Lamar Odom prepares to fight Aaron Carter, but first he fought PTSD
Abbotsford NewsJun 12, 2021
October will mark six years since Odom was in a coma, when he suffered 12 strokes and six heart attacks after taking a lethal combination of cocaine and alcohol amid other substances and was found unconscious inside a
In 2017, he met psychedelic consultant Mike "Zappy" Zapolin after a friend attended a screening of Zapolin's 2016 documentary "The Reality of Truth," which chronicles his own journey to find internal peace through psychedelics. Zapolin created a formula for Odom's healing journey that consisted of microdoses of ketamine, an ibogaine treatment and daily meditations.
This process is shown in the documentary, "Lamar Odom Reborn," which was released last month. The events of the film take place in 2018, but its release was ideal for the spring of 2021 after the pandemic shutdown caused depression and anxiety to skyrocket.
"During the pandemic, I wish we had more of [the treatments] on every corner, we could hand them out for free," Odom said in a phone interview with The Los Angeles Times from
Odom's own mental prison was triggered by the death of his mother when he was 12 years old, the death of his 6-month-old son Jayden and the passing of his cousin. Zapolin applauds Odom's bravery to speak about mental health issues, especially with the stigma in the Black community, which Odom addressed in the film.
"As an
"Lamar Odom Reborn" shows Odom's reconciliation with his former partner
"I have let people film me since, but not my first time where I didn't know how I was going to react," Zapolin said. "But [Lamar is] so media-trained, and I think maybe his experience with the Kardashians, he dropped his even thinking about a camera being on him, so when I was like 'Hey, Lamar, do you mind if I film this because I think if we share it, it's going to help a lot of people potentially,' he was like, 'Yeah.' "
Ketamine is a hallucinogenic used as a street drug sometimes referred to as "Special K" or "horse tranquilizers" because of its use for veterinary purposes. In 1999, it was designated as a Schedule III substance by the
Ketamine treatments are expensive and must be closely monitored by a professional. Zapolin is working to make it more accessible, especially amid the pandemic. Odom is a part of beta testing for a company called KetaMD, which provides at-home treatments led by a medical professional via Zoom.
Zapolin acknowledges the stigma that still lingers around ketamine and other substances.
"Our thought is that drugs are something that kind of suppress how you're feeling and help you not think about these different difficult things, whereas the psychedelics, these are medicines, these are opening up your consciousness so that you are looking at the traumas that you had, that you're thinking about things from a third-party perspective, and when you come back out of that, often they don't have the same electrical charge on those things," he said.
"So, that's a big difference because some people have asked Lamar and I, 'So you're just doing another drug to get off drugs?' We're saying, 'No, drugs are to suppress. This is medicine, this is meant to help you to evolve and move beyond that.'"
While ketamine has made significant strides in its acceptance for its medical use, another part of Odom's treatment has farther to go. Iboga is an African root that contains the psychedelic ibogaine and is used by the Bwiti people in ancestral worship rituals. In the film, Zapolin took Odom and a few others to
In a post-treatment conversation with Zapolin that was shared in the documentary, Odom recalled reaching a fight-or-flight moment while under the influence of ibogaine and choosing to rest on his game-winning instincts, as if
"For a second, I had wanted to stop, I was about to start screaming and s—— like that," Odom said in the film. "But then I had to say, 'Hold on, chill out.
"For that guy's spirit to come to Lamar in his most scary moment of the ibogaine when he wanted to stop just shows how powerful Kobe's energy is," Zapolin said.
Bryant died in a helicopter crash with his daughter Gianna and seven other people in
"When I went through that [coma] situation, if God would have came to me and said we would take me and spare Kobe, I would have rather that happened," he posted on Instagram shortly after Bryant's death.
He has since acknowledged that Bryant's death could have triggered the need to use again, but found that because of his continued ketamine treatments, he has stayed clean.
"When Kobe passed away, the old Lamar, that was like, that would have been every excuse in the world for me to go get high," he told "
Now, he told The
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