In mid-September, after the fire season in the American west largely went quiet but before hurricanes ravaged the south-east, seven first responders from across the US traveled to Mexico seeking a therapy they hoped would transform their lives.
They had embarked on a sort of pilgrimage, journeying thousands of miles to an airy villa outside the humid beachside city of Puerto Vallarta, where over the course of three days a team would guide them through ceremonies with psilocybin, the psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT and tobacco.
The retreat, paid for by a California-based non-profit, offered a chance at healing that had eluded the first responders through years of counseling, medication and meditation. On a sweltering Thursday afternoon, they sat in a circle under a wood pergola and shared what ailed them: pain and rage without an identifiable source, on-the-job injuries that had upended their lives, childhood abuse, beloved friends lost to suicide or violence.
“I love my job. I love the guys I work with,” said a firefighter from North Carolina, who the Guardian – like several others in this story – is not naming to protect his identity, as many departments have zero-tolerance drug policies. “It’s my mind that’s broken,” he said, describing his years-long battle with anxiety and depression.
The CDC has said that the US is in the midst of a mental health crisis, and it is particularly acute among first responders – including police, firefighters and paramedics – who are at greater risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and suicide. Police officers and firefighters are more likely to die by suicide than in the line of duty.
A survey of more than 4,000 first responders, published by the Journal of Emergency Medical Services in 2015, found they are 10 times more likely than the general population to consider or attempt taking their own lives – 37% of respondents reported they had contemplated suicide. As the climate emergency drives increasingly devastating natural disasters and grueling fire seasons with more deadly and destructive fires, the mental toll on first responders is growing.
While there is far more access to care than in decades past, the suicide rate among first responders has risen, said Angela Graham-Houweling, 44, who worked as a firefighter in California for nearly two decades and founded the organization that facilitated the retreat. For too many people, traditional treatments are not working, she said, and they are in need of other options.
Interest in the potential therapeutic applications of psychedelics has surged in the last five years. A wide body of peer-reviewed research from scientists across the world has found that supervised use of psychedelics, such as psilocybin, can be a powerful tool to treat symptoms of depression, PTSD and other conditions.
Access to such treatments in the US is highly limited, outside of state programs in Oregon and Colorado, and could jeopardize the careers of first responders who participate in retreats like the one in Puerto Vallarta.
In 2022, Graham-Houweling felt hopeless. She had started as a firefighter in 2006, drawn to the idea of working on a team and doing something physical after spending a year as a professional softball player.
As the only woman in the crew at her Santa Clara county, California, station, Graham-Houweling, an athletic blonde, wasn’t permitted to stay overnight in the dorm with the others – she spent her first day on Christmas sleeping on a mattress in a weight room. She faced sexual harassment from a supervisor, she said, but she loved the job.
Her department covered a diverse area that included the valley floor to the wildland urban interface, the busy Interstate 95 and the affluent towns of Silicon Valley. The vast majority of shifts involved responding to medical emergencies, as well as car collisions, where she would help people stuck in mangled cars on the freeway. The work took a toll on her body, she said – she injured her back and developed asthma – and on her mind. She developed an awful temper, she said, a tendency to dissociate or blow up to cope with her environment, and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Her health issues would eventually force her to retire.
Graham-Houweling found herself frequently set off by her son, now eight, but would push away thoughts of suicide by telling herself she couldn’t leave him alone. She sought help and tried multiple medications and several different kinds of therapy, including EMDR, a go-to treatment for people with trauma. Nothing made her feel better.
The more treatments she tried, the worse she felt. “I hit a point where I didn’t know what else to do,” she said.
“When you look at your life and think, ‘I shouldn’t be sad but I am and there’s no more options left to figure out how to fix myself,’ that sucks the hope right out of you,” Graham-Houweling recalled.
Nearly three years ago, a friend of her husband who was a former Navy Seal, connected her with providers abroad who were offering psychedelic treatments to veteran groups. It was a big leap for someone who doesn’t do marijuana and rarely drinks, but she jumped on it, signing up and paying for a retreat and driving down to San Diego to cross into Mexico.
During the days-long event, she took psilocybin and later five doses of 5-MeO-DMT, a powerful psychedelic also called toad (because it comes from Sonoran toad secretions) that produces intense immersive experiences that last between 15 and 20 minutes. The toad session was grueling, she said, describing it as one of the most difficult things she’d ever done.
“Every cell in my body was flexing to fight,” she said. “It was so painful and scary the first two or three rounds, I remember crying … I just had to get through it.”
But the effects were immediate, and remarkable – she felt a sense of tranquility and a less frantic, reactive brain. “Two weeks [later] I still was able to be calm with [my son] and everyone. I remember thinking: ‘Wow, is this how everyone else gets to feel all the time?’”
That sense of peace and the tools Graham-Houweling gained during the retreat, such as practicing mindfulness and staying aware of her emotional state, changed her. She felt better able to regulate herself and avoid spiraling, but in her healing she was also left with a deep sense of frustration that resources weren’t more widely available to first responders.
“I was angry that I had to know just the right people and I had to pay thousands of dollars to get this relief. It’s so demonized and people who need it aren’t getting it.”
Three months later, she founded the Siren Project in hopes of helping other first responders access the same treatment with Indigenous practitioners, free of charge.
Rob Poynter, too, was familiar with rage. The now retired deputy sheriff said he carried anger, and an inexplicable irritation that he just couldn’t shake.
Poynter, an active 53-year-old with deep blue eyes and a gray beard, had surprised his wife when at age 30 he decided to pivot from running a health club to joining law enforcement. Poynter’s father had been a police officer and he felt drawn to a line of work through which he believed he could help other people, he said. He would spend 14 years working in the Bay Area, the last few on a motorcycle.
The child of alcoholics, he had always felt a lingering sense of rage, Poynter said in an introspective tone as he sat in the light-filled entryway of the sprawling Mexican villa. But joining the police force accelerated the feeling.
“When we’re going to 10 to 20 calls a night, dealing with people who do not want you there, you’ve got to make these split-second, life-and-death decisions all the time, over and over. That’s not normal,” he said.
“Unfortunately, when people in my regular life weren’t able to answer a question or make a decision as quickly as I wanted them to, I was getting angry, frustrated.”
He also dealt with insomnia. Poynter’s wife was a dispatcher and would occasionally have to send him to scenes where she knew he would face danger. It all accumulated – the high-pressure situations, constant waiting for something to happen, difficult calls involving children.
Poynter could see he was becoming enraged when he shouldn’t, directing his feelings at his wife and son. But couldn’t bring himself to address it. In 2018, he received serious injuries on the job that required surgery, he said, and he was eventually forced to retire. It was during that time he started thinking about the things that would set him off.
“It would be the littlest thing [that triggered me],” he said. “And I just decided I need some help.”
He started researching, trying to understand how his brain worked and what would make him better. Meditation, journaling and yoga helped, he said, but he felt he needed more. After hearing about similar treatments on a podcast and programs for military members, he found the Siren Project online and recommended it to a firefighter friend. When he learned the non-profit is open to all first responders, he was immediately interested, and though he initially was on the list for a trip in 2025, a last-minute cancellation allowed him to join in September along with six other first responders who traveled from as far as the east coast.
Thomas K, a 33-year-old former EMT from Montana whom the Guardian is not identifying because of his concerns about Veterans Affairs coverage of future treatments, was hoping to find healing from a traumatic brain injury he suffered while in the military. The injury had dramatically changed his personality, he said, and caused memory issues as well as bouts of depression and anxiety. Eventually, he was kicked out of the army, he said.
He found solace in his work as a first responder and learned how to regulate his emotions, even creating a mental health resiliency program to help prepare new EMT recruits. But he struggled with past trauma, including the killings of two friends, and fell into addiction as he self-medicated, he said. After witnessing his mother undergo treatment for cancer, he was burnt out and left the industry.
Thomas came across the Siren Project online after learning about similar programs through a podcast.Though he had used psychedelics in the rave scene, he had never taken them in a therapeutic context. “I stumbled across this stuff that’s working for people. That drew me further and further into it.”
There have been a handful of therapeutic programs using psychedelics for veterans for several years that have reported impressive results; independent research on the psychedelic retreats organized by Heroic Hearts found 80% of veterans saw improvement after participating in just one program.
The Siren Project retreats are facilitated by Andrea Lucie, an integrative medicine expert who spent several decades working with injured US veterans and hosts upwards of 20 retreats for non-profit groups each year. With two healers, a massage therapist and musician on site along with another facilitator and a physician, there is almost a one-to-one ratio with participants.
Graham-Houweling, who runs the program with her husband, seeks out people who have tried therapy and introspective work, and usually those who have never used psychedelics in this way.
Participants spend weeks preparing for the trip, working with counselors and eliminating caffeine, gluten and sugar from their diets in the weeks leading up the retreat as well as cutting out antidepressants and other medications, which they must work with their doctor to do.
Upon arriving at the mansion in September, the participants took drug tests, underwent a medical exam by a doctor and, soon after, turned over their phones.
The first day saw them receiving smoke cleansings and consuming tobacco snuff. They grimaced, feeling the burn of the tobacco, called rapé, while they slid into the grass. Smoke billowed and cascaded down their heads and faces and the sun snuck off beyond the horizon.
They also shared stories with one another, describing the losses and pain that brought them here.
Trauma is unprocessed pain, said Lucie, who is of Indigenous Mapuche heritage. She recounted how her own trauma, childhood abuse, left her with a deep rage for decades until she sought out healing.
“You are not the sum of your experiences. You are way beyond that. You will remember who you are,” said Lucie.
“Welcome to the retreat. This is it,” she added with a smile. “Open your mind, open your heart. Don’t pass judgment. Allow your mind to be here. Please be present even if it hurts.”
Within an hour of Oscar Martinez, the shaman administering psychedelics during the retreat, handing out glasses of orange juice dosed with psilocybin, the seven participants seemed deep in their own worlds. They wore eye masks while lying on reclined pool chairs and air mattresses under the pergola as heavy rain sent water through the roof.
The day began with a smoke cleansing and flower bath, and encouragement from Martinez, who advised the group to immerse themselves in the journey.
“Healing doesn’t always have to be through suffering and pain,” he said. “This medicine is special for inner child healing. We are looking for our inner child that got lost. Visualize how you were when you were five. You are the parent of this child. You are the guide.”
Shortly after the ceremony began, Lucie and other facilitators began playing music, and soon nearly half of the group were crying in their beds, some letting out deep sobs for more than an hour. One person briefly rose and reached for Lucie, who hugged him as he cried into her shoulder.
When it ended, most rose with smiles on their faces. “It felt like we were in a hurricane,” one firefighter said, as others in the group asked if the rain was real.
The trip stretched on longest for Dawn, a veteran firefighter from the Bay Area who had no prior experience with psychedelics. (Dawn is a pseudonym as she is still actively employed as a firefighter.) It was heavy and emotional, she recalled later, and she was frequently nauseated. The experience was difficult to put words to but felt like a strange dream or an offloading of negative emotions, she said. “I just had to remind myself constantly the only way out is through. It was a long day.”
Lisa Feldman, a 65-year-old retired firefighter who took part in a Siren Project retreat in January, said she had a similarly draining psilocybin trip, much of which dealt with a sexual assault she endured as a teen. The day left her feeling like she had “fought 10 structure fires” alone.
The group’s experiences with toad on the other hand were much shorter, and for most, even more impactful. It was administered to each participant individually while they were closely tended to by Martinez and Lucie.
Poynter went first. “I’m as ready as I can be,” he said, looking pensive as he prepared to head outside.
He sat on an air mattress where the group had taken psilocybin the day before and inhaled deeply from a glass pipe, holding it for 15 seconds as instructed by Martinez and Lucie. After he lay down, the eye mask on, his mouth opened and closed periodically and he lifted his hands up, stretching and moving them forward almost as if he were on a motorcycle. Minutes later, he put his hands behind his back as if he were floating downstream.
The 53-year-old looked amazed as he sat up and removed his mask 15 minutes later. “I hope I didn’t hurt anyone,” he said, drawing laughs. “Oh wow. Thank you guys. That was heavy.”
In the minutes after, he sat with a smile on his face, but couldn’t say what he had experienced. Later he would describe it as pure joy. “It was more bliss than I’ve ever had in my life,” he said. “And I think everyone should do this because I think everyone would be better if they all felt like this.”
Graham-Houweling said of her experience with toad: “You lose yourself. You are kind of just raw you. Imagine being born, you don’t have a concept of you. That’s not a bad thing. It was very liberating, very peaceful.”
Psychedelics are growing in popularity across the US and have been hailed by some doctors as a groundbreaking treatment for a variety of conditions. Last year, Oregon became the first state to allow supervised use of the psychedelic for adults aged 21 and older. Research on the effectiveness of such substances in alleviating the symptoms of PTSD, depression and other conditions has flourished in recent years and interest has surged thanks to works like Michael Pollan’s book and adapted Netflix series How to Change Your Mind.
In the case of psilocybin, a 2022 trial showed that the substance, in combination with psychotherapy, can help people with severe treatment-resistant depression. Scientists have said that is because the substance creates more chaotic brain activity which can help reset the brain – with different regions of the brain talking to each other more and allowing new connections to form. A more flexible brain opens a “therapeutic window of opportunity”, a researcher told the Guardian in 2022.
For first responders grappling with trauma, psychedelic treatments can be a lifeline, said Graham-Houweling. SSRIs, a type of antidepressant, are the only FDA-approved drugs for treating PTSD, but research on military veterans has shown that about 40% with the condition don’t respond to those medications.
The often intense treatments with psychedelics are not for everyone – experts warn they can trigger psychotic episodes for those who have bipolar disorder or schizophrenia or a family history of those illnesses. And for some people, traditional treatments are effective.
But people have seen profound changes from their experiences with psychedelics. In one 2008 study, nearly 70% of volunteers who consumed psilocybin described it as among the most meaningful experiences of their lives. Research on 5-MeO-DMT is far more limited but a 2018 study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology found that a significant number of users who consumed the substance in a group setting reported improvements related to PTSD, depression and anxiety.
In the last two years, the Siren Project has sent 50 people on retreats in Mexico. Participants don’t pay for the experience, which costs about $2,000 a person, and are only expected to cover their plane tickets. The non-profit has largely been funded by savings from Graham-Houweling and a private donor who has matched contributions.
While Graham-Houweling and almost every first responder the Guardian spoke with for this story noted that while there are far more resources available now than in years past, such as peer support groups, they argued the mental health crisis in emergency services has worsened.
In 2022, the Firefighter Behavioral Health Alliance reported that 95% of the 1,750 firefighter suicides documented since 1880 had happened between 2000 and 2022. A paper published by the organization last year noted that nearly half of firefighters surveyed said they felt emotionally detached and isolated.
“Friends and family are killing themselves,” Graham-Houweling said. “I’ve had seven people in the past 12 years kill themselves.”
First responders’ work has always been difficult – there is the challenge of dealing with stressful scenes like suicides, murders and people experiencing medical emergencies and also the toll of shift work that keeps them away from their families and can cause sleep deprivation. But the job has intensified as the US sees increasingly extreme weather and crews respond to disasters at a greater frequency.
In the months after the retreat, participants the Guardian spoke with reported significant changes in their mindsets and behavior.
“I feel lighter. I can focus better. When people are speaking I can process their speech better. I can articulate my speech better. My memory is better,” said Thomas, the former EMT.
“I’ve been in rough shape for the past decade. When I saw my counselor she said I was standing up straighter, walking as if I was a different person.”
Poynter said he felt a new sense of calm, and could finally sleep through the night. “I’ve never felt this good in my adult life.” He tried to explain the experience to former colleagues, but couldn’t find the words. “If you haven’t done this it’s hard to understand.”
“I was clogged up with all this stuff I didn’t realize was bothering me,” he said. “I’m against drugs but this to me is medicine.”
And though Poynter never felt he had a problem with alcohol in the past, since the experience he had lost any desire to drink, he said.
Feldman, who took part in the January retreat, said the effects of her experience have been long-lasting. She has felt less reactive and more thoughtful and better equipped to deal with difficult interactions. It’s not a one-shot fix, she said, but for deep trauma its a valuable tool. “I just highly recommend it,” she said.
Legislative efforts in California to pass a bill allowing the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms under professional supervision have been unsuccessful. But Graham-Houweling remains hopeful – and determined. She wants to see the expansion of programs that support the Indigenous people who have long worked with psychedelics.
“Legislation needs to make this legal for medicinal use. We would love to see it supporting the Indigenous cultures that have used it safely and successfully for thousands of years,” she said. “We are going to fight to make it accessible.”
