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Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Summary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Episode summary

Dave opens the Wednesday Dose of Dopey by responding to a listener who noticed he seemed a little off. He talks honestly about the pressure of producing five shows a week, his obsessive pursuit of Jason Mewes, the strange sadness that follows surrender, and what’s coming together for DopeyCon.

Then JD shares a terrifying story from his twenties: three sleepless days inside a Mississippi trailer with an ounce of cocaine, crack, beer, no food and almost no water. After a massive shot leaves him conscious but completely unable to move, his friend helps bring him back—only for JD to immediately smoke the biggest crack hit of his life.

Dave remembers Annie Ellie and Brian “Hot Wheels” Connolly through comments from the Dopey Nation before welcoming back Jed Payne of Church & Other Drugs and Rehab Bromance.

Approaching one year sober after years of concealed relapse, Jed talks about going from addiction counselor to treatment patient, sharing a room with former clients, working at a coffee shop with teenagers, and accepting the humiliation required to rebuild his life. He explains how CBD and “microdosing” became the beginning of his return to getting high, why clinicians in recovery need somewhere safe to struggle, and how easily helping addicts can replace doing your own recovery work.

Then things get properly Dopey: Jed recalls shooting cocaine while a police officer stood beside the car, injecting a bright-blue ecstasy pill in a gas-station bathroom, boofing two more pills before work, rolling with his hands submerged in marinara sauce, and eventually passing out on the prep table.

Jed and Dave also discuss 7-OH, smoke-shop opioids, Sublocade, coming off Suboxone, emotional recovery after relapse, staying present, and the small daily actions he is using to become a man of his word again.

All that and STILL MORE on the newest Wednesday Dose of Dopey!

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Episode summary

On a new Dopey Tuesday Teaser, Dave celebrates Hardcore Dope Eric’s four-year sobriety anniversary before explaining the strange history of his long-awaited interview with Jason Mewes—Jay from Jay and Silent Bob and films including Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma.

After nearly ten years of trying to book Jason, Dave finally recorded with him—only for Dave’s internet to fail around an hour into the conversation. Six months of attempts to schedule the rest of the interview went nowhere, leaving Dave to confront the blurry line between persistence and becoming unbearably annoying. He decides to stop pursuing Jason, make amends in spirit and release the unfinished conversation exclusively on Patreon.

Jesse contributes a classic Xanax blackout story: he drives to a gas station, nods out with his foot on the brake and wakes up safely in bed with no idea where his car went. When he reports it missing, the police remind him that they drove him home, helped him climb through his window and parked the car for him.

Abby shares her journey from winning a sixth-grade DARE essay contest to alcoholism, a suicide attempt, an out-of-state DUI and eventually nine years of sobriety. The daughter of two addicts who met at an AA barn dance, Abby describes praying for 90 days until her desire to drink finally lifted. Today, she is a mother, business owner and active member of the recovery community.

Dave also reads Spotify and Patreon reactions to the Reddit Roundup, including praise for his increasingly elaborate guided meditations, more DopeyCon game-show suggestions, criticism of Heart Attack Doug, a possible reconciliation with Cat Marnell and an idea for episodes built around music from different periods of Dave’s addiction. The teaser closes with the beginning of the elusive Jason Mewes interview before the rest disappears behind the Patreon paywall.

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On this week’s Dopey Total Replay, Dave returns to Episode 40—an early Dave-and-Chris show about drug dreams, relapse anxiety, dentists, nitrous oxide and the weird feeling of no longer recognizing the addict you used to be.

Before the replay, Dave reads an unbelievable letter from Josh Clark about Django, the family’s Parsons Russell Terrier who developed his own meth habit. Django learned to hunt down dropped shards, lick used injection cottons and even hide cottons around the house for later. After Josh entered treatment and Django was forced to kick, the dog continued reacting to needles, alcohol wipes and tattoo equipment like they might lead to one more dose.

Then it’s back to 2016, where Chris describes dreaming about shooting cocaine but waking up just before the rush hits. Dave remembers wandering through dreams with Todd searching for heroin, finding drugs and never being able to get away from everyone long enough to use them. They talk about relapse dreams, dope-sick nightmares, hiding imaginary relapses from sponsors and family, the shame of appearing high while completely sober and whether addicts can somehow recreate altered states without taking anything.

The conversation eventually wanders into Vicodin after dental surgery, nitrous oxide, eating an Italian sub immediately after wisdom-tooth removal, waking up with somebody else’s front teeth in your pocket, alcoholic denial, pointless therapy and an awkward call with Ray Brown about how appearing on Dopey changed his life.

It’s a loose, funny and strangely revealing early episode—classic Dave and Chris turning drug addiction, recovery anxiety and absolutely nothing into an hour of Dopey.

and more

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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.

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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

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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!

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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

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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.

All that plus more!

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