Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction

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Dave kicks off the first-ever Wednesday Dose of Dopey talking about post-Thanksgiving food insanity, a brownie-topped cheesecake Linda brought home, and his evolving stance on cheesecake as a “real” dessert. He updates the Dopey Nation on the Dopey Fitness Challenge, his failed attempt at jogging with his dog Winnie that ends with him eating pavement, ripping his pants, smacking the dog in frustration, and then feeling guilty about it all week. Dave reads an email from Haley in Mississippi, who loved the Glenis and Billy Strings episodes and promises heavy dopey stories from homelessness, prison, and IV meth. He begs for more voicemails and then plays a chunk of Miles Davis’s autobiography, where Miles describes sliding from snorting heroin into shooting it, realizing he has a habit, and sinking into a four-year “horror show” of heroin and cocaine in New York.

Then Dave introduces Naughty God (Dakota), a heavily tattooed Instagram/TikTok/YouTube creator who built a big following rating nod videos “sportscaster-style.” Dakota tells his story: growing up between a sweet, young mom and a meth-addicted dad, starting drugs at 13 by snorting random pain pills he found in a friend’s brother’s room, and becoming the classic weed-identity kid with a pot-leaf MySpace. He forms the band LAW with his friend Jacob Nowell (Bradley Nowell’s son, who now sings for Sublime), and they grow up playing shows in San Diego and Long Beach while having access to grown-up levels of partying. Dakota falls in love with cocaine in his mid-teens, then with speed, and his using gets him kicked out of LAW when Jacob gets sober and can’t handle him showing up high to everything.

After moving to Orange County, Dakota dives into selling and using coke in San Clemente, then adds Oxy 30s (“blues”), fentanyl pills, and heroin to his daily rotation. He and his tight crew—especially his best friend Robert—live in a constant loop of dealing, partying, and using. Over two months, Robert, Dakota’s cousin, and three other friends all die from fentanyl. The losses break him: he has a mental breakdown, calls his grandma, and checks himself into a San Diego hospital detox, where he’s put on 100mg of methadone and spends years on the clinic grind.

Dakota talks about being on methadone for four–five years, barely using anything else, then deciding—with help from a therapist—that he’ll never fully turn a corner if he stays on it forever. He tapers himself from 100mg down to 4mg over about a year, jumps off, and goes through a long, foggy, uncomfortable withdrawal. He’s now about a year and a half off methadone, occasionally smokes weed, sees a therapist, plays bass in his band Somehow Unseen, and works on content. He and Dave riff on nodding (“my whole life”), nod techniques, fentanyl’s short “legs,” and the economics of why heroin likely won’t “come back” in a big way.

Dakota explains how he built NaughtyGod into a fast-growing account by structuring it like a recurring “show” and inventing/collecting phrases like “Charm City Rainbow,” “Nodwalk Shuffle,” “Baltimore Street Yoga,” “Sheriff of Nottingham” to describe different nod poses. They talk about Instagram flagging and banning drug content, other junkie meme/recovery pages, and how both of them accidentally stumbled into helping people through content that started out as pure jokes and self-centered ambition. They agree to collab on a nod reel, and Dakota shouts out his band and pages.

All that and more on a brand new WEDNESDAY Episode of the good old dopey show!

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to hear the full show! It's a good and fun one! Lots of emails and 

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Billy Strings sits down for one of the rawest, heaviest, and most honest conversations ever recorded on Dopey. In this replay, Billy talks openly about growing up in chaos, losing his dad to heroin at age two, his mom’s crack and meth addiction, violence in the home, poverty, hunger, couch-surfing, and the wild, psychedelic, musical household that shaped him. He walks through the exact moments his childhood shifted from love and music into danger, raids, labs, dealers, and watching addiction take over everyone around him.

Billy tells stories about tweaking with his parents, smoking meth for the first time with his mom, first acid trips, playing guitar for 48 hours straight, metal bands, coke, crack dreams, and the insane scenes he lived through as a kid and teen.

He talks about leaving home at 13, being homeless, trying coke and meth after swearing he’d never do hard drugs, the traumatic first time he did heroin, panic attacks, confronting childhood sexual abuse in therapy, and getting sober from alcohol nine years ago.

Billy also goes deep on losing his mom in 2024, learning she died from meth intoxication, how he found out through the death certificate while on tour in Australia, the confusion, denial, anger, heartbreak, poems she left behind, and the letter from his biological father he discovered after her death — the first time he ever saw his father say he loved him.

He shares what Trey told him about Al-Anon, how he’s been listening to meetings, how his understanding of addiction has completely changed, and his desire to help kids growing up in houses like his.

This is Billy Strings telling his story exactly as he lived it — no hiding, no sugarcoating, and no shame.

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This Week on Dopey! Our annual Thanksgiving episode opens with a Dopey holiday song and gratitude messages from the Dopey Nation. We remember the brilliant Jimmy Cliff and play a few tunes. We read Billy Strings reviews and talk shit about AI! PLUS DOPEY NATION GRATITUDE before introducing guest Charlotte McKinney.

Charlotte joins at around 45 days sober. She talks about early sobriety, feeling scared to fully commit, and using comedy as her “secret life.” She opens up about her old weed habit, quitting cold turkey, partying with boyfriends, and chasing drugs through different phases of her life. She shares some of her craziest stories — including taking LSD and going to family dinners and spending holidays totally high. She and Dave talk recovery, meetings, codependency, boundaries, and finding sober community. They end with Dave’s rapid-fire game (mushrooms vs acid, Beatles vs Stones, heroin vs meth, etc.).

Next, Steve Poltz drops in with a story about the late Todd Snider. He describes getting hotboxed backstage with Todd and Evan Dando at the Ryman, being blasted on secondhand smoke, and going onstage dazed. He recalls Todd’s health decline, his death, and their long friendship.

All that and more on this brand spanking new - post Billy Strings episode of that good old Dopey Show!

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The teaser opens with you explaining the whole point of a Tuesday teaser: push listeners “like little dogs or lemmings” to Patreon, where the full episode lives. You pitch the Wednesday Patreon Zoom, the Saturday Zoom, the Recovery Zoom, the bonus videos and episodes, and joke about your inconsistent track record of scheduling Patreon Zooms.

You welcome the massive influx of Billy Strings fans after the huge episode—Rolling Stone, People Magazine, Yahoo News, and a pile of country sites covered it. You read a handful of Spotify comments reacting to the interview: praise for Billy’s vulnerability, your interviewing, people crying, people relating to losing their mothers, and some teasing about your age and your Soft White Underbelly appearance. You joke about the cinematic episode description likely being written by AI.

Then you play a clip from last week’s recording with Doug, where you two open packages at Katz’s from German Dopey fans. A listener named Saul sends a long, heartfelt note about discovering the show via her boyfriend Jake, who listened to Dopey while working in German vineyards. They sent you spelt (“Dinkle”) cookies. Doug refuses to eat them because he’s convinced they’ll kill him before his hospital appointment. You accuse him of hating “gays and gluten.”

The teaser then cuts to your and Doug’s conversation about Tank Sinatra being the other “bald Long Islander” who recorded in your garage. Doug doesn’t know who he is; you explain Tank’s meme empire, his sobriety, Shark Tank appearance, his refusal to promote your episode, and your petty scorched-earth unfollow.

Next you preview the beginning of the full Tuesday Patreon episode, where you and Doug get into reading Kevin Sherry’s furious anti-AI email. Sherry says AI art is “repulsive,” “lazy,” “morally bankrupt,” “stealing,” and makes you look like you’ve “given up.” You and Doug riff on the bad AI portraits you’ve both received, debate AI vs real art, and joke that Sherry has an “autistic flair,” which Doug mishears and then corrects. Doug argues synthesizers and sampling were also hated when they arrived; you argue AI feels different but still fun to play with.

The teaser ends with you thanking Saul for the cookies, apologizing again to Tank Sinatra for being petty, updating listeners that you now need glasses, and reminding them to join Patreon. You close with “Stay strong… and fucking toodles for Chris,” followed by a bit of a Dopey song.

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This Week on Dopey! Billy Mother Fucking Strings comes on to share his truth! But first Dave meditates, reads spotify reviews, reads an email about premature ejaculation, and a voicemail from Dopey OG Alex on meth, fent and needing makeup! Then Billy joins Dave on Dopey to talk openly about addiction shaping his entire life—from his dad dying of a heroin overdose when he was two, to growing up in houses full of meth use, crack dealers, and chaos, to smoking meth and tripping on acid with his mom as a teenager. He describes leaving home at 13, couch surfing, dropping out of school, playing in metal bands, smoking crack, and eventually getting pulled back toward bluegrass.

Billy talks about how his parents' addiction destroyed stability, how meth “fucked everything up” in his hometown, how he stayed awake for four-day binges while playing guitar with his dad, and what finally made him leave. He also describes the first time he did heroin, why he stopped drinking nine years ago, and how addiction still affects him through dreams and cravings.

He reflects deeply on his mother’s recent death from methamphetamine intoxication, discovering his dad was using too, attending Al-Anon meetings, reading his mom’s poems, and trying to break the cycle for his own son. He also talks about touring arenas, the pressure of success, therapy, panic attacks, being molested as a child, and wanting to help others impacted by addiction.

All that and much more on a wall to wall traumatic tale of how secrets can make us sick! This week and forever on the good old Dopey show!

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Dave opens the Tuesday teaser alone in his house, loving the rare quiet and recording next to Susan the snake’s terrarium. He complains about his fancy Rogan-style mic breaking, says he hates stands, and talks about launching “fake meditation shit” because he likes the sound of his own voice.

He previews this week’s Patreon episode: him and Doug in the Honda Pilot “by the bay,” where Dave had a full sneezing meltdown and wound up blowing his nose into his sock for the entire show because he had no tissues.

Dave announces a possible new Dopey schedule:

Monday: standalone interview

Tuesday: teaser

Wednesday: Secret Dopey

Thursday: archived interviews or mailbag

Friday: Dopey

He announces a Patreon Zoom at 9pm.

He then reads an email from a listener named Dave, who realized his sponsor is the guy who made the Firecracker rap for DopeyCon. Dave plays the Firecracker rap and riffs on how good it is, how white recovery rap can be weird, and how much he loves the shout-out to Artie Lange and Chris.

The emailer says he’s 18 months sober and thanks Dave. Dave tells him to send more rap.

Then the teaser cuts to Dave and Doug in the Honda Pilot, roasting each other. Doug calls Dave a homeless person for blowing his nose in a sock. They argue about Rich Roll, Doug’s critiques of Dave’s interviews, Doug’s surgery, Dave’s voice, meditation, and a guy on Soft White Underbelly. Doug claims Dave was needy and weak on his second Rich Roll appearance. Dave pushes back.

All that and not much more on the all new patreon teaser for the good old dopey show.

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This week on Dopey!In this unbelievably heavy episode, Dave sits with Glynis as she unpacks a lifetime of addiction, trauma, and survival that spans Massachusetts, Texas, L.A., jail, pimping culture, meth psychosis, fentanyl, gang life, and ultimately federal prison. Glynis describes early emotional wounds, resentment toward her mother, the “magnet” pull of addiction, and how heroin became the only place she ever felt OK. She talks about couch-surfing and freezing nights in Boston, smoking meth for the first time in Texas, disappearing on multi-day runs, underground game rooms, GHB comedowns, and getting sucked into the world of pimps, sex work, and Money Mike — a relationship built on psychological control, fear tactics, and the twisted logic of “pimp and ho culture.”

Her story escalates into car thefts, robberies, abscesses, neck shots, living in trap motels, being handcuffed to a sink by gang members, and eventually becoming a renegade escort in L.A., buying ounces and then pounds of fentanyl off Skid Row. Glynis explains how she was recruited to smuggle undocumented people across the border — driving a Mercedes with people hidden in the trunk while cartel-connected spotters fed her instructions through Bluetooth. She’s arrested, violently kicks fentanyl in federal custody, falls from a bunk, hits her head, and becomes cross-eyed for months. COVID lockdown hits prison, she begins praying out of desperation, and she’s unexpectedly released early. Dumped into a chaotic men’s sober house, she meets “Jimmy the Poet,” the only sober person there, and for the first time listens when someone suggests recovery. Glynis begins 12-step work, finds community, and slowly becomes a stable, married, sponsoring adult who can finally say she didn’t stay broken forever.

All that and way more on a rough and tough new episode of the good old dopey show!

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join patreon for good extras!

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This Week on Dopey! I'm in Philly at the Rise for Recovery Conference! I was on Soft White Underbelly! I read Spotify comments, and one of the single greatest dopey emails ever! And Old School Dopey Kirby sends in a voicemail about what it means to be an addict. Then we welcome the incredible Roddy Bottum, keyboardist for Faith No More and lead singer/guitar of Imperial Teen, and author of his new book, The Royal We. Roddy talks about growing up gay in a hard-rock world, his early San Francisco punk days, and how Courtney Love briefly joined Faith No More before their friendship and drug use turned dark. He remembers touring with the Chili Peppers, getting arrested for weed, experimenting with heroin, and being surrounded by chaos as Faith No More blew up with “Epic.”Roddy opens up about how addiction and grief collided — the deaths of his friend Cliff, Kurt Cobain, and especially his father, who died of cancer soon after Roddy got sober. He and Dave talk about recovery, guilt, and the weirdness of surviving when so many others didn’t.

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