Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction

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NOTE: The full episode has huge belly laughs at the end. 

PLUS: This show is a parody - Jackass is not a hotbed for antisemites

Dave opens a Tuesday episode of Dopey with Heart Attack Doug returning after a serious hospital stay. Doug describes ignoring worsening symptoms, eventually going to the hospital, and enduring a chaotic, overcrowded emergency room experience before receiving treatment.

Dave contrasts Doug’s health scare with the ongoing reality of addiction in the Dopey community, noting how many people still die from drugs. He shares his own recent experience getting sick, likely from food poisoning, after a hike and eating a Trader Joe’s chicken Caesar wrap.

The episode shifts into community interaction, with Dave reading Spotify and Patreon comments. Many listeners send support to Doug while also jokingly preferring other guests like Aurora. The conversation touches on recovery topics, including sponsorship, honesty, and the mental patterns behind addiction—highlighted by a discussion of the “just one more” mindset.

Dave reflects on the Dopey community, expresses appreciation, and teases future stories, including a cliffhanger about nearly being assaulted at a meeting. The episode ends with a listener performance of “Good So Bad.”

 

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This week on the Total Replay!  Steve Poltz is now officially part of the Dopeywood  lineup! a

Before the replay, Dave reads a long email from a listener who describes heroin and fentanyl use in Los Angeles, Portland, and New York City. The listener overdoses after snorting fentanyl in a car at a stoplight, uses again in the hospital, and later recounts several New York heroin connections involving Union Square, Harlem, Tompkins Square Park, Williamsburg, and an arrest that led to community service. A walk down memory lane.

We then read Spotify comments about the Jeremy episode, including an apology from EK Fleck about criticizing his ibogaine story, and share a funny old story about Jeremy improvising with a shoe during a high school musical.

The replayed old Dopey episode features Dave and Chris joking about who their listeners are, whether they are sober or using, and Chris mentioning that his sponsor hated the show and compared it to Wayne’s World. Dave then tells a story about a guy in Los Angeles who insisted on seeing him before his flight, drove him away from the airport to smoke weed, and indirectly caused Dave to realize he had missed his flight. The old episode ends with a brief discussion of “flash blood,” a dangerous practice in which people inject blood drawn from someone who has just used heroin.

 

After the replay, Dave says he decided not to play Episode 21 after all. He reminisces about the Vietnamese food he and Chris always used to eat while recording.

 

He then reads an email and plays a voicemail from Sarah. In the email, she describes relapsing after a car accident, getting pulled into kratom and then 7-OH, and feeling trapped in a cycle of dishonesty, withdrawal, and failed attempts to quit. In her voicemail, she talks about growing up in a culture where drinking was normalized, working in restaurants, blacking out regularly, and eventually realizing she had cracked her own windshield during a blackout and almost driven into a lake. She says she now has about two and a half years sober from alcohol.

ALL THAT AND MORE! MORE! MORE! MORE! on a brand new episode of Dopey!

 

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This week on Dopey!  Lots of good stuff with TRANS, CRUST PUNK, AlCOHOLIC SUPERSTAR - EARLY BRUNNER! We play a voicemail about someone burying a dead lizard with meth and later digging it up to do lines on the coffin!

Spotify Comments! Someone questions my ibogaine/sublicad/vivtrol experience!

Then we are joined by Early Brunner! Early describes growing up in Wisconsin feeling socially different and isolated, later identifying as autistic and queer. They begin using substances at a young age, first alcohol and cigarettes, then marijuana, finding that drugs helped them connect with others.

In high school and early adulthood, their use escalates. After moving to Milwaukee for college, they drop out, develop a heavy alcohol problem, and become addicted to nitrous oxide. They attempt to stop drinking briefly but quickly relapse.

They move to Austin, where their drinking worsens and leads to alcohol-induced psychosis, compounded by lack of sleep and unstable work. After a breakdown, they leave and move to Florida, where their drug use expands and their life becomes increasingly unstable and survival-focused.

Early becomes fully immersed in a punk/crust lifestyle tied to substance use and identity. Over time, they begin recognizing the negative impact of addiction but continue using.

Later, they become an EMT and witness deaths related to inhalant abuse, which they say is rarely discussed and carries significant shame.

The episode ends with Early discussing their current recovery and work with “Recovery Demystified,” followed by Dave reflecting on the interview, addressing a critical listener comment, and closing with gratitude and show announcements.

All that PLUS TONS MORE on this weeks new episode of the brand new Friday episode of the good old Dopey Show!

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This week on Dopey's Greatest Hits - The Patrons voted for Artie Lange! In one of my most proud moments - we had the honor of havingArtie Lange on the show. It happened two weeks before Chris died and was loaded with all kinds of crazy emotions.

We talk about everything: Artie’s rise from Mad TV to the Howard Stern Show, how heroin took over his life, the insanity of fame, gambling, strippers, and self-destruction at the highest level. He tells stories that are as funny as they are fucked — Santa Claus shitting his pants, buying coke before Dirty Work, and getting high while becoming one of the biggest voices in radio.

I cannot believe this even happened!

Please send comments to [email protected]

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This week on Wednesday!

We talk music and memories, Doug is improving, a mess of KRATOM comments on Spotify - Wendy's Meth scissors and a great walk down dopey memory lane.

The main interview is with Zac Clark, who talks about Release Recovery, Chris’s old sober living days, clinicians relapsing, the line between treatment work and actual personal recovery, and why people who work in recovery still need their own meetings “for fun and for free.” Zac also talks about going to Onsite when he lost his joy, what it gave him, how therapy and recovery fit together, why he runs, what MAT means to him, and how a bank teller basically saved his life when he was at the end of his run. By the end, Dave and Zach get into competition, gratitude, social media, reality TV, running the marathon, fruit, and the Dopey Fitness Challenge, before Dave closes with updates on his own walking, pushups, Couch to 5K, and Dopeywood in LA.

All that and more! On the latest Wednesday of that old school Dopey Show.

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