Dopey 581: Zoe Hansen; Heroin, Sex Work, Shooting Speedballs, The Chelsea Hotel & Dying in Nancy Spungen’s Bed

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Dopey Episode Summary

This Week on Dopey! We open the show in full single-dad chaos mode—juggling pickups, tutoring, dance class, concerts, naps gone wrong, and trying to make it home in time for the Knicks game. He announces the upcoming Dopey Recovery Short Film Festival, then reads an extremely heavy anonymous listener email about sexual compulsion, addiction, shame, and finding support through SLAA.

The episode then shifts into classic Dopey mode with a wild voicemail involving cocaine psychosis, being naked with a fork, a pheasant-feather hat, and a guy selling condoms on campus.

We dives into Spotify and Patreon comments from the Andy Dick episode, reading praise, criticism, jokes, sobriety milestones, and fan reactions. Then the show turns into the main event: a long, gritty, hilarious and vulnerable interview with Zoe Hansen.

Zoe talks about growing up in wealthy but emotionally barren Chelsea, London, getting kicked out of school, discovering punk rock, heroin at 15, and moving to New York at 17. She describes working in hair and nightlife before entering the sex industry to support her habit, eventually becoming a seasoned brothel worker and heroin addict in late-80s Manhattan.

She tells incredible stories about brothel life, clients, police raids, methadone stash strategies, Lower East Side heroin stamps, speedballing in Hell’s Kitchen, dying briefly after a cocaine overdose in the Chelsea Hotel, waking blind, and living in the room where Nancy Spungen died. Zoe also reflects on spirituality, trauma, recovery, old New York, and writing her memoir Going Down in Gotham. A true Dopey legend episode.

All that and MORE MORE MORE this week on a brand new episode - of your favorite good old Dopey show!

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