Aaron Rodgers has some controversial stances on science and medicine, but the New York Jets quarterback earned a co-sign from Buffalo Bills safety Jordan Poyer for his embrace of plant medicine and ayahuasca.
In an appearance on Robert Griffin III’s RG3 and The Ones podcast on Thursday, Poyer told the former Heisman Trophy winner that Rodgers “opened me up” to the psychedelic as a way of dealing with past traumas.
“I know a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, Aaron Rodgers is crazy,’ whatever,” Poyer said. “But I’m putting this documentary together to help us understand that there are thousands of ways to heal, but Aaron Rodgers, he was right in what he was talking about with this medicine.”
Poyer said he first heard about ayahuasca when Rodgers promoted it on The Pat McAfee Show. That inspired him to do some research, hoping to gain a better understanding of himself.
“I paid attention to [Rodgers] and how he handled the media, and how he handled the season throughout that season, and his demeanor, his way of speaking,” Poyer said. “[The Green Bay Packers, Rodgers’ former team] had a tough season that year, and his way of handling the media and handling the questions, I could see it in his eyes that he knew something I don’t. My curiousness, I wanted to know what the hell he knew.”
The 32-year-old described the ayahuasca process, which started with a month-long diet during which he only ate fish, chicken and salad.
“It was the best I ever felt in my life going into this ceremony, because it’s basically a detox,” Poyer told Griffin. “You detox your body of all the bad foods. You have to detox with a healthy mind, a healthy spirit, a healthy soul.”
Then Poyer traveled to Costa Rica with his cousin-in-law, where the two went through three sessions with ayahuasca followed by one night in a sweat lodge. Poyer said they sat in the lodge for two hours as a way to dive “into the depths of your mind, and really fight off the deep parts of your mind.”
“I came out of this retreat as a new man with a new appreciation for life, for what I have,” Poyer said.
Poyer said that during his deep dives, he dealt with his anger toward his biological father, who left his mother when Poyer was very young.
“I had all this hate for my real dad,” Poyer said. “For what? I didn’t know what it was for, but I hated him for it.”
According to Poyer, ayahuasca helped him sit with and understand his resentment, and it shifted his perspective toward gratitude for life.
“It’s not easy,” Poyer said. “It’s really deep, spiritual work of you working on the self, of you sitting with some of that baggage and understanding why you were so upset with it, why you were holding on to it, and then releasing it…
“It’s not some sort of savior. It’s not religious. It’s self-work. That’s all it is.”
Poyer told Griffin that he struggled with alcohol use disorder, but that he gave up drinking more than three-and-a-half years ago and has been clean ever since. Now, he says he can be around it and “I’m cool.”
“I was this close to losing my family, RG,” Poyer said. “I’m talking my wife and my daughter. It was this close from everything. … I look at it as poison now. Why would I put poison into my body? Why would I do that to myself, and to my mind?”
Several times in the interview, Poyer described the importance of “mind, body and soul” as one of his personal slogans.
“I really feel like our minds are such a powerful tool that when you put stuff like that into your body, it just suppresses your ideas, it suppresses your creativity, it suppresses your higher self, and so I don’t want to do that,” Poyer said. “I want to live in high vibrations, high frequencies and I want to be the best version of myself for my daughter whenever she needs me.”
Griffin asked Poyer whether he would say ayahuasca saved his life. Poyer said yes “in a sense” before he corrected himself.
“Quitting drinking saved my life,” Poyer said. “Ayahuasca helped me find out who I was. Ayahuasca helped me dive into the depths and really understand who I am and where I came from, and what I’m doing.”
