.png)
The AfterMeth: Gay Men Recovering from Crystal Methamphetamine and Chemsex Addiction
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?
The AfterMeth: Gay Men Recovering from Crystal Methamphetamine and Chemsex Addiction
EP 3:43 Three Types of Chemsex User Profiles with Dr. Lockwood
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Supplemental Study Guide: https://www.recoveryalchemy.org/newsletters/blog/posts/profiles
In this returning-guest episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg welcomes back Dr. Patrick Lockwood for a wide-ranging conversation that opens with an unscripted reflection on connection itself. The two men explore how easy it is—especially for busy professionals and entrepreneurs—to let productivity crowd out relationships, and how a simple weekly text can chip away at isolation. Dallas is candid about his own instinct to distrust kindness and question people's motives, while Patrick shares the opposite reflex of gratitude, and together they land on the familiar recovery truth that the opposite of addiction is connection. It's a warm, meandering start that sets an emotionally honest tone before the episode turns to its central idea.
From there, Patrick unpacks a framework he developed with a colleague, Mel, for understanding the different core motivations behind chemsex: numbers, who use drugs and sex to numb intolerable psychological pain and shame; connectors, who chase euphoria and a sense of belonging; and dissociators, who use to escape the self entirely, often in the wake of severe trauma. He draws a careful distinction between numbing—dulling a pain one is still in contact with—and dissociating, a total flight from the self, and both men stress that these categories are meant to help people feel seen rather than to pathologize or pigeonhole. They discuss how someone can shift between types over time (a connector becoming a dissociator after trauma, or after an HIV diagnosis) and why identifying one's underlying motivation can point toward the right support, including trauma therapy when the injury runs deep. Dallas closes by floating the idea of building case studies so listeners can recognize themselves in someone else's story, and reminds listeners of the supplemental study guide accompanying every episode.
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
worked with directly who they started out like connector types where they're mostly doing euphoric things not numbing as much and then with in the couple of cases I'm thinking of specifically they experienced some pretty drastic traumas uh and then they shifted gears away from the the connecting type to more of the dissociator uh because the trauma was just too much for them it kind of really affected their sex chemsex sexualized drug use among men who have sex with men typically involving methamphetamine, methadrone and GHB, among others.
SPEAKER_04Chemsex 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 guest on this podcast are not to be taken as medical advice and the content around sex and drug use can be triggering. Alright welcome back to the Aftermath Podcast. Thank you for coming today. Thank you for listening in we appreciate you continuing to support the show. Don't forget though to like subscribe all the good stuff. Rate, review the podcast. We want to get it the algorithm to get it into the eyes and ears of those who need it. Also AI is picking up on the podcast quite a bit. I hear a lot of people saying they found the podcast through AI like everything else I guess. But the more you get it moving I guess the more AI picks it up. I don't know I don't know how these things work. I just know that uh ChatGPT Claude and the rest uh are saying have you listened to this podcast? And so keep doing the thing we really appreciate it. So today I we have a return guest in the same season we liked him so much Dr. Dr. Patrick Lockwood was here and we did a podcast on meth-induced psychosis and paranoia. If you have not watched that episode or listened to that episode please do. It's very good. I got so much feedback from that Dr. Patrick Lockwood. I got so much feedback from that people feeling seen people feeling heard people understanding more about what's happening it really was the way that you described it the way that you presented it yourself it was very easy to understand as well. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Nice. Good I'm happy to hear that and thank you for allowing me to come back well I had to have you back.
SPEAKER_04Had to have you back because we had so many side conversations that that day on and off the air and so and um I just really like you as a person too um I like Patrick Patrick sends me a text every Monday at just about I try yeah I try I'm trying to I'm trying to do the right thing and be more connected with people because it's easy for me to get lost in all the things that I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00So I have to remember that people are the most important thing and stop working you know yeah yeah I like that I want to follow suit and you know I've been growing this business for three and a half years now yeah and as an entrepreneur it's easy to put blinders on and I've had a lot of people in my life say where have you been it's hard it's it's really hard I think my one of my biggest struggles as a professional is remembering that the people are the most important thing because I get so caught up in all the things I have to do and all the tasks of my life and teaching and all these things and you know I just my life is better when I just try to connect with people and it's so it's so obvious but it's so like productive be productive don't connect you know like it's it's terrible you know yeah yeah yeah you know and for me I will say and and this is not a therapy session but there's this common misdistrust I have and this common like skepticism of what does this person why are they being nice to me?
SPEAKER_04Yeah sure yeah you know it's like why is this person why is he texting me on a Monday asking me how I how I my weekend was what what does he want?
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah that's valid and I think I'm I'm built differently so I have the opposite reaction I think which is oh my God I'm so grateful they're actually talking to me. Well yeah I have that too yeah you know interesting yeah yeah I mean it's it's amazing the opportunity to actually connect with people like I remember when I was in undergrad and a much younger person and I took every relationship professional or personal for granted. I was just a mess in so many ways. And after a series of growing up moments and some therapy and things like that in the last 15 or so years I would say I've tried to refocus on what's important and I I forget so easily. Every six months or so it's like ah why are you not remembering people? What's going on with you? You know like you know I've had some good stretches where I'm super involved with people and then I have some stretches where I'm just like in my own head and neurotic and I have to make this plate spin and that plate spin and this and that and it's just like it's it's ego and it's selfish. And the more I get out of my head and into the lives of other people my life gets better. You know and sending a text message is not as you know it's not like a a drastic you know heavy weight but my brain is like I don't have the time to spend that 30 seconds right now which is so stupid because like people are far more important than whatever thing I'm supposed to be you know yeah yeah this is good good this is good for me to hear I'm sure I'm sure someone else that's listening it's good for them to hear also um because you know I mean there's that there's that whole phrase the opposite of addiction is connection. Yeah right it's really connecting really connecting with people and it's hard to do it's difficult to do in this day and age even though we are so connected yeah yeah there's just so many good excuses to like not connect and I I am so guilty of doing all the things to be busy and not connect with people.
SPEAKER_04So that's why I have my Monday habit you know yeah I like that I like that I should get it's well I'm gonna yeah next time well next Monday when you text me I'm also gonna text a couple of people in response so it'll be like you're paying it forward.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I love that I love that I hope it makes your life better it's made my life better so far.
SPEAKER_04Yeah you know yeah well knowing you has made my life better and we have never met it really has I mean because yes it may just be a text but so many people don't and it's also made me reflect on oh and there's people not getting texts from me either.
SPEAKER_00So yeah yeah it's easy to misunderstand how important we can be to each other and I you know I'm like you in that regard I don't know how big of a deal it is to people and then occasionally I'll get one of my friends from NorCal or other places like, you know, it really means a lot that you say hi to me. I'm like that feels great because like it means a lot that you're responding you know yeah yeah you know I love it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Wow well thank you thank you for being here thank you for being you already having a positive impact on my life and I think a lot of people's lives with the podcast we had together. So well one thing that we talked about last time was you have a tremendous amount of experience in the recovery world and a tremendous amount of experience with chemsex and you've noticed some trends and you mentioned that you kind of could categorize chemsex users into different aspects or segments. And I thought about that after and we haven't talked about it since um you know it by the way anyone who's listening like if you can't tell I don't edit these uh podcasts I don't prepare for them I just sit down we have a you know you sometimes have a topic sometimes we don't and we just go with it yeah um and so we haven't talked about that but I thought I was thinking about it and I thought you know if I was having a a if if I was having a problematic relationship with chemsex and somebody had taken the time to kind of categorize me not to pigeonhole me but you know to take time to to study me and my my I don't know the the the way that I the reasons I'm doing it the reasons that I can't stop and this kind of things it could help me crack the code and find a way out. So that's what I'm hoping today we'll do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah I hope the same thing actually because this idea of mine which was kind of created when I was hanging out with our friend Mel and you know the the two of us being very different creatures but also having a very similar passion for this topic and this group of people um we were sitting down for coffee one day and talking about like what are our experiences and if we're going to do supervision about this, what we want to talk about with people, kind of transference, whatever it is. And it struck both of us that you know there are different kinds of people who use drugs and have sex in particular kinds of ways right so like you said not to pathologize people or to make people pigeonholed in a in a in a uh a separating kind of way but sometimes we feel more seen when our core motivations are revealed, right? It's like if I feel lonely and I do this behavior, well it's the loneliness that matters more than the behavior to some degree. Obviously the behavior does matter but really it's that core loneliness that's driving the behavior. So if we can talk about that, you know, especially as clinicians and things like that, we can we can get to the root of things and start to not just change behavior patterns which is important but also start to help the person feel understood in a way that maybe they haven't before in their life you know because you know I don't know about you but my experience in the world is when people really get me I feel safe. When they don't when they don't get me when they have a superficial view of me or when they have a a misunderstanding of me I feel less safe. And it's not that you know that's it's normal for people to misunderstand us, but I think in a helping relationship like you have with people and like I have with people, the more we can really help people feel understood by trying to kind of really target the core things that are happening, I think it's easier to work with people, to, to build trust and keep trust and so that's why that's why when I was talking with Mel, we were thinking out loud about these ideas because it seems to be fundamentally true that there are different types of people in the chem sex community that have different motivations for their patterns of you know sexual behavior and drug use and both separately and combined.
SPEAKER_04Yeah yeah so let me let me give an example that's coming up for me if you don't mind and uh tell me if this fits in what you're saying so there's a there's a client uh let's just say this is a fictitious client so there's a client who I I noticed right away a pattern of emotional relapse first. Like some something would happen usually a mild inconvenience compared to you know subjectively I guess for me it's a mild inconvenience the response is pretty exaggerated by him. Okay. So then then that sort of primes his emotional dysregulation a little bit then some other things may happen and then he gets cravings and then he then he wants to use and so things might happen like he might drive by a house he used to use with or he may you know I don't know something something more but the cravings start to build and so then he then he would use so it occurred to me okay not any time during that did he mention he was horny or that he or that he wanted to have sex. There was no mention of that but what I noticed was he's trying to find a way to cope and numb his emotions now when he used did he have sex? Sure so so sex became what he did while on it but it was plain to me that it wasn't why he did it correct so is this kind of what you're talking about that's a hundred percent what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00In fact you use the word numb and that's one of the three categories of types of use so that's that's you know and again these are just like concepts we came up with over coffee this isn't like some like in the in the literature for 50 years kind of thing to be clear. We were just talking about our experiences talking to people and treating people and things like that and like okay so what are what are the basic if you want to call them stereotypes you know or or loose clusterings of behaviors and symptoms right so like you know the three types that we or I mean my I did and we did kind of both came up with is uh we have people that use drugs and have sex for numbing purposes so you can call them numb numbers. Numbers and then you have you have people who uh engage in chem sex behaviors because they're really trying to connect their connectors. Right? Okay. Because they're they're they're chasing a sense of euphoria in connection okay you know what I mean? Yeah yeah and and then there's a a third category which are the dissociators. Okay. And so it might be a bit of an oversimplification to say that there's common behavior patterns and drug use patterns. However I think just kind of if you think about it off the top of your head it kind of makes sense these three types because a lot of these drugs that people consume and that I consumed and consumed and things like that, like they do serve specific purposes, right? It's it's not it's not a secret that alcohol for instance is a pain reliever. It's been used as a pain reliever across societies for thousands basically thousands of years. You know, it was used in surgeries and anesthesia and things like that. So a lot of people do drink to numb various types of psychological pain when they're depressed, when they're uh feeling hurt and rejected and all these things, right? So based upon my experience at different programs and working with different people, I see that there is a subset of people in the chem sex world who their sexual behavior and their drug use behavior is psychologically kind of focused on the experience of numbing whatever is intolerable. Okay. Now for people that you know don't use these words more technically sometimes it's easy to confuse dissociating and numbing. Yes. And and in reality numbing is not the same thing at all as dissociating because when you're numbing something you're still engaging and in contact with the experience you want to avoid right so when you numb pain you don't get rid of it. You just make it more dull. Right? Okay. Whereas if you're dissociating you're trying to completely escape from it. Okay. If that makes sense. Yeah. So a lot of people in the chimsex world that use drugs like alcohol in combination with probably um cannabis and things like that, they're probably more numbing and putting a positive spin on a negative experience. They have shame about their sexuality they have shame about their sexual interests and urges they have shame about this, that and the other so that shame is pain, psychological pain. And so they're using various substances to numb their pain. But the the pain could be anything it could be shame about I got broken up with shame about where I'm at my career. My family doesn't accept me just pick pick the topic whatever's causing that psychological pain or shame you know it's it's perfectly I mean think about all the normal places that LGBT folks hang out. It's mostly bars and clubs and it's mostly people that are numbing themselves to some degree you know that are quote unquote loosening up right but I I think that's fundamentally different than people who dissociate you know the people who use lots of sedative drugs like Xanex and Atavan and benzos or the people who use a lot of GHB or the people who use a lot of um ketamine. You know ketamine is literally a dissociative drug. GHB is literally a dissociative drug right so but the people who use these substances to dissociate while they're having sex there's something intolerable right in their life psychologically it could be themselves it could be the experience it could be it could be shame it could be any number of things but their goal is not to numb and make something that's difficult fun. Their goal is to make something that is difficult not real. Right? So if you're all ged out at some party or if you're all high on ketamine at the club and you're barely there right that's very different than being numb enough and having fun to compensate with how bad you feel does that difference make sense?
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm I'm getting it I'm getting it I guess when you name the three that's my what's going to be my first question is what's the difference between numbing and dissociating. What's your question? Yeah well that was my question when you first said it was what's the difference? But you're telling me here so this okay so to numb it we mentioned the the escaping the uh emotional dysregulation or the escaping the emotions you name you name that that client as a number yeah because he's just numbing that what seems intolerable is his he he he doesn't know how to process his emotions.
SPEAKER_00Right. Right it doesn't feel safe to usually and so I need to numb it but also probably get some euphoria out of it so I don't feel miserable.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Gotcha. But the a a disassociator doesn't want to feel at all anything.
SPEAKER_00Right. Okay. Yeah and in fact they don't even want to be here I would go so far as to say in many cases. They don't want to even be in their life. Yeah. Okay. And I don't mean that in the suicidal sense I mean that in the if I could be a ghost and not have to deal with the pressures of being a person and the trauma of my life and the shame of my life and the chaos of my life you know yeah yeah yeah it reminds me of when I was uh in the closet married two kids yeah just the misery that I was living in I did call myself a ghost you know like I was having an out of body experience all the time because I I didn't I didn't know who I was and I was in this life that confused me and I didn't want to be there and that did lead to some suicidal ideations but I'm guessing it doesn't always but that sounds like if I were to get into drugs at the time I would want something to completely take me out of my life for for a while.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah yeah that makes perfect sense yeah um okay so what about connectors?
SPEAKER_00Yeah so again these might be more like stereotypes than real scientific reality sure yeah yeah which we love that here we love that here but for the sake of just for the sake of argument and if and if you don't want to try on these concepts at home you know it's okay. We're just we're experimenting with the model and hopefully the model evolves the more we talk to people like you and David and Mel and so on and so forth. Yeah. So um you know the connectors are interesting because their behavior usually is very different in public and private. And for instance a lot of people that are numbers will probably engage in chem sex behavior both alone and in public whereas dissociators believe it or not will probably do a lot of chem sex behavior in public. They'll be dissociated they'll be high on G at the club looking to hook up with someone but but the people who are connectors are almost exclusively Exclusively the kinds of people who do Kim Sex only in like public settings, like bathhouses and raves and so on and so forth. Whereas like in the rest of their life, they don't feel a strong need, comparatively speaking, to disengage from their normal conscious mind with drugs and sex. Okay. So they might use a lot of stimulants compared to the other two. Not that the other two types don't use meth or anything like that, but you might also see these connector types using more of the traditional club drugs like MOLLE and MDNA, and they're trying to have lots of collective shared euphoric experiences. Okay. Now they they still might be coping with pain and shame and things like that, shame about sexuality, or they're whatever, but they're they more exclusively are out and about doing the behavior and less exclusively doing it by themselves in secret, watching porn by themselves for hours on end kind of thing. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Connectors are at the chill outs, as they call them in Europe or the P parties, the the orgies, the saunas, they're connecting. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. They want the collective experience. It's the collective euphoria and the rush. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay. For those who lock themselves up in a bedroom for three days by themselves with their porn, then toys and and their drugs. Would that be a disassociate?
SPEAKER_00I think I think it could be either. I think it depends upon the type of drugs they're using and the type of like sexual behavior they're interested in. Because, at least in my experience, again, it's just my experience for what it's worth. Yeah. There are people who are numbers who will happily sit in front of a laptop and, you know, sniff poppers and smoke weed and jerk off for hours, you know, or edge or whatever. Yeah. And like that group of people is definitely in the numb category for me because they're still trying to quote unquote get high to compensate for how bad they feel. And they still want to be here because they're not getting so high that they're not in touch with their body anymore. Okay. So they're they're chasing a euphoria that gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So they edge for longer and longer and longer, or they chat or video chat or whatever it is. And they're doing more and more and more of it because they're trying to compensate for more and more and more shame. And the more they do the behavior, the more shame they feel, even if they can't consciously recognize it. And so that could be a number. Whereas there are some people, I think, who certainly are dissociators and they spend time in private and they're super high on G or ketamine or something like that. And maybe they're not even fantasizing. And maybe they're not even having sex to some degree. But they might consider porn. They might start with porn, but then then they might give up on it. Or they might pass out. And it might be their goal to pass out for some. Some people do have a goal to pass out.
SPEAKER_02You know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting on that one. Okay.
SPEAKER_04So I'm thinking of so there's a so for those who let's say they're they're fundamentally lonely. They feel lonely. Right. Um, they can't stand to be a Friday night alone. This was this was kind of what I I couldn't stand to be alone on a Friday night. Like I I it would just drive me crazy, the FOMO, and I need to get reach out and all that kind of thing. When I when they use, instead of feeling the loneliness, instead of facing it and asking questions of it, they're going to go use. That's a that would be numbing that, correct? That would be a numbing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Because they're you're they're not trying to obliterate, like they're not trying to completely leave themselves. They just want to feel better.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know, I think, you know, this might be a ridiculous reference, so please forgive me. However, I think, you know, if you've ever watched the popular TV show The Simpsons, you can kind of see essentially what I'm talking about when they go to Moe's Tavern and get drunk. So you got Homer, who's the main character, right? And, you know, he's working this job, he's got this family, and he's getting drunk because he didn't want to avoid his family. But then you got other people at the bar, if you know who I'm talking about, but there's this character at the bar named Barney. He's this big fat dude who is always perpetually wasted. I mean, he is he is so wasted that he can barely speak, essentially. Okay. Right? And so that guy is dissociated. But Homer and his friends from the nuclear power plant, they're just, you know, they're just they're numbing. They're numbing because their lives are, you know, difficult in a way that they can't accept and all these things. Yeah, right. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Well, let me ask you about this. What about those who use based on inflationary experiences? Like life is going really well. I get a I get a promotion at work. Um, I meet a guy that seems to be like the best boyfriend material. Like things things start to go really well and they use. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Where do you think they fall? That's a really good question. Because for a lot of people, as you probably well know from your work with people too, like when things start to go well, self-sabotage is kind of lurking in the back somewhere for a lot of people in the back of our minds, usually. And so, where does self-sabotage generally come from? It generally comes from shame, right? I don't deserve, I am universally bad, you know. Um, and so when people are trying to compensate with shame, right? Because for a lot of people, shame isn't always a conscious experience. Sometimes shame is more of a background noise experience. It's kind of it's like the devil, it whispers in your ear quietly, kind of thing. And so it might be the case that you get a promotion or you fall in love with someone, and you know, there's a piece of you, maybe a large piece or maybe a smaller piece, that's like, you don't deserve that. Right? That that shame voice is there. And so that might be the attempt to like overcompensate and numb your natural positive experience. So if you're if you're naturally just kind of happy and joyous because you just got a promotion or you just fell in love with someone, it's interesting that you want to alter that. You know? So what are we altering? Are we really trying to accentuate it? You know, are we using like uh like a psychedelic kind of substance, like an MDMA or MOLLE? Or are we using other substances and we're we're rationalizing, we're making an excuse that we're trying to enhance it. But the truth of the matter is you're trying to blunt it in some way. Right? It's the classic, I'm gonna go to the bar and celebrate with my friends. It's like, well, yes, you're celebrating, but really you're not celebrating. You're actually numbing yourself when you get wasted, you know? So I'd always be curious about what the specific behavior is. Because if it's specifically like I'm again, I keep coming back to the easy example like Molly, but if it's like because that's more of a mood and euphoria enhancer than it is a number comparatively speaking, right? You know, like 50-50, 40, 60, something like that. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02I don't know if that yeah, no, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I I'm thinking of specific clients here, but you know, um somebody who I noticed, you know, it's always easier for somebody else to notice, but I noticed each time they had a great date, they would relapse.
SPEAKER_00That sounds like a number to me.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Cause it there's a there's there is a question of I don't deserve this. I'm going to fuck it up anyway. Isn't that right? Or I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy of a healthy, giving man.
SPEAKER_00Boyfriend material. And and to me, I don't deserve this is the exact same thing as I am not worthy. Yeah. You know, they're all the same thing. It's all shame. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And that always leads me to believe it's probably more of a numbing experience than anything. Yep. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Okay. So if if I'm listening and I kind of see myself in one, maybe, maybe more than one. I mean, could could I fall in more than one category?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's yeah, Mel and I had this very conversation. Like, how how what does the overlap look like? Right. Right. And I think it's true. I think it's totally true that there are some people that have kind of a uh bipolar experience with this, where it's like maybe they have moments in their life where they're more of a connector, and then maybe they have moments in their life where they become more of a dissociator. Like I've had a couple of people I've worked with directly who they started out like connector types where they're mostly doing euphoric things, not numbing as much. And then with in a couple of cases I'm thinking of specifically, they experienced some pretty drastic traumas. Uh-huh. And then they shifted gears away from the connecting type to more of the dissociator because the trauma was just too much for them. It kind of really affected their sense of self. And so they really wanted to leave their sense of self. It became intolerable, I think, for them. So I've seen that before. I've also seen some people shift back and forth between like being a number and uh connector, because like if you just take the the average stereotype in the gay community in particular, if there's like a bar or a club or a rave or whatever, like a lot of people there are in the connector mindset, but they also have the capacity to be numbers. And so I think you might start out the night thinking you're one thing when in reality your kind of your unconscious mind has a real wish for you to be numb.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know?
SPEAKER_04Sure. Sure. I mean, you know, it happens when you're drunk, but it happens with with meth too, is maybe you start out maybe you start out as connector, and then the veil is the veil is lifted and you're reminded of what you've done or what your life is, or you know, your trauma starts coming up, you get emotional, and then you want to dive into let me disassociate here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, in my own trajectory, I started out certainly as a connector, you know, because when I first started, because I was looking for connection in the gay community. Um, this was my ticket, right? Yeah, yeah. And so it was on and on. I wanted to connect, to connect. And then as time went on and I started slamming uh regul regularly, my life started falling apart and I lost my car, then I lost my job and all this kind of stuff. Then it turned into I'm going to put enough drugs in my veins that I don't have to face the destruction that's happening around me. I need to leave this. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I didn't care about the people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And to me, that's that's how tricky this is because, you know, as I said last time I was on here, I'm not anti-drugs at all. The problem, the problem that I face is, especially in our community, where we we have this minority status that keeps us separate from the world, from the people who don't understand us, the people who hate us. I think there's there's a there's a layer there of, well, we have an extra added pressure, perhaps, to go a little further than the average person. You know, so if the if the average straight person doesn't feel as much pressure to escape or connect because they feel more accepted by society, you know, then we might be slightly more at risk, comparatively speaking, especially given how insidious these norms are. It's perfectly normal, I think, in many of these, you know, commonly frequented settings, you know, like uh bars and clubs and things like that, for people to drink too much or to do a line of blow in the bathroom and so on and so forth. And that's not, it's not just a stereotype, it's a reality. You can go to any of the gay meccas, so to speak, and see it all the time. Every mini mini nights of the week, you know what I mean? Yeah. And like between that set of cultural norms and the, I think the potential vulnerabilities of being a minority, I think we're at greater risk compared to other people. So I think it's always important to be clear that drugs in and of themselves aren't the problem, but they can easily become a problem if we're not mindful of the type of relationship we have with them and why we use them in the first place.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I heard somebody say drugs, drugs aren't the problem, they're some they're the solution. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And um they're super effective. Yeah, right. Yeah, drugs are drugs are more reliable than people.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they do what they're supposed to do every time.
SPEAKER_00Every time. You know, a shot of tequila is the same thing every time, right? Yeah, yeah. And so that's more reliable, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I'm thinking that you're talking about minority stress and cultural norms and what it what it's like to be a gay person in today's world. So if you if you want to take a macro look at this, a whole culture, really, a whole community, a whole demographic is trying to numb. Yeah. Is is trying to connect and it's trying to disassociate, which is which is where I think the whole chem sex the the chem sex problem is rooted, right? Yeah. Is it yeah? We're we're getting we're getting run into and crammed into this whole world based on a macro uh a a macro effect, really, of what we're talking about here in a mic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think there's this really unfortunate relationship between, you know, um all these external social forces, especially, you know, marginalization, and the fact that we also choose to self-select. We choose, we make conscious choices to spend all this money and time and energy on these activities, as opposed to creating more gay gyms, gay coffee shops, so on and so forth. And so, like, we also bear some of the responsibility, at least half in my opinion, because we could certainly be doing things to create other businesses and other venues to relate to each other and have fun with each other and hang out and like not feel ashamed, you know. Like there's tons of opportunities, I think, you know?
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yes. Well, that's a good, a good charge for you listening and for me, right? Is to continue to work on alternatives to the answer to the you know, an answer to these problems. Um so you mentioned when your core motivation is revealed, right? What what's driving the behavior? And so I I think in chemsex recovery, isn't that what we're trying to do? Is what is your motivation? So if I'm listening to this, do i I don't I don't know if you want to if you have an answer for this, and there isn't a a set answer or uh a one size fits all, but if I'm a number, what is that how does that help me get started down the recovery route? How does that inform me?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. Obviously, like you said, everyone is an individual, so their their path is gonna be different. I would argue that the average person who mostly uses their drugs and sexual behavior to numb, I would argue that if that's your primary thing, then you know, learning to tolerate pain is a process, right? And so obviously we want to try to identify if we can the sources of the pain, right? And so just like physical pain can have multiple causes and consequences, psychological pain can too. You know, stubbing your toe is one thing, but having a sore, you know, right leg or something, is that from the gym? Is it because I twisted my ankle? Is it because my shoes suck? Like, what's going on here, right? And I think it's the kind of the same thing for psychological pain and shame. It's like, is it just because of these social things that I feel shame? Is it because of my behavior, right? Because like there's a really tricky balancing act we all have to do as human beings, which is we have to recognize that there's a 50-50 interchange or balance of there's societal pressures and then there's my behavior and my values. And so our behavior and our values sometimes conflict with society, but sometimes our behavior just conflicts with our values, right? So, and anytime that we violate our values as a person, we're gonna be anxious and upset. You know, that's not weird. There's an entire branch of psychotherapy called acceptance and commitment therapy that talks about that. And, you know, ACT is the acronym. And so ACT is great because, you know, once people start to align their behavior with their values more, they tend to feel more motivated to do what's better for them, whatever that is for them. Right. So, like, if one of my core values is grace, which it is, you know, so the way I grew up and how I've been shaped by the world and my personality and stuff, one of my core values is grace. Right. And so the more that my behavior aligns with that value, the more I'm like not holding things against people, not having resentments and grudges against people, right? The more I'm trying to be understanding and forgiving reasonably of people, the better my life goes because my behavior makes sense for who I am as a person. And I think that that's true for everybody. So if you're shame, if if you have some kind of shame, you know, and the shame is about your sexuality, the shame is about um just to pick an easy example in the chem sex community, a lot of people who engage in chem sex do not feel very important in their real life. So they have this, they have like this double life that they live, right? Right. So like in their regular life, they're a manager or marketing employee or whatever. Or even in our community, they're they're a healer of some kind. But because their professional life or their romantic life doesn't allow them to feel important, what they've done is they figured out a way to take all the shame about how unimportant they feel in their professional life and their romantic life. And they've kind of like cordoned it off and shoved it over here into Kim sex. And so they'll go do, you know, sometimes ridiculous exhibitionistic things, or they'll try to, you know, as many of us do, like get an amazing shape so that we're the most sought-after top or bottom or this or that or the other.
SPEAKER_03You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00And so that sense that that normal human need to feel important, which we all have, which if it's not getting met over here with your family and your friends, with your lovers, with your your work, and it's it's neglected over here. Well, what we can do is we can find it over here in our sexual behavior, in our drug-infused sexual behavior. We'll feel like those connector types, I'll feel maximally important because I'm the best guy at the orgy. I'm the nicest guy at the orgy, right? Yeah. And so that that's that core need. I need to feel important, and I don't know how to do that elsewhere. So our job, I think, is to figure out okay, where does that shame around feeling important come from? Can we talk about it? And then can we do perhaps the way I like to phrase it to my patients is can we do little experiments? Because I think little experiments makes it seem like it's a more manageable task as opposed to like, you know, go be social in the real world. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Like I I couldn't do that if you asked me to do that. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Don't feel important and and not feeling seen is is similar too, right? I see that a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yeah. And we all need to feel seen. These are natural needs that we have from the moment we're born to the moment we die. It's just if they're not getting met appropriately in our regular life, they're gonna come out sideways somehow. And that happens in chem sex all the time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. So back to the numbers and back to what you said earlier, tolerating pain. Yes. So we've had we had several guests on the podcast who come back to this healing, feeling is healing. You know, is that there for a lot of men, you're avoiding feeling something, right? You're avoiding that loneliness, or you're avoiding that unworthiness. You're avoiding whatever it is that you have to face, the rejection, like for me, right? Like you're avoiding feeling that way, and the best way to bypass it is to numb it, right? To numb yourself out with the drug. So tolerating feeling the pain, it it sounds so simple to tell people to sit in that uncomfortable feeling and just be with it. You know, for one thing, it sounds too simple when men and men are like, it it can't be that simple. And then the other thing is, how do I do that? Right. And so there's a lot of questions around that. But I really think this inability to tolerate the pain at least gives me as a listener some direction of there's what am I avoiding feeling? And if it's a Friday night and I'm by myself and I'm anxious and I can't, I I can't sit there, or or I numb, I replace meth, I numb out on TV or I numb out on my phone, at least, right? Like what can you do to face it head on and sit with it? Is that right?
SPEAKER_00I think sitting with it is very important. However, as you said, you said it perfectly. Saying it and doing it are not the same thing. Wild wildly simple to say, but nearly impossible to do if you feel overwhelmed. Yeah. Yeah. And the the terrible thing is for a lot of us, the overwhelmed is again, it's like the devil's voice. It's like it's in our ear quietly. It's not always screaming at us, you know? Yeah. And so if it's back, if it's background noise, but it's insidious and toxic background noise, it's just perfectly understandable to just look at the phone more, watch more movies, whatever it is. You know what I mean? And so I always think starting small, whatever it is, like if we can start small and get good at starting small, then we can work our way up to bigger stuff. So like maybe you don't have to sit there and think about your childhood for an hour. That sounds torturous even to me, and I do this for a living, you know. Right, right. But like maybe it's like we start small with like, can I sit with this feeling for five minutes? And the feeling doesn't have to be the end of the world. You know, just as an easy example. It's like, yeah, just give myself five minutes to feel it, not run away from it. That way, by the way, for everyone who's listening, if they if they've never had this experience, once you realize you can do something for five minutes, then 10 minutes doesn't seem like much of a big deal, comparatively speaking. Right? And then the the beautiful like side benefit of that is you start to feel more empowered.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Because you learn to negotiate with yourself.
SPEAKER_04Right. Because you're in control, you're not at the whim of your subconscious urges, right? Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah, because there's some clients I'll say, you know, okay, like you said, five minutes. So feel I feel lonely. The first thing I I feel myself do is my hand goes to the phone or my hand goes to the remote. Okay. Could you put it back down and wait five minutes and feel what that feels like? Yeah. Yeah. So so that's you're valid. I just went, I need validation that I'm right on that. But yeah, that's what you're saying, right? Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00I couldn't agree more strongly because five minutes can be an eternity, especially if you're very early in the work.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00But sometimes it's hard for me. Sometimes it's hard for me to sit there for five minutes and just be at peace because I I should be doing something. You know what I mean? Yeah, obviously BS, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Um, connectors, I think the if if we were going to give them a direction, I think the obvious answer is, well, make new connections. Right. But what would you say to a a connector in terms of what would be some of the first things we could do? What would be some little experiments?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think for a lot of people, again, I kind of outlined this a few minutes ago with like a stereotype of someone who doesn't feel very important at work or in their relationship or with their friends or family. And so the thing I'd be curious about with that kind of person is okay, so where can we do a little experiment at work? Or where can we do a little experiment with your friends or with your family? Like, stupid idea. Could you host a dinner? You know, could you could you start a game night? You know what I mean? Like these are obviously kind of low-hanging fruit things, but like, will that will the game night replace the euphoria of like going to the orgy and being the talk of the town? Probably not. However, you know, harm reduction, is that a better choice? Probably, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Actually, I don't know. Starting game night sounds pretty scary to me. But so yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And that that might be too big of a task. So it might be like an easy example. I had this person I worked with who was definitely a connector, and he was very good at his job, but he never took credit for anything that he did. And so in the public chats in the company and the email chains, it was always some one of his bosses who was taking credit for his stuff. And so what we talked about is like, what would it look like to just actually assert yourself in a in a group message or in an email chain about like this was my idea, so on and so forth.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Proactively, not reactively, proactively.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00And uh that didn't that didn't cure anything, but it allowed him to f it allowed him to feel more important.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it it feels like to me, boundaries is going to fall into this category too, right? Somebody who could set some boundaries um in terms of what they tolerate, who they hang around with, what they, you know, saying saying no when they mean or saying yes when they mean no, or you know, this kind of things. Oh yeah. 100%. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Okay. So a disassociator, a disassociate, or whatever we want to call it, a disassociator, maybe. Um, what are we what are we doing there?
SPEAKER_00What do we what do we start if that's if we see ourselves in this what we're describing as you know, it's tough because there could be in many cases more complexity here. Like I said with one example, some people have a lot of trauma, and so they just do not want to be here, right? Yeah. Right. And so obviously, I always want to make sure they're not suicidal or there's no nothing like that, and just make sure they're okay in that regard first. But after that is done, then I want to understand what is so unbearable about being here. That's the thing I'm very curious about because it could be that life has no meaning anymore. That happens for some people. For other people, like I said, they're so traumatized that their body has no more value anymore. Or they were in such an abusive relationship that their mind has no value anymore. Maybe their body still does, so they're happy to abuse their body in some way, shape, or form, or use their body to feel pleasure in some way, but their mind is meaningless, so they're happy to be ged out or uh, you know, you know, barred out or whatever it is, you know what I mean? And so I always want to recognize that it could be complicated, number one. And number two, there's something that no longer has any uh value anymore. It could be their mind, it could be their body, could be both. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, or their life.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Or just generally, yeah. Yeah. So for someone who has lost a very close loved one, they could feel like their life has no meaning or value anymore. I've seen that. Oh yeah, me too. Right. Um, somebody, so uh talk about going through from one to another, I see oftentimes they may start as a number or connector. They contract uh are they uh contract? What am I saying? What am I? They they get HIV. Yeah, yeah, contract, yeah. Contracts, I don't know why that doesn't sound right. They they contract HIV, then they become a dissociator. Because my life is over. My life is over, my body has no meaning. I have no meaning. I'm damaged, goods, right?
SPEAKER_02Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yep.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and so anyone who falls in that that category, I I would definitely suggest some therapy. Sorry, some trauma therapy, I would say. That's not, you know, those are there there's certain clients that come to me when I know right away it's above my pay grade. Um, you know, and it's like I I can at least maybe point out this this could be something to help me like, do you fall in this category? Is this your motivation? Now let's take that information to a therapist, right? Because it's usually pretty deep, pretty deep traumatic injury, I would say. Yeah, likely. Yeah. Likely. But again, not everybody's the same, or we can't just stereotype at all. Um, yeah. Interesting, very interesting. And I I really thought that maybe I could stump you and come up with an example that didn't fit these three, but I didn't.
SPEAKER_00Go go ahead. Yeah, yeah. I couldn't. Yeah, it's to for for us, it's an evolving conversation. So we're gonna keep exploring and maybe eventually come up with like a test or something like that if we can to see if we can figure it out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think that'd be great, like an assessment of you know, why you come up. And then once you know, again, once you kind of know, then you could get a more tailored tailored plan, right? Um, and know kind of what little ex I like that you said little experiments. These these little experiments we can do. Um, because I've always said like whatever I I I ask people, you know, what are you getting from the Kimsace experience? And once you know what you're getting, then you need to give that to yourself. It it sounds again too simplified, like just feel it. Right. But at least it gives you, if you're feeling overwhelmed about like, how can I ever stop? Or how can I ever get through this? At least having some little like, oh, this is why I'm doing it. And just because you figure out why you're doing it doesn't solve it. Right. But it can give you some kind of hope or some kind of direction or light at the end of the tunnel, I would say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what did I miss today? I don't know. Patrick? I don't know. Is there something uh I you that we didn't cover that you think would be important in this discussion?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I don't I don't think so. I just you know, just to reiterate a couple of things that we both said, it's like everyone's an individual. So it may not be the case that any of these things like perfectly fit you or something. And uh the other thing to reiterate from the very beginning of this conversation is what you said, which is you know, with full respect to people being individuals, these ideas are not meant to pigeonhole you and like typecast you. It's just perhaps if one of these three models or more fit you, maybe that's a sign of something that's going on inside of you, perhaps. You know, so just worth being curious about because for a lot of people, shame is a big part of it, but shame doesn't manifest the same for everybody, you know?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yes. And I really love the uh I mean you haven't said this. I just got the idea. But I really love the idea of having case study scenarios. And so I can read that and see myself in it, right? And then in that case study scenario, it revealed that this person is a number. This is what this person did. Not to say you have to follow it, but maybe you get some ideas, maybe you get some direction, maybe it gives you a starting point to say, I at least I can I can feel seen and understood by someone else's story. So if you could, you know, if this evolves and you could come up with little case studies and you know, little stories to read or something, you know, it can pretty it more illustrate to kind of what the types look like.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. I think that's very doable. Uh, between you and Mel and David and me, we could probably come up with dozens and dozens and dozens of sure, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yes, yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm trying to, I'm thinking about starting a different podcast called uh Chemsex Client Case Studies, where I bring actual case studies to a professional like yourself and ask, what would you tell this person? Right. Um it has, you know, it's gonna have to be generals, generalized, yeah, obviously. Um, but in these case studies, I know that because what you're saying here is that a lot of people fall into similar categories. If I'm if you're listening and you hear a case study, to me, I think you could latch onto that easier and say, oh, that's me. I I I see myself in that. And then getting the idea from a from a therapist, a clinician, a a counselor, a treatment center director, or something like that to say, in that case, this is what you know, this is my advice to that that person. So I I'm thinking that that might be helpful. Yeah. Could be cool. And helpful for clinicians, too. That that are new to that are new to chem sex, right? Agree. Completely agree. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming back, Patrick. Really appreciate it. And I appreciate you. Um, this was this was really enlightening for me. I wasn't sure what to expect. Um, and I I like it. I like it. It's going to inform my work as well, which is helpful, helpful for me and helpful for my clients.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Well, I really appreciate the chance to come here and have a conversation with you and explore things together, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It was fun.
SPEAKER_04It was fun. All right. Well, I'm going to let you go. And if for you all listening, if you have want to join in the conversation, you can comment on Spotify, you can comment on YouTube, you can also DM me on any social media platform, anywhere. I'm everywhere out there. Um, and if we if Patrick has a contact information he wants to share, we'll put that on, we'll put that in the show notes as well. And don't forget, there is a supplemental study guide that goes along with every episode. The link will be in the show notes. It'll be a summary of the episode and some suggested journal prompts, actionable exercise, and reflective questions. All right. That being said, we will see you next week.
