In this solo episode of The Aftermath Podcast, host Dallas Bragg explores the "depression" stage of the five‑stage grief model as it applies to recovery from chemsex—a pattern of sexualized drug use common among men who have sex with men. Bragg first clarifies that the depression he describes is the grief‑related response that follows the bargaining stage, distinct from—but potentially overlapping with—clinical depression, and he urges listeners with severe symptoms to seek professional help. He shares his own experience of hitting a deep depressive low while in jail and during early recovery under drug‑treatment court, describing how forced sobriety forced him to confront the magnitude of his losses: his former corporate identity, relationships, the community and rituals of chemsex, the intense sexual experiences, imagined futures, and the simplicity of using as an emotional shortcut. Bragg emphasizes that this depression is not pathology but the soul registering the weight of what has been lost. He warns that the strongest temptation in this stage is to numb the pain with chemsex, labeling such relapse as the deepest betrayal of oneself. To navigate the stage without relapsing, he advises a series of practical strategies: allowing the feeling to be present in waves, engaging in basic self‑care (walks, meals, sleep, hygiene), avoiding triggers (apps, texts, locations), journaling, and maintaining a container for grief in the body. He frames staying with the depression as the only path to transformation, noting that those who endure emerge as coaches, healers, and leaders. The episode concludes by previewing the final acceptance stage, describing acceptance as inhabiting a new, expanded self rather than achieving happiness or closure. Listeners are invited to comment, ask questions, or reach out via social media, and a supplemental study guide is referenced for deeper engagement.
Chapters
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. All right, welcome back to The Aftermath Podcast and this solo Don't forget, there is a supplemental study guide that goes along with this episode. The link is 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 most. All right, so we are moving through this series on the 5 stages of grief and how they relate to chemsex recovery. This is The World According to Dallas. This is not a scientific study. This is not a guarantee, but... It's a theory. This is an example of a trend that I see and have witnessed. So make sure you go back and read the introduction news supplemental study guide. Make sure you listen to the introduction podcast. Listen and read at the same time if you want. But just read the introduction to the series, and then you will take a deep dive into each of the stages through the podcast and through the newsletter that comes with it. So it doesn't really matter what order you go in. Look, These stages aren't necessarily consecutive. However, you do have a goal of getting through to the very last stage, acceptance, right? So if you've been with me through this series, you have walked through denial, you've processed your anger, and finally closed the door on bargains. You have done the hardest thinking work of the whole process of grief. The hardest thinking work. You have stripped away the filters. You have stripped away the negotiations and the loopholes, and now you are standing in the middle of a different kind of room. Welcome to depression. And there's no quick fix for this. There are no 5 steps to get out of it within a week. There's only one way of letting go of the full weight Of what you have lost. All right. And let's talk about that. What is depression? So let me say something very carefully here because the word depression reminds you of— it has some kind of clinical weight to it, right? Now, I wanna handle that very responsibly because there's the depression in grief is not the same as clinical depression, though they can overlap and one can trigger the other. If you are experiencing Severe clinical symptoms, suicidal ideations, an inability to function at a basic level, please reach out to a mental health professional. That is not me. So this stage of grief is not a substitute for clinical care, if I haven't made that clear. And I'm not going to pretend it is otherwise. So what I'm talking about here is the specific weight that settles in when the bargaining stops working. And that's the weight of finality. The understanding deep in your body that the version of you who lived in that scene is never coming back. That the community you had is gone. That the future you imagined when you were using is not the future you're going to live. So this depression is not pathology. It is the soul registering the magnitude of what you are losing. It is what real grief feels like when the defenses are down. And if you've ever lost someone you love very deeply, you know this weight, the weight that comes after the funeral, after the casseroles stop arriving, after the calls slow down, when you are alone with the absence. And there's nowhere to put it. That is the weight we are talking about. You are mourning a death. The death of the rush. The death of the man you were in that scene. The death of the risky, unpredictable life you loved. The death of the social circle you found most welcoming. Real death. Real grief. So, I told you in the opening podcast that I landed in depression while sitting in jail. And that is the truth, but it's not the whole truth because depression visited me many times before jail and many times after. But in the first 18 months of my recovery journey, I was enrolled in drug treatment court and attending daily IOP. I was not high. I could not be high. I was being drug tested multiple times a week. The consequences of failing a test were severe enough that even my addicted mind had to back off. For the first time in years, I had no way to numb the enormity of what I had done to my life. I sat for the first time with the magnitude of falling from a corporate executive position to an unhoused person living on the streets. I sat with the relationships I had ruined. I sat with the version of myself I had been, the things I had said, the people I had hurt, the years I had lost, I sat with the recognition that the man my family had been praying for was actually me. And I had been so far away from Him for so long that I was not sure I knew how to ever get back. I sat with the fear of what was on the other side of this. Could I actually rebuild all of this? Could I actually become someone different? Did I have it in me, or was I going to spend the rest of my life— As a recovering version of someone who could never quite recover all the way. That's real. The weight was crushing. And if I had not been drug tested, I would have used. I know this without— with absolute certainty. The temptation to make the weight stop was the most intense temptation I have ever felt in my life. And meth was the only tool I knew that could make it stop. I owe my recovery in part to that system that forced me to feel my feelings. And forced is the right word. I did not choose to sit with the depression. I had no other option. And in having no other option, I learned something that was— that has shaped everything I've done since then. I learned that the depression of grief does not actually destroy you. It feels like it will. But if you stay in it, if you do not numb it, it eventually moves through and transforms into something else, that acceptance. But you have to stay in it for that to happen. And staying in it is the hardest thing this work will ever ask of you. So let me name the losses because the depression of this stage often feels formless and overwhelming. So naming the specific losses can give it some shape. So you are grieving the man you were when you were using, even though that man was destroying you. He was also alive. He made you feel alive in a particular way. He was unguarded. He was uninhibited. He was— Felt chosen. He had access to a particular kind of euphoria and a particular kind of belonging. That man is gone and you cannot have him back. You are grieving the community, the men who knew you in that life, the friendships that were built around shared use, the dealer who, however unhealthy, was a constant, the party crowd, the ritual. The apps, the witnesses, they are not all going to come with you into your new life. Most or all of them cannot. And the ones who could probably won't. You are grieving the sex, not just any sex, that specific kind of sex, the hours of it, the intensity, the way your body felt, the way you felt seen and wanted in that particular form, the fantasies that came with it, the version of yourself you got to be in those rooms. That is not coming back in the same form. Even if you eventually develop a beautiful, sober sex life, which you will if you want it, the version you had in the scene is gone. You are grieving the future that you might've imagined, the fantasies that the drug was selling you, the body you were gonna have, or you did have, the freedom you were going to embody, the creative breakthroughs, that transcendent experience, right? The dreams that lived inside the high, those die too. And grieving dreams that were never real is its own particular kind of hell because you cannot point to anything you actually lost. You can only point to what you imagined you were going to have. It kind of feels embarrassing to grieve, but that is grief and it is no less real. You're grieving the version of pleasure. 'Cause in early recovery, food does not taste the same. Music does not move you the same way. Touch does not electrify. Your nervous system has been retrained and that recalibration takes a while. You are not just chemsex-free. You are numb. And the numbness, that's its own loss. You're grieving the time, the years you cannot get back, the opportunities you missed, the relationships that have moved on without you, the version of your career, your finances, your health that would've existed if you had taken a different path. You are grieving the simplicity of having one answer for everything. When you were using, every emotion had the same solution. Lonely? Use. Bored? Use. Anxious? Use. Happy? Use. Now you have to figure out what each emotion actually is asking for, what it is. And that is a much harder life. It's a richer life, but it's a harder one. All of this is real. All of this is worth grieving. And the depression of this stage is the body and the soul registering that cumulative weight of it. So let's be direct. This is the stage where the temptation to use gets the strongest. It's always darkest before the dawn. Right? By this point, you have processed enough to know that the fun was a setup. The temptation in this stage is different, though. The temptation is to make the depression stop by numbing it with the best coping mechanism you have found, chemsex. You will tell yourself that you cannot survive this wait. You will tell yourself that the work is not worth it if this is what it costs. You will tell yourself that you are not built for this. You will tell yourself that one more session would just be a reset, a chance to catch your breath, a temporary break. Hear me very clearly. Using to escape the depression of this stage is the deepest betrayal of yourself that you will make. The depression you are feeling is the price of admission. To acceptance. If you numb it, you do not skip it. You delay it. And the next time it comes, it comes worse, stronger, 'cause now you've added new grief to grieve on top of the old grief. The way through depression Is through it. Not around it, not under it, through it. So how do you stay? How do you actually live through this stage without using and without breaking? You let yourself feel it. Feeling is healing. Not all at once, in waves. Let the weight settle in for an hour, then take a walk. Let the tears come for 20 minutes, then make yourself a meal, watch a funny show. Let the grief have your evening and then go to bed at a reasonable hour. You do not have to try to power through. You do not have to try to fix it. You do not try to talk yourself out of it. You just let the feeling be there and you keep yourself alive around it. As much as you can. You stop trying to make yourself feel better. This is the line I gave you in the opening podcast. Do not try to feel better. Try to feel it better. Feel the depression more skillfully. Feel it with more presence. Feel it with more breath. Feel it with more witness and observation. The way out is not relief from it. The way out is intimacy with the feeling itself. You do small things that keep you connected through the body. Walk, eat, shower, sleep. The body is the container for this grief. The body needs basic care while it's doing the work. So do not let that depression talk you out of brushing your teeth. Do not let the depression talk you out of changing your sheets or letting your laundry pile up. These small acts of care are not trivial. They are how you tell yourself you are worth surviving this. Stay away from the triggers, the apps, the texts, the places. The depression is going to lower your defenses and your bargaining mind's gonna get a little glimpse of coming back online with some new offers. Move your phone to a different room. Block what needs to be blocked. Make the relapse harder to execute. When you're at your most vulnerable. Write, journal, let the grief move through your hand onto the page. You don't have to make that beautiful. You don't have to make it coherent. You just have to give it somewhere to go that's not in your veins, not in your reflection in the mirror. You wait. And waiting, waiting, delayed gratification, That's the practice. The depression will not last forever, I promise. It will not even last as long as your fear is telling you it'll last, but it will last longer than you want it to. The work is to stay in it without making it stop prematurely, because if you make it stop prematurely, it only returns again. And if you let it move through you fully, it will transform. So depression and grief is the stage where you find out what you're really made of. The men who make it through this stage are the men who become coaches, healers, leaders, writers, lovers, fathers, witnesses for other men coming behind them. 'Cause they did not flinch when the weight came down. They stayed. They felt it, and they came out on the other side with something very rare. And that something rare is what makes the rest of your life possible. So in the next and final podcast of the series, we're going into acceptance. Acceptance is not happiness, and it's not closure. Acceptance is the moment you stop fighting the new shape of your life and you start inhabiting the best And expanded version of yourself. For now, stay in the wait. Feel it better. Feeling is healing. And let it move. Let somebody see you in it. Be witnessed. You're doing the most sacred work a man can ever do, to be quite honest. You are letting an old self die so that a true self can be born. That is not a small thing. All right. I hope this helps. If you have any comments, questions, feedback, you can comment on Spotify, you can comment on YouTube, or you can DM me on any social media platform anytime, anywhere. Hope you have a good week.
