The AfterMeth: Gay Men Recovering from Crystal Methamphetamine and Chemsex Addiction
19 Oct 2026 · 18 min
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In this solo episode of the Aftermeth Podcast, host Dallas Bragg explores how a deeply negative self‑concept fuels chemsex addiction and offers a pathway to recovery by reshaping that self‑concept. He begins with a personal memoir, describing how revisiting childhood photo albums revealed a pattern of unhappy, out‑of‑place images that reinforced feelings of rejection and anger. A turning point came at a spiritual center where he shifted focus from labeling himself an addict to nurturing his soul and future healing. Bragg then introduces Neuro‑Linguistic Programming (NLP) ideas from Steve Andreas, framing the self‑concept as a mental photo album of images, sounds, and feelings that the brain pulls up as evidence for questions like “Am I reliable?” He explains that most people, especially those early in chemsex recovery, see only negative pictures, which perpetuates a harmful narrative. To counter this, he advocates deliberately adding counter‑examples—positive or neutral memories—into the album and using balanced self‑statements (e.g., “I am reliable, and sometimes I am not”). He further reframes relapse: instead of a verdict that erases progress, a relapse becomes a page in the album marked as a learning experience, allowing the person to acknowledge both success and setback without shame. Throughout, Bragg uses the metaphor of a physical photo album on a coffee table to illustrate how we curate our self‑concept and encourages listeners to consciously choose which album sits there, repeat new narratives, and accept the totality of their experience. The episode ends with a call to action to adopt a new self‑concept, seek peace, and engage with supplemental study guides linked in the show notes.
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 Aftermeth 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 episode. Do not forget, there is a supplemental study guide that goes along with the episode. The link will be in the show notes. If you wanna get that emailed to you, just go to recoveryalchemy.org, click on blog, and then put your email address in the subscribe button, and you'll get an email every time a podcast comes out, which is twice per week. 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. One of the first places I found to nourish my recovery was a spiritual center near my home. My my own quote unquote fellowship was a group of mainly middle-aged women. You probably heard the story before, who like to talk about interdimensional guides and angels and crystals and past lives. You know, I really really really treasure that season of my recovery because I felt such a relief. From the perpetual conversation around meth and not using meth, meth, meth, and how I was powerless to meth. But instead of focusing on the past, labeling myself as a tweaker, or pronouncing myself as an addict every week, and that addiction was a life sentence, we focused on the soul, the soul self, the future, healing. What's serving us? What's not serving us? And finding peace in every step. And in this, in this, the center, we had a chance to share our story. So the first time I publicly shared my story was there. And in preparation, I got out and flipped through some old family photo albums. And hopefully, if you're listening to this, you're old enough to remember those photo albums, little sticky pages. You pull the plastic back and it was sticky and you put the pictures on. You know, I don't know if remember that or not, but a photo album. Okay. Anyway, I wanted to find pictures of me as a boy and I was growing up and I was going to supplement my story with visual aid. Well, what I discovered was a key component to the causes of my meth use, my chemsex use, because I saw picture after picture An unhappy little boy. Scowls, frowns, crossed arms, pouty. The albums told the story of my self-concept now, currently then. So in a group of smiling family members, I was noticeably feeling out of place, uncomfortable, mad, angry, left out. Somehow an outcast. Tears are coming to me— I'm— coming to me now as I talk about this. My childhood was just taken from me, and I can still feel the pain that that little boy was living with, having no idea how to articulate what was happening inside him. And no one truly interested in finding out. So for a long time after I chose to focus on those pictures, I chose to create this narrative. And I grew more and more angry with my parents, my family, the church, my schoolmates. And then I began searching the recesses of my brain for all the memories of more and more evidence of how I had been wronged. And I had been unhappy and I had been left out. There was the comments from an uncle about how I walked. The rhymes the kids made up about Dallas Bragg being a fag. The commentary from teachers about how different Dallas was from the rest of the Bragg family. Slowly and surely, I built a case to blame my addiction, my self-concept, my world, my circumstances outside of me. But that's until at that spiritual center and after I became more enlightened around how life really works. And I don't have the space, the time to go into how I believe now, maybe another podcast, but I do believe our souls chose. types of circumstances to heal certain elements, such as rejection. If I want to heal rejection and feel connected, I have to be born into that kind of situation. Isolation, injustice, you know, whatever it is. We all each have our own thing. But that aside, what's important here is that I noticed when I went to put those pictures back in the albums, couple years later, I had subconsciously skipped over the photos showing me laughing with my brother, excited on Christmas morning, hugging my grandma. Wow. My brain was so conditioned to notice the negative aspects of my childhood that I literally did not see those other photos. And that's the point in my recovery where some true evolution occurred, because that's when my awareness went deeper and I was able to step outside of my self-concept, step outside of what I had created and written, and see the realities of my life. Because what you focus on is what you get. Your circumstances are the effect of the cause, which is your self-concept. So today I want to challenge you to look, take a very hard look at how you see yourself and how you see the world. And this can not only help you leave Chemsex behind, but change the whole trajectory of your life and your emotional wellbeing. So one thing that I've studied that I really love and I really wanna get into deeper is NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming. So Steve Andreas is one of the early NLP developers, right? So he wrote Transforming Yourself. It's in 2002. His core idea is a self-concept is not a belief, it's a collection of examples. So it's a mental album. It's a mental photo album of images, sounds, and feelings that your brain pulls up as evidence, like a chronochrome or something. So ask yourself, am I reliable? Just a, some kind of question. Am I reliable? Watch what happens. Your brain doesn't answer with a word. If you think about it, how it works, it opens up an album. So you will begin pilfering through photo albums in your memory, trying to find evidence for or against, am I reliable? And my guess is most of you listening to this, if you're in the chemsex recovery at any stage, usually early stage, you're going to see the negative pictures. You're going to find the negative images like my frowny faces. And that's what you're gonna focus on, and that's what you're gonna build your self-concept around to answer that question. Listen, what's true about you is often only a perception that is based on how you have arranged your photos and what you focus your energy on. And what that means is that your truth is variable, subjective, all based on something you've accepted as truth. You've accepted as truth. Are you reliable? Well, one, one, one friend could say, yes, he's very reliable. Another friend could say, hell no. So which is true? 2 men can have identical life histories and completely different self-concepts, all due to their perception, the photos they see, they focus on. So Andreas, most probably one of the useful insights for us is that a strong self-concept also includes counterexamples. So let me explain. So this goes back to episode 3, I have it written down, 332, 3 Ways to Actually Love Yourself. So in recovery, so. Where we talked in this episode, we talked about accepting all of you unconditionally, the reality of who you are. There are always upsides and there are always downsides to everyone and everything. Every real family album has a bad photo in it. Somebody blinking, right? Somebody crying, a haircut gone wrong or whatever. Right? Nobody throws out the whole album because there's some bad ones in there. No one makes a judgment call about the entire family history based on a few bad shots or catch of maybe there's a, you know, maybe there is somebody frowning in a picture and you remember that bad day. That doesn't mean the whole history was bad. So instead of, I'm reliable, how about, I'm reliable, And sometimes I'm not reliable. So say these 2 things. Say, I'm reliable, and then say, I'm reliable and sometimes I'm not. Say it out loud and notice how your body responds because your body's gonna respond to the truth and it's going to, you're going to feel the difference when it's not the truth. So again, you're not focusing on Only the good pictures and you're not focusing on only the bad pictures. So because when you focus on a statement like, I'm reliable, it may activate some sort of anxiety, some sort of feeling, right? That's gonna signify this feels untrue. That's because the second statement is the truth. And accepting that allows you to stop searching for photos to back up a positive or a negative. You accept the humanity of who you are. Men in recovery build an album called I'm Chemsex Free. And in this album, there's no room for relapse. There's no room for slips, learning experiences, whatever you wanna call it. Then one using episode, it happens, the whole album gets chucked in the trash. And they go back to that nasty-ass album that they've saved all their transgressions in. It's a collection of all these photos, right? And look, think about the last 365 days of your life. How many days were you chemsex-free compared to how many you were actually using? My guess is, the truthful statement is, I'm chemsex-free more often than not. However, I bet your narrative is, I had X amount of days and now I'm on day 6, or some shit like that. That is not true. You are chemsex-free more than— more often than not. That's the honest truth. I'm chemsex-free now. Sometimes I'm not. The whole album is there. And that statement dissolves you of the shame of counting your days and allows you to move forward. So a using episode becomes a photo in the album with a note on the back, hopefully about what it taught you. Learning experience. Just another page in the book. It's feedback. It's not a verdict of who you are. And it's the difference between, I must stop using meth, and the real, real, real question underneath it, which is, how Do I live in peace? How do I find peace right now, no matter when the last time it is I used, and move on from there? How do I live as my best and highest version? So let's beat this metaphor to fucking death. Back in the olden days of my day, we used to have those photo albums in plain sight in the living room, on the den, on the coffee table, right? It was such a good way to invite friends, like You wanna review a vacation, you wanna see your photo, photo, your wedding photos, get to know each other better. You know, the boyfriend comes over and the mom shows you, shows him the kid, kid's pictures or, or your, your kid pictures or whatever. What would the photo album contain if you had a photo album that was labeled my self-concept? If you could show that to somebody you met, what would it have in it? How would you chronicle the story of who you are? And would you show them page after page of you smoking a pipe and crying in a pillow? Would every page be doom, gloom, and sorrow? Let me show you I'm an addict. Would it be a true reflection of who you are and your story? You are somebody who has experience with chemsex. Some pages show you hugging your friend after a crying session. Some pages show you running. Running in the park, feeling hopeful and grateful. Some pages, you're leaving work satisfied. A job well done. You got a lot of sleep. Some pages may show you walking into a treatment center, or smoking that pipe, or staring out the window wondering, what the hell did I do with my life? Maybe someone who looked at the reality of your life would say, you are someone who sometimes uses chems. And looking at this album, you're on the pathway to stopping. That's the truth. But they won't come to that conclusion if they're given an edited photo album. This is the time for you to accept the totality of who you are and where you are. And I'm telling you, it is exactly where you're supposed to be. And when you come to that conclusion that you have upsides and you have downsides and you accept the real truth of that statement, then you can love yourself fully. You can accept all of you. Then you can be set free from the shit and find the wholeness inside to move forward. Zoom out. Zoom out right now at your whole life and give yourself a fucking break. From this day count and see the beauty of the whole picture. I want you to decide today to change your self-concept and know you are strong, you are blessed, and you are chemsex-free. You get to choose which album sits on the shelf or on the coffee table. You get to choose. But this also takes repetition. Because your brain is going to resist you at first. It wants to back up your feelings. It wants to back up whatever you've told it. I'm a piece of shit. I'm a, I'm an addict. That's what it wants. That's the only pictures you'll see. Your brain's gonna resist it at first, cuz you, but you have to force yourself to look at all the pages. You have to force yourself to begin changing this self-concept. So that brain will keep reaching, like, you know, for that old decrepit album that you've edited and curated as showing all the ways you're terrible. But you have to integrate them both. Wow. I hope this helps you. I hope it helped today. I hope it made sense. Tell me in the comments. I'd love to hear from you. And I will see you next week.
