From the Badge to the Vine: A Journey Through Duty, Trauma, and Healing

A Missed Connection (An Excerpt)

By K.L. Sadler

“Some doors only open from the inside.” –Unknown

When the time finally arrived to prepare for my first ayahuasca ceremony, I followed la Dieta as closely as I could. To my surprise, giving up sugar and news was infinitely harder than giving up alcohol.

Before COVID, I had already cut back significantly on drinking—or at least the kind of drinking I’d done in my twenties and thirties, when I didn’t know when to stop and usually just drank until I passed out. In more recent years, I’d learned something like moderation. Still, I’d have a pass-out-drunk night now and then and spend two days recovering, vowing, never again. Several months would go by, something stressful would happen, I’d decide I deserved to “blow off some steam,” and the cycle would repeat.

Sometimes this happened with a small group of friends, or at home with Erin. Other times, it was more public.

In 2015, while posted in El Salvador, I agreed to attend the Marine Corps Ball with a couple of girlfriends who were excited to give me a makeover. I bought a dress and sat drinking mimosas while they worked, trying to get relaxed enough to go to the ball. (It was the last time I tried to fit myself into that picture. The next Marine Corps Ball I attended, three years later in Austria with Erin, I wore a tuxedo.)

By the time we arrived at the ball, I was already lit, doing my best not to pass out at the table before dinner was even served. My boss, a trusted friend who had served with me in Iraq in 2006, quietly called for his car and had someone drive me home.

In 2019, the week after Erin and I left our one-year assignment in Afghanistan, we ran into someone I knew from Iraq at a rooftop bar in Washington, D.C. He started buying rounds, and we began trading war stories—the kind that draw people together through shared experience.

I drank until I passed out in the bathroom, slumped on the toilet. This rightly led to a gentle but firm request to leave the premises. Erin ordered an Uber, explaining to the two bouncers holding me upright, “She just left Afghanistan.” Their demeanors softened as they helped load me into the car.

In a strange twist of fate, the Uber driver—who had to pull over so I could vomit out the side of the vehicle—was from Afghanistan. He spoke English, but when Erin spoke to him in Dari and apologized, he softened as well.

By the time we reached the hotel, Erin realized she wouldn’t be able to get me inside by herself. It was two in the morning when she called one of the agents who had worked for me in Afghanistan and happened to be in D.C.

He came to help his former boss’s wife get her into the hotel, because that’s what you do. It was humiliating, but a common enough story among my peers. Getting each other home was just part of how we looked out for each other, because alcohol was one of our only acceptable coping mechanisms.

On la Dieta, abstaining completely from alcohol was hard enough to make me start questioning my relationship with it. I also noticed that without it, the quality of my sleep drastically improved.

As I made the drive south from Orlando, I reviewed what I hoped to gain from the experience. Much of what I’d read about using psychedelics for healing emphasized setting an intention ahead of time.

Only one? I wondered. How could I narrow it down? I had a list of questions, half of them existential, the other half emotional triage. Narrowing them down was like picking a favorite regret.

What is my path? Am I on it? How do I start over when my entire identity has been tied to the badge? How do I release the anger, cynicism, and constant need to analyze and assess every situation?

And then there were the ones that weighed heaviest on my heart.

Would Dad have supported my relationship with Erin? I’d fallen in love with Erin after my father passed away, and I did not know what his views on homosexuality were. I could take an educated guess, though. He was a devout Mormon all his life.

And yet, I had experienced unconditional love from him. He had been my biggest fan and always supported me wholeheartedly. I wanted to believe he would accept this part of me. My mother had intimated that he would not, saying I dishonored his memory by being with Erin. Maybe ayahuasca would allow me to ask him myself.

Then there was Amel. Did she blame me for not being able to save her? I hoped that ayahuasca would allow me to ask her forgiveness, and know her response.

I really did not know what to expect. I only knew that I was so drawn to the experience that I had to see it through.

I arrived in the late afternoon and was instructed to go around the house to the porch to check in. The email confirming my reservation had explained that everyone would be required to stay overnight to ensure no one risked driving under the effects of the sacrament, and I was assigned Cabin Nine by Inti, one of the church leaders.

The cabin was perfect—just big enough for a single bed and a small writing desk.

The property was so densely wooded that even though the cabins were close together, they still felt private. The whole place radiated tranquility.

Concrete statues lined the pathways among the cabins, a mix of Christian figures and Hindu deities. Outside my cabin stood a little cherub holding a harp with wind chimes for its strings. I ran my finger along the strings as I passed.

I took my sleeping bag to the temple and set up my space toward the rear. The temple stood at the heart of the property, a large screened-in gazebo with a soft, white, sandy floor. Along the walls, eighteen mats were arranged in a circle, each with a small black pail beside it.

Having set up my space, I returned to my cabin to await the ringing of a bell that would signal it was time to begin. I was anxious and tried to meditate.

Meditation was new for me, and it was not going well. I could never seem to stop the chatter in my head. There was always a dialogue going on in there, often as if I were writing in a journal: The temple was large and had space to accommodate twenty people easily. After a minute or two, I’d give up trying to shut it off and let my thoughts wander wherever they wanted.

When the bell finally rang, I changed into my white T-shirt and white yoga pants and went to the temple.

I felt silly wearing white. Mormons also wear white when they go to the temple. I had worked so hard to shed that skin, and now here I was, dressed like a ghost from my past.

The ceremony began at dusk. A show of hands revealed that about half of the eighteen participants had been there before. We started with a prayer to Mother Ayahuasca, calling upon the ancestors to guide us on our journey.

In the welcome speech, participants were advised to surrender. The importance of having the right mindset—the mindset of a warrior—was stressed. I told myself, Bring it on! Don’t go easy on me. I can take it.

When it was my turn to kneel before the altar, butterflies swarmed in my stomach. But I had watched the others, so I moved forward without hesitation and accepted the two-ounce Dixie cup from Inti.

A thick, dirt-brown liquid clung to the sides. It smelled of damp earth and old wood. The taste was both familiar and foreign, with an aftertaste that lingered on my tongue like bark.

At the altar was a bowl of fruit. I took a piece of watermelon, hoping to mask the aftertaste. I returned to my mat and placed my empty cup on the rail above my space, ready in case I wanted more. I sat down to wait for something to happen.

Thirty minutes passed.

I sensed that some others were feeling the effects. By this time, night had fallen, and it was dark out. The temple was lit only by candlelight.

A few people were crying. Others were purging into their little black buckets.

I focused on clearing my mind: I surrender.

Nothing.

I felt no strange sensations. I had no unusual thoughts. I saw no visions.

An hour in, Inti asked if I needed more sacrament, and I accepted another cup. The taste had not improved.

Still nothing.

Something inside me refused to give up control. The ancestors did not speak to me. The walls I had spent decades constructing were stronger than I thought.

By the end of the night, I had downed five cups of the bitter brew. Still no visions, no insights, no great awakening. Only nausea after the fourth cup, and frustration after the fifth.

I was devastated. Everyone else, it seemed, had cried, purged, laughed, or seen visions.

Meanwhile, I had spent the night staring at the candlelight, waiting for something—anything—to happen. I felt unworthy.

I sought out Inti. “Why didn’t it work? Why was I not able to connect?”

He asked me, “Do you smoke a lot of marijuana?”

“No,” I replied. “I have never smoked marijuana.”

“What do you do for work?”

“I was in law enforcement.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” he whispered, but it landed with the weight of years.

He explained that it was not uncommon for people in law enforcement, military, and intelligence circles to struggle to connect. He speculated that my years of training, compartmentalizing, and suppressing emotions to always remain in control and to maintain my composure had prevented me from letting my guard down enough for the sacrament to work.

I told myself I had surrendered, but was my ego really willing to let me be vulnerable in a group full of strangers?

Everyone was invited to the porch to share a meal and each other’s company, to share what they had experienced. I was not feeling very social, so I returned to my cabin and tried to sleep.

Sleep did not come. I felt so dejected and had so many questions. The next morning, I asked Inti if I should try again. With tears welling up, I told him how strongly I had felt called to ayahuasca. He suggested I come for a three-day retreat. He said gently, “Sometimes, the mind is like a coconut—it takes more than one strike to crack it open.”

Ha, I thought. A coconut wrapped in Kevlar!

I wasn’t sure if that reassured me. Either way, it confirmed my walls were thick as hell.

I spotted a certificate of appreciation on the wall from a veterans’ group the church worked with.

“Could I join one of those retreats?” I asked. “Maybe my subconscious would allow me to be vulnerable around others with the same mental barricades.”

It was possible, he told me, but there were currently no dates set for a veterans’ session.

I left with no answers, but I was not ready to give up. As I drove to Orlando, I turned off the radio. No distractions. Just silence.

I wasn’t sure if I would try again. So I did the only thing I could think to do: I whispered a small prayer, the first I’d said in a very long time.

“Mother Ayahuasca, if I am to pursue this path, if I am being called to this; please give me a sign.”