Adam Marr, cohost of the Tango Alpha Lima podcast, talks the need for expanded therapies during Be the One Mental Wellness Committee meeting.
A veteran familiar to those who follow The American Legion’s Tango Alpha Lima podcast introduced his mission to members of the Legion’s Be the One Wellness Committee on Feb. 23 during the organization’s annual Washington Conference.
Podcast cohost Adam Marr, chaplain of American Legion Post 12 in Dothan, Ala., talked to the committee about complementary and alternative medicines therapy as a method of treating post-traumatic stress disorder and improving mental health while stemming off suicidal thoughts. Marr is the Director of Operations for the Veteran Mental Health Leadership Coalition (VMHLC), a nonprofit coalition of more than 50 organizations that advocates for increased research and safe, affordable access to psychedelic medicine and assisted therapies for veterans and their family members.
Marr started by praising the Legion for making its Be the One veteran suicide prevention mission the organization’s top priority. “For the Legion to take that on and move forward in this direction is the future,” he said, before sharing his own story.
Serving as an Apache helicopter pilot, Marr deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and flew more than 400 combat hours, earning a combat action badge. In 2017, he co-authored the best-selling book, "Tales from the Blast Factory,” which shared perspective on the challenges his brother, a Green Beret, faced transitioning out of the Army because of his traumatic brain injury and PTSD sustained in combat.
“In 2015, when I was transitioning out (of the Army), this was the first time I did take notice of what the suicide rate was amongst veterans,” Marr said. “The reason I became more aware of this was because my older brother, a Special Forces Green Beret, was medically retired. An elite performer, being able to speak four languages, run through walls, a breacher on his team … all the sudden calling me on the phone crying, wondering why he couldn’t keep it together. Having his purpose taken away from him.”
Marr said his brother’s new reality was “13 symptom-masking medications” being taken daily. ‘That was what the VA, that was what the DoD, that was what the military medical system prescribed him.”
Marr said he and his brother began looking elsewhere for alternative treatments and found one in California: a neuro-restorative protocol for TBI. Undergoing the treatment program, Marr’s brother began to improve. That led to the pair founding Warrior Angels Foundation, a nonprofit focused on bringing the treatment to other veterans.
“We had to get really good at telling people, ‘You can heal your brain’ and the science behind it,” Marr said. “We also wrote a best-selling book that got turned into a feature documentary. (But) it wasn’t about becoming a best-selling author, or it wasn’t about making an award-winning documentary. It was about trying to get the information that saved my brother’s life from becoming one of those (suicide) statistics out to the rest of the community.”
But then, Marr himself began experiencing his own mental health issues as a result of his combat experiences. “I had that attack pilot mindset. For 10 years of my life, I learned how to attack everything as a way of life,” he said. “When I got out … I just knew how to attack, and my systems were red-lined. I had unresolved combat moral injury. I had a new baby, a new job, financial hardship, heavy drinking, and the list goes on and on. The loss of life started to enter the equation.”
Through a former Navy SEAL, Marr learned of the psychedelic ibogaine that was offered in Mexico. On his 35th birthday in 2018, Marr went to Mexico and used the treatment program. He called it one of the most transformative experiences of my life.”
Marr discovered a new purpose: to be able to receive the gift of his life with love and gratitude. “And doing so, understand that as much as I want all the answers to the mysteries of the universe, I’m not going to get them all at once,” he said. “And that’s OK. And that I had some healing myself that I needed to do.”
Marr admitted “it’s not all rainbows and unicorns after one of these experiences. There’s a lot of life and a lot of hard work.”
In 2021, Marr helped advocate for passage of Texas House Bill 1802, which was the nation’s first legislation of its kind. The bill called for a Baylor University study on the use of alternative therapies for treating PTSD.
Later came the founding of the VMHLC, which began fundraising and advocating for the study of and making available alternative therapies for veterans and their families. “It was there that I realized that that’s what I wanted to commit the next portion of my life to at that time,” said Marr.
Marr said one of the core therapies of the VMHLC is gaining passage of the Breakthrough Therapies Act, which was originally introduced in Congress in 2022 and calls for the classification of drugs or other substances that are part of approved breakthrough therapies as Schedule II controlled substances under the Controlled Substances Act. It also provides for expedited controlled substance registrations through the Drug Enforcement Administration for researchers whose work involves investigational drugs.
Marr said that drugs that fall under the legislation are neither addictive nor habit-forming. “The Breakthrough Therapies Act is able to reduce the regulatory barriers (and) help us get access to this care faster,” he said. “It does not make these things legal. It takes them from Schedule I to Schedule II, which means that when we pass legislation in the states, like we did in Texas, that we’re able to get to the care and to the research and to the trials faster.”
Marr later learned of the Legion’s Be the One program and was a guest on the Tango Alpha Lima podcast. He joined Post 12, and that same year the Legion was given a presentation by VMHLC during the 2023 National Convention.
“To our surprise, so quickly, the (Legion’s) National Executive Committee in 2023 passed Emerging Therapies Resolution No. 5,” Marr said. “This resolution … put pressure on the VA and Congress to do more. Alternative therapies is one of our legislative priorities.”
Marr closed his remarks by posing a question to the committee. “I think that we’re just at a critical inflection point for humanity, and we see it all the way around,” he said. “So, I guess my question to this committee, and to everybody in here, is can we continue to be bold and innovative while also being safe at the same time?”
- Be the One