Written by: Suki Jones

Dopey logo courtesy of the Dopey Podcast

Photo of Dave Manheim at Dopeycon by Suki Jones

It’s a rarity for me to be in my car without the music on and turned up loud. 

There are, however, exceptions to this. When my kids were in elementary school I had an addiction to the Howard Stern show. It was the end of the millennium and in addition to my not-so-serious Stern addiction, I had a very real, very robust drug addiction. My morning ritual consisted of coffee, heroin, coke and a post-carpool drop-off cigarette. I regarded the ragtag cast members of the Stern show as though they were dear old friends—they were accessories to my debasement. I was hungover while listening to Mariann from Brooklyn, dopesick with Artie Lange and strung out with Beetlejuice. I found comfort in their voices and eagerly awaited my morning connection with them. 

In early 2000, I began to taper off of the Stern show and traded in my active drug addiction for a 12-step program. Unbeknownst to me, hundreds of miles away, another junkie (and Stern fan), Dave Manheim, was battling his own opiated demons. 

In 2000, as I was getting sober, Dave Manheim was graduating to IV drug use. 

Between 2000-2005, Manheim, a native New Yorker, moved to Southern California and dove deep into the meth scene, before eventually returning to dope and benzos. Dave went through in-patient treatment for a year, intensive outpatient treatment, several detoxes, and methadone-assisted treatment. Unbelievably, at one point during all of this, he produced a show on MTV, hosted by Jason Schwartzman. 

In 2011, while in treatment yet again, this time at Mountainside Treatment Center in Connecticut, Dave befriended another patient, Chris O’Connor. Chris had been using since his teens in Boston, and at one time stated that if you added up all the days he had spent in treatment, it would be pretty close to three years. 

After leaving Mountainside, both men eventually relapsed. Their friendship however, endured. In the Summer of 2015, Chris, who was just shy of two years of sobriety, and Dave, with a handful of months to his credit, conceived the idea of “Dopey,” a podcast, chronicling the darkly humorous side of addiction. At one point Chris described their target audience by saying, “…the listeners come for the debauchery and stay for the recovery.”

The show premiered in January 2016. The early episodes are heavy on the debauchery and light on the recovery, but the chemistry between Dave and Chris was indisputable. I would liken them to a mash-up of Cheech and Chong crossed with Robin Quivers and Howard Stern. They were the perfect pairing—an Othello cookie, equal parts dark and light, consistently playing off each other with the sort of clever banter you feel lucky to be privy to. 

In all honesty, I listened inconsistently to the podcast until 2018, when the unthinkable happened. On July 24, 2018 Dopey co-host Chris died from a fentanyl overdose. It was a shock to everyone, Manheim included. This very well could have been the downfall of the show, but the fanbase, known as “the Dopey Nation” rallied. The show’s followers were adamant that Dave continue on and carry the Dopey message. There was a sense of almost tangible support from every caller and every guest, not to mention that downloads began to increase exponentially. 

I listened more frequently after that but not quite with the same fervor that I had listened to Howard Stern while in my addiction glory days. That is until April of 2020 rolled in with the pandemic in tow, bringing an abrupt halt to in-person recovery meetings. There was an unmistakable rift in my routine. I felt detached in a way that I hadn’t felt since the end of my active addiction. It was the first time in a great many years that I tossed around the idea of using again. 

12-step groups worldwide went online and many people found comfort and solace in the virtual recovery rooms.

I was not one of them.

I felt disconnected. The pieces were all there, I just couldn’t put them into a useful order. I longed for a sense of community and a place to belong. 

By May I had burned through a myriad of Cult and True Crime podcasts. I was scrolling through my podcast library when I landed on Dopey. I have a distinct recollection of looking at the Dopey podcast logo and thinking—that’s exactly what I need. I downloaded the episode, made coffee and positioned my bed pillows for maximum comfort. 

It was podcast number 237 and featured former junkie and Quit-Lit author Amy Dresner, as well as House of Pain’s Danny Boy O’Connor. By the end of the episode something had clicked in me. I felt connected. I had needed something I hadn’t needed since early recovery—a voice of reassurance. Someone to tell me that no matter how bad it looked, it was going to be okay. 

Dopey has morphed and grown since its inception. It is more recovery-based these days, with a side order of war stories. The interviews are often dark and the humor even darker, but regardless of the subject matter, Manheim is quick to offer up hope—maybe without even realizing it, and maybe that’s the draw: the subtle ease in which he delivers it. The show has featured such guests as Danny Trejo, Kat Von D, Steven Adler, and Nikki Sixx, just to name a few. While the celebrity draw is exciting it’s not what I look forward to most, or why I tune in. It’s for the message, and because, even in my car, lodged firmly entrenched in Bay Bridge traffic, I feel connected to the community. 

I come for the debauchery and I stay week after week for the recovery. 

Suki Jones is a freelance writer in the San Francisco Bay area. Her first book, an addiction memoir, will be available in spring of 2023 through Embers Arts Press.