90's Wild Child! Getting Wasted with Courtney Love, Plant Medicine, Marrying into Duran Duran & The Strokes, and Getting Sober Young with Amanda de Cadenet90's Wild Child! Getting Wasted with Courtney Love, Plant Medicine, Marrying into Duran Duran & The Strokes, and Getting Sober Young with Amanda de Cadenet
Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction
Timestamps 00:00 Dopey Wednesday intro song 01:00 Dave on single parenting while wife is away 02:50 Heart Attack Doug power washing and yard work 04:30 Susan goes to a meeting and breakfast after 05:15 Voicemail: crack-smoking schizophrenic roommate story begins 09:30 Dave critiques bad voicemail background noise 10:00 Spotify comments: ads complaints and Dave fights back 11:30 “Epitome” pronunciation controversy 13:00 Praise for five episodes a week 18:00 Amanda de Cadenet joins the show 23:30 Teenage addiction, validation, fame, public image 31:00 London in the 90s, Blur, Oasis, culture 35:00 Getting sober after dating addicts 38:00 Psychedelics, MDMA, plant medicine in recovery 45:00 Ex-boyfriends, overdoses, grief 49:00 Amanda changes sobriety date after pot brownies while pregnant 52:00 Photography career and leaving fame behind 58:00 What makes a good interview 1:03:00 New book on healing and failed therapy models 1:09:00 Amanda’s morning recovery routine 1:14:00 Dave on jealousy, fear, defects, gratitude 1:18:00 Service, kindness, and purpose
1:26:59•29 Apr 2026
From 90s Wild Child to Sober Storyteller: Amanda de Cadenet on Dopey
Episode Overview
- Sobriety can start very young, even after intense teenage addiction and public chaos.
- Hearing others share honestly in meetings can reveal your own need for help, even if you initially go to support someone else.
- Daily routines like readings, meditation, movement and staying connected to a group can steady recovery and mood.
- Some people find standard talk therapy isn’t enough for deep trauma and look towards additional modalities, including carefully considered plant medicines.
- Kindness, service and staying connected to other recovering people are presented as key ways to feel a sense of purpose and spiritual connection.
“Recovery is the lens through which I see the world.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This Dopey instalment offers several raw, funny and surprisingly tender answers. The show opens with host Dave juggling single parenting while his wife’s away, giving a shout-out to anyone trying to keep kids, work and sanity in one piece.
There’s classic Dopey banter about power-washing the garden with “Heart Attack Doug”, plus a warm snapshot of real-life recovery: taking his daughter to a meeting, then going for breakfast with sponsees like “normal recovery people do”. A standout voicemail from Taylor in Austin brings the trademark dark humour: he shares life with a crack-smoking, schizophrenic roommate, relapse buddies, a quasi-homeless crack dealer boyfriend, and a night so frightening he calls the police. His punchline?
“Someone who's schizophrenic and smoking crack gets annoying” – grim, but it captures the chaos many will recognise. Dave then reads Spotify and Patreon comments, sparring with listeners over too many ads and his long-running “epitome” pronunciation saga. It’s irreverent, self-deprecating and oddly comforting for anyone who leans on this show as daily recovery background noise. The main conversation features Amanda de Cadenet, once branded a 90s “wild child”.
She talks candidly about smoking weed at 11, heavy teenage drug use, getting famous as a 15-year-old late-night presenter, and how people missed that she was “a young girl in crisis”. She explains getting sober young after dating addicts, learning about treatment through her then-husband from Duran Duran, and staying abstinent with a brief later reset over cannabis brownies in pregnancy.
Amanda shares how recovery underpins everything she does, from interviewing through a recovery lens to seeking deeper healing beyond talk therapy and carefully considering plant medicines. Daily readings, meditation, movement, service, kindness and connection in group chats are her staples. Anyone who’s ever wondered if they were “too young to be this messed up” will relate; anyone needing a laugh amid the madness might feel a little less alone. What parts of your own story do you hear echoed here?
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