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This week on Dopey! My trainer Joe Belmonte comes over, and what starts with complaints about Howie’s camera angles and Joe’s horrible taste in music turns into an incredibly moving story of drugs, addiction, grief, and recovery.
Growing up on Long Island, Joe went from Catholic school, ecstasy at Webster Hall, and cocaine-fueled construction shifts to a massive blues habit with his girlfriend. Together, they stole and sold electronics across Long Island to support a pill habit that Joe says reached $1,500–$2,000 a day. Then came heroin, needles, speedballs, homelessness, and a relationship built around loving each other and getting high.
After their first trip to treatment, they returned home and used together again. Both overdosed. Joe woke up days later in the hospital, unable to walk, and learned that his pregnant girlfriend had died. He shares the devastating aftermath, learning to accept help, rebuilding in Florida, relapsing after nearly three years, and eventually finding his way back to recovery.
Today, Joe is a father, a business owner, and the guy responsible for listening to me complain through every fucking workout. We talk about anger, music, surviving grief, and why I have absolutely no desire to overcome a squat rack. Plus! Mandy’s acid trip at a Tool concert takes an unwanted turn, Harold remembers shooting meth while dope sick in Anchorage, the Betty episode divides Dopey Nation, and we launch a new Dopey Fitness Challenge!
All that and much more on a brand-new fitness intensive episode of Dopey that Good Old Dopey Show!
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