EP 3:49 The Real Work of Chemsex Recovery with Danni

While it may be hard and scary, that is the work. And I think what, what men out there need to hear is you don't have to do it alone. I know it may seem like you want to do it alone or like you have nobody else, but there are a lot of people out there that may want to make sure you don't do it alone as well.

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. So glad you're here. Thank you for tuning in. Appreciate you. I just want to say, I always say, like, Subscribe, review the podcast, but also I really like to see somebody share it on their story somewhere, share it on their social media. I put 1,000 reels out there from the podcast. Somebody share it somewhere. I would really love that. The thing is, you know, I understand a lot of you want to stay anonymous that you are, you know, talking about meth. A lot of my clients don't even follow me. 'Cause they don't want people to know that they are using, 'cause it's a secretive thing. But if you can, I'd really appreciate that if you could do that. So today I'm gonna introduce you to a new friend of mine, Danny Pomplune. Hopefully I said that correctly without a country— a country accent does kind of make everything sound wrong when I say it.

It's great.

But Danny's gonna introduce himself, but I'm really excited. I saw, A reel pop up and Danny was talking about, I quit drugs, the addiction stayed. And then I started digging deeper into his work and I'm really excited to share with you Danny today. Danny, can you tell us about yourself?

I sure can. And I'm gonna try to do it in a country accent like you.

I love that.

Just before we went live on recording, we were talking about my last name and I was telling Dallas how someone, you know, they made me French. They were like, Pomploun. And I'm like, that sounds rich and expensive. Yeah.

Let's go that way. All right. Yeah.

Thanks for, thanks for having me on the show, Dallas. And I think even, you know, as the listeners start to tune in, it is so powerful, the work that you're doing and the voice that you are giving for a lot of the voiceless out there. And a lot of men that are using, you know, myself in the past, are looking for community. So just, I want to just brag on you and give you a lot of love for doing the work that you're doing and putting the voice that you are out there in the world. It's a lot of work. So thank you. Yeah.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

And, uh, I'm still Danny, so still, still me. Uh, yeah, my name is, yeah, my name is Danny Pomplune. Um, I guess, you know, it's quite funny. People ask me like, well, what do you do?

And I'm like, I don't really mind.

Do a little bit of everything. No, I'm a coach and specifically I'm a men's coach and a men's, uh, men's work facilitator. My background is in yoga and mindfulness. And before that, I managed gay bars and nightclubs for about 10 years. So that was a good time. Wow.

I didn't know that part.

Yeah. About 4 years ago, my life really changed. I got coached and I was able to sit in some really beautiful men's circles and have some really sharp love that I'd never gotten. You know, I got all the validation I needed to in the gay community. I got everything else, the party, everything else that went with it. Um, but I never really got some, some, some loving sharpening words, uh, to me. And, um, I was so moved by it and I kind of had this moment in life where I was like, I think I'm here to help men heal. And, uh, yeah, that's, that's, that's a quick intro.

Yeah, I like it. Well, tell, can you tell me, tell us more about what is, what is a sharpening word? Yeah.

Yeah, I think one thing that comes to mind when you ask that is integrity. And, you know, for what it is and sometimes for what it's not, what I love so much about being gay is that there's a lot of liberation. There's freedom in my sexuality, there's freedom in my expression, there's freedom in a lot of stuff. And I think with that naturally comes a lack of containment. There's almost so much freedom that we don't put any boundaries on anything.

Yep.

And some of the work that I do, you know, the 2 ways I look at it is like there's structure and flow, and it's like the masculine and the feminine. It's not about your, your sexual identity has nothing to do with that. It's, it's more like what is holding the thing and then what is the expression of the thing. And, and as gay men, I find that we are very, very, very much in full expression of life. And it's a beautiful thing. Don't get me wrong. It is a gift to be able to be an expression. And there's got to be time for containment and leaky energy in the sexual community, or rather in the, in the gay community, uh, is, is a thing, you know, you see people, it's, it's kind of the things that we, no one parties like the gayest party.

Right.

It is a, it is a thing. Yeah. And I think, you know, sharpening, you know, I don't think I've ever had anyone in the community really call me on my integrity. And, you know, I sat in rooms with straight men Unintentionally, I didn't realize I was going to be the only queer man in this container. And, um, and these guys, it was great. These guys didn't care about the parties I went to. They didn't care, you know, what, uh, what Pride event I was going to. They didn't care about my Puerto Vallarta trip or, you know, the freeway or whatever it was. They really just cared about me stepping into my greatness and stepping into my word. And I never really had people of that caliber and that were doing such big things in life that were, you know, supporting me. And, and, you know, I'll never forget, there was one time I went up to the mic and I was telling my teacher about my ex and he's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, are you going to talk about your ex again? I said, well, yeah. And he goes, sit down. We don't want to hear it. We talked about this last time. You said you were going to do something you didn't. Like, we don't want to hear it.

Wow.

And At first, I was like, fuck off. I paid money to be here. But the reality was he was giving me a gift. He wasn't letting me repeat the pattern in real time. He was pausing me and asking me to consider before I said anything else. And that's the kind of sharp love that I think that we lack in many ways. And I can't speak for everyone else's experience, of course. But like I said, you know, I was, you know, I was in bars and nightlife most of my life, you know, and even while I was teaching yoga and doing mindfulness, I was still working at a bar to make a living because it's tough on both ends and, you know, everything's more, more, more, more, more, more in the land of being gay and being in a gay bar and everything that goes with that.

Yes, lack of containment is such an important concept for For us, because I really believe, like, when I have— when I've spoken out about chemsex a lot, there are some in the gay community will say, you know, you're a buzzkill. You know, you're taking away our sexual freedoms and our sexual liberation. And like you're saying, yes, you can have all that. But there's leaky energy, like you would— like you said, like, we have to contain it though. We have to have boundaries around it. Or it's out of control, which is what we have. This is what we're seeing. Even in, even if it's not chemsex, even if it's just on Grindr or at Pride, it's like there is a lack of containment of, of it. There's got to be a balance between that, between going crazy with it, right, and, and, and knowing where your boundaries are and still feeling the buzzkill.

Yeah, I mean, I think anyone that says you're a buzzkill is, you know, there's something alive for them. There's something— they're calling you a buzzkill and you're getting a reaction out of them because the work that you're doing is confronting to them. So you're doing the right thing. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And I also, on the other side of it, is I understand their pain. I understand that they're doing something that they're probably at a crossroads with or they don't know how to get out of. And so instead of going inward and reflecting, they're pointing the finger at you.

Mm-hmm.

You know, they're pointing the finger at someone who is, is calling out specifically in, in, in Chemsex and, and the work that the podcast is built around is like meth is, is a drug that is just so prevalent. And again, only speaking from my experience, I don't think I've ever seen anyone come out of it on the other side better in life. You know, I've only seen, I've seen it destroy lives overnight. I've seen it tear people down. I mean, it almost, it almost tore my life apart. And I, and I've had a few rock bottoms in my life, but I was lucky to have some high rock bottoms, you know?

Okay. Can you get— can you tell us about your experience then with meth?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So my, my, my first journey in sobriety started, um, with, uh, drinking and cocaine. Those are my 2, my 2 things. I was a bartender. Um, I started you know, bartending very young. I was 21 managing gay bars in Southern California, and it was the best of times and the worst of times, you know.

Yeah.

Someone left me in charge, and that was a bad idea. But I had access to everything, you know. I had access to everything at every given point. And that led to, you know, the exploration of, you know, doing Molly and— well, back then we had ecstasy. So, you know, we didn't really have Molly back then. It was like press pills. And I ate mushrooms and smoked a lot of weed and, you know, all that stuff. And when I was about 25, I had a partner. It was my first love, and he had passed away from AIDS. And I grew up a little different. I left home when I was 17. I became a sex worker and a drug dealer and had to survive. And so some of the things that— and my mom was, you know, in and out of jail most of my life. My dad did his best, but wasn't there, you know, and very machismo Mexican man from Mexico who there's no emotional intelligence behind that, you know? And so as I was growing up, I didn't have emotional regulation. I didn't have anyone, you know, telling me how to feel my big feelings and then getting me to the other side. I didn't have buzzwords like nervous system reset or regulation. I didn't have Access to mental healthcare. None of it existed. I had the bar and that's what my world revolved around. And you kind of think when you hear this, like, oh, like, how did you not know about more? Well, you don't know what you don't know. And a lot of, a lot of times people forget if we don't have access to mental healthcare, to services, to whatever it is, or we just don't know that it exists, we probably don't go find it. And there's shame behind that as well. So You know, at 25, I lost my partner and it was the first big loss that I had and I didn't take it lightly. And, you know, I have my own story with HIV. I've been HIV positive for many, many years and I was positive before he became positive and I came out the other side okay. And I was guaranteed that he was going to come on the other side okay. And he didn't. He passed.

Wow.

Sarcoma got him just like we used to lose our brothers from back in the day.

Yeah.

And the first thing I did is after I left the hospital is I went and got a bunch of drugs and went to the local bar. And 2 days later, I came to and someone was, you know, slamming me, and I had no idea where I was. I had no idea how I got there.

Wow.

And, you know, I actually— it brought me to somewhat of a sober moment where I was like, what the hell is going on? And And then I tried to fight the person for a second, then they calmed me down and, you know, and then the rest of the story is the rest of the story there. And that was really my first time with it. And I got really scared. I got really, really, really scared enough where I was like, okay, I don't need to do that again. And I started some therapy and therapy really started helping. And I really took my yoga practice at the time very seriously. What I, what I loved about yoga was You know, I'd come in hungover. I would be walking to the yoga studio, smoking a Parliament Light, you know, and, and, oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

And they were my favorite, man. They were my favorite. And the thing that I loved about it is no one cared. You know, they, they didn't care that, that they didn't care that I was hungover. They didn't care that I smelled like Jameson or smelled like a cigarette. They cared that I was there. And that's what really kept me coming back to yoga or to spirituality. Sometimes it's, you know, God, capital G-O-D. Sometimes it's, you know, a group of drunks, whatever it may be. And I think once I found this place of belonging, my sobriety not started, but my drinking and partying started to slow down because I was introduced to something that was completely different.

Yeah.

I knew there was another way to live and I was being, you know, there were reflections around me of elevated people is what I like to say. People living in soul purpose, you know, they weren't, there was no need to escape because they were living their authentic lives.

Yeah.

And yeah, that went really well. And, you know, as it does where you're like, okay, I'm going to slow things down. I'm still doing cocaine, just not as much. I was still drinking, just not as much. And And still eat mushrooms and things like that. And then a few years passed and I was really lonely. You know, I had stayed single. I would roll through guys all the time. And there was a moment where I remember being in San Diego and I went to one of my mentors and I said, you know, it's starting to feel scary again. And she was like, you've talked about moving to San Francisco for a really long time.

Hmm.

I think it's time you pack your bags and go. And go do this yoga thing and get out of the bars. And I said, okay, like I had nothing really left. So I packed up all my stuff. I came to San Francisco and I was on a mission to, you know, do yoga teaching. And I got a job at a bar up here and, you know, I'd slowed everything down. It took about a year of no drugs. I drank and I would smoke cigarettes and I would Yeah, I would, I would eat mushrooms and called that California sober, right? That was my version of California sober, right? California sober, extra light.

Extra light. Yeah. Plus California plus. Yeah.

Plus the premium. Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. Premium. The premium excuse that you give yourself.

Right, exactly.

Yeah. And you know, I, it felt good. You know, things were slowing down and things were, life was getting okay again. And I moved to San Francisco. I was in a new place and this is, you know, before I learned the term geography and, you know, I got here and the first thing I did was find the first drug dealer I could. And, you know, that was, that was it. I, my cocaine picked up immediately again. My eating all sorts of drugs started and then the G was introduced to my life.

Ah. Yeah.

So I, I came into— there's, there's a, there's a good thing and a bad thing about the way that I grew up. I was very sheltered in many ways. And when I started working at the bars, I was 21, and I was 21, and I was the bar manager. So I drank the best booze, and I did the best cocaine. And I didn't do G, and I didn't do T, because that was for lower than me people.

That's right.

You know, it was very— I was a classy broad, if you will. I had access to what I thought was important. And so, you know, when you're 21, you don't, you know, you don't know your head from your ass. I thought it was, I thought it was cool. And so anyway, I came up here and, and, and G was introduced to me and, and everything just kind of started to go downhill. And really quickly, within a matter of 9 months, I went out on this date and we go to this bar and I end up pulling out my AA app. And the very next day, me and this man go to a, go to a meeting because the date didn't happen because he was like, I think you need some help. I was drunk. I was not that drunk. I didn't think so anyway. In my eyes, I was keeping it together.

Right, exactly. Yeah.

So I walked into my first AA room and, um, that was, that was really the beginning of, of the, the better part of my sobriety started there is I was in AA. I was in the rooms for around 4 years. Um, And it was, it was, you know, it was like that big breath that you need from life. And I like to remind people, and this is, you know, this is how I like to say it is, I didn't really come online until I was 30. I never felt my own emotions. I had never had sober sex. I had never had genuine connection that wasn't outside of a bar and over a drink or over drugs.

Wow.

You know, my life didn't really— it wasn't conducive to that. You know, I, for a long time, had become really okay with the thought that, okay, you're going to be a bartender in a gay bar for the rest of your life, and that's what you're going to do. And you're going to live in the Castro, and you're going to hang out in the Castro, and this is what you do, and everyone knows you, and you go out and you drink 5 nights a week. And we know those people. And I I thought that was it for me. And once I got sober, it was like, not only was I clear, but my— I'm a pretty spiritual person, you know, and I think my soul really came online. And, you know, I don't like to say God, but I like to say the great her, the great mother, you know, she's gotta be a woman. This shit's crazy, you know?

Yeah. But, um, the goddess, the goddess.

Yeah. You know, I like to say that it was, You know, it was one of those first times in my life where I actually felt connection to her and to, to it, to, to, to wonder and awe, like something made this really beautiful masterpiece we call life. I mean, nature is intelligent and absolutely mesmerizing. You know, trees can tell us how long they've lived.

Yeah.

You know, water can cut through massive amounts of stone and make new mountains. It's, it's pretty beautiful. Something is alive out there and it's bigger than me. And it was the first time I had really experienced it and life was good. You know, life was, was really, really, really solid for a good 4 years. And then small permissions came in. Ah, yeah.

Yeah. Small permissions.

Yeah. Small permissions came in and it was like, you know, I'll start the mushrooms and okay. You know, I can eat the tamale at Pride and You know, it all just, it slipped again and it took a while. This was, you know, it's my second, you know, rock bottom was, you know, I, I had lost myself completely. I lost myself in relationship. I lost myself in life. I was really starting to abandon myself. And, you know, the fact is, like I've said in the video, I didn't really get to the root of the problem.

Mm-hmm.

And the root of the problem is that I didn't love and respect myself. And it had to do with a lot of my growing up. It had to do with the way I navigated the world, some of the trauma that I never really unpacked. And, um, yeah, you know, I think the second go around, the second go around was, was pretty scary for me because I'd never, you know, I pushed meth off. I could count on one hand, on one finger, how many times I'd done it.

Okay.

And the second time, in a matter of 6 weeks, I was shooting up 3, 4 nights a week. And I didn't go to smoking it. I went straight for the red button. I was in pain and it was a big cry for help and I just wanted to be off the planet and I didn't have the balls to commit suicide, you know?

Yeah.

So I was just like, how quick do I get out of here? And thankfully I had good people in my life who were like, something's wrong. You know, we got to get you some support and some help and And they did. I have a couple of friends who worked in sober spaces, um, in homes and centers and things like that. And they really just came in and, and, you know, I was introduced to a lot of really amazing resources. Uh, you know, I'd had the yoga practice and the mindfulness practice, but to have somatic and embodiment practices and, uh, somatic therapy and trauma therapy was the biggest thing that was really incredible for me. It really Changed my life. Trauma therapy and, and really solid community was what pulled me out. So, yeah, that's, you know, I don't know. I don't know that my sobriety story ever ends, and there's not just like one moment, you know. I mean, I think, you know, this, Dallas, you've been doing this for a while, and God knows how many men you've worked with. But yeah, I like to think just today is all I gotta worry about.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's the Just for today is the 12-step. Yeah.

Yeah.

That is, that is right. You're right. I did hear you say about therapy, you mentioned trauma therapy. You also mentioned embodiment and somatic embodiment.

Yeah.

There was a reel that you talked about the therapy helped you so much, but to really apply it, integrate it, you had to embody what you were Learning.

Yeah. Yep.

Can you, can you tell us what that, can you explain that a little bit? Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, and again, this is just my take on it and everyone, everyone has their own and I'm okay with that.

Sure. Sure.

I think a lot of talk therapy is, is talk therapy in general is, let me back that up. If someone who doesn't talk to someone starts talking to the same light pole every day, I think it's better than not talking to anyone at all. I genuinely think if someone has just a place to get things out, we would be in a very different place. Talk therapy was amazing for me. I got to sit with someone who was an outside party, who I didn't really care if they judged me. You know, they had some skill sets on how to respond to me and how to ask me the right questions and so on and so forth. And it was great. And it only got me to a certain point. And that certain point was that It was just all mental and cerebral front cortex thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. And for an addict, thinking is not the best thing. You know, like I want to get out of the overthinking, especially as an addict. And I started to, you know, as I joined the men's group, I was doing emotional embodiment practice. So I thought I was going into a leadership program. I really did. I was, I had had a small business and I was like, I want to be a better boss. And Figure out how to work with my team. And it was emotional leadership embodiment, and I totally just misgaged all of it, and it was the best thing I ever did.

Wow.

And so the emotional embodiment part, what I've learned in the work that I do now, the work that I get to do with men all the time, is we can think about things, sure. And emotion is energy in motion. That stuff needs to move through your body. And needs to be expressed through your body. So let me give you an example. One of the, one of the things that I found as very powerful and one of the tools that really created some serious liberation inside of my body and inside of my being. I mean, ever since that day and this practice, I've felt like millions of pounds lighter. But the practice was set up in a way that we were there to feel something that we hadn't fully in the past. And for me, it was my partner passing away. I never really grieved it. I talked a lot about it. I cried, but it was still in my body.

Hmm.

And I got to, you know, really step into the full emotion viscerally through every single cell of my body. So you jump into meditation, you jump into breathwork to help you get there, and you pull yourself back to the scene and you let the emotion out. And when this happened, I mean, it was facilitated so beautifully by my teacher. When it happened, I was angry. I thought I was sad. I was angry that he died. I was pissed. It was like my, my, my, my, my ride or die wasn't there anymore. And this whole time I thought I was sad. No, I was, I had a lot of anger and, you know, I got 2 men holding me back and someone, you know, who's, who's in front of me, who is the face of him. I'm supposed to imagine him there. And I was just screaming like You fucking left me and how— and then after the anger, then came the tears and the tears, you know, were, were for the first time I understood anguish and I understood real grief. And, you know, I mean, that practice to me is still, you know, that's why I continue to, that's why I'm in the work. That's why I do the same for other men is because it really shifted something inside of me.

Yeah.

There's 2 things as men that we don't feel. We have a hard time finding celebration, and we have a hard time finding grief. And it is the way that we are conditioned, even as gay men. You know, sometimes we forget that we're still, you know, we're still in the general society, which is mainly straight. And, you know, men in many ways are not supposed to feel. They're not taught how to feel, you know?

Right.

And we develop a lot later in communication. You know, women, you always hear people making fun of little girls just chitchatting all the time, and it's because literally the part of their brain brain that starts to develop when they're younger to communicate happens way earlier than us. You know, we happen later on in the game and at that point we've been conditioned not to feel and not to be and not to do that or be weak or whatever it may be. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. Wow. Yeah. You know, this is, this is so related to recovery that, and I think we miss it. And it's something that I was talking, I recorded a podcast today about Uh, or a client who, what I'm finding out is a trigger to use chemsex is unspoken conversations.

Yeah.

So, you know, I had a client, it was this, he had, there were people at work who were causing him great stress. They didn't know. So every day he would face these people and not speak his truth. It built up and it built up and it built up and he doesn't know how to What to do with it. So it went into a chemsex use. You know, the meth would give him a break from it. It would give him a temporary numbness. Now, that buildup would cause him to get on sniffies, and then he would get horny and have euphoric recall. So, but what we tend to focus on with chemsex is that only the sniffies part.

Yeah.

And only the sex part. But he wouldn't have been on there If he wasn't trying to avoid, and as you talk about a lot here, escape. Mm-hmm. Right. Exit. Like you talked about, I wanna exit. Mm-hmm. He, he doesn't, these, we don't know how to express these emotions.

Yeah.

And that is the real core. Like if you don't get to that, you're just gonna white knuckle it.

Correct.

You might, right?

Yeah.

You agree with that? Yeah. Yeah.

I, I mean, When was the last time someone sat us down and I laugh about that? Do you know when I used geometry that I learned in high school? Never. Never. You know what would have been really helpful in high school is someone to show me the emotion wheel and someone to say, hey, this is what rage is, and these are the places that we go. Brené Brown, who's single-handedly changed my life through her literature, has one of the most beautiful books that is illustrated called Atlas of the Heart. And it's beautiful because, by the way, if anyone purchases, I should get 10% from this. What's beautiful about it is it takes you on a journey, the different places that we visit. So where we go when we're sad, where we go when we're happy, where we go when we're confused, where we go when we're kind of in that liminal space. And it gives us language to our experience. One of the hardest reasons that we can't express ourselves is because language is the barrier. So if you know that something's fiery inside of you, but you don't know that it's anxiety, you don't know that it's anxiety. You think it's sexual charge or, you know, whatever it may be. Um, and it's, I just wish that, you know, in, and maybe it's too much of a market to have emotional intelligence learned and taught to us at a very young age, but yeah. Man, would the world be different? If we had that skill set, if someone really gave us that toolkit, and there are great parents out there that, you know, do do it. But I think the masses, I don't think it really exists, you know, especially, you know, in the States, there's a lot of glorification through, well, we don't talk about that, you know. Oh, someone's got a problem in the family. Okay. We don't talk in the South, which is, I mean, you know that. Yeah. We don't talk about, oh, we don't talk about that. We'll go, we'll go send them away. No one will see, you know, and it's, it's, it's fine. And that is the worst thing that we can, you know, it goes with everything. It's not just the meth. It's the eating. It's the phone. It's the gym. It's, it's, it's the whatever we're using. We, the, the opposite of, of, I think addiction is connection and not just connection to other, but like connection to ourselves. You know, before all of, before all of the stories, Before, there are so many things that we have taken on that we've not agreed to. We never got consent to take on people's judgments. We never got consent to have people, you know, put these, you gotta be strong, you gotta be more masculine, you're too fit, whatever it may be. We never got, gave consent for that. And those are layers that, that it's like putting on the different masks, you know, and your mask is the one at the very least. And it takes time to excavate. You know, it takes time to, to, to pull that off, to really be yourself.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I, I, there's a little phrase that I say that recovery is not learning something new. It's unlearning everything you thought you knew.

That's right.

About yourself.

Yeah.

Right. It's returning home to your true self. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right.

Yeah.

So you, you talked about This, your, your partner passing was, you weren't pro— it wasn't processed. It was still in your body.

Yeah.

Can you tell us a little bit about, if I'm listening and I'm, I'm like, how do I know if something's still in my body?

Mm. That's a really good question. I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, all right. Remember you guys, I am in San Francisco, so I am the hippiest of the hippie. And I like to say if I could add a third woo to the woo woo, I would.

Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

But I think that there is a conversation that needs to be had with our bodies, period. You know, I think we live in 3 forms. We live in our, on our head, we live in our heart, and we live in our gut, you know? And the head is the analytical, the thinking, the heart is the emotional, and the gut is the being, the physical being.

Yeah.

And I often sit here and, you know, put my hands on my heart every day in my meditation. And then, you know, I ask for a message or whatever it may be from my, from my heart. I don't need to ask my head. It's giving me messages all day long. I wish it would turn off.

Right.

And then I go to my body too, you know, and say like, what is in there? And I believe if you get quiet enough, sometimes that's through, you know, breathwork where we're burning out some energy. You know, some of the stuff that I teach is in all of my practices is breathwork and meditation, mindfulness, awareness. Because I've seen when I do it, people can start to really listen. And I think that we're a lot smarter. You have to remember that these, you know, these meat suits are way older than we are. You know, we're just inhabiting them for the first time. They are intelligent and they send us signals all day long if we're willing to listen.

Interesting. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, we have to know how to listen, which is another skill we don't. get taught.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're not taught to be in our bodies. We're taught to shame them or change them immediately. We're not taught to love and accept and just be in our bodies as they are, our willing, these capable, these able bodies, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there, I think I've told this story on the podcast, but you know, there, there was so much of a rejection wound that I've had here and there. And when I started to become an observer of when I felt rejected, I noticed I immediately would reach for something, right? Usually the phone, right? Let me get on Grindr and make, remind myself I am accepted, right? Or whatever, whatever I would do to escape that feeling. But when I learned to just sit in it and talk to it, you know, like, like you said, have a conversation with my body to say, What is really happening here? Are, were you really rejected? What is it that you really want? You know, and just kind of, I don't, and just be with it. Just still, stillness, which I don't think, like, there's 2 things we don't have. I think, well, one thing is, like you said, more, like the words here is like more and then distracted.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's like the 2 words that are just running through our culture right now. We're just so distracted.

Yeah.

That we don't know what's happening here.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think, you know, what comes up when you say that is, you know, the moment where we choose to exit. And that's what I, that's one of the, the, the moment that we're like, okay, reality's a little too much right now. Here's, I'm gonna go that way for a little bit. And it could be anything. It's the phone. Like you said, it's the phone, it's the sex, it's whatever it is, is the moment that we leave ourselves. And There's, I mean, I see it time and time again in the people I work with. It's the beautiful thing of being a coach is, you know, to see them sit through the fire, you know, sit as it's coming head on and experience the range of their emotion, which can be anger and sadness and whatever else may be. But there's such a beautiful release at the end and a deeper understanding of who they are at the end.

Yeah.

I think it is scary to sit in stillness because there's a lot of truth. And so when we're faced with the opportunity, I think it's an opportunity to sit with stillness. We might be afraid of what actually comes up. We might be afraid that we might listen to the anger, but that underneath the anger there was sadness because of our father wound or our mother wound or whatever, our abandonment wound, whatever it may be. And, and that's valid. And I would say to everybody, you know, listening to the podcast, you know, right now and just in generally, you have yet, you and I, Dallas, both of us and everyone else, we have yet to be proven that we're not okay. Every day we've woken up.

Mm-hmm.

Every day we've woken up and I think that while it may be hard and scary, that is the work. And I think what, what men out there need to hear is you don't have to do it alone.

Mm-hmm.

I know it may seem like you want to do it alone or like you have nobody else, but there are a lot of people out there that may want to make sure you don't do it alone as well.

Yeah, it does feel like we're alone oftentimes.

Yeah.

Yeah. And there's a lot of men who come out of a chemsex experience with trauma around being around any gay man. Nervousness, fear, you know, and always this skepticism and paranoia around, are they going to use me? You know, and I think the work that you're talking about is like, as you said in your, one of your reels, that the hard work comes after you stop the substance.

Yeah.

Which, yeah, I've always said that it's, look, quitting meth is the easy part. Now you have to get to work. Now you have to roll your sleeves up, right? But it's that letting go of this emotion, but also coming into connection with other gay men and, and being vulnerable. Yeah. And putting your guard down and passing, like you said, passing some of this emotion through, which is what you do with your work.

Yeah.

Right? Yeah.

I mean, I think we've both been there, Dallas, where we're like, are they gonna like me? Yeah.

You know?

And like, what happens if they don't like me? I think that's the part where we get stuck is, you know, we feel the rejection and we're The 2 things that we want is a sense of belonging and a sense of being loved, right? That's, that is our, our, our 2 desires, I believe. And I just really wonder, I am curious how, how much we really buy into the stories. You know, what happens if that person doesn't like me?

Right.

Is my life going to fall apart? Am I a terrible person because they don't, my family no longer loves me because That sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, right? If this person doesn't like me, no one's ever going to love me and my family's going to hate me. And I'm like, it sounds ridiculous as I say it. And we don't say it out loud because then we won't, you know, we won't believe what's happening inside. And I think sometimes we just have to like normalize what the conversation is happening upstairs and realize that in many ways we've been programmed to believe that as true.

Yeah.

Because when you got people that are lonely, when you got people that are isolated, they spend money.

Right. Yes. Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I think, yeah. I mean, a lot of the social media is designed for that.

Absolutely. You get, Dallas, I get, I will get like puppies being given to kids and then they're crying and I'm crying and then it's an ad served right afterwards. You know, like, yeah, they've got me a few times, you know, where I'm like, that was great.

Yeah.

I need that thing.

Right. I need that. Yeah.

Yeah.

When you talk about men aren't taught to feel 2 things, celebration and grief.

Yeah.

Yeah. So grief, grief I get. Can you talk a little bit and elaborate on the celebration part?

Yeah. Yeah. We, we, in the, in the work, I have witnessed that men have a really hard time finding joy and Celebrating themselves. Okay. You know there's yeah yeah how many times do you hear the buzzword narcissist? Everyone's a narcissist. If people actually understood the people understood the realness of the word, they wouldn't probably drop it as much. But it's fine.

Yeah yeah.

It's almost like we're afraid to say, hey Dallas, I've been sober for ten years. You know yeah because because if if you come back at me and and say that's awesome Danny da da da da da it's I'm bragging. No that's that's that's someone caring about someone else being like hell yeah you know like I'm right.

Yeah.

And we kind of just breeze over it. You know, I find that people that are addicted, which is, I think, almost everybody to different things, they're looking for the next thing. They're looking for the next thing, the next exit, the next exit, the next escape, the next escape. And again, there goes that stillness piece that we talked about earlier. If you can pause and reflect on what you have done and how far you have made it, that's probably going to do something to your self-trust. That is probably going to do something to your confidence and is probably going to change the way you operate in the world.

Yeah. Yeah. I do see that now, the celebration part of, you know, this is why I like to change the way that we count days. You know, so if you're in my program for 90 days or 180 days, I will say, we're going to start your day count the first day. If, if you use 30 days in, then we're going to say you still have 30 days. You've used once in 30 days.

Yeah.

If, if you have 60 days, you've used once in 60 days.

Yeah. Right.

And because there is such this tendency to discount every single thing we do of—

100%.

Yeah, but I also did that. Yeah, but I also did that. You know, instead of like you're saying, just take it, take the win.

That's right.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, that's beautifully said, Dallas. I think you hit the nail right on the head. One of the reasons, and I'm not here to dog any program or, you know, like AA just at the end didn't work for me. It works for a lot of people, but I'll never forget I went to a meeting and someone was like, you get sponsees or you die and you're not doing the work. And I I was like, I gotta go. Like, I am gonna start drinking today.

Right, exactly.

And, and there is that, like, look, we live in the United States. I don't, you know, I'm sure you have people, you know, in your program, um, and listening to the podcast all over the world, but there is this glorified more, do more, accomplish more. Hey, once you, you know, you hit this checklist, once you've got the job, once you've got the money, once you've got the husband, once you've got the throuple, once you've got all this, Then you can rest. Then you're okay. Then this. Then you're loved. Then your life's complete. Then you're you know da da da da. But until you have all of that, you've you've not made it. You know?

Yeah.

It's it's it's really really really heartbreaking, and I get it. Those of you that are out there using today, I'll say this straight to you guys. Those of you that are out there using today. I get it. I understand it is hard out there sometimes. It is sad out there sometimes. It is challenging out there sometimes. I want to be loved just as much. And you do not have to go through that experience alone. I do not think we were made to be on this planet alone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a, it's an issue, right? Because I have so many guys say, If I don't have Grindr, how am I ever going to meet anyone? How can I not be alone? You know, there are alternatives to Grindr. I promise. I promise. Yoga.

A grocery store. A meetup. The library.

Right. Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So can you talk to us then about your work? More. Um, I see I have your website here, A Space for Men. Um, looks like there's men's gatherings. So there's, I'm going to read for you, not for you listening, guided conversations and reflection, honest connection without judgment, emotional support and authentic sharing, personal growth through presence and vulnerability, brotherhood rooted in trust, purpose, and community. To me, that is, that covers everything we need. Post-meth, like to reintegrate and connect. Like you said, opposite of addiction is connection, but what an opportunity. Can you tell us more about how this works?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, I think the easiest way is I built what I didn't have. Very, very similar to you. You built what was needed in the world. And, you know, the beauty of having our own individual experiences is I have a lens. You know, my lens comes from a very broken home and sex work and all the things and in my experience to this day. And, you know, there are a lot of ways to connect and do the work. I work with— it's so funny, I have such a range. You know, I do executive coaching where I work with CEOs who are high profile and they're running their companies and they want to be better bosses and better husbands and better brothers and better sons and all the things. And also, they want some support in their business. And I've scaled my own business from nothing to $2 million. And I have that experience of just being, I don't know, I figure gay audacity. I will figure it out.

Right? Yeah. Wow.

And that's just like one of my branches. And the other branches are I lead online men's circles and they're open to everybody. It's free or donation-based. We don't turn anyone away for funds.

Okay.

And it's a space where you get to practice. By practice, I always come in with some breathwork. There's going to be some sort of embodiment. Last time I did embodiment as a dance party, just like move your body and dance and shake it out. And then there's normally a teaching. And not so giving away my trade secrets, I say the things that I need to hear that week. Right. Yeah. If I'm talking about integrity, it's because I'm talking to myself.

Yes, I relate to that.

And then there's space for, for men to support men. You know, if someone is going through something, you are sitting in a room, you know, online or in person with 10, 12, 15 other, sometimes 20 other people. And that's 20 different lenses of experience. Some people might have gone through the cancer with their husband. Some people might have gone through the loss of the job or, you know, it's not a recovery room, although there are a lot of people that, you know, naturally are on the Danny train because I am sober and I love It's great. I think we get to learn from so many things. And so that's one way. And then I lead in-person experiences. And so, yeah, there's, I think the biggest thing right now that's most exciting out of all of it is I'm recognizing in that stillness piece that you said earlier is a lot of us have a hard time finding it.

Mm-hmm.

And sometimes meditation can be a little boring. And so I recorded a meditation album and it's completely free. It's coming out on Spotify at the end of September, but I did some meditations. You know, the name of the album is From Peace to Pain or From Pain to Peace rather. And, and I basically, I just thought about like, oh, what are the things that I need to hear when I'm going through grief? What are the things that I need to hear when I am feeling alone? What are the things that I need to hear when I need to come back to my body? And, and then I added some music that I thought was a little more interesting. You know, it's, it's not the water trickling in the background and the, you know, but I put some cool beats to it. And it was, it was one of those projects, Dallas, truly, that was just like something. It was, it was there. And I tried.

Yeah.

Just letting it go and it was like, nope, you have to do this. Wow.

And well, with your voice, I would imagine I would, I would love to hear it in a meditation.

Well, thank you.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's, I kind of laugh, you know, a lot of the work that we do outside of the embodiment, we do it, right? We do sacred rage, you know, we do polarity work, we do sexual polarity, like, you know, all of it, I think Nothing makes me happier than putting people to sleep and in the best way. I put them in deep rest, you know, through meditation and sound. And it's just, it's such a beautiful place to be in your nervous system, to be in a room where you feel safe enough to let go, to let someone hold you and facilitate that space is just transformative. You know, that 45 minutes can feel like an 8-day nap, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, that's what comes up for me a lot. I don't think I'm quite there yet. I mean, I, in some ways I am, but I can remember seeing men's circles like this, like you were talking about, 2 men were holding you, one was in front of you. To be able to let somebody hold me was a huge deal after meth. I've talked about this before, like even sex after meth, I'm the one, I'm doing it.

Yeah.

You know, I'm giving the blowjob. I'm doing this. I'm doing all the things, but you don't do anything to this.

Yeah.

Right. Um, it took me a very long time and I've, I've did a podcast with my intimacy friend that I have that kind of helped me with this, but a very long time to allow somebody to, to touch me at all. Um, there's a lot of healing in that.

Absolutely. You know, I think especially when it comes to chemsex, you know, where we're fully checked out and, you know, there are places that we go willingly and there are some places that we let go of will unintentionally and we're taken there. And, you know, everyone always says the body keeps the score and that's a part of it. But that, you know, you talk about the neural pathways and how we forget or we remember the high.

Yeah.

We definitely remember the high and the brain programs that. The brain also programs the trauma that goes with it. And I, you know, it is a scientific fact. We are humans of the earth. And one of the things that we need is touch. You know, it is why people that have pets, you know, live longer by 2 years or whatever the case is there, whatever the stat is.

Yeah.

I'm a firm believer that we need touch. You know, I'll never forget there was a practice that I was in, in one of the containers, and it was, how do you want to receive love from your brothers, from other men? And it was through massage, through some words of affirmation, or through— I think it was like sitting together. And everyone chose touch. Every single person chose touch. And, you know, there's so many layers to unpack there. I'm sure for straight men, they want— they crave touch from other men. I think we need that just like gay men. We need touch from women too.

Yeah, there's—

it's a certain texture that we can't get.

Yeah.

And it's almost like it's hard to ask for because it's wrong or whatever the case may be. And with gay men, I would— my story is, you know, are they going to sexualize me? Is this going to be more than that? Am I going to be able to restrain myself, you know? That's right. And, um, and now it's something, it's so funny. One of my good friends, he'll probably listen to this podcast, but I remember I texted him and I was like, hey, um, I need you to start holding my hand and like cuddling me and like, da da da da da. And he was like, well, yeah, I'm into this. And he's like, but I'm not going to schedule like cuddle dates with you. And he's one of my best friends. You know, we're, we're brothers. There's nothing else there.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, uh, he gets it, you know, he's just like, oh yeah, this, you just want to show love, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's so, yeah. I mean, there, there is that question, like you're saying, like, is this going to be sexual? Does he want me? Is he rejecting me? Why is he, you know, there's a lot of that in your head too. You have to, I'm sure, drop out of that.

Be in the moment. Do the meditations that I, that I did before you go into it and be in the moment. Just accept what is right now.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Well, for you listening, I know that this is, this is something you want to go deep into. There's some, maybe some words that, that Danny used today that like even just somatic or embodiment or masculine, feminine, that you want to go and, and research on your own too, that if you don't understand it, but I'm telling you, I want you to probably listen to this one more than once. And understand the value and the power that's behind this and just living a life that's so different and living as yourself. There's just, we don't have to live in suffering every day. And this kind of work is what we need as gay men. So Danny, what did I leave out today? What do you think that I, that we didn't talk about that you maybe thought we would've or wish we had've.

Yeah. Yeah. I think one thing that comes to mind is, you know, we talk a lot about self-care and I think that's important and I think it's a small piece of the puzzle. And so I think, you know, as we round this out, one thing that I want to remind everybody is community care is needed and reaching out to your community for support and help is 100% okay. And in fact, it's almost like, who are you not to let your friends help?

Right.

You know, it's amazing that we get to laugh and dance together. It's a shame if I don't get to see you cry. I want to experience all of you and I want to be with all of you.

Wow. That's, that's big.

Yeah. It's big. Yeah.

That's big. And I can feel the freedom in that. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Really appreciate it a lot. Thank you for your work. And, um, yeah, I'm just really, I'm now in this Zen place at the end of this podcast, just be, just listening to you. So I can't wait to get this. I can't wait to get these meditations. Yeah. Coming out soon.

Coming out soon. It's a very exciting, exciting project.

And I'm going to be, I'm going to be levitating in the air. I hope so.

What happened to Dallas? Well, he's moved to the next realm.

So yeah, risen master.

That's right.

Thank you for being here today. Uh, thank you for listening as well. If you want to join in the conversation, you can always comment on Spotify. You can comment on YouTube. You can DM me on social media. We're going to put Danny's, uh, Instagram and other social media contact. In the show notes as well. I'm sure he wouldn't mind you reaching out to him too. Apparently he checks all of his DMs. Sure do.

No robots involved.

I cannot say that. I cannot say that. But yes, you, you mess— you voicemailed me. Voicememoed me.

I love it.

That's right. Yeah. Thank you, Danny. Thank you everyone else, and we'll see you next week.

Thanks, Dallas.