In Waves and War, Community Never Waivers: Insights & Reactions

We love a good success story, especially when it’s about an entire community. That’s exactly what In Waves and War felt like when the credits rolled. It took a while to get there, though, and through veterans’ eyes we see the depths to which they go to protect their country and each other, and just how powerful experiences can be.

They take us from the battlefield in Afghanistan to a cliffside retreat in Mexico, from tying up their friends’ arms to save their lives, to supporting them through a challenging psychedelic experience—you’ll see how the brotherhood extends beyond war. 

In this commentary, we’ll look at a documentary that follows three Navy SEALs through their most vulnerable and heroic moments and also get to hear from one of our facilitators who attended a screening in LA when it was first released. 

In Waves and War is so much more than a movie about psychedelic healing. It’s about the power of love, really, and how important fellow humans can be in the healing process, right down to starting it in the first place.

This documentary was eye-opening, emotional, and raw, but most of all inspiring. If anything, the camaraderie captured in the film felt infectious, and when you’re done watching, you’ll probably want to hug whoever you’re with.

“By now, I am used to suffering.

I have endured so much in Waves and War.

Let this next adventure follow.”

This is the quote that loomed on the screen as the documentary, In Waves and War, began to roll.

This documentary’s title, borrowed from Homer’s The Odyssey, encapsulates the zeitgeist of what it was to be a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan in the early 2000s.

It was not fame and glory, or wealth and power. It was the unimaginable pain that is war, and the unbreakable bond it can create.

It then opens with a researcher’s voice stating “I’m going to be asking a bunch of questions, some of them about your combat experience,” while the screen flashes three distinct scenes of Navy SEAL veterans sitting facing the camera in an interview style setting, with the words “STANFORD IBOGAINE BRAIN STUDY Pre-Treatment Interview” with the participants name in the top left corner of the screen.

The next audio is Jeff W., study participant and SEAL team six veteran, as he responds to the researcher, “This is the sh*tty part, I guess, huh?”

It then goes on to show their heartbreaking responses to the researchers’ questions, including:

“Cyclobenzaprine and Ambien flowed like rivers in the SEAL Teams.”

“I guess when I look in the mirror, I don’t see anything. I just see a shell of somebody trying to pretend.”

And finally,

“I lied to you last week when I said I didn’t want to k*ll myself. I did want to k*ll myself.”

One man, Dj, was on 60 psychiatric pills a day just trying to survive.

Fifteen participants met the criteria for Major Depressive Disorder, 14 for an anxiety disorder, and 23 for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. They all suffered from traumatic brain injuries (TBI). None of the participants had ever reported using hallucinogens before, until now.

In this landmark study, 30 male Special Operations veterans with predominantly mild traumatic brain injuries underwent ibogaine treatment.

Ibogaine is a psychoactive substance derived from Tabernanthe iboga vines of Africa, where they’ve been used spiritually and ceremonially for thousands of years. It’s also been used as a successful treatment for addiction all over the world (Luz & Mash, 2021).

Ibogaine treatment is described as a “physiological reset of your nervous system” and “therapeutic dosing leads to dreamlike states of consciousness that facilitate a longer period of self-reflection and evaluation.”

“All the walls you put up, all the body armor you put on, that all goes away. The ego goes away, and you’re just a pure version of an individual that just loves everything.” — Marcus Capone, describing his ibogaine experience.

So, what was the inspiration for this study, and what made Dr. Nolan William, Director of Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab, finally take the leap to see what brain imaging could reveal about ibogaine and mental illness treatment among veterans? Marcus Capone’s story.

And what made these battered veterans, like Marcus, with no psychedelic experience, decide to try ibogaine therapy?

It all started on a fateful evening. Marcus “Matty” Capone was watching old training films while his wife, Amber, slept. At 5 AM, she woke up and checked on Marcus to find an alarming sight.

Marcus is sitting with an empty bottle of whiskey and a loaded gun. As she walked in, he picked up the gun and said “get the f*ck away from me.” This is the harsh reality for some veterans who come home after combat.

Marcus was doing everything he was being told to do by the VA. He was on 10 medications and doing talk therapy, yet he was making zero progress. This is when Amber decided to look into alternative treatments, which ultimately changed the course of many, many lives.

She gave Marcus an ultimatum: go to Mexico and try ibogaine treatment, or she would be left with no other choice but to divorce him.

They remain happily married to this day.

And as stories of the benefits of ibogaine began to circulate, like a 12-year headache disappearing, it began to spread like mycelium across the network of combat veterans across the country who were struggling to find relief from the effects of war.

Everyone who tried it desperately wanted their friends to try it too, and the camaraderie built through combat allowed each veteran to take the leap for themselves, with their brotherhood backing them.

As the documentary goes on, we learn that he did go to Mexico and tried ibogaine and 5-Meo-DMT, and his experience led him to push friends and combat brothers like Matty Roberts and D.J. Shipley to try them as well. 5-Meo-DMT is thought to work as a complementary treatment to ibogaine, resetting the emotional and spiritual aspects of trauma.

Each of these men had a strong constitutional belief in brotherhood, and through combat experience, it only grew stronger.

Actually, many participants in the study had fought together in combat, making their stories of Afghanistan extra poignant.

It’s a unique experience to witness each individual of a closely bonded group talk about the most traumatic moments of their lives, many of which they experienced together.

One of the facilitators in our network had the pleasure of attending a screening of the film in LA when it was first released, and we asked her a few questions about what it was like.

How did you feel walking into the theater compared to how you felt when you left?

“I was excited for the movie and knew it would be emotionally heavy and intense. At the end, walking out of the theater, I felt emotionally sobered. There were parts where I cried, so I felt the emotion move through me, and there were parts where I felt inspired. 

I remember I went up to Amber and Marcus and just said ‘thank you, thank you, thank you for being so open and honest’ and the next day I saw Matty and D.J. and also gave them the biggest hugs and thanked them for their courage, vulnerability, and willingness to share so openly because it had touched me so much so.

When I left, I felt emotionally raw and inspired and unbelievably touched and encouraged by the vulnerability that I saw and especially the camaraderie in those three guys and how they showed up for each other and how their partners supported them.”

Did the audience audibly respond to the documentary at all? What was the audience like? Did you see many vets in attendance?

“Yes, the audience definitely responded to the documentary, it was actually more like the gasping, like I could feel and hear everybody hold their breath at times, especially during some of the emotionally intense moments, you could feel everybody with bated breath, you could feel everybody holding the emotion.

There were a lot of veterans in the audience, and there were several next to me. I could see their legs shaking at certain parts and gripping their legs. I imagine they were resonating with what was being shared and shown, and I felt that with them.”

If you had to describe the feeling or vibe of the film in one word, what would you say?

“It definitely felt like a ‘we’re in this together’ vibe and even if we’ve never talked about these things before, it’s time to talk about it.

I think that was a big takeaway from the film is that these people go on these unbelievable missions and do these unbelievable or unspeakable things sometimes, and then it’s just that. It’s unspeakable. They don’t speak about it, they just move on to the next mission, oftentimes never seeing each other again and they never talk about it.

I think there was this feeling of ‘we have to change that, we need to talk about what we experience. We are going through something intense, and it affects us afterward; there needs to be a better way. We need to talk about this because right now we’re just stuffing it down and it’s causing PTSD and suicide at rates that should not be happening so we need to find a different way to do this.’

I think another big takeaway was that we need to talk about it, we need to support each other, we need to be vulnerable, we need to show our emotions, we need to let this out, and psychedelics can help, but the biggest thing that can help is the camaraderie.

A quote comes to mind, ‘Courage is not the absence of fear but the presence of faith,’ and I think in this film it was really that courage is the presence of faith in each other and the faith that they can go through this together. Faith that they will come out on the other side. Faith that the psychedelics or sharing vulnerably or getting their emotions out, processing will lead to something healthier than what they’re doing. Faith that there’s something better than how they’re currently doing and living. That really stands out to me.”

Can you speak to the importance of community in the film? Do you feel the men in the documentary would have gone to Mexico for this treatment if their wives and fellow vets hadn’t pushed them to?

“I don’t think the men would have gone to Mexico if it weren’t for their wives and fellow veterans pushing them to. I talked to Amber, and I know how hard she pushed him, and I don’t think Marcus would have gone, no, I don’t think so at all. And Matty, definitely not. He would not have gone if it hadn’t been for D.J. and Marcus pushing him to.

I’m a coach with Ambio Life Sciences (the clinic in film), and I talked to these guys, and many say, ‘I only went because of my friends, and now I’m bringing my other friends, and I’m making them come how my friends made me come, and I know this is the best thing.’ And a lot of them would not have gone if it weren’t for their friends and loved ones pushing them to.” 

Is there something that stuck with you the most from the film?

“I think the thing that stayed with me the most from the film was the scene when Matty was breaking down, and he was with D.J. and Marcus, and they were just with him, supporting him, holding him when he was just losing it. And that stayed with me so much.

Seeing these guys being vulnerable with each other, knowing that they do not show that vulnerability easily, and that is not something many people get to witness and here they are showing it to the whole world, whoever wants to watch this film. Seeing their courage, camaraderie, and support for each other was such an incredibly healing experience, and I think that’s what healed them more than the psychedelic, was the support of each other and that vulnerability.”

Final thoughts

One of our community members, a combat veteran themselves, mentioned that some of his fellow combat veterans were uninterested in iboga after watching the film because they felt it wasn’t right for them because they weren’t a SEAL, or perhaps they weren’t ready for that level of vulnerability. Regardless of their reasons, we’re here to remind folks that, as our community member put it, “this medicine has been around a lot longer than Navy SEALs.” Medicine doesn’t discriminate.

Taking a leap into the unknown is a lot less scary if you have a tether. That’s what support from others can be for a journeyer— a tether back to reality, back to safety, and back to love. This is why community is so important to individual healing. Healing isn’t done in an echo chamber, and for the veterans in the film, it truly came full circle.