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/reduction
In this episode, Dallas sits down with harm reduction consultant and healthcare compliance officer Taylor Edelmann to explore one of the most contested yet evidence-supported approaches to chemsex recovery. Dallas frames harm reduction not as the opposite of abstinence but as a full spectrum of managed use, tapering, and planned use, and invites listeners who "just can't seem to stop" or who have never found a fit in traditional abstinence-based programs to stay informed and consider what the research actually shows. Taylor, founder of Needle in the Hey! Consulting and formerly of the National Harm Reduction Coalition, grounds the conversation in the principle of bodily autonomy—the right to make informed decisions about one's own body—and describes how harm reduction and gender-affirming care are braided movements. Together they name the layered realities facing queer and trans people who use drugs, from the minority stress model to the current wave of anti-trans legislation, and how shame and stigma only deepen the very suffering they claim to address.
The second half of the conversation moves into practice and lived experience. Taylor draws on years as an HIV medical case manager and harm reduction trainer to illustrate how few providers—even within harm reduction spaces—understand chemsex or possess the "drug IQ" to serve MSM and trans clients well, pointing to his own small New York study that found most queer and trans people who use drugs were self-medicating alone rather than accessing programs. Dallas and Taylor discuss structured, metrics-based approaches to planned use that help clients rebuild agency, self-trust, and the felt sense that they can choose when and whether to use, and they explore the distinct ways chemsex intersects with body image, eating disorders, sex work, and HIV risk in trans communities. The episode closes with an invitation to be the executive of one's own recovery: to seek out peer-reviewed research, resist the reflexive shaming that dominates online discourse, and consider that for someone who keeps relapsing despite wanting to stop, harm reduction may be the approach that finally saves a life. Taylor's consulting practice, toolkit, and free organizational assessment are noted as available through his website, with contact details in the show notes.
Contact Taylor:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/needleintheheyconsulting/
Website: https://needleinthehey.com/
Email: taylor@needleinthehey.com
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Dallas Bragg
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Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/reasons
In this solo episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg starts with two voice notes that landed back to back during one of his daily walks. Two clients, the same return to use, the same broken commitment, even the same specific oversight — an old user buddy still on Snapchat. But the men describing it sounded like they lived in different universes. The first didn't flinch: he laid out what he'd done right, named the gap he'd missed, and asked how he could show up differently next time. No misery, no defensiveness, just curiosity. He treated the use as a data point rather than a moral failure. The second took a week to disclose it, buried other uses he'd later come clean about, and reached for the familiar refrain — you know how it is, I always do this, I'm just not built for follow-through. One handed Dallas a reason. The other handed him an excuse.
The episode maps that distinction and why it decides the direction of a recovery. Reasons come from open curiosity and healthy guilt, which points at a behavior you can turn over in your hands and change. Excuses come from closed condemnation and shame, which says I am bad rather than I did something bad — and Dallas is careful to name the harder-to-spot version, the excuse that grabs too much responsibility. "Of course I messed up, I always mess up" sounds like ownership but is actually a collapse into identity, and identity makes the next excuse effortless while the excuse confirms the identity, around and around. Breaking the loop means stepping into what he calls the compassionate observer: the part of you that watches your own behavior without excusing or condemning it, asking why this happened rather than whose fault it is. He closes with a three-part check for the moment an explanation starts forming — notice the emotional state (open and willing, or tight and restricted), check the language (I did this leaves room, I always do this locks the door), and feel where it lands in the body, which knows the difference long before the mind does. A supplemental study guide accompanies the episode, with the link in the show notes.
The AfterMeth:
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Dallas Bragg
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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/kids
In this deeply personal milestone episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg marks eight years in meth recovery and his fiftieth birthday by sitting down with the two people at the center of his story: his adult children, Liliana and Jonah. There is no script and no list of talking points—just an improvised, unguarded conversation that returns to the day, eight years earlier, when the two of them picked Dallas up from jail while he was homeless and drove to a park, a turning point that convinced him to put his children first and leave meth behind. Together they trace the hardest stretches of that period honestly, from the hidden use and the crimes his kids were unknowingly pulled into to the eviction, the time in West Virginia, and the painful season when Liliana stopped speaking to him, alongside the small, surprising ways their relationship not only survived but grew closer through it all.
What gives the episode its weight is the perspective his children offer on recovery and reconciliation from the other side of it. Liliana and Jonah reflect on how a relationship built before the addiction made forgiveness possible, how Dallas addressed and apologized for what happened rather than papering over it, and how his actions—not just his words—proved the change was real. Their advice to other children of parents struggling with addiction centers on grace, honesty, communication, and giving both people time to heal, while Dallas speaks directly to men who grow discouraged when family trust doesn't return in thirty, sixty, or ninety days, encouraging them to keep becoming a better version of themselves and trust that the rest follows. The result is a testament to the episode's core message: that there is life after chemsex, that broken relationships can be restored, and that recovery is often something a whole family moves through together.
The AfterMeth:
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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/chemsexaddict
In this solo episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg opens with a scene from his active use — sitting on a patio, scrolling Grindr, negotiating with himself about whether to lose a weekend to partying — and the question that surfaced in the middle of it: if part of him wanted to use and part of him didn't, then who was the one watching both? That moment became the seed of what he calls parts integration, a practice that reshaped his own recovery and now anchors the work he does with clients. Dallas makes a direct case against identity-level language, arguing that repeating "I am an addict" reinforces a program in the nervous system and turns a behavior into a life sentence. The soul self, he insists, was never an addict and never will be. The shift he asks for is small on paper and seismic in practice: not "I want to use," but "a part of me wants to use."
From there the episode becomes a practical walkthrough. Dallas offers three ways to open dialogue with the part that wants to use — personification (giving it a shape, age, essence, and a name that isn't cruel, since naming it evil means naming yourself evil), a written back-and-forth letter exchange, and a quiet meditative ask. He then maps the integration work itself using a real client example shared with permission, moving through four questions asked of both parts: core belief, method, fear, and wish. Euphoria and connection turn out to be pointing at the same thing; both parts fear a flat, gray life; both wish for an exciting, thriving one. The integrated statements that emerge — including the "when I feel, I find" method frame — put the listener back in the mediator's seat rather than at the mercy of an urge. Dallas is clear about the scope, noting he isn't trained in Internal Family Systems and isn't doing therapy here, but preparing listeners for it. A supplemental study guide and a two-page fillable worksheet accompany the episode, with links in the show notes.
The AfterMeth:
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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/relationships
In this episode, Dallas Bragg welcomes Aidan Wharton — a New York-based sex and relationships writer, educator, and columnist specializing in open relationships — for a candid conversation exploring non-monogamy through the lens of gay men's recovery from chemsex. Dallas is upfront about his own evolving bias, shaped by painful past experiences with a broken open relationship, and uses the conversation to interrogate his assumptions alongside Aidan's eight years of lived experience with his husband. Aidan reframes open relationships not as a rejection of monogamy's values but as an expansion rooted in living fully — acknowledging that no single partner can be "everything," while emphasizing that healthy non-monogamy depends on the same foundation as any relationship: trust, respect, and communication. The two dig into jealousy as a teacher rather than a flaw, unpacking how underlying wounds like fear of exclusion (which Dallas names as a particularly resonant theme for gay men) surface disguised as jealousy in open dynamics.
The conversation turns sharply practical when Dallas shares a vivid, in-the-moment story of nearly hooking up with a thruple he suspected was using — walking listeners through the subtle behavioral cues of active meth use (delayed responses, jitteriness, lowered standards, lack of due diligence) as both a cautionary tale and harm-reduction education. Aidan and Dallas then offer concrete guidance for men in recovery considering opening a relationship: minimizing complicating variables (familiar partners, safe locations, avoiding relapse-associated settings), practicing aftercare with oneself, one's hookup, and one's primary partner, and using tools like the "third entity" framework — treating the relationship itself as a stakeholder distinct from either individual — to navigate requests and boundaries without resentment. They close by distinguishing "balanced" from "equal" experiences within a relationship, and Aidan offers a broader reflection on self-compassion, cautioning listeners about how phone and dopamine culture quietly erodes the very communication and presence that healthy relationships — open or not — require.
Contact Aidan:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aidanwharton/?hl=en
Substack: http://gaybuffet.substack.com/

The AfterMeth:
Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theaftermeth/
Dallas Bragg
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdallasbragg
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