Film Festival Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905 Listen Without ads on patreon: www.pareon.com/dopeypodcast This week on the Wednesday Dose! The episode kicks off with a classic hippie Dopey email from listener MB, who recounts a spectacular Phish tour nitrous disaster. After days of ketamine, booze, overpriced cocaine, and lot balloons at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Colorado, MB face-plants into the dirt while clutching multiple nitrous balloons, destroys his glasses, spends a miserable flight home dry-heaving and hallucinating, and somehow survives a concussion-level experience. The story ends on a positive note with nearly ten months clean and sober and a request for dream guests Gibby Haynes and Jason Isbell. Dave then dives into Patreon and Spotify comments, including continuing fallout from the Dopey Sticker Contest. Selby files an official election challenge, claiming the contest was stolen and accusing Dave of failing to refresh Patreon before announcing a winner. Dave doubles down, insisting Felix Heads remains the champion despite accusations of voter suppression, corruption, and sticker fraud. Along the way listeners discuss ADHD, religion, Knicks fandom, kratom recovery, Long Island stories, and the eternal mystery of white crack dealers. The heart of the episode is an incredible interview with Michael Muniz, a 69-year-old Brooklyn native with 36 years sober. Michael tells a quintessential New York story that stretches from Brownsville gangs, schoolyard fights, and witnessing the neighborhood transformation of Brooklyn in the 1960s and 70s to marijuana, acid, cocaine, crack addiction, homelessness, Rikers Island, and ultimately recovery through Phoenix House. Michael shares stories about seeing his deceased father’s face in the clouds during an LSD trip, discovering crack in the Cypress Projects and instantly becoming obsessed, losing everything while sleeping on subway trains and wandering New York’s tunnels, robbing his mother, surviving violent encounters, and eventually finding his way into Phoenix House. What began as a plan to simply get clean long enough to save money and return to crack eventually became a lifelong recovery journey. The conversation explores therapeutic communities, recovery philosophy, family loyalty, homelessness during the crack epidemic, the culture of Brooklyn neighborhoods, Rikers Island in the 1980s, and the power of second chances. Michael also describes a dramatic courtroom moment where, facing serious federal charges, he convinced a judge to give him probation instead of prison after speaking honestly about recovery and wanting a different life. By the end, Michael reflects on his 36 years of sobriety, his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, acting career, and belief that recovery is a lifelong process. Dave and Michael bond over drug dreams, gratitude, family, and the reality that while the desire to get high may never fully disappear, a meaningful life in recovery is infinitely better. The episode closes with Michael from the band Good Kid performing a live version of “Good So Bad,” All that and MORE MORE MORE on the Wednesday dose of that good old Dopey Show! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
