#76 – Kyle Kingsbury: Finding meaning, depression, and psychedelics

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  This conversation deals frankly with suicide and drug use

  Peter opens with two disclaimers. Anyone having thoughts of self-harm should seek medical help immediately. And discussing performance-enhancing drugs and psychedelics isn't an endorsement. Kingsbury, a former UFC fighter, describes suicidal thoughts that began around age seven, including picturing his father's guns and wondering if jumping off a mountain would kill him.

• 02

  Football gave him a path, but he stalled in the NFL funnel

  Academically 'garbage' in his own words, Kingsbury went through two junior colleges to walk on at Arizona State. There he mostly rode the bench. He realized NFL hopes were unrealistic after watching a teammate who started every game for four years on the defensive line go undrafted. Peter notes the median NFL career is only about three to five years.

• 03

  He used anabolic steroids from high school onward

  He started testosterone in his senior year of high school (he names 250 mg), and it gave 'only' about 10 pounds but taught him to care about sleep and food. Later came growth hormone and IGF-1, then nandrolone ('deca') with testosterone once he knew he wouldn't go pro. Growth hormone alone cost about $1,000 a month and, he hints, was 'sponsored.' He says he felt better, not angrier, and read a pharmacology textbook to understand the drugs.

• 04

  Peter: steroids amplify existing traits; long-term data are missing

  Peter says the most he has prescribed for low testosterone is about 140–160 mg a week, while athletes may take ten times normal levels. Short studies of 12–16 weeks at such doses don't find bad outcomes, but longer use is unstudied, which is his main reason not to endorse it. His analogy: like money, steroids amplify an aggressive person rather than create one. He suggests that people who use them non-medically may already be filling a void, which could raise depression risk independently.

• 05

  After football, pills and partying filled the void

  ASU was then the top party school; he lost friends to overdoses. For a year in junior college he started each morning with a bong hit. After football he mixed alcohol, cocaine, pressed ecstasy pills and Xanax, often awake until 5 a.m. He says the comedown always left the 'unworked-through stuff' waiting.

• 06

  A parking-garage ledge brought his first spiritual experience

  After a fight with his girlfriend and the thought 'I will never be loved,' he swallowed his remaining pills and climbed to the top of an ASU parking structure at about 2 a.m. Standing at the edge, he felt a wash of warmth, the most peace of his life, and a voice saying 'not yet, it's okay.' A security guard talked him down, and he woke in the hospital with family who had flown in from California.

• 07

  MMA gave structure, but self-belief cracked in the UFC

  He won about six straight fights in smaller promotions before an underprepared loss at King of the Cage in Laughlin, Nevada. He compares it to Tyson and Buster Douglas. A coach sent him to join a full team, and he entered the UFC as a jiu-jitsu white belt. Among equals, his 'negative monkey-mind chatter' got louder. He says chin-to-chest contact from a knee was the one blow that truly hurt him in the Octagon.

• 08

  Psilocybin, then ayahuasca, changed his direction

  A coach introduced guided psilocybin work. After his third straight loss, in Nottingham, England, with a torn labrum and a fractured eyebrow, he began ayahuasca. His UFC record was 4–4, and the Reebok deal had removed personal sponsors, so he lived in his mom's detached garage. By this conversation he had done 26 ayahuasca ceremonies and called each one a new layer of the 'infinite onion.'

• 09

  Covert depression in men often looks like achievement or addiction

  Drawing on therapist Terry Real, Peter contrasts overt depression (can't get out of bed, weepy) with covert depression, which hides behind workaholism, substance use and violence. He notes men are about 93% of the US prison population and about three times as likely to abuse alcohol. Kingsbury lived both extremes: 'a perfect little angel' in fight camp and countless nights of excess between camps.