The First DopeyCon: Shot in the Foot, PCP at a Baby Shower, Satan, Meth, Heroin, Recovery| Dopey's Greatest HitsThe First DopeyCon: Shot in the Foot, PCP at a Baby Shower, Satan, Meth, Heroin, Recovery| Dopey's Greatest Hits
Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction
Timestamps: 00:01:09 – Welcome to Dopey’s Greatest Hits 00:01:40 – Feelings in recovery and Dave’s extremely busy day 00:02:45 – DopeyCon 2026: musicians, artwork and tickets 00:04:06 – Getting recognized by Dopey listeners everywhere 00:06:15 – Adam Byrd gets caught in a drive-by while buying crack 00:08:35 – A bullet passes through Adam’s heel 00:10:50 – Crack, heroin and treating a gunshot in a motel ice bucket 00:13:13 – Wreckage Disciple, socks and a DopeyCon invitation 00:15:38 – Listener comments and Jessa Reed reactions 00:18:04 – Dave’s favorite Beatles songs 00:20:29 – The first-ever DopeyCon begins 00:20:49 – Mountainside welcomes Dopey Nation 00:23:58 – Dave takes the stage 00:25:07 – The origins of DopeyCon and remembering Chris 00:32:19 – Alan Manheim takes the microphone 00:34:41 – Alan’s pride, pain and Jewish guilt 00:38:23 – Bill Blaber’s meth psychosis begins 00:40:45 – Following messages from Satan through Brooklyn 00:43:04 – Screaming “Hail Satan” inside a holding cell 00:47:22 – Escaping court and entering a Chinatown restaurant 00:49:45 – Attempted stabbing, police and Bellevue 00:51:39 – Dave reacts to Bill’s completely insane story 00:55:46 – Ray on shame, anonymity and accepting herself 00:58:13 – A blackout, one missing shoe and a homeless stranger 01:00:36 – Returning years later to thank the man who helped her 01:03:29 – Dave apologizes and reflects on the first DopeyCon 01:05:53 – Namaste at Home’s PCP story 01:08:08 – Accidentally arriving at a North Camden baby shower 01:10:30 – PCP blackouts, sex and two people named Joelle 01:12:49 – The unforgettable Mario orgasm 01:13:22 – Dave’s strange text-message relationship with Andy Dick 01:17:51 – Ray Brown takes the stage 01:18:05 – Asking a stranger in AA for help 01:19:06 – Ray performs the original Dopey song 01:20:31 – “I Wanna Kiss You at the IFI” 01:22:25 – “Grand Canyon” 01:25:49 – Dave’s post-Chris insecurity about whether Dopey was still good 01:28:12 – How Sam became involved with the show 01:30:31 – Introducing writer and poet Nick Flynn 01:33:18 – Nick reads “My Joke” 01:34:10 – “Philip Seymour Hoffman” and the hidden box of Vicodin 01:35:35 – “Poem to Be Whispered by the Bedside of a Sleeping Child” 01:37:15 – Nick reads “Jesus Knew” 01:40:01 – Poetry, bullshit artists and black-and-white cookies 01:43:47 – The invention of the Othello cookie 01:47:20 – Dave remembers Dopey listeners who died 01:49:47 – Tim’s Dank Recovery Memes presentation 01:52:03 – The unlikely origin of Dopey 01:55:14 – Chris’s sister Arden O’Connor 01:57:25 – Arden remembers her brilliant, infuriating little brother 01:59:43 – Retrieving Chris from a Harlem drug dealer 02:02:02 – Chris refuses treatment—and Arden loses it 02:03:58 – Why Dopey helped people without trying to 02:06:44 – The “rope-a-dope” formula 02:08:50 – Dave’s legendary seizure and Mexican-food story 02:13:31 – Remembering Todd 02:14:09 – Todd’s fentanyl death 02:16:39 – Chris dies six weeks later 02:19:03 – The latest on Artie Lange 02:20:58 – “Forever in Debt”
2:26:54•17 Sept 2026
DopeyCon One: Dark Laughs, Gunshots, Satan Stories and Finding Hope
Episode Overview
- Wild drug stories, like Adam Bird’s drive‑by shooting and motel ice‑bucket gunshot care, are shared without glamour and with clear awareness of the risks.
- Mountainside and Dopey team up to host DopeyCon and offer a treatment scholarship, showing how entertainment and recovery support can sit side by side.
- Family members such as Alan and Arden give raw, emotional views on how addiction and dark humour affect loved ones as much as the person using.
- Guests highlight multiple recovery paths, from faith-based projects and 12‑step meetings to creative outlets like music, comedy, memes and poetry.
- Dave repeatedly stresses that while the show started as “stupid funny addiction stories”, drugs like heroin and fentanyl can kill quickly, and some people don’t make it back.
“I still every day get up and believe there is hope and rooms like this, a community like this, what you have built here, gives me that hope.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This Greatest Hits episode drops you straight into the chaos, humour and heart of the very first DopeyCon, framed by Dave’s present-day reflections on grief, recovery and keeping the show alive.
You’ll hear a jaw‑dropping voicemail from Adam Bird of Wreckage Disciple, casually describing getting shot in the foot on his 27th birthday, treating the gunshot in a motel ice bucket, and choosing drugs over hospital care because of warrants and a bag of heroin. Dave calls the story “fucking gold” and digs up that Adam now runs a faith‑based recovery project focused on addiction, PTSD and past incarceration.
From there the episode jumps into the live DopeyCon recording in Mountainside’s Chelsea recovery hub. Jessica from Mountainside kicks things off, celebrating connection and honesty in long‑term recovery and announcing a treatment scholarship in honour of the podcast’s impact. Dave then riffs about his day, being recognised by fans, and the surreal origins of both Dopey and DopeyCon.
A parade of guests follow: Dave’s dad Alan offers a mix of pride, Jewish guilt and sheer horror at finding needles and hearing his son’s "dark comedy"; Bill Blaber recounts a crystal meth and Satan‑fuelled spiral that ends in Bellevue in a straightjacket; Ray and Ray Brown bring recovery stories and music; comedian Joelle (Namaste At Home Dad) tells an outrageous PCP-at-a-baby-shower tale; and writer Nick Flynn reads stark, funny poems on addiction and family.
Closing the circle, Arden O’Connor, Chris’s sister, shares what it was like trying to rescue her brother from Harlem dealers, fighting to get him into detox, and still waking up every day choosing hope. The whole episode sits in that tension: stupid‑funny addiction stories alongside very real loss, and the fact that, as Dave says, "some of us got to come back." If you want dark humour, honesty, and recovery talk with zero sugar-coating, this one’s hard to skip.
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