A Retired Officer Shares How Ayahuasca Opened The Door To Grief Healing

The day you retire, the job doesn’t just end. Your identity can crack wide open. I sit down with Kemmi Sadler, a recently retired law enforcement professional, to talk about what it really feels like to go from “in the club” to “civilian” overnight, and why that change can pull years of grief and trauma straight to the surface. We get honest about the quiet moments after a career of composure, and the uneasy question so many first responders carry: if I’m the protector, who protects me when I finally need help? 

Kimmy shares how she started a deep dive into psychedelics and eventually found her way to ayahuasca in a U.S.-based church setting. We unpack the stigma around plant medicine, microdosing, and even cannabis for sleep, especially in a culture that often accepts pharmaceuticals without blinking while judging anything labeled a “drug.” The biggest takeaway isn’t hype, it’s the hard work: surrender, vulnerability, and the uncomfortable truth that healing can be demanding when your nervous system has been trained for vigilance and control. 

We also talk about her memoir, From the Badge to the Vine: Journey Through Duty, Trauma, and Healing, and how telling the raw story becomes part of destigmatizing mental health treatment for the first responder community. Then we zoom out to what’s next: her Camino de Santiago pilgrimage with her dog Nona, a mental health awareness walk meant to remind people that while one path isn’t for everyone, the need for healing is universal. 

If this conversation hits home, subscribe, share it with a coworker or a retiree, and leave a review so more first responders can find it.

Here is how to reach Kemmi: 

www.klsadler.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kemmisadler/
https://www.facebook.com/klsadler
https://www.instagram.com/klsadler_/

www.nonasway.com
https://www.facebook.com/NonaTheWonderDog/
https://www.instagram.com/nonas_way_/

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Show Exists

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Resilience Development in Action with Steve Bisson. This is the podcast dedicated to first responder mental health, helping police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and paramedics create better growth environments for themselves and their teams. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Well, welcome back. And Kimmy Sandler, you're back again. Okay, well, we already said that we'd be back anyway. Just wanted to finish up a little bit on the identity. One of the biggest factors that I find people do is that becoming a civilian is like a dirty word. And we talked about that in the previous episode, but I I really feel like it's not about being a dirty word, being a civilian, but that loss of identity, not having that badge. It is there, do you feel like you're losing the club, so to speak? Are you losing that kind of like connections to other people that do the same thing?

SPEAKER_03 1:05

I don't know, maybe a little bit of both. You know, I mean, I think once you once you're no longer in the club, it changes the the relationship with people who still are. So it's kind of a a double whammy in some ways.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

It is a a hard sell. I mean, you know, the other part too is the next day you're a civilian.

unknown 1:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

You're going on a cross-country trip. And now, you know, what I find also with a lot of guys and gals, obviously, if I ever use guys, I mean it in a general sense, not in a sexist way for all of you listening. But, you know, when I see a lot of like they lost that that loss of identity, then you're like, oh crap, all the stuff that kind of happened in the last 20 years, 15 years, 25 years, 10 years, doesn't matter really, all comes back and rushes towards you. So we talk about healing, but now again you have the stigma from the past, and now you got to heal, but it's still the stigma from the past, and that kind of like the devil on one side and the angel on the other. What how do you deal with all that?

Grief And The Search For Healing

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Right. Well, I've I around the time that I well let me back up a couple years before I retired, I started to I became aware of a of a type of healing that's maybe not the most conventional, but for some reason felt very drawn to it. And so I started to research and do a really deep dive on psychedelics. And initially my curiosity was well, initially it was just that it was curiosity because this was something I wasn't super familiar with, and it was being presented in a way that was contradictory to what I had always believed about, you know, air quotes drugs. And so I started to really kind of dig into documentaries and books, and as I got kind of further down that rabbit hole, realized that this was potentially a way to seek healing from that grief that I had carried. And I had also lost my my father in 2014, so about 10 years before I retired, and I also knew that I hadn't really processed that loss either. So I long story short, after I retired, I found my way to an ayahuasca ceremony, primarily because I was seeking healing from grief. But what I found was healing from all of these other things that I didn't understand I was carrying until I had the benefit of hindsight.

Stigma Around Psychedelics And Cannabis

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Right. I think that the ayahuasca stuff is very controversial, yet I see the good in that. Microdosing is something that I also kind of see being very helpful. And I recently had a client who did a microdose of MDMA, which was I said, all right, well, you want to try it, go ahead. And it did wonders for that person. So I think that there's a big stigma. How did you get by to stigma? I mean, you go in ayahuasca to do it in Peru where it really originates, then there's no real stigma. But you know, stateside, European side, western culture side in all reality, they kind of like frown upon that stuff. How do you deal with that stigma?

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Right. Yeah, and I actually uh I actually did it in the United States. I joined a church in in Central Florida. I'm sorry, South Florida, Central Spiritualista, Luz Divegetal. It's a branch of a Brazilian church. So from the from the Amazon. I don't know. I don't know that I cared about the stigma.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

I mean, I didn't I didn't advertise it to a lot of people. In fact, I didn't I I probably could count on one hand the number of people I told that I was was going to pursue this before I did. But now I found find myself in this space where I'm I'm speaking very openly about it, you know, trying to to tell the story to as many people who will listen because it's um in fact, I think I would say that my goal now is to help eliminate that stick because I I think it's I really strongly feel that it's misunderstood.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

If you expect me to argue with you, I'm not. I'm not. You know, I'm also the type of person, and I know we're talking about ayahuasca, but even for the treatment of sleep at times for first responders, I wished it could take some THC that's more like uh Indica to help them sleep because it's very harmless. But you can you know, not taking that before your shift, probably, that's not a good idea. But after some sleep and you're struggling with that, it's a nice natural way because to me anyway, I see that as an advantage. We worked through a lot of the stigma of the drugs because of the work we do, right? I mean, you I'm a civilian, obviously, but I work a lot with substance use and I worked with the first responder world many, many, many times. How's your journey been convincing people that it's not so bad?

SPEAKER_03 6:15

Well, it's been it's it's surprised me in a number of ways. One of the most surprising things about it has been as I've become more vocal about this journey and talked to colleagues, many of whom are now retired. What has surprised me the most is how many of them have said, can you please tell me more about that? I've been looking into that. I've been looking into going to South America, I've been looking into this type of experience because maybe it's easier to recognize the need to heal after you've stepped away from it. Or maybe it's just because most of the people that I talked to came in in the same time frame and are also now retired. I don't know, maybe there's a correlation there that's that's not valid. But so that's that's been kind of surprising. This and the support has been overwhelming. In fact, I don't think anyone that I have talked to about this journey has pushed back that I've done something wrong or unethical or and just as you said with with the use of marijuana for for sleep for you know veterans or whoever, you use the word natural. Right? Like and people and and I think I think it's interesting to me that so many people who see these types of modalities as wrong, for lack of a better word, are seemingly okay with all of the pharmaceuticals and the the things that come out of labs, right? But opposed to the things that come from nature, when the things that come from the lab are so often a synthetic representation of a natural compound, it's yeah it's almost backwards in some ways.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

To me, it is, I agree a hundred percent. I mean, you look at the poppy fields in Afghanistan, you being in Afghanistan for a while. Well, if we put it under the name Oxycontin, that's fine, we can do that, right? Otherwise, we gotta destroy those poppy fields because they're bad, they're they're drug addicting. Yep. Is that what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_03 8:36

Yeah, well, or just the like even you know, take aspirin for example. Aspirin is a synthetic version of the bark from a willow tree, right? So it's which which is better if you were if you have a headache and you have the option between aspirin or some tea from Pisa Park, like which one is less likely to have any kind of carcinogens or I don't know. I I I think it's just the closer you can get to nature, the closer you get to God.

Inside An Ayahuasca Ceremony Experience

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Yeah, the spiritual side too is so important, right? No, I I I agree, and you know, I as I tell people is that sometimes people come in and my first responders don't have much of a choice, but they're like, would you take Trasnone or Amien, or would you rather take a melatonin or some sort of THC that's indica base? Well, you know what I'm gonna say, right? But I know that my first responder people can't do that second part, right? So, you know, the stigmas still needs to be taken care of. But when your healing process, you talked about going to uh do your ayahuasca down in South Florida, it's been described to me by many, many people of how it goes and how the journey goes, so to speak, about getting there, and you know, sometimes it's a hut, sometimes it's not, and what have you. What was your journey like to through the ayahuasca stuff?

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Yeah, the the church that I joined in South Florida is a beautiful piece of property. It has a temple that's kind of a big wooden gazebo, gazebo with a white sandy floor, and the ceremonies take place inside that temple. And everyone has a space to put their, you know, kind of their mat so they can lay out and and be comfortable. The ceremonies typically last I think maybe six hours and start start to finish some somewhere in there. And it's um it's not the easiest thing to do. You know, it's in fact, it's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, is the healing journey that I've taken with Iowa. But it's also been the most profound, I think, thing I've ever experienced.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

When you say not easy, what do you mean by that? Because I mean, you know, I because it's too far down South Florida, I mean why is it?

SPEAKER_03 10:59

No, I mean the experience it's the experience itself.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Okay, so explain. That's kind of where we're gonna lead you to, actually.

SPEAKER_03 11:06

Yeah, being being in the medicine uh for sacrament is if you surrender to it. The the interesting thing about ayahuasca, and I don't know that this is true for other for other psychedelics, but you have to be willing to allow it to work within your body and within your mind and within your spirit to have it help you. And the first time that I went and sat with ayahuasca, I had more than double the regular dose and had no discernible reaction to it whatsoever because I wasn't willing, my ego was not willing to allow me to be vulnerable in front of a group of complete strangers. And I left that ceremony feeling very disappointed and also unworthy because I hadn't been able to connect to this, you know, this force. And I went back a couple weeks. Well, after the when that ceremony ended, I went to the the facilitator of the ceremony and I said, I don't understand what happened. You know, I had most people had one, maybe one and a half cups, and I drank five cups of it and nothing happened. And I don't understand. And he asked me, he said, Do you smoke a lot of marijuana? I said, I've never smoked marijuana actually. And then he said, Well, what do you do? You know, what do you do for work? I said, I've recently retired in law enforcement. And the look on his face was just kind of like, uh-huh. Yep, we we we see this a lot, you know, that the church works has done work with veterans. They've done, you know, obviously I'm not the first responder to come through the door. And he said, We often see this with people in military, law enforcement, intelligence circles. You spend so much time training your mind to maintain composure and and separate your emotions on the inside from what you're portraying on the outside, that it can be hard to break through that barrier. And I said, But I, you know, I felt so drawn to this experience that, you know, what do I what do I do now? And he suggested that I come back for a three-day retreat because the church has one night ceremonies, and then I also do uh a three night week over a weekend where you do three consecutive ceremonies. And so I did that. I took a couple of months to kind of you know regroup and think about what it was I really was after and why I was why I was pursuing it. And I went back a couple months later, and that's when the those barriers started to started to come down. And you have to surrender to it, you know. It's it's a powerful, it's a powerful medicine, but you have to be willing to see what it's gonna show you because it's it's almost like in some ways a mirror, and it's gonna show you the truth. And we don't always want to see the truth, and we don't always want to take responsibility for the truth, and it requires that of you. So that's why I say it's it's the hardest thing I've done. And and some of those ceremonies were excruciatingly painful, like you know, it's in your head, but I mean feeling feeling actual physical discomfort and just a battle going on, you know. Some of those first ceremonies, I've done a few, they have gotten easier as I've worked through more of the layers in my head, but some of those first ceremonies were very, very intense and like a battle was brewing between my ego and ayahuasca. So it's yeah, yeah, it's it's not a trip to the park.

Ego Barriers And The Need To Surrender

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Just a quick break, guys. I'm gonna talk about a new product that I really like. I actually bought one of their hoodies, it was amazing, and I really enjoyed wearing it. Uh, it this episode is gonna be supported by Deemed Fit. Deemed Fit is a first responder-owned activewear and a leisure brand. And one thing that I genuinely like about them is that they support different causes. I actually gave a few people I know who work with first responders and our nonprofits their name to uh Deemed Fit, and I know they're talking to them. They do a lot of initiatives and collections that are based on mental health for first responders. And if you go there right now and you buy anything, including the mental health support stuff, uh use the code RDA15. That's right, R D A 15 to get 15% off on any products that you get. Again, it's called R D A 15. Go to dfit.com, D-E-E, M-E-D-F-I-T.com, and enjoy 15% off at checkout to save. Now, right back to the episode. Well, I will argue that it's not your ego, it's your super ego. Don't do anything. You might break down, you might say something you're not supposed to do. Sure. That's your super ego, just diagram all these barriers that gotta be in the way. I mean, to me, it's a superego issue, but I'll defer to you.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

You're the expert on that, so I I'm not gonna argue with you.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Sorry sorry to go Freudian on your ass here. That's not what my goal was, but here we are, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:37

That's that's you're within your rights to do that.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

But I think it's really what you know. I I have a friend of mine who did the ayahuasca, and he this person's not in on law enforcement, this person does therapy. And the first time they went, they had a similar situation. This was in Pennsylvania. And what that person told me was that I didn't want to say things I'm not supposed to. And I said, Well, based on what I know about ayahuasca, and I've never done it personally, so that's my disclosure to everyone was that the more you create barriers, the less likely it's gonna work for you. And it's not there to take away the HIPAA stuff or the secure, you know, the national security. It really is about you and what your super ego slash ego blocks. Right. So I don't know if that's resonating with you, but that's certainly what happened with my friend.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

Yeah, yeah. It it's I would agree with that. I think I first had to get to a point where I could allow my ego to kind of step out of the way so that I could get to the get to the healing. And it humbles you, you know. I mean, it's just it's been a very humbling journey.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

There there's something about, you know, I think that someone once said to me as a law enforcement person, I was there to protect other people. Who's protecting me when I'm going through my treatment, going through my ayahuasca? He was an ayahuasca, but for example, I think the change in role is such an ego-driven thing because now you don't need to protect yourself, you're not protecting anything else. All you have to do is break down those barriers to open up. And that's not an easy task when you're always thinking, I gotta save people, I gotta help people, I gotta protect people.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

Right. And I don't know if if if you would agree with this, but the the ego, I think, is while you're on the job, what helps to keep you safe. Like it's it serves you well, right? It's the thing that allows you to be hyper-vigilant and have that situational awareness, and in many ways, that suspicion and maybe even fear are part of what keep you safe on the job. And so when you start this journey and you start to kind of dismantle those things, it's a big shift in mindset and even worldview.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

I I I you know, I think that that's such a good point. I also know that for the ego, it really is about what what's my vulnerability gonna do to me. And when we grow up, like I, you know, and we all have different journeys, but we we have the different types of issues, slash traumas, slash whatever you want to call them. And we protect ourselves, you know, we reinterpret it and all that, and that exposure from ayahuasca sometimes is too much for people.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

Yes. Yeah, and I've seen I've been in retreats where people have not stayed the three days. Because there's this I suspect, I suspect that that's I mean, I don't know, and I don't know, I don't know their story, but I think it's sometimes just too, it's too honest.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

I mean, I I I think that what I I face it without the ayahuasca when I'm working with people. I'm like, if you're telling me that you're hurting kids or that you're throwing animals over some overpasses, yeah, I uh I'm okay with you being shamed about that. That's fine. Otherwise, there is no shame in anything you're gonna say. And most of them agree with me, but they're like, yeah, my ego won't let me do it. So I think that you know, when talk therapy cannot be enough, and talk therapy is important. I I I don't want to play down my job. I think it's important to do that too. But I think that stuff like ayahuasca will have, if as long as they're open to it, we'll break it down for you.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Right, right. And that's the key to be willing to surrender to it.

Memoir Launch And Plant Medicine Advocacy

SPEAKER_00 20:48

And I would argue that the reason why mental health-wise, we struggle for our first responder world, particularly law enforcement, is that who really wants to struggle to this guy who's never been in the job, or this woman who's never been in the job. And I get that sometimes. Luckily, I have some experience in the field, so it helps. But I think I tell people, like, yeah, I mean, I've never had schizophrenia, but I know how to treat it. So maybe you know if you educate me, I'm able to help you too. And most of them break the barriers because I use humor a lot. But I think that with people who do not want to do that, those like again, I I don't know if law enforcement wants to be saying, Oh, I'm going to an ayahuasca retreat this weekend. But that certainly is very helpful. Well, I'm sure that you bring that stuff up in your memoir.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

And you're oh, yeah, go ahead. The the memoir is a very raw and vulnerable reckoning of my life. So everything that I never told anyone for you know 50 years, it's it's all in there.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah, and just for the records, the national security and the NSA doesn't cup up her ass. Not anything around national security. Thank you very much. Her own journey.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

Yeah, well, the State Department had to clear on the manuscript. So I had this.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

I figured.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

And I and you know, the NSA is always listening. So oh, wait a minute. No, they're not. I'm not supposed to say that apparently. So talk about us, like the memoir was out on April 15th. So it's in it's it's it's what Amazon, I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Yeah, it's available on Amazon. It's available. I have a website, KLSadler.com. There are links to it on there as well. And the title is From the Badge to the Vine, Journey Through Duty, Trauma, and Healing. And it's yeah, this is a story of really the last two years of my life, which have been on this journey with ayahuasca, but it's it's not so much about the ceremonies and what happens in the ceremonies, it's more about how those experiences have allowed me to lay down the things that were no longer serving me to step into you know a new chapter of my life, if you will. And and now, you know, to my great surprise, to find myself here as an advocate for a plant medicine. I mean, talk about doing a 180 from uh you know a young police officer who is arresting people for a little bit of marijuana to now advocating for sacred plants. It's not a journey I ever expected to be on, but my hope with the book is that it will help to destigmatize the use of sacred plants for healing. I sincerely believe that these plants exist on this planet for the exact reason that they, you know, I think human beings have been benefiting from these plants for many, many thousands of years. I think that they they do, I think they do exactly what they're designed to do. And so my my hope is to destigmatize their use and also to just help people, especially in the first responder community, recognize that it's okay to admit and accept that the years on the job have had an impact on your soul.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Powerful words had an impact on your soul. I was smiling when you said using things, you know, getting away from things that are not serving me anymore. If I ever say that in any type of department, fire police, they're gonna roll their eyes and like listen to that fucking therapist. So it's kind of cool to hear someone say that because that's like, all right, someone else said in the like who works in law enforcement, and it's not something I would have said probably two years ago. Well, I wonder that's the question that came up to me. Like, I know it's not in the questions we spoke to, but if I talked to Kemi five years ago and I said, This is where you're gonna be, you're gonna be writing a book about your journey and your and what would she have said at that time?

SPEAKER_03 25:23

You're out of your damn mind.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

I know, I figured that's what she would say to me.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

I mean, just the fact that I'm on your show is it would not have been, you know. I mean, I avoided any kind of speaking engagement. I, you know, the the one the one test we talked about wellness test, the one test that I did do multiple times throughout my career, yeah, even in the State Department, was personality testing. You know, Myers Briggs in particular was the one that they used early on. I think now they've shifted to something else. But, you know, from a leadership for leadership trainings and things to understand, you know, how you might approach a situation differently than than someone else's uh, you know, coworker. And the one thing that was always consistent for me on those personality tests was extreme introvert. So just the fact that I'm here now, you know, putting myself out there uh in the world as an advocate and speaker for this modality is a massive shift from where I would have been five years ago.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

And it's that's what's interesting because if you told me if you were an introvert or an extrovert, I would have called you an extroverted introvert, but uh not an extreme introvert.

SPEAKER_03 26:33

Yeah.

Camino Pilgrimage For Mental Health Awareness

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Well, that's absolutely it's new. You know, I don't know. For me, it wasn't my journey was maybe through therapy, but my journey was like that's the worst that could happen. People don't like me. I'm used to that stuff. So that's how I've learned to be myself more and more as time goes on. So you know, I can't fake me. I could, I wish I could, but sometimes I can't fake me, so I think that plays a factor. But while your book is just out, I know that now we we do record these things slightly in advance, so everyone listening to this will be like, Wow, she's on her journey right now on her pilgrimage. Well, no, we're recording slightly before that, but would like to talk about your pilgrimage you're gonna be taking because that's an important thing too.

SPEAKER_03 27:19

Yes. So I'm doing, I'm gonna walk the Camino de Santiago, 780 kilometers from Saint John-Piedaporte and France to Santiago de Compostelle in Spain. It's a walk that I wanted to do when I retired, but I was unable to because I had foot surgery shortly before I retired. So I found myself on a very different journey than one we just talked about. And now, two years to the day of my retirement, I am going to start making my way to France. And then on the 26th of April, I'm gonna start walking and I'm gonna do it with my dog Nona. And we're calling the pilgrimage Nona's Way. And I'm doing it as a mental health awareness walk for, you know, like we've been saying here, like this journey that I've been on and that my book talks about is not for everybody. No, but everybody needs healing. So the purpose of Nona's Way is to draw attention to that need for healing in the first responder community. So there's a website for that as well, known asway.com, and she's also on Instagram and has a Facebook page.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

And well, I make sure to put that in the the the show notes. I'm gonna put in your website as well as your journey because I'd like the people that follow you. Like I said, we're recording this slightly in advance from that date. So hopefully that people can go and check out where you're at, too, I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Yeah, yeah. And I'll be making updates on the Instagrams.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Oh, yeah, and Instagram. I mean, again, if I met you five years ago and said you'd be on Instagram sharing your story, what what would uh what would you have said to me again?

SPEAKER_03 28:59

You'd have gotten the same response.

Where To Follow And Closing Resources

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Well, I still wish I didn't meet you five years ago and to see all the progress, because that's the ultimate thing, too, is we see our own progress, which is cool. But as a therapist, that's the best thing about my job is seeing people go from where they were five years ago to where they are now. So I I get it. And I certainly know my retirees in the five-year span after their retirement have changed tremendously to where they were prior to that. So I will let you go. Please go follow her journey on Instagram. We'll put out the website and the show notes. Go buy her book. Again, what's the title?

SPEAKER_03 29:42

From the badge to the vine.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

From the badge to the vine, I will be getting my copy. And I know you'll be on your way while we're this comes out, but I'll send you my copy, and hopefully, when you get back, you can sign it or something.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

I would be honored to.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

I really appreciate your time and thank you for sharing so openly, and I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Please like, subscribe, and follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful. And as a reminder, this podcast is for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor for consultation. If you are in a mental health crisis, call 988 for assistance. This number is available in the United States and Canada.