Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction

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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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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 fentanyl nearly destroyed his family and career.

In the episode’s most unbelievable story, Ryan accidentally injects approximately 60 hits of liquid LSD after confusing it with ketamine. He drives through California while hallucinating that his fiancée and children are in the car, encounters a dead body in the road, and eventually wakes up in a teepee-shaped motel room before being hospitalized.

Ryan also describes his progression from heroin to fentanyl, multiple overdoses, fighting naked inside a detox, starting methadone, and finally understanding what powerlessness means. Dave and Ryan discuss the dangerous mythology of the drug-addicted artist, Ryan’s identification with Hunter S. Thompson, the toll his public persona took on his family, and whether he could remain creative without heroin.

A classic Dopey conversation with the late writer, filmmaker, father, and unforgettable friend of the show, Ryan Leone.

RIP PALABRA & MORE

 

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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 to Brian “Hot Wheels” Connolly’s unforgettable appearances with Dave and Chris. Brian tells the devastating story of breaking his neck after diving through a frozen pond, learning to inject heroin despite quadriplegia, and struggling to build a meaningful life in recovery. In an especially painful moment, Brian calls Dopey while craving heroin—and Chris helps talk him through the night.

It’s an episode about grief, community, relapse, survival, and the people whose lives continue to matter after they are gone.

And MORE!

 

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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 throw it all into a dumpster, strap the dumpster to a rocket ship, and launch the entire fucking thing into the sun.

 

Then Lauren B. delivers an instant-classic “socks for stories” voicemail. During the early days of COVID, when she and her boyfriend were so broke they were smoking cigarettes off the ground, Lauren spotted what she thought was a receipt beside a puddle. Instead, she found an entire ounce of real heroin in a ripped plastic bag that appeared to have been hidden inside somebody’s ass. The heroin kept them from hustling for several days—but after it ran out, Lauren bought something different and suffered her first overdose.

 

Dave also reads the Spotify and Patreon comments from Heart Attack Doug’s birthday episode. The Nation debates whether Doug needs to reveal more of his recovery story, whether his defensive shtick is wearing thin, and why he may still be the perfect Dopey cohost. Plus: gluten-free chicken parmesan, Billy Joe Shaver, James Brown, decriminalization, grief, relapse, losing beloved dogs, and finding a way back when life wears you down.

The episode closes with a heartfelt and imperfect cover of “Good So Bad,” a song that helped inspire a Dopey listener to get clean.

The full Reddit Roundup with the great Cormac and difficult Selby is available exclusively on Patreon.

plus more

 

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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, arguing about whether Dave is a control freak, and repeatedly attempting to sing the Chili’s baby-back-ribs jingle. Chris tells the story of traumatizing his epileptic Portuguese water dog, plays an accidentally stolen Howard Stern prank, and recalls buying cocaine from a garbage bag in an abandoned Caribbean house—before lighting his hair on fire.

The episode eventually turns toward recovery, connection, and the importance of calling another sober person when things get dark. Then, naturally, Dave and Chris destroy “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” A chaotic early Dopey classic that captures exactly why their partnership worked.

All that plus more!

 

 

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