🫠 Psychonaut POV

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re not usually the competitive type, but if there were a contest for the best newsletter in your inbox… let’s just say we’d do what it takes to win. (Performance-enhancing fungi are on the table.) 🍄

Daniel Carcillo, on the other hand, is a natural born killer competitor. When he played in the NHL, that win-at-all-costs mentality got him beaten and bruised to the breaking point of his career. But his competitive spirit also fueled his complete recovery—with psychedelic assistance, of course.

We asked Daniel how pro athletes are gaining an edge with psychedelics, what he learned from running a publicly traded psilocybin company, and how he’s supporting TBI survivors today.

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Hockey is a physical sport, to put it lightly. Can you give us a glimpse into the kinds of trauma you endured while you were in the NHL?

Hockey's an incredibly demanding sport. The schedule alone is brutal. You're playing every other day for about six months straight, with maybe a couple months in the summer to recover and bulk up. But as soon as training camp hits, you're back on that grueling travel and game schedule.

My role was particularly tough. I could do it all—skate, shoot, hit, and fight. Changing the momentum of a game with physicality was my specialty. But that came with a price, especially in terms of head trauma. Hockey's unique in that we're bare-knuckle fighting on ice. The damage adds up quickly.

After about ten years and seven surgeries, I had to call it quits at 30. The impact from multiple concussions and repetitive head trauma was just too much. Doctors were telling me I had dementia-like symptoms, similar to what you hear about with football players. Leaving the game was tough, but dealing with the healthcare system afterwards? That's when the real fight began.

Did you have any interest or exposure to psychedelics back then? What led you to take mushrooms for the first time?

Growing up in Canada, my exposure to psychedelics and mushrooms was mainly recreational at parties. I never thought about using them therapeutically. After retiring early in 2015, I tried all the medically accepted treatments. Doctors prescribed pharmaceuticals for my depression and anxiety, but those often made other symptoms worse.

I spent years going to concussion and stroke rehab centers. They'd do all these diagnostics—brain scans, eye tests, blood work, speech analysis—to try to pinpoint where the concussion damage was. Then I started mixing in alternative treatments like float tanks, hyperbaric chambers, acupuncture, peptides, and hormone therapy.

By 2019, I was really depressed and suicidal. I wasn't interested in just managing symptoms. I wanted a cure. Then I saw Robin Carhart-Harris’s 2014 study about psilocybin's effects on the brain, and it sparked something in me. When I heard Denver had decriminalized magic mushrooms, a friend hooked me up with some. I took a high dose in Colorado in summer 2019, and it completely changed my life.

I knew psychedelics were stigmatized, so I didn't tell my doctors. But I was smart. I'd always get scans and tests before trying something new. Six months after two high-dose psilocybin trips and a low-dose regimen with functional mushrooms, my brain scans came back normal. My bloodwork was clear. The before and after was astonishing.

By the 6-month mark, I only had 2-3 lingering symptoms out of 15. After an ayahuasca experience in January 2020, I was completely healed. It's been almost 6 years now, and I don't deal with any symptoms. I've totally reversed it. I feel like the healthiest version of myself.

As a lifelong competitor, what are your thoughts on using psychedelics as “performance-enhancing drugs”? Could active NHL players benefit from natural medicine as much as retired ones?

Active players are definitely benefiting. I know a lot of guys using psychedelics in different ways. At the end of the season, they're coming to retreats for a reset, using high doses to heal the damage from that demanding schedule. Then throughout the year, they're using low doses.

Low doses don't have that hallucinogenic effect, but they increase things like visual acuity. That's huge for athletes. Hockey's so fast. Players need every edge they can get on hand-eye coordination, cognitive processing, and peripheral vision. Psilocybin seems to help you access that flow state faster.

I haven't advocated too much for use in sports yet. I'm mostly focused on helping people recover from concussions who've been told they have to live with a "new normal." But it's clearly a great tool for athletic performance, and human performance in general.

I think of everything from an athletic standpoint. I run four and a half miles and cold plunge every morning. If you can just exercise and eat well, your life improves exponentially. Add in legal mushrooms like lion's mane, reishi, and cordyceps for anti-inflammatory benefits, and you're even further ahead.

Lately, I've been experimenting with NAD+. It seems to extend the performance benefits from the mushrooms. I can feel it crossing the blood-brain barrier, healing my neck, and boosting my energy. I'm working out harder and recovering better. It's pretty cool stuff.

Your company, Wesana Health, developed a combo treatment of psilocybin and CBD and sold its IP to Lucy Scientific Discovery last year. What was your biggest takeaway from that experience?

The biggest takeaway is that it's really hard to get drugs approved and run an FDA program while being a publicly traded company. It was an amazing learning experience about the drug development process.

We developed this combo because I was using CBD with functional mushrooms and psilocybin. We wanted to create something you could keep on your counter and take without supervision. The FDA was pretty amenable, too. We got to a pre-IND meeting, and they even broadened our indication from depression related to concussions to regular depression.

We demonstrated efficacy in animal models, and they accepted our toxicology program. They even accelerated our program, saying we could move to a Phase 1b because there was so much data on CBD and psilocybin already.

But then the Russia-Ukraine war happened, creating headwinds in the public markets. It became apparent it'd be hard to raise more funds. So we ended up selling the clinics first, then the drug development program.

That freed me up to co-found a new company, Healing Realty Trust, to help clinicians in this space expand. And I've been doing advocacy work, writing a book, and opening our first facility in Oregon. I'm fully aligned now with my purpose—using full-spectrum, regulated medicine to help people reconnect their brain, body, mind, and spirit.

What’s next for you? How are you supporting concussion and TBI survivors now?

We're creating a place in Oregon where people can come to improve their life. We’ve already built an extensive waitlist over the last four years because people see how I'm living and want that for themselves.

We'll have a comprehensive diagnostic program on the front end. We want to show the changes in people's brains, blood, gut microbiome—all factors that influence mood and health. This is especially important for the concussion community. After years of ineffective treatments, they often lose hope.

But this project is really about creating an ecosystem. There's the front-end diagnostics, the ceremony itself, and then a backend coaching platform. We'll have weekly alumni calls and coaches who understand how to help people apply their experiences to real life. We want to support people every step of the way.

We're also focused on collecting meaningful data, including testimonials from the individual and their loved ones, plus actual medical panels and wearable data. That combo can really punch through stigma.

One thing I'm really excited about is our work with No Fallen Heroes, founded by my friend Matthew Buckley, a former Top Gun pilot. They connect veterans, first responders, and their families to these therapies. We're planning to do a retreat for their foundation at least once a month in Oregon.

To address the cost issue, we're using a Robin Hood model. Those who can afford it pay a bit more, allowing us to offer discounts to veterans and first responders. It's not perfect, but I'm just grateful something like this exists legally now.

Want more from Daniel?

Subscribe to his mailing list or contact him directly to join his weekly webinars and learn more about his upcoming mushroom retreats in Oregon.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.