Dopey 422: Sex, Cravings & Jacob and the Masturbation Machine, Dr. Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation, Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence and The Tragic Death of Hottwheels,, Trauma, SpiritualityDopey 422: Sex, Cravings & Jacob and the Masturbation Machine, Dr. Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation, Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence and The Tragic Death of Hottwheels,, Trauma, Spirituality
Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction
This week on Dopey. Dopey Nation Legend and old time friend and contributor to the show, Brian 'HottWheels' Connolly tragically dies. It all happened the same day we hit 10 million downloads and the day before we acknowledge the five year anniversary of Chris's horrific death. If that wasn't enough we also were featured in SPIN magazine the same day. Is it odd or is it Todd? We are also joined by brilliant New York Times best seller, Anna Lembke is an American psychiatrist who is Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University. Her book Dopamine Nation has been flying off the shelves and is an incredibly accesable look at addiction and recovery. PLUS emails, voicemails and the return of my dad! Here is the link to Matt Thompson's heart wrenching SPIN piece: https://www.spin.com/2023/07/dopey-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-the-worlds-greatest-podcast/ More About Dopey: Dopey Podcast is the world’s greatest podcast on drugs, addiction and dumb shit. Chris and I were two IV heroin addicts who loved to talk about all the coke we smoked, snorted and shot, all the pills we ate, smoked, all the weed we smoked and ate, all the booze we consumed and all the consequences we suffered. After making the show for 2 and a half years, Chris tragically relapsed and died from a fentanyl overdose. Dopey continued on, at first to mourn the horrible loss of Chris, but then to continue our mission - which was at its core, to keep addicts and alcoholics company. Whether to laugh at our time in rehab, or cry at the worst missteps we made, Dopey tells the truth about drugs, addiction and recovery. We continually mine the universe for stories rife with debauchery and highlight serious drug taking and alcoholism. We also examine different paths toward addiction recovery. We shine a light on harm reduction and medication assisted treatment. We talk with celebrities and nobodies and stockpile stories to be the greatest one stop shop podcast on all things drugs, addiction, recovery and comedy!
2:01:20•29 Jul 2023
Grief, Dopamine and the Masturbation Machine: Dopey Gets Real
Episode Overview
- Abstaining from a primary drug or behaviour for at least three to four weeks can, for many people, reset the brain’s reward system and ease depression and anxiety.
- Radical honesty about both large and small behaviours helps build real intimacy and removes the "backdoor" that protects addiction.
- Spiritual practices – from prayer to service to a sense of a higher purpose – can be crucial tools, even for those who weren’t raised with faith.
- Phones, pornography, gambling, cannabis and other legal activities can trigger the same dopamine-driven patterns as alcohol or heroin.
- Strong recovery communities, like the Dopey Nation and its zoom meetings, can break isolation and offer practical support in times of loss and craving.
“If you are using out there. Please be careful. Please consider stopping. Because there is so much death.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This Dopey instalment hits hard, mixing dark humour with raw grief and sharp addiction science. The episode opens with heartbreaking news: long-time Dopey Nation legend Brian “HottWheels” Connolly has died. Dave shares how Brian’s death landed on the exact day the show hit 10 million downloads and just before the five-year mark of Chris’s death, creating a surreal collision of success and loss.
Listeners hear Brian’s first voicemails with Dave and Chris, including his now-classic DMT story and his brutally honest confession: “Sometimes I can’t listen to your shit because it’s triggering, but sometimes I need to hear it because it’s triggering.” Dave reads a tribute from community member Scott Wick, painting Brian as a tough, funny, endlessly giving quadriplegic who quietly helped countless people into recovery, often without mentioning his own hospital stays.
The message underlines how real, messy and loving the Dopey community is, and why connection matters more than ever in an era where, as Dave notes, 106,000 people died from overdoses in a single year. Then the tone shifts into nerdy, brain-based recovery talk with psychiatrist and author Dr Anna Lembke, whose book *Dopamine Nation* Dave calls “incredible”.
She explains addiction as a disease of the brain’s reward system, why abstinence is often the first step, and how a four-week “dopamine fast” can reset mood for many people. She breaks down her DOPAMINE framework, champions radical honesty, and talks about spirituality as a practical tool rather than a pious add-on.
You’ll hear wild case stories too, like Jacob building his own masturbation machine, and Anna’s own slide into romance-novel addiction—reminders that the drug isn’t always a substance, but anything that hijacks dopamine and choice. Throughout, the episode keeps circling back to one core plea: if you’re still using, please be careful, and please consider stopping. So where do you see your own story in this mix of loss, laughter and science?
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