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This week on Dopey! The hilarious Sam Miller returns with Fourth of July mushrooms in jail, meth-fueled AK-47 tattoos, a summer spent in football cleats and overalls, and the night he pissed on a party and ended up at gunpoint. Plus, accidentally peeing on a stranger, making up Kurt Cobain stories for tourists, pretending to work with “at-risk dolphins,” and a benzo-withdrawal dream involving passionate sex with an eagle woman.

We also get into getting in your own head at the Comedy Store, 18 years clean, finding a higher power through connection, and the devastating loss of Sam’s friend and sponsee Justin. My dad interrupts with baked ziti and takes a speedball-versus-goofball quiz. PLUS: a terrifying listener voicemail, a meth relapse with a memory blackout, and Howie joins me to talk DopeyCon, podcast envy, and the future of Dopey Feud. All that and much more on a brand-new, new episode of that good old Dopey show!

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This week on Dopey’s Greatest Hits! Author and Dopey legend Suki Jones returns with her incredible story of drugs, addiction, motherhood, and recovery. From being given Quaaludes by her father at eight years old to discovering Vicodin, cocaine, and the Bay Area music scene, Suki takes us through the life behind her memoir, Sea Swallow Me.

We hear about Tower Records, modeling, doctor shopping, and the double life of partying on the weekends and getting her kids to Catholic school during the week—while heroin gradually took over everything. Plus, surviving childhood abuse, losing someone she loved, hiding pills from a partner, methadone, and finding a way to become the mother she wanted to be.

PLUS! Snake calls from the UK with a 2C-B story, Dave struggles to get dinner on the table, Doug drinks fancy water, the radiator interrupts, and we hear how Dopey helped Suki feel connected during a brutal stretch of pandemic isolation. All that and more, more, more on this brand new and yet still very old episode of this good ol' Dopey show!

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This week on the Wednesday Dose of Dopey! The great Maia Szalavitz returns, and we go from doing cocaine with Jerry Garcia at 17 to shooting coke 40 times a day—and somehow becoming one of the most important voices in harm reduction. We get into heroin versus fentanyl, kratom and 7-OH, depression, antidepressants, and why getting off drugs doesn’t automatically give you a life you want to live.

Plus, can you fall in love with an AI? Can psychedelics help if you don’t actually want to change? And do you still call yourself an addict almost 40 years later? Maia talks about the trip that showed her she had a cocaine problem—and why her response was to stop taking acid.

PLUS! Mick Popham delivers an all-time Dopey voicemail about stealing morphine, benzos, and an antique stove from a dying convicted murderer, blacking out, and getting called into the boss’s office for something completely different. All that, Jerry Garcia, High Times, deadlifting, and much much more on this Wednesday Dose of Dopey!

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This week on Dopey! Heart Attack Doug returns feeling like death, so naturally I make him come over and record. We discuss a sandwich with too much Swiss, the most miserable deli on Long Island, the wreckage of my garage, and my dependence on Tums and papaya enzymes. Then things get real about friendship, fear, and the gift of desperation—finding a spiritual solution when everything feels fucked. Plus! Is Doug too sick to go to meetings but healthy enough to do the podcast? Join us on Patreon for his full health update and the Doug Death Pool. Stay strong, Dopey Nation, and fucking toodles for Chris!

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This week on the Dopey Total Replay! A bona fide Dopey classic: THE GAY CRUISE with Todd R.  My friend Todd joins me and Chris for a story about drinking, opiates, falling five decks off a cruise ship, and getting kicked off while his friends continue their vacation. 

But First we go over Hey Bulldog! And go over the emotional comments from Dopey Episode 50.

Plus! Being high on the Martha Stewart Show, reconnecting with an old boyfriend who turns out to have been sober the entire time, making up a sponsor, and getting through early recovery with Cool Ranch Doritos, Diet Coke, and I Love Lucy. We also get a completely insane listener airplane story, Chris takes the controls of a plane, and we argue about sharing for laughs at AA. All that, the origins of the Dopey theme song, your comments, and much, much, much more on a brand new version of a classic dose of Dopey!

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Summary:

This week on Dopey! Benjamin Tod of Lost Dog Street Band brings a deeply honest story of childhood trauma, crust punk, freight trains, heroin, methamphetamine, and the slow work of building a different life.

Growing up outside Nashville, Benjamin started drinking as a kid and using hard drugs in his early teens. Drawn to the freedom of traveling musicians, he found a world of street performances, railroad journeys, makeshift camps, and friendships forged under bridges. He takes us inside that life: getting strung out in one city and kicking in the next, withdrawing while waiting for sugar-beet harvest work, and trying to perform through an IV-meth-fueled panic attack while opening for the Devil Makes Three.

Benjamin also gets into what’s happening now—feeling spiritually unsettled, confronting old pain, and wanting to become a better husband and father. He talks about the collapse of his marriage to Ashley, recording I Will Rise in the middle of his darkest period, and the sick puppy named Rita who became a symbol of starting over. On thirteen acres in Kentucky, he began clearing land, rebuilding trust, and making a home. Getting off the needle came first; letting go of alcohol took years longer.

PLUS! Punk rock as folk music, the Clash, outlaw country, faith without rigid dogma, shame without self-destruction, and a round of This or That. Before the interview: a listener writes about dabs and research chemicals, Eric remembers a friend’s disastrous gasoline-bong idea, and Matt Wiedemeyer Carroll celebrates three years sober. Closing with Benjamin’s “Using Again” and an early banjo recording from Jake in West Virginia. 

All that and MUCH MORE on Brand new super anarchist crusty, punk rock, honky tonk episode of that good old Dopey Show!
 

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Summary

This week on Dopey Greatest Hits! We revisit Jamie Lee Curtis’s first appearance on Dopey, recorded in 2019 with Dave in his attic, a microphone in one hand, and a Bluetooth speaker in the other.

It began outside Katz’s Deli, where Dave tried to casually intercept Jamie and pitch the show. Her response: “I’m a dope fiend.” His response: “Me too.” What followed was an email misunderstanding, years of persistence, and a conversation about why Jamie initially wanted nothing to do with a comedy podcast about addiction—and how Chris’s death changed her understanding of the show.

Jamie and Dave talk about opioid addiction, secrecy, the vulnerability of being publicly sober, and finding connection through other people’s honesty. Dave remembers Chris, explains why showing the fun in recovery matters, and gets to tell Jamie what her movies and children’s books have meant to his family.

PLUS! A medical student writes about how Chris is still helping people he never met, JD responds to criticism of his workplace drug discovery, and Dave ranks his morning-text correspondents. Listener letters explore sex addiction, the difference between sponsorship and life advice, and an EMDR experience that helped one woman rethink sexual pressure in her marriage. Dave also explains why he stopped EMDR—for now. 

All that and MUCH MORE on a super star studded - Dopey's Greatest Hits!

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Summary:

This week on Dopey Wednesday! Photographer Sean Murphy, author of My Friend Weezer, brings an epic story of rock ’n’ roll, alcoholism, meth addiction, and finally finding a recovery that stuck.

Sean takes us from Florida’s early rave scene to art school in Boston, San Francisco’s rock ’n’ roll underground, and a photography career shooting some of the biggest bands in the world. He photographs the Beastie Boys while falling off the wagon, nearly loses the camera containing their pictures, drives Shane MacGowan over the hills of San Francisco in a barely functioning Volkswagen, and finds himself living above a gay porn studio with a seemingly endless supply of meth downstairs.

In Los Angeles, the jobs get bigger while the consequences get worse: a relapse in Slayer’s limo ends in a blackout DUI near his AA meeting, police surround his truck outside MADtv, and drugs and alcohol tear through his marriage, parenting, and professional life. Through it all, his friendship with Weezer becomes one of the lasting bright spots.

But the heart of Sean’s story is what finally changed. After years of meetings, treatment, and going back out, a persistent biker sponsor and an Irish addict named Mike help him find a way through the steps. At a chaotic sober house called Plan C—complete with a horse, chickens, costumes, and a collection of unbelievable characters—Sean discovers purpose in helping other people. Today, he hosts a recovery meeting at his photography studio and describes a sober life far beyond anything he knew to ask for.

PLUS! Nat Kingsley gives a fellow rehab patient his debit card and PIN in exchange for a promised tennis ball full of heroin. Dave remembers his own rehab tennis-ball disaster, celebrates a Dopey Nation anniversary, and reads reactions to Keith’s episode, the Trey controversy, and the sound complaint that finally gets resolved. 

All that and MUCH, MUCH  MORE! on a very, very girthy new Wednesday Dose of that good old Dopey Show!
 

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Summary

This week on Dopey Tuesday! Cormac and Selby return for a Reddit Roundup teaser featuring flaming drum kits, obsessive hobbies, comfort television, and another questionable Patreon sales pitch from Dave.

Cormac reports back from opening for a masked surf-rock band that sets its drums on fire, then explains how music and strength training give his obsessive energy somewhere productive to go. Selby prefers to wait for the urge to exercise to pass. Meanwhile, Dave has found comfort in peanut butter ice cream and another trip through The Sopranos, kicking off an argument about Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and which season of The Wire deserves the crown.

PLUS! A DopeyCon caption contest threatens to reveal what Dave was actually thinking, Selby promises behind-the-scenes dirt, and Dave revisits calling non-patrons “cheapos.” Can you spare 16 cents a day? Should recovery meeting links be shared? And could your sob story win you a gifted Patreon membership?

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Summary

This week on Dopey Total Replay! It’s the infamous 50th episode: Dave Gives Up, Chris Takes Over! Dave tries to manufacture a feud with That Sober Guy, Chris prepares to become “Dr. Chris,” and the boys celebrate their milestone by arguing about almost everything.

Chris tells the story of working in a prestigious Boston hospital while secretly shooting heroin and cocaine—and financing his habit by stealing his mother’s jewelry. After getting banned from his parents’ building, he gets the jeweler himself to drive him back for another attempt, then disappears to Harlem on a crack binge while his girlfriend waits to pick him up from work. His brother and sister eventually retrieve him and bring him to detox, setting him on the path to Mountainside, where he meets Dave.

PLUS! Chris finds the perfect addiction metaphor in The Wrestler, Dave and Chris revisit their favorite early Dopey moments, a debate over stolen bracelets becomes an argument about brioche French toast, and Chris pushes Dave to the breaking point with his relentless search for Flesh-n-Bone. Expired hand warmers, disastrous music trivia, mushrooms in a red velvet taxi, and a negotiation over whether Chris will EVER say “Toodles.”

In the new introduction, Dave revisits classic Dopey beefs, wonders what a spiritual solution actually looks like, and reads listener comments questioning his ability to beat up Ezra. All that and MUCH, MUCH, MUCH MORE on a classic dose of good old, old timey Dopey!

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This week on Dopey! My trainer Joe Belmonte comes over, and what starts with complaints about Howie’s camera angles and Joe’s horrible taste in music turns into an incredibly moving story of drugs, addiction, grief, and recovery.

Growing up on Long Island, Joe went from Catholic school, ecstasy at Webster Hall, and cocaine-fueled construction shifts to a massive blues habit with his girlfriend. Together, they stole and sold electronics across Long Island to support a pill habit that Joe says reached $1,500–$2,000 a day. Then came heroin, needles, speedballs, homelessness, and a relationship built around loving each other and getting high.

After their first trip to treatment, they returned home and used together again. Both overdosed. Joe woke up days later in the hospital, unable to walk, and learned that his pregnant girlfriend had died. He shares the devastating aftermath, learning to accept help, rebuilding in Florida, relapsing after nearly three years, and eventually finding his way back to recovery.

Today, Joe is a father, a business owner, and the guy responsible for listening to me complain through every fucking workout. We talk about anger, music, surviving grief, and why I have absolutely no desire to overcome a squat rack. Plus! Mandy’s acid trip at a Tool concert takes an unwanted turn, Harold remembers shooting meth while dope sick in Anchorage, the Betty episode divides Dopey Nation, and we launch a new Dopey Fitness Challenge!

All that and much more on a brand-new fitness intensive episode of Dopey that Good Old Dopey Show!

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This week on Dopey’s Greatest Hits! Long Island recovery legend Smiling Joe takes us through four decades of drugs, crime, chaos, and finding a way out. From drinking and sniffing glue as a kid in Queens to taking acid on the roof of JFK Airport, shooting heroin, stealing diamond rings, and plotting a $30 million gold theft on Wall Street—Joe’s story is absolutely fucking unbelievable.

We hear about getting arrested over a stolen girdle, kicking heroin in jail, surviving Rikers Island, and dating a mob-connected man’s daughter. Her father first chased Joe with a gun, then became his friend—and later decided against bringing Joe on a ride that ended with the man being killed. Somehow, Joe also went from Rikers to St. John’s University, became an A student, and reinvented himself as Disco Joe before heroin and cocaine took over again.

But the heart of this episode is how “Methadone Joe” became Smiling Joe. After years of rehabs, relentless using, and going to meetings high, Joe finally found a recovery he could live in. We talk about powerlessness, surrender, borrowing a loving God, and replacing the feeling in the needle with connection, service, and real love. Plus, Dave shares how Joe helped him feel welcome in recovery after Chris died.

PLUS! Austin’s Rainbow Gathering voicemail involves boofing LSD, a blackout, and a search for his missing pants. Listener reactions to John Joseph, a Dopey studio update, and much more!

All that and more on the Dopey Smiling Joe Greatest Hits Episode!

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This week on Dopey! Interventionist Keith Fierman brings a lifetime of unbelievable drug stories, rock-and-roll adventures, and hard-earned recovery. From taking acid with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Owsley Stanley to secretly flying from Alabama to New York, stuffing his socks with heroin, and getting home like he’d spent the day at work—Keith lived two very different lives. And when he finally asked for help, he spent five days wandering a treatment center before staff admitted they hadn’t actually checked him in.

Behind the backstage passes is a powerful story of childhood abuse, finding safety in heroin, and fighting to build a different life. Keith talks about relentless cravings in early sobriety, telling God “fuck you,” and the bowling trip that finally gave him a little peace. Plus, a runaway doctor demanding a naked woman on a horse, Keith Richards, an unexpected meeting with Ringo Starr in France, and why families shouldn’t have to wait for someone to hit bottom.

PLUS! JD D. Hart finds a bag of drugs at work and turns it in, listener comments on gambling and process addictions, and Dave and Keith get into the ongoing saga of getting Trey Anastasio on Dopey. Is Dopey too dark—or is finding laughter and connection in the darkness exactly the point?

All that and much more on this old school dose of brand new Dopey!

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This week on Dopey Tuesday! Ray returns, the headphones suck, and Dave’s attempt to sell Patreon immediately backfires when Ray reveals he pays two dollars a month and still thinks there are too many ads.

We revisit Ben’s unforgettable Snickers story, autographed candy bars, and the mechanics of a pierced penis before Alan joins us for his official DopeyCon review. Naturally, this becomes an argument about whether he threw away Dave’s framed posters, why photographs of Canadian tunnels get wall space, and why Dave still doesn’t know how to end a show. Plus: Ray’s suspiciously heartfelt stagecraft, Tony O’Neill, fantasy basketball draft disasters, diabolical Seymour, and gambling apps tempting Ray for all the wrong reasons.

THEN! Dave reveals that his Thursday started with questioning by three LAPD detectives and ended at Gary Dell’Abate’s vinyl party. For that story, the Heart Attack Doug comments, and the rest of the stories, join us on Patreon!

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This week on Dopey Total Replay! Dave and Chris return with a classic early episode featuring a cigarette dispute outside Katz’s, a dope-sick heroin run in a ridiculous wig, and a police officer who ate confiscated weed brownies and called 911 because he thought he was dead.

Dave loses his shit when Ezra—the neighborhood character he’s supplied with countless cigarettes—refuses to run to the store for him. There are threats, wounded pride, and an incredibly petty half-cigarette power move. Chris attempts to broker peace.

Then listener Tracy delivers an incredible story about buying heroin in a terrible black wig, getting pulled over with the drugs in the glove compartment, and a driver who decides this is the perfect moment to flirt with the cop. Plus, Chris remembers drinking with people on the street in Boston, surviving on stolen beef jerky and tallboys, and his family dog stealing somebody’s sandwich.

We also get into how Dave and Chris met at Mountainside, how their friendship changed in recovery, Bob Marley–induced weed cravings, eighteen hours of “Natural Mystic,” and the difference between missing getting high and being able to go back.

PLUS! In a new introduction, Dave remembers Bobby R., a beloved member of his recovery community, launches the Dopey Worst Recovery Texts Contest, reads your comments, and explains why this episode remains one of his favorites. 

All that and More on a brand new version of a super classic old episode of that good old dopey show,

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This week on Dopey! Betty Guadagno brings a completely fucking staggering story of drugs, family trauma, sex work, and finding recovery after an overdose that she describes as a trip to the other side. Raised by drug-addicted, hustling parents who stole Christmas presents and fled to Las Vegas, Betty discovered meth at fifteen—and things only got crazier from there.

Betty opens up about losing both parents to suicide, moving back to New York to retrace their love story, selling drugs behind the bar, and turning to sex work to pay the rent. We get into heroin, crack, methadone, a $20,000 marriage, getting arrested during the Hurricane Sandy blackout, and a meth relapse that sent her into a world of paranoia, imagined bugs, and exploiting other women to support her addiction.

Then comes the bathroom-floor overdose, the life review, and the spiritual experience Betty believes changed everything. We talk about hearing her father’s voice, drug dealers finding Jesus, following a stranger on the J train to a meeting, and the woman whose hug finally helped her surrender. Plus: tiny men mowing her brain out of heroin withdrawal, Gabby Bernstein, A Course in Miracles, UFOs, and Dave trying to get a sign from his mother.

PLUS! Squirrel’s spectacular GHB-and-ketamine mistaken-identity voicemail, sex addiction, kratom and 7-OH, a listener’s 22-day meth run, DopeyCon feedback, and the ongoing debate over recording at Alan’s apartment versus a fancy studio.

All that and much more on a deeply dark, strangely funny, and very spiritual new episode of that good old Dopey show!

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This week on Dopey’s Greatest Hits! Cro-Mags frontman, author, and hardcore legend John Joseph returns in his unforgettable first appearance on the show. From a brutal childhood in foster care to surviving on the streets of New York, John brings an avalanche of insane Dopey: stealing his mother’s Valium, running heroin, selling fake acid outside Madison Square Garden, getting chased with a hunting knife on his first real acid trip, dealing drugs in the Navy, and going AWOL—with Henry Rollins helping hide him along the way.

Then things get even crazier: freebasing, robbing drug dealers, a crack-fueled run through Los Angeles, and a flight back to New York where John is snorting cocaine while lecturing the other passengers about eating meat. Plus, evading the police at JFK, hitting bottom in Alphabet City, and finding a way back through Hare Krishna, hardcore music, service, and eventually Ironman triathlons.

We also get into Bad Brains, positive mental attitude, childhood trauma, forgiveness, and building a life you actually want to wake up for. PLUS! Dave reads listener comments about Mrs. Robinson, celebrates a listener’s nine months off kratom, remembers his early COVID experience, and wonders whether he was trying to sound tough when he first interviewed John. All that and much more on this brand new version of this classic episode of Dopey!

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This week on Dopey! LJ Ruggiero, host of Nothing’s Off the Table and son of New York television personality Rosanna Scotto, returns for a brutally honest conversation about compulsive gambling. At 15, LJ turned $200 into $9,000 at a blackjack table and decided he’d found his future. What followed was stolen family jewelry, drugs, treatment, an extraordinary ticket business, and a gambling habit that could swallow almost any amount of money.

LJ describes going from $22 in his checking account to a $380,000 payday selling Coachella artist passes, building a business that eventually earned him more than a million dollars a year, and losing staggering amounts in casinos and with bookies. One Vegas trip saw him turn $10,000 into roughly $500,000—then lose all of it and another $100,000 before leaving.

Even after stopping drugs and alcohol, the gambling continued. LJ bet from the hospital the night his son was born, borrowed money when his wife couldn’t buy diapers, and found himself about a million dollars in debt. A confrontation with an old friend finally broke through the lies, leading him into Gamblers Anonymous, financial accountability, and a long repayment plan.

We also get into the difference between drug recovery and rebuilding a relationship with money, casino perks, family bailouts, shame, and why LJ regrets trying to police other people’s sobriety.

PLUS! Rachel Angel’s DopeyCon theme-song entry, Dave’s Step Ten intentions, Margaret Cho listener comments, and a wild voicemail about vodka at Red Lobster, a smashed mailbox, a $200 payoff, driving on a sparking rim, and hitchhiking to Newburgh after a DWI. Stay strong Dopey Nation and toodles for Chris!

Plus way way more on a new wednesday episode of that old dopey show!

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This week on the Tuesday teaser! Heart Attack Doug returns, convinced he’s indestructible despite mounting evidence to the contrary. A $10,000 landscaping quote inspires two weeks of backyard punishment, followed by another frightening hospital trip, morphine, and an argument about whether Dave is actually his sponsor.

Meanwhile, Dave remembers his summer working on New York’s World Yacht, buying a Fender Rhodes for $300, eventually selling it for heroin, and the lingering humiliation of coworkers calling him Screech. PLUS! Cormac was robbed, Cece compliments Linda and demolishes Dave, Doug claims spiritual superiority, and Dave admits that joking about inheriting Doug’s guitar turned into a sincere prayer that his friend wouldn’t die.

What keeps Doug pushing himself to the edge—and will he ever listen? The conversation continues on Patreon: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast.

Stay strong Dopey Nation and toodles for Chris!

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This week on Dopey Total Replay! Dave goes back to classic Dopey 48 with Chris and longtime friend, bandmate, and musical collaborator John. Chris has returned from a ten-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat, and Dave has recruited John to become Dopey’s answer to Fred Norris. What follows is a battle between spiritual enlightenment and a soundboard that won’t shut the fuck up.

Chris describes arriving to a flooded, moldy tent, waking up at four in the morning, sitting through hours of painful meditation, and spending part of the third day planning a joke for when he’s finally allowed to speak. He also gets brutally honest about the intense cocaine cravings that surfaced during the retreat—and imagining he could leave, get high, and come home pretending he’d been meditating the whole time. Meanwhile, Dave worries about Chris promoting Dopey on Reddit’s opiate forum, where drug pictures have started following him into his dreams and waking thoughts.

The guys get into Buddhism, craving, aversion, recovery, and the absurdity of craving a life without cravings. Alex calls in, Chris’s cryptic sponsor prank gets exposed, and a listener letter sparks a conversation about why insane drug stories can help people find recovery—and why being the “best degenerate” eventually stops being enough.

PLUS! In the new opening, Dave gives John overdue credit for his enormous musical contribution to Dopey, recounts a family trip to Kingston and a $30 beard-oil purchase, and plays Michael’s wild Fourth of July heroin story from the Lower East Side in 1995. Bottle rockets, a shotgun, a forced naked strip search, and a dealer who warmly invites him to come back anytime!

All that, terrible freestyle rapping, Dopey tattoos, secret recovery wizards, Sublime, Pusha T, vaping, rehab success-rate bullshit, Dave panicking over publishing an episode while waiting tables, Anthony from the Beach comments, and love for the people who helped make DopeyCon happen. Stay strong Dopey Nation and toodles for Chris!

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Summary:

This week on Dopey! It’s DopeyCon 7—the Game Show Edition! Dopey Nation gathers for a night of ridiculous games, filthy comedy, music, remembrance, and recovery. Hank Azaria, Hamilton Morris, James Frey, John Joseph, Zac Clark, Alexis Haines, Rachel Slocum, Abby Fickley, Janine Coulter, Gabby Egan, and more join the madness as Dave attempts to hold together the first-ever Dopey Feud.

Plus, Anthony Varela tells a catastrophically inappropriate Cialis-at-a-wake story, Tony O’Neill reads about heroin, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and a sword-wielding Anton Newcombe, and Dave presents his dad with the Dopey Medal of Freedom—while officially reducing his responsibility for Dave’s heroin addiction to seven percent. Linda delivers a beautiful tribute to the community and the people we’ve lost, Zac speaks about keeping recovery’s door open, and Rachel Angel and Trinity perform “Mud Pies.”

Before the festivities: a listener empties a rich guy’s entire house while he’s fishing in Alaska, Odell’s dope-sick road trip ends with an ant attack and a pants-free meeting with a Detroit dealer, and Montana sends a powerful recovery update from prison. All that, construction noise, Stashword, Artie Lange, and much more on a chaotic, heartfelt, thoroughly Dopey celebration.

Live-event audio is rough in places, as Dave explains before the recording.

ALL THAT AND MORE ON OUR 7th LIVE DOPEYCON!!!!

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This week on Dopey’s Greatest Hits! Mrs. Robinson brings a life story packed with cocaine, Quaaludes, OxyContin, porn, and recovery. A former teacher and advertising executive who entered adult entertainment at 50, she tells Dave how a conversation at a COVID-era bonfire—and her son telling her to “go get the bag”—helped launch an entirely unexpected career.

Then comes the serious Dopey: drinking at 11, taking her father’s Quaaludes, growing up around violence and pounds of cocaine in Pittsburgh, and falling in love with prescription opioids while treating endometriosis. She describes teaching on ecstasy, getting caught snorting OxyContin off her classroom desk, and believing she was sober because she wasn’t drinking—even while she was using pills and cocaine.

Mrs. Robinson also shares how a woman she sponsored saved her life during a suicide attempt, what happened when she attacked her psychiatrist in treatment, and the moment she finally surrendered and began building lasting recovery. Plus, her ex-husband’s devastating relapse, raising children through addiction and mental health struggles, using her OnlyFans income to help pay for family treatment, and dealing with judgment from people in recovery.

PLUS! Axel calls in with a wild South Florida voicemail involving Valium, stolen Abercrombie clothes, pills, police digging up a marijuana plant, allegedly being framed for school bomb threats, and getting sent to Argentina. All that, recovery, family, freedom, explicit adult-industry shop talk, and much more on Dopey!

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Episode summary

This week on Dopey Wednesday, the incredible Margaret Cho returns for a live conversation with Dave, hosted by our friends at Workit Health! Margaret gets brutally honest about weed, opiates, benzos, and the kratom habit that left her feeling like she was constantly kicking. We hear about two seizures in one Thanksgiving, another that sent her face-first into boiling fondue, an overdose in Amsterdam, and the horrifying moment a doctor who was also a fan told her she was dying.

But this episode is also about what came next: recovery, meditation, community, and Margaret’s beautifully simple interpretation of the Third Step—“fuck it.” Dave and Margaret discuss kratom, 7-OH, kava, harm reduction, recovery in the public eye, drug dreams, and finding ways to handle disappointment without getting high. Plus, making music with Jane Wiedlin and why Margaret says sobriety is more fun than drinking and using ever were.

PLUS! A listener gets busted sneaking kratom in rehab, a law student takes 18 kratom capsules before trial practice and lands a clerkship, Dave navigates the post-DopeyCon malaise, Dopey Nation weighs in on Justin Crompier, and Margaret takes us out with “Grippy Sock Vacation.” All that and much more on a brand-new episode of that good ol' Dopey Show!

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Episode description:
This week on Dopey Tuesday! Dave comes down from DopeyCon with strange feelings, a meeting, and an EMDR session that nearly puts him to sleep. Trinity wins the Theme Song Challenge by just four votes, and a longtime listener asks whether the Kevin O’Leary interview means Dopey has officially jumped the shark. Dave reads the letter and answers the question of who gets to decide what belongs on the show.
PLUS: Cheryl celebrates one year sober with an absolutely insane voicemail: three car accidents in roughly two weeks, a totaled Miata with her 85-year-old grandfather inside, a condemned house with rats crawling over her, a blackout hit-and-run, and a crash through three fences into a prison yard. Somehow, she survives it all—and today she’s sober.
Then Steely Dave writes about surviving three fentanyl overdoses in 24 hours, including one in a Georgia jail cell, and the four years on Suboxone that he says saved his life. Dave also gets into AI thumbnail complaints, new Dopey beanies, and a thank-you to Transitions in Kentucky.
Finally, returning guest Peter Rosenberg opens up about divorce, fatherhood, sex addiction, and the constant search for validation. Dave recognizes something familiar in Peter’s story—and asks him to lay it all out.
Hear the full Peter Rosenberg conversation on Patreon!!!!!

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Episode Summary

This week on Dopey! Fresh off a packed DopeyCon 7, Dave is feeling the familiar post-DopeyCon blues and thanking the Dopey Nation for another incredible gathering. Plus, Recovery Unplugged gets a shout-out for arranging the filming, Papa Smurf gets his flowers, and Britta makes the drive from Pittsburgh despite losing her power steering—with drug-of-choice name tags in tow. Then Betty Ford James writes in about being made to feel unwelcome at an AA meeting, finding a potential sponsor who subsequently ghosted him, and building his recovery through Recovery Dharma, therapy, and Dopey. Dave weighs in on sponsorship and asks for your sponsor stories before catching up on listener comments.

Then we go back to Dopey episode 47, with Dave, Chris, and Brooklyn tattoo artist Ryan Roi! Chris accidentally books the wrong Ryan, but gets exactly the right guest for a conversation about cocaine, whiskey, acid, and spectacularly bad tattoos. Ryan remembers getting an eyeball tattoo while tripping on LSD and rubbing an acid sugar cube into the fresh tattoo. His overnight Christopher Street shifts bring explicit tattoo requests, a hormone deal that turns into an ecstasy-fueled tattoo session, and a basement so full of crack pipes he compares it to a McDonald’s ball pit.

Chris tells the sprawling story behind his misspelled “Melissa” tattoo: an older girlfriend, homemade hooch in court-ordered rehab, running away, and a drunken motel tattoo courtesy of a guy named Knockout. A speeding stop shortly after Chris takes twelve Norcos lands him back in jail, where he gets the Orange County tattoo that Ryan eventually touches up. Plus, women tattooing their names on Ryan’s legs, Chris eating an ounce of mushrooms at a Phish show, Dave’s Fourth of July acid trip with orange-juice bong hits at the original Woodstock site, and the original offer to pay for Dopey tattoos.

Along the way, the guys talk about sobriety as a psychedelic experience, the impossibility of getting high “just once,” and why Ryan had to leave a tattoo shop to get sober—and become the artist he wanted to be. All that and much much more on this Monday's Dopey Total Replay!

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This week on Dopey! Dave’s friend Anthony from the beach brings a lifetime of hardcore Long Island Dopey: childhood exorcisms, crack, heroin, bad checks, pistol-whippings, and getting shot in his father’s church van—with ten bundles of dope hidden in the dashboard and a kitten along for the ride.

Growing up with a preacher father, a painful family breakup, and a frightening stay in a psychiatric hospital at thirteen, Anthony found acceptance in weed, deli work, and the nickname “Stoner.” Then cocaine turned into crack, crack turned into heroin, and years disappeared into rehabs, shelters, hustles, and the conviction that he could always land on his feet. Along the way: stealing his mother’s wedding ring, selling the car she bought him, smoking crack on the ride to rehab, and shopping for treatment like he was booking a resort vacation.

Anthony tells Dave about a massive heroin habit, a robbery crew that missed the $5,000 in his pocket, living in his father’s church parking lot, and watching his car hood fly off on Sunrise Highway—then continuing straight to the dealer. After surviving throat cancer and returning to drugs, a cocaine relapse with his girlfriend Maggie brought terrifying paranoia, imaginary pursuers, and another attempt to cast out demons with his dad.

But the story doesn’t end there. Anthony shares what finally changed: wanting to stop, getting honest, working the steps, going to therapy, rebuilding his relationship, and returning to school to become an addiction counselor. Today, the victories include a wedding on the horizon, matching bedding, seasonal dish towels, and spoons that haven’t been used to cook drugs.

PLUS! DopeyCon preparations, a kratom company’s sponsorship offer, Wiley’s bloody-rig-and-fire-pit meth voicemail, a listener’s desperate struggle with alcohol, an ephedrine experiment gone wrong, and the Kevin O’Leary backlash. Dave reads the love and hate and considers what it means when the show he makes is also “our show.”

All that AND more! On this New New New SUPER CLASSIC NEW episode of that good old DOPEY Shoe - errrr Show!

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This week on Dopey’s Greatest Hits! As DopeyCon approaches, we return to the first DopeyCon at the Church of the Holy Apostles for a sprawling night of drugs, addiction, dumb shit, music, comedy, and recovery.

Brandon Novak shares the extremes of his heroin addiction—including letting a man shave his asshole for ten dollars—and the very different life he’s built helping people through his sober houses. Andy Roy joins him for skateboarding chaos, a Washington Square Park encounter with David Lee Roth getting arrested, throwing a forty-ounce bottle at a food truck, and the intervention intended for Bam Margera that became Andy’s opportunity to get help.

PLUS! Chloe LaBranche delivers dark rehab comedy, Maia Szalavitz talks harm reduction and the surprising connection between Katz’s and needle-exchange activism, and Smiling Joe brings decades of addiction and recovery experience—including stealing a box of enormous silk bloomers to sell for heroin money. Erin Khar remembers finding black tar heroin hidden in her sweater while desperately sick at the Plaza Hotel, and MC Serch tells the story of finding recovery after his wife’s ultimatum, plus a weed-smoking disaster involving a terrified producer stranded on the Triborough Bridge.

Along the way: messages from Marc Maron and Artie Lange, music from the Dopey family, memories of Chris from his former partner Annie and Joe Schrank, Chris’s mushrooms-and-Jesus story, a chaotic trivia game, Linda’s moving account of coming to understand Dopey, and Alan facing a very suspicious appearance from “New York City Sarah.” All that and much more on DopeyCon 2022!

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Episode summary

This week on the Wednesday Dose of Dopey!, Photographer and adventurer Justin  Krompier, known on Instagram as Just Passing Through, shares his journey from suburban New Jersey opioid addiction to building a life around recovery, creativity, and the open road.

Justin traces his early relationship with prescription medication, his fascination with drug culture, and the college painkiller habit that eventually became heroin addiction. Along the way: padding his student-film budget to buy pills, getting paid to participate in cosmetic testing, offering dealers gas instead of money, getting robbed at knifepoint in his pajamas, and crushing up his remaining pills while a police officer approached his totaled car. In an eerie connection, that last incident mirrors the overdose story he had already turned into his senior thesis film.

After a relapse at the Peach Music Festival, a Christmas visit from his cousin helped Justin finally recognize his addiction. Watching Wild also awakened the possibility of a different life. He returned to treatment, embraced a twelve-step fellowship, and slowly rebuilt—delivering pizzas, working at UPS, and developing his photography between shifts. A trip to Yosemite and Big Sur eventually inspired him to leave UPS, build out a van with help from his recovery community, and pursue the adventures he once believed were impossible.

All that and MORE on this week's Dopey Dose!

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This week on the teaser! Heart Attack Doug returns, and Dave asks him about the year he spent drinking after roughly 16 years sober. Doug had stopped going to meetings, filled his time working on his house, and one night bought a case of beer while snowblowing. He hid cans in snowdrifts, drank for about a year, and eventually returned to recovery. There was no dramatic rock bottom: he says he felt miserable, dishonest, and disconnected from his family and spiritual life.

Dave and Doug also get into the reaction to the Kevin O’Leary interview, what belongs on a Friday episode of Dopey, and whether sex, love, and gambling addiction fit the show. Then they read comments on Ray’s episode and preview the DopeyCon theme song challenge.

GO TO PATREON FOR FULL THEME SONG CONTEST!

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THIS WEEK ON THE DOPEY TOTAL REPLAY! 

With DopeyCon less than a week away, Dave opens with news about Presley Gerber’s death at a Santa Monica recovery residence, recalling the time he got heroin brought into his own treatment facility. He also discusses reports about cychlorphine, a potent synthetic opioid identified in a San Francisco teenager’s death, then reads listener reactions to the Nick Reiner replay.

The show returns to episode 46 with Dave, Chris, Caitlin, and Colin. Chris’s attempt to date his hairdresser turns into an argument about scalp massages, roommates, and what actually happened. Caitlin tells the story of losing her boyfriend after a Deer Tick concert and spending the night on a Bronx football field between two strangers who helped her get home. Colin recalls Chris arriving in Great Barrington determined to get sober, the relapse that followed, and the friends who got him back to treatment. Then Colin tells his own blackout story: hiding under a log during a police raid, sheltering in a barn, and waking up beside a wrecked golf cart with a DUI charge. They finish by debating whether Dopey needs more structure, six months into making the show.

All that and a bit more on the old/new version of episode 46!

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This week on Dopey! Kevin O’Leary comes to the Dopey Studio for a conversation that starts with Shark Tank and gets into what drives him. He tells Dave about the job that pushed him toward entrepreneurship, why chasing wealth for status leaves people miserable, and the strange emptiness he felt once he was rich. They talk about his attempt to retire, his love of guitars and photography, alcohol, performance, and his wish for more time. Dave also takes him through “This or That,” with answers on music, watches, the Knicks, Trump, and his fellow Sharks.

Before Kevin arrives, listener Adam brings the unmistakably Dopey story: he swallows a balloon of heroin during a jail visit and later has to retrieve it without gloves. Dave shares DopeyCon news, reads some reactions to Garrett McClendon’s episode, and tries splitting listener comments between the beginning and end of the show.

All that and more on a not too Dopey but NEW Dopey episode of that good old Dopey show. 

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Episode summary

This week on Dopey's Greatest Hits! With DopeyCon’s game show edition coming up on October 3, Dave revisits the COVID-era DopeyCon 2. He opens by remembering the work that went into making a remote convention and the community members lost along the way, especially Colleen MC, to whom the original event was dedicated. An Australian listener then tells a mushroom story about falling deeply in love with a “tree” that turned out to be an ordinary yucca bush.

The replay brings together Dopey Nation voices and guests including Marc Maron, Bam Margera, Jessica Kent, Mike Majlak, Brandon Novak, Bob Forrest, Dr. Nzinga Harrison and Dr. Drew. Anders Osborne performs “Mind of a Junkie,” Scout Willis sings, and Dave visits places tied to Dopey’s beginnings. The stories move between absurd drug use and the lives people have built in recovery. Near the end, Dave remembers Colleen’s kindness and service to others; Alan then helps deliver a gloriously awkward final review.

Alll that and somehow more in the newest new old episode of dopey ever!

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Episode summary

On a special LIVE Wednesday Dose of DOPEY from Covington, Kentucky, Dave sits down with TikTok creator, entrepreneur and military veteran Gabbie Egan to talk about addiction, denial and the unexpected experience that finally convinced her to get sober.

Before the live conversation, Dave reflects on the AA principle that recovery can only be kept by giving it away, announces Gabbie’s upcoming appearance at DopeyCon and offers free admission to anyone who genuinely cannot afford a ticket. Listener Dean takes him up on the offer and sends a classic Dopey story about stealing his mother’s car to buy heroin in the Bronx, hitting a motorcyclist and fleeing with bundles scattered throughout the vehicle.

At the Transitions recovery event, Gabbie explains how she became pregnant at 13, struggled with trauma and domestic violence, joined the military at 17 and continued drinking while outwardly remaining productive and successful. During the pandemic, her candid videos about motherhood attracted millions of followers, but arrests in Las Vegas and Nashville eventually began threatening her family, career and reputation.

Even then, Gabbie remained convinced that alcohol wasn’t the problem. Her turning point came when a friend invited her to Los Angeles under the premise of appearing on a podcast—then brought her to her first AA meeting. Hearing another woman tell her story finally allowed Gabbie to recognize herself and admit, “I’m the problem.”

Gabbie describes the identity crisis and unhappiness of her first year sober, the peace she eventually made with her 13-year-old self and the freedom she found through forgiveness. Dave discusses Chris’s relapse and death, the necessity of maintaining recovery and the opportunity sober people have to transform painful experiences into service.

During the audience Q&A, Gabbie speaks about judgment, accountability, family reactions and learning to enjoy being home. The episode closes with an archival Dopey story in which Dave remembers walking against the crowd on September 11, 2001, persuading an armed soldier to let him reach his methadone clinic and then spending the remainder of the day shooting heroin.
 

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Episode summary

This week on the Tuesday Teaser! Ray Brown returns to Dopey—and leaves with a new job. After debating whether he should now be called Ray, Steven or “Stefan,” Dave offers him a position as Dopey’s new part-time engineer, largely because he lives ten blocks away and allegedly spends all day watching YouTube.

Dave explains the production disasters that plagued his recent interviews with Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jason Biggs, including forgotten recordings, duplicated camera angles and an emotionally vulnerable moment captured completely out of focus. From there, Dave and Ray compare dental nightmares before discussing Ray’s frightening summer of shingles, skin cancer and general physical deterioration.

Ray previews a new song for DopeyCon while Dave reveals that the annual DopeyCon theme-song contest currently has almost no entries. They then read listener reactions to the emotional return of Heart Attack Doug, revisit Dave and Doug’s falling-out, and discuss anger, avoidance, friendship, accountability and the difficulty of repairing a rupture.

The episode also includes Beatles opinions, the whereabouts of Ray Brown, GLP-1 medications, Dave’s habit of leaving people on read, Selby blaming everything on Dave, kitchen-sink laundry, Old Spice, Aqua Velva and an unpaid endorsement for Dr. Squatch Pine Tar deodorant.

All that and more on the teaser - but there is way way more if you sign up for Patreon and hear the whole show!

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Summary:

On this haunting Dopey Total Replay, Dave revisits the second half of Chris and Dave’s original conversation with Nick Reiner. Before the replay, Dave responds to listeners struggling with the episode in light of everything that happened afterward, reflects on Chris’s instinct for keeping the show on track, and explains why hearing both Chris and Nick together now feels like opening a bizarre and painful time capsule.

In the original conversation, Nick describes shooting cocaine for the first time in a McDonald’s bathroom after getting kicked out of sober living, while Dave and Chris trade their own stories about cocaine, meth, speedballs and the terrifying paranoia that followed. Nick traces his first heroin use back to people he met in adolescent treatment, raising difficult questions about sending young people into rehab before they are ready to stop.

The conversation moves through Skid Row, fake movie money, complicated relationships with dealers, privilege, family expectations and the pain of watching parents enter a world they never imagined for their children. Nick talks about growing up in the Reiner family, his father visiting him in jail immediately after attending his sister’s Harvard graduation, and his desire to escape the identity attached to wealth and Hollywood.

The episode closes with a disturbing listener story about sexual exploitation by a rehab counselor, followed by an unusually revealing debate between Dave, Chris and Nick about abstinence, controlled use and whether recovery would eventually become necessary. Looking back, Chris’s final prediction—“more will be revealed”—lands very differently today.

These all land at clean subject changes:

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Episode Summary:

This week on the 600th episode of Dopey! Dave celebrates the show’s unofficial 600th Friday episode from the increasingly unreliable Dopey studio at his father’s house—and considers either dismantling the whole operation or hiring Ray as the new engineer.

The episode begins with recovery anniversaries from the Dopey Nation. Mr. Jason celebrates one year sober and reflects on repeatedly returning after relapse, while Haley marks five years free from drugs after beginning at age 12. Hippie Earl delivers a classic Dopey voicemail about shooting heroin for the first time after having his wisdom teeth removed, mixing it with Percocet, Klonopin and alcohol, destroying his car and waking up with no memory of being arrested. Seventeen years later, he is celebrating a year completely sober.

Dave also launches the latest Dopey versus Phish beef, announces that Hamilton Morris is officially coming to DopeyCon, discusses the DopeyCon theme-song challenge and reads listener reactions to last week’s Jeff Garlin interview—including stories about food addiction, recovery and Dave’s allegedly improved listening skills.

Then Dave sits down with Garet Mclendon for one of the wildest and most complete meth stories ever told on Dopey.

Garet grew up in California’s Antelope Valley with a mother addicted to methamphetamine. By his early teens, he was smoking and selling speed, dropping out of school and getting high alongside his mother. Together, they stole three enormous pigs, loaded them into Garrett’s 1977 Toyota Celica and sold them at auction—only for his mother to short him on his share of the money.

From there, Garet’s life descends into stolen cars, homemade meth pipes, purple crank, mobile meth labs, prison riots and increasingly elaborate criminal schemes. He trades half a gram of meth for a Toyota, steals an enormous boulder for a drug connection, receives 168 traffic tickets and eventually organizes drug drops into prison using runners, duffel bags, trash cans and body-cavity “plugs.”

In prison, Garet injects meth for the first time. Once released, he combines meth and heroin in goofball shots and becomes trapped in a cycle of addiction, homelessness, incarceration and treatment. Everything finally begins to change when his friend Levi—nine months sober—embraces him inside a treatment facility and tells him, “I really hope you stay.”

Garet did stay. Thirteen years later, he has rebuilt his relationships, established a career in construction, helped create Mindset Recovery and become the present father his daughter always deserved. His story culminates in an emotional moment when his daughter asks him to continue their tradition and buy the dress she will wear to her college graduation.

It’s an outrageous, cinematic and ultimately beautiful episode about addiction, belonging, incarceration, fatherhood, service and the possibility of building an entirely new life.

All that and much ore on this brand spanking new episode of the good old dopey show!

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Episode summary:

NOTE: Bill Blabber past away 11/11/23 We love him and dedicate this show to him and Chirs and everyone else we've lost!

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This week on Dopey’s Greatest Hits! Dave revisits the emotional, hilarious and completely chaotic first-ever DopeyCon.

Before the replay, Dave talks DopeyCon 2026, his growing number of public encounters with Dopey Nation, listener comments, the Beatles and the limited-edition Iron Maiden Dopey shirt. Adam Byrd of Wreckage Disciple delivers an instant-classic voicemail about getting shot through the foot during a drive-by—then returning to his motel to smoke crack instead of going to the hospital.

Then it’s back to the original DopeyCon, recorded shortly after Chris died. Dave’s father Alan delivers Jewish guilt, Bill Blaber recounts a terrifying meth-psychosis odyssey involving Satan, an escape from court and an attempted stabbing, and Ray shares a beautiful story about a homeless man who helped her during one of her lowest moments.

Namaste at Home brings an incredible PCP-at-a-baby-shower story, Ray Brown performs the original Dopey song, and acclaimed author Nick Flynn reads poems about addiction, hidden Vicodin and the darkest corners of recovery. Chris’s sister Arden O’Connor remembers trying to rescue her brother from a Harlem drug dealer and reflects on the hope created by the Dopey community.

Finally, Dave explains the accidental formula behind Dopey’s success—the “rope-a-dope”—before remembering Todd and Chris, telling the legendary Mexican-food seizure story and closing the first DopeyCon with “Forever in Debt.”
 

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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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This week on the Dopey Dose! Dave opens the Wednesday Dose of Dopey with gratitude, recovery reflections and a reminder that it is possible to restart your day at any moment. A Canadian listener recounts ceremonially burying—and urinating on—his remaining cocaine while tripping on acid, while Northeast Ohio Bob remembers the drug-fueled chaos of Nelson Ledges Quarry Park.

Then Stephanie Wittels Wachs joins Dave to discuss her new book, Last Day, and the death of her brother, beloved Parks and Recreation writer and comedian Harris Wittels. Stephanie remembers growing up and experimenting with weed, mushrooms, acid and whippets alongside Harris, his obsessive love of Phish and the moment his casual drug use became an urgent dependence on pills and heroin. Harris admitted spending $4,000 a month on pills while his career was exploding, entered treatment twice and died from an overdose shortly afterward.

Stephanie explains how losing Harris transformed her into an advocate for harm reduction, overdose prevention and drug-policy reform. She and Dave discuss SafeSpot, Kimber and Stephen Murray, supervised consumption sites, the shame that forces people to use alone and the importance of keeping people alive without demanding that they become sober on someone else’s timetable.

The conversation closes with an honest discussion of grief, therapy, purpose and gratitude. Stephanie describes how writing and caring for her daughter gradually helped her build a larger life around the permanent loss of Harris.

All that and more on the brand new Wednesday Dose of Dopey!

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On the teaser! Dave celebrates eleven years of recovery, asks whether Dopey qualifies as art and reminds everyone that DopeyCon is coming October 3. He reads a listener’s Rolling Stones dream, considers the impossible mission of getting Mick Jagger or Keith Richards on Dopey and discusses potential episodes involving Anthony Bourdain, Mark Lanegan and legendary rock journalist Nick Kent.

Dave also reads the overwhelming response to the recent Patreon episode about his own history and the possible Dopey documentary. Finally, he previews his intense Los Angeles conversation with Christopher, who describes growing up as one of eleven brothers amid abandonment, violence and abuse—before sharing his larger story of addiction, sex work and redemption exclusively on Patreon.

All that and somehow still - MORE!

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Episode summary:

This week on Dopey Total Replay! Dave circles back to Dopey Episode 42—the first appearance of his lifelong friend Devan. Before the replay, Dave celebrates eleven years in recovery, reflects on acceptance, gratitude and friendship, makes amends for sharing too much about a sponsee, and responds to listeners inspired by the Hunter Biden interview.

Then Dave, Chris and Devan revisit their teenage years in New York City, including Dave and Devin’s first acid trip at a Grateful Dead show, the pug that looked like an alien, a disastrous baby-powder fight and their organized campaign to steal CDs from HMV. Chris remembers Surfer Mike, addiction before the drugs and his dangerous childhood experiments with model rockets. Finally, an Australian listener tells the insane story of an overdosed friend who was dumped in a phone booth—only to wake up hours later and call the people who left him there.

All that and MORE on the total replay episode of the good old dopey show!

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