James Eshleman was on the path to success before he hit thirty. An associate vice president of sales at Personal Capital, he had a lucrative and stable job. He was young, bright and on his way.

And miserable.

Citing words like "anxiety," "depression" and "lack of fulfillment," the 26-year-old Eshleman took his New Year's resolutions seriously on January 1, 2017, quitting that promising career in financial services with no idea of where he would go next.

A month later, he attended his first psychedelic ceremony in hopes of learning how to fill that void, joining about 25 other people in Boulder to take ayahuasca. Eshleman had used psychedelics recreationally before, but this was his first time seeking them out for mental health. And it was far from his last.

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Something this fucked up state did that I actually agree with. I know quite a few people that have done this.

In particular a guy I know with multiple combat tours in Iraq/Afghanistan. Dude had pretty bad PTSD. VA put him on SSRI crap and sent him on his way. Which of course didn’t help and arguably made it worse.

He started micro dosing mushrooms. Totally different guy now.

There’s a docuseries on Netflix called How to Change Your Mind about this sort of thing. Pretty fascinating stuff actually.