During the podcast’s early years, Dave had invited Jamie Lee Curtis onto the show, and she had declined.

“I planned to do the show until it either became boring or people stopped listening, and luckily, neither of those things have happened.”Īs Dopey’s profile has grown, so has the caliber of its guests, among them recent interviewees Margaret Cho and Michael Imperioli. That really meant something to me,” Dave says. “When Chris died, I kept the show going because we’d built an audience that relied on us. When This American Life aired a story on Dopey earlier this year, the downloads doubled again. It is now listened to on every continent except Antarctica, per Dave, and has even cultivated its own community, known as Dopey Nation, which has members around the world. The flippant treatment of addiction woes has taken a backseat to a more vulnerable discussion about addiction and recovery.Īfter the news of Chris’ death traveled, the podcast’s downloads doubled. He has yet to miss a week, even recording an episode with Chris’ friends and sponsor in Massachusetts the night of his wake. “This is going to be very weird and very, very sad,” he told listeners.Īfter four years of sobriety, Chris died of a fentanyl overdose when Dopey was just shy of episode 143.Īfter the loss of his friend and co-host, Dave could have packed up his microphone for good. That all changed the day Dave plugged his microphone into the mixer from his father’s apartment. The guests offered inspirational tales of their own rise out of the horror of addiction. The hosts were sober, an example to the recovery community that regularly tuned into the show. The podcast was thriving and on an upward trajectory. Drew Pinsky appeared on the show even the tour manager for the Rolling Stones joined the hosts to dish about his gnarliest drug stories. Musicians from House of Pain and Three Dog Night called in comedians including Artie Lange and Modi recorded episodes Dr. A small following developed, and soon guests began to join them to tell their own war stories.Ī24 Wins Yet Another Wild Bidding War (Exclusive) Four years later, after they had acquired a more stable sobriety, they began meeting in Manhattan to tape stories of their drug-fueled antics. Chris relapsed and died.”ĭave and Chris - the pair chose to remain anonymous to listeners by not sharing their last names, a common practice in 12-step programs - first conceived of the idea for Dopey over cigarettes and shaky sobriety in the smoking pit of Mountainside Treatment Center in 2011. “I’m Dave, and the worst thing that could ever happen happened. “Welcome to Dopey, the podcast about drugs, addiction and dumb shit,” he began. In summer 2018, one of the co-hosts of the Dopey podcast, sat at the kitchen table in his father’s Chelsea apartment and leaned into the microphone, his voice raspy and worn.

Highlight magazine dopey