EP 2:20 Mild to Wild with Jordan and Andrew

All right, this week I want to place an added trigger warning on this episode. We are going to be discussing a managed use approach. I would say harm reduction, but as we've learned this season, if you've been listening, harm reduction is simply a spectrum from abstinence to active use. So it's all harm reduction. In other words, the programs we are going to learn about today involve men who are actively involved in chemsex. The objective behind Mild to Wild could be provocative for some people here in the US, not in other countries. I receive hater comments quite often when I refer to some men who are using meth recreationally and functioning in their life. Remember, that is one point on their journey, but it is possible and there are men out there doing it. Now, these haters usually identify themselves as a 12-step person, as a 12-step fellow. I'm just telling you what— how they identify themselves. And they tell me I'm killing people by admitting that some men are involved in chemsex and it is not problematic in their life. But look, it's the truth. Others send me hate mail, for instance, a harm reduction group in Chicago who are upset with me because I send the message that chemsex is something bad. It's like I can't win here. Chemsex can be very bad, but it doesn't have to be, right? They apparently haven't listened to any of my podcasts. Listen, the fact is that some guys are going to use meth and will for a long period of time. Do I think it's the norm that men can sustain this? Well, based on the numbers I'm seeing in the drug treatment centers and the growth of my business, no. However, it is also close to impossible to compare that data to actual users. How would one ever know how many men who have sex with men are out there using? How would you know? The purpose of the podcast is, yes, to help eradicate the epidemic of chemsex among the MSM population and community. And part of that is showing all sides of the issue. To promote safety and dignity for those who are still using. So let me be clear, this episode and this conversation is not giving you permission to keep using. Chances are, if you're listening to this podcast, you are experiencing problematic consequences or you want to quit. If you are like me, you can't just use a little and you can't just use sometimes.

Some can.

But you cannot use the example of some men who seem functional as your model and justification for continually trying to use it sparingly while your life slowly deteriorates. Your experience is not everyone's experience, right? That guy's experience is not your experience. Judgment and shame is the fuel for addiction, but it cannot be the solution. That is my underlying message. That's the structure for all of my content and all of my philosophy. So I want to respect and not judge those who are still using and who don't want to quit. Men who are using deserve non-judgment, and they deserve education for how to use safely. And you'll hear more about what I'm referring to when you listen to today's episode. And when the queer community first can stop judging each other and stop perpetrating the very behavior they stand against, we can all begin to heal. And this is why I want to showcase people and programs like I am today. One more time, just because there are some men out there who are partying on a regular basis and have built a community of the same does not give you license to pick back up, especially if it has proven to be problematic in your life. All right, enjoy the discussion. The Aftermath Podcast is an outreach tool to help men who have sex with men break free from the addictive patterns associated with chemsex, otherwise known as crystal meth or Tina. I'm your host, Dr. Dallas Bragg, a former crystal meth user, now recovery coach. Here you will find a repository of tools and resources intended to eradicate the epidemic that is plaguing our MSM population. Please note that the views expressed on this podcast are not to be taken as medical advice. Also, we will be talking about drugs and sex, so if you feel triggered to use, stop listening. And contact your local emergency system and/or your support network. Let's go. All right, welcome back to the Aftermath Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Dallas Bragg. Thank you for being here. Really appreciate you taking time out to listen to the podcast. If you're a new viewer or listener or viewer, if you are new to the Aftermath Podcast family, welcome. If you've been with us from the beginning, thank you very much. I know you're out there. Some of you contact me and you have the The episodes memorized. And that's more than I can say for me, because a lot of times after the episode is done, I forget what we said until I go back and listen. But you guys are really, really, really leaning into the podcast, and I appreciate it. There's not much out there that is talking about this particular subject. So I'm really glad to offer this as a resource for you if you are in the grips of crystal meth chemsex addiction, or want to reduce your use, or you are a loved one of a man who has sex with men who are in the grips of a crystal meth addiction. I do want to say, first of all, that if you've been listening this season, we've been talking a lot about harm reduction. And I just want to verify, I just want to specify again, my recovery coaching works with men who have sex with men who want to stop or reduce their chemsex use. Most of the time stop, but that doesn't mean that that's all I stand for. And so I wanted to present a lot of different viewpoints about harm reduction on here and also understand that chemsex is not just crystal meth, right? If you're in the UK, you're more used to mephedrone maybe, and it could be any type of chemical that you use to enhance sex. And not all chemsex is bad. I do not I am not trying to present this theme or message that chemsex inherently is bad, or you're bad if you participate in chemsex. I help a particular niche of men who want to stop in my recovery coaching business. The podcast is out here to educate. And so today, I'm hoping that you're going to be very much educated in what they're doing in other countries, especially Canada. But before we get started, I want to remind you that we do have a supplemental study guide that goes along with each episode. If you want to be on the mailing list for that, just go to drdallasbragg.com, sign up for my newsletter. If not, you can click on the link in the show notes and you can view it there, but you will have to subscribe to view all of it. If you want to join the free Facebook community, if anybody's still on Facebook out there, we have about 150 members, so there's some people still on Facebook. We have a free community called The Aftermath Podcast where we talk about podcast episodes. I'll get ideas from you, I'll get feedback from you, and we also offer different types of support on there for people who need it. We do have a YouTube account where you can watch this podcast, The Aftermath Podcast. If you are searching for The Aftermyth, make sure that you pay attention to the autocorrect because it will change it to Aftermath and you will get a complete different podcast. After Myth is so clever that the SEO doesn't recognize it as a real word. So please change it to the After Myth instead of After Math. And if you want to support the show, please rate and review and share the show, share the promos on your social media. I would really greatly appreciate that because we want to get it out to everybody who needs to see it. And we did have a record month last month. We had over 2,500 downloads in the month of April 2025. We have grown each month that we've been in existence, and we continue— we will continue to do so. There's my spiel. I'm going to introduce my guests now, Jordan and Andrew. Jordan Bond-Garr works with the Gay Men's Sexual Health Alliance of Ontario as their coordinator of PNP and chemsex initiatives. I wonder if that position exists anywhere in the US. Probably not. Um, is coming up on his 6th anniversary in this role. He has contributed to a diverse range of projects and initiatives around party and play both locally and globally, and has had the privilege of briefly being mentored by David Stewart. Oh nice, of 59 Dean Street in the UK. Some projects of note that Jordan has spearheaded are Mild to Wild, a Zoom drop-in run for and by guys who PMP. The G-Emergency Response, a GHB resource that helps guys identify GHB respond to a G-out and track their doses easily, and the PNP Field Guide, a resource aimed at those new to the PNP scene. Jordan is motivated by a desire to see guys who PNP no longer imprisoned by shame and stigma and is grateful for platforms such as this one to share about their work and their love for guys who party. Welcome, Jordan. Very much to the show. Andrew Thomas has diverse experience working in harm reduction and sexual health with a special focus on chemsex and PMP. Andrew currently serves as the harm reduction program specialist for Nova Scotia's Health Eastern Zone. He's previously held roles at Refix Overdose Prevention Site in Halifax and coordinated a needle distribution program focused on PMP at the AIDS Coalition of Nova Scotia. Andrew leads the PNP project funded through the Community-Based Research Center, CBRC, a social group and website focused on reducing harms associated with chemsex. He also co-founded G-Emergency Response with Jordan Bondgar. His research with Dalhousie and Mount Saint Vincent Universities covers compassion, food insecurity, sexualized violence, sexualized substance use, and sex work. Wow, you two are busy, busy boys.

Busy bees. Yep.

Thank you for coming on the show. Appreciate it very much. So I just want to dive right in to the biggest question that I'm going to get, and that is, what is the objective of having programs that promote continuing to use? Continuing the PMP and Chem 6. Does anybody want to jump in on that?

Andrew, do you want to? I'm happy to if you want to.

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, we find that abstinence-based programs and services, a significant portion of people who use substances might be turned off by that and not access, you know, the supports because of that. So incorporating, I guess, like a wide variety of services. It's important to have the abstinence-based ones as well. But yeah, it's also important to incorporate, you know, for people that don't maybe don't want to make a change in their life right away to bring them in as well.

Mm-hmm.

So I heard something said one time and I brought this up at another harm reduction podcast. This lady, I saw a TED Talk where she said, some people are going to use drugs anyway. Right. And so if they're going to use drugs anyway, why not help them live, be safer and be healthier and be respected? And that the respected part and the dignity part, I think, is what we have a hard time with here in the US.

I'd say the same in Canada, honestly, Dallas. I think just because we're ahead in programming doesn't mean attitudes have shifted greatly. I mean, in the midst of a crisis, a drug toxicity crisis in Canada, people still have prejudice against people who use drugs. And one of our political candidates in our last election ran on a platform that was very anti-drug user, about forced treatment, about drug stigma. So there's still that attitude to combat here, right? We're fighting the fight still.

But you are publicly funded?

I am. I know I am. The Ontario government funds our programming.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Interesting.

Okay.

Well, can you talk to us about Mild to Wild first? Maybe we should, we could go there. And what exactly is that? Cool.

Mild to Wild is not only about, it's like my, it's like my baby. I've been working on this project for a long time in collaboration with a lot of other people who've contributed. It is a drop-in space on Zoom that we host biweekly. So every second week we have a Mild to Wild. It's just a space online where guys can come together and talk about the important stuff in their lives. So we do a little bit of skill building, like we do workshops on safer slamming, we do workshops on, you know, mixing drugs and what are safe combinations, what are unsafe combinations. But we also talk about things like grief and dealing with the cops. It's just a space where we get to talk about— I'm gonna swear, is it okay to swear on your podcast?

Yeah, we all say fuck and everything else here. You can even say cunt if you want.

I'll probably throw that in sometime today.

I love it.

Where we just get to talk about the real shit in our lives, right? Like, there wasn't a space like that before. The reason it came about is because at the— I was a service user at the organization that helps run Mild to Wild, and I had gone to one of their drop-in groups that was for harm reduction, and it really wasn't about harm reduction. Everybody in the room was practicing abstinence, and I felt really like left out, and like there wasn't a space for me to come and talk about my reality, which was I was continuing to choose to use, but how do I do that safely? And And how do I, why don't I get to have a community of like-minded folks? So, um, uh, a long time ago we got a grant and we got some seed money to develop a program. It was face-to-face at first. We found out the hard way guys don't like coming into a, a building that's easily identified as like an AIDS service organization. So face-to-face didn't work. But, uh, if I know one thing about guys who party is like we love to go on camera.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and we love to be on Zoom. So, uh, we thought why not translate it to Zoom? And it was a space and platform guys were comfortable with. And, uh, we've had a lot of success. It's not like we get 20,000 people coming out every night, but we get a good number of dedicated folks who come. And the conversations we have are just real and authentic and raw. And I think it would shock a lot of people that people who are actively using it, actively involved in PNP, can be vulnerable with each other and be supportive with each other in this space. And it's been really wonderful. And, and the goal is just to not give— make people change, but it's to help them be safer and to have a place to talk about the things that formerly we would have to keep to ourselves because of stigma and judgment from loved ones or supports, uh, out there. So. That's a little bit about Mile to Wild, and it's all hosted by peers. It's all people who currently party and play who lead it.

So, okay. Okay. Well, I mean, it kind of reminds me of when I was on the Zoom rooms, there was somebody who was partying and playing, was monitoring it. It was like the moderator too, right? It's, it's almost kind of like that, I guess. Sort of, not really, but yeah.

People's clothes are on during this one.

So, well, yeah. Yeah. But it's run by peers. Right, right, right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Do you, and then do you have kind of the same, is this a group that ebbs and flows with attendance?

It's, it's sometimes it's harder to get people to come out. I mean, during the summer, our numbers kind of drop off a little bit. But during the course of the year, we average about 10 to 12 folks in an evening. We have special topics that draw a bigger crowd. When we did the workshop on psychosis, a lot of people came out for that. It really depends on the topic and the night and We're, we're, we're a very limited, uh, people power group. Like there's not a lot of capacity for doing a lot of promotion right now. We're working up to that. Um, but really we're, we're trying to get the word out cuz we would like to have a few more people come to the group, especially cuz we're the only kind of group like that that operates in Canada as far as I know, other than Andrew's group. Uh, and we can, yeah, we could, we could be serving a whole lot more folks in rural areas and, and suburban areas that don't necessarily have access to some of the supports we have here in Toronto where I'm based.

Yeah.

So, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

I would think that, you know, because anybody who's been in this world, there is a sense of community, you know, and that's part of the reason why a lot of my clients have a hard time moving on is because they've made such strong friendships and built relationships. And a lot of these, you know, you go through so much with these people, with these guys. So I would imagine this helps them feel connected in a new way and seen and heard too, I would imagine. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's a fair estimation. Andrew, you participated in the group before. Like, do you have any observations as somebody who's come to the group and participated?

I think there's like a lot of, I mean, you experience a lot with, with these people while you're partying, right? It might be some negative experiences or things you need to talk about. And I think there's a lot of validation that comes with uh, with Jordan's group, um, who's speaking about, you know, uh, these topics openly.

It's really nice to see people come together. Yeah, in that regard. Yeah, sorry, I cut you off. I didn't mean to cut you off.

No, no, no, go ahead, go ahead.

I was gonna say it's really nice that guys can come together and get to experience each other in a different setting. Like, we're, we're closed, we're not getting high, um, but we can still connect with each other. And I think it gives people a little bit of like face it, we can have friendships that are outside of just what we're doing, you know, on Thursday or Friday night or Saturday morning or whatnot. So it's, it's, I think it does help us form new connections that are more lasting and more based in different, different, uh, different things other than just our shared interest in getting high or negative experiences.

You can also talk about both sex and substance use together, uh, at these groups, um, whereas a lot of, um, you know, traditional Alcoholics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous, you can't talk about this next piece, right?

Oh, right. Right, right, right. Interesting. So how is your group? Is your group similar to that, Andrew?

Yeah, currently it's, I think, probably on break permanently just because we don't have capacity to keep running it. But it was in person. And we had, yeah, about the same amount, 10-ish people each time. And we'd sit down and have a meal together, which was funded, which is great. And then after that, we would write topics down and discuss them kind of, yeah, not so much like AA, but sort of in a way. It was a lot more, you could talk about anything, which I think people really valued. Um, yeah, brought, brought people together.

Um, yeah.

Uh, and then we'd end with like a kind of like a group, uh, sort of relaxation, um, uh, activity might be like deep breathing or something like that. Uh, just to, yeah, it was good. Um, but yeah, we're moving online. Everything's going online now and it's, uh, just going to be a website, um, with all the resources and stuff.

Okay.

Okay.

And then Jordan, I meant to ask you, can anybody join the Zoom from anywhere in the world or is it regional?

So my boss will have me say it's regional. It's regional. It's only for Ontario, but we don't kick people out if they come from abroad. We have— we've had people from the States join us. We've had people from Thailand join us at one group. We don't actively promote it internationally, but if we get people who are stragglers from other parts of the world, we're not going to kick them out. Um, and right now we're really concerned with the fact that in Canada a lot of harm reduction supports are falling away in different provinces. So we're, we're, we're concerned that people don't have access to services in other provinces. So we want them to come to the group if they need a space to talk. So there's so few spaces that where people can come in and do shit like— I swore again. Uh, shit like that.

It's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Well, Okay, let's talk about— I have a question about psychosis, but let's talk about, if you're okay with this, the G Emergency project that you two worked on, because that's another one, another big topic that I get asked about that I don't know about. Um, you know, I, I used G when I was using, um, but I also like sold it. So I like, I would get it and I knew its potency and I knew kind of You know, it was kind of a reliable thing. But the thing that scares me now looking back, and I've talked about this in my content, is that we would water it down sometimes based on who we were selling it to, right? Or if we needed more money to make it last longer, we'd water it down. So I'm thinking that's why, you know, sometimes, you know, somebody who tries G for the first time at a party or a chill out or whatever we call them, whatever you all call them. Is that the, the G might be diluted, and then the next time you use it, it could be the full thing, but you, but you use the same amount. That's where it kind of gets dangerous, right? Because you don't know what you're— it's not regulated by anyone, right? So what did you find is the best? If I, if I'm listening to this episode and I, and I— what are the basic safety precautions I would need to know for? A G emergency?

Ooh, good question. Andrew, do you want to start or do you want me to kick that one off?

Uh, I was saying, I find it funny because, um, we, not funny, but, um, we always, um, thought I think 5 milliliters was like the standard dose, uh, that everyone seemed to think was, but in actuality it's not. Um, if it was, you know, pure.

Um, yeah.

Yeah, I figured we found it.

Was it 2 or 3? It's like 2.5 to 3 milliliters is the high-end dose for a lot of places. In Toronto, we've been doing 5. which means we had really watered-down G for a long time. But I think the number one tip I would say with GHB is a bottle cap is not a unit of measurement. Do not measure with a bottle cap, whatever you do. Get a medical syringe, the kind that they feed medication to babies with. That's your best friend, 'cause accurately— accurate dose is so important.

Mm-hmm.

There's so many other tips to give you in terms of being safe with G. But we had the opposite problem here in Toronto. It wasn't getting watered down. What was happening was it was being replaced with a different substance. Um, the market changed a couple years ago and BDO came on the scene and so did GBL. And, uh, okay, we're dosing 5 milliliters of those 2. And we've had a lot of people— I don't remember at last count how many people we lost in Toronto, but I know at least 7 people who died of a GHB overdose in the past 2 to 3 years. Yeah.

Wow.

So including a couple good friends of mine. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, I noticed that you also had a field guide too, which I found interesting because You know, these guys that are getting into this, maybe they're drunk and they go to a party and they fall into this. They don't know, right? Nobody's telling them, this is what you do with the needle, or this is how you drink G, or this is what you do, this is how much you should smoke and all that kind of thing. Like, they're just falling into this world without any kind of idea of what's going on. I would imagine that a field guide and a de-emergency program and everything that you're doing would save lives.

Well, hopefully. I mean, the whole goal was to— and I'll just hold up the field guide for the viewer audience at home.

Okay.

I've got a copy right here. Vanna White herself. So when I sat down to write this with my friend Jonathan Vallely, who was my co-author on this and my other collaborators, we really wanted to create a guide that was like somebody in the party scene who's more experienced talking to you and giving you the advice that we never got.

Right.

And reminding people of their own agency and their own ability to like monitor their partying and to be aware of like when things are getting out of control and to know the warning signs and also know how to do it safer, things to be avoided. And, you know, we try to write it in a style that was warm and friendly and like not stigmatizing and not all about like, ooh, shame. Here's one good thing about crystal meth and 5,000 things that are bad about it so that way you feel stupid if you do it. That was not the attitude we wanted to take. We wanted to be really neutral, very balanced, and very sex-positive, and very like, hey, if you enjoy doing this and it's not a problem, good to you, mama. Um, cool. Like, we don't want to— we don't want to be here to tell you that you have a problem that you don't have, but we also want to alert you to the fact that for about a quarter of folks who try party and play, they're going to develop a problematic relationship. So you need to be aware of what was going on in your life and your relationship with the drugs, uh, and, and the party scene. So I, I think we did a good job with the field guide. We've had a lot of good feedback from community members about it. And, um, yeah, it means that it—

we—

I still get feedback on my Instagram about it today from people who are like, oh, this was so helpful, and really my Bible. But yeah, so, well, not the Bible. I don't want to compare it to the Bible because it's not— it's not from God.

Kim's sex Bible. Yeah.

I think it's good to have something that's evidence-based as well, rather than, you know, a lot of misinformation is being, um, right out there, right, from, from people's appears sometimes. Um, so it's good to have something that's standard, um, and yeah, evidence-based.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. Um, yeah, I'm sure we don't have anything like that in the States that I know of. Um, I know there's some countries when I did the research, Australia and I think Madrid both had kind of this kit, even a chem set kit that they would send you. It would have kind of Some kind of booklet in it, some kind of supplies, you know, something, something that would make it a little bit safer. Did you say a quarter of those who try chemsex develop a problematic relationship with it? Is that correct?

It's— that was the statistic we ran with when we published the field guide. I mean, it's so hard with statistics around PNP to be like, this is the factual statistic.

That's right.

But we would say a safe estimate was a quarter is what we said, but it could be more, it could be less. I don't know. But it just puts the awareness in people's mind that not everybody successfully manages it and that you should be aware.

So that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a hard message for me on my— and, you know, on my social media, it's a hard message. It, it seems conflicting to people when I say that, you know, because I'm helping guys get all— you know, who have a problematic relationship with it, I'm helping them stop, right? But at the same time, I'm also saying You can do it and not have a problematic relationship with it as well, or I can help you reduce it, right? And manage it if you can.

I think a lot of people get threatened by that. And I don't mean that in a mean way. I think it can be a scary prospect if crystal meth has ruined my life. And I'm one to talk. At various points in my life, I've had a more problematic relationship with crystal and partying. If I've had really a lot of damage in my life that's come of that, it's hard for me to hear that somebody else can successfully do what I can't do. Or I'm choosing not to do. And we tend to universalize our experiences. Like, my experiences with it is everyone's experience with it. And we have that confirmation bias that comes with that. So I can understand where it comes from, and I think it can be a very challenging thing to do, especially if you're doing the work that you're doing. But also in our work, Andrew, I think it's probably a challenge too. We upset a lot of people's mentality about what should be done about crystal meth. It's like everybody thinks you should stop it, but not everybody has to. So, but yeah.

I think there's like a lot of stigma around, well, there is a lot of stigma around crystal meth, probably one of the more stigmatized drugs. So yeah, I guess it's kind of, it's not something that everyone can manage, I don't think, as well. So it's kind of like, I don't know what I'm trying to say here. A lot of stigma, misinformation around it, but also like it is, the realities are it is hard to manage, um, hard to manage drug, I would say.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as far as the stigma goes, I would think if you had a group where people were actively still drinking alcohol and wanted to meet, that would be fine. You know, you could still meet in the church basement, probably. Right. But I can't see your group. I don't know. You know, I don't see a group of PMP users being just come on to the church basement or whatever. I just think there's a—

We actually did in the church, um, the PMP project.

Oh, really?

Below that was the overdose prevention site refix.

Oh, nice.

Very progressive church.

I guess so.

Very good. Yeah.

I love that. Well, what do you see in these groups as far as psychosis goes? Do you, are you seeing an increase in kind of permanent psychosis or what, how do you help these guys who, I get a lot of Zoom calls with guys who want help. They're living in this permanent kind of fear of being watched, of being monitored. People, they think people are always looking at them, you know, um, they're living in this state of just constant triggered, like flight or fight. Um, what, what do we do with that? Like, how do we help?

That is a million-dollar question. And there's so many ways that we could answer that. But I guess it really depends if it's long-term psychosis. If we're talking about people who are dealing with the aftereffects That are going on for months at a time. And, you know, really there needs to be more prevention, professional intervention there, and professional awareness of the long-term effects of crystal meth and psychosis. In the short term though, like most guys I know have encountered psychosis at a PMP party once in their, in their travels. I know I've encountered it many times. I lost a friend in psychosis who killed himself. So it's a, it's an issue that really is like close to me, but we can do a lot to support folks in the moment. If we have the skills to do so. What I have found is that people tend to like be really scared of people in psychosis and assume that they're violent, that they're gonna, you know, do something dangerous because their behavior is erratic. It can be very unsettling to watch, but we make that assumption and then we call 911 and then we get the cops involved.

Yeah.

And things just go from there. And that's not what we want to encourage folks to necessarily do. We want to give people the ability to take care of each other in community as best they can. Um, like there's things you can immediately do, like reduce stimulus, turn off the porn, turn off the music, like tone things down, put the drugs away, go to another room that's calmer. If people are feeling followed, don't stand in front of the window, you know, where they're watched. Um, I had that happen the other night with a friend of mine. I was like, let's move away from the window so that way we're not, you know, if you feel, if you think the cops are out there, let's, let's get out of their line of sight.

Right.

You know, you know, empathizing with people's feelings around psychosis. You, you mentioned very, uh, clearly that people are scared. They're living in fight or flight.

Yeah.

And that's a scary place to be.

Yeah.

We tend to like think that the person's psychosis is either ruining our high or troubling us, but they're actually very scared. And if we approach them as if we would like a scared child, you would have empathy for a scared child. You wouldn't be like, oh, you're ruining my buzz. You'd be like, you know, you would empathize with that feeling and you would try and comfort them. You wouldn't try and disagree with them. You wouldn't argue with them about whether they had a right to be afraid. You would empathize with them. And when we can empathize with folks' feelings, That's a good starting point for like calming things down. It's not going to get rid of psychosis. Only sleep and stopping use for a period of time is going to get rid of psychosis in a temporary way. But, you know, there's a lot we can do as, as community members to show that we know that we care about people. And yeah, calling cops should be a last resort. If they're a threat to you or your, your property or your, your physical being, then you might want to call 911. But even then, like— Yeah, it's, it shouldn't be the first resort. It should be the last, in my opinion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. Did you have anything, Andrew, on that?

Um, just to reassure them. Um, and I think like calling out their psychosis maybe isn't always the best thing to do. Um, but you know, you can say like, you know, uh, I think other leaders are seeing that, but I, I don't see it right now, but maybe it is happening, you know, kind of, um, yeah, not calling them out directly that You know, hey, you're in psychosis. But yeah, maybe there are some times that that might be appropriate. Um, but yes, empathy and just kind of sitting with them and reassuring.

Yeah, it's, you know, I think it's an— I think that to me is one of the benefits of what you're doing is helping men kind of prepare for that. Because, you know, what I've seen, and it's been a while since I've been in it, but what I've seen is you're all ramped up. You know, you're ready for a night of fucking, right? And then the guy goes into this psychosis and you're pissed, right? You're, you're upset. You're mad. He's, he's killing the buzz. He's cock blocking. He's doing all this stuff. Um, and they get made fun of or they get mistreated or they get kicked out. I think kicking somebody out while they're in psychosis is probably the worst thing you could do, isn't it?

I would say so though. I am guilty of having done that once, but that was because the person was a threat to my physical safety and they could leave. And I tried everything in my power to get them to stay or, but yeah, but it's not a good thing to do.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, there's, there's some guys I've talked to who are traumatized by the way they were treated while they were in psychosis. Um, and it was, you know, it was just, it was like added shame. to what they were already doing. So interesting. Yeah, interesting. Okay, um, what other projects are you working on right now that we could look forward to?

I'll defer to Andrew because I got to come up with my mental list of projects we're working on.

What would you like to see, Andrew? What would you like to see coming up?

Like, what is something that is on your wish list Stimulant safer supply, kind of as like a routine consideration, I guess, or intervention, which is not here yet. Some places they do, but hard to access. That's one thing that I'm trying to work on anyway through my health authority job. And yeah, and just, I guess, the website, we're putting all the information up there so that it can be a kind of living document, I guess, in a way. Um, yeah.

And the website will be what your group can meet through?

Um, I don't think it'll be a social group anymore. Um, okay. I don't have capacity, but it'll be like all the— there's a lot of information that we've compiled. Um, and it'll be some maybe service provider training, uh, on there, that sort of thing.

Um, yeah.

Was considering doing it online and kind of modeling Jordan's, but we already have the Mild to Wild, so.

Right, right, right. Yeah. Okay. What about you, Jordan?

What would I like to see, or what would I like to see?

Yeah, what would you like to see? What's your dream?

What's your wish list? I support it. I support Andrew's thing around safe supply. I would, I would actually really love to see an end to the closure of harm reduction spaces in, in Canada, because right now we're dealing with that. Um, and an expansion of services. Um, I would love to see a national or provincial, uh, PMP curriculum instituted for healthcare providers and service providers where they could go and access standardized training to work with the population of folks with PMP. Oh, I love that. I really love that. Um, yeah, and I would love to see, I would love to see Meltawal take over the world and have more offshoots and more folks coming together. And, and, um, there's a lot of stuff I'd love to see, but I mean, slow steps. I mean, we're, we're, we're doing a, I think, What I was reflecting before this podcast, all the things we're doing, like Andrew and myself and other colleagues across Canada that I've worked with and who are also people who have lived experience, there's a lot of good stuff happening. And to be grateful for that, because a few years ago I could never have imagined having a role like mine, um, much less, you know, getting to do it full-time and somebody paying me to do it. And the only expertise I needed to have was using drugs and being a slut. So that's my joke. I have more expertise than that, but, you know, Got that down pat, huh? Oh yeah.

Um, yeah, I had, um, Partywise on here, um, from, uh, Los Angeles. Um, similar to what you're doing there is, you know, if you're going to party, do it wisely. I guess is their, their, their phrase there. Um, I think they're doing something similar. So if somebody wanted to expand Mild to Wild, could they contact you? If there were an institution in the US, yeah.

100%. We don't have any trademark on it. I'm happy to share the idea and people can adapt it as they see fit.

So yeah. Yeah, good. What am I missing here? What am I not talking about that I should or that you wish we could have, can?

Hmm. These are really good questions. I don't think I'm missing it. I mean, I just, For the record, I've enjoyed listening to your podcast. I've listened to a few episodes over the past couple days to prepare because, you know, oh, want to know what you're getting into.

Yeah, right.

But it's interesting, when I first encountered your work, I thought, okay, this person's just about abstinence. And you really, like, you've really— you seem to be very open to different perspectives, which I value. I think I'd like to see more people engage with that kind of thing because right now there's such divisiveness around harm reduction and abstinence. And I don't know how it is in the States. I know you guys have a lot less in terms of harm reduction work there and a lot more institutionalized abstinence. And that's where we're moving to in Canada right now, which is what scares me.

Hmm.

Um, you know, but I wish more people had that broad— broader mindset and that open-mindedness that we talk about in a lot of programs but don't always practice in a lot of programs. Uh, but open-mindedness around harm reduction, because it's really just part of a spectrum. There's no difference. Abstinence is just the most extreme form of harm reduction, or the most final form. It's, um, and sometimes it's the most straightforward for a lot of folks because you don't have to worry about managing substances, you just don't do any of them. But it's all part of the same spectrum. And I'm not, I'm not at war with people who are in recovery and I hope they're not at war with me because we all care about the addict who's suffering, so to speak.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Because I was telling Andrew before we came on is I'm really doing this too to learn. I'm really diving in to learn more about this and want to help because there is this There's a cultural— culturally accepted idea here that you have to be abstinent right away. And it's almost, in particular with meth recovery, it's proven that you're going to relapse more than some of the other substances. And so just requiring abstinence or else Just adds this unnecessary shame and guilt onto somebody who's already covered in it, right? From so many other factors. If you think about being gay and being a drug addict, you know, drug addict, you know, quote unquote. I hate that word. I don't use that term, but I'm just saying that's what they're called. And then they, and then of all drugs, meth. And then if they have HIV as well, you know, you have all this thing and then you're brought to this group where you say, you have to quit right now or else we're going to make you do a walk of shame in front of all of us, you know, every time. Yeah, it's, it's, it's just a— it's got to go. Yeah.

You said the walk of shame and I just had visceral reactions of like going up and picking up a white key tag and how much I hated doing that. I was like, I knew everybody was talking about me too. It's like they say that they don't gossip, but people gossip about that. Oh yeah. People look at you differently and it's like, I just never valued that. I was so like, it felt like humiliation to me. And that's not what I needed for it to get better.

So that's right.

That's not part of our plan for folks. We don't shame anybody at Mountain Wild. It's not like you come in, you don't use drugs and we shame you. It's like, no, I can use drugs.

Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I mean, like you said, if it begins to negatively affect your life, then of course you want people to, to stop, um, or, or get it under control or whatever. So, because I also volunteer for controlling Chemsex out of the UK, out of London, and I'm a key worker for them, and, and they set the goal. Like, if they come in and they say, I just want to control it, then we help them do that, you know.

Mm-hmm.

And I've helped guys plan for a whole party. Like, this is how much I'm going to use, this is when I'm going to start, this is when I'm going to stop, And I bookend it for them, you know, check in at the beginning, check in at the end. And, you know, they've done it in a controlled manner. So it's possible.

For some people it is.

It's important to value the person kind of centered expert in their own life. It's their, you know, their goals, whatever they might be working towards. So recovery looks different for everyone. I hate that word, but everyone identifies with that word. But Yeah, also important to note that, yeah, abstinence is kind of— harm reduction does recognize abstinence as a, you know, piece of it, right? Um, that for some people, um, so they're not at odds at all.

Um, yeah, that's right. Expert in your own life. That's the key there, isn't it? Because if you could be an expert in your own life when you start recovery and get through recovery, then you're going to continue to be an expert in your own life throughout your life. In other, in all other ways. That's why we're not, I don't think we're thinking broadly enough that in the process of recovery, you're preparing, you're preparing yourself for how you're going to show up. Or if you're in recovery, right? Um, or harm reduction or whatever you want to do, whatever you want to do, but whatever you, whatever it is that you are the expert of it in your own life. So yeah.

Can look different for everyone. Just depends what works for you, right? So we need the widest range of treatment options. Um, Uh, supports, um, everything, right? All the colors in the toolbox. Is that what it is?

Yeah. All the tools in the toolbox.

All the colors in the crayon box.

Yeah.

Crayon box. The treatment centers in where you two are, do they, are they as open as far as, you know, when you go to rehab? Um, is it because the ones here are mostly all of them are 12-step based, right? Mostly. I mean, there's, there, there's more that are popping up that aren't, but what do you, what do you expect in, in Canada?

Well, it is not the Valhalla of treatment.

Yeah.

Yeah. I've been to treatment 3 times in Canada and, uh, I've only had one good experience there and that was at CAMH, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health here in Toronto. They used to offer a Rainbow Services program geared towards queer people, not all, not just gay men, but queer people in general. But they did have a specific men's program that was specialized in dealing with chemsex and PNP.

Mm-hmm.

Along with other substance use issues. But that was the one program where you got individualized care, you got people who understood the cultural competency aspect, people who were queer who were supporting you, you were healing with other gay men, you couldn't, you didn't have to hide the sex part. Every other time I've been to treatment, it has been more of the same. It's been 12-step based. It's been very, very, I've been the only queer person there multiple times in other treatment facilities, subjected to homophobic bullying, subjected to all sorts of violence and like, shame and ridicule and embarrassment trying to talk about my sex life in front of a group of straight guys was like, you tell them what you do at a chemsex party, they're like, what? And then, then the ignorant comments come and, and stuff like that. So, right, right. We, we don't have a well-funded public, uh, public, uh, recovery or public treatment, uh, network here in Ontario. And that's one thing that currently this year I'm looking to work on, uh, with some other partners is like Bringing some standards of care to treatment because there's no cultural competency. And often gay men who are going through the drug channel, they're going through the drug channel like traditional rehabs, they're gonna get slotted into a public or a private rehab facility that doesn't know what to do with them.

Mm-hmm.

And just says, go to meetings and, and all addicts are the same. And just because you use crystal meth makes you no different than anyone.

Yep.

It's, it's really not good. It's not good.

Yeah.

Yeah. Sorry to, sorry to tell you Canada's not paradise all the time.

Like, Yeah, similar here. Yeah, similar here. I do— I call around to treatment centers sometimes, and I like hearing the response about, you know, addiction is addiction no matter what. And, you know, gay, straight, you're all the same. If you're addicted to crystal meth, you're addicted to crystal meth. We treat you just the same. And I just feel like you're just missing out because I— there were so many gaps when I went through treatment. It's just so many gaps, um, as well.

Yeah.

So, which is part of why I'm doing what I'm doing as well.

I had a similar experience except the guys that I went to treatment with, um, they, they were actually like quite open, uh, and enjoyed hearing about some of that stuff. I mean, some of it was actually like a pretty good experience, um, socially, I guess, um, which was a surprise. And also it was, you know, I don't know, 36 days or something like that, um, a break for my brain to heal a little bit, uh, so I could maybe make some more, uh, responsible choices or more, um, healthy choices, I guess, would be the word. Um, but yeah, there's not a lot that, that focuses on the 2, sex and the drugs together, um, which is, yeah, something I'm trying to implement here.

That's right. And like you said, is missing from maybe an NA or even CMA. I think you're not supposed to talk about sex, I guess, or something, right? Um, I don't know. Okay. Well, if we were to access some of these resources, the field guide and different things like that, can you get all of that online from here? Okay.

Um, gmsch.ca. And if you want, I can send you a PDF copy, Dallas, of the field guide and a couple of our other resources that you can share with anybody who's interested. If they email you, you can do that, or you can give them my email and I'll email it to anybody who asks.

Yeah, no, sure. I'll do both. Yeah, do both. Um, or yeah, if you don't mind giving me a PDF. Um, because I do get questions about how do I stay safe or how do I keep my teeth or, you know, just kind of questions like that. And, um, that I did have sort of a mentor when I first started who kind of gave me some tips on hydration, you know, um, which was the key for me, my skin and, and hydration and Mederma. I had Mederma for my— it was like a skin, skin repair for my arms. So. There were things that I did, um, that helped me along the way. Okay. Well, we can wrap it up if you, unless there's something again that I missed, something that you feel like should have been mentioned here that you wish I hadn't have anything.

Oh gosh. No, no, no, no. I think we talked about a lot of good stuff today. Um, yeah.

Well, good.

I think we're good.

Andrew, you're good. I appreciate you two coming on and I appreciate what you're doing. Um, and yeah, hopefully maybe I'll get you connected with some, help you expand here.

I'm not sure what the laws are for sending, uh, harm reduction supplies across the border.

Um, I don't know either. I wouldn't necessarily, I mean, I don't think it's going to be favorable right now. I would not want to send a lot across the border right now. Just saying.

Probably not in this current, yeah.

No, that's true.

That's very true. Um, okay. Well, guys, I hope that you enjoyed this. If you have any questions, Yeah, I'm going to put Andrew and Jordan's information in the show notes. I'm going to put the websites in the show notes. You can also comment on YouTube. You can comment on Spotify if you want to join in the conversation. Or if you want to ask them questions and you can't get reach to them or whatever, just DM me or post something on social media and I'll get them, get that information to them. But I'd like for you to join in the discussion. I'd like to hear what you think about this episode. This is probably. Um, well, I would say one of the, the most— well, it's, it's gone in the spectrum of harm reduction farther maybe than some of the others that I've done. So I'd like to hear what you have to say about it. And if we had— if you had this kind of resource early on, if you are abstinent right now, would it have helped you? Um, what, what, what would be something that you could maybe contribute to now for other guys who are using but want some, some resources. So I'd like to hear what you have to think, have to say, and what you think. All right, guys, I will see you all next week. Bye.