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 short solo episode, Dr. Dallas Bragg shares one of the most effective tools in his coaching program: the post-relapse video. He traces its origin to his own bottom — returning home after an arrest to find his house ransacked by the men he'd been using with, no car, no job, eviction looming, and no one left to call. With nothing else to do, he propped his phone on the dresser and recorded himself in that moment of raw despair. Rewatching it later, sober, was excruciating — and that was exactly the point. The video became a way to interrupt euphoric recall, the powerful pull he describes as the midbrain hijacking the prefrontal cortex, telling every convincing lie ("I'm just getting on Grindr to look around," "I'm just taking Friday off") until using feels inevitable. Safeguards like blocking apps or handing over car keys create a pause; the video is what wakes you up inside it.
Dallas then walks through the practical protocol. Record before you sleep, while the crash is still on you and nothing in you wants to use — three to five minutes, answering seven prompts: what do I see, how does my body feel, what actually happened in the last 24 to 72 hours, what am I feeling, what's on my phone, what did this cost me, and what does my future self need to know. Making the video isn't enough; the real work is watching it sober, with full attention, every day for 90 days — the step where most men fall short. He also suggests recording a second video from the opposite state: the grateful, resolved version of yourself a few days out, when you realize what you didn't lose. A free companion form is linked in the show notes, and Dallas invites listeners to try the protocol and report back, with deeper episodes on euphoric recall coming soon.
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. Alright, welcome back to the Aftermath Podcast. In this solo episode, there's a supplemental study guide that goes along with each episode, if you don't know that by now. Please remember to like, subscribe, and rate the podcast so we can get the algorithm to place it in the ears and eyes of those who need it. I am not feeling that well today, but I'm going to record this podcast anyway. So I'm sorry if I don't sound like my peppy self. But I want to talk to you today about the a tool that I use called the post-relapse video and how it can benefit you. I discovered this kind of accidentally on my own, in my own journey. There was one of the times I went to jail. It was the dumbest decisions ever. But I was with a guy, I needed a car. He didn't he had a car but no license plate. So I just wrote numbers on a piece of paper and said lost plate. We got about one mile from my house because I was being surveilled. After my first arrest, you know, it was big news. And it was a very small suburb of Charlotte. And so the police then were surveilling me and watching everywhere I was going. And so got pulled over and arrested. So when I finally made it back home, because this time there wasn't anyone, I don't know if I even called my daughter on this trip, um, but somehow I maneuvered a car to pay for Uber, um, and I Ubered home. So about a 30-mile trip, I guess. So when I walked into my house, door wide open, it had been ransacked. Um, my quote unquote friends, my posse, had come and pulled out every drawer, every cabinet, every closet, looking for a stash. Um, knowing that I hide them around. So I came back, I'm walking through this house, um malnourished, exhausted, exasperated, hopeless, you know, no car, no job, and the house was quickly uh, you know, approaching uh eviction and I stood in my ransack place thinking, I have no one. I have no one now. And I I just I I didn't know what else to do besides scream, and there were you know some other darker thoughts. But but I put my phone up on my dresser and I recorded myself to me. And I cried and I screamed. I spewed hatred to myself, but to my friends, to my family. You know, I I it wasn't my best hour of taking accountability, but what was important was I got to see myself at my lowest and with all the trash in the background, you know, and I was able to take that video and use it as an incentive. I watched it, and the more sober I got, the more cringe I it got, the more uncomfortable it got. Because I knew I'm the old pro at this by this time, I knew that it wasn't going to be probably a week, maybe two weeks, when I was back on the prowl, that I had forgotten how I felt that time, that my house had been cleaned up, everything would had been leveled off, probably the friends have been will will be contacting me back, and I'll probably let them back, and I will forget how it feel felt in that moment. That despair. There's this there's this feeling of just complete and utter overwhelm, loss. When you're in that position, like there is this part of me that really knew, like, this has to end. I've gotta stop this train, and this bigger part of me it just kept pushing. And being trapped in that it's it's overwhelming. It's it's a feeling that only if you've been in you know an addict, only you can know, knowing that my world was about to fall apart. So uh the rest of the way. So anyway, I've I've carried this idea of a post-relapse video over into my program. And the men who have followed this prescription um for the post-relapse video have seen a lot of success. A lot of men won't do it because when you're in your sober state, to be to have to watch you eye sunken in or bug-eyed, dark circles under your eyes, emaciated, the despair, the loss, you know, to watch that in a sober state, it is hard. It is not easy at all. But what it does is it wakes you up out of the strongest force you're going to feel in chemsex recovery, and that's euphoric recall. That middle brain will take over. It wants to change its state, it wants that dopamine, it thinks you need it to survive, and the prefrontal shuts down, and the midbrain takes over. And the midbrain will tell you every lie possible. The midbrain knows you better than you know you, and it knows exactly what to say to you or have you think to convince you to use. And this is not a malice thing, this is not an enemy, this is not a monkey on your back, uh it's not the in enemy, it's just doing what it's supposed to be doing. So it's a chemical change to your brain, to your neuropathways. You don't have a chemical to change it back. So you have to find ways to wake up out of euphoric recall because it will put you asleep so quickly. And it and you will be convinced I'm just getting on grinder to look around, or I'm just taking Friday off for Meeton, or I'm just driving to that neighborhood just to kind of see what's up, you know, all the while, all the while in the back of your mind, knowing you are plotting to use. So you need something. Like we can put in all the safeguards, like we can block the access to the apps, you can have somebody staying over with you, you can have your phone locked up, you can surrender your car keys, you can do all sorts of things that does put that pause in place. So hopefully, that pause between you and wanting to use, you can wake up and you can turn this prefrontal cortex back on. That is the key, that is the the the plot here, right? The the the goal. But with a post-relapse video, it will snap you the fuck in out of it real fast. And if you use it in the right way, it can preemptively strike against euphoric recall and a trigger. Okay, so I'm going to share with you a form that I've created to go along to help you understand how, why, when for the post-relapse video. I'm going to share my screen. Um, if you're watching, you get to see it. If not, um, there will be a link in the show notes so that you can get a copy of it for free. Okay? So listen, your bra again, your brain's going to lie to you, is what this is saying to you. It's euphoric recall. So when do you record? So I always suggest, even though I had slept after I had slept at the jail, I think, but I always suggest you make this video before you sleep. Because there's a magic in sleeping, you know. But before you, in the come down, before you actually lie down, when you're at your ugliest, right? When you feel the most miserable and you look the most miserable, when the high is gone and the crash is in place, right? Nothing in you wants to use. That's the moment, right? That is the moment. You are there, you have that resolve. There is nothing you want more than to never do this again. That is where you want to bring yourself back to over and over and over, especially when euphoric recall hits, but more but more, but the goal more than that is to do it beforehand, to get the momentum rolling so that you remember every day what that feeling feels like, what that resolve is like. It is your fuel, right? So it's like, you know, three to five minutes is all it really takes. Because guess what? You're going to be watching this back every day for 90 days. So you don't want a 10-minute video. And maybe you do. Mine was long. I didn't watch the whole thing every time, but it was a whole monologue, dramatic monologue. I could have won an Oscar for it. I could probably find it somewhere. I've saved, well, I've tried to save all my phones. Anyway, you want to, you know, get the phone, get the phone out, turn it on, put the camera on, and then answer these questions, these seven questions. What do I see right now? Describe what you see, right? Describe your face, describe your body, describe maybe your your tongue is hurting and sore and scarred. Maybe your jaw, your your nut, your gums are sore, maybe you're clenching your jaws, right? What are you feeling right now? And what do you see? Sorry, what do you see right now? And then what's your how does your body feel? Start describing it. Start describing it because you will forget very easily after that first sleep or that second sleep, you will forget how you feel right now. Very easily. And then I want you to describe what happened in the last 24 to 78 hours. What was the reality of your chemsex experience? What was the reality of it based on also what you thought it was going to be? What am I feeling? What emotions am I feeling? Am I feeling some shame? Describe it the best you can. This is despair. This is horrible. This is loneliness. I'm disgusted. You know, whatever. And then what's on your phone? Describe. Like, I came home to texts from grandma that I didn't answer. I came home to texts that I sent that I wish I hadn't of, videos that I wish had never been recorded. Whatever, right? Remind yourself about it. And then what did this cost me? Did it cost me a day from work? Did it cost me uh, you know, more strain with my relationships, money, safety? And then what do I need my future self to know? Send a little message to your future self, something like I know it sounds appealing. I know that you think you can do it one more time, I know, I know, I know, but this is what you get when you use. Do not be persuaded, do not be fooled. This is what you get, pointing at yourself. This is what you get when you use. No exceptions. Remind yourself, snap out of it, wake up out of the autopilot, and then I have a 90-day protocol. Making the video is not enough. You also must watch this video in a sober state every day for 90 days. Try this, try this, and if you use in those 90 days, I want to hear about it. And if you don't use, I want to hear about it. Tell me about it. But if you do this correctly and you mark off every day and you watch that whole thing with your whole attention every day, the chances of you getting back into your fork, or you call them falling for it, the chances of you using go way, way down. I don't have research to back this. This is the world according to Dallas. You don't believe me, try it. A lot of men can do the video. It's the watching the video is where they they fall short. Or they start maybe one or two days and then they just can't do it anymore, or they say they can't. Muster up the strength to do this, and I promise you euphoricals charge goes way down. And your willpower goes way up because you can snap out of the mid-brained control into a critical thinking, executive decision-making part of your brain taking over. And even if you listen, even if you haven't recently used, do it anyway. Make a video to your future self. Like, this is who we are, this is what we're doing. If you're thinking about using, remember the goal, or whatever it is, right? So it lives in your phone, right? You can put a screenshot of it on your home screen if you want to do that. This form is very simple, very simple here, but it just gives you the seven things. Because a lot of guys will be like, I don't know what to say, or when you're in that like that state where your brain is trying to heal from what you just did to it, you don't know what to say. Um, yeah. So this gives you a good little synopsis on how to do that. All right, so I'm gonna stop sharing here. Um, and I wanted to, I don't have a form for this, but I also wanted to suggest, and this is something I've been playing with, is a post-relapse video of when you're at your most grateful, when you're at your most ready to change. Like that's the despair you, right? But oftentimes, after you use and you come down and you sleep and you get some food in your body, and then you start to get back into life, there's there's a new resolve. Like, okay, I'm ready to do this. Um, and and you're so grateful that maybe you didn't lose your job or you didn't lose your car, or you didn't do the things that you thought you, you know, like you're so grateful that you're you've come out on the other side. You feel like everything is is just you're just glad that it's there. Like you go to work and I'm I hate this job usually, but I'm so glad I have it right now because I could have lost everything. You know, whatever experience you had in chem sex, there's also a chance to make a video of in that state of mind of you wanna you want to you want to go back to that state of mind of everything's bright, everything's cheery, I'm never using again, I have resolve, I feel strong, I'm not doing this, you know, whatever that is, save that too. Save that too and watch it. That can be effective as well. And maybe one is more effective than the other for you, but that post-relapse video capturing exactly how you look and how you feel and what you lost, that really does bring you back quickly out of the trance, the the full-body possession of a chemsex euphoric recall of a craving. It really does help. So, what is your method here? Do you do anything like this? How do you combat euphoric recall? I'd like to hear from you. And we're going to have a podcast about euphoric recall, a couple of them coming up soon. So I can't wait to dive deeper into it. Because there is science behind it, right? We what we do want to know, we do want to acknowledge that there is scientific research here and research that could tell us how to process a euphoric recall. But also, I think sometimes we make it too complicated. Do this. It's uncomfortable, it's hard, but it can really snap you out of it. So if you try it, let me know. I'd love to hear back from you. I hope you enjoyed this short episode, and I will see you next week.
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