Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction

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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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