From Screams to Sweat Lodges: Adam Jackson’s Sacred Sons JourneyFrom Screams to Sweat Lodges: Adam Jackson’s Sacred Sons Journey
The Gris Alves‘s Podcast Tales of Recovery
Gris Alves speaks with Adam Jackson about his journey from punk bands and engineering to founding Sacred Sons, using sweat lodges, ceremony and men’s circles to support emotional honesty and brotherhood. Their conversation touches on family healing, parenting, plant medicine and the need for real initiation spaces for men.
1:25:13•30 Jul 2026
From Punk Rock to Sacred Sons: Adam Jackson on Men, Ceremony and Recovery
Episode Overview
- Men need spaces of tribe and brotherhood, not just therapy or bars, to process grief, rage and responsibility.
- Rituals such as sweat lodges, song circles and plant medicine can shift blame into personal responsibility and gratitude.
- Breaking family chains of violence or dysfunction is possible when even one person chooses to parent and relate differently.
- Small daily choices—being present with children, checking in with other men, touching the earth—add up to long-term change.
- Men’s healing work has a ripple effect, supporting safer, more connected relationships with women, children and wider society.
“When the path illuminates, don’t dim it.”
What drives someone to seek a life that feels truly alive, rather than just "grown up" and respectable? This conversation between host Gris Alves and guest Adam Jackson, founder of Sacred Sons, follows that exact thread. Adam traces his journey from a screaming punk rock frontman in Ohio to a mechanical engineer in San Diego, and finally to leading global men’s circles and ceremonies. His story shows how creativity, grief and responsibility can all sit at the same table.
One moment he’s a teenager in a hardcore band, the next he’s designing scientific instruments, and then a heartbreak sends him up a mountain to his first sweat lodge. There, a mentor cuts straight through his self-pity with the line: "You know what all your relationships have in common?
You’re in all of them." That kind of tough love, mixed with sweat lodge ritual and later ayahuasca ceremonies, pushes Adam towards a vision: preparing men for deeper responsibility, family and community. You’ll hear how Sacred Sons began with a simple men’s circle in Joshua Tree, a white scorpion walking into the centre of the room, and a shared sense that modern men lack real initiation.
From there, the work grows into retreats, leadership trainings and international gatherings where men learn to express emotion, hold one another accountable and reconnect with their hearts. Gris and Adam also talk about parenting, chain-breaking in families marked by abuse, introducing ceremony and plant medicine to the next generation, and why men’s healing is inseparable from safer futures for women, children and the planet.
If you’ve ever wondered where men can bring grief, rage, love and responsibility without being shamed or shut down, this conversation offers a glimpse of what that kind of circle can look like. What might change if more men had a place to scream, sing, cry and grow together?
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