Ghosts of ChrisMiss Past; He Left the Hospital Barefoot to Smoke Crack and Fentanyl: Relapse, Survival and Remembering Chris | Dopey Greatest Hits

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Summary:

This week on Dopey Greatest Hits, Dave marks the eighth anniversary of Chris O’Connor’s death with a powerful replay about relapse, survival and the people addiction takes from us. Before the original episode, Dave reflects on his own recovery, restraint of pen and tongue, missing meetings and the uncomfortable truth that two things can be true at once. He also reads a brutally honest email from James D. DeHart about coming within seconds of buying meth after three years away from hard drugs.

The original episode opens with Dave remembering Chris and listening back to the early years of Dopey—the jokes, interruptions and ordinary moments that preserved their friendship. A clip from Episode 100 becomes painfully prophetic as Dave and Chris casually discuss what their relapses might look like and whether either of them could die.

Then Dopey legend DJ recounts the complete anatomy of his relapse after nearly two years sober. A new job and relationship slowly replaced meetings, sponsorship and honesty. Social drinking followed, then a drive past his old Detroit dope house. Within weeks, he was smoking crack and fentanyl daily, hiding drugs from his girlfriend and falling out in bathrooms.

After mixing fentanyl, Suboxone, tequila, cannabis gummies and Ativan, DJ entered precipitated withdrawal and landed in a Detroit hospital. He left in undersized hospital scrubs and socks, found his way back to the dope spot and spent the day smoking crack and fentanyl in a blackout. He lost his clothes, wandered barefoot through Detroit, handed his debit card to a stranger and eventually surfaced dirty, disoriented and barely alive. His family found him, and he eventually returned to treatment.

The episode also includes a classic exchanges between Dave and Chris, followed by a moving conversation with Chris’s former sponsor, Dylan. They discuss sponsorship, psychedelics in recovery, the dangers of building a life and then neglecting the recovery that made it possible—and the authenticity, curiosity and independence that made Chris unforgettable.

All that and way more! on this Ghosts of ChrisMiss Past episode!

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