Encore Episode: Practicing Loneliness with Dan

Hey, you. You have taken the time out of your busy schedule to listen to the Aftermath Podcast. Please hear this and know that I am in deep appreciation of all of your love, your support, and your commitment to our mission. Listen, men all over this globe are losing their lives, and not their physical life, But their mental and their spiritual identity. I see it every day. Men from all corners of the world where it is illegal to use drugs, it is illegal to be gay. These men are trapped, having been snared into this world of chemsex by the introduction of Grindr on their phones. Many of them only have this podcast as a resource. Can't go to rehab. This is serious, guys. This is a worldwide epidemic, and your support, even if it's a like, a share, a download, it all helps the algorithm take this resource exactly where it needs to go. I just want you to know how important it is that you continue to support this podcast. Do it for the lonely and isolated gay man in Sri Lanka. Who has to live life in the double closet. God forbid he contract HIV. Thank you so much for your feedback, your comments, and the discussion around the podcast. I appreciate it all, even when you don't agree with what I have to say or the topics I bring to the table. But listen, I will not support the dogma of one way is the only way with intolerance of other routes to recovery. I will not support it. My whole philosophy stands on welcoming everyone to the table, and this podcast demonstrates that, and I'm proud of it. So today I wanted to bring you an encore episode from season 1 for many reasons, one being I was too damn busy this week to get one ready. Sorry about that. And the other is that the topic of loneliness keeps coming up in my client sessions, your DMs, My free sessions. The more connected we are through social media, it seems the more isolated we've become. And the stigma of using meth as a gay man— well, loneliness thrives. And it has become one of the top 3 reasons I see men keep going back to chemsex. They're lonely. They're lonely in our own queer community and in the world at large. So My guest, Dan, from season 1 talks about a really healthy and effective way to overcome loneliness. And it's a big secret. Guess what it is? Do nothing. Sit with it. Sitting with your emotions is the key to recovery. Stop running from them, pushing them down, or letting them explode. Sit with them. Feel them. Avoiding your emotions is what meth has helped you do all of your life. It's the key. All right, enough from me. Let's listen to Dan.

You may not have a problem on paper. You may look good on paper, but your life is, is dark, you know. And I didn't know I was— I remember telling somebody, I said, I feel like I'm wandering around this labyrinth. And I— there's— I feel like there's something I'm missing that's just literally right in front of my face.

Welcome to The Aftermath Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Dallas Bragg, a former crystal meth addict, now sobriety coach. Join me on my mission to increase awareness around the epidemic of crystal meth among the gay male population and create a repository of resources for current and past addicts, as well as and especially for their loved ones. This is The Aftermath. Trigger warning, this podcast will contain discussions pertaining to drug and alcohol misuse. If you feel triggered to use or relapse, please call SAMHSA's National Hotline at 1-800-662-HELP. Also, if you are new in your sobriety journey and you feel like you could be triggered by discussions around drug, alcohol, and sex misuse, please Please do not listen to this podcast.

All right, now on with the show.

Hey y'all, welcome back to the Aftermath Podcast. I am so glad that you are here, and you guys are really enjoying this podcast because we are continuing to grow. The downloads are growing and growing each week, and I'm so, so, so, so happy to see that. And if you wanted to keep growing and if you like what you listen to, you know what I'm gonna say. Rate and review. Please rate and review the podcast. If you listen on Spotify, you can review or rate. If you listen on Apple, you can rate and review. If you listen or watch on YouTube, you can leave a comment there. I would love that. Like, share, subscribe, all those good things. And if you don't want to do any of that, just click a share button and put it on your social media. You know, the more that those things are done, the more that the algorithm gods that control our lives will put the podcast in front of those who need to hear it or see it. If you're watching on YouTube, hello, we are— Dan and I are matchy-matchy today. We, we decided to, uh, work on this beforehand and make sure we are aesthetically, uh, pleasing to the eye. We did not, but, um, great minds think alike. Anyway, today I am joined by Dan.

Hello.

A new friend of mine, and we met, I guess, on TikTok. Yep, TikTok, where I meet everybody.

Yes.

But let's, with no further ado, Dan, can you introduce yourself to us?

Absolutely. My name is Dan. I live in New York City. I am 54 years old. I have been sober for a little over 5 years now. I originally grew up in farm country in Ohio, south of Columbus. Was raised with an evangelical family, very much conservative.

Mm-hmm.

I moved to Columbus. I went to Ohio State University, you know, had the typical Big Ten college experience. Came out there age 20, 21 in the early '90s. And Then I, yeah, I lived in Columbus for a while. I kind of was a circuit party boy in the '90s. Me and my friends used to go to all the little circuit parties around the Midwest, to Chicago and whatnot. And then in 2002, I kind of woke up and decided, I don't want to be in Columbus anymore. And the scene was getting kind of weird in Columbus.

Yeah.

We can talk about that later. It was like, People like the drug epidemic had hit Columbus really hard in 2002. So for me, my bright idea was to move to New York City to get away from that.

Of course.

In 2002. So, and I've lived in New York now since 2002. It's been a great experience living here. I'm very lucky, I think. And, you know, when it comes to kind of my experience with drugs and alcohol. You know, I, first few years that I was here in New York, I really didn't use meth all that much. I just was going out drinking and smoking pot and doing lines of cocaine in the bathroom as New Yorkers do in the early aughts. And then I think what really changed for me was in 2007, 2008, when kind of smartphones came out and you could start hooking up on apps and in the, and in the, you know, on the internet and kind of like that whole like, back, you know, underground, like kind of like party scene started happening. I just started to get involved in that. And that's kind of where my life started to become more and more of a challenge and got a little bit darker and a little bit darker. Until it was just untenable. My life was unmanageable. I was a very, very unhappy individual. And, you know, that's kind of where, you know, eventually it leads to for me to wake up and to try something new. So that's me in a nutshell, I guess.

Yeah. Okay, great. Good. Thank you. Well, we first start with a wellness check-in. So I just want to check on your well-being. How is that today?

My well-being is really good today. It's a nice morning here in New York. I was actually sharing a CMA meeting here in New York City earlier today. It was nice to sit with a bunch of fellow addicts that are in recovery, all of us telling our stories. We had a nice— afterwards, we all went out for a nice big brunch. It was like 10 or 12 of us.

Nice.

Nice social afternoon. rushed back here, thought the train was going to be delayed and I was going to be late for you, Dallas, but I rushed upstairs, fed the cat, and now I'm here. So, uh, all is, all is, all is very well here, uh, at the moment.

Great, great. So for you, um, family members, loved ones, normies who don't know what CMA is— Crystal Meth Anonymous— we've talked about it on the podcast before, but just in case, uh, you aren't familiar, um, We were talking off camera before we started, uh, Dan, about our use a little bit. And you, you started late, but you were talking about that you were a VP, you were high functioning and still using every day. And you were in the, in the stall with, with the pipe, just like I used to be. However, it sounds like you were able to live your life and, and still show up. Now, we, we hear the stories over and over on this podcast of guys losing all their shit, you know, their lives falling apart, yours truly included, right? Like, I was started out as a VP too. I had the meth, the pipe in the stall, but I would get stuck on Grindr and be in there for 3 hours, you know, and then staggering out and having whatever. And, um, I didn't last in that job very long, but you seem to. And so I really want to, let's just jump in right there if we can and highlight that because we have, I have plenty of listeners and guys call in or write in and say, listen, I'm holding up everything here. Um, I know it, it's supposed to be a problem, but it doesn't feel like a problem. So can you talk to that a little bit?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's one of the things that really, for me personally, If I talk to anybody who is dealing with meth and like, and thinking about these things, it's like, I like to, one of the things I think about the most about my addiction, and to be clear, I was very much a binge user. So I would, I wasn't so much a daily user, just so you understand, but I was a binge user. So what I would do is I would go out, And use and go for, you know, at the, at the beginning, it was like, oh, I can go for a day or two. And then a day or two, when I would binge, it would go for 2 or 3, 4 days, and then it would be 5 or 6 days. And so, but I would, I would, you know, I would use, and then I would smash everything up that I had collected, deleted all the phone numbers and threw them in the garbage. Felt tremendous, tremendous, dark, awful shame.

Mm-hmm.

At the time, I didn't even know what shame was or how to describe it. But I knew I just felt not only physically awful, but I also had this going on too. Now, I did. I've had a very good career here in New York. I was VP of operations for a company here in the city when I was kind of in my final dark days, if you will. And it was a stressful job. And I always told myself, oh, well, I work hard, I can play hard. And I would justify kind of my use by doing that. And you know what, it worked for me for a little while. I mean, I thought it was working for me. And I would then, you know, it was looking back on it now, when I was in it, I didn't see it. But looking back on it now, I could see my progression.

Right.

Right?

Yep.

I could see like, okay, I can only use, but I can only miss one night of sleep. Okay. But then that one night of sleep would turn into 2 nights of sleep. Oh, I can use, but I can't use unless the CEO is going to be in. Our CEO came in like once a month for a week from France. I would be like, okay, well, if he's going to be in town, because he was a fucking asshole, I was like, I cannot be high the weekend before that. And then I started being like, oh, that went out the window, right? You know, and then I would call in sick from work when he was in town, and he'd be so angry and calling me while I was like fucked up. It was like it was not cool. And I really, really had you know I started to notice I kept slipping further and further into it. So every binge was a little bit worse. The the comedown was worse. I would be up. I would start on like a And, what usually happened for me was I would go out with some drinking buddies here in my neighborhood and I'd be stoned and then we'd drink a little bit and then I'd be tired from drinking and they're like, oh, here, have some coke. And, I would do some coke and then they were all in couples and they would leave me alone at the bar all high. And then, first thing I'm doing is I'm high and I'm horny and I'm at a bar half drunk and I'm like, so I get online.

Yeah.

And, it's not hard after you get online to find somebody to stay up Yeah. So, all right. Um, and that would be like a Friday night and I'd be like, okay, well, I'm fine. So let's just make sure I'm on work on Monday. If I did make it to work on Monday, I wouldn't have slept for 2 days and I would bring the pipe with me to work. And I would sit in the, I would sit in the men's room. We have a men's room that had a specific one door that closed all the way that you couldn't, there was no like stall.

Mm-hmm.

I would go in there and I would be like, okay, I don't wanna smoke. This is my mind. I was like, I don't wanna do so much that I look spun, you know, but I have to do enough that I could stay awake for the day. And then I would be jumpy all the time and blame it on having too much coffee. So, you know, it was, it was that type of thing. And I thought in my mind, I was like, okay, well, I still have this great, you know, good paying job. I'm an executive. I've got a huge team that reports to me. I've made it. Yeah, I don't have a problem. I was so miserable and unhappy the entire time this was going on. I would wake up and under my breath all day, I would repeat to myself, I can't do this anymore. I can't. I was angry all the time. Just not in a good place. And I just was like, I just knew there was something That was eating me alive. But since I was able to binge and stop and go for a few weeks or a month without using, I didn't have a problem. I wasn't an addict. So why do I need to seek out help? And that was kind of where looking back on it now, very much my early sobriety, I was like, wow, I really was a I was really struggling. And because my perception of what I thought an addict was, or what an addict looked like, my idea was like, I'm not this tweaker guy that's like going around talking to themselves on the subway platform. You know, I've, I'm not living on the streets. I've, you know, I'm not this, I'm not this, I'm not this, I'm not. Doesn't matter. It does not matter. For me, I, I, it brings me some sadness and a little bit of regret, the fact that I like couldn't clue myself into like, no, no, you have a problem. You may not have a problem on paper. You may look good on paper, but your life is, is dark, you know? And I didn't know I was, I remember telling somebody, I say, I feel like I'm wandering around this labyrinth. And I'm there's I feel like there's something I'm missing that's just literally right in front of my face. Hmm. And I I can't I know it's right in front of me and I can't see it. And I had no idea. Um. And it wasn't until sobriety that I started to see what that was in front of my face. Um. And started to be able to sort that out.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I hope that. If you're listening to this, if you can relate to that, you may want to rewind and listen to that again, because there is a perception that we have of what a tweaker is like, or a meth addict is, right? And, and to be quite honest, when you get into the scene and you get on Grindr or Sniffies or whatever, a few, a few scrolls of the pictures, and there are some guys that you know right away. That's a, that's a meth user right there. Um, you got the sunken cheeks and maybe the sunken eyes, or they're in a, uh, you know, a— what are those, holsters? Or not holsters, uh, harness, harness with something. You know, there's something, there's little, little clues that you can get onto. Um, and you always say, you know, I'm not—

that's not—

I don't look like that, so I'm not one of those. You know, until you start looking like that.

Yeah. You know.

Um, and so that is such a, so interesting for you to bring up because how can we, in the middle of it, we're not seeing the tiny signs, you know, there's a, how can we stop to see? How can we get outside of ourselves to observe the little subtleties that are pushing us over the edge? That's a big question.

Yeah. And, you know, That's a good point. And I can, like, I can only speak to my experience, right? So, and it's different for everybody. Recovery is different for each person. So, you know, I think my first thing was, I, once again, my moment of clarity. And it's the, and it's funny, because I talked to other addicts, and we all have like, this moment of clarity. And when we've been like, we're just During times of being absolutely bonked out of our minds high when this— when it hits. For me, my last binge, I was like, up for 6 days, I think it was. And I ended up at some drug dealer's apartment in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. His apartment was such a mess that you couldn't walk around in bare feet.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and I was like, you know, we're doing our thing or whatever. And then I went into the the bathroom. And I remember looking in the mirror and just looking in the mirror and saying, I could immediately— it's so weird, I could see 2 paths in my life right there in front. I was like, I can continue this path. And at the time, I quit my job. Not because I wanted to do meth more necessarily.

I—

long others. Yeah. But I was to the point where I had saved up some money, and I didn't have to work for a while in 2019. So I I could see 2 paths and I could say, I could probably spend all the rest of this money that I've saved up and just party until it's all gone and then know what's going on. And then I also realized like, no, I took this time off because I needed to find something out about myself or I needed to grow. And part of that growth is that I need to figure out why I keep doing meth. I got to figure out what it is—

Yes.

That keeps leading me back here. And I've said this, I've shared this with other people where I'm like, you know, growing up in Ohio in high school, I mean, I was a goofy looking kid. I was not the most athletic or the best looking or like, you know, the most charming kid, but I was smart. And I've always, I've always prided myself that I could outthink everybody else. And meth Addiction was so messed up for me because I could not think myself out of it. I could not reason my—I could not figure out how I could set up my life in such a way with whatever rules I wanted to put around it or this. It always came back, and and I've realized now looking back on it that it's not something that I can intellectualize. Addiction is not an intellectual thing. It's it's um. You know, at the risk of sounding corny, it's like, it's like it's a spiritual condition. And I can talk about spirituality. And I'm not a religious person. I'm agnostic.

At best.

So, but I don't believe, you know, just the human experience and kind of going through human experience and like, and experiencing it sober and moving through life and enjoying life and finding meaning is a spiritual experience for me personally. And I wasn't having that all these years that I was using. That part of my life had had died. So I think that's kind of lost my my train of thought.

But you were you looked in the mirror, the mirror after six days, and was like, and you saw a cross. You were at a crossroads at that point.

Yeah. And I was like, I don't know. Yeah. And I realized. And I had promised myself the last relapse that I had had, I was like, if you do this again, you need to, you need to seek help. You need to do something. You need at least try to figure it out and get some help. And when it happened again, I was like, well, I'm gonna go to rehab. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and I got out of there. And I immediately contacted in New York, the LGBT Center has a whole addiction and recovery department and whatever. And it's like, and I went there as an outpatient for 3 months. Absolutely changed my life.

Okay. Yeah. Was it like an IOP kind of situation? IOP? Okay. Yeah. Okay.

And it's funny because this was like May, June. And it was, it was 90 days. Complete abstinence from everything. And one of the reasons I didn't want to like stop, like I didn't want to go to these abstinence, I didn't want to stop drinking and smoking pot.

Right.

I loved smoking weed. I was a big pothead for 25 years. And I remember struggling to sign on the dotted line that I wanted to do the outpatient and I was going to commit to being, because they drug test you every week. And I was like, well, wait, it's summertime. How am I going to go to the beach and not get drunk and stoned? I mean, that's the most insane thing ever. Why would anybody want to do that?

Yeah.

And then I kind of, and once again, by the grace of the universe or whatever, some brain cell fired and said to me, and I thought the thought come into my head, it said, you know what? If I'm having this much anxiety about not signing up not to do pot and drinking, maybe I do have a problem with that too.

Yeah.

Maybe there's something else going on that I need to explore here. I love that. And I was, you know, it's kind of funny because when I went into the outpatient, I was like, I'll just show these people out of spite. I'm not going to drink. I'm not going to smoke pot. And in 3 months, we'll just see if I'm better or not.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Turns out it was pretty awesome. Yeah. In the end, it was pretty awesome. So, right.

Yeah. Yeah. Great. And so after rehab, you mentioned that, you know, there was something in your crossroads moment where you wanted to find out, why am I doing this? Right. And you didn't hit— I mean, your rock bottom is so unique to me in that you didn't lose, you know, you quit your job, you had money.

Yeah.

You weren't, you weren't forced A lot of us get to the point where, like with me, it was either quit or go to prison. You know, the decision was not that. But you decided with your own mental fortitude and you wanted to decide why. So, what did you discover in that journey of why?

You know, I think what it comes down to, and look, it is a journey that continues on, right? So, there is no, like, I have no final answer. You know, but that's one of the most beautiful things about being a human being and existing is that we don't have to have an answer. Yeah, we keep, we keep exploring, we keep exploring. But here's some things that I feel like I found out.

Okay.

One of the things, and it, and it goes for meth, it goes for pot, it goes for any sort of, any sort of substance that, that allows me to numb myself from feeling anything. I don't like to feel emotions.

Yep.

They're terrifying. I don't know what to do with them. I never knew what to do with them. They're scary. And I don't know how, you know, so all my life, I mean, okay, to take a step back, I can talk about, you know, growing up in rural Ohio with very stoic, like, parents in a fundamentalist Christian household. We didn't really ever talk about how we felt about stuff. We never had a dialogue as a child. I never had a dialogue with like, I'm feeling this way because of this and I'm scared or I'm not happy. We never talked about that. If you were having bad feelings, you weren't allowed to have those either.

Yeah.

Because if you were feeling bad or something like that, that was sinful and like it was, there's something wrong with you and what's wrong with you, you need to fix that or whatever. So my first drug of choice was pot, because pot was the easiest way for me to get— I could get stoned and not feel anything. I could drink, not feel anything.

Mm-hmm.

As I got older, I just started layering on ecstasy, KG, like the whole gamut, you know. So if one— if I— if drinking in excess didn't numb me enough, then I would get high on something else. And not being able to deal with like all the the stuff that was going on in here, the feelings and the emotions. And it it and I was fortunate that when I got sober, I also found a good therapist. Okay. And I highly if if if it's possible for somebody getting sober to seek therapy and to talk about some of these things. And my therapist. For the first time, kind of gave me a vocabulary for being able to describe what I was feeling.

Hmm.

I knew I was having all these feelings and everything that was coming up inside me. I, I had no way. I was like muted. I could never get it out to anybody. Then the second part of that was I always had this fear that if I did let it out, that I would be rejected, and it would be that, that people would reject me and run the other way. And there was part of me too, that felt like what I felt and how I felt didn't matter to anybody.

Ah.

And a long part of my using was feeling like, I don't care what happens to me. It doesn't matter. Nobody cares what— how I feel. my feelings are not important.

Hmm.

So kind of understanding that, being, being able to understand why I'm angry about something, to be able to, and to be able to deconstruct, deconstruct my, my reactions to things and understand that I'm angry because I'm hurt because of this happening, or I'm angry because I'm afraid that something is here. I'm I'm feeling shame. That's why I'm reacting the way I did. I would be always so surprised about how I reacted to certain situations because I didn't understand the emotions that were happening. So a lot of my sober journey has been just trying to figure myself out and through that process, growing and having that spiritual experience that I talk about. And it's been wonderful. It's like I opened up this whole other part of like existence that I never knew existed when I started exploring this. Yeah. I was a, I was an enigma to myself. Yeah. Until I got sober.

Yeah. I love that. I love it. And I want to underscore here for your listeners is that this is common in that we aren't brought up to Feel emotions. You know, you might have been told like I was, stop crying or I'm going to give you something to cry about. Right? Many times. And we're not only taught to not feel, but we don't—we don't—are—we're not given the language and we don't understand how to articulate. And so one of the things—and people think it's silly, but it's so helpful—and they give these out in. drug treatment, you probably got one in IOP, I don't know, a feelings wheel, you know. And so these feelings wheels, I'm gonna put the link in the show notes too here. They're very, they're very useful in, okay, I'm feeling happy, but then it goes into more detail. And so that you can adequately articulate exactly how you're feeling. And when you give a name to how you're feeling, it shines light on it and it takes the power away from it. And you're able to express it more fully. And so I really love all of what you just said, what you just said. It's so helpful.

The feelings aren't as terrifying when you under— when, when you like, I understand where this is coming from now. And one of the things that I've worked on, and I think is amazing is, you know, you, you, it says in The Velvet Rage, he says your feelings are there to inform you. You don't have to act on them. So to be able to feel something Pause for a second. Yes. Digest it before just firing back or whatever. Be able to kind of like feel it, move through it, allow yourself to like have that experience is revolutionary to me, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. This is great. This is perfect for what we need to hear.

One anecdote I'll tell you. It was very beginning in my IOP experience. And one of the counselors that helped, you know, we would meet in a group setting. We'd all go around and check in. And there was a facilitator, a counselor that would facilitate the meeting. And this one counselor, she was my actually one-on-one counselor too. She was very deadpan humor, Eastern European lesbian. That's scary. I needed a scary lesbian to keep me in the theater, so that was good. But we were going around, and that day I was just out of sorts. She was like, and how are you? I was like, I'm horny, I'm pissed off, I don't know what to do with myself. I was like, I'm unhappy. And she goes, oh, you feeling bad feelings? And I said, yeah, I feel like crap. And she goes, well, you'll have those. Welcome to the human race.

Yeah.

It won't last forever.

Yeah.

And it was the first time in my life that anybody gave me permission to feel Something bad. I was like, wait, I can just feel this? And it— right. And I don't need to do anything about it? She wasn't like, oh, I'm sorry you're feeling that way. Let me feel it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. Giving people space to feel. Yeah, that's not a common quality that you find, you know, in, in anyone, in your friends even, you know. People want to make you Quickly make you feel better. Yeah, but look at the bright side. But no, just just let me feel. Let me feel it.

Move through it. Is there anything I can do for you? Right. You know. Yes. Yeah. And I think my using, and I I really feel, and I explore this deeply, and I I think I go back to this quite a bit when I talk about all the feelings out there that kind of was my Achilles heel for using was. Loneliness. I'm always, as a gay man growing up in farm country in Ohio in the '80s, feeling out of place and out of sorts with fundamentalist Christians, that out of place and out of sorts. I've always felt like kind of alone. And I've always had it. I didn't realize until I started, I got sober and started really looking at how long this goes back in my life that I'm, my default setting is that feeling of loneliness. And it's like, it's something I have to watch continually. And a lot of my sober life has been practicing being lonely, or feeling lonely and being okay with it. Can you expand on that? Yeah, for example, I think what, you know, I remember I talked about like when I was in my pre-sobriety and my binge using days is I remember many times thinking to myself, you know, between binges, I would be like, I would get to the point where like, I hadn't had sex with anybody, I hadn't touched, hadn't, you know, hadn't been intimate with anybody. And the only way I knew how to get it was to go online and find that. And I would say, well, I may be getting high and I'll feel like crap, but at least somebody will touch me.

Hmm.

You know, at least I'll be having, you know, some experience, even though it's not the experience that I'm really needing, or ideally wanting. It's got to suffice for now. I think that my feelings of loneliness, even to this day, it's just the dialogue that's in my head about not being good enough, feeling like I'm broken somehow, feeling like I don't matter.

Yeah.

And that's a common theme that, you know, that I've talked about a lot with other sober people in recovery that have said, yeah, when I was using, I did not care about myself. I didn't think anybody else cared. And it was a very lonely and dark place to be in those situations. And by using, I thought I was connecting with people because, you know, Yeah, we've used, and you know what it's like in the experience. We don't need to go into that. But I feel that, like, you know, I was seeking that connection. And of course, I'm an addict. So I want to get it as quickly as possible, the fastest possible way, right?

Right.

And by doing drugs, that's how, you know, doing meth, that's how I thought I was connecting. But it always ended, you know, of course, as we all know, it always ends in a dark place. It never ends never ended for me in a good place. I was always like 10 times more lonely and depressed and anxious and sad after a run. Right. You know, so that's, that's my opus on loneliness, I guess.

Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting. We have this, you know, some of the similar things that you chase loneliness and you think you have it. for that amount of time you're high with that person. But it's interesting, it's like for a minute you get it, you get that high-level connection, you get everything you want, and then it's fucking ripped out as soon as the bag is empty, you know. It's ripped out from under you, and then you feel even lonelier than you did to begin with.

Yeah, more lonely, more isolated than before. And, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, When it comes to that, and as in sobriety and being able to kind of like explore now after 5 years of making connections with other sober people and building sober relationships and sober friendships and connecting on a sober level, it's not that instantaneous high.

Mm-hmm.

But it also is not— it's not a castle built on sand, right? It's like, it's more solid. It's there. It's more real. And it's more work.

More work.

It's definitely more work. But the reward is the fact that I do feel truly like I don't feel nearly— I will always feel lonely. This is something I just know about my life. But it doesn't hurt as much as it used to, not nearly as much as it used to. It doesn't affect me like it used to. Yeah, but I do have connection now.

Yeah. Yeah. How do you practice? You mentioned that you practice being lonely. How do you do that? Can you talk about that?

You know, how do I practice being lonely? There's a few things where I just like, if I'm in that state, and look, I usually want to, first of all, give myself some compassion to feel lonely and not feel to be mindful of the fact that like, I feel really lonely and I don't know what to do. And I'm really sad because I feel lonely and I don't want to be alone. I don't then add on another layer of like, quit feeling alone, you loser.

Right.

You know, maybe stupid. Yeah. It's like, I don't beat myself up for feeling lonely. It's like, I recognize it for being what it is. And it's a normal part of like who I am. And it just is. I also remind myself it won't last forever. It will not last forever. I will not always feel this way. I had a string of like probably February, March. I was really like, I was feeling lonely. I was really like going through it. I did not want to. And no matter how many people say, oh, we're here for you. Just give us a call if you feel lonely. I was like, no, that's not what it's about. It's like, I know I can reach out and call people. It doesn't solve that feeling inside of me though. No matter how many people could be there for me, I still am gonna feel lonely.

Hmm.

And then I realize, I'm like, look, I'm gonna feel this way for a little while. It's not gonna last forever. And when I'm ready, I can start taking steps. To reconnect with people, get out, try to connect with other people to to to to to kind of like to kind of get this to dissipate. I think that a lot of the times I've had with with loneliness is you know I I'm like look I'm just gonna have a I'm gonna have a pity party for myself for like a day or two, but I don't want to wallow in it too long. Yeah. And I will reach out and just try to get myself out of it. And I read somewhere that, you know, a lot of people think that you need to be inspired before taking action. When I'm feeling lonely and I'm tired of feeling lonely, I need to take action and let the inspiration follow.

Yeah.

So, a lot of times I have to like just say, okay, Maybe I don't particularly need to go out and do something with people, but let me just do that because I know probably I'm going to feel better if I do that.

Yeah.

It's like when I'm getting ready to go to the gym in the morning and I'm like, oh, I really don't want to go to the gym, but I'm going to feel so much— I know I'm going to feel so much better if I go. And I'll go and I'll come out of the gym like, yes, I'm so glad. A lot of times action precedes inspiration in these situations.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Thank you for that. And I think that's important for you, the listener, to hear as well and highlight is that, you know, we don't sometimes don't feel motivated or we don't, you know, and motivation to me isn't a feeling. It's taking an action. Right. And sometimes you just have to force yourself to do it. But like you said, an action will follow inspiration and will follow some movement, you know, when you're stuck. So that's great. And it sounds like you're really stepping into that observer role where you're observing that you're lonely, but you're not identifying with it.

Yeah. And, you know, and I think that this is part of, you know, reading some of the reading that I've done and some of the therapy work that I've done, you know, and I don't know where I, where I heard it first, maybe it's my therapist or from a book or something. I said, just start that inner voice. I have a, I have an inner dialogue that goes on and very rarely does it say you're amazing and everything's going to be fine. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, my— I started to view that inner dialogue as a separate person. Yeah. And realizing that, that, that separate person, like, if somebody— if that was an actual separate person talking to me, I would not stand for that. That's right. You know, so being able to kind of like watch my thoughts and be an observer of my thoughts and not let the thoughts be me. has been something that I think has really done a lot in, in me learning about myself and to have that separation and understanding. And it's something I could never have done high. It's only in my sober life that I have been able to explore that part of myself that I, until, until 5 years ago, I didn't even know existed. Yeah, no idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some parts work there, sounds like. Yeah. So you mentioned, um, in between using, you didn't have sex or didn't want to have sex. Um, you were— you, you started this journey older, like, uh, more seasoned, like me. Um, yes, seasoned gentlemen we are. Um, so how has your sex— sober sex life Ben, did you feel broken like many of us do after meth ravaged or destroyed our sex brain, sexual template? And if you did, how did you heal that?

So let me just start off by, by just let me set the stage. So yes, I'm 54 years old. I got sober at 49. I am being that age. I spent a good portion of my gay adult life without apps or internet or anything like that. So my experience in that hooking up was maybe different. I remember, I do have memories of having sober sex. I didn't start out having sex with meth. So I did in my early, you know, I do have sober friends in recovery that from day one, they were using meth. So they didn't know anything other than sober.

Ah.

So there's that. And also being a man of a certain age, my sex drive isn't quite like it was when I was 30. It's still there. I mean, I am a red-blooded homosexual, but, but it's not like when I was in my 30s. So I can't, you know, that's, that's, that's a few things. So, um, but I had been using— I had, if it wasn't meth, I was always drunk or stoned or high or something. Okay. For sex for probably 25 years. I hadn't had sober, sober sex, even if it wasn't meth. So when I got sober, I, I had a lot of anxiety about it, quite honestly, it was scary. I didn't know what to expect, how it was going to work. I didn't know if I, if I had broken myself. I didn't know. And, you know, the common thing, the thing with the, in the program and CMA, and Or whatever they say, you know, don't get involved in any relationships or whatever. That's right. First year of sobriety, they try to say, you know, put sex on the shelf, which I think for me personally, sex had taken up and become something in my life that was not healthy at all. It was about validation. It was about me, about what I could get. It wasn't about the other person or affection or love. It was like, it just became— it took a space in my life that I knew when I got sober, I was like, I need to I need to cool it for a while and let myself reset. About six months into sobriety, I met a fellow also had about six months of time. He was visiting from out of town. I met him in a meeting, and we ended up hanging out like one day because he was like, "Let's you know go Brooklyn Bridge Park," and we hung out. We ended up like liking each other, and we found each other attractive, and. It was a— I was lucky to have a very, very good first sober sexual experience.

Nice.

We talked about, hey, I haven't had sex sober in a very, very long time. This is my first experience having sober sex. I would really like to know, let's be intimate. But, and he said, I feel the same way. We had a dialogue, it was really Very important. We said, you know what? Let's just give it a try. If it doesn't work, we know it's not going to be meth sex, right? It's not going to last for two or three days. Yeah, right. Whatever. But let's let's enjoy each other, you know, physically. And if it doesn't work out, then we'll just laugh it off and you know we'll move on and there'll be no hard feelings and you don't have to worry about performing and and all the other stuff. So. And we had a really nice time together. It was very sexy, very like erotic. It was very connected. It was like I was present for the person I was there with.

Huh.

Something in meth sex that is like, you feel like you're connected, but you're not present at all in those situations. But sober sex, you're like, you're actually present for them. And that can be scary because you can be up, you can be in your head about stuff.

Yes. And it can be—

we're men, we're supposed to be able to perform and like all this other stuff. So, you know, for us to be vulnerable, this, this other guy that my first experience, like for us both to be vulnerable and talk about it ahead of time.

Yes.

Was really helpful. And we had a very nice time. And, and I afterwards, I was like, oh, that was really great. And I immediately kind of like, was like, okay. I didn't break myself. I didn't break myself. I can enjoy sex without anything else. And then after that, I had a few sexual experiences here and there. It wasn't quite the volume I had when I was using.

Sure.

Which I don't necessarily miss feeling like a human petri dish. But, you know, but the times I did connect with people and did have sexual experiences, it was really It was, it was, it was good. It was like, and it, it was with sober people. Yeah. I, you know, I had a dry spell last, was it last year? Yeah, I had a dry spell that was driving me crazy. I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna go out of my mind. Sex. And I wasn't on the apps or anything like that. And I don't go to bars anymore. And hooking up with people in like, the rooms and stuff is like, kind of dicey too. Yeah. It just so happened that was during the monkeypox outbreak. So I was just like, oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I was like, haha. Yeah. All my friends that were sexually active got monkeypox. And I was like, okay, I don't care. Yeah. But at the end, and I'll confess, like at the end of last summer, I was like, okay, I need to do something about this. So I got on, I am on an app. It's not Sniffies and it's not Grindr.

Okay.

Because those I know already. Yeah. Are, are temp— they're gonna connect with drug people. So I did. Yeah, I did get on an app. I put in my profile that I've been sober for so long. I'm not using drugs. I would like to have sex with sober, completely sober sex with whoever. Yeah. Might be interested. And And I've had some nice sexual experiences. Some guys are in program and sober. Some guys just never really drink at all, you know, anyways, just naturally not really into it. And it's not been quite the dumpster fire that it used to be when I was high.

Yeah.

But it took me 4 years to get to that point.

Ah, okay.

So I gave myself a long time because I was really, really afraid of going back on those apps and relapsing and, and being back into that life again. And when I did decide to go onto an app and see if I could meet people, um, I told people that I was going back on the app and say, by the way, I'm signing up for this because I need to be touched. Um, you know, I need, I need to have some digital intimacy. And I told like 3 or 4 people and I was like, you know, well, just check in with me every once in a while, make sure it's all okay.

I love that.

Yep. And it's, yeah, it's been good. It's like going on to, going on to that now, I have to watch my compulsive behavior because you can be very compulsive about it. So I try to watch my compulsive behavior as much as I can. And, and just enjoy myself. I, I've, I have a few like friends with benefits that, okay, on occasion and some regs. Yeah. Yeah. I got a few in the stable. It's fine. And good. Yeah, it's been good.

Good. Yeah. Yeah. The big, the big part that, that stands out to me. Well, a lot of, a lot of that stands out to me, but communication in terms of Telling people, I'm going back on the app, this is my plan, and then communicating to your, your partners. You know, I think that's— we don't see that.

Yeah.

You know, there's just very little of this, you know, and we're— we may be stigmatized, we may be embarrassed. It's back to that shame issue, you know, that we don't want to say. Um, and then we— and then most of, you know, the majority of meth users are also dealing— they're living with HIV, so they're dealing with that whole shame and stigma as well. Um, and so then, you know, some of them want to just serosort and that's it. Yeah. Um, so dating is out of the question for you, or—

Not really. Um, you know, I would— I'd be open to dating. Um, I, I for a while there was very much like, I want to have a partner, I want to have a relationship, and it really was causing me a lot of like Frustration because it wasn't happening, and I was like, you know, I was trying to make fetch happen, and it just wasn't happening. So yeah, um, so I've I've kind of got to the point at this stage of my life, if it comes along, I'd be more yeah, I definitely would entertain it. Um, but I don't let it be like like central to like like my worth or or or making me feel like oh god, it's like why doesn't you know? And look, I'm 54 years old and I've had people say like, oh, I don't understand why you don't have a boyfriend. And I'm like, stop.

I love it. It's like, I love that comment.

What's that?

I love that comment.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's like, it's like, okay, I know you, I know you meant it as a compliment, but it's not received that way. Yeah. There's something about it. It's kind of sinister. But no, I, I feel like right now in my life, I was never a person that you would want to date.

Mm-hmm.

Pre-sobriety. Um, I couldn't communicate any of my feelings.

Yeah.

I had— I was terrified of communicating feelings if I did have them and knew what they were. Um, and I, I dated guys and, you know, they just got so frustrated with me that they were like, you know, what's, what's going on with you?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Um, and then I would blow up a relationship and treat them like crap. And I've had to apologize to my ex-boyfriends. Yeah. Say, hey, my one boyfriend, I said, I am so sorry for putting you through that. Yeah. I treated you so terribly and you were such a great guy. You know, and, and, and I didn't want to get back into another relationship until I kind of understood like why I was doing all this stuff. And I feel like I am the most self-aware that I have ever been of myself. I feel like I'm not afraid of kind of like telling people, like to be able to talk to people about how I feel and open about that. It's a work in progress because it's a, it's my preset, you know, to be like this. But yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And this feeling that you don't matter. Yeah. You know, it, that, it sounds like that was clouding everything.

Yeah. Yeah. And when you don't care, if you don't, and they say, you know, and it's cliché, if you don't love yourself, Yeah. And it was like, it wasn't even loving myself. It was the fact that I didn't feel like I was worthy of being loved. Yes.

Yeah.

And that is a distinction that is very important to me and for me to really like pay attention to because I did not feel like I was worth it. Yeah. And no matter how much somebody would love me and tell me how much they love me and show me how much they love me, it didn't matter because I never thought I I was deserving of it. That's right.

That's right. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about— you've mentioned your spiritual experience a couple of times. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, let me talk about that for a while. Like I said, I'm agnostic and raised as an evangelical Christian. And so first things first is like, you know, me walking into like a 12-step meeting. For the first time, it was very triggering for me because I was like, okay, these guys are all standing around holding hands and saying a prayer. And the last time I was in that situation, it did not end well for me. So, and I understand when I talk about spirituality and my spiritual experience was for me, you know, I had read somewhere or I know actually my therapist had told me, he's like, you know, when you start using drugs, alcohol, or whatever, you stop digesting your emotions and your feelings, and you kind of put that on hold. You stop your growth in your life. And then when you get sober, you kind of pick up where you left off. And I feel that, I think, you know, I think The Buddha's got it right. You know, suffering is— life is suffering. Life is feeling unpleasant, having unpleasant feelings. But also growth from that is what we're here for, in a way. I'm very much about, you know, definitely about the journey and enjoying the playing of life. And understanding it as, you know, how do I say, the point of life is simply here and now. To understand that like the very moment that we're living in, the only thing that's real is this very moment right now.

Yeah.

Everything else is either a memory in the past or a worry of the future. It's a projection. It's, you know, everything else just lives in our head. Yeah. I love it. To really honor and understand that being present is really the way I connect, I guess, at a higher level and feel connected, I guess. And I don't want to— I feel like a hippie when I start talking about this stuff because I'm like, okay, well, it's like connecting to like the universe and the universe of consciousness, whatever it is.

Yeah.

They talk about, you know, in In in program, in twelve step and CMA, you know we talk a lot about your higher power. And I think that part of understanding or that exploration of what is your higher power? What do you consider a power greater than yourself? I admit I don't think it's a conscious being that's looking out for me. Higher power. I do feel that I'm definitely not the one in control of this. Michigas, that's, you know, the world. And to be able to be present for that and understand that, like, that the obstacles that come in my way, the joys that I experience, that all of that is like an accumulation of me as a human being and as a soul and as an entity. Living in the world. And in addiction, when I was suppressing all those feelings and avoiding all that growth, it stopped. I was dead. It wasn't until I kind of freed myself from that and let myself feel it. Like I said in that example with the outpatient, I was like, I feel like crap. And she's like, yeah, you're going to feel like that. That's part of the human experience. Welcome to humanity. You're gonna feel like crap sometimes. Mm-hmm. I think also, I had heard, I think it was a book by the Dalai Lama or something. He was talking about like, just imagine if you were a person that was born into this world and every need you possibly had or every want you ever had was fulfilled. No questions asked. You always got everything you always, always wanted. What kind of human being would you end up?

That's right.

Yeah. How would you end up? It's because of all the obstacles and the struggles and the fuck-ups and the mistakes and the failures and the successes and all this other stuff that goes on. That's how we get to where we are. And that's kind of like one of the things too, where I feel, you know, trying to think how to say it. I feel like I look back on my past and I was very ashamed of my time using meth and I felt a lot of shame around that. But at the same time, had it not been for my meth addiction, I would never have found sobriety, probably.

Yeah.

I probably would still be limping along. It really, if you really want to cause chaos to your life, man, that's one way to get there.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, I think really spirituality in the end revolves a lot around me trying to stay in the present moment.

Okay.

And, you know, there's times where I'm really focused and like, on a beautiful evening, I live in Brooklyn, so I'll bike over to Red Hook and it's the most beautiful sunset past the Statue of Liberty. And that's one of my spiritual moments because I can sit there and like watch the sun go down, the close of another day. So, it's activities that I put into my life that keep me present. And that's really kind of like where the spiritual growth comes from. Yeah. I had heard it. Another thing too is one thing I had heard or read that I thought was really good is the nice thing about spirituality is nobody can tell you you're doing it wrong. Yeah.

Yeah. And I have to agree. They sure do try.

They sure do try. Yes. Well, somebody else has said religion's for people who are afraid to go to hell, but spirituality is for those who have been there and back. Yeah, I like that one too.

Yeah, I like that. I like that. Thank you for sharing. Um, yeah, it's interesting. I've heard somebody say, and you know, anxiety is only when you are— when you have anxiety, it's either you're thinking about something from the past or the future.

Yeah, yeah, you're not in the present.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, one more thing you mentioned, um, earlier. You've, you've mentioned the Buddhist book, but you also mentioned The Velvet Rage. Do you have a reading list? That you would suggest?

Yeah, there's a few things that I would suggest that I, that I found I really enjoyed in my, my early sobriety. The first one I read was Man's Search for Meaning. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yep. One of the things that Viktor Frankl, one of my favorite quotes of his was, when we can't find meaning in life, we distract ourselves with pleasure. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I was doing. Yeah, sure. Yeah. The Four Agreements. Yes. Absolutely one of the best reads.

Snap on that one.

Yeah, yeah. I go back to it. I give it to people all the time. It's one of the best. One of the best. The Velvet Rage. I read through that. I was like, oh my God, this guy is writing out my experience. It's freaking me out. But it made so much sense. It really put into words what I was experiencing as a gay man in our society at this time. I think it was really great. The Power of Now.

Okay. Yep.

The Power of Now is a lot about mindfulness. A lot of that, a lot of his talk is about being the observer of your thoughts and how you are not your thoughts, which was instrumental in me kind of understanding myself better. And I would recommend the 12 in 12, even if you're not going to go into a 12-step program. The big book is like a little bit daunting, I think, because it's written in transatlantic accent, I'm sure. But the 12 in 12 is a lot more digestible. And even if you're not really like planning on going into it, it's an interesting read to go through and just talk about like, you know, why it's very accessible language, I think.

Mm-hmm.

And I would say that just a quick read through that. Even if you don't want to go through a 12-step program, like I said, everybody recovers in their own way. That's right. Um, you know, that's, um, that's one I would recommend as well.

What a lovely list. I approve. I've read them all except 12 and 12. I have not read that one, but—

Oh yeah, I read it. Yeah.

Nothing. Is there anything that I missed here? Is there anything that I should have asked you, could have asked you, or that you would've hoped would've been in this interview.

Well, let me just talk to you a bit about my experience because I do go to Crystal Meth Anonymous and I'm in the program. I probably, if you ask somebody, an old-timer in the program, I probably am not working a strong program, quote unquote. But I will tell you that my reasoning, this is kind of where I came about with it, was I knew first of all that if I was going to stay sober, I needed to make sober friends.

Yeah. Yeah.

And the easiest place to meet sober people and to be around sober people is in meetings like that.

Right. Right.

I'm lucky in New York that there's a lot of atheists and agnostics. So I know it can be very religious and very heavy on that. I don't particularly buy into that at all. Sometimes I have to roll my— I got to Stop my urge to roll my eyes when God's brought up in these meetings. But yeah, so yeah, yeah, yeah. And it just helps for me to sit in a room and hear other people talk about how they're dealing with life sober and kind of what they're doing to get through things and how their struggles like, oh, my job sucks and my boss pissed me off and this, I need to think this way. It's, it's important to hear, for me to hear other people in recovery talking about their life and how they're moving through it. Yeah. And really the only thing, you know, they, the only 2 things that I say about 12-step is the only, the only thing is number one, the first step they say is the only one you really need to do. And that's to admit that you have a problem.

Yeah.

And number 2 is the only, the only requirement for membership is the desire to stop using. Everything else after that's a suggestion. You know, so interesting.

Yeah, and I found it's an interesting way to look at it.

Yeah, and in New York, look, you can get a lot of sanctimonious pricks in 12-step just like you can find anywhere else. But oh yeah, I have found here in New York that people, especially in the CMA fellowship, they're like, we're very much like no ego. We're here to help each other. We're here to connect and to help each other get out of this thing. I just knew that I needed To find, I needed to make a lot of sober friends. I knew I couldn't do it by myself.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for that very much, Dan. I have enjoyed this. This is a juicy convo. Juicy. Very juicy. There's a lot to digest there. So if you're, if you listen to this, you may want to listen twice and make sure you got all that. But there will be a study guide. That goes along with it, as you know. So look for that in the show notes. You can also join in the conversation. We have an After Meth Community on Facebook. It's called the After Meth Community. We have a website, aftermath.net. You can go on and submit questions or comments. If you are a LOMA, I call them, loved one of a meth addict, you can also submit questions. There's a lot of those. A lot of people out there not knowing what to do with their husband, son, partner, cousin, uncle who is in this addiction and acting and disappearing for a week at a time. So yeah, we would love to hear from you. If you have questions for Dan, you send them in and I'll get them to Dan. And so yeah, we'll go. So anyway, thank you very much, Dan, and everybody, we will see you next week. Bye.