Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction

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Episode summary

This week on the Wednesday Dose! Jason Biggs returns to Dopey for a funny, unusually vulnerable conversation about recovery, fatherhood, separation and learning to surrender control. Jason discusses the pressure of making his directorial debut, Untitled Home Invasion Romance, and why directing sober was one of the most stressful experiences of his life.

He retraces the relapses that preceded his nearly nine years of sobriety—including secretly drinking, a major cocaine relapse and the final bottle of wine he chugged shortly after bringing his second child home from the hospital. The following morning, a chance encounter with Michael Alago helped bring him back to AA.

Jason and Dave also get into Dave’s relentless pursuit of celebrity guests, Jason Mewes asking Dave to stop texting him, Steve-O, Marc Maron, pink cocaine, Quaaludes, ecstasy, underground sex parties, gambling addiction and the indignities of trying to exercise in middle age.

The conversation becomes especially personal when Jason talks about navigating separation while protecting his children and remaining sober. He explains why his meeting attendance has declined, how sober friends have supported him and why accepting that he is not in control remains central to his spirituality. They finish with an honest discussion about ketamine and psychedelics in recovery, prescription painkillers, Brad Pitt’s return to drinking, Shannon Elizabeth’s OnlyFans and whether Jason might appear at DopeyCon.

All that and a tiny bit more on this week's wednesday dose of dopey!
 

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Episode summary

Heart Attack Doug returns after a mysterious seven-week absence—and the tension is immediately back where it belongs. Before revealing what actually happened between them, Dave and Doug discuss Doug’s injuries, relentless tinnitus, possible neck surgery, anesthesia and the strange appeal of receiving drugs legitimately in sobriety.

Doug challenges members of Dopey Nation to explain what they do for recovery beyond Dopey Zoom, offering free mugs for five short video submissions. Dave then subjects him to Patreon comments celebrating his disappearance, which leads into stories involving psychedelics, Marilyn Manson, hobosexuality, bell ringers, Captagon, haggling and Doug’s alleged resemblance to several terrible people.

Finally, Dave confronts Doug about the incident that kept him away from the show—and Doug prepares to tell his side.
 

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Summary:

This Week on the Total Replay! Nick Reiner’s first appearance with Dave and Chris in 2016. Nick is currently incarcerated and has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of killing his parents, filmmaker Rob Reiner and photographer and producer Michele Singer Reiner. Dave addresses the criticism he received after previously replaying Nick’s appearances and explains why omitting this episode would violate the purpose of replaying the entire Dopey archive in order.

Dave reads a deeply compassionate letter from listener Leah, who identifies with Nick’s history of mental illness and treatment failure. She mourns Rob and Michele while wondering whether the Dopey Nation could somehow let Nick know that he isn’t completely alone.

In the original interview, Nick discusses growing up as Rob Reiner’s son, writing Being Charlie and appearing with his father on Howard Stern. The conversation quickly develops into a passionate debate about AA, the commercial treatment industry, abstinence, harm reduction and whether different people require different definitions of recovery.

Nick argues that fear and all-or-nothing thinking can make relapse more dangerous, while Dave and Chris explain why attempts at moderation repeatedly led them back to heroin and other destructive behavior. The three discuss Bill Wilson’s experiments with LSD, Suboxone, psychedelics, Rat Park, genetic addiction and whether mindset can influence a person’s relationship with drugs.

Eventually, Nick reveals that he has attended approximately 17 or 18 rehabs. This leads Dave and Nick into stories about Alina Lodge. Dave recounts manufacturing alcohol inside the program, escaping into the woods and eventually shooting crack in Harlem. He then describes drinking GHB from a Blue Mountain Blast Powerade bottle, waking up in a hospital under the name “Charles McCullough” and discovering that the hospital had left the remaining GHB beside his bed.

Nick follows with an Alina Lodge story involving an older woman, cocaine, an unfortunate shower encounter and the later discovery that she had died by suicide. The episode ends just as the three decide that Nick’s appearance needs to be divided into two parts.

It's a rough new/old episode of that good ol dopey show!
 

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Episode summary

THIS WEEK ON DOPEY! Actor, comedian, director and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Jeff Garlin joins Dopey for an unusually candid conversation about comedy, compulsive eating, mental illness, addiction and the breakdown that nearly killed him.

Jeff explains why he believes his morally questionable Curb character is nothing like the person he tries to be. He talks about gratitude, refusing to indulge in self-pity and the early comedy lesson that taught him never to make an audience feel sorry for him.

The conversation then moves into Jeff’s lifelong relationship with food. He describes compulsively eating sugar as a child, hiding food, binging on the road and eventually developing diabetes. Even a stroke and the loss of part of his toe couldn’t make him stop. Although alcohol and marijuana were also part of his story, Jeff says food was the addiction that brought him to his knees.

Jeff opens up about working on The Goldbergs while struggling with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, severe ADHD, resentment and increasingly erratic behavior. After his departure from the show became public, shame and fear pushed him toward suicide. He called two people and told them that he intended to be dead by noon. His family and friends intervened, and Jeff entered treatment in Cincinnati, where DBT helped him understand his emotions and behavior. After returning home, a friend brought him to an AA meeting and gave him the beginning of a new life.

Jeff also discusses transcendental meditation, clairvoyant experiences, his friendship with Larry David and how a lunch conversation became the original HBO special that evolved into Curb Your Enthusiasm. He reflects on the show’s improvisational process, Bill Buckner’s redemptive appearance and the extraordinary creative mind of Larry David.

Before the interview, Dave shares listener stories involving grief, Suboxone, meth, crack, a police raid, cocaine psychosis, boofing drugs and leading a recovery meeting while hallucinating animals underneath the bed.

PLUS MORE! ON A BRAND NEW EXCITING EPISODE OF YE GOODE OLDE DOPEY SHOW...
 

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This week on Dopey's Greatest Hits! Dopey legend Jessa Reed returns for one of the strangest, funniest and most honest conversations in the archive. Jessa talks about becoming uncomfortable with public attention, feeling trapped by other people’s versions of her and disappearing from podcasting after years of sharing her life.

She describes contracting Lyme disease at the beginning of the pandemic, losing much of her memory and vocabulary, contemplating suicide and eventually recovering through an unconventional treatment involving Antabuse. She and Dave explore nervous-system regulation, people-pleasing, boundaries and rebuilding an identity after your mind and body fundamentally change.

Then Jessa revisits her unbelievable meth years: growing up around addiction, discovering crank, doing stand-up while high, nearly dying, communicating with aliens, drinking meth pee and manufacturing her own fake teeth. She explains how a Christmas visit with her recovering father helped her recognize that meth had finally become “stale.”

The conversation eventually turns toward her complicated relationship with twelve-step recovery. Jessa explains why she stopped identifying as an addict, cautiously returned to psychedelics and feared that telling the truth about her experience could give someone else permission to relapse. Dave and Jessa discuss recovery dogma, California sobriety, acceptance, gratitude, consciousness, manifestation and whether dreams—or aliens—might be trying to tell us something.

Before the interview, Dave reads an anonymous listener’s powerful account of a one-night relapse and explains how sharing the truth can transform shame into connection.

Plus more.

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Summary

This week on the Wednesday Dose! Close Friend of the show, legendary tattoo artist, punk-rock outlaw, former bank robber and federal prisoner Shane Enholm returns to Dopey with a frightening update: after surviving hepatitis C and end-stage liver disease decades ago, he has been diagnosed with cirrhosis again.

Shane retraces a life built around heroin, prison, tattooing and survival—from having an ounce of fentanyl inside federal prison in 1990 to being forced onto methadone after his release. He talks about becoming a prison pull-up champion, the FBI operation that ended his smuggling connection, the shame directed at people receiving medication-assisted treatment and why service—not recovery righteousness—ultimately helped him stay off heroin for 22 years.

The conversation turns emotional as Shane remembers musician Bruce “Spider” Middleman, his close friend and former partner of Katey Sagal. Shane recalls reviving Spider after one overdose, watching him immediately ask to get high again and discovering his body after the fatal overdose that followed.

Plus: getting kicked off Instagram over a message to a teenage tattoo apprentice, quitting unfiltered cigarettes after 46 years, the dangers of today’s fentanyl and tranquilizer supply, pain treatment, drug legalization, Keith Richards, Mick Taylor and whether Shane may eventually need a liver transplant.

The episode opens with a wild collection of listener stories involving a stolen handgun used in a convenience-store robbery, smoking crack during an unexpected 69 and getting robbed at gunpoint by a dealer named Dead Man.

PLUS A GIANT WEIRD LOOKING PENIS ON FIRE ISLAND! and more.
 

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Dave recounts a family expedition through the Balloon Museum, Little Italy, and the black-market handbag scene on Canal Street before reading an incredible listener story from the early-’90s Grateful Dead tour.

Despite barely caring about the band, Tom follows the tour for its parking-lot wonderland of drugs, hippies, and chaos. Completely broke, he finances the trip by repackaging truck-stop speed and selling it as ecstasy. Along the way, he encounters Persian heroin, a motel-wide fireworks war, a filthy grilled-cheese dealer carrying bundles of New York heroin taped to his stomach, and an extraordinarily forgiving Nebraska police officer.

All that and still more on a tiny teaser of the tuesday show - listen to the full ep only on PATREON! www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

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Episode summary

Dave celebrates Labor Day with a replay of one of the most polarizing early Dopey episodes: “The Structured Episode.” Before the classic show, Dave runs through the growing DopeyCon lineup—including Hank Azaria, Brandon Novak, Hamilton Morris and possible appearances from Joey Diaz, Jeff Ross and Artie Lange—and shares a spectacular listener voicemail involving blue ketamine, Stinky Pete and an alarming box of dildos.

Then Dave and Chris attempt to impose actual structure on Dopey using handwritten topics, Siri and a series of timers. It immediately collapses into exactly the kind of rambling that made the show what it was. They investigate drug songs, play everything from the Velvet Underground to James Brown, revisit Chris’s teenage DXM obsession, compare nitrous stories, discuss inhalants and eventually stumble into an unexpectedly meaningful conversation about AA, growing in recovery and what might happen if Dopey ever became successful.

All that and MORE! On a heart felt brand new yet 10 year old episode of that good old dopey show!

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Episode summary

Leah Martin—farmer, Deadhead, Phish fan and recovering addict—joins Dopey for a story that begins with the Beatles, weed and an acid trip at a Tool concert before descending into Perc 30s, heroin, crack, fentanyl and absolute chaos.

Leah recalls failing out of college, selling drugs, taking half-gram lines of cocaine while driving and joining a crew of “magnificent hippies” who followed Furthur across the country. She lived in Golden Gate Park, trimmed weed in California and supported herself on tour by selling water—only to return home between runs and fall deeper into opioid addiction.

After getting sober for four years, Leah met Brian through the recovery and jam-band community. They fell in love, moved to the Atlantic City area and eventually relapsed together during COVID. What followed included pressed fentanyl pills, crack runs, repeated overdoses, approximately ten Narcan reversals apiece and an unbelievable arrest in which Leah slipped out of her handcuffs, stole her confiscated crack from the police evidence bag and fought the cops—earning seven felonies and eight misdemeanors.

The story turns heartbreaking when Leah recounts waking up after her own overdose and finding Brian dead in their living room. She talks honestly about grief, trauma treatment, another relapse, more overdose deaths and finally building a sober life through therapy, community, farming and helping others process loss.

Plus: a dog eats weed-infused chocolate espresso beans, Lauren explains bell ringers and “dragon’s breath,” Zach shares a powerful recovery message, Dave reacts to the Hunter Biden episode comments and more more more on a brand new yet seriously old school new episode of that good old Dopey Show!

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She Shot Heroin in Her Neck and Overdosed on the Phone: The Call That Saved Kimber’s Life

This week on Dopey's Greatest Hits!

A woman named Kimber leaves rehab, returns home alone and prepares to inject what she believes is heroin—probably fentanyl—into her neck. Knowing her tolerance has disappeared, she calls the Never Use Alone hotline. Nurse Jessie stays on the phone, urges Kimber to use less and collects her location. Moments after injecting, Kimber stops responding. Jessie calls for help, and paramedic Stephen Murray arrives in time to revive her with Narcan.

The episode expands the extraordinary story first told on This American Life. Stephen describes his own addiction, recovery and unlikely path from finance and drug use to firefighting, emergency medicine and harm-reduction work. He explains how the Massachusetts Overdose Prevention Hotline became the country’s first government-funded overdose hotline and why it offers anonymous, judgment-free support to anyone using drugs alone.

Kimber then tells her side of the call: getting expelled from rehab, shooting cocaine all night, buying heroin after 40 abstinent days and waking up surrounded by emergency workers. The overdose did not immediately stop her addiction—she returned to treatment, entered a rehab romance and continued using for another two years. Now twenty months sober, she works for the same hotline that saved her, answering calls from people using alone and giving them the connection, companionship and protection she once needed.

Truly one of our all timers!

And More!

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