A new Netflix documentary went deep into Aaron Rodgers’ usage of psychedelics.
In “Aaron Rodgers: Enigma,” the Jets quarterback details how he overcame his perfectionism and discomfort with religious faith of his upbringing in part through ayahuasca retreats.
The documentary showed a trip that Rodgers took to Costa Rica last offseason, which included Dolphins safety Jordan Poyer, as well as other people in Poyer’s family.
Poyer had credited Rodgers with exposing him to ayahuasca through an appearance on a podcast, which helped him through marital strife and alcoholism.
Rodgers revealed that he has done ayahuasca nine times across four different trips.
“It’s the hardest medicine possible that I’ve tried,” Rodgers said. “It’s a deeply intense spiritual journey.”
This particular journey was about “hope” to return to form after his devastating Achilles injury suffered during his 2023 Jets debut against the Bills.
He stressed to other members of the retreat to “let go” and “take the leap of faith,” and said that he was going through the endeavor to achieve “deep healing on the self, the ego and past trauma.”
“You have to go to some deep places in the shadow of your own self,” Rodgers said.
The documentary showed a number of the rituals, including Rodgers and the other participants deeply enmeshed in psychedelic stupors.
Rodgers said he began feeling anxious over his identity after the Packers won the Super Bowl in 2011 and he didn’t feel the sense of fulfillment that he was expecting in accomplishing his lifelong dream.
“When you’re a perfectionist, you always teeter on self-loathing because nothing’s ever good enough. So it was eating at me, like, ‘Is this going to be the only thing I accomplish in life? So I was trying to find something to rectify feeling that way,” Rodgers said.
He had resented organized faith after growing up going to what he described as a rigid church.
“I grew up in a very white, dogmatic church, and that just didn’t really serve me. It was very rigid in structure. I’m not a rigid person. Shame, guilt, judgment,” Rodgers said.
“It was like we have the truth, our way or the highway. Our way is heaven, your way is hell. Even talking to my parents, it was very black and white. Somebody has to be wrong, somebody has to be right. I kind of de-coupled from that in high school.”
From 2011 through 2014, Rodgers started following the work of spiritual leader Rob Bell, who said in the documentary that he spreads faith with a “much more inclusive love for everybody” than what Rodgers had experienced growing up.
“He was a big help for me to totally unravel the religion of my youth,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers delved into other materials involving faith and self-help and said that he found his voice to question institutions.
Eventually, Rodgers discovered ayahuasca.
“I would say that with other psychedelics you go in thinking this is going to be a good time. I hunker down, like, ‘OK this is going to be tough,’” Rodgers said.
Asked about how he got into the drug, Rodgers said, “I was searching, for sure. My life was through one lens of organized religion. So I’m like, ‘Where are people in life finding deep peace and centeredness and presence outside of what I knew?’”
Eventually, the medicine gave him a license for self-love.
