Content Warning: This episode and study guide discuss chemsex, methamphetamine and other substance use, sexual compulsivity and hookup-app use, childhood trauma, abuse, shame, and rejection. Please move through this material at your own pace. If any part of it stirs something up, that is not a sign to push harder — it may be a signal to pause, breathe, and reach for support. Nothing here is medical or clinical advice.
What This Episode Is About
If you have ever asked yourself "Why do I keep doing this?" — relapsing, dating the same kind of man, losing the same jobs, drifting back into the same habits like it's Groundhog Day — this conversation is for you. Dallas sits down with Juan Galan, a spiritual teacher, identity alchemist, and coach for gay men, to unpack why repeated patterns are so hard to break and what it actually takes to move through them.
The heart of the episode is Juan's remembrance method, a four-stage path he built out of his own healing: the trance, the witnessing, the descent, and the return. Underneath it all is one core idea — the pull to use, to hook up, or to reach for validation isn't a thinking problem you can out-argue. It's a body response. A nervous system that learned, long ago, to protect you the only way it knew how. Real change happens when you stop trying to think your way out and start learning to feel your way through.
There's also a hopeful reframe running through the whole conversation, and it's worth naming up front: everything that has happened to you may actually be happening for you. The collapse, the relapse, the heartbreak — Juan and Dallas both describe these not as proof that you're broken, but as an initiation. A hard, unwanted, but ultimately purposeful part of finding your way home to yourself.
Key Ideas to Sit With
The pattern is not you. In the trance, your identity feels fused to the behavior — "this is just who I am, I'm broken, I have bad luck." But the pattern was created years ago to help a younger version of you survive something. It lives in your body. It is not your true essence.
"A part of me wants to use." Notice the language Dallas uses with his clients. Not "I want to use," but "part of me wants to use." The real you — the one who sought out recovery — doesn't want this. But there is a part that does, and naming it that way creates just enough distance to observe the urge instead of becoming it. You are the one watching the wave, not the wave itself.
Awareness alone isn't freedom. In the witnessing, you can finally see yourself doing the thing — but you're still doing it. This is where most people get stuck, and where a lot of self-help stops. Seeing the pattern is a real milestone; being aware puts you a step ahead of most of the world. It is also not the finish line.
The descent is where the work is. Going within — facing the shadows, the grief, the shame, the exiled parts of yourself — is the hardest stage, and the one most people are too afraid to enter. It asks for more than insight; it asks for shadow work, body work, and honest contact with what you've buried. Juan is direct about it: this is where the transformation actually lives.
Chemsex is a full-body takeover. This pattern is especially stubborn because it fuses to your libido — meth and sex wired together — and there is no stronger pull than sexual energy. That's also the hidden gift: recovering from chemsex requires you to come back into your body and learn to work with that energy rather than be run by it. Juan and Dallas talk about transmuting sexual energy — moving it, redirecting it — rather than only white-knuckling against it.
Your patterns once protected you. The compulsive behavior started as a survival mechanism. That's why the response it deserves is compassion, not shame. Shame, as Juan puts it, is the one thing under which healing cannot happen.
Thought and body can say different things. A huge turning point is learning to notice the gap: your mind may scream "it's happening again, this always hurts," while your body, once you drop into it, is actually calm. Juan tells the story of a slow-to-text love interest that once would have wrecked him — and this time his mind spun the old story while his body stayed soft and at peace. You can learn to trust the body over the story.
The 90-second rule. A trigger, if you stay with it — name it, feel it, breathe into it — tends to move through in about 90 seconds. The urge is not permanent. It's a wave, and waves pass.
Widen your window of tolerance. Between shutting down and being flooded, there's a zone where you can stay present and choose. You expand that zone on purpose by building a personal toolkit — breath, movement, sound, cold water, whatever works for you — and keeping it ready before the wave hits, so you're not scrambling for it mid-urge.
Healing is a spiral, not a straight line. You will circle back. You may react the old way again. The goal isn't perfection; it's shortening the loop and coming back to center faster — always, always without shame.
5 Reflective Questions
Take these slowly. There are no right answers — only honest ones.
- Which repeating pattern in your life is asking for your attention right now? Beyond chemsex — where else does the same loop show up (relationships, work, food, scrolling, self-talk)?
- When you ask "Why do I keep doing this?", is the tone curiosity or condemnation? What would it feel like to ask the same question with genuine gentleness?
- Try Dallas's phrasing: not "I want to use," but "part of me wants to use." When you separate the you from the part, what do you notice? Who is the one doing the noticing?
- When an urge or a hard feeling rises, where does it actually live in your body? Can you tell the difference between the story your mind tells and the sensation your body is having?
- Which of the four stages — trance, witnessing, descent, or return — best describes where you are today? What would it take to move one step further?
5 Journal Prompts
Give yourself space and write longer than feels comfortable. Let it be messy.
- Write a letter of compassion to the younger version of you — the little boy who first learned this pattern. What did he need to hear then that no one said?
- Describe the last time a trigger took over. Retrace your steps like a detective: what happened earlier that day, what feeling was underneath it, and where did it first start to build? (Notice how Juan's Pride night and Dallas's canceled date both started somewhere small.)
- Juan describes an exiled part of himself — his softness, his feminine energy — and traces it to a single moment he learned to hide it. What part of yourself did you learn to reject, when did that happen, and what would it look like to welcome it home?
- Write about a "collapse" in your life you once labeled a failure. If it were actually happening for you — an initiation preparing you for something — what might it have been preparing you for?
- What does return mean to you? Describe the version of yourself you're remembering your way back to — not someone new, but the you that was always underneath.
5 Action Exercises
Small, concrete practices. Pick one to start rather than all five.
- Practice the 90-second rule. The next time an urge or strong feeling hits, set a timer. Name it out loud ("this is loneliness," "this is rejection"), breathe slowly through it, and simply stay with it for 90 seconds before deciding anything. Notice what's left on the other side.
- Build a daily home base in your body. Choose one practice — a few minutes of breath work, a cold shower, movement, or sound — and do it every morning for one week. The goal isn't to fix a feeling; it's to build a place in your body you can return to when the wave comes.
- Map one pattern. On paper, draw the loop of a recurring pattern: the trigger, the feeling underneath, the behavior, and the aftermath. Seeing it laid out turns an automatic response into something you can observe.
- Write your window-of-tolerance toolkit. List the specific tools that bring you back to center when you're activated. Keep the list somewhere you'll actually see it, so it's ready before the next wave — not something you scramble for mid-urge.
- Do a no-shame debrief. After any moment you react the old way, write or say three sentences: what happened, what it was trying to protect, and one line of compassion for yourself. Practice ending the story with grace instead of self-attack.
Healing is a remembering — over and over again. You are not the pattern; you are the one who can learn to watch it, feel it, and choose. Be patient with yourself, celebrate every small step, and reach for support when you need it. For coaching and more resources, visit www.recoveryalchemy.org.
Love you!! Dallas 💚
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