face. Once I put ego aside, once I was able to drop into this stuff, I was like, “There’s something to this stuff.”

The Right Approach: Utilizing Psychedelic Therapies For Deep Work

What do you think is important like being able to unlock the door and utilize ketamine or any other psychedelic that is the correct way? What’s the path? What does that look like for somebody to use it correctly?

For me, it’s finding the right clinic if you want. I’ll give it a perfect example. When I started, my wife and I knew nothing about this stuff. I went to some clinics where they literally put ketamine and IV. They pulled a curtain and said, “Good luck.” There’s no integration and there was no idea. Again, I was the average Joe. I didn’t know anything about this stuff. I was a dare kid from Montana. It’s like talking about psychedelics and drugs. I don’t want to do this, but I went through about six different clinics in the valley here until I found a good clinic that we refer a lot of first responders and veterans over in Scottsdale and it’s interesting.

I say there’s setting the intention of using it and then having that right person there to hold that space to guide you through those processes. It’s like you’re in another world when you’re on these psychedelics or ketamine. It’s almost impossible to explain to people. The downloads that I’ve gotten from those as far as looking at my own trauma and my family’s generational trauma. How do I clean this up so my boys don’t have to carry this stuff on? It’s profound. It’s why we created Mental Joe.

What I’m hearing you say is being able to put the ego aside. That’s my understanding as well and my experience. You got to be able to put your ego aside. That’s one of the things that happens with the psychedelic because you put the ego aside. You’re able to dig deep and do that work.

We can get into all of them. Ketamine was my door opener and magic mushrooms. Psilocybin was one where I had a very profound experience. It was my very first one. I did 7 grams and I sat there with the facilitator. Honestly, I thought I was boring. I was like, “This is what mushrooms are about? This is lame.” The only thing that came into me that whole time was there’s this white pill bottle that would come in. It would dump out and it would just fade back away. I was like, “What the hell is that?” I was expecting. I want to see demons. I want to see some shit. I want to face some things.

The next morning when we’re sitting there having coffee, I was talking to facilities. He said, “How was it?” I go, “All I saw was this white pill bottle. Every half hour, it came in, dumped out and would disappear. I didn’t understand it.” He said, “That’s huge.” I go, “What do you mean that’s huge.?” He said, “What medicine is telling you is you are done with pills. You’re done.” I was like, “That makes sense.” I went home that morning and any pain pill that I had, and I had a pharmaceutical tray at home. I took all my Effexor and all my Wellbutrin. I flushed him all down. It was that morning that I haven’t touched any mood stabilizer or pain pills. As I said, that was from a psilocybin experience.

I had Jason Campbell on the show. We were talking about when you’re completely clean and sober, you’re able to experience all of your emotions. Not just the good ones, the anger, the joy, the pain, the laughter, and the love. What happens when people are on some of these meds, it brings them to baseline to where it’s the solution. They don’t experience the full spectrum of emotions. That’s one of the reasons if someone’s able to get off of all the others.

You finally get a feel.

You get to feel your feelings.

A few years ago, it was probably the first time I cried. After the cry, I was like, “Holy shit. This feels pretty good. I like crying.” I was able to release a lot of attention to my body that I was holding on to. Even realizing that like, “What’s this feeling about?” Holding that feeling was reverence going, “Why do I have this?” Being able to dig deeper and what I call zoom out. I love to zoom out now. I can see this board of feelings and people and how they react.

 

I look at people’s children. I go, “What happened to you? Why are you acting this way? Why are you addicted to such things? What happened to you along your path that put you here?” I’m not interested if the weather is hot anymore. I know it’s hot. We all live in Phoenix. It’s hot here. I want to understand what’s at the root cause. How are you as a human? What are you fighting? How can I help?

Mental Joe: Turning Personal Pain Into A Purpose-Driven Apparel Movement

Which was being of service, helping and contributing. We’re going to talk about Mental Joe but before we talk to Mental Joe. What’s it like being able to feel all your feelings?

I love it all.

What does life look like being able to feel how you’re feeling?

It’s so smooth now like you mean me being a dad. I have two young boys. When certain things are happening in their life now, I couldn’t zoom out. I put myself in their shoes and go, “How did I want to be talked to when I was their age?” I didn’t have that as a kid. I didn’t have a dad to hold that space. I didn’t have a mom that had the emotional intelligence because she’s raising three kids on her own. She’s burnt out. She’s got this abusive ex-husband that she’s got to send her kids to every other weekend. She’s fighter flight constantly so she’s not engaged.

Now that I’m fully engaged, I get to have different conversations with my boys to give them the emotional intelligence to understand that, “We’re going to fail a lot more in life and we’re going to win. Let’s look at the failures and how we turn those into learning lessons.” That’s where my presence is now. I can have those conversations with my boys and with Cari. Her and I connect in a completely different way that I don’t think most couples get to.

What does your relationship look like with Cari now versus pre-rock bottom?

It’s night and day.

Your relationship was almost over.

It was. I had a divorce attorney on the old Google page on the other screen and that was another fight. She’s like, “I didn’t realize we were that bad,” and the same thing. She was emotionally detached because she’s raising two young boys, but she’s got this husband that’s a freaking chaotic mess on the inside. I can’t share feelings and I’m all numbed out. I couldn’t talk to her and I was working in Scottsdale. I had a two and a half-hour round trip commute every morning or every day.

I’d leave the house at 4:00 to go to the gym and go to work. I wouldn’t get home till 7:00 at night. I get to see my boys for ten minutes, put them to bed, and talk to her for twenty minutes and we’re out. We were even connected as a couple or as a family. You’d imagine how that builds the tension, the resentment and hate and everything else. Now, we’re thinking about the thieves.

What does your relationship look like? Why do you think it’s so great?

We’re present parents. We have tough conversations. The dishes are on the counter and now it’s not a fight. It’s like, “Babe, it’s the third time you left it out this way. I loved you, but can you put this stuff away?” It’s a different approach to us as a whole. We don’t take anything personally. We can joke now. Instead of like, “Let’s go to our Friday night Applebee’s or Chili’s and get our two-for-one.” That’s how we’re going to connect while we scroll on our phone. Now, we have the intention of like, “Let’s go take a weekend. Let’s go away. Let’s talk. Let’s get to the nitty-gritty and let’s just reconnect as a couple.” Our circle is a lot smaller. We don’t go out and do all the normal couple things. It’s a completely different night and day difference now to where we’re at.

That’s amazing. Let’s talk about Mental Joe. Where did the idea for the Mental Joe apparel company come from? How did your recovery influence that vision?

I’ll go back to the ketamine. Again, a lot of things are happening in this window from like 6 to about 9 academy sessions. A lot of things are a-ha moments. During one of my sessions, I was in corporate real estate for many plus years. You can imagine the stress and chaos behind all that. Clear as day, I was sitting in the Ketamine session, a huge block wall and this sign rolled up of starting an apparel company. I’m like, “What the hell?” I did real estate. What the shit I’m going to do with apparel? I didn’t even know where to start.

I sat on that for a while. We had the name and our tagline and our logo here. We already had a trademark because I taught a modality called TTRE, which is tension, trauma, release exercises. I always like to say it’s a mix between meditation and yoga. I loved to come back and teach if people are open to it. It’s a cool modality but the body keeps the score. We hold on to a lot of stress and trauma in our bodies. Believe it or not, we hold a lot of it in our ass muscles.

The body keeps the score—we hold so much stress and trauma without realizing how deeply our bodies carry it. Share on X

What that exercise does is, I work from the ground up and then we do groundwork. What it does is, it helps you trim out the stress and trauma. Animals do it. I like to say, if you look at an animal or a dog during a thunderstorm, you see a dog shaking. What are they doing? They’re shaking out that nervous energy so they can carry on their day. That’s where Mental Joe came from. As this apparel thing started going, we’re like, “It’s Mental Joe. We’re talking about mental health and we want to help everyone from the GI Joe’s to the Average Joe’s.”

I was part of Special Operations, but then I became this regular grunt infantry guy. What I’ve realized through this psychedelic space of a lot of veterans and first responders coming to the forefront speaking up about these things is the Navy Seals have their guys and special forces have their guys. All the SOF individuals have their groups but there’s nobody for the average Joe. No one’s talking on behalf of the average Joe. There’s no real voice. There’s no real community.

From there, that’s where Mental Joe is like, “We’re going to hold the space for folks that are interested in psychedelic therapies but maybe they’re scared about it.” The nose ring, the purple hair and all that burning man stuff probably scares a lot of people off. I get that because it scared me off. I didn’t want to be part of it but then it’s like, now we become this voice. Cari and I have people that probably reach out to us once a day, if not every other day on the weekly.

That’s a whole other side of Mental Joe where we essentially hold that space for these folks and get them connected to ketamine clinics or we get them connected to retreats in Mexico, or what have you, if they’re open to those therapies. Again, we try to do a decent little intake and little interview to see where their headspace is to guide them. That’s why TMS is such an interesting thing for me as well.

We’re going to talk a little more about TMS a little later in the show. We’ve got Dr. Robbie that we’re going to bring on and you guys are going to have that discussion. Who’s a good candidate for ketamine? Who’s not a good candidate?

I’m probably going to give the wrong answer. I say everybody. I’m very pro.

I understand. In my experience, quite honestly, not everybody’s a good candidate. I have seen a lot of people that are early not in recovery that relapse. A lot of people relapse. Maybe they just need a few years under their belt or maybe they need to be solid in their recovery before. My perception is that you weren’t necessarily knee deep into taking pills when you first started.

The drinking was probably heavier. As I said, it would be something where I’d do something in the back and would go out. It’s like, “I got this pharmaceutical thing. Let me just go pop pills.” That’s where everything would fall, because that would just stay on the pills. Plus, the drinking and I have an a-ha moment, all shit, spiraling, and I got to stop this process.

From Corporate Real Estate To Purpose: The Mental Joe Transition

Let’s go back. How did you switch from corporate real estate over to Mental Joe? I know you had the idea and you decided you wanted to make a contribution. It’s interesting because I think about my journey as well. I was in real estate prior to working and treatment. I remember I had a job. I was working in real estate and I was out there to try to make money. Whereas working in treatment, now I’m passionate about my recovery. I’m passionate about helping people and saving lives. This is much more fulfilling than what I had before. Tell me about the transition and how that looks.

Again, I’m going to lean on psychedelics. That opened a lot of doors for me because of the same thing. When I was in real estate, it was, how much money can I make? How many bonuses? It was a soul sucking job. I hated it. I always knew I wanted to have a purpose to help veterans and first responders do the same thing, get passed different humps but I never knew. I go work at a veteran home program or I do some other veteran program and none of them resonated with me at all.

As soon as we started creating the T-shirts, going to conferences and doing things of that nature and having conversations. Before you know it, someone’s like, “I’m interested in ketamine but I’m scared of it, or I’m interested in the psilocybin journey. How do I get in contact?” We started realizing we’re networking for people. People are coming. I don’t want to ever say I’m a source of truth. I’m a good guinea pig. I’m just going to shoot you straight.

People resonate with that and they start looking over the fence. Before you know it, now it’s like, “I like this.” Before you know it, I’m designing shirts in the backyard and sketching them out and we’re selling them. People are finally exchanging money for a shirt that I designed in my backyard. Maybe I smoked a little cannabis to get a good idea from it, but then it’s starting to pick up. We’re three and a half years in the Mental Joe.

We’ve got apparel on NFL guys, UFC fighters, and Tom Segura. If you guys are familiar with him, he’s a big comedian. We’ve got a parallel on him. It’s been interesting three and a half years, how many people are looking over the fence at these therapies and being open and talking about them. Again, setting and using them with the right reverence and understanding what these things can and can’t do. The biggest thing is I just think they keyed up and unlocked the door to look at the mirror.

Mental Joe’s mission is to help people wear their mental health and recovery stories. How do you see clothing as a tool for empowerment and connection? You already started talking about it.

It’s where we’re at. Everyone in here is wearing a T-shirt or some article of clothing. Everyone’s wearing something that says, “I love being sober.” I’ve always been a swag guy. What I realized is we can create some cool designs that aren’t the bold and bright psychedelic. Not everyone wants to wear the tie dye.

It would be like a deadhead.

Maybe we can find some cute little designs and fun that will create a conversation, but someone’s willing to wear them. As we’ve done that, our community is growing. As we become profitable, the whole goal with Mental Joe is to use profit for a purpose. What I mean by that is folks and individuals that can’t afford these therapies. We want to be the stop gap for that because there’s a lot of people out here hurting. There’s a lot of people that would love to go do some of these therapies but they can’t afford them. Our goal with the apparel is to create a community and create awareness. With that, use that profit to help people to be in that stop gap to go get these therapies done.

The Power Of Connection: Sharing Stories And Building Community

The Mental Joe apparel company sparks a conversation. What are some of the most powerful reactions or stories you’ve heard from people wearing your designs?

I would say a lot of them are mere minds. Again, a lot of us are just embarrassed, whether we’re popping pills or got addicted to heroin. I have another buddy. He’s a ranger guy. The same incident as mine. He jumped in, blew out his back and his knees. Instead of pain pills. He went straight to heroin, so then he went to jail and that all spiraled. The biggest thing for me is having tough conversations with strangers and holding that space. It’s like, “I’m owning my shit. Let’s own your shit. Let’s talk about this. How do we pass the next mountain top? How do we get on the other side of this?” That’s what we’ve seen.

Cari and I get people to reach out to us on Instagram or our website and say, “I’m super interested in this. I need some help.” I’ll go have coffee with these people. Before you know it, now they’re sitting at a Ketamine clinic. The Heroic Hearts Project is a big group. It’s a veteran owned group that has psilocybin, Ayahuasca and DMT experiences in South America and Mexico. We will get them in their grant program and before you know it, they’re down in Mexico sitting with these medicines.

Have you seen either ketamine or any of the other therapies lead to someone relapsing or back into their addiction?

Again, with ketamine, yes, sadly. There were people. I’ve done heavy work with psychedelics and they’ve still ended up taking their lives because they just couldn’t get past that. I don’t know what that is. I don’t know if it’s still a TBI issue that’s shutting the brain off totally so it’s not talking to each other or maybe they just haven’t done enough of what I’m going to call groundwork or self-work. When they’ve done the psychedelic, they realize, “I’ve got to get over this hump.” I don’t know the clinical answer for that. I don’t know what it is, but it does. Again, it’s not a fix-all for sure. You’ve got to do the actual work-work.

Psychedelics aren’t a fix-all. You’ve got to do the actual work. Share on X

Running a purpose-driven business while staying grounded in recovery is not easy. What are some practices or routines you rely on to maintain your sobriety and your mental health?

My biggest meditation for me is the gym because I have seen where I was, I see where I’m at almost 300 pounds. I’m about 210 now and learned 48. I’m close to 50 and realizing I got a shorter runway in front of me and just living a little bit differently. I look at food differently. I was a sugar head too. If there were six cupcakes there, I would eat five of those. I was that guy. I didn’t have the ability to pull back. I grew up poor, so food was scarce. I was like, “There’s six cupcakes. I better get there and eat those.”

I love to journal. It helps me reflect on where I’m at that moment in time. If I have a bad day because this is life, we have ebbs and flows and I still have shitty days. What I’ll do is I’ll go back and I’ll read when I had good days. I’ll be like, “Remember how I felt during this session, or remember how I felt after the psychedelic experience?” Being more present with my boys and with Cari and just slowing down in life and realizing this is the only life we have. There’s no pause button and no rewind. All the bullshit that was in the past, it’s the past, but they’re learning lessons to carry forward.

Hiking and being out in nature. I don’t scroll so much on the phone. I stay away from the news. There’s different things you put in your life and you pull from other people’s experiences. “What do you do?” “You do that?” “Maybe I’ll try that.” I’m learning to play guitar. I have always wanted to play guitar but I was scared. I didn’t realize like it’s going to take some time. It’s a new thing. You have to put in the reps if you want to be good at it. I got to practice every day. I didn’t have the ability to understand that. I’m taking a lot of different things from a lot of different people and trying to put it in my little basket of tools.

It’s like looking at people that have the life that you want and do that correct.

This is the only life we have. There’s no pause button, no rewind. The past is the past—carry the lessons forward. Share on X

What’s nice about that is some of the people that I look up to, I’m going to call my online mentors. They’ll come out and speak about their bad days. They will be like, “I had a bad time in these two or three years of life where I was drinking too much or I was doing cocaine.” I was like, “I didn’t realize they had that dark side to him.” Those types of individuals sharing their experiences helps me like when I’m in the gutter going, “Remember Cal did this or Bob did this.” It helps me level and set to realize that everyone has a bad day. It’s life. There’s ebbs and flows. How do I get out of the valley? What’s the quickest way out?

How can I get back to baseline more quickly? It’s going back to experiencing all the emotions, the guilt, the shame, pain, suffering, sadness, crying, and the anger. Experiencing those emotions. When I experience the joy, laughter, the love, and the fun, it’s better. It’s more meaningful. If I was always happy, if I was out, then it wouldn’t be that great.

I always hated Thanksgiving because everyone would sit around the table and do what are you thankful for a game. It would come to me and I’m like, “I’m thankful for my wife and my kids.” I couldn’t see past the certain preview. I was just like no. Now I’m grateful every single day. Even for the lessons and the shit days I have, because they’re teaching me things that I never thought I’d be open to.

Early on in sobriety, I realized that I had to be grateful for everything that happens. If I’m not grateful, I’m a victim. The hard day, the hard things, and the things that don’t seem like very much fun now, I’m grateful. I’m grateful I know I have to get to a place of gratitude because if I’m not grateful, I’m a victim. When I start thinking, I’m unique and like, “You don’t understand what I’m going through.”

I played that role good for many years. I was very good at that.

How do you manage stress, pressure, and self-doubt as a business owner, and as a person in recovery?

Defining Success: Growth, Gratitude, And Helping Others

Mine was May. That’s a very clean line for me. I can always look back five years and incrementally see where I’ve gone. Even in pictures, I said I was a fat kid in a little coat. I couldn’t look back and go, “Look how far you’ve come.” Even with Mental Joe when we first started. There’s a ton of times I wanted to quit because it’s hard. You’re an entrepreneur. You’re throwing your own money in there. You’re putting your family through death and there’s a lot of stress there.

I incrementally just look at those small changes in those five years and go, “We are going the right way.” There are other ceilings for me. There are other things I can accomplish. Maybe I won’t be that special force delta guy I wanted to be. That time is gone. I’m never going to get that back, so why hold on to that? It’s incrementally just looking at the different changes that I’ve done for myself and my family and how I hold space for other people that I know I’m going in the right direction.

You’ve started talking a little bit about connection, vulnerability and pre-sobriety or pre-recovery or pre-rock bottom. You were stone face numb growing up in Billings, Montana. Why do you think emotional connection and vulnerability are so important for healing and for growth?

I see it. I see it on a daily basis that people reach out to us and those that are willing to dive in and go look at something completely different. I get revisited. I get those people that I get to on the rock bottom. Where they reach out to me and say, “I need help. I heard your story. It’s very similar to mine. How do I get out of this?” It continually has that engagement with individuals that are there and maybe that can be their little light at the end of the tunnel that is like, “There is hope. I don’t have to live like this.” That’s proof in the pudding for me to see the changes because I have people. I got firefighters.

I got Phoenix SWAT guys that will text me on a weekly basis and say, “I love you. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have started ketamine. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have done X.” Their wives will come out to me at a football game like, “How do you see Josh now? He’s calmer in the ladder house. He’s not screaming at the kids when he comes home.” It’s having that and having those conversations continuing in front of me to keep me engaged.

We talk about fulfillment. Being of service and helping other people is the feeling that we’re after.

In the small amount of time, Cari and I were good at it but we got so swamped. In a few years, we’ve done this. We’ve helped over 300 different individuals and couples. Out of three hundred, there’s some people that fall off or don’t stay on the program, but what’s cool is to see those folks that have made instrumental changes in their life.

Again, people are losing weight. They’re looking at food differently. They’re journaling and meditating. They’re doing something completely different. They’re shifting. I’ve had people over religious individuals that have gone and had an experience with psychedelic therapies and now, they’re doing sound bass and opening up yoga studios. You see these formal changes massively sitting right in front of you constantly.

How do you personally define success now?

Completely different from the guy that was in real estate. For me, it’s a balance. It’s a massive balance now. How am I treating myself? Am I putting myself first? With the Mental Joe, I feel monetary wise we’re not a success, but all the lives that we touched, that’s successful to me because we’ve changed so many lives in such a short amount of time. That is success. Being a good dad, being a good husband is success to me now.

Having all the money in the bank, cool. I can’t take it with me. When I croak, when I die, I want people to say, “Chad was a good dude. He was a great husband. He was a great father and he cared for people.” That’s success to me now. Having a bank full of cash is not a big deal.

 

 It’s not that important.

The grand scheme of the thing is very minimal.

I want to open it up for questions. The floor is open. Does anybody have questions for Chad?

Unpacking Ketamine Therapy: Personal Experience And Insights

First and foremost, Chad, thank you for your service in this country. I wanted to ask what specifically turns you on to ketamine itself because I had never heard about ketamine therapy until I started in Camelback Recovery. How did you hear about that? How did you get involved?

For me, it was Cari. When I was impatient, that’s one I had to break down. I told her. I was like, “Something’s got to change here.” She just started Googling whatever mental health treatments. Believe it or not, she found ketamine on Joe Rogan’s show. Once she started her ketamine and then she started going down the rabbit hole with ketamine and understanding the history. It was used in World War II to get soldiers off a field to disassociate them then you realize it’s still used in hospitals now.

If someone breaks their arm, they disassociate them so they can reset it without the pain. She realized something like, “This helps grow new neurotransmitters within the brain.” The right and the left brain are now talking. That’s where it was. I was at such a point as I said. I told Cari like, “I don’t care what it is. Something’s got to change.” I knew something was wrong in my brain. I knew I had TBI issues. I knew the fight or flight that was always there in the brain wasn’t going to go away.

I needed something to help me reset. Again, through Cari doing all the research and stuff. I just trusted her because I knew where I was many years ago. I knew it wasn’t a good spot, but I needed that change. That’s where I jumped into ketamine because at that point, I’ve tried to talk therapy. I’ve done all the pills and everything. None of it is working and I did ketamine. I’m telling you, that third or fourth session, even being curtain pulled back. It was still profound enough for me to say, “There’s something here. Let’s keep digging in.”

Was it profound after your first experience or did it take it three or four?

That first experience was a kick in the teeth, to be honest. I remember driving home sitting in the passenger seat and I told Cari, “This isn’t real. Nothing’s real. What are we doing here?” She’s like, “Do you want to burger? I’m like, “No. Burgers aren’t real.” It was such a hard thing for me to get out of that disassociated state and then come back to reality. It was a hard transition for a long time until as I said, roughly, I say 6 to about 9 or 10 is where everything started to slow down then I could start connecting dots of child abuse stuff from the military and zooming out going, “That’s why I react to this thing the way I do. That’s why I do this. It all makes sense now.”

It’s putting the ego aside and being able to look at those things clearly. Is ketamine a psychedelic?

Yes and no. It’s more of a disassociate. I say I’m a knuckle dragger, so I leave all that big context where probably the doctors, the psychologists and the scientists figure out, but it is in that realm. It is in that category of a psychedelic but it’s more of a disassociate.

With that, people who use and get out as opposed to people that get addicted to it, is that another doctor thing?

I’d probably lean on you for something like that on the addicted tendencies of a ketamine or someone. I’m not addicted to ketamine and nor do I ever want to be because I have a bad time on the backside of ketamine coming out of a session. I say like I’m a baby deer on ice. I’m all over the place. I vomit. It’s not a fun experience for me. When I hear that someone’s addicted to ketamine, I’m like, “How are you addicted to ketamine? I just want to crawl into bed, cry and go to bed. I don’t understand that.” Again, from a clinical standpoint, maybe that’s a better answer for you.

I’m not a doctor either. What’s the difference? Why does one person get addicted versus another person that doesn’t get addicted? I have my opinion and once Dr. Robbie is up here a little later, he might have a different answer. When people go and they do ketamine therapy, whether it’s IV therapy or intramuscular. They go deep, and I’ve done it before. It’s not an experience. You’re not doing it to have a good time. You’re doing it to go deep.

For me, I had these realizations. It’s seeing things from a different angle. It’s been my experience. Now, we have seen people that are early on and mind you, I didn’t do ketamine until I was 11 or 12 years sober. Our experience with people that are early on in recovery, they almost always relapse. I’m not exactly sure why but I also think that ketamine is available in smaller doses. For example, instead of doing the IV or the IM, someone can do a troche. You do a troche. It’s like having a couple of cocktails.

When you have something like a troche or a gummy and it gives you the feeling of just having a couple of cocktails and you can be more social, then that’s what somebody’s going to want to chase. It’s like, “I want to do this again because I want to feel like I had a couple of cocktails and I’m just doing ketamine.” The next thing you know, they’re doing it not as prescribed and they’re not doing it for therapy. It’s like, what’s your intention?

Chad, one more question with that. Are those that you have to like don’t pre-judge? In other words, it will create thoughts so that when you do get on it, they’re amplified? Is it something like that where you have to go in with it with no thoughts in your mind?

In this space, the ecosystem of psychedelics, you’ll always hear setting and intention. I’m a guy that doesn’t ever sit with intention when I go in and do medicine. The reason being for that is, I say, “If I set an intention looking for X, I’m missing all these other things that I’m seeing in that journey or that therapy session.” Since day one, I’ve gone into every single one of them blind and just said, “Whatever you’re going to show me, let’s go. Give it to me.” I’m in a place where I can handle it.

You give me the demons and the dragons. I’m going to be able to decipher that. That’s not real, but what do they represent? I go into it with making sure the set and the setting is perfect with a good environment and making sure that the individual that is holding me in that space is holding me in that space with the right reverence and understanding of my past traumas and I just get after it. I just do it.

They journal along the way, or if I come out, then I’ll journal along the way. Before you know it, that week or that two weeks has passed, now when I say zoom out, I can start connecting all these dots to old past behaviors or thought patterns where I can start cleaning those up. I understand why I reacted the way I did and why I drank the way I did.

Finding Hope: Advice For Those Struggling With Addiction And Mental Health

For anyone who’s reading, who’s struggling, maybe feeling hopeless or lost. What would you say to them now?

I would say, how do you eat an elephant? It’s one bite at a time. It’s one day. It’s one hour. When you’re in the thick of it, we can’t ever look past that hour. Take a deep breath. Realizing tomorrow is another start. If it’s a bad day, a shitty day, sit in it. Feel that feeling. Why is it a bad day? Why do I feel the way I do? What’s my diet look like? What happened during that day? What emotional traumas or triggers happen? You can’t try to zoom out.

Take a deep breath. Tomorrow’s another start. Share on X

Again, those bad things that are happening to us, they’re happening to us for a reason. They’re there to teach us something but it’s for us. It’s for people that need to know or want to know more. We always say reach out. It’s MentalJoe.com. We try to keep it pretty simple for people that want to reach out. I’m happy to have those conversations with you. Whether it’s a cup of coffee or a Zoom call and try to guide you in the right direction, whether it’s you guys or another ketamine clinic or someone that wants to go to Costa Rica. It’s one day, one hour at a time when you’re in the middle of all of this stuff.

Are there any questions I missed or anything I should have asked you?

That’s probably a pretty good 10,000-foot overview. There’s a little detail here and there, but other than that, that’s a pretty good scope of where I was at, where I’m going, and where we are now.

That’s perfect.

 

Important Links

• Chad McLean on LinkedIn
• Mental Joe
• Camelback Recovery
• Heroic Hearts Project

 

About Chad McLean

Chad McLean is a U.S. Army veteran, mental health advocate, and the founder of Mental Joe Apparel, a company created to raise awareness and funds for non-traditional mental health therapies.

The brand emerged from his own struggles with mental health and a subsequent suicide attempt in 2020, which ultimately led him to find healing through alternative treatments.