Content Warning: This episode discusses active chemsex use, relapse, multi-day binges, cravings, the death of friends to overdose and suicide, and the loneliness of recovering in a community where many friends still use. If any of this is heavy for you right now, go slowly and reach out to someone on your recovery team.
If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, US). For substance use support any time, call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357. Outside the US, contact your local emergency or crisis line. You do not have to carry this alone.
What This Episode Is About
This is an audio-only conversation, and the guest's name has been changed to protect his privacy. "Joey" is a middle-aged writer living in Brussels who chronicles his chemsex recovery on Instagram under the handle @chemsexguide, which is how he and Dallas Bragg connected. He came to Brussels around fifteen years ago, conservative about apps and drugs, and within two months of opening his relationship he had been introduced to G, 3-MMC, and the rest of what he calls "the alphabet" of European chems. He used for two or three years, stopped without difficulty when a new relationship began, and then, when his current relationship started in early 2020, it came back "with a vengeance." Three years ago he decided to put a stop to it. Since then he has managed six months at the longest, usually one to three, and he is honest that he is still stuck in a cycle.
Joey is also neurodivergent, with what he describes as severe ADD, and much of this conversation is about what that means for recovery: the hunt for novelty, the unstructured weekend as a danger zone, the impulsivity that has no off button, and the way his own inner voice shifts with his mental state. He talks openly about his partner's very different relationship with chems, the fake connection the scene provides, the grief of saying goodbye to something that was once wonderful, and the progress he has made in three months with the Dutch coaching collective Herstel Collectief after three years of trying on his own.
Dallas uses the conversation to drive home a few of his own convictions: your recovery starts when you decide it does, not on your last meth-free day; a relapse is a learning experience, not a verdict; and the part of you that wants to use is still a part of you, so going to war with it means nobody wins. Joey, for his part, offers a metaphor Dallas had never heard: addiction as something that can become undetectable, still there in the bloodstream, but no longer running your life.
Key Ideas to Sit With
1. If you are opening your relationship, prepare for chemsex. Joey had never touched chems until his relationship opened in a big city, and he was using within weeks. His observation now is that "chems friendly" is almost the default setting on Grindr, Recon, and Planet Romeo, and that chill-outs and after-parties are full of couples. Dallas's PSA: no judgment on opening up, but if you have been closed for five or ten years, chemsex has grown exponentially. Educate yourself, know the signs, and put safeguards in place before you start meeting people.
2. The European picture is different, and the risk is not smaller. In the US and London, the drug is mostly Tina. In Brussels and much of Europe, it is an alphabet: K, T, 3, 4, alpha, G. The synthetic drugs are cheap (Joey has seen mephedrone for six euros a gram online), the supply is flooding the market, and GHB/GBL in particular is deadly. Joey sees a subculture that is growing, becoming dominant, and spreading into the straight world, with enormous psychological costs and a social cost too: men who do not want to leave because leaving means being excluded.
3. Problematic use and non-problematic use both exist. Joey's partner can go months without using and can stop when he decides to. Joey cannot. Same drugs, same house, different brains. Dallas gets in trouble for saying this, but it is true: some people walk away. If you are listening to this podcast, you most likely have problematic use, and the difference usually comes down to motivation for using and, very often, neurodivergence. Do not use someone else's ability to stop as permission to keep going.
4. The ADD brain and the unstructured weekend. Joey is a high sensation seeker who always needs a project. During the work week, structure holds him. On Friday night and Saturday morning, the structure falls away, his mind starts hunting for something to fill the time, and chemsex is the hobby waiting there. His own words: "I don't have an off button." A date becomes five or six hours, then another party, then another, until he is 30 to 35 hours in without sleep.
5. The hit before the hit. For Joey, the Grindr game itself is addictive: the messages, the pictures, the anticipation. Dallas names it: dopamine lives in anticipation. We have five guys, we need seven. We have seven, we need nine. Euphoric recall tells you the next party will be the best one ever, even though the last five were terrible. The limbic brain pushes the prefrontal cortex aside and you are on autopilot, like driving home from work and not remembering the drive.
6. Chems do not disinhibit you. They change your character. Joey keeps telling people this. "If I take chems I become slutty, I become dominant." No. When you are in that bed on chems, that is not you. You are chasing a dream, chasing ghosts, a fata morgana. Whatever you experience may be exhilarating, but it is not real.
7. You have to say goodbye to something that was once wonderful. Joey does not pretend the early days were bad. The first year of hosting small parties with his boyfriend was kinky, creative, and fun. Then it became normal, then longer, then a hunt for an experience that was long gone. A friend who used to be fun and athletic showed up high and surrounded by "Grindr zombies" on the sofa and asked, "Where did the fun go?" That is grief, and it is part of this.
8. Study your addiction like a research subject. An addiction psychiatrist gave Joey advice he treasures: look at this every week, with a coach or a professional. Make it a study object. Observe, reconstruct, learn. Do not be angry at yourself on Monday. Dallas adds: once you see the cycle, interrupt it one small way each week. Blocking Grindr through Screen Time with someone else holding the passcode will not stop a determined person, but it creates a pause between "I want to use" and "how do I get it."
9. Replace the hobby, but choose something that connects you. Joey's single-mindedness could go into another book or the piano, but those keep him alone and in his head. He is looking for activities that are physical, present, and lightly social: indoor climbing, CrossFit, martial arts where there is no yesterday or tomorrow, maybe something with animals or the earth. Dallas's broader point: find what fits who you are and your original values, something you can lose yourself in.
10. Your recovery starts when you decide it starts. Joey has been in recovery since 2023, through every relapse. Dallas wants this to land for everyone: the rule that your recovery starts on your last meth-free day is arbitrary, programmed, and disempowering. You make the decision. The using episodes along the way are part of the recovery, not a reset to zero.
11. Relapse is a learning experience, and shame is the worst thing you can add. In Dallas's program, nobody says "relapse." They say "I had a learning experience," or simply "I used." Joey goes further: it is not opinion, it is fact. For any addiction, shame and anger at yourself are the most counterproductive things you can do. And anyone who says "let this be a lesson for you" can, in his words, fuck off. You are in charge of what you learn.
12. Do not turn stopping into a project. This one surprised Joey about himself. He has renovated houses, started NGOs, and written books from A to Z. But when he sets a stern commitment about chemsex (three months, until the end of the year, a dry September), he never holds it. His coach Martin's advice: let the process take its course. Have the intention to stop, but do not put yourself under that kind of pressure. The key difference between writing a book and getting sober is that one is about discipline and the other is about addiction, and addiction is a different beast.
13. Peer support breaks the loneliness. Joey cannot talk about this with his family, his straight friends, or most of his gay friends, because many of them use and are complicit. He has lost friends to overdose and to suicide. In three months with Herstel Collectief, he has made more progress than in three years, because the coaches have lived experience, there is no punishment for using, he can report back without judgment, and every Friday at three o'clock he gets a text: "Hey, what are you up to this weekend?" A small nudge with a tremendous effect.
14. Go to several professionals, not one. Joey has seen two or three psychiatrists in a decade, all good, with very different views on ADD medication and chems. Do not let one voice decide everything for you.
15. Treat the part of you that uses with kindness, and integrate it. Joey's closing idea: you cannot reject the part of yourself that is using. If you focus on it as a problem that must stop, you make it bigger. If you acknowledge it, treat it kindly, and let it be there, it gets smaller and integrates. His metaphor: like HIV, the addiction becomes undetectable. Still in the bloodstream, but not running the show. Dallas's parts-work framing fits: when a client says "I want to use," they reframe it to "a part of me wants to use." That part has protected you and served you. Study it. Ask what it wants and what it is protecting you from. Then find another way to give it that. When you go to war with yourself, nobody wins.
Reflective Questions
- When does my structure fall away, and what does my mind start hunting for in that gap?
- Is my use problematic or not, honestly? What am I using to justify the answer?
- Which part of chemsex am I actually addicted to: the drug, the sex, the hunt on the apps, or the relief from being in my own head?
- What was wonderful about it once, and what have I not yet grieved?
- When a part of me wants to use, what is it asking for, and what is it trying to protect me from?
Journal Prompts
- "The cycle I am stuck in looks like this, from the first itch to the Monday after..."
- "I have said goodbye to chemsex in my head, but the part I have not said goodbye to in my heart is..."
- "The commitments I have made about stopping and not held were... and here is what happened in my body and mind when I broke them..."
- "If I spoke to the part of me that wants to use with kindness instead of anger, I would say..."
- "The activity that could give me the sensation, presence, and connection I get from chemsex, without the cost, might be..."
Action Exercises
- Map your weekend. Write out Friday 5 PM to Sunday night hour by hour. Mark the gaps where structure disappears. Fill at least two of them with something physical and social before the weekend arrives.
- Interrupt one link in the cycle. Pick one piece of your pattern (the app, the profile, the WhatsApp numbers, the pictures) and remove or block it this week. If you have an iPhone, set up Screen Time restrictions and give the passcode to someone else.
- Hold a weekly study session. Sit down with your coach, therapist, or a trusted peer and reconstruct your last use without judgment: what led up to it, what you were looking for, what you learned.
- Ask for a Friday check-in. Tell one person on your recovery team that you want a text every Friday afternoon asking what your weekend plans are. Give them the exact wording.
- Try one replacement hobby. Book a single session of something physical and present (climbing, a martial arts class, a group workout, volunteering with animals). Notice afterward whether your head was quiet.
Going Deeper
- @chemsexguide on Instagram. Follow Joey's ongoing account of his recovery. Link in the show notes.
- Herstel Collectief. The Dutch recovery coaching collective Joey works with; Martin from the collective was a previous AfterMeth guest.
- Related AfterMeth episodes: the open relationship episode, the five-stages-of-grief series that Joey credits with helping him see where he is in the process (he says he is still bargaining), and Chemsex Recovery: You Decide Your Day One.
- Recovery Alchemy coaching. Dallas's program uses the same principles discussed here: observing without shame, parts work, and blocking app access in early recovery. Learn more at www.recoveryalchemy.org.
- Join the conversation. Comment on Spotify or YouTube, or DM Dallas or Joey directly.
Joey is still in the cycle, and he came on anyway. That is what courage in recovery looks like: not a finished story, but an honest one. Your recovery started when you decided it did. The part of you that still wants to use is not your enemy. Study it, treat it kindly, and keep going.
Love you!! Dallas 💚
© Recovery Alchemy, Inc. | www.recoveryalchemy.org
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