The AfterMeth: Gay Men Recovering from Crystal Methamphetamine and Chemsex Addiction

Dallas Bragg
  • 4.7 (52)
  • Self-Improvement
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Vision:  To eradicate crystal meth addiction and chemsex misuse, especially among the gay male population.  Mission:  Using the power of social media, The AfterMeth will increase awareness around the characteristics and effects of crystal meth and chemsex on the community of men who have sex with men, provide stories of hope to inspire struggling users and produce a repository of tools to be used by the loved ones of men who want to break free from the addictive patterns of chemsex. Join Dallas Bragg every other week. You can find The AfterMeth Podcast anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts. Find answers to:How can I stop relapsing?How can I heal my addiction?How does crystal meth addiction affect gay men?How can I get sober?

  1. 1d ago

    EP 3:40 Top Chemsex Trigger: Re-Entry

    Send us Fan Mail Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/reentry In this solo episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg tackles one of the most overlooked triggers in chemsex recovery: re-entry, the fraught return home from a trip, whether vacation, business travel, or even treatment. Drawing on his own lived experience and his work with clients, Dallas explains why this transition catches so many men off guard. After a week riding a "dopamine drip" of novelty, the brain crashes as the plane descends into a familiar, predictable environment; stack sleep deprivation, exhaustion, and a prefrontal cortex knocked offline on top of that, and cue reactivity fires before conscious reasoning can intervene. That's the moment the "meth brain" kicks in, the still small voice that whispers "let me just text the dealer" or "let me fit one in before real life begins." Dallas frames re-entry as a form of shadow work, urging listeners to observe over a full year the triggers they run past on autopilot, and to build safeguards before the moment arrives, so that willpower, a finite resource, is never left to carry the load alone. The heart of the episode is Dallas's free Re-Entry Plan, a four-phase Google Doc tool (linked in the show notes) that he walks through step by step. Pre-departure covers preparing a clean, stocked home and blocking apps from the phone rather than merely deleting them; in-transit focuses on checking in with the body and team, calling out fleeting thoughts to use, and visualizing a proud, meth-free homecoming while still on the beach or the plane. The plan then details the first 30 minutes, first 48 hours, phone safeguards, and emergency protocols, including scheduled video check-ins with an accountability partner, arranging a ride home rather than an Uber, and having a friend stay over, boundaries that feel extreme but are often exactly what early recovery requires. Throughout, Dallas returns to the deeper question beneath the logistics: this isn't ultimately about mechanics but identity. Echoing Mel McCracken's reminder that the phone itself is paraphernalia, he invites listeners to move the "why" from the head into the heart and ask who they want to show up as. Grounded in his program's three pillars of consistency, proactivity, and certainty, the episode is a practical, compassionate roadmap for returning home safe, proud, and at peace. A supplemental study guide accompanies the episode. Form: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oqP8szYxn94281iy2g6uRtOT7v-ESVX0/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113725342648816625666&rtpof=true&sd=true The AfterMeth: Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theaftermeth/ Dallas Bragg Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/newsletters/blog Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdallasbragg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdallasbragg/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drdallasbragg YouTube: The Aftermeth Podcast X: https://twitter.com/Drdallasbragg Free online course to End the Relapse Cycle: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/e7c2Eo22/checkout Meth-Free Blueprint EBOOK: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/o8qFhK5i/checkout

  2. 5d ago

    EP 3:39 Late-Bloomers and Chemsex with Darrell

    Send us Fan Mail Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/late In this episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg sits down with Darrell Martin, an LCSW, transformational psychotherapist, and musician based in New York City, for a conversation about what happens when gay men come out later in life and find themselves swept into chemsex. Dallas shares his own story of coming out at thirty-six and the relentless drive to "make up for lost time" that pulled him toward crystal meth — a drive Darrell sees echoed in the aging gay men he treats, men who arrive in his office carrying the added weight of believing they should have known better. Together they trace how the illusion of validation works on older men: the house, the money, the sudden flood of attention, the pharmaceutical props that sustain a manufactured virility. They name the loneliness underneath it, the way rejection by the broader gay population lands the same way on a fifty-year-old late bloomer as it does on a young Black or brown man, and how chemsex offers both of them a subculture where they finally feel wanted. The conversation moves from the psychological to the practical. Dallas reframes dopamine as a molecule of anticipation rather than reward, explaining why men stay glued to Grindr for hours in rooms full of other men, and why euphoric recall retains such vivid, full-body power years into recovery — a phenomenon he still encounters at the edges of sleep, eight years out. Darrell points to that anticipatory surge as the real intervention point, the moment before the pickup. They discuss why crystal meth carries the highest relapse rate of any drug and why chemsex recovery raises it further: you aren't only surrendering a substance, you're grieving an identity. Dallas makes the case for harm reduction and tapering over rigid abstinence, argues that safeguards must replace willpower because willpower runs out late at night, and describes the work of detangling sex, work, and connection from the drug. Both land on the same foundation — willingness, community, and the shift from instant to delayed gratification. Darrell's contact information will be included in the show notes, and he'll return for a future episode focused specifically on the experiences of gay men of color navigating crystal meth. Contant Darrell: Websites: https://darrellmartinconsulting.com/ https://artsnyc.org/ http://darrellmartin.org/ Email: darrellmartin1@gmail.com The AfterMeth: Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theaftermeth/ Dallas Bragg Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/newsletters/blog Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdallasbragg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdallasbragg/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drdallasbragg YouTube: The Aftermeth Podcast X: https://twitter.com/Drdallasbragg Free online course to End the Relapse Cycle: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/e7c2Eo22/checkout Meth-Free Blueprint EBOOK: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/o8qFhK5i/checkout

  3. Aug 17

    EP 3:38 Hidden Chemsex Trigger: Unspoken Conversations

    Send us Fan Mail Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/unspoken In this solo episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg challenges one of the most common assumptions in chemsex recovery: that horniness, sex, and hookup apps are the true triggers behind relapse. Drawing from his daily work with men around the world, he argues that these are effects rather than causes, and that the real driver sits further upstream in the form of emotional dysregulation. Using the story of a client he calls Marco, Dallas traces how a single deflating four-minute phone call from a supervisor, met only with a quiet "okay," set off a chain of unspoken frustration that later left Marco closer to using than he had been in months. The culprit wasn't the party or the dealer but the accumulated pressure of a conversation avoided, of self-advocacy withheld, of emotion left to boil with nowhere to go. From there, Dallas grounds the episode in the deeper work of excavating core beliefs, showing how Marco's silence traced back decades to a childhood dinner table where he was told his opinion didn't matter, a limiting belief that fed into the "I am not enough" thread connecting so many who use chemsex as maladaptive coping. He reframes recovery around the question "How can I live in peace?" rather than the narrower demand to simply stop using, and offers listeners a set of reflective coaching questions to identify what lives beneath their avoidance, where it sits in the body, and whose voice is telling them to stay quiet. He closes with a practical invitation to list every conversation they are currently avoiding, name what carrying it costs them, and begin writing letters, including one to the younger part of themselves that first learned silence felt safer than speaking up. A supplemental study guide accompanies the episode, linked in the show notes. The AfterMeth: Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theaftermeth/ Dallas Bragg Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/newsletters/blog Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdallasbragg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdallasbragg/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drdallasbragg YouTube: The Aftermeth Podcast X: https://twitter.com/Drdallasbragg Free online course to End the Relapse Cycle: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/e7c2Eo22/checkout Meth-Free Blueprint EBOOK: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/o8qFhK5i/checkout

  4. Aug 13

    EP 3:37 Harm Reduction for Chemsex Recovery with Taylor

    Send us Fan Mail Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/reduction In this episode, Dallas sits down with harm reduction consultant and healthcare compliance officer Taylor Edelmann to explore one of the most contested yet evidence-supported approaches to chemsex recovery. Dallas frames harm reduction not as the opposite of abstinence but as a full spectrum of managed use, tapering, and planned use, and invites listeners who "just can't seem to stop" or who have never found a fit in traditional abstinence-based programs to stay informed and consider what the research actually shows. Taylor, founder of Needle in the Hey! Consulting and formerly of the National Harm Reduction Coalition, grounds the conversation in the principle of bodily autonomy—the right to make informed decisions about one's own body—and describes how harm reduction and gender-affirming care are braided movements. Together they name the layered realities facing queer and trans people who use drugs, from the minority stress model to the current wave of anti-trans legislation, and how shame and stigma only deepen the very suffering they claim to address. The second half of the conversation moves into practice and lived experience. Taylor draws on years as an HIV medical case manager and harm reduction trainer to illustrate how few providers—even within harm reduction spaces—understand chemsex or possess the "drug IQ" to serve MSM and trans clients well, pointing to his own small New York study that found most queer and trans people who use drugs were self-medicating alone rather than accessing programs. Dallas and Taylor discuss structured, metrics-based approaches to planned use that help clients rebuild agency, self-trust, and the felt sense that they can choose when and whether to use, and they explore the distinct ways chemsex intersects with body image, eating disorders, sex work, and HIV risk in trans communities. The episode closes with an invitation to be the executive of one's own recovery: to seek out peer-reviewed research, resist the reflexive shaming that dominates online discourse, and consider that for someone who keeps relapsing despite wanting to stop, harm reduction may be the approach that finally saves a life. Taylor's consulting practice, toolkit, and free organizational assessment are noted as available through his website, with contact details in the show notes. Contact Taylor: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/needleintheheyconsulting/ Website: https://needleinthehey.com/ Email: taylor@needleinthehey.com The AfterMeth: Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theaftermeth/ Dallas Bragg Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/newsletters/blog Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdallasbragg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdallasbragg/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drdallasbragg YouTube: The Aftermeth Podcast X: https://twitter.com/Drdallasbragg Free online course to End the Relapse Cycle: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/e7c2Eo22/checkout Meth-Free Blueprint EBOOK: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/o8qFhK5i/checkout

  5. Aug 10

    EP 3:36 Chemsex Recovery: Reasons vs. Excuses

    Send us Fan Mail Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/reasons In this solo episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg starts with two voice notes that landed back to back during one of his daily walks. Two clients, the same return to use, the same broken commitment, even the same specific oversight — an old user buddy still on Snapchat. But the men describing it sounded like they lived in different universes. The first didn't flinch: he laid out what he'd done right, named the gap he'd missed, and asked how he could show up differently next time. No misery, no defensiveness, just curiosity. He treated the use as a data point rather than a moral failure. The second took a week to disclose it, buried other uses he'd later come clean about, and reached for the familiar refrain — you know how it is, I always do this, I'm just not built for follow-through. One handed Dallas a reason. The other handed him an excuse. The episode maps that distinction and why it decides the direction of a recovery. Reasons come from open curiosity and healthy guilt, which points at a behavior you can turn over in your hands and change. Excuses come from closed condemnation and shame, which says I am bad rather than I did something bad — and Dallas is careful to name the harder-to-spot version, the excuse that grabs too much responsibility. "Of course I messed up, I always mess up" sounds like ownership but is actually a collapse into identity, and identity makes the next excuse effortless while the excuse confirms the identity, around and around. Breaking the loop means stepping into what he calls the compassionate observer: the part of you that watches your own behavior without excusing or condemning it, asking why this happened rather than whose fault it is. He closes with a three-part check for the moment an explanation starts forming — notice the emotional state (open and willing, or tight and restricted), check the language (I did this leaves room, I always do this locks the door), and feel where it lands in the body, which knows the difference long before the mind does. A supplemental study guide accompanies the episode, with the link in the show notes. The AfterMeth: Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theaftermeth/ Dallas Bragg Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/newsletters/blog Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdallasbragg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdallasbragg/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drdallasbragg YouTube: The Aftermeth Podcast X: https://twitter.com/Drdallasbragg Free online course to End the Relapse Cycle: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/e7c2Eo22/checkout Meth-Free Blueprint EBOOK: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/o8qFhK5i/checkout

  6. Aug 6

    EP 3:35 Dallas Interviews His Kids AfterMeth

    Send us Fan Mail Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/kids In this deeply personal milestone episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg marks eight years in meth recovery and his fiftieth birthday by sitting down with the two people at the center of his story: his adult children, Liliana and Jonah. There is no script and no list of talking points—just an improvised, unguarded conversation that returns to the day, eight years earlier, when the two of them picked Dallas up from jail while he was homeless and drove to a park, a turning point that convinced him to put his children first and leave meth behind. Together they trace the hardest stretches of that period honestly, from the hidden use and the crimes his kids were unknowingly pulled into to the eviction, the time in West Virginia, and the painful season when Liliana stopped speaking to him, alongside the small, surprising ways their relationship not only survived but grew closer through it all. What gives the episode its weight is the perspective his children offer on recovery and reconciliation from the other side of it. Liliana and Jonah reflect on how a relationship built before the addiction made forgiveness possible, how Dallas addressed and apologized for what happened rather than papering over it, and how his actions—not just his words—proved the change was real. Their advice to other children of parents struggling with addiction centers on grace, honesty, communication, and giving both people time to heal, while Dallas speaks directly to men who grow discouraged when family trust doesn't return in thirty, sixty, or ninety days, encouraging them to keep becoming a better version of themselves and trust that the rest follows. The result is a testament to the episode's core message: that there is life after chemsex, that broken relationships can be restored, and that recovery is often something a whole family moves through together. The AfterMeth: Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theaftermeth/ Dallas Bragg Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/newsletters/blog Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdallasbragg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdallasbragg/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drdallasbragg YouTube: The Aftermeth Podcast X: https://twitter.com/Drdallasbragg Free online course to End the Relapse Cycle: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/e7c2Eo22/checkout Meth-Free Blueprint EBOOK: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/o8qFhK5i/checkout

  7. Aug 3

    EP 3:34 YOU aren’t a chemsex addict

    Send us Fan Mail Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/chemsexaddict In this solo episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg opens with a scene from his active use — sitting on a patio, scrolling Grindr, negotiating with himself about whether to lose a weekend to partying — and the question that surfaced in the middle of it: if part of him wanted to use and part of him didn't, then who was the one watching both? That moment became the seed of what he calls parts integration, a practice that reshaped his own recovery and now anchors the work he does with clients. Dallas makes a direct case against identity-level language, arguing that repeating "I am an addict" reinforces a program in the nervous system and turns a behavior into a life sentence. The soul self, he insists, was never an addict and never will be. The shift he asks for is small on paper and seismic in practice: not "I want to use," but "a part of me wants to use." From there the episode becomes a practical walkthrough. Dallas offers three ways to open dialogue with the part that wants to use — personification (giving it a shape, age, essence, and a name that isn't cruel, since naming it evil means naming yourself evil), a written back-and-forth letter exchange, and a quiet meditative ask. He then maps the integration work itself using a real client example shared with permission, moving through four questions asked of both parts: core belief, method, fear, and wish. Euphoria and connection turn out to be pointing at the same thing; both parts fear a flat, gray life; both wish for an exciting, thriving one. The integrated statements that emerge — including the "when I feel, I find" method frame — put the listener back in the mediator's seat rather than at the mercy of an urge. Dallas is clear about the scope, noting he isn't trained in Internal Family Systems and isn't doing therapy here, but preparing listeners for it. A supplemental study guide and a two-page fillable worksheet accompany the episode, with links in the show notes. The AfterMeth: Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theaftermeth/ Dallas Bragg Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/newsletters/blog Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdallasbragg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdallasbragg/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drdallasbragg YouTube: The Aftermeth Podcast X: https://twitter.com/Drdallasbragg Free online course to End the Relapse Cycle: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/e7c2Eo22/checkout Meth-Free Blueprint EBOOK: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/o8qFhK5i/checkout

  8. Jul 30

    EP 3:33 Open Relationships 101 with Aidan

    Send us Fan Mail Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/relationships In this episode, Dallas Bragg welcomes Aidan Wharton — a New York-based sex and relationships writer, educator, and columnist specializing in open relationships — for a candid conversation exploring non-monogamy through the lens of gay men's recovery from chemsex. Dallas is upfront about his own evolving bias, shaped by painful past experiences with a broken open relationship, and uses the conversation to interrogate his assumptions alongside Aidan's eight years of lived experience with his husband. Aidan reframes open relationships not as a rejection of monogamy's values but as an expansion rooted in living fully — acknowledging that no single partner can be "everything," while emphasizing that healthy non-monogamy depends on the same foundation as any relationship: trust, respect, and communication. The two dig into jealousy as a teacher rather than a flaw, unpacking how underlying wounds like fear of exclusion (which Dallas names as a particularly resonant theme for gay men) surface disguised as jealousy in open dynamics. The conversation turns sharply practical when Dallas shares a vivid, in-the-moment story of nearly hooking up with a thruple he suspected was using — walking listeners through the subtle behavioral cues of active meth use (delayed responses, jitteriness, lowered standards, lack of due diligence) as both a cautionary tale and harm-reduction education. Aidan and Dallas then offer concrete guidance for men in recovery considering opening a relationship: minimizing complicating variables (familiar partners, safe locations, avoiding relapse-associated settings), practicing aftercare with oneself, one's hookup, and one's primary partner, and using tools like the "third entity" framework — treating the relationship itself as a stakeholder distinct from either individual — to navigate requests and boundaries without resentment. They close by distinguishing "balanced" from "equal" experiences within a relationship, and Aidan offers a broader reflection on self-compassion, cautioning listeners about how phone and dopamine culture quietly erodes the very communication and presence that healthy relationships — open or not — require. Contact Aidan: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aidanwharton/?hl=en Substack: http://gaybuffet.substack.com/ The AfterMeth: Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theaftermeth/ Dallas Bragg Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/newsletters/blog Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drdallasbragg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdallasbragg/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drdallasbragg YouTube: The Aftermeth Podcast X: https://twitter.com/Drdallasbragg Free online course to End the Relapse Cycle: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/e7c2Eo22/checkout Meth-Free Blueprint EBOOK: https://www.drdallasbragg.com/offers/o8qFhK5i/checkout

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About

Vision:  To eradicate crystal meth addiction and chemsex misuse, especially among the gay male population.  Mission:  Using the power of social media, The AfterMeth will increase awareness around the characteristics and effects of crystal meth and chemsex on the community of men who have sex with men, provide stories of hope to inspire struggling users and produce a repository of tools to be used by the loved ones of men who want to break free from the addictive patterns of chemsex. Join Dallas Bragg every other week. You can find The AfterMeth Podcast anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts. Find answers to:How can I stop relapsing?How can I heal my addiction?How does crystal meth addiction affect gay men?How can I get sober?

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