An Undercover Agent, a Cartel Cop, a Green Beret and an Actor on Trauma
Scott Payne, Ed Calderon, Evan Hafer and Mel Gibson each describe stress and trauma building up quietly in men who kept functioning, until burnout, drinking, emotional numbness or a brain scan forced a reckoning. Their routes back differ sharply: an FBI psychological safeguard and accountability partners, sobriety and peer community, psychedelic therapy, and supplements with hyperbaric oxygen. Faith or a higher power runs through several of them.
How does Scott Payne define undercover work? Show answer
As building relationships that you are going to betray. He says that is hard, especially when you genuinely like the people involved.
What did the FBI's sentence-completion test reveal about Payne? Show answer
He could not finish the phrase "the last time I relaxed," a sign of how overextended he was. Even then he kept working.
What is the FBI's Safeguard program? Show answer
A program created by agent Joe Pistone with a clinical psychologist that requires active undercover agents to have psychological assessments twice a year.
What finally stopped Payne, and what was his diagnosis? Show answer
An anxiety attack after a workout on top of stimulants, followed by a week of sleeping about 16 hours a day. He was diagnosed as overextended and pulled from undercover work.
When did Ed Calderon's trauma catch up with him? Show answer
After he left Mexico, in the quiet of a California avocado orchard. Everything he had put on hold arrived at once, and he was drinking himself to sleep.
What made Calderon stop drinking? Show answer
His daughter told him, unprompted, that she didn't drink anymore, and he quit that night. He then went through two to three weeks of withdrawal at a community retreat.
What does Calderon advise people with PTSD to do? Show answer
Spend time around people who have their own struggles, because it humbles you and shows how wide the world's problems are.
What did combat composure cost Evan Hafer? Show answer
Shutting his feelings down let him function under fire, but afterward he could not connect with love for his family.
What helped Hafer, and what caution comes with it? Show answer
At his wife's urging he tried psychedelics, which he says fast-forwarded him through roughly 20 years of talk therapy. Joe Rogan warns that people with conditions such as schizophrenia may be at risk.
What did Mel Gibson's brain scan lead to? Show answer
Psychiatrist Daniel Amen told him he had the worst case of PTSD he had ever seen. Gibson says fish oil, a vitamin B complex and 40 hyperbaric oxygen sessions brought him out of it.
What do all four recoveries have in common? Show answer
Each man first had to admit something was wrong, and someone close, such as a friend, wife or daughter, usually pushed him toward help.
What should a reader do if they recognize these patterns in themselves? Show answer
Get help from a qualified medical or mental health professional, especially for suicidal thoughts or heavy drinking, and before trying psychedelics, supplements or hyperbaric treatment.