Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction

DopeyCon Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2345507

Patreon: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

Summary / show notes

This week on Dopey Wednesday! We open the Wednesday show with DopeyCon updates, listener comments and a voicemail from Oskar in Sweden. After leaving rehab with no intention of staying clean, Oskar returns home to ten grams of heroin, begins injecting with a friend and saves that friend from a potentially fatal overdose using naloxone.

Poet/writer/'clinician' addict Zach Frank returns to discuss anxious attachment, fear, resentment and the difficulty of responding thoughtfully when emotions take over. He remembers passing out on heroin while running a bath, flooding his mother’s house and destroying his brother’s Xbox before the damaged ceiling collapsed in front of his grandmother.

Zach then takes Dave inside the jam-band drug scene. On his way to a Dominican Republic festival, he convinces a cab driver to find cocaine, stops at a pharmacy for a huge box of Xanax, absorbs liquid LSD through his palm, urinates in the ocean fully clothed and later smokes a “silly stick”—a joint containing marijuana and DMT—during a Disco Biscuits set.

He also describes his final festival before recovery: obtaining cocaine and Xanax, taking ketamine and powerful MDMA pills, and eventually reaching complete spiritual exhaustion. He calls his mother crying, returns to New York and enters treatment.

Dave and Zach discuss the painful gap between becoming abstinent and genuinely feeling well, the first moments of peace that make recovery worthwhile, and why addicts sometimes need to hold on through weeks or months of discomfort. They celebrate Dave’s 11 years sober and compare the Knicks’ championship comeback to the seemingly impossible transformations found in recovery.

The episode closes with listener comments and Dave’s heartfelt—and musically questionable—tribute to Dolly Parton.

All that and MORE!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Full Episode only on: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

Tickets: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/thedopeyfoundation/2345507

Dave reveals that filmmaker Jason Cabello is making a documentary about Dopey—and recently followed him to California for a still-secret mission. Jason also sits down with longtime friends Brad and Jeremy to investigate the real history of Dave’s addiction and the creation of Dopey.

Before the documentary preview, Dave remembers musician Mark Hudson, announces the DopeyCon Theme Song Challenge, runs through the growing DopeyCon lineup, reads listener updates, celebrates recovery anniversaries, and receives an exceptionally detailed complaint about his disgusting habit of eating into the microphone.

The teaser ends with Brad boldly claiming that Dopey wouldn’t exist without him—and Dave promising Patreon listeners the resentment-filled story behind it.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Patreon: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast save $15 on Dopey con tix

Dopeycon Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905

Summary: 

Dave checks in from California with Jeremy for a conversation about modern weed, absurdly powerful dispensary products, Jeremy’s torn Achilles, the Knicks championship and Dave’s potentially revolutionary Katz’s “Karubin.”

Then Dopey replays Episode 43 with author and Refuge Recovery founder Noah Levine. Noah talks about growing up around Buddhism, trauma and drugs; taking mushrooms at ten; becoming addicted as a teenager; attempting suicide in juvenile hall; and discovering meditation while locked inside a padded cell.

Chris wrestles with psychedelics in sobriety, prepares for a ten-day silent meditation retreat and asks whether it’s possible to mindfully shoot heroin. Noah also delivers an all-time Dopey story involving cocaine, stolen Rolexes, a brakeless car, an e-brake turn in the rain and a burning getaway vehicle.

Afterward, Dave and Chris discuss fallen spiritual teachers, sex, hypocrisy and abusing positions of power. They finish with a listener’s insane story about introducing a Chinese exchange student to the “American tradition” of buying heroin—and accidentally abandoning him at Outback Steakhouse.

AND MORE!!!!!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Listen without ads: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

DOPEYCON TICKETS: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2345507

This week on Dopey! Viral comedian and school custodian Jimmy Cash joins Dopey to tell a funny, painful, and unmistakably Dopey recovery story.

Jimmy grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, surrounded by addiction and Alcoholics Anonymous. His father—a high-school janitor—died from an overdose when Jimmy was nine, while his mother cycled through addiction, recovery, and relationships with other janitors. After watching The Basketball Diaries as a child, Jimmy became obsessed with getting high before he had even tried a real drug.

By his teens, Jimmy was smoking weed, drinking, taking psychedelics, using cocaine and ketamine, getting arrested, and fighting with police. He recalls punching a cop who was kindly driving him home, attacking the weak knee of a college RA—or at least being accused of it—and causing a coked-out disaster at an IHOP that ended with him breaking the handle off a police car and being beaten in custody.

Court-ordered AA eventually became genuine recovery. Jimmy got sober in 2003, built a family, became a custodian, and pursued his lifelong dream of stand-up comedy. His janitor videos went viral, leading to national attention and an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

But after more than 20 years without drinking or using, divorce, career pressure, grief, isolation, and insomnia left Jimmy sleeping on his younger sister’s couch. He began “nibbling” cannabis edibles, quickly recognized that he was getting high, and made the humbling decision to return to AA and pick up a new 24-hour chip.

Plus: a listener steals a car and escapes police through a freezing pond, questions about the experimental opioid compound SR-17018, a precipitated-withdrawal horror story, spicy reactions to the Roy Donk episode, drugged dogs, dead parrots, Phish fans, and DopeyCon business.

All that and more on this weeks new MASS edition of Dopey!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Listen without ads: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast 

Get DopeyCon Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2345507

Summary:

On this Dopey Greatest Hits, Dave revisits one of the wildest, funniest and most vulnerable conversations in the show’s history with filmmaker, actor and recovery advocate Brian Whisenant.

Before the interview, listener Nick tells an insane angel-dust story involving a police checkpoint, the Seven Dwarfs, friends slapping each other unconscious, urinating in a fish tank—and later, shitting his pants while driving a taxi before immediately returning to work.

Then Brian opens up about growing up gay in Mississippi, being groomed and sexually assaulted at 15, coming out to his deeply religious mother and turning to cocaine and crystal meth. His addiction eventually leads to homelessness, chemsex, predatory dealers, being filmed while high, a sex sling, IV meth use and a terrifying seven-day psychosis that ends with him restrained in a hospital.

Brian explains the complicated relationship between sex, technology and meth addiction—and why returning to a healthy sex life can be one of the hardest parts of recovery. He also describes the unlikely moment involving Taco Bell, Johnnie Walker and a bottle of wine when he finally realized he was a drug addict and asked for help.

Years later, Brian returned to the same hospital where he had once been restrained—this time as a treatment professional helping others. He also discusses finding recovery in Narcotics Anonymous and transforming his experiences into the short film Wrath Mercy.

All that plus waaaaaay more on a brand new old school greatest hits listen!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

DopeyCon Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905

Get Discounts and Good Stuff on PAtreon: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

Summary

Interventionist, social worker, author and longtime Dopey favorite Joe Schrank returns to record with Dave in person for the first time since the early days with Chris.

Joe explains why he believes the traditional rehab industry often confuses compliance with actual healing—and why recovery should be measured by improvement, reduced harm and staying alive, not only perfect abstinence. Dave and Joe dig into Brad Pitt’s decision to drink moderately after years of sobriety, whether alcoholics can ever successfully return to controlled drinking, and why celebrities speaking publicly about recovery matters.

They also discuss kratom and 7-OH addiction, medication-assisted treatment, cannabis in recovery, mental health care and the danger of treating relapse as a moral failure. Joe shares memories of employing Chris, how he responded to Chris’s relapses and the shame Chris carried afterward.

Plus: a drug-addled FedEx driver steals a customer’s mailbox, Dave’s painfully awkward encounter with Seth Rogen, Joe’s upcoming book and screenplay, DopeyCon, Andy Cohen, baseball and the possible return of Rehab Confidential.

ALL THAT AND MORE!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Get Discounted Dopeycon tickets @ www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

Or Buy them full price @ https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2345507

Summary / show notes

On this Dopey Tuesday Teaser, Dave records alone while his family is away, cooks what he declares may be history’s greatest air-fried chicken thighs and gives the Dopey Nation his complete 420-degree recovery meal recipe.

Then Snake from the UK delivers a classic festival disaster. On the way into Bang Face, a rave filled with hardcore electronic music and drugs, Snake removes an enormous assortment of ketamine, MDMA, cocaine, weed, 2C-B and acid from his pants so he can urinate. He fails to put everything back properly—and the entire stash falls onto the ground directly in front of security.

After the bouncers confiscate both his drugs and his friend Damon’s supply, the pair drink a bottle of Kraken rum and quickly replace everything inside the festival. Loaded on speed, acid and alcohol, Snake gets grabbed by security again. Convinced they’re returning to steal his soul, he climbs through a tiny bathroom window “like a spider monkey” and runs across the festival. By the end of the weekend, he and Damon become famous as the guys who continually get their drugs confiscated.

Dave then reads listener reactions to the Jason Mewes interview—including theories about why celebrity guests avoid him, whether Mewes thought Dave was named Mark and the audience’s collective childhood crush on Jay.

Finally, Handsome Evan returns to discuss fatherhood, paternity leave and working inside a state psychiatric facility. The full SHOW —including psych-ward chaos, a crack-and-shit voicemail and much more—is available only on Patreon.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Patreon: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

DopeyCon Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905

On this Dopey Total Replay, Dave revisits episode 41—the first episode he and Chris recorded with an actual microphone and one of the earliest shows to explore bipolar disorder, mania, drug-induced psychosis and mental illness.

First, Jason tells a mile-a-minute story about visiting an escort in a boarded-up Seattle trap house after relapsing on meth. After smoking crack for the first time, he returns from the bathroom to discover that the escort has taken his phone, wallet and keys. She demands $400—including a mandatory $50 tip—and summons a huge man armed with a nine iron. Held hostage and threatened with death, Jason secretly texts his roommate, who sends the police crashing through the door.

Then Dave and Chris return in 2016 with their brand-new Yeti microphone. They debate potential sponsors, remember Leonardo DiCaprio completely ignoring Dave, and discuss the grim reality of losing friends to overdoses.

Chris tells the story of a longtime friend whose drug use triggered manic and psychotic episodes. After hearing Dave describe Leonardo DiCaprio as “Teflon,” the friend is approached by police while behaving erratically, tears off his shirt and repeatedly screams, “I’m Leonardo DiCaprio!” The conversation expands into bipolar disorder, substance-induced mania, grandiosity, Jesus delusions and the difficulty of getting someone appropriate psychiatric care when they can appear normal for an hour.

Dave’s friend John then calls with recordings of his frightening former roommate. John survived the living situation by recording every confrontation with his phone—including an incredible argument in which the roommate becomes convinced that John bought a scratched, secondhand toilet seat online.

The episode finishes with early Dopey shenanigans: Chris’s abandoned mindfulness calendar, Dave receiving weed as a Secret Santa gift immediately after getting sober, and a mysterious half-ounce of marijuana left underneath a table at Katz’s.

All that and lots more on this new but also old episode of dopey.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

listen without ads and get dopeycon tix discounted at www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

Summary:

It’s Dopey Day—the annual celebration of Chris O’Connor’s birthday, his spirit and the strange, loving community that grew around Dopey. Dave explains the meaning of putting the Dopey logo over your eyes: addiction doesn’t have one face, nobody truly knows what another person is going through, and recovery happens through connection.

After DopeyCon updates, Scott remembers his weed-loving boxer Bailey, and Morgan tells a frightening story about a friend accidentally snorting an enormous line of 2C-B instead of cocaine and spending four hours reliving combat trauma.

Then three longtime dopes return to reflect on how their lives—and their ideas about recovery—have changed.

OG Dopey Nation legend Matthew Wiedermeier Carroll explains how he found Dopey while strung out on meth, wrote to Chris from prison, and eventually created the beloved “Waiting for Tonight” posts. He recounts stealing beer kegs and copper for drug money, drinking throughout his early involvement with Dopey, returning to cocaine and meth after his son was born, getting thrown out of his house and finally working the Twelve Steps for the first time. Matt also talks about prayer, fatherhood, DJing and the connection that helped him build a real recovery.

Next, B. Getz of The Upful Life looks back at discovering Dopey while isolated on Northern California cannabis farms and trying to quit opioids with kratom. He remembers getting expelled from his first weed farm after having pills mailed to him, returning for another chance, and finding community among the international “trimigrants” of the pre-legalization cannabis world. Now married, off opioids and kratom, and raising a new baby, B. explains how Dopey helped broaden his understanding of recovery beyond rigid labels and taught him the value of service.

Finally, Colin—who lived with Chris after Mountainside and now co-runs Berkshire Transition Network—joins Dave for a deeper conversation about grief, overdose and the limits of one-size-fits-all recovery. They question the tendency to explain every death by saying the person “didn’t want it enough,” discuss whether addiction is a fixed identity or a culturally constructed label, and explore why listening, patience, trust and individualized support may matter more than forcing everyone down the same path.

All that plus extra Chris! and More on an all new dopey day episode of that good old dopey show!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

LISTEN WITHOUT ADS on PATREON:

Buy discount Tickets to DopeyCon only n Patreon: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

Summary

On this Dopey Greatest Hits, Dave brings back one of the wildest and most cinematic stories in the show’s history: Louie Mandrapilias, author of Flew Too High.

First, Dave gives a DopeyCon update and plays a voicemail from Hannah, who manipulated her dog’s medical records to build a second Xanax prescription in her pet’s name. What began with six bars for an anxious dog eventually became regular prescriptions that Hannah took for herself—until her veterinarian offered to double the dosage and Hannah realized how far the scheme had gone.

Then Louie takes us from 1970s New York City to India, Bolivia and Bangkok. A young gay art student arrives in Manhattan, takes MDA, dances at Studio 54, sees Andy Warhol, shoots his first speedball and falls in love with a small-time drug dealer. That relationship sends him to India, where he visits an opium den, joins Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s ashram and begins an unexpected romance with a German woman.

When Louie becomes stranded with an unpaid hotel bill, he tracks down an opium-addicted dealer named Tascar and agrees to smuggle pure heroin back to New York inside a condom wrapped in electrical tape and hidden in his body. At JFK, DEA agents strip-search him but somehow fail to find it. Louie sells half the heroin for $50,000—and quickly becomes addicted to the rest.

Next comes a trip to Bolivia for a kilo of pure cocaine. Unable to conceal the package the way he planned, Louie divides it between his cowboy boots and skin-tight jeans. This time, the DEA immediately notices. He is arrested, faces federal charges and avoids prison after his father puts up the family home and helps him receive probation.

But even that isn’t Louie’s bottom. After returning to drugs, he joins an elaborate Bangkok heroin-smuggling operation that hides the shipment inside an airplane lavatory for another courier to retrieve on a domestic leg of the flight.

By Christmas 1983, Louie is living in luxury but feels completely dead inside. A seemingly minor argument produces a life-changing realization: “You don’t have to live like this.” He returns home, kicks heroin and enters treatment on January 1, 1984. A year later, he tests HIV-positive at a time when the diagnosis was widely considered a death sentence. Louie stays sober, builds a creative life, finds an HIV-positive recovery community in Los Angeles—and remains sober 40 years later.

All that and more on this brand new yet old Classic Episode of that good old Dopey Show!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.