In this solo episode of The Aftermath Podcast, host Dallas Bragg addresses the global chemsex crisis—sexualized drug use among men who have sex with men—while sharing his own descent into addiction, felony charges, and a forced return to restaurant work. He recounts a pivotal spiritual awakening that led him to shadow work and the practice known as "The Work" by Byron Katie, illustrating how external triggers (e.g., a demanding manager named Kyle) serve as mirrors of one's own unexamined traits. Bragg introduces his "Next Level Amends" methodology, which blends The Work’s four‑question inquiry and turnarounds with alchemical mirror principles, offering a deeper, self‑directed form of amends beyond traditional apology lists. He outlines a concrete practice: identify a resentment, ask the four questions, explore bodily sensations, consider who you would be without the limiting belief, and then generate turnarounds to reveal hidden self‑judgments. This process is taught within his Recovery Alchemy "Foundations" cohort, a group program designed to help participants transmute conflict into self‑awareness and lasting peace. Throughout, Bragg emphasizes that true recovery involves integrating and healing the inner self rather than merely abstaining from substances, positioning every trigger as a teacher and every conflict as raw material for personal alchemy.
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Chemsex, sexualized drug use among men who have sex with men, typically involving methamphetamine, mephedrone, and GHB, among others. Chemsex misuse is a worldwide epidemic that needs attention, dialogue, and hope for those lost in it, which is the purpose of The Aftermath Podcast. Please note the views expressed by the host and guests on this podcast are not to be taken as medical advice, and the content around sex and drug use can be triggering. Welcome back to The Aftermath Podcast and this solo episode. Don't forget, there is a supplemental study guide that goes along with this episode. The link will be in the show notes. Please remember to like, subscribe, and rate the podcast so we can get the algorithm to place it in the ears and eyes of those who need it. All right, if you have followed me for a while, you know that I've spent a considerable amount of my life as a restaurant server, or waiter, if you want to call it that. When I was working in the corporate world, I believed those days of working in a restaurant were behind me. That is, until I fell down the chemsex hole and got myself some felony charges on my record. Then in my early 40s, I was forced to tie an apron around my waist and survive on tips strangers left me based on their appraisal of how well I presented their food. That was not an easy pill for me to swallow, but eventually I accepted that this was a temporary season of my life. That's advice I've been giving to many men who have found themselves working jobs that felt like a step backward due to the negative effects of chemsex misuse. So let me get this to the point here. Early in my recovery, after a spiritual experience I had outside Bad Dead Tree— that story's in podcast number 2 where I go into details about my own lived experience— I was on a mission of self-awareness and spiritual development. And one of these big epiphanies of self-awareness came in the form of what I now know as shadow work. And the moment I realized that nothing in life is personal and everything is happening for me, for me to thrive and heal. So one particular shift, all the servers were standing in the pre-shift meeting, and you may have heard this story before, and you may have heard the topic today before, but I think it's worth repeating. So we're standing in this pre-shift meeting. If you're a server, you know what I'm talking about. Usually consisted of listening to the litany of transgressions we had been making and how we are single-handedly the demise of the entire restaurant. I stood staring at the general manager with my fists clenched and my heart racing. Oh, how I hated that man. And I would bitch about him. To everybody else, God, he's so arrogant. I would whisper the same sentiments to myself during the shift and find myself reliving my anger in the shower after work and as I lay down to sleep. Then I discovered The Work by Byron Katie. I was attending a Sunday service at a local spiritual center, and the facilitator passed around a sheet and asked us to think of the person in our lives who triggered us the most. And I immediately thought of my manager. And I began to get excited about how I could explain all the ways in which he was not spiritual. But in the work, you will make a statement about the person you complain about. So you fill out the sentence, I complain about blank because he, she, they blank. So mine was, I complain about Kyle, change his name, because he is so arrogant. So my statement was, Kyle is so arrogant. And I was smiling. Yes, he is. But then we would do some questions, and then you do the turnarounds. This is what got me, the turnarounds. I replaced Kyle's name with mine. And I sat staring at that paper. I am so arrogant. Arrogant. And my stomach dropped. And I felt myself getting sweaty. And then my mind experienced this instant download of memories and examples of how I had been and am being arrogant in my life. How I was being arrogant at the restaurant toward him. And I recalled complaining to other servers. Kyle trying to tell me how to wait on a table when I've been doing this for 30 years. He can fuck off. Arrogant. Couldn't believe it. I finally understood what it meant when people said that everyone in your life is a mirror. Kyle triggered me because his behavior mirrored mine. I was really unhappy about being an arrogant person. I did not like the arrogance inside me. The trigger from him was a gift to me, and I saw myself in a new light. Self-awareness. I immediately went to work on noticing my arrogance and changing my thoughts and my attitude. This is what true amends look like. Making amends with your own shadow parts Bringing them to light and course-correcting. The result is a higher level of peace and an expansion of how you show up in the world. That's the amends. Kyle eventually became somebody that I love and someone who helped me understand myself in a really powerful way. So here's the thing. When I reflected on my life, I noticed that Kyle had shown up In every job I ever worked, whether it be restaurant, retail, or corporate. He showed up at church. He showed up in all my relationships. And he will show up for you. Different face, different name, different city maybe, but the same betrayal, the same dynamic, the same gut punch that leaves you spinning into resentment, playing that conversation in the shower. 3 weeks later, every day, building a case against them in your head while you're trying to fall asleep. You think the problem is them. But I want to offer you a different possibility. Here is what traditional amends is missing. Most of us come into recovery with some version of the amends conversation already loaded in our heads. Make a list, apologize, clean up your side of the street. And look, all of that matters, and I'm not here to dismantle or Or deprecate the amends process. And if you're in a certain program, you know what I'm talking about. But there's a layer underneath it that will set you free way beyond a simple admission of your wrongdoings. The real suffering in your life isn't coming from what they did or what you did. It's coming from the untrue beliefs you've been holding about yourself that aren't in your awareness. Whatever happened in those disagreements or those circumstances where you did something wrong, there was a mirror being held up to you, a mirror that is calling you to heal the limiting beliefs you hold about yourself and the world, a mirror to bring a new level of self-awareness of you are the problem, a mirror that is calling you to take notice of your hidden and rejected aspects. All so that you can be at true peace. That mirror is your teacher. In the alchemical tradition, nothing in the outer world is wasted. Every single conflict is raw material to be transmuted. Every person who triggered you was, whether they know it or not, holding up a mirror to To a part of yourself you hadn't been willing to look at directly or don't know is there. So this man that abandoned you, he's showing you where you've always been abandoning yourself. The friend who judged you, he's showing you the judge that already lives in your head. The lover who lied to you, pointing you toward the small daily lies you've been telling yourself about what you actually want, what you actually need, what you actually feel. Those are all examples. This isn't spiritual bypass. And I'm not saying the harm wasn't real and the feelings weren't real. I'm saying that the most powerful place you'll ever do amends is in the mirror. Because here's what I've watched happen over and over in this work. You will continue to find yourself in those same situations with the same people until you see what the reflection is telling you, until you see your shadows. So You can apologize and make things better, but that does not excavate the deeper driving forces that led to that circumstance that you're apologizing for. And that person and situation will come back around in various forms until you do see what lies beneath. So here's a practice that we use in my program. The Foundations program is our new group cohort. In the Foundations cohort, we work through something I call Next Level Amends. It draws on Byron Katie's The Work, and it weaves in mirror principles from this alchemical lineage. My program's called Recovery Alchemy, by the way. Here's a little more about what that looks like before the turnaround that I described earlier. So the premise is pretty simple, even if the practice is anything but simple. It's so powerful. You take one resentment, Just one. You write it down. I complain about blank because blank. Then you ask yourself these 4 questions. Is it true? Yes or no? Is it true? Can I absolutely know it's true? So, so-and-so is mad at me. Is it true? Can I absolutely know it's true? Where's the evidence? How do I react? When I believe this thought, how did I react when I believed Kyle was arrogant? Angry. It took up so much energy and time. It made— it made me a miserable person. Notice that in your body. Notice how you treat yourself. Notice whether this thought has ever given you a reason to possibly use meth. Who would I be Without this thought? That is the question. That's where the real medicine is. Not because it erases what happened or gets anybody off the hook. It gives you a glimpse, sometimes for the first time in years, of who you are underneath the stories you carry about what happened and who did what to you. How would you show up in life Without the thought that this person, for instance, rejected you? How would it affect your other relationships? And then you turn it around. This is the turnaround. He rejected me because I rejected me. So if someone rejected you, James rejected me. Make that I rejected me. Me, or I rejected James. You read those and then you sit with it, feel it in your body. You come up with 3 of those, and then you know to ask yourself, which of these are true or truer than the original belief? 'Cause my guess is you're rejecting yourself. My guess is, for me, I was the arrogant one. It brings a whole new perspective to a circumstance. It releases everyone and helps you grow, helps you know yourself at such a deeper level. And that's where the real amends begins, not with him, with you and you. What this frees you to do is when you stop needing other people to be different in order for you to be okay, your whole nervous system gets to exhale because you can't control anyone else. And you stop rehearsing arguments in your head. You stop scanning every new face for the same old wound. You stop using resentment as a low-grade drug. You become somebody who's— Who? Your presence is the apology. Your change, your revolution, your transmutation is the amends. Your life is proof. Whose recovery isn't about white-knuckling distance from a substance, but about becoming home to a self that's integrated, enlightened, a self that you've been at war with for years. Because the more you're at war with people outside of yourself, it means you're at war inside. And every conflict that you have becomes a classroom. Every trigger you get is a teacher. Every person who hurt you was showing you exactly what was ready in you to heal. The work isn't to forget what happened. The work is to question the beliefs you accepted about yourself and about what they did and what happened. That's the real amends. And it's the one that finally, truly sets you free and brings to you real recovery, recovered, integrated, whole. Hope that helps. If you have any questions about this process, let me know. Happy to walk you through it. If you have any comments, you can comment on YouTube or you can comment on Spotify, or you can just DM me. I am everywhere at all times. I hope you have a great day.
