Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction

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Summary

Dopey Greatest Hits: Actor and storyteller Ned Van Zandt returns to promote his one-man show, Lost in Dell Valley, and revisit his astonishing life in addiction and recovery. Ned describes being recognized in jail by the leader of the Texas Aryan Brotherhood, who traded him protection and OxyContin for acting lessons using scenes from Lost and Prison Break.

The episode then replays Ned’s original Dopey appearance: doing heroin with Andy Warhol’s circle, living at the Chelsea Hote...

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Summary / show notes

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

Poet/writer/'clinician' addict Zach Frank returns to discuss anxious attachment, fear, resentment and the difficulty of responding thoughtfully when emotions take...

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Summary / show notes

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

Before the documentary preview, Dave remembers musician Mark Hudson, announces the DopeyCon Theme Song Challenge, runs through the growing DopeyCon lineup, reads listener updates, celebrates recovery anniversaries, and...

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Summary: 

Episode summary

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

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

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

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

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Summary:

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

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

Then Brian opens up about...

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Summary

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

Joe explains why he believes the traditional rehab industry often confuses compliance with actual healing—and why recovery should be measured by improvement, reduced harm and staying alive, not only perfect abstinence. Dave and Joe dig into Brad Pitt’s decision to drink moderately after years of s...

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Summary / show notes

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

Then Snake from the UK delivers a classic festival disaster. On the way into Bang Face, a rave filled with hardcore electronic music and drugs, Snake removes an enormous assortment of ketamine, MDMA, cocaine, weed, 2C...

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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. Sh...

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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 in...

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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 f...

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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...

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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 i...

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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...

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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...

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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 fentan...

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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...

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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 thr...

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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, ar...

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Katie starts at 32 minutes in!

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

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

Katey traces her story from growing up in Southern California and discovering music as her f...

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Episode Summary

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

Then Shane’s story begins. Raised by an addicted mother, arrested alongside her at 12 and homeless as a teen...

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

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

Later, writer and recovering addict Kevin McEnroe returns for a wide-ranging conversation about the Knicks championship, watching his father John McEnroe celebrate with Larry Davi...

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EPISODE SUMMARY

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

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

Dave also recaps the Great South Bay Music Festival, including Little Feat...

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SUMMARY:

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

Dave also talks about briefly considering buying weed at the Great South Bay Music...

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SUMMARY:

This week on Dopey, Dave marks eight years since the death of his original co-host and close friend, Chris O’Connor. After celebrating members of Dopey Nation—including brothers Brian and Matt, Laren, Steve Schneider and Jessica—Dave reflects on recovery, character defects and the strange experience of hearing Chris again every week through the Total Dopey Replay.

The heart of the episode is an intimate conversation with Chris’s former fiancée, Annie, who is now a surgeon, a wife and t...

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Summary:

This week on Dopey Greatest Hits, Dave marks the eighth anniversary of Chris O’Connor’s death with a powerful replay about relapse, survival and the people addiction takes from us. Before the original episode, Dave reflects on his own recovery, restraint of pen and tongue, missing meetings and the uncomfortable truth that two things can be true at once. He also reads a brutally honest email from James D. DeHart about coming within seconds of buying meth after three years away from hard drugs.

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Episode summary:

This week we continue Allman Brothers Month!Legendary photographer, archivist and Allman Brothers tour manager Kirk West tells the incredible story of his journey from small-town Iowa into the center of American rock-and-roll history. After discovering psychedelics and Chicago blues in the late 1960s, Kirk became an IV meth user and drug dealer. He fled pending charges, landed in the psychedelic communities of Boulder and Northern California, and was eventually identified and arrested while hitchhiking through Nevada with meth and syringes in his backpack.

...

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Episode Teaser Summary:

Dave is back in the garage with Heart Attack Doug for a hilarious and chaotic Dopey Tuesday reunion! The episode opens with a fresh Surrealismo remix of the Dopey theme, sparking an immediate debate over Beatles remixes, Rocky Raccoon, and who actually wrote the hits (with Dave campaigning hard for Izzy Stradlin).

Doug brings the fire with savage voice memos and an all-time great impression of a whiny, anti-Semitic Dave, while the duo dives headfirst into classic meeting drama — someone stole fr...

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This week on the Dopey Total Replay,!Dave returns from his summer hiatus and previews the family’s Pacific Northwest adventure, the upcoming Patreon Zoom, and the big decision facing DopeyCon: Friday night at the SVA Theatre or Saturday at the old church.

Then we travel back to Dopey Episode 37 for a classic conversation with Dave and Chris. They talk about sponsorship, working the steps, honesty, spirituality, and the strange miracle of one addict helping another. Dave tells the story of Jerr...

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This week on Dopey! We open the show with a deep dive into Lou Reed's classic junkie anthem "Waiting for the Man" before reading incredible listener stories involving MDMA-assisted therapy, smashing open a safe with an axe for OxyContin, smoking crack in an airplane bathroom, a horrific flesh-eating abscess, and surviving Antabuse mixed with opioids.

Then legendary author Jerry Stahl returns for one of the funniest and deepest conversations Dopey has ever had. Jerry shares never-before-heard stories about writing for Twin Peaks, working with David Lynch...

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SUMMARY

This week on Dopey Greatest Hits, Dave officially declares July to be Allman Brothers Month and revisits one of his favorite interviews—with Duane Betts, guitarist, songwriter and son of the legendary Dickey Betts.

Before the interview, Dave talks about his lifelong love of “Blue Sky,” reflects on a difficult Patreon Zoom and reminds himself of one of recovery’s hardest lessons: restraint of pen and tongue. Papa Smurf contributes an incredible story about selling mushrooms in an Allman B...

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This week on the Wednesday Dose of Dopey, We kick off an unofficial "Allman Brothers Month" with acclaimed music journalist and author Alan Paul, whose books One Way Out, Brothers and Sisters, and Texas Flood have become essential reading for fans of Southern rock and rock history.

Before the interview, Dave plays a hilarious voicemail from Australia about a first DUI, drinking gin while delivering food, accidentally racing an unmarked police car, and finishing the remaining booze in f...

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STRAIGHT AI SUMMARY:

This week on Dopey Tuesday, Dave checks in fresh from another brutally sweaty workout with his new trainer, who thankfully traded emo music for N.W.A. and Biggie. Dave talks about embracing the Dopey fitness challenge, surviving leg day, walking miles in the summer heat, and learning a little humility while trying to get back into shape.

Since he's banking episodes before heading out on vacation, Dave changes things up by reading the Just For Today meditation on...

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On this week's Dopey Total Replay! I recorded before sunrise while his family is on vacation and reflects on how strange it feels to revisit an episode recorded 10 years ago with Chris. He talks about why he still prefers making Dopey close to its release date, the lightning outside our window, early morning workouts, and how stress has him waking up at 4:30 a.m.

Dave celebrates the thriving Wednesday Patreon Recovery Zoom, thanks the Dopey Nation for supporting the show, and reads a remarkable email from listener Taylor inspired by...

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This week on Dopey! We kick things off catching up with Dopey Nation, talking recovery, life, and the strange little community that's grown around this dumb podcast on drugs, addiction, and dumb shit. We dive into a listener voicemail about loving an addict, codependency, and the painful reality that sometimes helping someone means stepping back. As always, there's plenty of laughter, honesty, and reminders that none of us have to do this alone.

Then Ben Croxton sits down and tells one of the wildest stories we've...

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This week on Dopey! Dave opens in a reflective mood before vacation, trying to practice gratitude while also admitting how ridiculous and uncomfortable it feels. He gives thanks to the Dopey team, Dopey Nation, the people who helped with the film festival, and talks about being sober, scrambling to get shows done, House of the Dragon, and crying on the Long Island Railroad while watching the Knicks finals mini movie.

Then Dave gets into revenge, resentment, recovery, redemption, and the dangerous romance of “getting back.” He plays a wi...

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DopeyCon looks like 10/2

This week on the Wednesday Dose of Dopey! Dave opens the show with Ben Croxton's classic DopeyCon song before sharing updates on planning DopeyCon 7 and asking the Dopey Nation to help make this year's event the biggest one yet. Along the way, he plays a listener voicemail about an unforgettable acid trip at Minnesota's Jungle Love festival, talks about psychedelic-assisted recovery, patience, tolerance, and the importance of keeping your mouth shut in sobriety, reads one of the darkest emails ever sent to the...

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Dave and special guest are back for another gloriously ridiculous Dopey Tuesday. This week they celebrate Christmas in July with a twisted holiday song before diving into heroin poppies, opium tea, Bob Dylan rumors, Andy Warhol, Basquiat, and Dave's latest Hollywood masterpiece: Christmas at Katz's. They also kick off a conversation about the first-ever Dopey Short Recovery Film Festival before the paywall comes crashing down.

To hear Ray's full review of the film festival, the birth of "The Dopeys," listener emails, Zoe's voicemail, Elvis, a...

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AI SUMMARY:

This week on the Dopey Replay, Dave revisits Episode 35—the first true celebrity interview in Dopey history—with House of Pain co-founder Danny Boy O'Connor. Before the interview, Dave shares the story of meeting Danny Boy at Katz's Delicatessen, reads a voicemail from a listener who overdosed after sneaking back into work to retrieve heroin from his desk, and shares another unbelievable Dopey Nation story involving meth, a .357 revolver, and a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

**Then Danny Boy joins Dave and Chris for an ep...

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This week on Dopey! We kick things off with the aftermath of the first-ever Dopey Short Recovery Film Festival—Dave’s post-event crash, gratitude, Knicks withdrawal, listener emails, Dean Moda Patreon comments, meth-sex insanity, Monkey Man research, and a wild voicemail about shooting someone up for the first time.

Then Dr. Reef Karim comes on! They explore why Dopey works as an underdog podcast, creativity in recovery, building an addiction treatment center that blended psychiatry with spirituality, and why storytelling may be one of the most powerful recovery tool...