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?
In this solo episode of The AfterMeth Podcast, Dallas Bragg lays out the three pillars he considers essential to chemsex recovery: consistency, proactivity, and certainty — three overlapping circles whose intersection is a chemsex-free life. He opens by naming the strange, uncomfortable stretch of time that follows quitting, the liminal space where a man suddenly has hours, energy, and attention back and no idea what to do with them. Chemsex, as Dallas frames it, was never just a drug; it was a culture, a subculture, an identity. Leaving it means living in between selves for a while, and the boredom so many men report in that gap isn't laziness — it's the absence of a compelling enough vision of who they're becoming. This episode is for the man who has quit and feels like he's buffering, and equally for the man who keeps getting almost all the way there before relapsing every two weeks, every month, every six months, and can't seem to clear that last hurdle.
Practically, Dallas builds each pillar into something a listener can act on this week. Consistency means committing to one daily action and one daily communication — journaling, the gym, a check-in, whatever feels like the path of least resistance — and treating the first missed day as a red alert rather than a small slip, because the miss itself is data about a subconscious pattern already in motion. Proactivity means running recovery like a business: sitting down on Sunday, putting on what Dallas calls the meth thinking cap, and mapping out exactly when, how, where, and with whom you would use this week, then building safeguards, blocks, and unbreakable plans around that danger zone before motivation drops. He extends the same audit to the calendar year — anniversaries, breakups, holidays, Pride, birthdays — and ties it back to re-entry planning for the weeks after travel or a partner's absence. Certainty is the hardest of the three: the reframe that life is happening for you, that a use is a data point and a learning episode rather than a verdict on your worth, and that the spiral of lost days and disappearing after a relapse does more damage than the relapse itself. Dallas points listeners to his free Reframing Relapse course, notes that the supplemental study guide for this episode — along with journal prompts, exercises, and a full topic archive — lives on the blog at recoveryalchemy.org (drdallasbragg.com now forwards there), and invites questions and reactions in the YouTube and Spotify comments or by DM.
Chemsex. Sexualized drug use among men who have sex with men, typically involving methamphetamine, methadrone, 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 guest on this podcast are not to be taken as medical advice, and the content around sex and drug use can be triggering. All right, welcome back to the Aftermath Podcast. And this solo episode, don't forget this there is a supplemental study guide. It goes along with this episode and every episode that comes out. It will be the link to that will be in the show notes. Those study guides live on my website under the under blog. If you want to go there and you can search, and there's a repository of topics and information there. So if you ever think say, I'm bored, uh you could just go in there and start reading and studying and looking. And there's journal prompts and actual exercises and reflective questions, and there's so much to do. Um, I encourage you to visit recoveryalchemy.org. Used to be drdallasbrag.com. It has been changed, by the way. But if you put in drdallasbrag.com, it will forward to recoveryalchemy.org, which is unnecessary information. Uh please remember to like, subscribe, rate the podcast, please. If you can't share it, and if you can't let anybody know that you listen to it, it's in secret, an anonymous, at least please like, um, subscribe, and rate and review, even if you can. That would be great because it helps the algorithm get it to the ears and eyes of those who need to hear it or watch it. Okay, so today I'm going to share with you three pillars of my program, but three pillars that I believe are essential to chemsex recovery. I'm going to now, I'm going to share this on the screen. If you don't, if you aren't watching it, um, then you know, I'm going to explain it to you. Most people are watching the podcast now, either on YouTube or Apple Podcast now provides video, and of course Spotify has for a very long time. Um, but what we're looking at is three circles. And there's a circle with consistency, they're overlapping circles, uh, consistency, proactivity, and certainty. And then where they all overlap in the middle is chem sex free, which is if you're listening to this, you're either newly in the chemsex-free journey, or you want to be, or you have a loved one who's there, or you just want to know more information about it. So this could help pretty much anybody, really. But if you especially are, have you been trying to quit and you can't seem to get over that last hurdle. You're you're relapsing like every, I don't know, every month, even if it's every two weeks, um, if it's every six months, whatever it is, you just can't seem to get that last one out. Um, this podcast could help you. I I hope so. All right, so I'm gonna stop sharing there and so and go with it. So consistency. Consistency really is so vital. And here's the thing: all three of these are vital together, and they're all very important separately. Consistency, though, will help you in the very beginning because I've talked about this on the podcast as well, that liminal space between when you are quitting, when you have quit, and now you have all this time and space and energy, and because you don't really realize just how much you're investing into chemsex until you go back and look at the time it takes to decide whether or not I'm doing it, the time it takes to call on the dealer or find the users or go on grinder or whatever, or hire the escort, whatever it is. Then the using, and then the come down, and then the you know, the the what you take away from your life, from your job, from your family, from your friends, from yourself. So even if you use once a month, that's about half the month. And as you get older, it takes a lot longer to recover. I have some men in my program who it have been with me for a while, but it seems like once you hit 40, the body starts saying, whoa, like enough of this shit. But then 50 and then 60, my guys in their 60s, it takes them a good two to three weeks sometimes to feel back to normal in their body. So there is this space of time where you feel bored. You feel like you're buffering, like you don't know what to do with yourself. You're in between identities. You left a lifestyle. Here's the thing chem sex is not just a drug, it's a culture, subculture. It's a lifestyle. It is part of you, it's an identity. And then when you are shifting identities, when you're on a new timeline, when you're doing new things and thinking new ways and behaving new ways, there's a there's an in-between here where you're oscillating, you're ambivalent, you just don't know what to do. And most guys will say, Well, I'm just so bored, right? The boredom, which we've talked about also on this podcast, I should just link all these podcasts in the in the notes, but boredom comes from not having a compelling enough vision for where you're going, by the way. If you're bored, that means there's some, there's not enough emotional pull. There's not enough of you attached to the person you're becoming next. You haven't taken the time to really visualize that version of you and latched on to that, there's not a core emotional driver that fuels you forward. That's why you're bored. But there's all this space and this time. So there's a you just think, what do I do? Like I have it, it feels overwhelming. Like I'm never going to use again. Okay, I'm in recovery. Okay, I'm doing all these things. But but what do I do? How do I even get started? Now that I've now that I've can I've quit or almost quit, consistency. You want to choose so that the the diagram says anchoring into recovery every single day through consistent action, consistent communication, habits, and routine. You want to set a metric of I'm going to do this consistently every day. A consistent daily action of some kind. Whatever feels natural, whatever feels aligned, whatever feels like the the path of least resistance.
unknown
Okay.
SPEAKER_01
So whatever that might be, and I'm going to use journaling because it's just a common habit that we use. But you want to commit, I'm going to journal every day. Maybe it's just for one minute. And I'm going to communicate with someone every day. Now, if you're one of those guys who is are using and battling this in isolation because you're afraid to tell your friends and your family and your coworkers and everyone else, then you don't have to establish a communication daily to say, to discuss specifically about your chemsex recovery, but you do want to have an outreach. You do want to build that communication muscle so that you can get stuff out of here, out of your body, out of your mind, and into the air so that it doesn't grow and fester. So a consistent daily action, something like journaling, maybe it's the gym, maybe it's whatever the hell you want it to be, and then a consistent communication. Okay, that is just where you can begin. And these are your metrics. And the first day that you don't do one of them, that is your sign, that is your alert. And you may feel fine, and you may not feel any kind of urge to use. You may feel great. I don't give a shit. You cannot base this on how you feel because you are now set a standard for yourself, and if you've missed a day, there's something in there to observe. There's something I would guarantee you, this is the world according to Dallas, a subconscious cue. It's like one of those rude gold machines, you know, like the this the ball drops in the bucket, the bucket falls down, the ball rolls and hits, you know. There's something that has set off. The brain has been alerted, and the brain is putting you in that subconscious pattern, headed you to a repeat, a relapse. So you want to. This is how you can start. This is how you can anchor yourself. This is how you don't feel bored and you feel like you're moving somewhere in this in this first part between identities. And that's your first establishment of habit and routine. The habit and the routine are the scaffolding, the scaffolding, right? Or the I envision it as a you're laying out a train track each day, right? You're laying these train tracks and it and then you can start to move forward. It's consistent daily action. Because we forget when we don't see ourselves very well. That's the that's the joy of and the beauty of a counselor or a therapist or a coach, is that they're seeing you from the third person. And we we forget, we veer some of these guys that I work with a day without doing something recovery-wise, and it's like they're drifting off, you know, a shiny object, right? And it's easy. But a consistent daily action brings you back and anchors you in. And if you can, don't put too much pressure on yourself, if you can make it a morning, noon, and night check-in, something. Something that brings you back to center, reminds you, oh, I'm in chem sex recovery. Oh, I need to be aware of my cues, I need to be aware of my cravings, I need to be aware of my thoughts, I need to be aware of myself. And am I aligning with the future version of myself that I have envisioned and created? That is going to keep you anchored and moving forward. And if I'm repeating myself, sorry. Consistent daily action. That is what I will say to you. So vital. And again, what happens if you miss a day? Put yourself in red alert. Notify your team. You then are on complete awareness of how you're responding to life, how you are interpreting the situations in your life, like at work or family or friends or the news, because my guess is that missing a day means something. And then you're going to be primed. You're going to start in that emotional relapse circle that we've gone over before that leads to mental relapse, that leads to physical relapse. Okay, proactivity, planning, systems, communications, safeguards. No danger zone left unattended, right? No craving left unnamed. Proactivity means, listen, you are now running your life like a business, like a businessman, like an entrepreneur, with your recovery as the business. You want to be looking at that calendar every week. There's some there's some guys that do it on Sundays, it depends on how your week goes, how it's scheduled, whatever. Sunday's a good day. Sunday I'm sitting down, I'm looking at the next week. If I were to use, let me put on my meth thinking cap. If I were planning to use, when would I do it? How would I do it? Who would I do it with? Where would I do it? Make a plan. And then put safeguards in place, put barriers in place. Make it so that it cannot happen. While you're feeling strong here on Sunday, while you're feeling resolved and you have motivation, you have some self-control, you have some, you have a lot of energy to spend before the week gets started, you go ahead and you plan events you can't get out of. You plan sleepovers with somebody or somebody sleeping with you. You give your phone away during certain times. You alert everyone, you say it out loud. This is my danger zone. Thursday night is my danger zone. That is when I start to plan. That is when I will go out and relapse if I were going to use this week. So let me go into a preemptive strike and make sure I don't have the choice to use. I don't have access to the user buddies or the dealer or the substance. And I can't get my ass out alone to do it. And once you're doing that, several cycles, whatever your cycle is, maybe it's every two weeks, maybe it's every month, maybe it's every three months, whatever it is, make get yourself through a couple of those cycles. You're starting to show your subconscious that you are in a different timeline. You are living a different life. You have interrupted the pattern. And now your subconscious is waiting, waiting to see what's next instead of being in control and telling and shoving you into what's next. And you build self-trust, and you have figured out practically, without anyone telling you what to do, you doing it, you're empowering yourself. You have figured out how to beat this shit. And then eventually, no, you don't need chaperones and you don't need safeguards, and you can live like a normal person. And you can be alone on a Friday night if you want to be alone on a Friday night. But proactively, you have to be in front of this. Anniversaries of deaths or breakups, holidays, pride, birthday parties, clubbing events, places and times all through the year. Look at your year. When have you to typically used? When are your danger zones? But more but more often is each week. Where am I? How am I? Who am I? All of that. When will I use? And now I'm going to get in front of myself. I'm going to use the same manipulation of figuring out how to use without anybody knowing, and I'm going to use that for my good. Because I'm going to sabotage myself in a good way. Proactive. You must do this. If you're, we talked about re-entry. If you're coming back from a holiday, if your partner's going to be gone for a week out of out of town, think about it. Don't get caught with your pants down, figuratively and literally, in the middle of a weekend, with nothing to do and a phone in your hand.
SPEAKER_00
Okay. Next.
SPEAKER_01
I think I'm going well how many times how much time do I have here? I don't know how fast I'm going. All right. Certainty. This is the one where sometimes it's very difficult to get across. Reframing, perspective shifting, meaning making, and faith. Life happens for me once intention is set. Even using episodes, as I call them, or you want to call them relapse, right? Learning episodes, data points, using episodes, whatever. You used. That's it. Period. Certainty. If I accept that every single thing in my life has happened for me, is happening for me, and will happen for me, I am not living in suffering. I am not ruminating on the past. I am not projecting on the future. I am not thinking that I'm not enough right now. I'm not wishing I was more. I am not spiraling over a use. I believe that this happened for me. This relapse happened for me because I needed to know where I needed more safeguards. I needed to know where doors were still open. I needed to be, I needed to have an assessment of just how much I'm ready to stop. Sometimes you're just not ready to stop. And the more you deny that and keep that hidden, the more it grows. Say it. Admit it. Even if it's just to yourself. Say it out loud. I'm not ready to stop.
SPEAKER_00
But there's a power in that because it's truth. You're being honest. And that truth really does set you free. Certainty.
SPEAKER_01
Reframing. I have a free course, reframing relapse. Reframe the way that you respond to your life. It's not what happened to you, it's how you responded to it. Same with relapse. So many of you are getting caught up in these starting days over, and I've lost time and giving up and disappearing for weeks after you use. The more you do this, the more you're going to want to use. And you're missing out on the very juicy information that these uses are giving you. So many men in my program. When they use, it is the turning point, the trajectory. It is the moment that their recovery truly takes a turn. Because of the way they respond to it. Ah isn't this interesting? I use, let me look at this. Let me study this. It gave me some things. It cost me some things. I'm going to see it as a neutral experience. Just like going to the grocery store. I went to the grocery store. I used mess. They carry the same amount of importance. It's an experience in your life. The only thing is, of course, what can you learn from going to the grocery store? I don't know. But this is sometimes you have to use to learn how not to use. But we're so afraid of it. And we're taught that it you you're not included, that you failed. And all of that overshadows what the use was trying to show you. It was happening for you. And then when you get past those, then it's other life experiences. Because guess what? Once you stop using the real work begins, the hard work begins. Because all the stuff you've been numbing and avoiding is ready to come up. And all the people around you that you've been trying to avoid and you've been numbing their behavior right in front of you, and you're a raw nerve. But all of that is happening for you so that you can face it. Feeling is healing. You can face it, you can feel it, you can be in it. You can show your subconscious that your life's not in danger. That if you feel isolated, if you feel lonely on a Friday night, you're not going to die. You're there alone for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00
For you to get closer to you. You're lonely because you're fragmented inside.
SPEAKER_01
No amount of people, being around no amount of crowd is going to help you feel less lonely. But you have to let yourself feel it. Rejection, isolation, all of that. There's something you haven't dealt with, some big emotion from the past, whatever it is. The universe wants you to be free of suffering. Your suffering is this psychological pain that you're not letting yourself feel. It wants out so that you can live the desires of your life. And once you set a desire, once you set a clear vision for your life, listen, no desire will ever be if it is not possible for you. It can never be conceived if it isn't possible. You have the desire, you set the vision for it, and then you sit back and you allow it to happen. And everything on the way is happening for you to reach that desire. You want more patience, you're going to experience circumstances that give you patience. You want more money, you're going to experience situations where you learn how to make more money. How. And it might be through being destitute for a minute. But we get so involved and preoccupied with meaning making. This means something bad. This means something good. This means I'm doing something wrong, doing something right. Like there's some just the scales out there. There's not. It's all neutral, moving you toward where you want to be. And if you want to be chem sex free, oftentimes you must use to get there. You must use to learn how to be chem sex free. And you're going to keep doing it until you learn the lesson. You're going to keep dating the same man until you learn the lesson. You're going to keep getting fired from the same job until you learn the lesson. It's all learning. But it comes down to being certain that it's all happening for me. And when I respond to my life that way, how is this happening for me? How is this happening for me? How is this happening for me? Everything automatically falls in line with that. I'm free. I'm free from the doubt, the fear, the frustration, the lust. I'm fear. I'm clear. I'm free from all of it. I'm just here, God. I'm just here steering. Right? Like the universe is pushing you toward your desire. You're just steering. And you steer by your reaction and your response to what happens to you.
SPEAKER_00
None of these by themselves is going to get you there, I don't think. All of them together, it's ironclad. It's ironclad.
SPEAKER_01
Daily consistency, looking ahead and being proactive, and being certain that it's all happening for me, that you're in the right place at the right time. There's no better place for you to ever be than where it is where you are right now, and there's no better person for you to be than who you are right now. Settle into that. Breathe. Feel your body just like relief. Of course, there's caveats. You do have to have these safeguards in place. You do have to have blocks on your phone and all this stuff. All of that practical stuff has to be done first, yes.
SPEAKER_00
Then you can start this work. Then you are going to experience the best state of being that you've ever imagined and couldn't imagine of your life.
SPEAKER_01
You think that sobriety is great and it's a good life and it's a good way of being, and you're told that all the time, but wait until you experience every day expanding into somebody you want to be.
SPEAKER_00
Without the suffering, this mental anguish that we carry with us, that are these undue prisons that we lock ourselves in. Alright. Consistency, proactivity, and certainty.
SPEAKER_01
Follow those. If you have any questions about this, you're welcome to reach out to me. Join in the conversation on YouTube, join in the conversation on Spotify, DM me on social media, whatever you want to do. And I want to hear your impression of this. How does it seem? How does it feel? What did I miss? Um I'm happy to talk to you about that. But I really hope this helps. And I hope you have a great day and a great week. Talk to you soon.
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