December 5, 2025
Dopey 560: Darrell Hammond, SNL to Crack House to Stroke Ward back to SNL! Cutting, Coke, SMI, Recovery
Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug AddictionAbout this episode
Inserted ad free shows: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast This week on Dopey! Comedy Legend and serious recovery survivor Darrel Hammond comes on the show! We dispose of a dead opossum. We reads listener messages about Patreon, Pearl Jam, the Charlotte McKinney episode, Spotify reviews, Theo Von speculation, “Many Rivers to Cross,” NA vs AA, and future guests like Tim Dillon. There’s a voicemail about colonoscopy propofol and an email from Canadian listener Dylan about secretly smoking purple fent in rehab and still graduating before getting three years clean on methadone. Dave tells his own stories about using in treatment and invites more “using in rehab” emails. The main interview is a long, raw conversation with Darrell Hammond about childhood abuse, feeling like an outsider, drinking his first Bush beers, baseball, impressions as survival, and finally uncovering buried trauma in intense psychodrama therapy. Darrell talks about self-blame around his sponsor’s suicide, years of in-and-out sobriety, cutting as a way to control panic and signal pain, and trying to work at SNL while hiding self-harm and drinking after the show. He gets into Clinton, the Comedy Cellar, how he finds the “funny” in impressions, the crack-house story on 137th Street, and the stroke that finally terrified him into fully embracing recovery, meetings, cognitive therapy, yoga, connection, and a “life of consultation.” He closes with his “religion” (improve myself, contribute to others’ happiness) and his take on God, gravity, Einstein, and serenity. Dave wraps with Patreon/Zoom plugs, Safe Spot and sticker/mustard ads, a quick Andrew Dice Clay impression, a mini rant about Instagram, and a sincere reminder that recovery is the best thing that ever happened to him. All that and more on this weeks installment of the good old dopey show! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.