Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction

Listen without ads and buy DOPEYCON TICKETS ONLY ON SALE ON PATREON:

www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

This week on Dopey! On a sprawling new episode of Dopey, Dave celebrates recovery, remembers members of the Dopey Nation who have died, and welcomes Good Baklava founder Roy Donk for an unbelievably chaotic conversation about drugs, Phish, entrepreneurship and sobriety.

The episode begins with Australian Dope Maddie B celebrating one year without alcohol after years of severe alcoholism, seizures, psychosis and repeated attempts to stop. Her message about continuing to try leads into a remembrance of Annie Ellie on the anniversary of her death. Dave plays Annie’s old recording about discovering Dopey while she was still using and how Dave, Chris and the Dopey Nation helped make recovery feel possible. Dave also explains Dopey Day, the annual social-media tribute honoring Chris, Todd, Annie, Brian and the other dopes the community has lost.

Taylor checks in with a darkly funny voicemail about why Dopey’s willingness to laugh at addiction, death and other painful subjects still matters. Dave then reads responses to the Christmas episode with Chris O’Connor’s former partner Annie, including messages about grief, relapse, lost loved ones and the idea that grief never disappears—we gradually build a larger life around it.

Minnesota Matt contributes the episode’s first major drug story: after spending days smoking crack alone, he wakes up naked, bloodied and bruised beside a broken guitar and realizes he overdosed while playing along with the Allman Brothers. A tape recorder captured the collapse, but after listening to the evidence, he loads another crack pipe and continues smoking. California Miles then sends an update about the end of his 38-year marriage and his attempt to replace self-pity with acceptance and the Serenity Prayer.

The featured guest is Roy Donk, founder of Good Baklava and the Knicks fan who became a viral presence outside Madison Square Garden. Roy recounts growing up Orthodox Jewish in New Jersey, smoking K2, stealing cologne, dropping out of high school, working bizarre Hasidic jobs and eventually discovering Phish and psychedelics. His story escalates through cocaine dealing, life in a San Diego drug house, a dog accidentally eating acid, selling drugs on Phish tour and getting arrested at Mohegan Sun after doing ketamine at the slot machines while dressed in a Phish robe.

Court-ordered rehab initially fails to convince Roy that he is an addict, and he quickly returns to nitrous, cocaine, ketamine and touring. During the pandemic, he moves to Mexico and maintains a remote marketing career while using heavily. A Tulum work trip becomes a massive binge, culminating in Roy accidentally uploading uncensored photographs of the debauchery to his employer’s shared drive.

After losing the job, Roy walks into an English-speaking AA meeting in Mexico and begins working with a sponsor. He eventually admits that he cannot control his drug use, returns to Phish tour sober and discovers that recovery doesn’t require surrendering the music or community he loves. When he needs a legal way to make money on tour, he buys three containers of grocery-store baklava and sells them at a show. That spontaneous hustle eventually becomes Good Baklava, importing unbaked baklava from Turkey and building a growing business from New Jersey.

All that and more, more, more, more on a sweet phishy new dopey 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 with no ads and get Dopeycon 7 Tickets ONLY ON: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

Episode summary

This week on Dopey's Greatest Hits! In honor of Ryan Leone’s birthday, Dopey returns to one of his most unforgettable appearances—a brutally honest account of creativity, addiction, ambition, relapse, and the struggle to stay alive.

Ryan explains how receiving a free gram of cocaine before visiting Tommy Lee’s house triggered the worst relapse of his life. Cocaine became crack, depression led him toward self-administered ketamine treatments, and a cycle of steroids, psychedelics, heroin, and fentanyl nearly destroyed his family and career.

In the episode’s most unbelievable story, Ryan accidentally injects approximately 60 hits of liquid LSD after confusing it with ketamine. He drives through California while hallucinating that his fiancée and children are in the car, encounters a dead body in the road, and eventually wakes up in a teepee-shaped motel room before being hospitalized.

Ryan also describes his progression from heroin to fentanyl, multiple overdoses, fighting naked inside a detox, starting methadone, and finally understanding what powerlessness means. Dave and Ryan discuss the dangerous mythology of the drug-addicted artist, Ryan’s identification with Hunter S. Thompson, the toll his public persona took on his family, and whether he could remain creative without heroin.

A classic Dopey conversation with the late writer, filmmaker, father, and unforgettable friend of the show, Ryan Leone.

RIP PALABRA & MORE

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

Full Episodes on PAtreon without ADS: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

On this very special Wednesday Dose of Dopey, Dave remembers two beloved members of the Dopey Nation: Annie Ellie and Brian “Hot Wheels” Connolly.

First, we revisit Dave’s conversation with Annie—a radiant, hilarious force in the community who helped bring people together through Dopey Zoom. Annie shares her journey from England’s rave scene and recreational heroin use to opium dens in Laos, backstage chaos with Oasis, years of addiction, and finally finding recovery through NA and the Dopey Nation.

Then we return to Brian “Hot Wheels” Connolly’s unforgettable appearances with Dave and Chris. Brian tells the devastating story of breaking his neck after diving through a frozen pond, learning to inject heroin despite quadriplegia, and struggling to build a meaningful life in recovery. In an especially painful moment, Brian calls Dopey while craving heroin—and Chris helps talk him through the night.

It’s an episode about grief, community, relapse, survival, and the people whose lives continue to matter after they are gone.

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 to The Big Episode at www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

This week on the free Dopey Tuesday teaser, Dave wakes up at 5:41 in the morning feeling restless, spiritually shaky, and completely lost without meaningful Knicks news. After discussing the Allman Brothers, boring NBA rumors, Lena Dunham, and the dangers of listening to books by people he can’t get on Dopey, Dave attempts a brand-new guided meditation.

In the first-ever Dopey garbage can meditation, we gather up our regret, inadequacy, self-hatred, financial anxiety, childhood bullshit, belly fat, and fear about the future. We throw it all into a dumpster, strap the dumpster to a rocket ship, and launch the entire fucking thing into the sun.

Then Lauren B. delivers an instant-classic “socks for stories” voicemail. During the early days of COVID, when she and her boyfriend were so broke they were smoking cigarettes off the ground, Lauren spotted what she thought was a receipt beside a puddle. Instead, she found an entire ounce of real heroin in a ripped plastic bag that appeared to have been hidden inside somebody’s ass. The heroin kept them from hustling for several days—but after it ran out, Lauren bought something different and suffered her first overdose.

Dave also reads the Spotify and Patreon comments from Heart Attack Doug’s birthday episode. The Nation debates whether Doug needs to reveal more of his recovery story, whether his defensive shtick is wearing thin, and why he may still be the perfect Dopey cohost. Plus: gluten-free chicken parmesan, Billy Joe Shaver, James Brown, decriminalization, grief, relapse, losing beloved dogs, and finding a way back when life wears you down.

The episode closes with a heartfelt and imperfect cover of “Good So Bad,” a song that helped inspire a Dopey listener to get clean.

The full Reddit Roundup with the great Cormac and difficult Selby is available exclusively on Patreon.

plus 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 on patreon: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

This week on the replay! Dave revisits Dopey Episode 39, one of the strangest and most influential episodes from the show’s early years. Before the replay, he announces his latest attempt at a Dopey Fitness Challenge, shares a DopeyCon update, untangles the increasingly confusing Patreon tiers, reads listener reactions to the infamous Modi episode, and reflects on what this recording revealed about his relationship with Chris.

In the original episode, Dave and Chris recover from their disastrous interview with Modi by eating Vietnamese food and chocolate, arguing about whether Dave is a control freak, and repeatedly attempting to sing the Chili’s baby-back-ribs jingle. Chris tells the story of traumatizing his epileptic Portuguese water dog, plays an accidentally stolen Howard Stern prank, and recalls buying cocaine from a garbage bag in an abandoned Caribbean house—before lighting his hair on fire.

The episode eventually turns toward recovery, connection, and the importance of calling another sober person when things get dark. Then, naturally, Dave and Chris destroy “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” A chaotic early Dopey classic that captures exactly why their partnership worked.

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

Katie starts at 32 minutes in!

This week on Dopey! BEFORE KATEY: We help a young philadelphian struggling with substances - and we celebrate the instant-classic Dopey appearance of Ben Croxton; reads Patreon and Spotify reactions; and announces DopeyCon at the SVA Theatre on October 3! 

Dave sits down with actor, musician and recovery legend Katey Sagal for an expansive conversation about addiction, show business and nearly four decades of sobriety.

Katey traces her story from growing up in Southern California and discovering music as her first escape from social anxiety to being prescribed amphetamine diet pills at 14. What began with pills, weed and alcohol gradually progressed into street speed, cocaine, freebasing, Percocet and a daily need to remain medicated.

She remembers singing with Bob Dylan as a teenager, going to dinner with him while he wore no shoes, working with Bette Midler and Etta James, and navigating a music industry where heavy drug use was accepted as long as you made it to the gig. She also discusses her first husband’s heroin addiction, experimenting with heroin herself, driving with ounces of cocaine in her trunk and continually placing herself in dangerous situations to stay loaded.

Katey explains how she entered AA while searching for a boyfriend named Spider, stayed sober for several months, relapsed while working in New York and finally got sober for good on August 6, 1986. Only months into recovery, she began playing Peg Bundy on Married… with Children. She talks about telling someone on set that she was sober, working the Steps immediately, and maintaining her recovery as the show became a cultural phenomenon.

The conversation also covers Futurama, Sons of Anarchy, meeting Kurt Sutter in a Twelve Step meeting, sponsorship, service, gratitude, Al‑Anon and why addiction continues to surface through food, shopping, control and obsessive thinking—even after the drugs are gone.

Before Katey joins the show, Dave responds to a 23-year-old listener struggling with pyrazolam, kratom, marijuana and alcohol; celebrates Ben Croxton’s .

The episode closes with Jake from West Virginia performing a banjo cover of “I Wanna Be Good So Bad,” complete with an original third verse.

All that and MORE! on a brand new 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.

FULL SHOW NO ADS ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

Episode Summary

This week on Dopey's Greatest Hits! What may be the greatest Dopey episode of all time: the unbelievable story of tattoo artist, punk-rock survivor, bank robber and Dopey legend Shane Enholm. Before the replay, Dave announces that DopeyCon is officially happening October 3, celebrates the publication of his kratom piece in Rolling Stone, and reads a listener’s story about Bristol’s open heroin market.

Then Shane’s story begins. Raised by an addicted mother, arrested alongside her at 12 and homeless as a teenager, Shane hitchhiked across America before finding punk rock in late-1970s Los Angeles. He crossed paths with Darby Crash and the Germs, became involved with Crash’s former girlfriend Casey, developed a devastating heroin addiction and began robbing pharmacies.

After entering adult prison at 18, Shane escaped a Synanon-style treatment program and returned to heroin, cocaine and crime. When Shane and Casey lost custody of their children, he robbed his first bank with a toy gun. Over the next six months, he became the FBI’s “Ponytail Bandit,” robbing 29 banks—including one $36,000 score—while financing an enormous heroin habit.

Shane describes robbing banks with his children in getaway cars, a dye pack exploding inside a taxi, his arrest in San Francisco and the eight years and 23 days he subsequently spent in federal prison. Inside, he developed another heroin habit, dealt drugs, swallowed and concealed balloons of heroin, and survived the violent racial politics of high-security federal institutions.

After prison, Shane found his daughters living in horrific conditions, regained custody and slowly attempted to rebuild his life. He survived hepatitis C, cirrhosis and bacterial endocarditis, found stability through methadone, recovery, tattooing and art, and eventually became a respected historian of antique tattoo machines.

The episode ends with Shane performing “Making Mud Pies,” the heartbreaking song he wrote in prison about Casey, followed by Trinity's cover of “Good So Bad.”

Plus more! more! more! on the new 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.

On a brand-new Dopey Wednesday! Dave announces that DopeyCon is officially happening October 3 at the SVA Theatre, presented by Mountainside—and reveals the game-show-inspired concept for the event.

Legendary Dopey storyteller Mick Popham calls in from New Zealand with a brutally dopey story about stealing oxycodone, Valium and dihydrocodeine from an elderly cancer survivor—then replacing her pain medication with laxatives.

Later, writer and recovering addict Kevin McEnroe returns for a wide-ranging conversation about the Knicks championship, watching his father John McEnroe celebrate with Larry David, and the strange emotional power of finally seeing the Knicks win.

Kevin also opens up about growing up with his mother, Tatum O’Neal, during her addiction; addiction and resentment within a famous family; caring for his mother following her stroke; sobriety, forgiveness, service and the possibility of becoming a father himself. He and Dave compare the challenges of traveling sober, attending alcohol-soaked weddings, missing meetings, resentment toward their wives and learning to show up for other people.

Plus: Farrah Fawcett in Playboy, Dave’s deeply unfortunate first masturbatory experience, teaching tennis as “chop wood, carry water,” Dave’s new Rolling Stone kratom piece—and a potentially great new book idea for Kevin.

All that and more on the new new new wednesday!

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

FULL EPISODE ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

EPISODE SUMMARY

On the Teaser! Heart Attack Doug returns to Dopey Tuesday for his 63rd birthday—and immediately lies about his age.

Dave and Doug argue about aging, white hair, barbers, gluten sensitivity, recovery meetings and Doug’s plan to celebrate with gluten-free chicken parmesan. They remember Dopey legends Ray the Clamour and Crosstalk Larry, read comments from the Dopey Nation and debate whether drugs should be decriminalized and regulated.

Dave also recaps the Great South Bay Music Festival, including Little Feat, My Morning Jacket, Sublime and the strange reality of openly buying legal weed at a music festival.

After the paywall: more Heart Attack Doug voicemails, the truth about Ray versus Larry, DopeyCon plans, marijuana, recovery and additional birthday insanity.

LISTEN TO THE WHOLE THING ONLY ON PATREON! www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

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: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

SUMMARY:

This week on the Dopey Total Replay: Dopey goes back ten years to Episode 38, a strange cult-classic featuring Dave, Chris and comedian Modi. Before the replay, Dave remembers recording in his old Lower East Side apartment, reads early listener comments and shares an email from a former member of the Real McKenzies whose life moved from crystal meth and touring to cocaine dealing, opiate addiction and a suicide attempt.

Dave also talks about briefly considering buying weed at the Great South Bay Music Festival, announces that DopeyCon is likely happening at SVA on October 3, and revisits listener reactions to the early Chris episodes.

Then the original episode begins. Modi immediately destroys Dave’s apartment, fish tank, furniture and primitive podcast equipment. He shares his first experiences with marijuana and ecstasy, explains the growing market for kosher Sabbath edibles, and talks about performing at a Caron recovery event and appearing on The Sopranos.

Chris tells the story of his father discovering his crack pipe—and then recognizing it while the family watched The Sopranos. The guys discuss Artie Lange, Greg Giraldo, sober comedians, AA, Al-Anon and whether everyone has some form of addiction.

A convicted bank robber named Shamrock writes from an illegal marijuana farm in Maine, and Dave finally tells the legendary “blue cheese” story: a misunderstanding involving a Mexican man in detox, John Belushi and speedballs. The episode concludes with an old-school New York weed story involving Sheep Meadow, a paranoid elderly dealer, brown paper, a fake payment and an incredibly unlucky subway encounter.

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