EP 3:8 Chemsex Recovery: The Shame of Starting at Zero

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. You know, it's very interesting to me how we can pick and choose our convictions. So it reminds me of one night years ago, we had a guest pastor who visited my church. His message was on adultery and, of course, the impending eternal sentence of hellfire that would follow anyone who cheated on their spouse. So I watched him, grossly obese, busting out of his suit. His breath appeared labored as he wobbled around the stage. I could see spit flying all over. place as he screamed into his microphone. At that same time, this was years ago, I was a server at Cracker Barrel and I recognized him from working one of the most stressful and least lucrative days of the week. Well, the, the most stressful and the most lucra— least lucrative days of the week, meaning you don't make any money.

Sunday.

I recalled watching him devour plates full of biscuits, gravy, bacon, eggs, grits, more food than I could consume in days. The way he and his companions treated me, and that was only a few weeks prior, was horribly disrespectful. And ending with an older lady at his table telling me, we give Jesus 10%. It wouldn't be right to give you 20, honey. This is a true story. And the thought occurred to me, this man is picking and choosing which rules from the Bible to follow. It's convenient for him, right? Who is worse, a man who cheats on his spouse, adultery, or one who lacks the ability to moderate, gluttony? Not to mention just plain old rude. And I groaned 'cause I remembered him sweating uncontrollably while shoving buttered biscuits down his gullet and just a loud grunt while pointing at his empty sweet tea glass instead of just asking, why don't you swallow that first and ask for some more tea? Anyway, I looked down and I wrote hypocrite and I shut my notebook and I shut my Bible and I didn't listen to another word. This word hypocrite, it's often used by many of you gay men when you are referring to Christians. Often you will cite those who pick and choose verses from the Bible to support their opinions and their actions. But ironically, I see these same gay men doing the same thing when it comes to recovery circles. So let me explain. I witness gay men empowering themselves to break free from heteronormative cultural norms. I see them thinking for themselves, staying true to their personal values, bucking the arbitrary system's rules and regulations. Except when it comes to recovery. For some reason, many gay men disempower themselves By remaining slaves to mainstream recovery cultural norms. They allow others to make recovery decisions for them. They adopt others', often old-timers', personal values without self-examination. They follow verbatim any arbitrary rule or regulation that's handed to them. Somebody explain to me, why do we treat recovery culture Differently than heteronormative culture. For this discussion, I'm going to specifically examine one of those rules, those arbitrary rules, the expectation of counting consecutive meth-free days and then starting back at zero once you used. Counting days and starting over is not a mandatory rule, and it is very dangerous for gay men in Chemsex recovery. The day counter was not designed with you in mind. It was born out of a mid-20th century sobriety culture, rooms full of people putting down alcohol, narrating their lives in before and after terms, marking time like a sentence being served. 30 days, 60 days, 1 year. The chip in the hand, the applause in the room, right? The quiet pride of a number. That kept climbing. That's fine. Listen, this tradition has meaning for many, many people, and I honor it for what it is. But when gay men began developing their own distinct relationship with methamphetamine, not just as a drug, but as a sexual technology fused to intimacy and identity and community and desire, nobody updated this tool, this rule. Nobody's questioning it. They just handed it over and said, count your days. That is a fundamental mismatch, and we are still living inside the consequences. Chemsex is not just drug use. To understand why day counting fails chemsex recovery specifically, you first have to understand what chemsex actually is, because it is not simply recreational drug use that happens to occur near sex. Chemsex is the intentional, planned use of substances, primarily methamphetamine, GHB, methadone, monkey dust, to initiate, prolong, and intensify sexual experience. Neurologically, sex on meth triggers a massive surge of dopamine and norepinephrine, increasing reward, drive, and risk-taking. And it reduces inhibition. The brain does not experience the drug and the sex as 2 separate events. It encodes them together. It files them in the same drawer. Close proximity between the brain's dopamine receptors and its memory center creates a neural pathway that directly associates meth with sexual gratification. It's a connection that makes it difficult for men in chemsex recovery to engage in sex without being triggered to use. This is the core of it. Sex itself, the most fundamental embodied human experience, becomes a trigger. Not a peripheral one, not one you can simply avoid by changing your route home or unfollowing certain accounts. Treating only the drug use while leaving the sex untouched often doesn't work. It can lead to a less fulfilling or nonexistent sex life, and it can lead to ongoing relapse. Experts call this the whack-a-mole problem. You push down, push the drug down, the sexual cravings pop back up, dragging the drug right along with it. This is not ordinary addiction recovery. This requires a fundamentally different understanding of what recovery even means. Listen, the numbers tell a story, not just the ones we're told. Like, look, let's talk about statistics then. Because they matter here and because they are routinely weaponized against the men I work with rather than used in their service. The relapse rate for people in recovery from substance use disorder reaches as high as 85% within the first 12 months. That is baseline across all substances, okay? All demographics. Studies show a meth relapse rate, 36% within 6 months, 61% within the first year after treatment. Some research puts the lifetime relapse figure for meth users even higher than that. Recovery from chemsex addiction is particularly challenging due to its dual nature, addressing both the substance use and the sexual behavior simultaneously, where focusing on one aspect may lead to incomplete recovery and the potential ongoing relapse. So sit with that for a moment. If the data tells us that relapse is not the exception but the overwhelming statistical norm for meth recovery and that chemsex recovery carries an additional layer of complexity that generic treatment frameworks are not equipped to address, then what exactly does a day counter that resets at zero after a single-use episode actually measure? It measures an expectation that the biology of this addiction was never designed to meet. So let's look at the shame architecture of the zero. Here's what I witness when men carry their day count like a verdict. They stare at it, they refresh it, they calculate how far they are from their next milestone and how catastrophically far they would fall if something happened tonight. The number stops being a celebration and becomes a leash held in place, not by pride, but by the terror Of losing those days. Listen, I'm getting worked up and I shouldn't be. Oh, I shouldn't be. Anyway, so let's look at this. Tolerance creates a need for increased intensity. And the high relapse risk that comes from meth-sex fusion means that the circumstances capable of triggering a use episode are embedded in some of the most intimate and unavoidable corners of a man's life. Loneliness, desire, a hookup app, a familiar smell, a notification at 2 AM. When the environment conspires against the count, and for men in chemsex recovery, it does, the zero becomes a pronouncement. You failed. Again, you go back to the beginning, back to nothing, back to zero. You lost your time. That is not recovery language. That is shame language in a recovery costume. And shame, as every body of research in this space confirms, is one of the most potent predictors of relapse. Shame is at the root of chemsex. So it shouldn't be used as a solution. These men are already carrying enormous psychological weight before they ever walk into a room and are asked to announce a number. The zero does not lighten that weight. It presses it down harder. In my program, we count differently. We look at a window, the last 90 days, the last 6 months. We count honestly without performance, without penalty. If in the last 180 days you had 2 use episodes, your day count is still 180 days. You say, in the last 180 days, I've used 2 times. Compared to the previous 180 days, that's a huge improvement. I'm on my way. Say that out loud. Feel what that number does to the chest. Feel what that does. And here's what I know to be consistently true. When men compare their most recent 6-month window to the one before it, The trajectory is almost always moving in the right direction and you feel better. You feel empowered. This is not a straight line. This is not gonna happen without stumbling, but the episodes become less frequent over time. The gap between them widens. The return to clarity happens faster. There is no failure, only modifications based on data. That is a life in measurable, visible, Real-time motion. So look, after all of this, I am not anti-counting. I wanna say that very plainly. If tracking your days creates pride in your chest, if it reminds you of your capacity, connects you to your progress, makes you feel more like the man you are becoming, then count the fucking days. Honor them. Let them mean something real. But if that number is holding you hostage, if you are obsessing over it, comparing it to other men in the room, using it as evidence of your worth or your worthlessness, then don't. You don't owe it anything. You don't have to follow an arbitrary rule about the number of days and starting at zero. Chemsex recovery is not a competition or a hierarchy. It is not a sentence being served, counted down in consecutive days until some invisible authority decides you've done enough time. It is the slow, Specific, deeply personal work of untangling 2 of the most powerful forces in the human life, chemistry and desire, and learning to experience both of them again on your own terms. It's work. It's work. Release yourself from the shame. Lighten your load. You have work. And that work does not fit on a fucking chip. It fits in your body and in your mind, in the relationships that you hold. In the mornings when you wake up and you choose yourself again. Whether that's day 1 or day 178, that is what you count. All right, guys, love you. Let me know what you think, and I'll see you next week.