Into like the online game 4 years ago. Being a, you know, former infantry, like barbarian and then a teacher, didn't really know much about it. So it's been a steep learning curve. Let's put it that way. So thank God for AI. That's all I can say. Thank God for AI.

Thank God for AI. That's right.

Cool. Alright. Let's roll. Good to go?

Good to go.

321. Hey, folks. I'm sitting down with Justin Lapree. He is the founder of the heroic path to life and is a marine corps veteran and former firefighter.

Start that over. Start that over. It's so heroic path to light.

Oh, I oh, I put life. Oh, man. It's my freaking attention to detail. Attention to detail. Okay. Cool.

It's all good, man.

Frank. Frank. You're a squad leader too. Yes. Okay. Right on. Nice. Yeah.

Same. Oh, I mean, we call them section players here.

But Yeah. Good old ground pounder, man.

Yeah. Right on. Yeah. NCO is leading the way. Okay. That's right, man. Here we go. So 3, 2, 1.

Start that again. Hey, folks. Sitting down with Justin Lapree. He is the founder of Heroic Path to Light, a marine corps veteran, retired firefighter, and mental health advocate for vets and first responders. His personal encounters with a traumatic brain injury and complex PTSD catalyzed his discovery of the life saving potential of endogenic therapy. You'll have to get into that a little bit more later, Justin, on on what that is exactly. And his mission centers on providing holistic alternative therapies to address mental health issues at their core in a legal, secure, and sacred environment within the borders of our own country, meaning the United States of America. So, Justin, thanks so much for taking the time to have a chat on the Hard to Kill podcast.

And let's get right into it, man. What was the what was the reason that you decided to create this organization, this heroic path to life?

Thank you, Dave. Thank you for having me. Thank you to all the listeners out there today, for tuning in. So my why, really, you know, dates back to, when I first ingested a psychedelic compound, back in 22,018. These medicines, were a catalyst in saving my own life after a failed suicide attempt, because nothing else worked in our country. You know, the the United States, has a broken mental health system that focuses on sick care and not health care. And, I was I was on 13 different pharmaceuticals since I got out of the military in 2,005. And those pharmaceuticals were killing me, literally killing me.

Some of them, were super addictive, OxyContin, which, some of the listeners, you know, may have a very intimate relationship with. And I I was told that all of this stuff was gonna make me better. And, it got me so far removed from myself, my family, my children, that, I put a gun in my mouth in 2018, and and wanted to leave. So it really took this first experience in 2018, with mushrooms at the time to have this awareness that there was something else out there that, was was working to bring me back to myself, you know, reintroduce me to that that that boy that was inside of me that had been, you know, tucked away for a couple decades, really wanted these medicines started to help me become connected to my family again, to my children, to myself. And so I wanted to take what I had learned from these experiences over the course of 4 years, and, create an organization, to help my friends, that were struggling. It really it really came down to just helping my friends and families who I I initially started this organization for. You know, I've I've lost 15 friends to suicide since 2,005. It's a staggering number, once too many.