Can Ketamine-Assisted Therapy Help You Drink Less? w/ Dr. Sam Zand
Welcome to Journey to the Sunnyside, the podcast where we have thoughtful conversations to explore the science of habits, uncover the secrets to mindful living, and, of course, inspire your own mindful drinking journey. This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform. And if you could benefit from drinking a bit less, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free 15 day trial. I'm your host, Mike Hardenbrook, published author, neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert. Today, I have doctor Sam Zand, a John Hopkins trained psychiatrist who teaches at UNLV and other universities.
Mike:We'll discuss the future of psychiatry and the effectiveness of Ketamine assisted therapies for PTSD, depression, trauma, and alcohol use. Remember, this podcast isn't medical advice, and the views of our guests may not reflect those of Sunnyside. Consult a doctor if you're concerned around your health or alcohol use. Now let's dive in with doctor Zandt.
Mike:Today, I'm excited to have doctor Sam Zand here on Journey to the Sunnyside. Doctor Zand, thank you for coming.
Sam:Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Excited to have this conversation.
Mike:Well, you have a really interesting background because you have a traditional medical background, but your views are nontraditional. And I think you're really pushing a lot of what's going on in psychiatry and mental health. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey into psychiatry and just the story overall?
Sam:Yeah. Absolutely. So I'm a psychiatrist. I went to medical school, did my residency training, and I was drawn to the industry really because I feel in psychiatry, it's the one field where we could help somebody not only to improve something going on in their life, but when that person gets better, the 5 people, the 10 people around them get better. And there's this ripple effect.
Sam:I truly believe, obviously, I have a professional bias, but that our mental and emotional strength and fortitude and understanding of self, it governs everything else. And so my cardiologist colleagues, my therapist colleagues, like, all of this is guided by how are we controlling this processor in which we perceive life? We react. We engage. And the more we understand ourselves as this processor, then everything else starts to trickle down from that.
Sam:So I really got excited about psychiatry when I realized this is kind of the source. You know? This is for me. And of course, that's a biased perspective. I'm open to other you know, the cardiologist says, no.
Sam:The heart runs the body. Right? The neurologist says, the brain runs the body. The psychiatrist says, the soul runs the body. And that's the part of the science that's really fun because how do you define the anatomy of the soul?
Sam:Right? And that's the work that differentiates us as a psychiatrist from neurologists. Neurologists focus on the brain. They focus on the organ. And as we get better in psychiatry, I think being one of the youngest fields in medicine, it's just exciting to see how we're using that neuroscience.
Sam:We're using understanding of gut health. We're using understanding of all of the different factors to really realize this is a complete picture. The epidemiology of psychiatry is healer of the soul, healing of the soul, treatment of the soul of the psyche. And so, you know, to me, I'm signing up for medical school and trying to pick what I wanna get my what I wanna do for the rest of my life. What's more exciting than understanding and helping people improve that spirit, that unexplainable part of the life science that we live.
Mike:Take me back when you were going through maybe school or starting to do residency. Was there a time or a moment or some data or a story that you came across where you it led you down that path where you said, yes. This is the future of psychiatry. This is the future of maybe societal change.
Sam:Yeah. Absolutely. The landscape, if everybody's familiar with what happens when you go see a psychiatrist, it's not a fun experience usually. It's like there's something wrong with me. There's you know, I had some kind of trauma or I'm suffering from anxiety or to an extreme, I became psychotic or manic or deeply depressed or suicidal.
Sam:Now this doesn't ever feel like something we're excited to want to. And in my practice years ago, it was kind of, you know, the safety net for society. But now we're seeing this shift of and we're optimising. This is bringing people a level of compassion, care, empathy, and understanding that starts with self, and it grows from there. So the example that really revolutionized this for me, I can think of, one particular patient who gentleman who lost, you know, a mom, right, and had really tough grief that he was going through.
Sam:Everything else going on in his life, you know, we all have ups and downs. We all have depressive feelings. We all have anxious feelings. I don't think that the diagnostic over specificity is serving us as much as it is serving the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies. This is just, you would say, you know, someone who would never really want to get a mental health checkup before or felt he ever needed to see a psychiatrist, but came to me for therapy.
Sam:Because after his mom passing, life was just different. Shal of Leu, our former self. Right? Things come up. There's not only just the grief, the sadness, the difficulty, but the self evaluation.
Sam:Was mom proud of me? Did I live up to the expectation? We're doing 5 months of therapy, and this is someone who is just you consider your, you know, general 40 hours a week, good social life, good friends, good family. There's nothing, like, too extreme about this case. But the therapy work was just this slow trudge.
Sam:It's like we're going up to this mountain, and we got the shackles and these weights, and we're just slowly getting up the hill. And in that time, this is about 2020, 2021, where ketamine therapy has become very popular. And for me, it would it has become a primary modality. I kept bringing it up. And the common response was like, what?
Sam:Ketamine club drug? I did this once when I was in my twenties, and it was not a fun experience or, you know, whatever the stigma might have been that we've experienced. Finally, after 5 months with this one particular gentleman, he said, let's try it. So we've done 5 months of therapy. Someone who's engaged and really just struggling to get over the sadness, the grief, the self judgment, the lack of motivation, all of this just after, you know, sudden loss of mom does a ketamine treatment where now step out of the room.
Sam:We did an injection in the deltoid, and we did the prep. We did the therapy. I come back, and I'm just observing, monitoring, listening. I hear he's screaming. This is a case that's not the normal case.
Sam:This is someone who has been holding something in. And in this moment, I hear him screaming, I miss you, mom. I failed you. And that phrase came up. Right?
Sam:And some other phrases came up. And afterwards, we calmed him down, did the breath work, and, you know, I think he's okay. He's laying on the couch. What we did in 5 months, all of that therapeutic work, I could just see. It all just kinda clicked after that ketamine experience where we were doing about 15 to 30 minutes of therapy, and it was a night and day difference.
Sam:And this is early in my work. So I'm seeing, okay. I've spent 5 months with this guy, and he's been really dedicated. And one day, we made quantum leaps. And I talked to him next week, back in the gym, back into finding happiness in social situations.
Sam:Still sad, still lost mom, still breathing. But now all of the entanglements that were held in the core belief that I failed my mom, I didn't make her proud, that was an internally held belief. It finally came out, and and we were able to process that. This is, in a way, accelerated therapy. And so from that perspective, I was just like, I'm sold.
Sam:Why wouldn't we do this if this is the most extreme case? Because most people don't scream and have a reaction, and they're just very calm and relaxed. But if in the most extreme case, I took someone for 5 months trying to just dredge up that mountain, and one day, it's like the shackles came off. And all that work that we did was there, and that's all that was there. It was just such a beautiful understanding that there are cobwebs in the mind, and there are just these rigid patterns that don't serve us.
Sam:And we can try as hard as we want. We can tough it out. That isn't it. Sometimes we just actually need a medical reset. And that's what in psychiatry now kind of bridged a further understanding of neuroscience with almost this emotional spiritual understanding of self.
Sam:And and that's the playground that's really fun to play in.
Mike:It's such an incredible story. Let's go back one step and say for anybody that might not be aware. I think that most people by now have probably heard of Ketamine therapy, but they probably don't get to hear the explanation from an expert doctor like you. So maybe what is ketamine? How does it work?
Mike:Yeah. It's super,
Sam:fascinating how this term has changed over time. Right? Like, ketamine to me, 10 years ago, I had a patient come in and say, hey. I left the last psychiatrist. I asked why.
Sam:He said he kept trying to give me ketamine. And I thought, this is reckless. Should we report this doctor? There's so much bias and stigma around the words. So I always wanna start with what what it isn't.
Sam:Right? In the context of a therapeutic, it's it's not a club drug. It's not a tranquilizer. It's not this really deep psychedelic experience either for many until maybe we titrate to that dose. What it is is a dissociative anesthetic, that high doses we used in operation.
Sam:50 years. We've known this drug. We know the safety. But in the seventies, when they were giving it to veterans in the Vietnam War and and and other parts, they would seem that trauma response was much improved after someone for an operation got ketamine as an anesthetic. Psychiatrists in the seventies were all over that.
Sam:Let's figure out why is this happening. And it became part of the therapeutic. And the key common denominator between Ketamine, your listeners probably know this, and all the psychedelic medicines is that concept of neuroplastic. So over the years, we've realized that our brain has these patterns, these neural networks. They run-in the background, perhaps in our subconscious mind, where it's just there.
Sam:It's dormant. We can access it if we really are in a meditative mind state. But for the most most of us, it's in the background. It controls us without us really noticing it. And this concept of neuroplasticity and neurogenesis helps to us to understand that we can reprogram that subconscious.
Sam:Those neural networks often run-in patterns, and they don't serve us. But if we can reset that and they become malleable, all the work that we do becomes much more cemented. And so Ketamine, it increases neuroplasticity. It has this activity on the brain where if you look under an MRI, it's like someone's brain is on, it's on fireworks to live. Right?
Sam:There's a lot going on in that moment. And the residual afterglow is that the brain is now fertilized to reset all of those negative patterns from the past, so that they don't rule us and our behaviors moving forward. And then we get to choose and craft what neural networks we wanna strengthen. It's really like fertilizer for the brain. It's this ability to make the our thoughts and feelings and behaviors this warm clay that we can mold.
Sam:And then all of a sudden, we chisel away, we mold, and and we're left with the best version of ourself. That's how it's been used in mental health now recently at a very low dose from its onset as a high dose anesthetic to now a low dose tool that changes the experience where your brain is malleable. The therapy work starts to become this, of creating your own narrative, creating your own thoughts, your own patterns, your own feelings and behaviors. And then that's all guided clinically through the process.
Mike:It sounds like with Ketamine, there's a lot of things going on inside of the brain and as far as neuroplasticity. Is it different than other medicines in your experience?
Sam:It's a common question. Or how does this compare to other medicines? And ketamine for me is a very gentle introduction to this kind of work, the psychedelic therapy, because at a low dose, it's really a meditation enhancement tool. And at a high dose, it can become very psychedelic. So you have this range.
Sam:Similarly, we've seen people talk about psilocybin and the therapeutic utilization where you have that hero dose, which is that deep plunge into the subconscious. And that light dose, that might be even a microdose that's sub perceptual, what ketamine does is it increases, glutamate, which turns neuronal activity on. Other compounds do it in different ways. Psilocybin is this burst of, kind of, serotonin, and all of that neurotransmitter in the brain allows for more healthy processing. And and one part of the brain has talked to the other part to go over the rigid patterns and create new open perspectives.
Sam:The metaphor I like to give is, you know, we're we're sitting with a friend, for example, who's just giving us, you know, everything they're going through in their life, and it's heavy and it's emotional. And for us, we see it so well, the advice we wanna give to them. Like, oh, just, you know, that one thing. If you could just see that it's isn't that obvious? But for them, they're so stuck in their emotions.
Sam:And so what is unique about Ketamine is it's that dissociative quality, where we get to kind of remove ourself from the patterns of thinking and feeling and behaving that we're used to and just pull away a different perspective. And that dissociative quality is like giving a friend advice. You get to give yourself that advice. You get to just step back and have this overview effect of your own life. I think that uniquely differentiates it.
Sam:I think that psilocybin has shown tremendous benefit in studies for similar neuroplastic changes, but uniquely in invigorating growth and inspiration and creativity. And these are words we don't use in psychiatry. Right? We talk about depression and suicidality and anxiety, not growth and empathy and creativity and self love. So it's changing the framework in which we're, you know, talking about these things.
Sam:But ketamine is unique because it's legal, and we can use it, you know, while the others are finding their place in in therapeutics.
Mike:For me, with Ketamine, with with the the actual outcome for me was almost an immediate boost in confidence, less self doubt, less worry or ruminating thoughts. I've heard and also researched that it's very bi patient like the experience. Some people have it very mild and some people go extremely deep. Are you seeing that sort of, like, variation also as far as the experience goes with people that
Sam:you work with? There's such a spectrum of utilization here. And to be compliant and legal, we have to, you know, diagnose someone with anxiety. We have to diagnose someone with depression or PTSD. And fortunately, I'm really proud of our industry.
Sam:The APA, the American Psychiatric Association, they have endorsed this work. Right? Ketamine is accept an acceptable form of treatment for mental health. What we haven't gotten to yet is, can we utilize these things for nonmental health illnesses? The legal answer right now is no.
Sam:We can't. That doesn't mean that we're not. That doesn't mean that we're not treating our depression and improving self love and empathy and connection with our partner. Right? It's just a different language that is being introduced on top of a little bit of an archaic language, calling things anxiety, depression, bipolar ADHD.
Sam:I think we need to evolve past that. I don't know if we will. But the utilization, if we can remove the legal framework and what the potential could be in this, And to say that, you know, the caveat, the disclaimer that anyone who's using this for optimization, for creativity, for couples, strengthening. There is a, you know, inherent anxiety depression diagnosis underlying. Right?
Sam:Let's let's use that as a disclaimer. Beyond that, what we're seeing is peak performance optimization. This is a really fascinating part of a spectrum of is there mental health issues stopping us from being our best? Or are we just continuing to be our best because our brain health is improving and our introspection is improving. There's been a lot of conversation in professional sports about, are psychedelics something that are here to treat and help mental health as the studies and evidence is showing and has become mainstream?
Sam:And at what point do we have to guard this from being a performance enhancement drug, like a steroid? Right? That that's a really fascinating conversation that's happening in this landscape. There's the utilization of groups to tie them together and help them to, create cohesion, overcome corporate discord, and things of that nature. Family structures, couples counseling.
Sam:And then starting at a low dose is just a nice little healthy reset. It's a meditative relaxing feeling while plunging into the deep end of a high dose is much more intro in And so that's where, I think, all of us in this community who are trying to bring out psychedelic therapies are finding our own niche, our own fit. And there there isn't a one size fits all. The more we can customize and meet people where they are, there is an application that I think can serve, you know, a majority of our population in a time of huge need as well. 100% agree.
Mike:Do you think that there's a place for that being purpose driven when it comes to actually changing, your habits around alcohol if you're especially finding them challenging to change and you've tried other outlets. Yeah.
Sam:I really enjoyed your blog on this topic, and, I admire and commend that you're sharing your story too. I think it's so important for us us, because we all have addiction in our life. I think there's a misnomer that there are addicts and there are non addicts. There are habits. And some of us, our habits get us in trouble.
Sam:And some of us, our habits lead us to prosperity and growth. And so the term addiction is just painting a negative picture on the whole thing. If we take away the negative filter, we're just talking about habits. Alcohol, drugs. These are the things smoking.
Sam:These are the things we're used to when we're talking about addicts, but we are all 100% habituated to use this thing. Right? Like, we are addicted to technology. We are habituated in many ways that it's not a bad thing. It doesn't have to be polarized as addiction, right or wrong.
Sam:We do have to have more authority and agency over our habits. And I think when you break down a habit, Charles Duhigg has a great book, The Power of Habit. If any of your listeners have read that, he talks about changing the cue. What starts a habit? What makes us wanna do the thing?
Sam:You walk by the kitchen, and there's a box of cookies out, and you visually see the cookies. That's your cue. Right? I am now wanting to eat the cookie, which is my action. And the reward is, yum.
Sam:It tastes good. This is how we've thought of habits so far. Right? And that's the psychological understanding that I think, is really astute. But now when what neuroscience is introducing and what psychedelic medicine has taught us, is that our habits aren't just about a cue, repetitive behavior, an action or reward.
Sam:But there's a neuroplastic route that's being run. And it's in the back of our mind. It doesn't even need a cue. It is, autopilot. It's like programming software on your computer.
Sam:You turn your computer on, there's just programs that run-in the back. Psychedelic medicine gives us access to that programming in a way that has been really hard for us before. So when we talk about changing habits, the reset is fundamental. And that's what all psychedelic medicine has in common and that's why I'm such an advocate of Ketamine therapy because it just creates a catalyst of change. When you think about that malleability and that fertilization to just do something different, You are resetting the habit.
Sam:And whether that's drug addiction, whether that's shopping, pornography, spend you know, spending, eating. There's so many different habits. If we were to just reset it, now we can start to create new habits. I've had so many patients in the community, clients who work with us, say, you know, I came in for anxiety. And after doing these ketamine treatments as an example, I'm just not drinking as much anymore as as much as I used to.
Sam:I'm just it's it's not I don't cravings have gone down. I don't and they're, like, very curious about this. They wanna talk about it because it hadn't come up in our conversation before. You know, I used to binge drink a lot or I used to have this steady relationship, and And now my relationship has changed. Why is that?
Sam:Like, I'm trying to figure it out about myself. Right? And I can even speak transparently. Like, I've been through that evolution too. Right?
Sam:To well, I'm very transparent. I do the work. I do ketamine treatments at least once a month because I do feel that it really helps with anxious patterns and depressive patterns and alignment of what's important. And what I've noticed as an unintended side effect is my relationship with habits in my life have changed as well. Alcohol being one of them.
Sam:So I'm really excited about that. I think that the more research and data we have behind it, eventually, one day we can get to this is a treatment protocol. Whereas right now, it's this unintended it's this intended side effect. It's this unintended benefit. And, you know, that layer down from mental health to habit, we can't treat habits.
Sam:You know, if someone's like, I have a pornography addiction right now, I don't think that's a DSM criteria that I can write a pro a controlled substance for. Right? But if you go to therapy and talk about it, yeah, they can talk to you about it. If you tell me you have depression, anxiety, I can prescribe you ketamine and we can talk about that habit. That landscape needs to change because we're seeing the benefit tremendously.
Mike:It's such a interesting point because if you actually think about it because indirectly, I think you could just say, yes, it can as far as alcohol, but the underlying mechanisms that are driving those habits are being addressed. And so, subsequently, those are being addressed at the same time. I whenever I first started using psychedelics assisted therapy that I did notice a drop in wanting to have anything to drink. You approach medicine, psychiatry from a different view. And so one of those polarizing topics is how to address alcohol.
Mike:And so, traditionally, it's an all or nothing kind of approach, but there's also, which is polarized from one side or the other depending on who you ask, is it more of a moderation or maybe what some would call harm reduction approach? What are your thoughts on, like, how that's going? Because I think that it's evolving right now where alcohol fits within our health, and society as a whole is starting to be questioned a little bit.
Sam:I hear you. I think there's a need for a broader conversation. If you're seeking addiction recovery, predominantly, the treatment team will meet you with sobriety. Right? That's that's the solution.
Sam:And it's an excellent solution. I have no knock on sobriety. Right? Like, why put things in our body that are harming us, especially if there's a history of not handling it well and it creating adverse outcomes. But in order to meet people where they are, not everybody's open to sobriety.
Sam:And societally, just look at, you know, humanity over the course of 1000 and 1000 of years, would never existed without substances. Substance use has always been a part of society. So, we have to have at least one other solution besides sobriety for the population. And, I think when we talk about moderation as a trendy term, but really we're talking about harm reduction. We can also open the door to seeing every substance not as good or bad.
Sam:Like, if it's a medicine, it's good. If it's a drug, it's bad. But seeing it all has the potential to cause good or bad. And in that modality, in that paradigm, we can actually engage with some of these, be it medicines, drugs, right? I'm not saying illicit drugs, but things that have been studied and utilized, because many of which is was illicit is nahal, used as medicine.
Sam:And we go back and forth. There's societal structures, politics, laws, everything around it. But if we can approach it as, this isn't the culprit. Right? Alcohol is not the problem.
Sam:The drug isn't the issue. Alcohol isn't only a poison. It's a poison if we choose it to be a poison. Right? In the same way, Ketamine isn't only a therapeutic.
Sam:It's a therapeutic if we choose it that way. It can really cause a lot of harm. It opens the door to the conversation of harm reduction. And I do believe that reintegration is the step in recovery that we haven't really focused on. You know, there's we're we're launching a recovery program and so this is heavy on my mind right now.
Sam:And the recovery work in society right now is great. We have great rehabilitation facilities. We have great programming, IOPs, wellness centers, you know, all kinds of ways of reaching each other and saying, hey. If there's a substance that's changing your brain state and your chemistry, you're not who you are. We still love you.
Sam:We want you to learn these tools to be your best version. We talked about the first step is the reset that is so needed. That's why 30 days in rehab helps. It resets you from your normal life. Right?
Sam:Going to that Hawaii retreat helps. It resets you. And a psychedelic medicine resets you. The first step being reset. 2nd step being recovery work.
Sam:3rd step being reintegration. And that's where sobriety is so hard. Right? If we're committing, and I commend. I admire people who commit their life to sobriety.
Sam:That it is a very healthy state of being. But within society, it's challenging. It's not insurmountable, but it's challenging. And so, reintegration, I think, isn't talked about as much. And that's where harm reduction and moderation and just having a more intentional interaction with substances is should be more of a conversation.
Sam:What are your thoughts?
Mike:It's a very difficult topic to approach because I think that everybody has their own personal experience when it comes to alcohol, and they're in different stages. So I think that I think the more options that are available that work for you is the right solution. And I don't think that people should dictate to one person or the other which one's right for them. What do you think about the role of technology as it comes up? Because I know you're involved with telemedicine and telehealth, and you're aware that Sunnyside, we help moderate and cut down on drinking based on whatever goals you choose.
Mike:Where do you see things going, or where do you think that they are right now as far as adding as a tool or an aid or even the modality to change?
Sam:We have to lean into the tech. I think what has happened in society, you've seen, if we can zoom out when we talk about technology, mental health, you know, I don't think you go back a 1000, 2000 years and see the same statistics in mental health that you see now, even when things like the plague and physical health was much more poor, I think technology has caused a lot of problem for us. So does that mean we just move away from it? No. Like, we we're stuck in this part of, you know, the quick example of microplastics.
Sam:Right? Like, we all have plastic in us now. We're just part of humanity, and we have to accept that. Now can we build boundaries and barriers around it? And plastic, in that example, can help us in any way.
Sam:But technology can. So instead of running away from it. Where we see tracking. We see, the ability to even have biometrics, to have implantable devices that help you be more aware. What I'm really interested in is technology, AI, and machine learning that helps the not the scientific parts, but the non scientific parts.
Sam:I think if we ever bridge the gap towards full self actualization and understanding of the how and why we are, The human brain can only get us so far. Maybe AI and machine learning will will take us closer to that doorstep. So when it comes to recovery work, alcoholism, things like that, knowing yourself, you know, and not being a prisoner of your own mind, that's how we overcome this. And I am a huge proponent of AI therapy, of, the way in which these GBT models have rewired our own habits. And so, yeah.
Sam:I'm all ears, about this. And for us as a practice, we're using AI to be the bridge to therapy. To say, you know, let's just start using these tools to open a conversation with self. And then, you know, see if that can actually take us further than the human can. I don't think we're there yet, but I'm really excited for it.
Mike:So do you see it as almost like having a conversation with yourself, but instead of maybe sitting there with a pen and paper, you're actually getting an answer back?
Sam:Have you ever dived into AI therapy? It's really fascinating. I do it myself. Like, my I, you know, I always say we all need a therapist. Right?
Sam:I'm a psychiatrist. I do therapy. I need a therapist. And today, my therapist is AI, not for lack of opportunity, just more curiosity. But it's very good.
Sam:And the ability to it's like journaling with feedback. Right? Imagine if your journaling had a tutor. Right? Just, like, over your shoulder.
Sam:Like, hey. You know, you're journaling a little dark. Maybe, like, take that thought and move it here. And, you know, like, this is why we're we're having this outcome because maybe this habit is coming up. AI is doing enough for us right now.
Sam:And I think this is, like, who in this space is helping to integrate that in a way that lands well for the consumer, for the average person. Because I would guess the majority would be you're already frightened to open up your intimate truth with a therapist, let alone a computer. But I'm excited about the future of that.
Mike:I can see how it would just feel like you're actually talking to somebody. And then, in fact, with Sunnyside, with the text based app where they do check ins, people know that they could lie to it. But it'd be really quite an interesting study to see the effectiveness between, I guess, a real person coach and an AI coach and some of
Sam:the data behind that. Do you remember the old Microsoft doc clippy? It would pop up on your screen and it'd be like, look like you're writing over there. Would you like me to template this for you? Any tech entrepreneurs out there listening, someone needs to create the mental health clippy.
Sam:I've been talking about this ad nauseam, but I'm not a tech guy. I gotta find the right team. Where it's just like, this is the engagement tool that we all have. What if this little mental health buddy popped up and said, you know, you haven't really reached out to your loved ones in a while or, you know, you're you're striking that keyboard really hard. It seems like you're angry.
Sam:Take a moment and breathe. Right? Or you're on these kind of dark websites for for a long time. You know? Give your brain some time off.
Sam:That kind of assistant, you know, just to have that. Like, I can't wait till that comes out. I'm I'm trying to be the, you know, 1st, to adopt early adopter of all these AI technologies for my mental health.
Mike:In terms of providing a place that feels nurtured and in anywhere, you're working on a project right now, I think, that aligns with that. Why don't you share what that project is?
Sam:Yeah. Thank you. So Anywhere Clinic, that's really what we're up to is trying to meet everybody where they are, be able to have this mental health care anytime, anywhere. So we do the virtual visits. We do the telemedicine.
Sam:We have brick and mortar in most of our cities right now. We're in 10 states. And we're bringing group therapy back into the mix. We're bringing communal sessions, community in person, more kind of shamanistic work, which for many who aren't used to that, that might be strange or bizarre. But I think that we're really growing a population that wants to connect, that wants to find healing and camaraderie, not just to live this isolated individual life.
Sam:And so through Anywhere Clinic, you could sign up for a free support group. We accept health insurance, and we're bringing psychedelic medicine and psychedelic therapy to a level of accessibility in which that you don't need to pay $1,000 to go to the office and get an IV infusion. You don't need to pay $600 to see somebody virtually and then have the psychedelic therapy program there for you out of pocket. If you have health insurance, we'll see you. This is a tool that I teach now at residency programs at different universities, And, our 50 plus clinicians that we have are all well versed in Ketamine therapy.
Sam:So, we accept insurance. We're ready to just help meet anyone where they are. I think, you know, I'm proud of the team prioritizing how do we actually help people beyond how do we make money. Right? Because if you can help people, you will make money.
Sam:Business if if it's helping, it's gonna be profitable. But if you focus on profits first, it usually happens at the expense of care. And so our credo has always been patients come first, the team comes second, and the business comes last. You know, let's make sure that we're doing the right things. So health insurance based keto at home ketamine therapy, in office care, individual therapy, group therapy, psychiatric management from a team that doesn't look at you like there's something wrong with you.
Sam:Right? We're looking for what's right with you. We're looking to try to make you your best self. And that vulnerability to meet us in that care is received with love, compassion, and consistent support.
Mike:That ethos doesn't motivate people to see your intention as being just nothing but in the interest of helping others. I know it's very rare. Alright. I wanna end it with something that you're super like, passionate about other than what we just talked about. Maybe a trip, maybe a new project.
Mike:What what what's got you worked up, like, right in front of you right now?
Sam:Yeah. I guess, what's current for me is sports psychology and peak performance psychology. And we alluded to this a little bit earlier, but I think that professional athletes create an example in many ways for us because they've shown us an exemplary standard of how to optimize our physical health. And what we're noticing now is that you need to optimize your men's health to be an elite performer in any kind of high pressure industry. So, more and more professional teams are adopting mental health and psychiatry, mental wellness, peak performance psychology.
Sam:And, slowly, the conversations are happening around Ketamine Therapy. So, that really has me excited to be able to show the world. I mean, it wasn't long ago, a week or 2, you know, Elon Musk headlines about him saying, you know, this has really helped me in my negative mind states. And if my shareholders or government agency regulators are concerned, like, they should see that this is helping me and we should want to continue this work. I think professional athletes are stepping up right now and sharing that same message that when I work on my mental and emotional health, this is the leading tool that we have.
Sam:I'm a better performer. I'm a better human. And that model from sports, I think, trickles down to society. So, you know, I've been working with a lot of different sports organizations and I'm just excited that they're opening their minds to the conversation. And I know that locally, when I was trained in Las Vegas, the UFC, you know, they've been all about psychedelic medicine and helping their athletes.
Sam:The NHL has had a lot of outspoken people doing the work. And so the people that I work with individually, a lot of professional athletes, we're teaming up also to share that we all have a mental health journey. Doesn't matter if you're feeling like this is the worst day of your life or if yesterday you're on top of the world and everyone around you thinks that your life is perfect, we all struggle and we have ups and downs. And so that example from top down and bottom up is really what I'm excited about. Black and sports is is an equalizer for all of us.
Mike:Yeah. That is exciting. Well, thank you so much for taking the time today. It's just been amazing. I've learned a lot.
Mike:I hope anyone listening does as well. If somebody wants to reach out or find more about you, where where could they go?
Sam:Yeah. My social media is just at doctor Sam Zand. You can learn about our practice and know that we might be able show up and help whatever it is that you or a loved one is going through at anywhereclinic.com. And anywhereclinic.com, you can schedule online. You can call us, text us.
Sam:We take insurance in the most of the western states. I'll list them off real quick. California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Alaska, and then New York and Florida. We're opening Puerto Rico soon, and we'll be in 20 to 30 states in the next 2 months. So if we aren't in your service state, you can always shoot us a message, and we'll reach out to you probably in a month or 2 when we are.
Mike:So good. Thank you so much for sharing, doctor Zann.
Sam:Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for the work that you do and just being an advocate, sharing your testimony. I think we all learn so much from people like you step up and say we all have a mental health journey. So thank you.
Mike:That means a lot. Thank you
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