⚠️ Content Warning: This episode and study guide contain candid discussion of chemsex and sexualized drug use, including methamphetamine, GHB, and other substances. There is also discussion of stigma, shame, relapse, homelessness, and the complex realities of both active use and recovery. If y...
Content Warning: This episode and study guide contain candid discussion of chemsex, methamphetamine use, and the psychological and physical toll of active addiction. Personal disclosures include experiences of housing loss and late-stage substance misuse. If you are currently in a vulnerable p...
Content Warning: This guide discusses chemsex, sexual trauma, non-consensual experiences, sexual reintegration, and explicit references to sex and the body. Please move through it at your own pace. If anything here stirs up something that feels too big to hold alone, pause, breathe, and reac...
Content Warning: This episode and study guide discuss childhood trauma, sexual abuse, addiction, shame, and references to BDSM, kink, and intense sexual practices within the chemsex context. Please engage at your own pace and reach out for support if anything feels activating.
A Note From Dal...
If you have followed me for a while, you know that I've spent a considerable amount of my life as a restaurant server.
When I was working in the corporate world, I believed those days were behind me. That is, until I fell down the chemsex hole and got myself some felony charges on my record.
Th...
A Conversation with Amanita Calderon-Cifuentes
Dear Friend,
I want to be honest with you before you read a single word of this guide: this episode challenged me. Not because I disagreed with my guest — but because she said things out loud that I've been circling around for years, and she said t...
A Note Before We Begin
One of the basic tenets I teach in my program is that Recovery = Life. There is no differentiation between recovery skills and life skills.
Not sure when we learned to separate the two.
A basic life experience is reaching a plateau. This could be in your fitness journey...
There's a story we tell ourselves in recovery.
That the loneliness will go away once we build a new social circle. Once we find a sober community. Once we get back into dating, or back into the world, or back into our own life.
So we wait for the outside to change. And sometimes it does — and ...
Sitting in a circle with 8 heterosexual people of various genders, none of whom with a history of crystal methamphetamine use.
Working with drug counselors who had never heard the word "Tina" before.
That was my treatment experience. Also, my probation experience. Also, my drug court experien...
One of the greatest gifts crystal methamphetamine gave me was the understanding of boundaries.
I wasn't shown boundaries as a child.
I never knew how to create boundaries as an adult.
And in my active meth use, that gap in understanding was exploited by the chemical.
For example, whenever som...
Hey y'all,
If you've listened to my recovery story, you may recall that early on, I found a job serving at a local high-end steakhouse.
Every day before the shift began, we were required to circle around the managers to hear the latest announcements and typically a list of server wrongdoings.
...
What if the traditional amends process is just the foundation, and there's a whole other level of transformation waiting?
Hey y'all,
Let me start by saying this: If you've done traditional amends work in a 12-step program, that took courage. Real courage.
Making a list of people you've harmed ...
