Combat Veteran Recounts Healing Journey from Trauma with Ibogaine
When Jay Kopelman, a Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel, returned from several tours in Iraq, he was mentally unstable. He was short-tempered and angry. He felt guilty. And he didn’t know how to relate to his family. He sought help.
“I was diagnosed at the VA with multiple traumatic brain injuries and severe post traumatic stress disorder,” he said.
Jay tried therapy, ju jitsu, therapy, sleep medications, and antidepressants, but he wasn’t able to feel back to his former self. He drank heavily. After nine years of marriage, his wife had too much of his anger and verbal abuse and divorced him. He was devastated. Jay contemplated ending his life.
A Six-Week Retreat at Mission Within Foundation
In 2024, he learned about a retreat in Mexico for a medicine journey called Mission within Foundation. In a clinical setting, people could take a very strong psychedelic called ibogaine as a mental health reset. The drug is derived from the bark of a tree grown in parts of Africa and is not yet legal in the United States. It’s paired with 5-MeO-DMT, which is the primary compound in a certain type of toad's milky secretion, also known as bufotoxin. This drug is being studied for mental health benefits. This drug combo is not for the faint of heart, literally. Ibogain is paired with an IV of magnesium to reduce the risk of cardiac events.
“Before you go to the retreat, you have to do an EKG and an echocardiogram. When you get there, they do a urinalysis to make sure that you don't have anything in your system, alcohol, meth, something like that that would be potentially harmful, or, as we've seen, even fatal," he said.
The drug is administered under medical and mental health supervision with professionals who stayed with Jay during the whole journey, which can take 12 to 18 hours, give or take. It’s a little different for every individual.
The God Molecule
The second drug, 5-MeO-DMT, is called the “God Molecule” because it produces profound feelings of an intense connection with a divine or ultimate reality. Jay was able to replay events in his life and to consider different ways of thinking, reacting, and talking with the people in his life. He wanted to be closer to his son, who, before this treatment, did not want to have much to do with him.
“When you get to the room where you're going to be on your journey, you're on a mattress and with an eye shade and Bluetooth headphones, so there's music playing the whole time. Your eyes are covered. You're awake throughout the journey. They all start out differently. But what seems to be a common theme throughout is that people will see their lives as a kind of film that is just a loop. It just loops through the entire time, and it allows you to see how you've behaved and how you've treated others, and can show you why you've had those behaviors, what has led to that, and how to correct those behaviors as well.
It’s not an easy journey. Jay emphasizes this is not a party drug. You can get stuck in a loop of violent images. Some people vomit during the experience. But for Jay, it was healing. It changed his relationship with himself and led to an improvement in his relationship with his son.
The experience “allowed me to let go of anger, self-hate, guilt, and just to let love come into my heart for the first time,” he said.
After Care
When the journey was over, Jay met with medical and psychological experts to talk through and make sense of his experience. He felt his brain was healed. For the first time in years, Jay felt peaceful. He wanted to share his experience and invite others with trauma to have the same level of contentment. He didn’t feel like drinking and never went back to it. He no longer needed THC gummies to sleep. He's now engaged to be married.
Joining Mission Within Foundation
The Mission Within Foundation retreat costs $6,500 for the six weeks. However, Jay had a scholarship to go. He’s since raised more than $2 million for other combat vets with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) to be able to access this unique treatment. He became the executive director and later CEO of Mission Within Foundation, expanding access to this therapy for veterans navigating the invisible wounds of war. He sees this experience as a second chance. And a way to help others, which ultimately helps himself.
“Go into the world to do well, but more importantly, do good.” For him, that means showing up—day after day, donation after donation, veteran after veteran—to make sure the doors to healing are open for everyone who needs it. As Jay says, he’s “just a regular guy trying to inspire others and show a little grace every day.”
His New York Times Best Seller ‘From Baghdad with Love: A Marine, the Way, And a Dog Named Lava’
Jay is also a writer. While serving in Fallujah, many residents fled and left their pets behind. He discovered a puppy, which he de-fleaed with kerosene, and despite the military banning pets, kept the pup. His story is about the emotional ravages of war, and how Lava helped him through the dangers, both physical and emotional.
Ibogaine in the U.S.
The drug is still illegal in the U.S., but lawmakers are writing bills in support of this treatment in a clinical setting for a variety of mental health conditions. There will be more reporting on the state of the bills coming soon.