Dopey 224: Fear, Anger & Love, Liquid PCP, 12 Step, AA, Alcohol, Rage, GarrettDopey 224: Fear, Anger & Love, Liquid PCP, 12 Step, AA, Alcohol, Rage, Garrett
Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction
This week on Dopey! In a nice change of pace we get a shorty strong Island episode. Crazy Dopey recovery Jedi type, Garrett tells his story of debauchery to recovery! We hear all about how through deep soul searching rage, anger and fear can turn into deep spiritual L-O-V-E! Plus emails, the wonders of ketosis, sponsorship and more! All that in a rock 'em, knock' em, sock' em, if it were star trek it would be spock 'em episode of your favorite podcast about dumb shit, addiction and drugs!
1:17:06•31 Jan 2020
Fear, Anger and Love: Garrett’s Wild Ride from Liquid PCP to Spiritual Sobriety
Episode Overview
- Garrett describes fear turning into anger and violence while using, and how he later learned to choose love as his guiding principle.
- A serious sports injury and loss of a baseball career pushed his drinking and drug use into overdrive, including heavy cocaine and liquid PCP use.
- His first AA meeting felt like someone "told exactly my story", giving him enough identification to keep coming back.
- He admits his first step four was incomplete, and explains how doing an honest inventory and amends helped clear the "wreckage of the past".
- Daily practices—meetings, spiritual work, and helping others—are presented as key to maintaining long-term sobriety and avoiding relapse.
“He taught me there’s only two ways to live. You live in fear or love. And, you know, my choice mostly is to live in love.”
Curious about how others manage their sobriety while still laughing at the chaos that came before it? This Long Island "shorty" from Dopey brings exactly that, mixing dumb drug stories with serious recovery talk. Host Dave sits in a red pickup truck by the Great South Bay with his friend Garrett, a heavily tattooed, gym-loving AA old-timer celebrating 16 years without a drink.
Garrett walks through a wild past of cocaine, liquid PCP runs to Harlem, ecstasy-fuelled nights at the Tunnel and Limelight, and being so chemically "off" that even ketamine turned him into a one-man wrecking crew. He jokes, "When I wanted to think of a title... I thought of anger and love," but he means it. The heart of the episode lies in how fear turned into rage, and how both eventually gave way to something very different.
Garrett explains his sponsor’s simple framework: "There’s only two ways to live... you live in fear or love." For him, love is literally his higher power. He talks about step work, sitting in his first AA meeting on "death row" in the back row, and realising, for the first time, that someone else’s story was exactly his own. Things get deeply practical too.
Dave and Garrett talk about sponsorship, doing a real step four instead of a "big line of bullshit", and the daily habits that keep them from going back to liquid dust and Bud Light.
There’s humour, like Dave joking about being a bougie Manhattanite in a blue-collar Suffolk County meeting, but also straight talk on grief, anger, and why "taking a shower yesterday is not going to keep you clean today." If you’re juggling fear, anger, and the idea that maybe love could actually run the show, this one might give you something to sit with—what path are you choosing today?
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