Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction

FIlm Festival Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905

PAtreon: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

COULDNT RESIST AN EMERGENCY KNICKS EP! Here are AI notes:

This emergency Dopey episode is Dave and Kevin McEnroe going full Knicks sicko mode on the day of Game 1 of the NBA Finals. They talk about Addicted to the Knicks, the idea of “KA,” Knicks fandom as church, childhood obsession, superstition, dads, recovery, and why caring about the Knicks feels weirdly connected to getting sober.

Kevin talks about being hooked on the Knicks before drugs, his first brutal Knicks memory — leaving the Garden early and hearing Reggie Miller’s eight points in nine seconds from a cab — and how addiction made him lose interest in everything, including basketball. Dave tells his legendary story of sneaking into Madison Square Garden during a Knicks/Bulls playoff game through a Calypso festival and a stoner kid in concessions.

They hit Anthony Mason, John Starks, Patrick Ewing, Knicks Tape, David Lee, Nate Robinson, Brunson, KAT, Wemby, Mitchell Robinson, Tibbs, Mike Brown, and the insane feeling of New York City actually coming together around the Knicks.

 

 

 

 

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

Film Festival Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905

Listen Without ads on patreon: www.pareon.com/dopeypodcast

This week on the Wednesday Dose!

The episode kicks off with a classic hippie Dopey email from listener MB, who recounts a spectacular Phish tour nitrous disaster. After days of ketamine, booze, overpriced cocaine, and lot balloons at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Colorado, MB face-plants into the dirt while clutching multiple nitrous balloons, destroys his glasses, spends a miserable flight home dry-heaving and hallucinating, and somehow survives a concussion-level experience. The story ends on a positive note with nearly ten months clean and sober and a request for dream guests Gibby Haynes and Jason Isbell.

Dave then dives into Patreon and Spotify comments, including continuing fallout from the Dopey Sticker Contest. Selby files an official election challenge, claiming the contest was stolen and accusing Dave of failing to refresh Patreon before announcing a winner. Dave doubles down, insisting Felix Heads remains the champion despite accusations of voter suppression, corruption, and sticker fraud. Along the way listeners discuss ADHD, religion, Knicks fandom, kratom recovery, Long Island stories, and the eternal mystery of white crack dealers.

The heart of the episode is an incredible interview with Michael Muniz, a 69-year-old Brooklyn native with 36 years sober. Michael tells a quintessential New York story that stretches from Brownsville gangs, schoolyard fights, and witnessing the neighborhood transformation of Brooklyn in the 1960s and 70s to marijuana, acid, cocaine, crack addiction, homelessness, Rikers Island, and ultimately recovery through Phoenix House.

Michael shares stories about seeing his deceased father’s face in the clouds during an LSD trip, discovering crack in the Cypress Projects and instantly becoming obsessed, losing everything while sleeping on subway trains and wandering New York’s tunnels, robbing his mother, surviving violent encounters, and eventually finding his way into Phoenix House. What began as a plan to simply get clean long enough to save money and return to crack eventually became a lifelong recovery journey.

The conversation explores therapeutic communities, recovery philosophy, family loyalty, homelessness during the crack epidemic, the culture of Brooklyn neighborhoods, Rikers Island in the 1980s, and the power of second chances. Michael also describes a dramatic courtroom moment where, facing serious federal charges, he convinced a judge to give him probation instead of prison after speaking honestly about recovery and wanting a different life.

By the end, Michael reflects on his 36 years of sobriety, his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, acting career, and belief that recovery is a lifelong process. Dave and Michael bond over drug dreams, gratitude, family, and the reality that while the desire to get high may never fully disappear, a meaningful life in recovery is infinitely better.

The episode closes with Michael from the band Good Kid performing a live version of “Good So Bad,” 

All that and MORE MORE MORE on the Wednesday dose of that good old Dopey Show!

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

FILM FEST TIX: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905

FULL EPISODE: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

Long Summary

Dave welcomes Heart Attack Doug back to Dopey Tuesday on his birthday, though he's not exactly feeling celebratory after waking up groggy from NyQuil and discovering that his daughter forgot it was his birthday. Doug immediately notices Dave's low energy, launching a conversation about birthday expectations and disappointments.

The bulk of the opening centers around a heated debate about the season finale of Euphoria. Dave argues that the show abandoned its core characters and became an entirely different series, while Doug enthusiastically defends it and praises the acting. The two argue over Nate's storyline, Rue's fate, Ali's character arc, and whether the show has any future after its finale.

The conversation shifts into prison talk when Montana's latest letter arrives from a Texas prison. Montana shares updates about college classes, Toastmasters, prison job training officers, losing his dog, and staying sober. This leads Doug to speculate about how Dave would survive prison, suggesting he'd either join a gang or become part of a strange collection of intellectuals, misfits, and recovery people. Dave insists he'd survive through entertainment value and his connection to recovery.

Dave also reflects on a recent doctor's appointment and how grateful he is not to be regularly drug tested anymore. The conversation spirals into stories about fake urine, the Wizinator, and the absurd lengths addicts go to avoid failing drug tests.

The guys read Patreon and Spotify comments, discuss the upcoming Dopey Short Film Festival, promote Patreon, and eventually prepare to reveal the results of the Dopey Sticker Contest.

JOIN PATREON FOR THE CONTEST!

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

Dopey Film Festival Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905

Patreon: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

Long Summary

This week's Total Replay features Dopey Episode 30, originally recorded in the Lower East Side apartment when Chris and Dave were still figuring out what the show would become.

Dave opens by explaining why Episode 29 won't be replayed. It was Ray Brown's first appearance on Dopey, but Ray has repeatedly requested that his early appearances remain offline. Dave pays tribute to Ray and plugs the upcoming Dopey Recovery Film Festival before reflecting on how strange it is to revisit these early episodes.

The episode begins with Chris bringing his then-girlfriend Karen onto the show. Karen and Chris discuss meeting on Tinder, their awkward early dates, Chris almost ghosting her, and the bizarre process of figuring out whether they were actually boyfriend and girlfriend. Dave relentlessly interrogates both of them about their relationship while Karen patiently tolerates the nonsense.

Karen reveals she had already listened to Dopey before Chris realized it and shares what it was like hearing some of Chris's wilder stories for the first time. The conversation includes a hilarious story about Karen drunkenly inviting Chris over, only for him to arrive and find her passed out on the toilet.

The show then veers into classic early Dopey territory: recovery debates, methadone arguments, active addicts, prison stories, and discussions about whether people on maintenance medications should qualify at meetings.

The centerpiece of the episode is Chris's legendary LSD story:

After relapsing while working at a sober living house, Chris begins ordering drugs from the Silk Road. He buys heroin, cocaine, and some incredibly strong LSD. While attempting to maintain the appearance of sobriety, he takes acid during a screening of The Wolf of Wall Street with his girlfriend Tina.

By the time they return home, Chris is tripping hard and realizes his girlfriend is going to notice. His solution? Convince her he's experiencing HPPD (Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder) brought on by meditation.

Chris leads a meditation session, then pretends he's suddenly having an LSD flashback. Initially Tina believes him. Eventually guilt gets the better of him and he confesses. Then he immediately tries to convince her he didn't actually take acid after all, causing her to question her own reality before finally admitting the truth again.

The story ends with Tina kicking him out while Chris, deep into the trip, worries less about the relationship and more about whether she'll make him carry home a gigantic cast-iron piggy bank he had previously given her as a gift.

The episode closes with a discussion about recovery, why addicts laugh at horrifying things they've done, and how the absurdity of addiction becomes funny only after enough distance and healing.

A bonafide dopey classic!

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

Film Festival Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905

Patreon: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast

This week on Dopey! Lots of stuff in this one: my ridiculous dog emergency room experience plus three tick bites in one day!Then we get into listener love — a great email from Sean O about early recovery and live music, Taylor’s wild meth/booze/Grinder voicemail, and Minnesota Matt’s heavy story about losing friends to heroin overdoses.

Then we get into a much different kind of Dopey with activist and person in recovery, Haneef Perry. Haneef grew up in Palmer Park, Maryland, during the crack era. He started smoking PCP (“Love Boat”) at 12, sold crack as a teenager, lost his best friend Earl to street violence, started carrying guns, and at 18 got caught up in a shooting that resulted in a first-degree murder conviction and a life + 15 year sentence.

In prison he taught himself to read, converted to Islam, became a leader trying to stop the violence, and after 20 brutal years had his conviction overturned. Now he’s out, married, working in peer recovery, and deeply involved in community work in Baltimore.

This one is raw, spiritual, full of systemic reality, trauma, and real redemption. Serious, heavy Dopey business. All that and much much more on a totally brand new episode of that good old Dopey Show!

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