Content Warning: This study guide addresses crystal meth addiction, neurodivergence, sexual behaviors in active addiction, trauma processing, and the emotional challenges of recovery. It includes references to hotel room use scenarios and the realities of active addiction. Please engage with this material in a way that feels safe and supportive for your current stage of recovery.
Episode Introduction
Alex Parsons is a standup comedian, improviser, and actor based in Asheville, North Carolina, who's been in active recovery since August 16, 2024.
His journey from first using methamphetamine in 2010 to finding sobriety over a decade later is a testament to the power of creativity, community, and self-awareness in recovery.
In this conversation, Alex shares how he uses comedy to process his trauma, the intersection of neurodivergence and addiction, and why it's crucial to do the healing work before sharing your story publicly.
The "Tina Honeymoon": When Love and Drugs Become Indistinguishable
Alex introduces a concept he created called the "Tina Honeymoon"—that initial period when you first use crystal meth and fall completely in love with it, often conflating the drug with a person or experience. For Alex, his first time using came wrapped up in a relationship with someone who couldn't have cared less about him, but in that moment, covered in the euphoria of the drug, he believed he'd found everything he'd been looking for.
This phenomenon is particularly insidious in the chemsex world because it creates a powerful association between meth, sex, and intimacy. The drug doesn't just make you feel good—it makes you feel connected, desired, and alive in ways that feel almost spiritual. That's what makes it so hard to walk away from, even when the person you thought you loved has long since disappeared.
Reflective Question: Think about your own "honeymoon period" with Tina. What feelings or needs was the drug meeting for you? Was it about connection, validation, escape, or something else entirely?
Understanding this initial draw is crucial because it reveals what you were actually seeking—and helps you find healthier ways to meet those needs in recovery.
The Neurodivergent Brain and Addiction: Why Some of Us Are More Vulnerable
Alex identifies as neurodivergent with diagnosed ADHD, and he's noticed a powerful intersection between queerness, neurodivergence, and creativity in his recovery community. This isn't coincidental. Neurodivergent brains are wired differently, which can make us more susceptible to addiction for several reasons:
- Dopamine seeking: ADHD brains have lower baseline dopamine, making stimulants feel like they're "correcting" something rather than just getting you high
- Self-medication: Many of us use substances to manage symptoms we didn't know were manageable through other means
- Impulsivity and reward-seeking: The executive function challenges that come with ADHD make it harder to resist immediate gratification
- Sensory processing differences: Drugs can feel like they're helping us regulate our nervous systems
For gay men who also deal with minority stress, sexual shame, and the hyper-sexualized party culture, adding neurodivergence into the mix creates a perfect storm. You're not weak or broken for struggling more than others—your brain literally processes reward, risk, and regulation differently.
Journal Prompt: If you identify as neurodivergent (or suspect you might be), write about how your brain differences may have influenced your relationship with substances. What symptoms were you trying to manage? How might understanding your neurodivergence change your approach to recovery?
Action Exercise: If you haven't been evaluated for ADHD or other neurodivergent conditions, research providers in your area who specialize in adult ADHD assessment. Understanding your brain can be a game-changer in recovery, especially when it comes to finding the right therapeutic approaches and possibly medication that actually helps rather than harms.
Comedy and Creativity: Healing Tools or Dangerous Territory?
Alex makes an important distinction about using comedy for healing. He's clear that stand-up shouldn't be therapy—at least not for the person on stage. If you're processing trauma in real-time in front of an audience, you're going to do harm to yourself and potentially others in the room. The therapeutic value of comedy comes after you've already done the work to heal through that particular trauma.
This is the concept of psychological distance—being far enough removed from an event that you can reframe it through a comedic lens without re-traumatizing yourself. Alex learned this the hard way when he tried to tell a joke about his days covered in coconut oil in a hotel room, waiting for the next person to come smoke and fuck. As he said it on stage, he felt it in his body. That's the signal that you're not ready yet.
Reflective Question: If you create art, write, or share your story in any public way, how do you know when you're ready to share something? What's the difference between processing your trauma publicly versus sharing from a healed place?
But here's the beautiful part: once you have done that healing work, comedy and creativity become powerful tools for connection. When Alex tells his story from a place of distance and recovery, he's not just making people laugh—he's giving them permission to laugh at their own darkest moments. He's showing them that transformation is possible, that you can look back at the worst parts of your life and find meaning, humor, and hope.
Action Exercise: Choose one difficult memory from your addiction that still feels heavy. Work with it therapeutically first—journal about it, talk to your therapist or sponsor, sit with the feelings until they begin to shift. Only after you've processed it, try writing about it from a different perspective: as a movie scene, a letter to your future self, or even as something you might one day share with others. Notice the difference between processing and sharing.
The Responsibility of the Platform: Avoiding Glorification
Alex rides a careful line in his comedy: speaking truth to power without glorifying war stories. This is one of the most challenging aspects of sharing recovery stories, especially in creative formats. We want to be honest about where we've been, but we don't want to romanticize the using days or make it sound like "those were the good times."
The key is in the framing. Alex doesn't shy away from the reality of his addiction—he talks about the hotel rooms, the coconut oil, the desperate hope that the next person would be "the best sex of my life." But he frames it clearly: this was a breakup that was completely necessary. An abusive ex you can't stop thinking about. It's okay to remember the moments that felt good, but the freedom on the other side of that decision to leave is what matters.
For those of us in recovery, particularly those working with others, we have a responsibility with our platforms, no matter how big or small. We need to:
- Tell the truth without making it sound appealing
- Acknowledge that there were moments of pleasure without glorifying the overall experience
- Focus on the growth and healing rather than the drama of active addiction
- Remember that someone listening might still be using and looking for reasons to keep going
Journal Prompt: Reflect on your own addiction story. What parts do you find yourself romanticizing or missing? Write honestly about the good feelings drugs gave you, then write about the cost. Both are true. Both matter.
The Asheville Healing Vortex: Community, Queerness, and Creative Recovery
Alex describes Asheville as having a "vortex of healing" in the hills—a place where the intersection of queerness, neurodivergence, and creativity creates a welcoming recovery community. While not everyone can move to Asheville, there's something important here about the type of community that supports recovery.
The best recovery communities are ones where:
- People are ready to be welcoming and show you the way
- There's acknowledgment that we're all nervous and figuring it out together
- Creativity and self-expression are valued as healing modalities
- Neurodivergence is understood rather than pathologized
- Queerness is celebrated, not just tolerated
Whether you're in a big city with multiple recovery options or a smaller town where you need to be more creative, seeking out spaces where you can show up as your full self—gay, neurodivergent, creative, and in recovery—makes all the difference.
Reflective Question: What does your current recovery community look like? Are there spaces where you can be fully yourself, or are you still performing or hiding parts of who you are? What would it take to find or create a community where all of you is welcome?
Action Exercise: Research three different recovery communities or support groups in your area (or online if in-person isn't available). This could include 12-step meetings, SMART Recovery, LGBTQ+ specific groups, creative recovery groups, or informal gatherings. Visit each one at least once and pay attention to how you feel in the space. Where can you breathe easiest? Where do you feel most seen?
From the Stage to Real Life: Transferring Skills Across Contexts
One of the most interesting parts of Alex's story is how his performing experience—both in comedy and drag—gave him skills that translate to recovery. The ability to read a room, to know when something is landing or falling flat, to adjust your approach based on feedback—these are the same skills needed in recovery.
Performers know that art is "an ever-evolving organism within the creator." Your recovery story, your understanding of yourself, your approach to healing—these are all evolving too. What worked at three months sober might not work at three years. The joke that killed at an open mic might bomb at a booked show. You have to stay flexible, stay curious, and be willing to workshop your life the way Alex workshops his sets.
Reflective Question: What skills from other areas of your life (work, hobbies, past experiences) can you bring into your recovery? How might you apply the discipline, creativity, or strategic thinking from those contexts to your healing journey?
Action Exercise: Identify one skill you have from any area of your life and intentionally apply it to your recovery this week. If you're good at project management, create a recovery project plan. If you're musical, write a song about your journey. If you're analytical, track your triggers and patterns. Let your existing strengths support your healing.
Closing Reflection
Here's what Alex's story taught me, and what I hope it teaches you: your pain can become art, but only after it's become healing.
There's no shortcut. You can't skip the therapeutic work and jump straight to sharing your story in hopes that telling it will heal you. That's not how it works. You'll end up retraumatizing yourself on stage, in meetings, on social media, or wherever you're trying to process publicly. And worse, you might harm others who aren't ready to hear unprocessed trauma being worked out in real time.
But once you've done that work? Once you've sat with a therapist, cried in your journal, screamed into a pillow, talked it through with your sponsor, felt all the feelings and come out the other side? Then your story becomes medicine. Then your truth becomes a gift. Then your humor, your creativity, your art becomes a way of saying to someone else: "You're going to make it too."
Comedy is tragedy plus time, sure. But more than that, comedy is tragedy plus healing plus the courage to find light in the darkness.
Whether you're a comedian, an artist, a writer, or someone who just wants to share your experience with one other person, remember: do the work first. Feel the feelings. Heal the wounds. Get the psychological distance you need. Then, when you're ready, tell your story from that healed place.
The world needs your truth. But it needs your healed truth even more.
Love you,
Dallas đź’š
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