SoberNotMature - Episode 100 (Idle Hands And Other Playthings)

Bill (00:02.944)
All right, everyone, welcome once again to another episode of Sober Not Mature. And yes, this is episode 100. I know, I mean, it's just I know we had, you know, kind of talked about it. I want to say we teased it because we didn't really. But I mean, I've been promoting it this week, but you and I kind of had this on our on our minds, you know, over the last couple of weeks. But yeah, fucking 100 episodes, man. You know, we're.

Mike (00:13.346)
Woohoo!

Mike (00:28.516)
Yeah. God damn.

Bill (00:29.92)
I know, if I would have not even had the time, if I would have felt like taking the time, I was gonna look up that motherfucker, the 90% dude. The 90% dude, I was gonna look up statistics and then go, listen motherfucker, not only this, not only that, bleh, bleh. But you know what? I'm just gonna let all these words, this great shit that comes out, this great content that comes out of our mouths, literally speak for itself. How's that?

Mike (00:37.354)
Hehe

Mike (00:41.493)
Uh-huh.

Mike (00:51.596)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

Bill (00:58.188)
Uh, was it, did that convince anyone? Anyone? Did I, did I like hype everyone up? I was trying so fucking hard not to laugh because I'm just like, it doesn't fucking matter. All we did was sit on here for a hundred weeks in a row and have, you know, shoot the shit with each other. But, uh, I mean, it's, it is an accomplishment. There's a couple of things I want to talk about with that, but, uh, I think always, most importantly, cause I know you had a day which we're going to talk about, I'm sure, but, uh, you know, so why, why don't we get this reading out of the way?

Mike (01:01.072)
Not me, but that's fine.

Mike (01:11.412)
Right?

Mike (01:22.214)
Uh-huh.

Bill (01:27.5)
some of these good thoughts rolling around in our heads late in the day and, you know, brighten our moods for this 100th episode. How's that, Mike? Back to you. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Ha.

Mike (01:30.187)
Right.

Mike (01:40.331)
Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah, right. All right. Well, thankfully one jumped out at me this week and, uh, so I didn't have to do it. Yeah. Anyway. Right. So there it is. It's sitting right here for me, waiting for me, for me to read to you. Um, and actually, um, you shared this one. This was, uh, yesterday.

Bill (02:05.682)
Oh, okay.

Mike (02:06.086)
Um, yeah, and you put it up. I saw that, but you know, not everybody that listens to this reads our crap and everybody that reads our crap listens to this. So we're going to.

Bill (02:15.721)
Yeah, and if they hear it twice, if they're anything like me, even in the slightest, they're not going to fucking remember it anyhow. They'll be like, that's a great goddamn reading, Mike. I've never heard that before.

Mike (02:21.061)
Right. They're not going to remember and they probably need to hear it again.

Sure. Yeah. Anyway, so yesterday, January 18th. If you're listening to this, it's probably the 20th or beyond, but too damn bad. It's a time machine. All right. God, I'm a little loopy. Here we go. True life is lived when tiny choices are made. Leo Tolstoy. I believe he wrote some stuff.

Dependency is about losing the ability to say no. Recovery gives us back the gift of choice. Recovery by itself doesn't make us good people, but we will become good people by the choices we make. We create our new authentic life by choosing to place principles before personality. This means that we make choices based on good values. During our act of addiction, if it felt good, we did it.

In recovery, we choose based on doing the next right thing. Editors know, even if it doesn't feel good. Recovery, back to the reading. Recovery is choosing that we go to a meeting even when we don't feel like it. Recovery is choosing to keep our mouths shut when we were invited to gossip. Recovery is thousands of little choices, all of which must be guided by our values. We must choose wisely.

We must choose as if our life depends upon it, for it does. Prayer for the day. Higher power, guide my choices. Help me to place principles before personalities, even when I don't want to. Today's action. Oh, those lovely actions. As I walk through the day today, or drive, I will be mindful of the choices I make.

Mike (04:18.138)
I will slow the day down enough so that I can watch to see if my choices match my values.

Bill (04:26.016)
So did you slow your day down at all? Actually, your day slowed you down. Yeah, and I do remember that, obviously. But surprisingly, again, you could have told me that was from yesterday or six months ago. And I pick up on words, same thing. But.

Mike (04:33.082)
Yeah. Why are you slow?

Mike (04:44.242)
Yesterday, right?

Mm-hmm.

Bill (04:51.688)
So the couple of things that I wrote down right off the bat, you know, that opening talked about tiny choices, which I think is important. And then, you know, the fact that we get back the gift of choice, creating a new authentic life, the next right thing, we say that all the time, you know, doing the next right thing. And then even if we don't like it, which is I think one of the biggest things. And the last thing I wrote down was gossip, and that's one we can get back to in a minute, but.

Mike (04:58.188)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (05:17.364)
Ugh.

Bill (05:18.688)
You know, the gift of choice and even in the most basic sense, one of the things that to go back to when, when I first moved back to Wisconsin and I was in Madison and I went to, I was working in Milwaukee and got to go up to see Derek's practice, went up, had dinner, came back. And we're talking, you know, a 20 minute drive up, 20 minute drive back. And I saw all those liquor stores that I used to, you know, stop at a number of them, you know, and that's when.

Mike (05:38.832)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Bill (05:46.356)
You gave me, and I'm just going to call it the famous line of, you know, one of our famous podcast lines is enjoy the freedom, you know, because there was a time, you know, literally towards the end and, you know, for a long time in there that I didn't have a choice. I had to stop at that liquor store, you know, um, I couldn't just drive by and, and still it's funny. And I know we've probably, you and I have talked about this. I'm sure it's come up on here before, but to this day, you know, so

Mike (05:52.354)
Right.

Mike (06:00.578)
Right. Yeah.

Mike (06:11.519)
Hmm.

Bill (06:15.404)
13 years and nine months, is it nine? I think. Yeah, so 13 years and nine months later, I can drive into an area and I will notice where every liquor store and every bar is. I notice every one of them all the time. And I notice when there's things on sale and the big sale ads or whatever it is, I walk in, that Meijer's a little bit, I go by, actually I do, I do walk by the.

Mike (06:17.986)
Stuff like that. Yeah, we're getting close. Yeah.

Mike (06:27.382)
Oh, sure. Yep.

Mike (06:33.444)
Mwah

Bill (06:40.324)
booze aisle where the wine and the booze bottles are in Meyer just because I've I round this one corner where I get like uh I don't even remember what I get oh that's where like bread is and I've got to get my ranch dressing and I have to round out that aisle so I go buy it so I notice that all the time but I don't know it's just there but um again going into different towns like that you know I just notice it but it is that's the we now have the gift of choice first of all I don't want

Mike (06:42.885)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (06:54.542)
Hmm

Mike (07:09.064)
Right?

Bill (07:10.792)
I choose not to do it, but I don't have to. So that's the first thing, is having that, that gives choice, right?

Mike (07:14.35)
Exactly. Yep, absolutely.

Bill (07:19.852)
That's it. That's, I got, I got like coffee in my hand. Come on, let's go take a drink of coffee.

Mike (07:19.97)
Yeah, that's yes, we are free today. We are no longer a slave to the substance. It is a wonderful thing.

Bill (07:32.32)
Perfect, thank you. It's just, once again, it was just one of those things where I usually, you know, I don't know what I expect, either sometimes you'll say more than I expect, sometimes you say nothing. That's why I literally was sitting here looking at, I'm looking at your volume control on the computer screen, coffee in my left hand, about to take a drink, and I'm like, so that's it? Nothing more. Okay, coffee's gonna go, yeah, right. But yeah, the next thing was create a new authentic life,

Mike (07:34.131)
Yeah

Mike (07:43.672)
Hehe

Mike (07:52.406)
That's it. Keep it simple, man.

Mike (08:01.826)
Hmm

Bill (08:03.208)
I know we talked about that before. I know I lived a life that was, I mean, not even authentic, wasn't even in my vocabulary. I was, everything I was doing was fake, right? I mean, I know you did too, right?

Mike (08:11.755)
Right.

Mike (08:15.73)
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's funny, actually, my home group, the guy that led this week, um, he talked about, um, living by, um, inauthentic values. Yeah. You know, uh, living lies, you know, and believing them and, and living by a set of, of values that were inauthentic. Yeah. Those were the words he used. And I liked that a lot. Um, that was good. Yeah.

Uh, that's what we did. We, we lived this life that was unauthentic. And now, you know, you hear all the time in the rooms and whatever, you know, people talk about, Oh, getting your life back. Fuck. I don't want that old life back. I, yeah, I want this new authentic life. It's it's yeah, absolutely. That's it's one of my favorite lines out of that one.

Bill (08:56.244)
Ha! Right!

Bill (09:04.616)
Mm-hmm. Now somebody said that to us, I think. I know it was really early on, but it might even been in group or in a lead or something like that and said that exact thing. I don't want my old life back. I had the ability and had the ability to build a brand new one because that life that I had before wasn't worth building back. And I agree with that because, I mean, God, could you imagine, it's like taking this, I don't know, okay, so an example, the house next to you.

Mike (09:13.26)
Right?

Mike (09:17.111)
Mm-mm.

Bill (09:34.048)
You know, we were talking about when I was there that somebody bought it and all that stuff. And you said it had damaged and flooding and all this different stuff. And, you know, I mean, I, my first thought was, you know, somebody should just go into fucking bulldoze and start over. And then you're like, Oh, they can flip it. But I'm like, God, my thought was, and it's, it just reminded me of this, probably the same thing, the amount of work, effort and money that would take to rebuild that house. I know it could be done as long as, you know, the foundation isn't completely fucked, which

Mike (09:34.514)
Mm hmm. Oh, yeah.

Mike (09:40.328)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (09:45.441)
Hehehehehe

Mike (09:55.808)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (09:59.327)
Right.

Bill (10:00.296)
We weren't completely fucked. We still had, we were still walking this earth, you know, so there was something that could have been built, but yeah, they tried to rebuild what we had, bleh. No, thank you. No, fucking thank you. So that was a, and this has nothing to do with the reading, but it made me think of it with the whole authentic life thing. Have you ever heard of the term imposter syndrome or feeling like an imposter through this whole thing? Okay. And I don't remember if I ever brought it up, but I hear it on podcasts all the time and.

Mike (10:04.106)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (10:09.214)
Nah. Nope.

Mike (10:23.298)
Sure. Yeah.

Bill (10:29.888)
You know, people talking about, it's almost a, you know, people kind of tie that in with, you know, the trauma of this and then I had imposter syndrome and that led to whatever. It's, I've heard it a lot of times tied into the trauma that people dealt with because they don't feel they're worthy and whatever. You know, but I mean, really when, when shit goes well for us, every once in a while, I mean, admittedly I've sit back and I'm like, God damn, you know, it's a, it's the why me type of thing that we've talked about.

Mike (10:40.097)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (10:45.175)
Right?

Mike (10:55.025)
Mmm.

Mike (10:58.126)
Sure. Mm-hmm.

Bill (10:58.4)
Why do I get all these good things? Why am I still walking this earth? I don't have everything that I want far from it. My life has not been, hasn't even been close to fucking perfect. I was on a job search for months, which I wanna talk about briefly too, because I have a point with that. But so all these little things, but I don't know. I mean, I'm trying to think is that I feel like the, because the whole imposter syndrome, I believe is the mindset that we're not who we.

Mike (11:13.026)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (11:27.028)
are trying to be or we don't feel like we should be here, right? Is that the concept you think, you know?

Mike (11:30.031)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely, you know, when we were at the retreat, I think it was like the last step we did. There was a, I talked about it when we came back, you know, the guy said, I feel like a fraud. And I just looked at him, I just looked at him, I said, we all do, it's okay, man. You know, right. I mean, cause we know what we were, that old life.

Bill (11:43.826)
Oh yeah.

Mike (11:54.114)
And, you know, we've talked about it with the, I don't self be true and all that. I mean, right. Yes. This is not, you know, I'm a liar, cheat and a thief, man. That's what I am. Um, and this person that I'm, I've become is kind of not my true self, but my true self was a piece of shit. And I don't want to be that person anymore. So I'm changing and I'm becoming a better person, but yeah, it's, it's kind of fake. It's okay.

Bill (12:22.784)
Right, right.

Mike (12:23.614)
Right, but it's better, you know? I'm becoming a better person. No, it's not the true me. So fucking what? The true me sucks. It's fine. I wanna be better. Hehehehehehe.

Bill (12:34.021)
Right? Yeah, it's just I've heard the, it just reminded me when you said what that gentleman had said about living non-authentic or however you put that, just made me think about, you know, again, we were, yeah.

Mike (12:43.022)
Mm-hmm. Right. Living by false values, I believe is the actual words he used. Yeah.

Bill (12:52.044)
But I mean, we were, I know I was more of an imposter before I got sober than I am. Now I may feel like one, because I don't, maybe sometimes don't feel like, the same thing, like, either I'm not worthy is not a right way to put it, but maybe on the outskirts of it, a light, I'm not worthy light. I mean, I don't feel that way fully, but I don't know, when somebody comes to us for advice, whether it's about this thing or other things, or people trust you and they say, here,

Mike (12:56.97)
Mm hmm. Right.

Mike (13:04.705)
Mm-mm.

Mike (13:09.727)
Right, sure.

Mike (13:16.939)
Mm.

Mm. Right, right, right.

Bill (13:20.452)
watch my dog go into my house. I mean, all whatever things like that. And you're like, really? You know, here carry around $3,000 from, you know, your mom's estate sale, you know, cash. And just, I trust you to come back here with it. Really? Okay.

Mike (13:29.766)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Mike (13:37.384)
Right. And, and I mean, you know, the thought crosses my mind, you know, when something like that happens, I wonder how I could get away with this. I mean, it does, it still does. Absolutely. But you know, that I don't do anything with that thought. It's a thought and it passes and blah, blah. But yeah, absolutely, man. You know, those thoughts are still there. So yes, um, that's kind of where this, this fake thing, you know,

Does everyone think like this? I don't think so. You know, we all do, you know, but yeah, I mean, people don't. It just doesn't fucking cross their minds and it certainly crosses ours.

Bill (14:06.058)
Right.

Bill (14:13.88)
Right. Yeah. And it's it. We've said this plenty of times and this is well worth repeating. There is nothing wrong with having those thoughts, but as long as you, first of all, have it process it, get it out, you know, and I was in a grocery store. It just reminded me of, you know, thinking of having bad thoughts. I was in a grocery store and you know, this lady had her, you know, women put their purses in like where a child would go type of thing. And I'm walking, yeah. And I'm walking along in.

Mike (14:22.19)
Mm-mm.

Mike (14:27.498)
Right?

Mike (14:39.246)
Sure. Yeah, the little seat.

Bill (14:42.7)
you know, I'm walking right by and her purse is sitting in there and she's grabbing something off the shelf. And my thought is, I could grab that purse. I mean, and I'm thinking, you stupid lady, why are you doing that? Because I could grab it. Right. I mean, I'm not going to, but then again, literally in my head, I'm like, okay, I'm in Meyer, so I'm in the, you know, towards the back of the store.

Mike (14:46.744)
Uh-huh.

Hehehehehehehehehehe

Mike (14:55.018)
Right, oh yeah. Don't you know I'm walking past you?

Mike (15:03.031)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (15:06.734)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (15:09.068)
And I'm like, how would I even get out of here? You know, she would alert somebody, somebody would say something. There's only two different doors to get out. All this shit passes through my head. And I'm like, and then I just, I didn't even say to myself, you fucking idiot. You, what are you a psycho? I just went on and finished my shopping. I mean, I literally thought all those little things and then just let it out and I could just get on with my life.

Mike (15:11.081)
Mm hmm.

Mike (15:16.545)
You're right!

Mike (15:24.038)
Wait.

Mike (15:28.362)
Right. Yeah, exactly. Right. Which is which is what kind of plays into that fraud thing. Yeah. Oh, yes. Right. But but we don't act on that, you know, that there was certainly a time in my life where I would have grabbed that purse and ran like a motherfucker and maybe got away with it and maybe not, you know. But again, the choices comes back to that. You know, we choose not to do that shit today. We can't we can't choose not to have the thoughts.

Bill (15:35.916)
Alright.

Mike (15:57.534)
We can choose to, like you said, process them, recognize them and, you know, go, meh, it's probably not a good idea to move on. You know, that's, that's wrong. That's, you know, again, those values that would not be the next right thing. So I guess I won't do that today.

Bill (16:16.46)
Right. And I mean, seriously, that I hadn't thought about that until it happened or until we were talking about it or since it happened. That wasn't recently. That was a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago. I don't know. It was a while ago. And, you know, it was, it was almost like it's, it's as if for a normal human being, it's like walking through an aisle and smelling a fart and being like, damn, that stinks. And then you don't dwell on it and figure that was horrible in this and that process. And it just, it fuck it. It's a stick. It stinks. And you walk away. And that's kind of what I did. And I gave it.

Mike (16:22.899)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (16:26.254)
Sure. Yeah, all right. Yeah.

Mike (16:40.11)
Right?

Mike (16:44.062)
Right.

Bill (16:46.596)
I wasn't even in my head thinking that's a bad thing. It was just in, out, done. Which is, and I know what's bad. The reason my head threw it out is because my head knows it's wrong. Get the fuck out of here, man. That's terrible. Leave that lady alone. She's just grocery shopping, man. But then, of course, you said, next right thing, which we talk about that all the time. I use that as, I don't know if it's in our...

Mike (16:52.438)
Right.

Mike (16:56.802)
Mm hmm. Right.

Mike (17:08.763)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (17:14.304)
like embedded hashtags, but I use that quite a bit. You know, things like this are concepts about the doing the next right thing come up quite a bit in the readings and things like that. So, and sometimes that's all that we can do. You know, maybe some days all we can do is stay sober and that's a good day, quote unquote. And then, you know, if nothing else, just what's the next right thing that we can do? You know, life's hitting us in the face or shit's going wrong or we're pissed off. And then, but what do we do next? You know, or how do you...

Mike (17:21.846)
Right. Mm-hmm.

Mike (17:28.493)
Right. Mm-hmm.

Mike (17:41.662)
Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm-hmm.

Bill (17:43.82)
The next right thing is to walk away and not steal the lady's purse. So very common.

Mike (17:49.103)
Right. Yeah. And you know, and but then we get to profit from it because we get to get our groceries and go home and enjoy them. Right. Not sitting in County going, fuck, I probably shouldn't have grabbed that purse.

Bill (17:58.388)
Right. Yeah. And. Right. Yeah. Either you know, there's one or two things is going to happen there. Either I'm going to get arrested or the one of the, you know, 14000 cameras they have in Myers going to, you know, catch me. I'm in there all the fucking time. Somebody would know me when there was the deli department or the, you know, the lady, the lady at the self-checkout, she knows. We say, hey, how you doing? Have a nice weekend. You know, have a great day.

Mike (18:10.83)
Mm.

Mike (18:15.918)
Sure. Right.

Mike (18:23.887)
Alright, alright.

Bill (18:26.08)
Well, that's the other thing. I forget what day it was. I did shopping on a, I think I did shopping on a Friday when I came out for, yeah, it was when I came out there for New Year's Eve. So I went to, and this thought crossed my mind at that time because we had talked about at one point of, you know, liquor store hopping, a grocery store, store hopping, and again, every seven days or every three days, you know, we're in the same store anyhow, but.

Mike (18:35.182)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (18:47.62)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Mm-hmm.

Bill (18:52.992)
You know, so once a week I'm in these stores. I go to the vape store, I go to Aldi, Walmart, and usually Walmart if I need some incidental items and then Meyer. Walmart, nobody knows me. I mean, you know how any Walmart is. You know, you're just in and out and dude, I see people that I see on a regular basis, but you know, there's too many fucking people in there. But, right. You know, in the Walmart here is decent, it's cool, it's clean, but the same deal. You just, you are, you're just one of many, you know, that's in there.

Mike (19:00.458)
All right.

Yeah, right, right. Mm-hmm.

Mike (19:09.526)
Eh. Alright, I put my head down, try to get through it, get the fuck outta there, right?

Mike (19:17.773)
Right.

Mike (19:21.525)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (19:23.052)
The people at the vape store, when I walk in, they know exactly what I want all the time now. When I go to Aldi, again, nobody really, Aldi's the same type of thing. I go to self checkout or do whatever, but when I go to Meyer, usually if I go on a Saturday, the two people behind the deli, maybe three, one for sure, all the time because he's there. He knows, just ask me how much chicken I want that day.

Mike (19:26.458)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Mike (19:44.654)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (19:50.696)
And then when I go to Domino's, when I walk into Domino's now, um, as soon as I round, you know, the guy, one or two of the guys see me and they just go up and grab my pizza and hand it to me, you know, in like, like you. I mean, you've been going to that one for what? Four years now.

Mike (19:53.472)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (19:59.142)
Right. Yeah. Me too. Right. Yep. Four years, right. Yeah. Since I moved into the house. Yeah.

Bill (20:07.42)
And I'm walking out of these things and I'm just like, how fucking delusional were we? I mean, I'm in there doing, again, the next right thing. I'm eating, I'm just getting shit that I need or whatever and all these fucking people know me. All I do is walk in the door and they fucking know me. And yeah, nobody knew because I went to seven different grocery stores and liquor stores, so air quote, nobody would know me. Yeah, it just, the fool.

Mike (20:14.558)
Right.

Mike (20:19.231)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Mm hmm.

Mike (20:29.286)
Right.

Right. Yeah. Well, honestly, at the end, I didn't, I just went to the same ones because I didn't give a fuck. Just give me my shit and get out of my way. Yeah. Ha ha ha.

Bill (20:39.028)
Right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's a point when it gets to be, it gets to be a lot of work and yeah. But the last thing was, even if we don't feel like it, which is something we were told again, early, early on, you know, go to meetings, go and do anything, anything that you had to do. And I say had to do at that time for a recovery standpoint, even if we didn't feel like it because.

Mike (21:01.053)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (21:06.604)
Going to a meeting and even to this day, I don't begrudge if I go to a meeting because when I do, maybe because I don't go to a lot of meetings anymore, but when I do, it's a thing for me, I like it. I like it in general, but I never go with that mindset. But there's things that I don't wanna do, from a recovery standpoint. But we're always told you're gonna feel better afterwards and nobody ever lied to us, so.

Mike (21:13.806)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (21:17.206)
Right. Mm-hmm.

Mike (21:22.378)
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Mike (21:30.479)
I, uh, well, I, yeah, my day, but, um, the last time I talked to Chris, I was like, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this.

Bill (21:32.428)
But yeah, that's the biggest thing.

Mike (21:56.034)
today. I was at the Domino's parking lot waiting for my pizza and called her said, Hey, I made it off the freeway. I'm you know, I'm at Domino's, we're gonna head home. And I said, I get to do a podcast tonight. Because I fucking did not want to. Yep.

Bill (22:10.508)
Hehehehehehe

Right? Yeah. And it's, but it is it. It's that, it's that thing in this, you know, and we've made no, no secrets about this. I mean, we, we have a lot of fun doing this and it's a lot of fucking work though. I mean, social media is becoming just a lot of work. And it, with this new job coming up, which I'll talk about in a minute, I mean, I'm going to have to back off a little bit on the social media side of things and, which is not a big deal, but you know,

Mike (22:25.4)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (22:28.622)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (22:38.72)
Right?

Bill (22:42.548)
I'll do a post about it to let people know so people don't think what the fuck, because I'm on there a lot and I get engaged a lot, but I need to figure out what my life's going to look like with this job before I can, you know, I don't know how much time I'm going to have to begin with. So social media is a lot of fucking work and anyone who's doing it other than just personal, you know, because Facebook was never worked for me. It was just, it got to be, I don't know, Facebook was just fucking Facebook, you know, on a personal level.

Mike (22:44.91)
Mm-hmm. Okay. Right.

Mike (22:55.854)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (23:06.466)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (23:11.636)
When, if anyone, if anyone does any sort of social media, uh, once again, for a podcast to promote something, to try to sell something, anything like that, where you're, or as a creator or influencer, whatever the fuck people call themselves, whatever we might be designated as, which I don't even fucking know. We do, we make shit. So are we a creator? You know, we try to get people to listen. So are we trying to influence people? I don't fucking know. We are.

Mike (23:24.062)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (23:31.154)
Yeah.

Mike (23:35.074)
I glance over at the screen and it tells me I'm a Mike.

Bill (23:39.013)
Right. We're a Cree, we're Cree influencers. Oh, we're inflators.

Mike (23:43.918)
Hmm, right. Pump it up.

Bill (23:49.012)
Yep. Yeah, that's who we are. We are inflators. That's from now on, we're not influences or creators. We are inflators. There we go. You're like, what the fuck ever. Don't care. You know, but yeah, this can this can be work, but even in it's so funny because this is almost like when I sit down to do this. It's almost like when I sat down at my Friday meetings for four years. It was the

Mike (23:57.462)
Okay.

Mike (24:03.886)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (24:15.342)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (24:16.384)
The first time, even if I go to a meeting throughout the week or whatever, but there was a point where I was just doing a Friday and a Saturday meeting. When I sat down at that Friday night meeting, long week running around doing this, doing that, and all of a sudden you sit down in about 15, 20 minutes before the meeting starts and it just, you're tired. I'm like, I get the same way here now because I'll get everything set up. I usually give myself a half hour to 45 minutes before.

Mike (24:23.842)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (24:33.442)
Right?

Mike (24:36.996)
Hehe

Bill (24:44.608)
You know, we record to make sure everything technology is working and all that sort of thing. And then kind of like at that point, I'm just like, okay, grab a coffee, do whatever. And then I still have 15, 20 minutes. And seriously, the same thing. I'm like, ah, fucking tired. You know, but when, when we get on here, it's just, it, everything changes, which is that's even if we don't feel like it, that's what it's supposed to be. You know? So.

Mike (24:48.61)
Right.

Mike (24:58.074)
Oof.

Mike (25:07.646)
Right. Yeah. Well, clearly it took me a few minutes to ramp up, but here I am.

Bill (25:12.636)
Right. Well, but you know what? And here's the thing. And I, we started doing, you know, the, you started doing the reading. And I say we just because I mean, we're doing it on here. But I mean, obviously you started doing the reading, you know, for a reason because it, you know, you openly said it's something you missed, you enjoy doing it. And I thought, well, that's kind of cool. You know, and I thought that that, I mean, I agree that'd be cool, a cool something. I keep looking at, this is complete, you know,

Mike (25:23.822)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (25:29.919)
Right. Yeah.

Mike (25:38.739)
Mm-hmm. Squirrel.

Bill (25:39.4)
I'm just glancing at my screen and it just, episode 100 is looking at me. It says Riverside, episode 100. And I'm like, that's fucking cool. Can you see that top of your screen, top left? I feel pretty fucking good about that, so anyhow. But lost it. Oh yeah, yeah. But the other thing too is that I think that...

Mike (25:43.884)
Yeah. Yes, it does. It is. I do. Yup.

Yeah!

Mike (25:58.792)
A reading you were talking about doing the reading.

Bill (26:05.476)
it puts both of us in the right mood. We've got this short little opening. I usually have something in my head to fuck around with, if nothing else, but then it gives us an opportunity to, same thing as we do in the morning, we get our heads straight.

Mike (26:08.337)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (26:12.226)
Alright.

Mike (26:18.43)
Right. Yeah. It's start the day, start the podcast, right? If it works for the day, it works for the podcast.

Bill (26:23.456)
Right, and nine times out of 10, you know, we occupy, like in this case, it's, you know, almost what, 20, is it 26, 27 minutes? You know, we're talking probably 25 of that, you know, 24 of that has been talking about the reading and the reading itself. You know, so it's great. It's a great way to, I don't know, occupy our mind or put our mind in the right place. I don't know of any other way to say that. Right.

Mike (26:37.36)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Mike (26:44.742)
Right. Yeah. Right. Point us in the right direction. Again, same thing as every day, right? Get up in the morning, read these goddamn books and point me in the right direction, cause otherwise I'll walk right over the cliff. Yep.

Bill (26:57.776)
Yep, yep, because the toes are on the edge of that cliff. And I do have something about the readings written now, but I'll get to that in a minute or two, or one of the readings. But so the last thing on there was gossip. And I remember not only reading that this time, but obviously reading it several times before that for the last however many years. And gossip is a tough one, because I think that, I don't even think, everyone talks about people.

Mike (27:05.045)
Alright.

Mike (27:09.048)
Mmm.

Mike (27:16.494)
Sure.

Mike (27:20.91)
Mm.

Bill (27:26.816)
But when does it become gossip? I mean, if you're telling, if somebody asks a question about somebody and you're passing along true information, is it gossip? Or are you just filling somebody in about something? If you're talking about somebody out of character, say, don't tell anybody else or don't tell him I said this, don't tell her I said that, then that's the on-ramp to gossip right there, right?

Mike (27:32.36)
Mm-hmm.

All right.

Mike (27:46.408)
Right, right.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think you just, uh, nailed it. Exactly. You know, if it's, if you're keeping, if it's a secret and you don't want it to get around, which is sort of the. Anti-gossip. Um, but right. Yeah. You know, if you're open and honest and you tell the person to their face, then what's the problem, right? If you want to keep it secret from everybody, and especially the person you're talking about, it's probably not a good idea.

Might wanna look at that.

Bill (28:18.852)
Right? And it happens. I mean, it happens everywhere, but I mean, I know what happens in AA meetings. And the worst of it is, and we've had, I think we've had at least one, if not two people on here, and I've run across a few people, probably in the last couple of years, well, at least the last year or so, year and a half since we've been on Instagram, read stories or whatever where their sponsor.

Mike (28:22.76)
Oh sure.

Mike (28:26.734)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (28:40.599)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (28:44.536)
either broke their anonymity or leaked information about their fifth or whatever it is. And I'm like, that's fucked up. There was some, there was some guests that we had that brought that up too. And I can't remember, it doesn't matter who it is, but I remember that being brought up and it's just like, fuck man, you know? And that goes back to, you know, that, that fifth step I didn't think about at the time. And I, I don't believe you did either. We were just told to go to a priest, you know, but

Mike (28:48.909)
Hmm.

Well yeah.

Mike (28:57.249)
Right.

Mmm.

Mike (29:10.698)
Yeah, yeah, go call this number. This guy's gonna, this guy's gonna do your fifth step with you. All right.

Bill (29:16.158)
Right. And, you know, but after all said and done, and I don't remember even hearing stories, but probably hearing people talk about the sponsor type of thing, and then, you know, what if, and, you know, now this person has, you know, a head full of your story. You know, not that, I don't know, is it less likely for a priest, you know, to gossip about it? I think so. But, you know, I don't know.

Mike (29:26.229)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (29:38.122)
Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, I, I don't worry about it because nobody I give a shit about goes and talks to priests anyway. So

Bill (29:44.812)
Right? Well, and on top of that too, that guy literally, the guy that we went to was a fucking professional fifth step listener, you know? I mean, yeah, this dude probably listened to half the fifth steps on the west side of Cleveland. I don't know if he just listened to, you know, it was just guys, you know? I mean, obviously it was you and I, I don't know if he was, you know, if.

Mike (29:51.341)
Right.

Yeah, right, right.

Mike (30:02.013)
Exactly.

Mike (30:10.206)
Yeah, if women went to him, I don't know. Right. Sure. Hmm, yeah.

Bill (30:12.992)
Yeah, I just kind of crossed my mind because I think about the sponsor side of things. But yeah, I suppose this is a lot. No, I was just going to say something bad. I'm not going to, I'm not going to. Yeah, wait, next right thing, next right thing. Oh, whew, that was fucking close. It was teed right up there when I'm like, no, you know what, everyone please write that down because this is going to be probably the only time that I held my tongue that you're going to hear it.

Mike (30:24.647)
Good. Right, exactly. I had the thought, but I will not act on it.

Bill (30:42.132)
you know, that you're not gonna hear it. Let me put it that way because that's not that I, I say all the bad thoughts, but I, on here, it's why, I don't know why it's so easy sometimes. Some of the shit just comes out of my mouth, but I'm like, eh, whatever, fuck, I just said that, didn't I? Yep. But yeah, so the gossip thing, and I know I'd be a flat out fucking liar if I said that I never gossiped about people. I don't make a habit of it. I wanna make a conscious, you know,

Mike (30:43.547)
Hehehehe. Right.

Mike (30:52.839)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Yep.

Mike (31:07.679)
Of course.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Bill (31:11.5)
thought about it or a conscious effort to do it. But yeah, I mean, it can be just like anything else, man. It's fucking damaging, you know? And because nine times out of 10, probably eight out of 10 times, it's not true. Or, you know, it's a watered down version of the truth, you know, at an absolute minimum, you know? So just, yeah, it's a bad deal. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, well, what is that? We used to play that game in school where it was it just called...

Mike (31:20.627)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (31:28.526)
Sure. Right. Yeah. Misinformation. Don't do it, man. Stick with the truth.

Mike (31:41.014)
The telephone game? Yeah.

Bill (31:41.556)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You tell somebody whatever it is, like the sky is blue with green ice cream, and then by the time it gets to the other thing, it's the blue lake with no ice cream around it or something, it's a snicker bar in there somewhere. Because yeah, nobody can fucking remember what they're saying anyhow.

Mike (31:52.352)
Right.

Mike (31:59.95)
Mm-mm.

Bill (32:01.9)
So yeah, I mean, that's, I like the reading. Anything else with the reading itself or you good?

Mike (32:09.23)
No, I think that covered it.

Bill (32:10.428)
Okay, so the one thing, the only thing I wanted to, before we take a break here, I just wanted to touch on the job thing, because I thought about it and it was just the, I don't know, based on some of the thoughts that I went through during this job search. So I, we talked about it here and there, but the short story again, I quit the job at the company I was with in Milwaukee back at the end of June. That had to happen. I didn't realize how much it was kind of fucking me up, you know, physically, all that stuff, and mentally, but

Mike (32:25.219)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (32:38.399)
Right.

Bill (32:40.404)
I don't regret that choice at all. It was a good choice and I made the opportunity or took the opportunity, you know, to, to try to start the coaching business, which I get everything done in the background, it didn't flourish and that's okay because I, I not only talked to Mike about it. I talked to our sister about that. I'd laid a plan out to everyone. I'm like, this is what my plan is. And I'm like, it's, it's three months, but after two, if it's not going the way I plan on it.

Mike (32:58.166)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (33:06.624)
I'm going to start looking for a full-time job. And within the next 30 days, I should have another job. And here I am, right? So that would have been, you know, September, right? And it's January. And I'm starting a new job on February 5th. So one, two, three, four. It's a lot of time. It's a long time. And the thing of it is that, well, two things. I've been through, just thinking about it before. I think this is my...

Mike (33:07.221)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (33:16.449)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mike (33:25.346)
Hehe

Bill (33:35.772)
My fourth major job search that I've had since I've been sober. Um, one of them, two jobs, basically my one company went out of business, two other jobs, basically one position was eliminated, the other one, um, kind of a downsizing type of thing. And this one I left on my own. You know, I mean, I, this was my choice, but, um, this was the hardest one. Other ones took time and, you know, I mean, you've been around, you know, during the process, but this one took less time.

Mike (33:40.653)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (34:01.017)
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Bill (34:05.46)
you know, from start to finish, you know, than some of the other ones. But, man, this was the hardest one. And I think I told you the other day, Mike, that I literally every day, you know, I'm application after application, all these online things through Indeed. And Indeed was the main one I was using. So I, after all said and done, and I got this job offer with this company, just out of curiosity, I searched my Gmail and I had 350 hits on

Indeed, which means I don't, I don't email with Indeed for any other reason than, Hey, we got your job application, right? So that was 300. There was still why or live and open or I hadn't heard from, you know, might've been maybe another, when I get a rejection, I delete and search and then delete the original one. So I didn't have garbage email in there. Then there was SIP recruiter. There was LinkedIn. There was two other websites. So I don't know. I mean, did I have.

Mike (34:42.651)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (34:55.938)
Right.

Bill (35:02.524)
600 applications, 700, 1,000. I don't know, but I had, out of all those, let's just say, let's make it conservative. It's 700, okay? I had four, no. I had five interviews out of 700 applications, okay? Five, where I actually got to put my face or a voice into a job, you know? Fucking five.

Mike (35:05.936)
Right?

Mike (35:13.549)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (35:19.97)
Hmm.

Damn.

Mike (35:27.999)
Right.

Bill (35:33.112)
I got the phone interview on a Wednesday. I did the Zoom interview with the two hiring people, kind of the trainer managers on a Thursday, and I got the job offer on a Friday. You know, it's, but it's, I was gonna say, but it's, it doesn't matter, because I was applying for a jobs in the collection business, things I've done before. And you know, this is, it's a non-management position, little bit less money than what it would be, but I've got a lot of opportunity to make money and it's no residency restrictions, all the things I wanted that way, fully remote, blah, blah.

Mike (35:50.19)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Bill (36:02.528)
It'll take time to get into that, but the money part of it, you know, actually making some money. Um, but I was just like, fuck it. You know, the thing of it is, is that, you know, I, I took my own advice. I took your advice. I took everyone's advice. It was given to me as this shit is outside of my control, you know? And I, I'll tell you, it was getting to the point where every night when I, when I lay down the bed, you know, what to go to bed and do my, my 10th step, you know, and I, especially in the last probably.

Mike (36:08.108)
Thank you.

Mike (36:19.92)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (36:31.092)
month, two months, whatever it was, I'm sitting there, sometimes I'm just like, fuck, I don't know what to do anymore. You know, because the only thing that I can, what I finally came down to, and I stopped bitching about it when I was going to bed is I would just say, okay, same thing. I'm like, your will not mine. That's what I always used to say. You know, I'd say for everything, your will not mine, whatever your is, you know? And then I'm like, um, I could use some guidance, um, maybe a sign. I'm not sure if I believe in them, but Hey, um,

Mike (36:37.438)
Right?

Mike (36:48.418)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (36:56.914)
Alright?

Alright.

Bill (36:59.948)
but I'm gonna continue to do the work and that's all I can do. And that's what I did and I would go to sleep. But then it was driving me fucking nuts. But my point behind that is that, well, two things. Things like this, these are the stressors. Yeah, it's a big thing, it's a job and whatever, but things like this can drive people in the wrong direction. If I was still drinking, I would have been a fucking mess. I just wanna drink more. And just because I've got...

Mike (37:23.798)
Right.

Bill (37:27.348)
some time under me doesn't mean I didn't feel the stress. And I know I was snippy, sometimes I was quiet. I just kept to myself because I didn't, I had this anxious rage inside of me. And I'm like, this has nothing to do with anyone around me, anyone I might come across, anything like that. So I just kept doing what I was doing. And my point is I got through it. But here's the other thing, and this is from, nothing to do with recovery, but to give.

Mike (37:30.624)
Alright.

Mike (37:34.055)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (37:39.548)
Sure. Hehehehehehehehehehe

Mike (37:44.426)
Right. Mm-hmm.

Mike (37:52.247)
Right.

Bill (37:56.208)
anyone just a glimmer of hope if you're out there looking for a job. I did a lot of reading and a lot of research. I did a lot of activity on LinkedIn. And what I heard was, first of all, I wasn't the only one that made me feel a little bit better. There was a ton of people, a few people were posting, you know, things saying that the job market is just fucking brutal, you know, and same people like me, 100, 500, 700 jobs, only a couple of interviews.

Mike (38:08.334)
Mm-hmm. Right?

Mike (38:17.198)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (38:22.824)
And then this recruiter came on LinkedIn and wrote this article and said, okay, all you job seekers out there get it. We're all dealing with recruiters were losing their fucking jobs. Okay. Because there weren't enough openings to fill. And I'm like, how does any of this shit happen? You know, but anyhow, so what happened was this recruiter had this post and she said, first of all, there's a bright light. I'll talk about that in a minute. But she said, this is what's been happening. You know, I think it would be one, one article I read about the pandemic, all these, all this things, this job boom, this whatever, everyone remote.

Mike (38:31.766)
Right, right?

Mike (38:36.609)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (38:52.268)
A lot of other positions because they had to fill things that weren't there before. You know, so people go back into the office, um, a need sometimes for less people to support the people that are remote, all that sort of thing. And then companies started to get this mindset over the last year or so is that they can do the same with less. So they, the hiring started going down, you know, and I personally, I think AI

Mike (38:56.238)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (39:12.394)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (39:19.668)
has something to do with this, there's gonna have something to do with this in a good way, not in a bad way. I don't think AI is gonna take away from this, I think it's gonna help. Because all these really, really intelligent people, and even some non-intelligent people like me, are figuring out how to be more productive using even just a little bit of AI, which frees up time to open up, maybe the company says, okay, we're doing all this good work now, if it would take 50% of our days, now taking 30%.

Mike (39:37.654)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (39:46.348)
here's all these back burner things we wanted to do, so let's do this and now we need more people. So that's what I think. And I'm no expert, that's just it. I've seen different things in business that just seems right. But the recruiter said that all these companies after the first year, brand new budgets open up, people will start hiring again. And literally, I mean, I got more responses to people. There was jobs that weren't a fit for me.

Mike (39:59.019)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (40:11.872)
But I got more responses within the last two weeks before I got this job offer than I had in the last three months. So yeah, it is, I think, but I, and seriously, I know I can't be the only one out there that's looking for a job. So if you're listening this and you were looking for a job or waiting for the dogs to bark, um, all of that, all of that is opening back up. No, seriously, just don't, you cannot lose faith. I was going to say, don't just, I'm saying you cannot, it's not fucking worth it.

Mike (40:12.449)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (40:18.622)
Right. Well, there you go. So it is opening back up.

Mike (40:30.666)
Right?

Hehe

Mike (40:40.15)
Right. Yeah.

Bill (40:41.82)
Um, recognize the, the angst and talk to somebody if you need to, um, or just shut your mouth so you don't fucking burn up a relationship or a bridge over it. Um, it's not fucking worth literally. And I, I think I used the term anxious rage and that's not, that's not an understatement. Right. And it did. So, all right. So I just, yeah, and it was one of, and I kept hearing your fucking voice in my head the entire time.

Mike (40:51.25)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Yes.

No, no, but this too shall pass. Right. They take a little longer than you wanted it to, but it will pass.

Bill (41:11.596)
You know, in not in a bad way. Like, why is it taking so long? It's gonna take as long as it's gonna take. That's why. All right. But anyhow, so you know what? Let's take a fucking break. It's time.

Mike (41:12.505)
Alright. That's right.

Mike (41:27.189)
It is time apparently it's someone else's time it is time for us to shut the fuck up for a minute and have a word from our sponsor

Bill (41:43.172)
Alright everyone, welcome back. Welcome back to some more of our time. Our time. It is our time, Mr. Hand. If you're not, look back on our episode. You're gonna, you're gonna see Mr. Hand on there. That's uh, That's a fun one. That's a fun one.

Mike (41:48.475)
Our time? Is this our time, Mr. Hand?

Mike (41:57.897)
Hehehehe Mmhmm

Bill (42:00.649)
Um, hang on one second here. I just gotta make a quick note.

Mike (42:03.878)
late great Ray Walston, my favorite Martian.

Bill (42:05.996)
Yeah, when did, yeah, but when did he, when did he pass away?

Mike (42:12.446)
Blah blah blah. I wanna say like maybe the mid 90s?

Bill (42:16.684)
God, was it really that long? Fuck.

Mike (42:19.034)
Oh yeah. Let's see. Hmm. Rented way Ray Walston die.

Bill (42:20.276)
Wow. I know. I was gonna say both of us have fucking computers in front of us, but...

Bill (42:27.832)
Hehehe

Mike (42:29.215)
Ah, 2001.

Bill (42:30.932)
Yeah, well, you said mid 90s is close enough.

Mike (42:35.05)
Yeah. 86 years old. Had a good run.

Bill (42:36.596)
I mean, it was within a six window, that six window area, whatever. Right. But you know what I thought about though, speaking of episodes, again, and I tried to stop myself from saying it again, but I didn't know what else to say. On to the next thing. What we, no, the and again thing.

Mike (42:43.138)
Six-year window. Okay.

Mike (43:01.307)
What? She have a stroke.

Bill (43:05.52)
No, I didn't, I didn't. I was gonna say, and again, this is our 100th episode, but like I'm trying to get away from, no, I'm trying to get away from saying the and again thing because it annoyed the fuck out of me, remember? So anyhow, we are within our 100th episode. So just curiosity-wise, did you have, I don't know, I mean, this is probably a stupid question, it's hard to look back, but.

Mike (43:13.038)
Wow. I thought I was the one that was exhausted.

Mike (43:20.53)
Right, I know. All right, and again.

Mike (43:27.426)
We are.

Bill (43:34.924)
Did you have a favorite episode out of the 100? Ha ha! Ha ha ha.

Mike (43:44.708)
I'm like,

Bill (43:48.328)
Right? So it's, so you're saying it's amber. Okay, amber. Right.

Bill (44:01.74)
Well...

Hahaha!

Mike (44:09.002)
You know, there's been a couple that weren't as great as the rest, but only a couple out of a hundred pretty fucking good, man, I'd say, you know, 92, 92 of them have been absolutely wonderful. Now you have to go back and listen to all of them to figure out the ones I'm talking about.

Bill (44:14.72)
Right. Yeah.

Bill (44:22.9)
Right. Well...

Bill (44:29.157)
And, and you know, the funny part is, is that so I've been in the only thing I'll do, I'll check our analytics a lot of times for her, because it blows my mind sometimes still the audience we're still really, I mean, we're fucking crushing it with the 35 to 44 year olds somehow again, more men and more within that age group, you know, but it'll flop around when it's a female side of things, we've had that same age group. So

Mike (44:44.555)
Hmm.

Mike (44:49.376)
Uh huh.

Bill (44:54.032)
If you're in that 35 to 44 range, I have no fucking idea why you guys are like the special group now, but almost half of our listeners in the last 30 days have been within that range. And I'm, I don't know, I don't know where it all where you all fucking came from. But stick around. It's cool. Thank you. Tell your friends.

Mike (44:54.081)
Right?

Mike (45:05.742)
Mm-hmm. Hmm.

Mike (45:11.514)
Right. Absolutely. Well, probably, probably because we're like, you know, 20 years behind where we should be. So they relate to us.

Mike (45:23.554)
Hehehehe

Bill (45:30.407)
Ha ha

Mike (45:35.342)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (45:46.368)
The audio in some cases was sketchy and other cases is just downright fucking sucked. You know, and echoing and cutting out and Mike and I talking over each other. And because neither one of us could hear the other one was talking and it was just, uh, you know, it was, it was back when we were, you know, back in the day when we were just, you know, poor little, poor little new podcast, podcast boys. Yeah. And it was, it was.

Mike (45:52.878)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (45:56.066)
Right?

Mike (46:01.004)
Right.

Mike (46:09.086)
Right. A couple of tin cans and a string connected to the internet.

Bill (46:14.212)
Only about one or two steps ahead of a tin fucking can too, because it was just our cell phones. But the first 10 episodes, even taking out the first three, because the episode number two is us just fucking around trying to get this set up. My episode one, your episode three. So the ones that we started telling stories were basically starting with episode four, like four through 10, actually up until 13, I think, where there was a lot of good stories, a lot of background to what we went through.

Mike (46:17.77)
Right. Oh yeah. Right.

Mike (46:35.383)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (46:42.314)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (46:42.612)
you know, in our early days, you know, so. Yeah, and I mean, just literally talking about shit that popped off the top of our heads. Right. But, you know, now it's like we, you know, we'll talk about something like, well, we talked about this a long time ago, but here's just that we'll give the again, the Cliff's Notes version. But so. If you just popped in recently, anytime, you know, go back to those episodes, if you can, you know, just trudge your way through the

Mike (46:45.662)
Introducing ourselves to the world.

Mike (46:52.639)
Well, that hasn't changed.

Bill (47:11.964)
weirdness in the audio. I'd say again episodes four through probably 15, you know, is probably a lot of our stories. But the other thing too is I tried to in the descriptions of every episode, at least give a brief idea of what we talked about. Sometimes we just talked about way too much and I'm like, just fucking listen, you know, I mean, or I'm tired, you know, like the one time that we recorded late and I'm, you know, I think I wrapped up, you know, everything that I was doing at like one in the morning or something like that.

Mike (47:30.478)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (47:41.388)
But that was a fun episode. That was one of the, we were just fucking punched up like crazy on that one. But yeah, so the other one too, we talked about mom's episode, that's a given. Dr. Sarah was, she was a phenomenal guest. She was just a lot of fun and she's somebody we would like to have on again. Every one of our Cleveland friends were special for, just because they're our Cleveland friends. And then,

Mike (47:46.089)
Hehe

Mike (47:53.858)
Right? Yeah.

Mike (47:59.872)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (48:10.216)
All the other guests that we had, we've had authors, we had Dr. Sarah, we've had business individuals, we've had people that done different types of programs, we've had men, women, young, old, different races, different backgrounds, different sexual orientations, just this whole mix of these, I don't know how to say it, these beautiful stories from these fucking random people. And I say that in the most loving way. You fucking random people, yeah.

Mike (48:34.999)
Right.

Oh yeah, drunks and junkies.

Bill (48:40.712)
Yeah, so right, just sprinkled in with a couple of crack heads. But in majority of them, you know, the people that we didn't know came to us, you know, and came to us for some ungodly reason, you know, and it's, I don't know, we've had we've had a lot of fun, you know, and even the audio on some of our some of our later episodes, depending on how the connection was, we've had a weird, you know, a couple of weird episodes with that. But I don't know, I mean, you would set it when we were on

Mike (48:41.902)
crack it's thrown in. Yeah.

Mike (48:51.97)
Right?

Hehehehe

Mike (49:06.679)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (49:09.46)
you know, last week with the guys, with Shannon and Chris, and you know, you had said that, yeah, you're looking up and you're like, man, this is episode 99. You're like, fuck, I'm kind of proud of that. And it is, you know, it's just something with every fucking Friday. And I'm proud of the fact that we haven't had, I'm grateful, I'm proud of it, but I'm also grateful that nothing has come up that has prevented us from doing it.

Mike (49:20.741)
Right.

Mike (49:36.091)
Mm. Right?

Bill (49:36.672)
And that's one thing, if we had a life thing that prevented us from doing it, and mom's death was probably the biggest challenge, just if that would have been a challenge thing, but that was one of the best things we could have done. Um, and other than that, we just fucking worked around it, you know, worked around people's schedules, yours, mine, um, guests that we had and, um, and that sort of thing. And, um, I'm proud of that because, you know, there, there are, there's millions of fucking podcasts out there. Um, some, like you said, what you said, three episodes, what was the first one? 11.

Mike (49:40.215)
Mm.

Mike (49:49.91)
Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm, sure.

Mike (50:01.941)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (50:05.768)
11 and done, you know, with something.

Mike (50:07.594)
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Like I said, I was listening to the radio show last week and, and they were talking about, yeah, there's millions of podcasts out there and most people do three or four of them and go, well, I'm not getting rich, so fuck this. And it's not what we did this for. We did this for us and for you guys.

Bill (50:27.444)
Yep. Yeah. And it's, um, yeah, it's just, they were talking about it. It came up on the radio this morning. I was listening to the morning show again on a Milwaukee and, um, whatever they had talked about. Um, they had said something about a podcast. I'm like, yeah, everyone's got a podcast. And I'm like, yeah, we do. Everyone does, you know, and it is, it's the, it's the thing to do. And, um, when I listen to smartless, when I listened to, to Mark Maron, when I listened to a lot of, you know, the other podcasts, you know, a lot of these guests, these celebrities now have podcasts on the side.

Mike (50:42.25)
Right. Yep. We do.

Mike (50:51.733)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (50:57.374)
Right? Yeah.

Bill (50:57.428)
You know, and the Smart List, did I tell you about the Smart List guys in Amazon? Okay. So no idea. Oh, I know how I ran across it. Um, on Google's homepage on my phone, it pops up like the, when you open Google, it's got that little, like, it's got a little newsfeed on the bottom of the Google search and I saw the, you know, the three guys from Smart List and it's like something about Smart List payday or whatever, and I'm like, click. So I'm reading it.

Mike (51:03.04)
Uh-uh.

Mike (51:24.846)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (51:26.164)
And this happened back in, I think the summer of 21 and they launched in during the pandemic. I think they launched sometime in 2020, you know, with the, their smartless podcast. And you know, once again, it is, it's Jason Bateman, it's Will Hartman or Hartman Hart, Will Arnett, wow. And then...

Mike (51:43.853)
Yeah.

Bill (51:47.412)
Oh shit, Sean, Sean Hayes. God damn, I almost forgot his name too. Yeah, Sean Hayes. And then, yeah, Will Arnett. So all stars, all, you know, I mean, Hollywood people and all that stuff. So that's one thing, you know, but they do, they've got this natural type of chemistry, nothing else. They have great conversations, they're funny, they fuck around with each other and all that stuff. So it's engaging to listen to, but then again, you know, you figure, okay, so they could also get.

Mike (51:51.191)
Yes.

Mike (52:01.742)
Sure.

Mike (52:09.119)
Mm.

Bill (52:17.236)
stars on there, but so does Mark Merritt and all these other guys. So however it happened, Amazon approached them and bought out the rights to it or whatever it is and this and that. It's like an 80 million dollar deal they got. Yeah, from Amazon. So it's Amazon in this Wondry app and they handle, it's like all of their Amazon, you know, kind of like it, I don't know if they own a piece of it or if they're covering all of it, but

Mike (52:20.043)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (52:27.854)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (52:31.127)
I am.

Hmm.

Bill (52:43.232)
So it's Amazon exclusive for all that stuff, but it's through this Wondery app, which must be an Amazon thing. And I'm like, holy fuck. I mean, these guys are fucking millionaires to begin with. I don't begrudge them for it at all. And they just got fucking lucky. And I mean, they had everything that all these other stars have, but I haven't heard of, I know Mark Barron makes a decent living now, but he worked his fucking ass off to build up his podcast.

Mike (52:53.066)
Yeah. Hehehehehehe. Well, sure.

Mm-hmm.

Mike (53:10.006)
Right?

Bill (53:12.892)
And then, you know, they just fucking Amazon walks up and says, Hey, here's 80 million. Yeah. And I'm like, well, um, wait, what's $60 and Oh, yeah, if you'd like to support the podcast, we do accept you'd have to buy how many copies would they have to buy a $5 a piece to hit even a million. So little fucking copies. But

Mike (53:19.318)
Hmm. Hehehehehehehehe.

Mike (53:26.875)
Hehe

Right.

Hehehe.

Mike (53:36.754)
Yeah. Yes.

Bill (53:40.268)
Kidding, you don't have to buy us a million copies. But if you wanna buy us one or two, yes, go visit the website, figure out how to support us if you fucking want to, if not, just keep listening, that's fine. But yeah, just kinda, right. Yeah, sure, if you know anyone at Amazon. Yeah, just, yeah. Hey, hey, you Bezos motherfuckers. Yeah, let's see if our computers are listening to this. Alexa.

Mike (53:44.533)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (53:49.578)
Right. Like share and give us a review.

Mike (54:01.142)
Hey, Bezos!

Bill (54:10.06)
Talk to Jeff Bezos for me. I hope somebody's Alexa is going off. Wait, let me do it again. Alexa, call Jeff Bezos. But anyhow, but no, I mean, the main thing is that I didn't really, well, first of all, I knew you were gonna come off with a favorite episode. I just thought it'd be fun to put you on the spot, but.

Mike (54:13.069)
Right.

Mike (54:17.727)
Right.

Mike (54:22.239)
Hehe

Mike (54:35.658)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Bill (54:35.904)
But I don't know. The other thing too, if nothing else, even if somebody doesn't have, if you don't have the time to listen to all our episodes now, just scroll through and take a look at just the episode title if you wanna laugh. The episode titles are fucking hilarious. Mike does all the pictures he picks out with very few exceptions, probably what, 15 total. Some of the guests will use their pictures. I picked out...

Mike (54:51.432)
Hm hm.

Mike (55:01.534)
Yeah, right. If we have a guest on, we usually use the picture, right?

Bill (55:04.692)
Yeah, rarely do we use another one. But I did the Grim Reaper Cheesehead for the Cheese Land Chronicles. That was a great episode title to begin with, but I think that's the only one that I picked out. And you're like, oh no, that one's good. But the rest of, yeah, they're all mics. So read the titles, because those make me laugh. Everyone's once in a while when I'm looking at our statistics and I see that people listen to episode 15 or episode 21.

Mike (55:16.122)
Mm-hmm, right.

Mike (55:20.478)
Right.

Bill (55:32.072)
and I see the episode title and I just fucking giggle. I don't know what they are. And I just look up, just fucking makes me laugh. But I don't know, we're having fun. I guess that's the main thing. Like we were talking about last week. And like Chris said, even if, and we've said this along the way is that, if anyone's getting it, that the small number, relatively speaking, small number of people that listen to us, clearly those small number of people, you guys have to be getting something from this because I don't know why you'd fucking come back.

Mike (55:32.939)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (55:36.228)
Hehe

Mike (55:58.574)
Mm-hmm. Hehehehe.

Bill (56:00.568)
I mean, if you're not getting something, why are you here? You know, and I'm just saying that for you, the listener, why would you waste your time with us? So we appreciate the fact that people are coming back and whatever you're getting out of it, it's nothing else but just to say, boy, these guys are fucking idiots and it makes me laugh. We're fine with that. Mike's been known and I've been known for far worse than that. So we're good with it. We're good with it.

Mike (56:03.84)
Right.

Mike (56:08.246)
Right.

Mike (56:20.235)
Absolutely.

Mike (56:25.398)
Oh much! Yes we are!

Bill (56:28.276)
So anyhow, I don't know, it's fun. We're coming up on our two year mark coming up at the end of February. So yeah, we'll have another opportunity to hurt our arms, patting ourselves on the back in a little over a month. So yeah, but I don't know. It's just, like you said, 99 episodes when you said that. I've got a fucking 100 episodes. It blows my mind, it's crazy.

Mike (56:37.271)
Yeah.

Mike (56:44.507)
Great.

Mike (56:54.538)
Yeah, it is. Yeah, right. That'll be 104. Be two years. Nice. I could do simple math.

Bill (56:57.28)
Yeah, exactly. Yep. You know, it was funny though, about a month ago I'm sitting there, I was doing the math and I'm adding up, and I wanted to look back, so I'm like, do we start after so? The two year mark is at 104. So do we start the new season at 105 or 104? And I look back and so episode number 105 is gonna be the start of our new season. Stay tuned for an all fresh look, all new everything. Yeah, hold everyone.

Mike (57:12.131)
Mm.

Mike (57:21.162)
oooo

Mike (57:24.51)
Right.

Bill (57:27.216)
Hold your breath, big things are coming with episode 105 and season five. Hey, by the way, we're fucking lying. I'm not gonna do a goddamn thing. All right, um, let's see here. Oh, I know what I was gonna say when I mentioned before about the readings. So you don't read the book a day at a time, correct? That's the one that, because you

Mike (57:30.238)
Right. New and improved.

Mike (57:36.694)
That's right. It's gonna be the same old bullshit.

Hehehehe

Mike (57:50.595)
Hmm.

Bill (57:55.98)
Keep it simple, God grant me 24 hour book, right?

Mike (57:59.134)
Yeah, that's what that's the rotation at the moment. Yes.

Bill (58:01.532)
Okay, so I've been reading the book, a day at a time, which is, you know, still a hazelden book and all that stuff. But I like it. And I like the setup. It's, I don't know, it's a 24 hour, it's almost to me kind of like a mix, almost to the three that you're reading right now. It's just a, it's a healthy mix of that if you like they're set up in the structure, it talks about a lot of different, different things to some God stuff and whatever, but I like it.

Mike (58:06.45)
Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.

Mike (58:27.37)
Hmm. Yeah. Well, I've, I've got, uh, what is it? Uh, yeah. Keep it simple is the, um, I think this is the second time I've been through it or maybe the third, but either way. Yeah. The beginning of next year, if I'm still around, I will be looking for that new third one, so I'll probably hit that one up. I've done daily reflections. I've done, um, Oh God, I've done a few of them. Yeah. Over the years.

Bill (58:55.011)
I think I read daily refraction.

Mike (58:58.283)
Refresh.

Mike (59:02.091)
Right!

Bill (59:02.113)
I don't know why that I don't know why if I could crack me up so much. Dairy refraction. Super. I think I read that for a little bit. I don't remember there's there was a couple of them that I that I dipped into that I didn't stick with but anyhow so a day at a time I've been reading for at least two years because I know I've been reading it at a minimum since I've been down here so that's a year and a half and then shit it might even be two or three years now but.

Mike (59:07.362)
Right.

Mike (59:10.762)
Hehehehe

Right?

Mike (59:17.643)
Right.

Mike (59:26.667)
Right.

Bill (59:29.716)
So substance use disorder and substance use and all that stuff, those are the new terms and all that. I'm gonna probably go off on a tangent here in a minute, but the, anyone remember the Dennis Miller show? I don't mind if I go off on a tangent. I didn't mean it that way. Although I used to like that, or go off on a rant as you used to say. I'm gonna go off on a rant. That used to crack me up though, honestly, it really did. But so that book is on my phone.

Mike (59:34.59)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Mike (59:40.229)
Alright.

Mike (59:46.762)
Right.

Mike (59:50.686)
Yes, yes.

Mm-hmm.

Bill (59:59.164)
Okay. And I think I would have noticed it last year when I was reading it, that these words, these phrases are now in that book. Okay. So substance use and substance use disorder is now showing up in my readings in this book, not every day, but, you know, so people with the sub with substance use issues or substance abuse disorder, and I'm like, that's kind of fucking weird. I'm reading on, you know, and then it's happened probably a handful of times.

Mike (01:00:00.738)
Right?

Mike (01:00:05.745)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:00:09.698)
Oh.

Mike (01:00:15.136)
Hmm

Bill (01:00:27.004)
to the point where I clearly notice it. It'd be like if somebody put the word Satan in where God used to be, I think I'd notice it. Holy shit, you just almost fucking redlined on. Let me turn your volume down again. You get a little excited there. Hang on here, let's, there. I just throttled you back just in case. I looked up there, I see this flash on my screen. I'm like, fuck. Sorry, sorry. Sorry, ladies.

Mike (01:00:27.572)
Uh-huh.

Mike (01:00:35.39)
All right. Yeah.

Mike (01:00:42.834)
Hehe

Mike (01:00:53.766)
Was it a red flash? That's right. The power of Satan depels you.

Bill (01:00:57.848)
Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, if you were in your car with your volume turned up, they just busted out your windows. But I'm like, really? I'm like, fucking why? But here's the only thing, and I want to step back on this, and if we have listeners that use those terms, I have no fucking issue with it. It's not the term that matters to me. It's the fact that these...

Mike (01:01:03.351)
Nice!

Mike (01:01:08.654)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:01:25.752)
The term doesn't have to be replaced fucking everywhere. It just doesn't. If you want to call yourself a person with a substance use disorder, I don't care. As Mike says, I'll refer to my friend Mike over there, the fucking solution is the same. You're going to end up in the same place, follow the same path, you're doing your own thing with your own label, but you're not hurting anyone, you're getting better yourself, more power to you, okay? But I don't understand why these books need to change the word. I don't.

Mike (01:01:30.818)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:01:55.084)
You know, and it just doesn't, it doesn't make any sense to me because these books are written based on, you know, these are books on alcoholism. There are people that alcohol and drug addicts and I, I don't know. It just, I, I don't, I don't understand why that somebody made a conscious decision to go in and change these digital books, you know, from that, from alcoholic or alcoholism to substance use disorder. And I don't fucking get it. I just don't, I don't like it either, but I don't get it.

Mike (01:01:56.693)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:02:20.759)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm. Yeah, right. I mean, well, I mean, I, I understand it. They're trying to be more inclusive and, you know, help more people is really the root of it. Um, you know, but, you know, we all know what the road to hell is paved with good intentions, kiddies. Um, yeah, you know, I mean, it's, it's whatever, you know, I read the word God several times every day and it gets the same thing, you know,

Bill (01:02:28.923)
Yeah, right.

Bill (01:02:39.744)
Right.

Mike (01:02:52.878)
Oh, it's a word. It's a word I don't relate to, but I understand where it comes from. And I move on. It doesn't apply to me, but I move on. You know, I can, I can substitute whatever I want for it. Um, you know, whatever, uh, substance abuse disorder. I'm a fucking drunk. I'm a fucking junkie. I'm a crackhead. Well, I'm not really a crackhead. I'd smoke some cracks occasionally, but, um,

Bill (01:03:18.865)
Your so your head has had crack in it before so at one point One point you were in a minimum. You were a crackhead for a very short amount of time

Mike (01:03:23.15)
Oh, absolutely. Oh yes, of course. Right. Yeah. Right. You know, there's several hours, you know, just, uh, you don't just take one hit. Come on now. Um, I always said I was a social crack smoker because I never did it by myself and I never paid for it. And, um, yeah, I would smoke crack if somebody else had it and they were willing to share it with me.

Bill (01:03:31.668)
Hahaha

Bill (01:03:36.742)
You are a leisurely crackhead. Right.

Mike (01:03:51.05)
Sure, I was a social crack smoker.

Bill (01:03:52.96)
I mean, I don't think that term applies in very many cases, but the way you just described that, that applies. That lines up. It checks out. Right?

Mike (01:04:02.733)
Hmm. Yeah, right. Oh, absolutely. You know, I had a bottle of booze in my hand while I was doing it, but yeah, absolutely. Yup.

Bill (01:04:12.536)
But yeah, and I get it. And you probably made the best point. And that's the reason I brought it up. You know, cause sometimes just getting this shit out of my head and not, you know, not stewing on it helps. You know, cause I get, right. But like you said, more inclusive, I get that. And I'm all for that and trying to help more people. So I get that, I get that. But you know, the only thing that I will, when, cause people have talked about,

Mike (01:04:18.781)
Mmm.

Right?

Mike (01:04:24.606)
what we do.

Mike (01:04:30.599)
Mm hmm. Sure. Yep.

Bill (01:04:42.112)
you know, changing the big book and all that sort of things. And I would, that would bum me out if the, if somebody completely rewrote the big book and changed a lot of things on that. Now, if somebody wants to, again, like, like years ago there was Coke and then there was new Coke. If somebody wants to make new big book, I'm fine with that. I don't, I don't have to drink it. I'll stick with original recipe big book. And then

Mike (01:04:45.163)
Right?

Mike (01:04:51.629)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:05:03.598)
Hehe

Mike (01:05:07.498)
Right.

Yeah, right.

Bill (01:05:11.06)
y'all can read new big book over there. I'm fine with that, you know. Right? But you know what I mean, just you don't have to get rid of the book because the, I think the, and I could be completely wrong with all of this stuff, but the movement over the last handful of years, and this gets into a lot of politics and probably deep things that we, first of all, no desire, no need to talk about, but

Mike (01:05:13.774)
Mm-hmm. Right. That's called narcotics synonymous.

Mike (01:05:22.967)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:05:39.758)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:05:40.236)
The movement out there to change certain things that have been offensive to groups and classes of people, groups of people, classes of people, and all those sort of things, I understand that. I mean, there are certain things that, there's words and phrases, there's mindsets that worked back 75 years ago, because that's the way society was, that just don't fucking work today, and fine with that. I do think in some cases, there's extremism on both sides. I'm not throwing blame. Yeah, hey.

Mike (01:05:59.522)
Sure. Right.

Mike (01:06:07.988)
Always.

Bill (01:06:09.616)
I was just going to say, not blaming anyone, because it's always that way. Right. But the thing that I, the only thing that I go back to on these words, like the, again, the person that was, you know, trying to get rid of the word alcoholic is just that alcoholics, not a, it's not a bad word. It's not a, it's not an insulting word. It's not a, I'll even say the word. It's not a racist word. It's not insulting to groups of people if, and you go, cause if it was

Mike (01:06:14.017)
It's everybody's fault.

Mike (01:06:24.436)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:06:37.256)
If it was along the lines of all those other things, it's like, you know, somebody was in a class defined as that. You're not defined as that. If you have a problem with alcohol, you can call yourself anything you want and nobody's going to oppress you for it. You know, but for those of us and we're young, you know, considering, you know, young in this program, you know, to have probably these stronger feelings about, you know, the word. But, you know, think about these guys back again when all the big book and stuff. And I can't old language.

Mike (01:06:48.622)
Yeah, right.

Mike (01:06:57.986)
Hmm.

Bill (01:07:06.804)
all that shit. But the word means something to a lot of people and make new words, be who you want to Mike's point. And I'm glad you brought it up. Be more inclusive, help more people. Just don't, don't take away my book and you know, don't take away my word. That's all I ask.

Mike (01:07:17.175)
Mm-hmm, sure.

Yeah. Mm hmm. Right. Well, nobody. Yeah. And nobody can. Yeah. You know, I mean, nobody can the other way around, you know, nobody can, uh, can convince me I'm an alcoholic other than myself, you know? So yeah, I'm the only one that can say I'm an alcoholic. And I choose to say it back to choices. I choose to say I'm an alcoholic because I fully believe that I am. Um, and all that encompasses that. Um,

Yeah. You know, and, and while there's, there's already talking about changing the big book, I mean, they're getting ready to put out the fifth edition, um, they're, they're like building it now. And, um, yeah, I, there's probably some bullshit going on with that. And there's probably some shit that, uh, that we're not going to like. Um, when that fifth edition comes out, I personally have a third edition. Um, that's my big book. I'm pretty sure yours is fourth. Um, I got lucky. I got a third. Yeah.

Bill (01:07:56.523)
Right.

Bill (01:08:16.068)
Um, really?

Mike (01:08:20.042)
You know, it showed up at the Keating center. It was the third edition. I went snack. That's mine. Um, yeah, pretty sure yours is fourth and I've got, I actually owned, I've got a soft cover fourth edition. Um, yeah, you know, and I could go and I could buy a first edition copy, you know, it's choice I have today. Um,

Bill (01:08:26.744)
Bye.

Bill (01:08:41.512)
Oh yeah, mine is. Yeah, mine says I just grabbed it. It does say fourth edition.

Mike (01:08:48.27)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:08:48.736)
Yeah, and that's probably the one that's the most, probably widely distributed out there now, right? Would be the fourth? Okay.

Mike (01:08:55.454)
Yeah. Well, it's, it's the latest and it's also, I think it's been probably 20 years. So yeah. Right. Yeah. They're in there. I just saw something online the other day, um, that about the fifth edition and, you know, suggestions and blah, blah. And I fucking ignored it. Uh, yeah, it was. Yeah. Yep. Cool with me, man. Whatever. Do what you got to do.

Bill (01:09:13.816)
Oh yeah, that was somebody from the spiritual retreat. Yeah.

Mike (01:09:25.574)
I got a book. Ha ha ha.

Bill (01:09:26.24)
Yeah, and I mean, you know, the book that I have, I have no, there's no reason in the world that I'll ever buy another big book. I mean, I, that one was given to me by Scott with the glasses, you know, in the, in the beetle, or the Volkswagen Beetle. So Scott gave me mine and, you know, it was just mostly used book and, you know, I love it. I mean, it's, it's mine and I'm not gonna, I'm never gonna try it again. I don't see it. I don't see a fucking reason to ever get a new one.

Mike (01:09:34.412)
Right.

Mike (01:09:38.838)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Mike (01:09:49.218)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. Right.

Mike (01:09:56.486)
Eh?

Bill (01:09:59.236)
I mean, it's got my recipe in there. It's got my instructions. It's got all that in there. Right, my secret sauce. Well, hi there. Well, you know, everything's gotta have a secret sauce, right? But yeah, so you know what?

Mike (01:10:04.571)
Mm-hmm. That's right. That's right. It's the instructions for the cake that I baked.

Mike (01:10:14.726)
Well...

Mike (01:10:22.07)
That's right.

Bill (01:10:25.844)
Like I said, I'm glad I brought that up because you made a good point. You know, those, those two things and, um, you know, again, helping people. And I'll, I'll say it again, cause I think they're important being more inclusive and helping, helping more people. So, okay. I'll just, when I see it now, I'll just read over it and I'll say fucking alcoholic when I, when I see those words. Yeah. Okay. I'm up. Right.

Mike (01:10:28.59)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:10:32.971)
Right.

Mike (01:10:39.406)
Sure.

Mike (01:10:43.69)
Yep. Absolutely. Yep. And I'll just, you know, great pumpkin, man. Yep.

Bill (01:10:50.156)
All right, well, see that? I wanted to bitch more about that, I think. I think in my head somewhere, I wanted to bitch about that more, but I'm glad it... Ha ha ha.

Mike (01:10:53.608)
Hehehehehehehehehehe

Mike (01:10:59.721)
I could, I could, you know, do it right along with you, but what the fuck's the point? You know.

Bill (01:11:02.932)
Right, I know, and I'm glad I don't have to. I appreciate the fact that you put that, you of all people put that. Ha ha ha. Did you? Ha ha.

Mike (01:11:11.998)
I know, right. Oh yeah, again, talk about thoughts and yeah, right. My thoughts are, you know, fuck all that bullshit, but if you're too much of a pussy to call yourself a drunk, then fucking get out of the room. No, but that's, that's wrong. So I don't, I don't say that. What I say is call yourself whenever you'd like. Come on in. We love you anyway.

Bill (01:11:19.842)
Hehehehe

Bill (01:11:26.005)
Right. Yeah.

Bill (01:11:33.132)
Yeah, it's just I could hear everyone out there just listening to this going, did you hear what Mike did? Mike was nice. Yeah. Yeah, crazy. Just crazy. So just real quick, and I get this reminder every year from legacy.com. So I know I mentioned it on here before, but my first sponsor died of pancreatic cancer, died sober, and I think he was

Mike (01:11:38.445)
BAAA

Mike (01:11:42.498)
Hehehehehehe! Yup! Hehehehe!

Mike (01:11:53.141)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:11:59.542)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:11:59.896)
I think he was 17 years, he might've been 18 years sober at the time. Um, I don't remember. Probably. Yeah, probably in that area, but so it popped up again. And I, I didn't remember how old he was when he died, but, um, I just kind of popped into it, you know, popped into the email and first of all, it was January 18th of 2013. So, I mean, you know, I mean, as of yesterday, it was 11 years ago, which is. Fucking crazy, you know, um, it's.

Mike (01:12:05.708)
Right?

Mike (01:12:25.686)
Alright.

Bill (01:12:29.164)
fucking mind-blowing, you know? But he was only 49, so. But that was, I didn't remember that. I knew he was young, but I just didn't remember how young, but yeah.

Mike (01:12:39.318)
Right? Shit. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Bill (01:12:42.56)
Yeah, but you know, the thing that is with him, and he had told me, it was before, maybe this is when he first started going in for the testing and stuff like that, when he was saying he's having some trouble. When he was a kid, he had some sort of problem with his pancreas, and they ended up doing surgery and they took out like half of his pancreas. And I don't know if it was from somehow some way that that's, because he had pancreatic cancer. I mean, I don't know if that, you know, if you have surgery at that point, something happens, blah, whatever. I don't, once again, I...

Mike (01:13:11.95)
Hmm. Right. You're not a doctor? Wait, let me write that down. Bill is not a doctor.

Bill (01:13:12.264)
I'm not a doctor. Let me write that down again. Ladies and gentlemen, you know, not even once again, though, by this, and this will be my favorite line every time I bring it up. I'm also not a gynecologist, but I'm more than happy to take a look at the stuff. Oh, he's throw that out there. But I just think about that. You know, I mean, number one, he was he was young, how tragic and all sort of things. And, you know, as my first sponsor is good, dude. But

Mike (01:13:30.102)
Right.

Hehehe

Mike (01:13:38.979)
Mm-mm.

Bill (01:13:40.9)
I still look back at just all the fucking good work that he did, and all the people that he touched in a good way. But lives that he changed, and we're talking about with this, if this helps even one person, my God, I mean, he had a church full of lobby full of people just there to celebrate his death. I don't know.

Mike (01:13:41.548)
Right?

Mike (01:13:50.742)
Yikes.

Mike (01:13:56.213)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:14:05.676)
Things like that, it wasn't even a down thing when I saw it. I was just like, well, when I saw the 49, I'm like, goddamn. You know, that was the one thing, but I don't know, every year when it pops up, because the fact that I signed his guest book, it just, I get the email reminder every year and it makes me smile because he was such, I'm glad that I was able to have him in my life for even that short amount of time. And he did a lot of work for me too. So yeah, it was all good shit. Did what he was supposed to do as a sponsor, right?

Mike (01:14:09.902)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Mike (01:14:18.838)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:14:27.986)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Mike (01:14:32.298)
Yep. Good.

Bill (01:14:36.238)
But he did it well. He did it really well.

Mike (01:14:36.343)
Right.

Huh? Well, clearly something worked, because you're still fucking around.

Bill (01:14:42.052)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I got no place else to be. Maybe that's the other thing. Yeah, no place else to go, nothing else to do. I guess I'll hang out here. All right, so there was a, and I don't remember why I wrote this down, so I'm just gonna read what I wrote down. The phrase idle hands are the devil's playground. It means that someone who is unoccupied and bored will find mischief, or someone who has nothing to do.

Mike (01:14:47.455)
Hehe

Mike (01:15:08.348)
Mm.

Bill (01:15:10.656)
will partake in something that will get him in trouble. So do you, is that a phrase, I mean, I've heard that phrase throughout my life, you know, but I think I've heard it in recovery. So do you agree with something like that, like the idle hands type of thing that it could get into either mischief or get yourself in the trouble? Is that something you agree with or no?

Mike (01:15:14.486)
Hmm.

Mike (01:15:19.794)
Oh, sure. Right. Mm hmm.

Mike (01:15:34.126)
I mean, I understand the concept again. I understand the concept of it. Yeah, you know, keep yourself busy. You know, do something for somebody else. I've heard that somewhere before. Right. You know, and I mean, boredom is just, boredom is a reflection of being fucking selfish. I'm bored. I don't have anything to do. Well, fucking go find something to do. Right. You know.

Bill (01:15:45.472)
Right, I think 100 times since we've had 100 episodes.

Bill (01:16:00.748)
Heheheheheheh!

Mike (01:16:04.838)
Young grateful piece of shit. Um, right. Yeah, I mean, I again understand the concept. Yeah, basically agree with it. Um, you know, I fucking crave not having anything to do. Uh, you know, I'm so I'm so grateful when I, you know, I could just lay around for a day, you know, fucking watch TV and you know, order some food and yeah, you know, it doesn't happen often.

Um, anymore, you know, yeah. Uh, you know, yes, keep yourself busy. Um, so that when you can carve out time to not do anything, that means something too. That's a good turn that idle. Yeah. That idleness into something good. That's it's a time to shut down recharge and all that because you've been busy. You know? Yeah. Um, I suppose if, if you.

don't have anything going on, yeah, you're probably, again, selfishness. It's you're going to start doing bad shit because if you're completely focused on yourself, there's nothing good that could come out of that ever. So, I mean, yeah, that's the concept and sure. Why not?

Bill (01:17:13.474)
Right, right

Bill (01:17:22.587)
After all that, sure, why not, why not.

Mike (01:17:25.55)
Sure, why not? Don't be a bomb.

Bill (01:17:26.828)
You know, and well, here's the thing is that I have trouble, but I think it's more of a, I don't know, if I ever went in to try to get whatever they do to figure out if somebody has, you know, like ADHD or something like that, I think I'd be off the, right? Right, well, whatever testing they do, you know, to try to figure it out, right? But, you know, I think that

Mike (01:17:42.178)
They put a finger up your ass. You didn't know that? Whatever they do.

Mike (01:17:50.83)
That's what I'm talking about.

Bill (01:17:55.604)
Whatever it is, I do have trouble sitting still sometimes, but I don't, like, and you put it a perfect way and it's a great place to be. And when we were newly sober, not having anything to do, and that's when you get, you're like, you don't know what to do with yourself. There's these old thoughts and habits, old thoughts of old habits come into our heads and I can see this applying more. Right, right.

Mike (01:17:59.714)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:18:12.597)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:18:17.602)
sure, because you don't have anything else to think about. You don't know any better.

Bill (01:18:23.304)
And now, I mean, I'll sit down to watch a TV show and I'll usually have my phone laying on the bed or wherever it is. And if I really want them, I'm like, I'm just fucking done. Turn the phone over, it's still on the bed, but just turn it over so I don't see the screen flash at me. And I just fucking leave it be. And just, it's really fucking nice. And I'm not thinking about anything, but this mindless fucking TV show that means nothing to me.

Mike (01:18:29.198)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:18:37.218)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:18:43.79)
Uh huh. Ah.

Mike (01:18:49.494)
Mm-hmm. Great.

Bill (01:18:49.952)
But I'm getting just, you know, I'm getting 43 minutes or 57 minutes or whatever of just entertainment out of it. And it's fine. It's a, that's what I like about TV and movies. It's a time to just escape. I don't necessarily escape into the movie. You know, I'm not one of those people that becomes part of that type of thing and you get so into it, but I don't know. I just, you get to just watch somebody else, you know, be a fuck up or enjoy themselves or beat the shit out of somebody if it's an action movie. And you know, I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool.

Mike (01:18:57.294)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:19:09.132)
Right.

Mike (01:19:17.91)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Bill (01:19:22.284)
But I don't even remember where, as always, I don't remember where that came from. But yeah, so that just kind of popped in. It was one of the things I had written down. But so on a whole nother note, well, this is kind of a, it turns out, hey everybody, this is a segue sort of. So I had told you, I don't know, I was looking around at different places that kind of once I get settled and everything, the fact that I could move around where I wanna go and that sort of thing.

Mike (01:19:39.724)
Mmm.

Bill (01:19:49.676)
And one of the places I had looked at was, and I think I told you Myrtle Beach was a place I was looking at. And a lot of times, once again, you know, with that, not necessarily, you know, call this more of a daydreaming, I'll pop an Airbnb and do different searches and things like that. And I popped in because I had a couple of places saved in that area. I was looking at prices, I mean, they're just, they're like 50% of what it is right now. And I'm like, hmm. So I have time

Mike (01:19:50.165)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:20:14.495)
Uh huh. Yeah.

Bill (01:20:19.084)
February 5th. I'm like, I wonder if I could do like a getaway. So I figured it all out. I figured out where I can get credit cards, that I can do this sort of thing. And literally for like, it's like, you know, three, 400 bucks, I can go spend four days in Myrtle Beach. So I'm going. Yeah, I'm going on. Actually, it's well, it's a it's a 14 hour drive down there, you know, which is fine. I'm not going to do what I did last time when I went down to Oklahoma where I did the other stops. I mean, I could do that.

Mike (01:20:41.975)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:20:49.092)
Ideally, but it's not even the matter of the days. It'd be the extra money to try to book places there in bags. I'm like, fuck it, I'll just suck it up and do it. I mean, worst case, if I get tired, I'll stop along the way and just fall asleep in a truck stop parking lot for a couple hours. But, right? Or try, yeah, I know, try to find someplace safe. But anyhow, so yeah, the best dates came up. So I'm actually leaving this coming Wednesday night and I'm staying through Monday morning.

Mike (01:20:49.198)
Hmm.

Mike (01:20:54.827)
Mm-hmm, right.

Mike (01:21:03.83)
Mmm.

your doors.

Mike (01:21:16.014)
Mmm.

Bill (01:21:18.968)
Two things that when I was looking for it, because a lot of these places down there, it's a condo and it's right on the ocean, first floor. So I mean, literally you could walk out from where the building is, like, I don't know, 20 yards or something like that, and you're on the beach, which is kind of cool. But I looked for a place that had an ethernet connection. Because Friday night, see, this is everything we were talking about. I planned, I literally didn't book a place till I was sure. I mean,

Mike (01:21:24.342)
Right.

Mike (01:21:33.442)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:21:46.72)
Worst case scenario, if I got there and they fucking lied about the ethernet connection, I mean, the Wi-Fi will be fine, you know, because I know people do it. I would just feel more comfortable if I was plugged in. You know, so that was one of the things I did. But literally, I mean, the pricing of this place and it's, you know, it's a condo on this little resort type of thing, but it's like half the price of what it would normally be. It'd probably be like. It's crazy.

Mike (01:21:53.358)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:22:07.926)
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, that's like where we go to, uh, port Clinton, you know, in August, I mean, we could go there. It's, you know, it's like 250 bucks a night or something, you know, well, I could go there now and it's like 50 bucks a night. Same room.

Bill (01:22:23.18)
Yeah, right, right. Yeah, and that's the thing that I looked at the weather right now, and all over the country is cold right now, like, at this moment. But I think it's as of Wednesday, Tuesday or Wednesday is when the weather changes a little bit. There's a, when I looked at the weather, there's a chance for rain, I think, if not every day, you know, three out of the four days that I'm going to be there or whatever it is, at least a slight chance but not like 100% thunderstorm type of thing.

Mike (01:22:31.938)
Yep.

Bill (01:22:51.584)
but it's gonna be in the, you know, like 60 to 70 degrees, you know, and I'll be on an ocean. And if it rains, I don't give a fuck, you know? But that's, I just, I started thinking about that when we were talking about, you know, time to do nothing. I mean, I can still, I have my computers with me and stuff like that. I could still do stuff, but so here's the thing. There's three things, and this is the other thing that just popped into my head. So.

Mike (01:22:52.322)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:23:00.001)
Hehehehehehehehe

Right.

Bill (01:23:18.8)
Obviously, I wrapped this around to make sure the podcast was in shape, because that's important to me and important to us. I wouldn't have done it over a Friday night if I couldn't have a place where I knew I could record. But I looked up, once I got that all set, got everything set, three things that I looked up. Okay, what do you think the number one thing that I looked up that was nearby? Well, what kind of food though?

Mike (01:23:25.269)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:23:32.017)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:23:43.332)
Uh, food.

Mike (01:23:47.979)
Um, I don't know. Barbecue? Oh, pizza.

Bill (01:23:49.232)
Friday night. Yep. There is a Domino's. Honest to God, first thing I looked up, Domino's, five minutes away, okay? Next thing I looked up was AA meetings because I want to go to meetings when I'm down there. And there's an Elano club. I mean, there's Elano clubs everywhere. You know what it seems, but so that's like, I don't know, like 15 or 16 minutes away.

Mike (01:23:54.82)
Heheheheh

Mike (01:23:59.924)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:24:04.4)
Mm, bright.

Bill (01:24:14.888)
And I looked and it looks like it's one of those places. It's a club. So I mean, they got, you know, meetings all throughout the day and stuff like that. And then the third thing I looked up was, you know, a grocery store to buy food. So yeah, two food items and one thing to keep me sober. But yeah, there's a Kroger right down the road. I'm like, fucking Kroger. That's the, I mean, pick it or Kroger bought out all the pick and saves and stuff in Wisconsin. So I was shopping from, or at basically a Kroger store for the last, I don't know.

Mike (01:24:20.901)
Mm-hmm

Mike (01:24:26.25)
Right?

Mike (01:24:29.965)
Nice.

Mike (01:24:38.687)
Mmm.

Bill (01:24:43.244)
four years, five years that I was in Germantown. So I'm like, as soon as I saw that, I'm like, ah, fuck man, I'm sad. I got Domino's, I got AA, I got fucking Kroger, I'm good. But yeah, it was just, it was one of those ones where, I mean, I looked at it and I figured out, cause I, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't bullshit, man. I've used up a lot of money during this timeframe. But I, you know, over the last couple of days, I sat.

Mike (01:24:46.678)
Right?

Mike (01:24:49.838)
FFFF

Mike (01:24:56.194)
Mmm. Nice.

Mike (01:25:08.876)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:25:10.996)
literally just pen to paper, put everything down, figure it out, bills I have and things like that, being fucking responsible first. Because I thought about this thing like a week ago and I'm like, I don't even know if I could do it. But yeah, I get everything covered. Everything's from things I usually pay with, whether it's cash, credit card available, anything like that I need.

Mike (01:25:19.097)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:25:28.046)
Cool.

Bill (01:25:34.424)
I'm like, well, I got, it's one of those things. I got some bills to pay off after all this. You know, I come out of this anyhow. I'm like, what's another, I don't know, six or $700. So, yeah, I get to go to Myrtle Beach. Never been. Yeah. But yeah, that was my last, I think, well, that wasn't really necessarily a plan thing, but that popped into my head when we were talking about idle hands. I think I'm gonna be having me some idle hands for a couple of days, I think.

Mike (01:25:44.97)
Yeah. Cool.

Mike (01:25:50.07)
Nice. Yeah. Cool.

Mike (01:26:03.775)
Nice. Good.

Bill (01:26:05.761)
And I don't know. And again, I get shit I could do and whatever, but I don't know. I just thought about it. Like I said, first floor and you can, there's like a railing and stuff there for what it looks like in the.

Mike (01:26:18.474)
so you don't like trip into the ocean. I know.

Bill (01:26:21.544)
No, I mean, it's probably 20 yards or 30 yards off even to the beach, but it's not an open patio because I was looking, I'm like, oh, so I'd have to kind of like jump the fence actually to do it, but I'd probably walk out the door anyhow because if I went on the beach, I'm not going to just leave the place unlocked, you know? But either way, I don't know if it'll be nice. If it's 60 degrees, I'm like, oh, 60 degrees is not, then I look at the weather here, it's fucking eight, you know?

Mike (01:26:36.214)
Yeah.

Mike (01:26:46.687)
Right.

Bill (01:26:50.572)
God, could be another six inches tonight. And I'm like, yeah, I don't care. 60 degrees, a little bit of rain, I'm fine with it. So what else? What else on this legendary 100th episode, Mr. Mike? Back to you, Mike.

Mike (01:26:50.933)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:26:57.743)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:27:09.656)
You know what, man? I got fucking nothing. I really don't. It was a long goddamn day. It was yeah, the weather here was horrible. The roads were shit. Yeah, it was just it took me I was basically done working at about 230. I got home almost seven. So yeah, it just took me forever. There were wrecks everywhere. And you know,

crawling along at 20 miles an hour on a fucking interstate. And yeah, it was a horrible day. But you know what? It's all in my past right now. I'm sitting here doing a podcast with my buddy and it's all good. Nope, got through it. Didn't kill anybody. Didn't get drunk. Didn't, yeah, didn't do anything wrong.

Bill (01:27:38.497)
Yeah

Bill (01:27:56.56)
Oh, and when, yeah, because Mikey called me earlier and I pick up the phone like, hey, how you doing? He's like, well, I have no idea when I'm gonna be home. And I'm like, really? So yeah, he's telling me all this stuff and then he's stuck. And then this movie came into my head. I'm like, yeah, do you remember that movie with John Candy hops into a truck with a trucker and they just, he's like, nope, not ringing a bell. I'm like, truck driver calls him slim. Nope, not ringing a bell. And then I'm like, well, the point is just driving a truck through all of these. Like, oh, there's trucks in front of me. So I'm like, huh.

Mike (01:28:04.375)
Hehe

Mike (01:28:24.59)
Uh-huh.

Bill (01:28:25.784)
There's fucking trucks in front of you. That doesn't work. So I looked it up. It's the movie, Armed and Dangerous, with John Candy and Eugene Levy. Yeah.

Mike (01:28:29.196)
Right.

Mike (01:28:32.95)
Ah, Eugene Levy. Yes, I have seen it, but it was a long time ago.

Bill (01:28:39.156)
Yeah, well, I couldn't first of all, I couldn't remember. I looked up my Google search, John Candy with trucker runs cars off the road and it popped up right away. I fucking love Google. And literally what the fuck did we do without the internet and not even just the internet, what the fuck can we do without Google? God.

Mike (01:28:50.57)
Hmm. Right. Hehehehe. Aha.

Mike (01:29:04.067)
Right. We were living in caves, I believe.

Bill (01:29:06.636)
Yeah, well, even today, if somebody took away fucking Google, you know, it's been around for, I think it came out right before, I think it's as old as Derek. It's like 20, 23 years old. Yeah.

Mike (01:29:20.07)
Eh, sounds about right. Yeah, well we certainly wouldn't know when Ray Walston died.

Bill (01:29:24.54)
Right, yeah, it helped us with that. It helped us with John Candy. It's helped us, you know, I don't know how many times. So all kinds of Google and shit. All right, well, that was it. I just wanted to tell you that part too and then see if you had anything else to add. But I think, unless I'm mistaken, unless you want to run longer, we can go longer. I got time. That was complete sarcasm on my part. But all right.

Mike (01:29:31.484)
All kinds of dead people.

Mike (01:29:42.43)
Mmm. Nah, I'm good.

Bill (01:29:52.916)
Mike, over to you. I'm gonna do that as much as possible. That's gonna be my new thing until either I get sick of it or you get sick of it, okay? All right, back to you. Ha ha ha.

Mike (01:29:56.462)
I know. All right.

Mike (01:30:04.162)
Right. Okay. All right. Well, thanks, Bill. Thanks, Bill. And thank you all for listening to another episode of sober, not mature. 100 of these motherfuckers. How about that? I don't know. How about it? All right. Anyway, it is that it's no, it's not that time yet. It's not time for that yet. You know what it's time for? It's time for you to go out and do something nice for somebody else this week. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. Don't fuck up.

Be a good boy or girl. Do the next right thing. Don't tell anybody that you did it. Now it's that time. It's time kids. It's time for you to fuck off. And keep fucking off. Keep fucking off till you get to a gate with a sign on it saying you cannot fuck off past here. Climb over that gate, dream the impossible dream, and keep fucking off forever. 100 goddamn times.

Bill (01:30:59.317)
Yeah, come back and keep fucking off a hundred more times with us. Because yeah, come hell or high well, I can't even say that. Probably if less one of us, well, two things. One of us dies or if one of us and we piss each other off, which it's more than likely one of us will die before one of us. Yeah, before one of us pisses each other off because we know how to we know how to work through those things anymore. Can't work through a death. So

Mike (01:31:04.278)
Bye!

Mike (01:31:16.182)
Well, we'll be dead. Yeah.

Mike (01:31:22.806)
We do, we have the tools. Ah, we could do that too. Right.

Bill (01:31:26.12)
Right, right, but I'm just saying that I mean, it's not like we can fix a death. It's just

Mike (01:31:30.854)
in our hands will finally be idle. Hahahaha.

Bill (01:31:34.663)
Alright, well, let's leave that 100th episode on a happy note with death. Hi, fuck off all you guys, die. Alright, I love you brother. Bye.

Mike (01:31:42.524)
Hehe

I love you too.