105: Navigating Kratom Myths and Real Benefits with Christopher Deaney

Unlock the secrets behind a controversial botanical that promises relief and energy in equal measure. This episode features Christopher Deaney, the founder of christophersorganicbotanicals.com, who takes us on a journey from battling chronic pain with opioids to discovering kratom as a life-changing alternative. Christopher's story is a testament to the quest for natural wellness and the importance of high-quality, ethically sourced products.

We delve into the fascinating origins and applications of kratom, a tree native to Indonesia, known for its versatile leaves that offer benefits ranging from pain relief to increased energy.  You'll gain valuable insights into the unique alkaloids in kratom that make it such a versatile botanical. We also debunk myths and address misconceptions that have plagued kratom's reputation.

This episode is a call to action for better understanding and transparency. Christopher shares his unwavering commitment to educating his customers and providing personalized support within legal boundaries. Plus, listeners get special value packs and discount codes offered by Christopher. Whether you're a kratom enthusiast or a curious newcomer, this episode is packed with the information you need!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring Kratom's Health Benefits and Risks
• 11:34 Exploring Kratom's Production and Use
• 15:49 Debunking Kratom Myths and Misconceptions
• 22:33 Exploring Kratom With Christopher

Transcript

Speaker 1: 3:01

Welcome to another episode of Breaking Boundaries for Entrepreneurs. Today, we're diving into a fascinating and sometimes controversial topic that could have a major impact on your health, your energy and your performance. We're talking about kratom, a powerful botanical that's been making waves for its potential benefits. But is it really as beneficial as some claim, or are there hidden risks you need to know about Joining us to break it all down is special guest Christopher Dini, who brings deep insights and first-hand experience with this intriguing plant. You won't want to miss this conversation, so let's get into it. Won't want to miss this conversation, so let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Hello, I'm Jeffrey Mort. If you're like most entrepreneurs, you're busy taking care of business, yet who's taking care of you? If you're ready to take your energy and performance to the next level in your life and your business, then this podcast is for you, because today you're going to start breaking boundaries of your mind, body and business with integrative health, and when you do that, your possibilities are limitless. I'm grateful you're here. Yes, always grateful for you joining us here today on the Breaking Boundaries podcast. Thank you for joining me here today, and not just me, but after 100 plus episodes, I'm grateful to start bringing in some special guests that can bring their knowledge, their wisdom and some powerful information that will help you to transform your mind, your body and your business through integrative health. And don't forget to send us a message. Use that feature in the show notes. There is a link there that says send us a message. Use that feature in the show notes. There is a link there that says send us a message. You click on that and you can leave your questions, your comments and, if you'd like a reply, make sure you leave the best way to get back to you, whether that's SMS, text message or an email, and I'd be happy to send a reply and answer your message and also use your question or your comment in the next episodes or create a future episode around that. So, today's special guest, I'm so excited to introduce you and share this conversation with you today.

Speaker 1: 5:15

Christopher Deeney is the founder of Christopher's Organic Botanicals, a company dedicated to providing high quality kratom and herbal products. With a deep passion for natural wellness, christopher has built a reputation for sourcing ethically harvested and lab tested botanicals. His commitment to transparency, quality and customer education has made Christopher's organic botanicals a trusted name in the wellness community. So, without further ado, here's the conversation with myself and Christopher. All right, christopher, thank you for joining us on the program today. So grateful to have you here. Thanks, great to be here. How are you doing today? Excellent, wonderful Thanks for asking so. Why don't you share with the audience Great to be here? How are you doing today? Excellent, wonderful Thanks for asking. So. Why don't you share with the audience, the listeners, a little bit about your backstory, who you are and where you come from?

Speaker 2: 6:13

All right. Well, my name is Christopher Deeney. I'm from New Jersey. Basically, what led me to finding what Kratom was is the same thing as what I'm trying to explain to everybody here. I have no idea what Kratom is.

Speaker 2: 6:27

I was researching herbs and came across it one day. The reason I was looking for it is at eight years old I was hit by a car. We were just kids playing in the neighborhood, little 25 mile an hour zone neighborhood we're talking early 80s Cars are a lot bigger than they are now. Um, we're talking, you know early 80s cars are a lot bigger than they are now. And um, we're out playing in the street and the car was going about 50 miles an hour and came around the corner and saw me locked on its brakes. I guess I froze. I really don't remember too much of it, but I froze kind of like a deer in headlights. I just remember my head hitting the dashboard of the car and I said I flew back about the height of a telephone pole, the length of two telephone poles, and landed on my knees.

Speaker 2: 7:08

So I dealt with a lot of back and knee issues my entire life. So I was prescribed opiates at probably about 11 years old from my chronic pain. My knees would start dislocating. That's what led to me to really be on painkillers. My knees would dislocate, I would have swollen legs. I was in wheelchairs, crutches probably from the time I was 11 years old through my late teens, I would say. After a few corrective surgeries I was better in a way. I was able to walk better. I wasn't dislocating my knees all the time, but I was in pain. By the time I was in my early 20s I was in pain. By the time I was in my early twenties I was in extreme pain all the time. So I didn't really didn't want to keep taking the opioids. I wanted to find something else better. So I did eventually find a prescription Aleve, which worked very well. I believe the uh, I believe the pills are 500 milligrams. I would take two of those about three times a day, so that's a pretty high level of a leave. It did help manage my pain.

Speaker 2: 8:08

Unfortunately, I drank a little bit in between and alcohol is great for pain, as people know, and that was one of my biggest issues was drinking alcohol. It was a crutch. It was very problematic. I can say in my life I did not like drinking alcohol. I didn't like being dependent on anything, but I was in so much pain. I can say in my life I did not like drinking alcohol, I didn't like being dependent on anything, but I was in so much pain I was just like, what am I going to do? So I stopped drinking in my late 20s.

Speaker 2: 8:34

I was just taking a leave, I was exercising, working out probably in the best health of my life in my 30s and at 36,. I was out exercising one day and I just kind of felt funny and I didn't know what it was. I'm 36 years old, you know, I'm just exercising, having a good day in the middle of the summer, and I kind of ignored it for like 20 minutes, a half an hour. Then eventually I thought I said something's not right here. So I went and got checked out and I was in the middle of having a heart attack. So they brought me to the hospital. They tried, you know, doing what they could there and my heart kept stopping. I had a blockage. So they flew me to Cooper Medical, which is the trauma unit. They had to do two stents and stabilize me. So after that they told me no more leave. You know you can't be taking a leave the way you are. You have heart issues, you have this. So they said you really we don't know what your best bet is for pain, but you might want to consider getting back on opiates. This was 2011. So just keep that in mind. It wasn't as it is now and I just didn't want to go that route.

Speaker 2: 9:40

So I kind of sucked it up for a couple of years, researching different herbs, different things that may help me, and I came across Cradle. I was ordering different herbs, different things that may help me, and I came across Kratom. I was ordering different herbs and trying different things. I ordered this sampler pack on eBay. A company was selling herbs on eBay back then and they had sent me a sample of Kratom and I was just amazed when I finally tried it. I didn't try it for like two or three months. I put it up in the cabinet, didn't think about it, and it was actually Christmas Day 2015.

Speaker 2: 10:08

I got done with opening up presents and everything and I said, oh, what is this stuff? Let me try it. So I made it and tried it and within 20 minutes I was just really amazed that something helped me the way it did. I couldn't believe that. I couldn't. I didn't know about this Because my family's been involved in herbs and my father was one of the distributors for Herbalife in the early 80s. So I was around a lot of the different Chinese herbal medicine, so I'm surprised we've never heard of this.

Speaker 2: 10:35

So after that, whatever got the fire lit in me? I started researching it. I started relationships with farmers out in Indonesia, talking to them about it. I wanted to know its traditional use. I wanted to know everything I could about this plant. So after probably about six months of research and understanding what this plant was I was using it regularly. I was very excited about it and I decided okay, well, you know what, I'm going to start a business and I'm going to make sure other people can know about this plant. So that's basically where we are currently Wow, wonderful.

Speaker 1: 11:08

Know about this plant. So that's basically where we are currently Wow, Wonderful. What a powerful story. And what are the? You know I don't like to say an unfortunate way to spend your childhood, because you know that led you to where you are today, helping other people to overcome those. So you know there's a positive aspect to that, but I'm sure that you missed out on, you know, a lot of things that you could have been doing other than recovering from.

Speaker 1: 11:26

You know being hit by an automobile back then, um, so yeah, why don't you explain a little bit to the listeners, like, exactly what is kratom? Where does it come from, though? I know you, um, you mentioned herbalism, but kratom is it's. It's actually a leaf of a tree, is that correct?

Speaker 2: 11:43

yes, it's a tree out in indonesia. If you actually see my uh picture behind me, those are actually kratom trees from one of our farms in indonesia. Um, the leaves about the trees are about the size of oak trees. Uh, leaves can probably be about the size of your hand and what they do is they harvest the leaves and they dry them out takes about three to five days for drying. Then they grind them down into they they call them crumbs into little chunks, all the leaves. They take the veins out, all of that, and then they bring it over and get it processed and grind it down into like a flour type consistency and then we use that to make a tea.

Speaker 1: 12:18

Oh, very nice. So in your business do you sell the leaves for a consumer to make their own tea, or do you sell an actual tea product?

Speaker 2: 12:29

we actually sell the powder, which is the ground up leaves for making like an instant tea. We sell tea bags, which is the course, ground up kratom crumbs and tea bags so you can make tea just like that. And we have ground crushed leaf which is the kratom crumbs as well, and that's for people who like to make their own homemade tinctures or anything like that. We do have tinctures, we have extracts, we have a few different types of kratom products.

Speaker 2: 12:55

Traditionally, people use the powder and that's why I like to tell people to start If you're trying to understand kratom, just buy the kratom powder. Try it that way In Indonesia. What they'll do? They'll actually pluck the leaves off the tree and chew on the leaves. But we don't have the luxury of having giant kratom trees all over the place to do that. So they'll either pluck the leaves off the tree, chew it, or they'll take a bunch of leaves maybe 20 or 30 leaves and put it in a pot and brew it all day and drink the tea Wonderful, and so how much do you usually take for a dosage?

Speaker 1: 13:29

What's a regular dosage of kratom?

Speaker 2: 13:32

Anywhere from, I'd say, two grams to five grams is average. I take about five grams, I'd say, three times a day. Most people take between two and five when they're starting out, just trying to figure out what works. I mean, I know people that take upwards of 15 to 20 grams at a time, which is a little excessive. So I try to tell people, try to stick, you know, stick to around five grams if it's. There's different types of kratom, so different plant the same plant, different type of leaf, different, maybe a little bit different type of feel, but they all have the same alkaloids. There's the, the alkaloid in it called mitragyne. Mitragyne is what gives you the energy. So if somebody's not looking for energy and they're just looking for some relief, they might want to look for a Kratom product with less mitragyne. That's the real big issue. Is people trying to do the, just trying to figure out what works for them. That's all the trial and error.

Speaker 1: 14:27

Wonderful and it has more benefits than just pain relief. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 14:32

For me personally that's what I use it for, but in general I've seen everybody use it for I don't know just everything you could possibly think of To relax, for energy, to help maybe they have occasional sleep problems. They would take a red with lower metragyne People that want energy, people that don't want to drink coffee as much. I used to drink just an obscene amount of coffee. I would drink probably two pots of coffee a day, even as a teenager, for whatever reason. Now I have my coffee in the morning, I have it here and I probably don't even finish it by the end of the day. I mean, it's a big cup of coffee. Don't get me wrong, but you know I don't. I'm not burrowing multiple pots of coffee a day. So it's helping me with not needing the coffee as much. So you will see that it replaces certain things. You know certain behaviors and it does. It's pretty amazing. It's a pretty amazing plant. It has a lot of alkaloids and a lot of benefits.

Speaker 1: 15:25

That's fantastic. I'm fascinated by the benefits that nature provides to us. When we spoke last time, you mentioned that there was some misconceptions about Kratom and the controversial side to that.

Speaker 2: 15:41

Can you share a little bit about that? Yeah, all you got to do is Google it and you'll see the controversy. What it is is back in 2011,. There was a Kratom product called Krypton Now I call it a Kratom product because it was a shot and what it had?

Speaker 2: 15:57

It had tramadol in it. They were selling it as an alternative for somebody to get high. So they looked at it and thought it was Kratom and they said, wow, there's 17, 16 deaths from this product, whatever it was, and it was the Kratom that killed them. Oh, my God, we're having a problem. Well, it wasn't the Kratom, it was the Tramadol in the Kratom product that killed them. It could have been Tramadol and coffee and Maxwell House could get you know coffee got a bad name. It doesn't matter, it was the tramadol, so it got a bad name.

Speaker 2: 16:27

So what happened? They had put a FDA, put an import alert on kratom. There was all this stuff that had happened, and now we know that that's not the case. None of these other things that were put out against kratom were ever overturned. We had six states ban kratom, make it a schedule one because of the fears that, oh, people are dying from this, and now they have done the eight-factor analysis. There are six different studies on the science behind Kratom that are currently out. Right now, there's so much publication to show that this is what Kratom really is and it's not something that's killing people.

Speaker 1: 17:03

Sure, yeah, thanks for sharing and debunking some of those misconceptions. If somebody would happen to to Google and find something like that and you know, be misinformed because you know the damage is already done when those you know that publication is already out there on the product and you can actually go on I think it's the National Institute of Health and check out Kratom.

Speaker 2: 17:24

They have a bunch of studies there. There's another website called kratomanswersorg that's run by the American Kratom Association. That has a lot of answers there for you, and even our website. We have blogs and a bunch of information about Kratom as well Wonderful.

Speaker 1: 17:40

So tell us a little bit about your business. It's Christopher's Botanicals, is that correct? And what kind of support do you give to the people that come to you?

Speaker 2: 17:49

We try to do as much as we can within the law. I'm not allowed to give medical advice. Somebody comes and asks me hey, is this going to work for my pain? I can't tell you yes or no.

Speaker 2: 18:00

Kratom's a natural plant. A lot of people I've had probably 10,000 customers over the last nine years I people I've had probably 10 000 customers over the last nine years um, I'd say probably 90 95 of them. It works for what they're looking for to work for. There are people that it doesn't work for, for whatever reason. They'll be intolerant to it. Um, just like like other herbs, there's other plants and herbs people just can't take, and you know kratom falls into that. It's a natural plant. It's not synthesized, it's not done in a lab. So the alkaloids vary from batch to batch. We post all of our testing results on our website. We also have our alkaloid balances on our front of our packages. So when you purchase from our store you can see the different alkaloids and understand the balance. Like I said before, the mitragynine is energy. So if you're looking for something with less energy, you want less mitragynine, which is usually the reds. Higher mitragynine is usually greens and whites.

Speaker 1: 18:56

Very good. And when you say greens and whites, is that the product's label color on your website?

Speaker 2: 19:03

Well, that gets even more fun and confusing. There's three different types of leaves from the kratom tree. You have red vein, white vein and green vein. Green vein and red vein are the most popular. They're what grows out there. Naturally. The most White vein is a little more rare Nowadays.

Speaker 2: 19:20

It's not so much white vein in the package, as much as it is a little bit of a blend. But they try to take some of the white vein they can get and make a white product. The white is a little bit more stimulating, I would say. The green is a little more balanced and reds a little more relaxing. But the interesting thing with Kratom is you could have the same product. You could take two grams and that might give you some energy. You might feel a certain way. You could take six, seven grams of. That might give you some energy and you might feel a certain way. You could take six, seven grams of that same product and you might be relaxed and a little more tired. The more you take, the more relaxing. The less you take, the more energy, and that's with any of them. So it really is the trial and error and figuring out this. The you know it's a finicky plan. It's trying to figure out how it works for you and if it works for you.

Speaker 1: 20:06

Yeah, interesting, and there's a lot of, you know, herbs and plant medicines that work in that way for one person and not another, and I suppose it depends on their biology and their receptors for that type of compound and things that play into it like that.

Speaker 2: 20:21

And it also could affect what you've eaten that day, if you've eaten yet, if you've ate a big meal, if you have something with citric acid. There's so many different potentiators for kratom that help it be a little more active and, you know, even black pepper different things that you eat could activate kratom a little bit better. There's so much science behind it and that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to understand the science and teach people what we know. And when people call us, you know we have different lines that we talk to people. We don't have any automated services. We like to have conversations with our customers. We want to help you as well much as we can.

Speaker 1: 20:55

Wonderful. Yeah, that's fantastic. So on that note, Christopher, where can people find you?

Speaker 2: 21:01

Well, we're only online right now. We may be branching out into having a storefront or something like that in the future, but right now we're at christophersorganicbotanicalscom and you can find us there and any type of questions or anything you have, you can call us at 609-202-6880. And we'll be happy to answer any of your questions.

Speaker 1: 21:20

Wonderful, and you said you had a special offer for the listeners of the podcast.

Speaker 2: 21:26

Yes, we have. We actually have a couple different things. We have a coupon code out there first time That'll give you 15% off, and then we have I Love Kratom. That'll give you 10% off. Those are only one-time coupon codes, but we offer a points and reward system. So every time you buy you get 10% back in points and you can use those points at any time. They don't expire and if you're having a rough month you could use those points and not have to pay for your order.

Speaker 1: 21:55

Oh, wonderful, that's fantastic. Thank you for that amazing offer and, yeah, I look forward to trying your product myself. I haven't had a chance to order some, but I will definitely take advantage of that and give it a try and report back and let you know how it works for me. Oh, that'd be great. Let me know, yeah, wonderful. Well, I appreciate you joining us here today on the podcast, sharing your wisdom and your amazing knowledge about kratom something that I had never heard of before and I'm sure that it's going to be beneficial for some of our listeners. So thanks for joining us.

Speaker 2: 22:26

You got it. Thank you. Have a great day.

Speaker 1: 22:33

Well, there you have it, my friends. I hope you found today's conversation with Christopher as intriguing and informative as I did, and be sure to take him up on his special offer for you with that discount code the value packs that he has over there. Visit his website. All the links will be in the show notes for you to check that out. So one click to get you over there and you can visit Christopher's Botanicals and Christopher. I appreciate having you on today as a guest, and if you, the listeners, have any special guests or topics that you would like use that, send Us a Message feature. If you have somebody that you feel as though would contribute to the Breaking Boundaries podcast, be happy to bring them on as a guest, now that we're doing some conversations on a regular basis. And with that, remember, stay healthy, stay happy, because that's a choice, and keep breaking those boundaries. Bye-bye, everybody.