The AfterMeth: Gay Men Recovering from Crystal Methamphetamine and Chemsex Addiction

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Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/regulating
In this episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas sits down with Doug Marshall, a trauma-informed life coach and somatic practitioner known online as "The World of Doug," for a deep dive into nervous system regulation and its central role in chemsex recovery. Doug, who facilitates recovery groups in Los Angeles and works with clients one-on-one and in online communities, brings both clinical insight and candid personal disclosure to the conversation, tracing how his own thirty-year pattern of compulsive sexual behavior and rejection-seeking was rooted in nervous system dysregulation rather than simple "addiction." Dallas connects this directly to the chemsex experience, framing instant gratification, app culture, and sexualized drug use as symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system seeking quick relief rather than moral failings, and the two unpack how growing up gay often means a nervous system primed for hypervigilance, secrecy, and shame from an early age.
The episode offers practical, body-based tools alongside the theory: Doug walks through the amygdala's role as a "danger detector," the fight-flight-freeze-fawn response, and how modern stressors like dating apps can hijack the prefrontal cortex the same way a physical threat would. He introduces concrete techniques listeners can use in moments of urge or dysregulation, including the "heart hold" (drawn from Internal Family Systems work), the butterfly hug for bilateral stimulation, mirror work, and simply pausing for thirty seconds to a few minutes before acting on a craving as a way of building tolerance for discomfort. Doug and Dallas also discuss the importance of self-validation over external approval, the dangers of taking perceived rejection personally on apps, and the value of practicing vulnerability and honesty in relationships rather than performing constant positivity — closing with an emphasis that healing isn't a quick fix, but a daily practice of learning to sit with one's own feelings.
Contact Doug:
My membership community Rewire & rise: https://go.lifetext.ai/creator/doug
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theworldofdoug/
Website: https://theworldofdoug.com/
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Dallas Bragg
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Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/being

In this solo episode, Dallas Bragg shares a pivotal moment from his own early recovery — staying calm and unreactive during a near-collision in a gas station parking lot while his mother visited for Family Day at his treatment center — to introduce a framework he calls having, doing, being. Dallas argues that most recovery approaches focus on the first two levels (what you stop having and what you start doing) while skipping the foundational third: who you are becoming at the level of identity and self-belief. Drawing on his own transformation and patterns he's witnessed in his coaching clients, he explains why willpower and white-knuckling fail long-term — because a man will always default back to the version of himself he secretly believes he is, regardless of effort.
The practical core of the episode centers on Dallas's "prophetic vision" exercise, a cornerstone practice from his Recovery Alchemy program, where clients vividly imagine their fully inhabited life — not the absence of meth, but the presence of real connection, purpose, and embodiment. He offers listeners three daily practices to build this identity-first approach to recovery: asking "what would he do?" before acting, making the prophetic vision as specific and granular as possible, and taking one small aligned action each day as a "vote" for the emerging identity. Dallas frames this not as becoming someone new, but as remembering and stepping into the man who was always there beneath the fog of chemsex use — with each aligned choice closing the distance between who a man was and who he's consciously choosing to become.

Link to Prophetic Vision Webinar: https://youtu.be/wiI2PHSnx5I?si=W19WoMwtbRHf0c2N
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Dallas Bragg
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Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/rewired
In this episode, Dallas is joined by two guests — Dr. David Fawcett, returning veteran of the podcast and author of Lust, Men, and Meth and Sex Under the Influence, and Andrew McDonnell, a clinical social worker and outpatient addiction therapist in Memphis, Tennessee who brings his own lived experience with chemsex to the conversation. Together, the three announce an exciting new offering: Rewired for Connection: Life After Chemsex, an in-person retreat limited to twelve participants, designed specifically for gay men navigating the "now what?" of life after active use. The episode unfolds as a rich conversation about what recovery actually looks like once the milestones fade — the disorientation, the identity questions, and the longing for connection with other men who truly understand.
Each facilitator shares what they'll bring to the retreat experience, giving listeners a detailed preview of the weekend's content. Dallas will open with shadow work, identity exploration, and vision-casting — helping participants define their ideal self through somatic visualization, limiting belief work, and daily practice tools rooted in principles from Atomic Habits. Dr. Fawcett will focus on sexual reintegration, covering the neuroscience of dopamine dysregulation, arousal template repair, and the step-by-step process of reclaiming — or often discovering for the very first time — a sexuality free from the grip of chemsex. Andrew will introduce stoic philosophy as a framework for social reintegration and facilitate a nuanced conversation on sexual ethics that honors the full spectrum of gay sexual culture without shame or judgment. The retreat closes with a cacao ceremony and breathwork, grounding the experience in community, embodiment, and genuine connection between men. The retreat link is available in the show notes.
Contact David: https://sexandrelationshiphealing.com/
To apply for the retreat: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/rewiredretreat
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Dallas Bragg
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YouTube: The Aftermeth Podcast
X: https://twitter.com/Drdallasbragg
Free online course to End the Relapse Cycle: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/e7c2Eo22/checkout
Meth-Free Blueprint EBOOK: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/o8qFhK5i/checkout

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Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/acceptancestage
In this solo episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg brings his five-part series comparing the stages of grief to chemsex recovery to a close with its most challenging and nuanced stage: acceptance. Dallas is careful from the outset to reframe what acceptance actually means — not a finish line or a moment of resolution, but a daily orientation, a practice of inhabiting the new life rather than mourning the old one. Drawing on the Latin root of the word, acceptare — to bring something close to oneself — he reframes acceptance as an active, embodied discipline: the ongoing act of pulling toward yourself the very parts you've been rejecting, the man you were in active use, including the parts that lied, that hurt people, that enjoyed it, and that sometimes still miss it.
At the heart of this episode is a powerful invitation to integration over exile. Dallas makes the case that men who skip this deeper work — who appear to have moved through all the stages but still secretly hate the man they were — build recoveries that are beautiful on the outside but brittle on the inside, and are at greater risk for relapse when those exiled parts eventually demand to be heard. He distinguishes acceptance from forgiveness, emphasizing that acceptance doesn't require approving of the past or finding a redemptive silver lining — it simply means stopping the war against yourself. Dallas also introduces the vision of "Recovery 2.0," sketching a portrait of the man in acceptance: how he handles longing, loneliness, rejection, and joy differently now, meeting each with presence instead of panic. The episode closes with a reminder that grief spirals back — on anniversaries, in quiet afternoons, in a familiar scent — and that acceptance isn't the end of that grief, but the moment when the past has finally lost its power to define you.
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Dallas Bragg
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YouTube: The Aftermeth Podcast
X: https://twitter.com/Drdallasbragg
Free online course to End the Relapse Cycle: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/e7c2Eo22/checkout
Meth-Free Blueprint EBOOK: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/o8qFhK5i/checkout

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Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/unshamed
In this deeply personal episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas sits down with José Barrientos, a 33-year-old Latino gay man from Los Angeles now living in Queens, New York, whose story weaves together early childhood wounds, HIV diagnosis, crystal meth addiction, and a hard-won recovery. José opens up about growing up in a single-parent household, seeking validation from older men as a teenager, and his first encounter with crystal meth at just fourteen years old — an experience that quickly spiraled into intravenous use by sixteen. He shares how he seroconverted to HIV-positive around that same time, not learning his status until 2010, and how the compounding shame of being gay, HIV-positive, and a meth user left him feeling like "damaged goods" for years.
José traces his recovery journey from a pivotal moment at 21 — hospitalized with collapsed veins, untreated STIs, and drug-induced psychosis — to finding community through 12-step programs, trauma therapy, and his current role as a spokesperson for the HIV Stops With Me campaign, a New York State Department of Health initiative working to destigmatize HIV through real people sharing their real stories. He reflects on inner child healing, the difference between getting sober for someone else versus doing it for yourself, and the importance of education and community for gay men navigating HIV and chemsex recovery. Dallas and José also challenge the dangerous misconceptions still prevalent on hookup apps around HIV status, undetectable equals untransmittable (U=U), and what it truly means to protect oneself — offering listeners both raw honesty and genuine hope.
Contact Jose:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/its2025.Jose
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/its2026.jose/
You can visit: https://hivstopswithme.org/
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Dallas Bragg
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdallasbragg/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drdallasbragg
YouTube: The Aftermeth Podcast
X: https://twitter.com/Drdallasbragg
Free online course to End the Relapse Cycle: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/e7c2Eo22/checkout
Meth-Free Blueprint EBOOK: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/o8qFhK5i/checkout