EPISODE · Sep 2, 2026 · 1H 24M
My Brother Died of a Heroin Overdose with Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Harris Wittels, Grief, Recovery | Wednesday Dose
from Dopey: On the Dark Comedy of Drug Addiction · host Dave & Chris
DopeyCon Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905 PATREON SAVES on DOPEYCON TICKETS: www.patreon.com/dopeypodcast This week on the Dopey Dose! Dave opens the Wednesday Dose of Dopey with gratitude, recovery reflections and a reminder that it is possible to restart your day at any moment. A Canadian listener recounts ceremonially burying—and urinating on—his remaining cocaine while tripping on acid, while Northeast Ohio Bob remembers the drug-fueled chaos of Nelson Ledges Quarry Park. Then Stephanie Wittels Wachs joins Dave to discuss her new book, Last Day, and the death of her brother, beloved Parks and Recreation writer and comedian Harris Wittels. Stephanie remembers growing up and experimenting with weed, mushrooms, acid and whippets alongside Harris, his obsessive love of Phish and the moment his casual drug use became an urgent dependence on pills and heroin. Harris admitted spending $4,000 a month on pills while his career was exploding, entered treatment twice and died from an overdose shortly afterward. Stephanie explains how losing Harris transformed her into an advocate for harm reduction, overdose prevention and drug-policy reform. She and Dave discuss SafeSpot, Kimber and Stephen Murray, supervised consumption sites, the shame that forces people to use alone and the importance of keeping people alive without demanding that they become sober on someone else’s timetable. The conversation closes with an honest discussion of grief, therapy, purpose and gratitude. Stephanie describes how writing and caring for her daughter gradually helped her build a larger life around the permanent loss of Harris. All that and more on the brand new Wednesday Dose of Dopey! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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What this episode covers
Timestamps 01:15 – Welcome to the Wednesday Dose of Dopey 01:37 – Recovery means resetting the system 04:02 – Hunter Biden attention, DopeyCon and free Narcan 04:55 – Kevin’s cocaine-piss burial on acid 11:26 – Nelson Ledges Quarry Park insanity 13:52 – Patreon comments, Heart Attack Doug and Dolly Parton 16:12 – Spotify comments and anxious attachment 20:58 – Stephanie Wittels Wachs joins the show 23:16 – Redesigning the Dopey studio 31:29 – Grief, helping people and Snoop Dogg reading Last Day 35:50 – Why Stephanie still has skin in the addiction crisis 38:11 – Remembering Harris Wittels 40:34 – Harris’s childhood comedy obsession 42:58 – Doing whippets, mushrooms and acid together 45:18 – Did Phish change Harris’s drug use? 47:20 – Addiction, extremism and Stephanie’s work addiction 49:34 – Harris reveals his $4,000-a-month pill habit 52:02 – Rehab, heroin and the Pete Holmes interview 53:20 – Harris’s death and the failure of the “rehab fixes you” idea 55:41 – Family boundaries and the search for solutions 58:05 – How Stephanie became radicalized by harm reduction 01:00:32 – Kimber’s life-saving SafeSpot call 01:02:42 – Drug policy in Portugal, Switzerland and America 01:05:05 – Supervised consumption and the Dopey injection-site idea 01:07:28 – Keeping people alive on their own timeline 01:09:50 – Grief as a room inside a growing house 01:12:12 – Meaning, purpose and allowing grief to exist 01:14:31 – How loss created a greater appreciation for life 01:16:44 – Stephanie’s verdict on Dopey—and podcast video 01:18:59 – SafeSpot, Last Day and closing thoughts 01:20:46 – Listener cover of “Good So Bad” Five ad-break spots 11:26 – After the cocaine-piss burial voicemail 20:38 – Before Stephanie’s interview 38:11 – Before the conversation turns directly to Harris 53:20 – After the video interruption and before discussing his death 01:07:28 – After the supervised-consumption discussion
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My Brother Died of a Heroin Overdose with Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Harris Wittels, Grief, Recovery | Wednesday Dose
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