N.B. clinic brings psychedelic drug to mainstream to treat PTSD

At his dining room table, Dennis Leblanc clicks through a digital photo album of his time in uniform. With his wife Amanda looking on, he recalls a period of his life filled with purpose and camaraderie.

"I loved it," said Leblanc, who lives in Oromocto, near 5th Canadian Division Support Base Gagetown, south of Fredericton. "I still love it. I could push myself. I knew my limits and capabilities, and then I would surpass them. And that's what I loved about the job so much."

A veteran of Bosnia in 1999, Haiti in 2004 and then two tours of duty in Afghanistan, Leblanc revelled in the life of a soldier. For all the welcome memories though, there are just as many scars. 

Like so many other Canadian soldiers who deployed to Afghanistan, Leblanc returned a changed man. The brutality and death of a war zone, the loss of comrades and friends, took a heavy toll, and healing was elusive.

Eventually, Leblanc was treated with ketamine, a one-time veterinary anesthetic now being touted as a therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Leblanc had been diagnosed with PTSD in 2008 and treated while still in uniform. It was enough to carry him through to the end of his service but cost him his first marriage. 

He returned to civilian life in 2015, after 18 years in the army. But leaving the life he loved brought its own traumas,  reopening old wounds he and his second wife Amanda thought had healed.

"I started having nightmares. I wasn't sleeping well … insomnia, super hyper-vigilant. I was a disaster. I wasn't drinking daily, but I would still, you know, have a good time, and I'd look for it, and I would still use it.

"And at the time, I was on a lot of medications that you're not supposed to drink with. I was not in a good place at all."

Amanda could see her husband's deterioration as he struggled to adjust to civilian life.  

"He was really experiencing a complete loss of identity. And yes, he had lost friends. And yes, he had seen traumatic things and he had been through horrible experiences. But losing that part of him was not something that he had anticipated. So things went downhill pretty quickly from there."

"I was on my way," Dennis said quietly. "At one point in time, to be honest, I was going to hang myself and I ... she yelled out for me, and I stopped … I wouldn't be here without her." Prescription medications weren't working, Leblanc said. Always open to alternative options, he tried yoga, meditation, hypnosis, cannabis, exercise. It was clear to both Dennis and Amanda that if he was going to survive, something had to change.

They found a private clinic outside Fredericton, in a former call centre, where rows of sterile cubicles have been replaced with comfortable, overstuffed furnishings.

Soft music and soothing lights create an atmosphere more spa-like than medical. But the people who come here are looking for something stronger than hot yoga.