EP 1:1 Why Another Podcast?

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 their loved ones. This is The Aftermath. Trigger warning, this podcast Not may, it will contain discussions pertaining to sex, drugs, and alcohol. If you feel triggered to use or relapse, please call SAMHSA's National Hotline at 1-800-662-HELP. Repeat, trigger warning. This podcast will contain discussions about drug use, alcohol use, and sex misuse. If you feel triggered to use or relapse, please call SAMHSA's National Hotline at 1-800-662-HELP. Takes 2. Welcome to the first episode of the After Myth podcast. My name is Dr. Dallas Bragg. As you heard in the opening script, episode 1 of the podcast is me explaining why am I doing this, which is a question I've been asking myself a lot in the last few weeks. Why are we doing this again? Yeah, it's been quite a ride already and hasn't even launched yet. But you know what, just to get us started, I'm gonna light some Palo Santo. What do you think I was going to light? I'm going to light some Palo Santo and clear this space, clear my energy. You know, it's interesting what happens When you have a vision and you begin to take it on and you have all these limiting beliefs pop up. I'm just clearing myself out here. All these limiting beliefs pop up about what you can and can't do, and I should have a co-host. I shouldn't have a co-host. Do I want to take this on? And then in the midst of all the debate. I get a message, you know, from one person and a random person from Instagram who I've never met, didn't even know was watching anything that I was doing. Because you know what? If you follow me at all or know anything about my social media, I put a lot of information out there, a lot of reels, a lot of videos. Post, and sometimes when I'm posting these things, I'm like, is anybody out there looking at this? I see numbers on the on the views, but are they really watching it? I don't have time, patience, or knowledge to go in and see the statistics of how many minutes and seconds people watch. I stopped trying to do that a long time ago. But this gentleman. Just randomly sent me a voicemail, voice memo, and was saying, "Your videos have kept me sober in times when I was at my most triggered, when I didn't really have resources or anyone to turn to because I'm using crystal meth in secret. No one knows this. Who? My friends, my family." I just randomly go out and use it and meet guys. Your videos pop up, I watch them, and it keeps me sober. You know, I just watched that and I listened to that and I'm like, I, I don't know what to think because I, I started being a sobriety coach to hear that kind of feedback, to make a difference. to facilitate healing in people's lives. But then when they actually tell me that I'm doing it, and it's— I'm not trying to sound arrogant or that I'm taking credit for it, but that, that those videos helped you not pick up a pipe or a needle and use. This is major because it's not just his life that that 1-minute 30-second reel Helped. It's his friends, it's his family, it's his children to be, it's his ancestors. The ripple effect of the people that are affected by him staying sober are innumerous, infinite. Because I decided to post a 1-minute 30-second reel. So that's why I decided to go forward with this podcast, because who knows? You know, I at first was like, yeah, I'm gonna— it's gonna reach a lot of people. Yeah, it may have some maybe exposure for me and my coaching business. But then I decided no. That voice memo made me think, if this podcast could help one more person, or hey, I'm just going to talk to him out there. I'm going to call him Mr. X. Mr. X, if you hear this podcast and it keeps you even more sober and it hits you at a different time, then I'm doing it. I'm doing it. It's just, it's been amazing for me to get that message. I needed it. I needed it at the right time, in the right circumstances, and the things that I've been going through this week and, and the last couple of weeks, I needed to hear it. So that's why. That's my why. But that's not the only why. Uh, the reason the, the— when I got the idea for this podcast, it was reflecting on what I put my loved ones through. My children, my siblings, my extended family, and especially my mama. My mama is in West Virginia, and she is the original mountain mama that John Denver talks about in his beloved song about West Virginia, Country Roads Take Me Home. And my mama Got a call from me after my first arrest, and you'll hear my whole story on episode two if you haven't heard it already, or it's on YouTube and it's out there on all kinds of other podcasts. But I got arrested. You know, straight-laced me got arrested at age thirty, forty, forty. I think I was. Age 40, got arrested, and I knew that my mugshot was going to be online. And I know how people love to pass around mugshots because that is the thing, you know, somebody, especially somebody who is supposed to be, you know, the all-American person or the straight-laced person that never got in trouble, you know, that kind of thing, especially somebody who would not characteristically be in jail, goes to jail, that mugshot gets everywhere. People just love to share it. They love when other people— they just love to celebrate other people's misfortunes. So I knew somebody in West Virginia was going to show my mama that mugshot. So I called her and I had to let her know I had been arrested. Um, and she was like, for what? And I said, for drugs. Um, it was crystal meth, obviously my first arrest was for felony possession crystal meth, also possession of GHB. If you don't know what GHB is, keep listening to this podcast because we're going to talk about it a lot. Um, also I was arrested for date rape, um, which was immediately dropped, BTW, by the way. Um, but I, uh, decided to take in one of my wounded birds It was a young boy who didn't have a home and didn't have a car and didn't have a job, but he had a penis. And I took him in. And lo and behold, he, poor thing, was schizophrenic. He was very— it was paranoid, just so paranoid. You know, he was just always having the blinds taped down and just scared to death to go outside. And, you know, yada, yada, yada, yada. We'll hear the whole story and more about that. In other podcast episodes too. See the teasers I'm putting in here? So anyway, he saw a video and thought it was me and thought that I was date raping. And so anyway, he went to the police because of that allegation. They had enough proof to bust my door down and come in. Anyway, so that happened. And I called my mama and let her know. But anyway, her first remark, her first question when I said it was for drugs was, you smoking marijuana? Oh, poor mama. And I had never even smoked marijuana. I had crystal meth was the first drug I ever did. I didn't even smoke marijuana before. So anyway, from there, you know, my mom didn't know what to do. She didn't know how to handle it. She didn't know what it was all about. Her idea of crystal meth was what the people that we knew who did crystal meth in West Virginia, who were, you know, outwardly, obviously crystal meth addicts. They had the missing teeth and the sores on their face, and they were all skinny and sunken in. And, and, um, that was what she thought of with crystal meth, naturally. It's kind of— I mean, that's what I always thought of with it too, before I used. But I took her on a roller coaster ride after that. She didn't understand what crystal meth was all about. She didn't know that in the gay community, crystal meth is about sex, sex, sex, sex. The more the better, right? Porn and sex and days on end. And, you know, and it is somewhat too for the— some of the straight community, it's just not as much. And not as— and not to the extent that gays want to take it. So I thought, you know, if we could get loved ones, other mamas out there, sisters, brothers, children, extended family, coworkers, clinicians, if we could get the stories of those other people connected to crystal meth addicts, we could create a repository of resources that people could access. So If my mama had something like that to go to, she wouldn't— it would have resolved so many of the things that she did, or that she would know what was happening. She could look for the signs that would remedy some of the decisions that she made that made it worse for me because she didn't understand the nature of a gay man on crystal meth. So that is my why. Partly. The other part of my why is that this drug is hiding in plain sight. It is everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. And if you don't believe me, take a tour of the country, open up Grindr. Grindr is a dating app— sorry, dating app for gay men. Open it up anywhere in the country, you're going to find crystal meth and men, gay men using it within an hour. And that applies to a lot of other countries like Europe. There's London specifically, Hong Kong. There's other countries where it's the same exact thing. I even get, I even get messages from Costa Rica. Or Colombia, or the latest one was Pakistan. Yeah. You know, it's making its way everywhere. And how people then find it is Grindr. This drug is different because it is hiding in plain sight. And the nature of it, where you can find it, how you can access it, it has its own— it has its own ways. of being that's different. I don't want to go too far into that yet because I want you to stick with us and find out all the access, the easy access, and the way this drug affects the brains of a gay man and the nature of it. It's different. It's different than heroin. It's different than fentanyl. It's different than pills. It has— it's chemically— it's like someone chemically formulated it specifically for how a gay man operates. Someone who's had to hide themselves all their lives, who has internalized homophobia, and they're ashamed of even having sex. They're ashamed of who they are. They have this internal battle with themselves. They're discriminated against and blah, blah, blah. They already have all these layers of trauma, and this drug takes it all away in a matter of a puff or an injection, whatever. So anyway, I told you that we're going to talk about a lot of triggering things here. I just want you to know that if you are easily triggered, do not listen to this podcast. Yeah. Or pick and choose the episodes. I'm going to have a therapist— we're going to have therapists on here talking about sex after meth. We're going to have therapists talking about building a social circle after meth. We're going to have other users who are sober to tell you what they did. That's a good— that those would probably be good episodes to listen to. However, we're probably going to get into some of the things that they did. Because look, some people still need to talk about what they did as a means of processing it. But if that causes you to want to go out and do those same things, use your own discretion. All right. Those were my whys of having— of why I wanted to start this. Um, I thought that at first it was only going to be the loved ones of crystal meth current and post-addicts, but it's not. We're going to open it up to all sorts of other routes and channels that will help Not only the family members, but you as a struggling addict, or if you're a post-addict and you want to supplement and elevate your recovery path, we're going to have tools for that too. How the episodes are going to work is we're going to have the guest. If it is— if I'm interviewing a former meth addict, I don't want to just hear your story. I want to know what was your childhood like? I want to know, what was your— what is your I am not enough, and how did that inform your addiction? Because there are so many men out there I hear about, I hear from them every day, who are substanceless, but they're not sober yet. They're not recovered, which means they are still dragging along all their trauma. They're still dragging along their pain. They're still living in a triggered state. They're still scared to death daily of relapse, and that is not how you are to live in recovery. So if I can dissect a successful person's mind who has done the healing work, that's going to help you do the work on your own. It's going to help you relate. Oh, my dad was like that too, or I grew up in that kind of environment as well. I have that same I am not enough. So how did they fix it? How did they take that and switch it to I am enough? That's what this really broadly this podcast is really all about—is taking your sobriety into recovery. So that being said. We're gonna have listener letters and voicemails that we're gonna read too. Eventually, this podcast will be livestreamed once I upgrade. I'm kind of, you know, in the— it's a bootstrap. It's a bootstrap project. You know, we're gonna use Zoom. I don't have the best microphone. I don't have earphones yet or anything like that. We're gonna just organically let it flow and grow and see what happens. So But eventually we're going to be in real time. You can ask questions in real time. But until then, there are surveys on the website. We're going to put the website link in the show notes that you can go and fill out if you have questions, you have things that you want to— burning secrets that you want to get off your chest. There are all kinds of different categories there. Also a category for loved ones with questions. Maybe your brother is using crystal meth and you don't know the best way to handle that, or what— how to be the best sister or brother to him. Different questions like that, submit them. We're going to read them on, on the air. First, on the air, I'm going to give you an answer and our guests will give an answer too. Or if we have a special co-host or whatever, we also have a number and that number will be there for you to leave a voicemail if you want. And if you want your voice scrambled, we can do that. All of it is anonymous. As well, so that's going to be a part of the show as as well as the interview. So that's it. I think short episode. This may be the shortest episode that we ever have on the Aftermath Podcast, but I do hope that you'll tune in. I hope you'll listen to this. I'm excited about what's to come. I really am. I also just wanted to say that I have to plug. My free relapse course. Reframing Relapse is an online course that I'm offering, and it is for free. I'll put the link in the show notes. Just put in your email and I will get to you. This course has, um, guided meditations, it has journaling, it has a one-on-one coaching, a 30-minute one-on-one coaching with me, and it is a 28-day program where you will reframe your perspective on what relapse is. So if you are continuing to relapse, maybe you've been through the 12 steps, maybe you've been through treatment, you don't know what is wrong, what's missing, why do I keep relapsing? This could help change the way that you view the relapse experience. Also, even if you haven't relapsed, if you're not continuing to relapse, but you're still, you still feel like something's missing, or you're scared to death, you live in this fear of relapse, this could help you change that. perspective as well and get you to a place where the fear is gone. And that if it does happen, if relapse does happen, you're able to take that not as a stumbling block, but as a stepping stone. Okay. Also, we have a Facebook community that goes along with this podcast, the Aftermath Facebook page. I have 25 people in there right now. So I really like to grow this community. In between podcast sessions, we are going to have discussions in the Facebook group. You can pose questions, you can give advice. If you're a family member, you know, come there to find a safe space. The Aftermath is what you have to put in, in Facebook. It is Facebook page. Join the community, please. Don't forget the surveys. The number if you want to leave a voicemail is 704-559- 704-559-9555. Please like and share. I know it's episode 1, but I know you're— you, you already know if you're gonna like it or not. Like, share, rate the podcast to help the algorithm get the podcast in front of more people. If you want to be a guest, please don't hesitate. Share your story, uh, or suggest a guest. Just send an email to aftermathpod@gmail.com. @gmail.com. And with that, I will say so long, farewell. Thank you for tuning in, and I look forward to sharing this journey with you.