Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction

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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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