SoberNotMature - Episode 101 (Amanda and Ginny - We Make Them Say Bad Words)

Bill (00:02.066)
All right, everyone, welcome once again to another episode of Sober, Not Mature. And we do have a couple of guests with us. We're going to let them introduce themselves in a minute. We've got Amanda and Ginny with us tonight. But first of all, ladies, I'm going to give you a challenge because I'm going to have you introduce yourselves, just a brief introduction, each one of you. But I want each of you to use the word fuck in your introduction. Okay? I don't.

Ginny (00:24.797)
I love this. This is my favorite so far.

Bill (00:27.094)
I've never done this before, but there's a point behind it. But go ahead, whoever wants to go first, at least introduce yourself briefly, OK?

Mike (00:27.567)
Hehe

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (00:35.724)
All right, hi, I'm Amanda McCoy-Flandigan. I'm a fucking amazing author. I'm also a podcaster, co-host of Solar Rising Podcast with my girl Ginny. I'm also a speaker, I'm a motivational speaker. I grew up in New York, I live in Colorado, moved here eight years ago. I have two daughters, amazing daughters, I'm married. And yeah, Ginny and I are just on a mission to be out there in the world.

Bill (00:39.266)
Ha ha ha.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:01.236)
doing good things, helping people. I got sober in 2006. That's probably important for this show, right? And it's just been a journey. It's been an awesome journey ever since. Love and life just keeps getting better.

Bill (01:12.366)
Cool. Jenny?

Ginny (01:14.149)
Woo, hello, my name is Ginny Oliva Smith and I'm super fucking pumped to be here. You guys are now my favorite show already, my favorite podcast, plus we get to say fuck. I too am sober, I got sober in 2016 and I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I have two kids, I have a furniture restoration.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:19.444)
I'm sorry.

Bill (01:19.662)
Hahaha!

Bill (01:27.675)
Hahaha!

Ginny (01:42.821)
business that I started called the Flippin' Phoenix Furniture Rehab. And I just recently, I'm still doing that on my weekends and every time I have the chance, but I just recently jumped back into like a full-time sales job because, you know, money and things, apparently mortgages, they're saying they need money now. So I don't know. I know. Oh, yeah. We'll say, fuck that. I get to say fuck again one more time.

Bill (02:02.338)
Hahaha

Mike (02:06.531)
Bastards.

Bill (02:07.488)
I know.

Bill (02:11.382)
Nice. Very nice.

Ginny (02:12.037)
So I am also, yeah, co-host of the Soul Rising podcast, which is one of my greatest joys, getting to do that with Amanda. And now we get to be here with you guys.

Bill (02:22.582)
Wonderful. And we truly appreciate it. And one of the things when we have people on, definitely Amanda will talk about your book, you guys will talk about the podcast, Jenny, you can talk about your store. We always tell people this is a wonderful platform to not only talk and get to know people, but we have no issue with people, hoaring themselves out, hopefully for things that you're promoting. Whatever you want to hoar yourself on it. I mean, it's, it's an open forum, but so

Ginny (02:41.437)
Nice. I like that. I love it all.

Mike (02:44.21)
Yeah, whatever.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (02:49.032)
Necessary sometimes.

Bill (02:51.954)
But so everyone knows the reason I had them do that, and I've never asked anyone to do that before with introducing themselves with the word fuck. But so long time ago, whatever it was some months ago, and I don't know how long Amanda, you and I have been following on Instagram, but Amanda had you messaged me or I messaged you about something. And you're like, hey, it'd be great to have you guys on the podcast, but you're like a little worried about the, you know, your language and that sort of thing. And I'm like, oh, we know how to be good. And I'm like,

I get back to me and then I brought it up on here too, because I thought it was funny. You know that you're actually a little nervous about that. And then messaging back and forth, whatever it was, I'm like, you should come on if you think your listeners would, you know, be interested in our in your book. And you know, I said, and you're like, yeah, still come on the podcast. And you said, did you say you were going to give us two fucks one or something? Yeah, and I told Mike that.

Mike (03:42.308)
Hehe

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (03:45.542)
One.

Bill (03:47.518)
I told Mike that too. Do you remember what you said when I, when I said that Mike or no? Mike said, Mike said, Ah, we don't need, we don't need your pity fucks. He said, he said, we can be good. He goes, now we're, now we're definitely going to be good. We're not going to swear at all if we come on your podcast. No.

Mike (03:51.145)
Of course not.

Mike (03:55.991)
That's right. That's, yeah.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (03:58.115)
This one.

Mike (04:05.633)
Right.

Ginny (04:07.085)
No, you can't listen. That's the thing. And it's generally me. It's generally me ask Amanda there are times my mouth just yeah, I mean, we edit some of it, but we keep some of it in. It's like the balance right because

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (04:16.468)
Keep some of it, yeah, if it makes sense, if it like kind of makes things better, I guess, when does fuck not make things better? But like, if it serves a purpose, you know, then we keep it.

Bill (04:23.906)
Hahaha!

Ginny (04:23.946)
Right, right, I mean...

Bill (04:27.658)
Right. Yeah, and I've listened, I think, three or four of the episodes so far. And in Jenny, I heard you drop the F-bomb in the first couple of episodes. No, I'm just like, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna throw this interface. What we talked to them on Friday is what I, it's my only thought.

Ginny (04:36.945)
There you go. Were you like, Hey,

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (04:38.388)
Were you happy?

Ginny (04:46.389)
It's so funny because even early on it was brought up and it was, you know, of course, we have so many different people that listen to our podcast, which is really the idea. That was our goal. We wanted people to find our common ground, but you know, we had certain people that were commenting on, well, you know, there's a little bit of cursing going on. And then, you know, I don't know if that necessarily fits what you guys are trying to do. But then we had this like whole other group of people saying, I love that you guys are just yourselves and you're super authentic. So we decided to...

to find the middle ground. Yeah, wow.

Bill (05:18.794)
Right. Well, in what we basically said, and Mike and I have talked about it back and forth, to begin with, we didn't have any direction on it, no idea, but with that sort of thing, we had, I think, I don't know if a couple of people brought it up, Mike or not, but finally we're like, we get some comments about certain things and our thought was at that point, we've said it on here, we're like, fine, fuck you, don't listen. I mean, there's gonna be plenty of people that'll listen and...

Mike (05:19.715)
Find the balance.

Bill (05:47.306)
What we've gotten out of this podcast is our following base on Instagram, relatively smallish for podcasts and things like that. Our listener base, also relatively smallish. We've got our ups and downs, but we've got a solid group of people. They're loyal and they're engaged. So other people that pop in, if they're like, we don't want to listen to you, then fine, fuck you, don't listen. It's fine. If you do, then go ahead, keep listening. It's cool.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (06:16.96)
going to be for everyone, you know, in any, in any creative endeavor that anybody does and puts out there, it's not going to be for everyone. And if it is for everyone, you're probably doing it wrong.

Mike (06:26.417)
Absolutely.

Ginny (06:26.585)
That's right.

Bill (06:36.564)
Right. I

Ginny (06:55.377)
Love that.

Bill (06:56.082)
Yeah, that's

Mike (07:24.811)
All right. Well, um, yes, we want to hear how you qualify for all of this loveliness that we're all involved with, but we all know how to fuck up our lives and fuck up the lives of everybody around us. We know how to get loaded. We know how to do all that. War stories are fucking boring. So what we want to hear is the solution. Clearly we want to know about your qualifications for this, but we don't want to sit here and spend an hour and a half talking about war stories. Cause we all have them.

Bill (07:42.21)
Haha

Mike (07:53.823)
And they're all the damn same anyway. So tell us about yourselves.

Bill (07:55.894)
Hehehehe

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (08:03.561)
So again, I'm Amanda and I got sober July 30th, 2006. I've had three major emotional breakdowns in recovery. One when I was eight months sober. My boyfriend in recovery died. He didn't wake up on Easter Sunday, which I thought was quite ironic.

And that kind of took me to my knees. So I do 12 step recovery. I don't know what you guys do, but I do 12 step. And at that point I was, okay, I was on my eighth step. And I said to my sponsor, which was interesting, because her husband had died a couple of, a couple of years before that. And I was like, well, what do I do? What do I do? You know, how do I not drink? She's like, just keep going with your steps. Just like jump into your steps, like even harder. So that's what I did.

I just, I jumped into my steps. And I just kept going. And then I started sponsoring people. And then life just kind of took off from there. I met my husband, moved out to Colorado in 2015. I grew up in New York, the South shore of Long Island, the town called Oceanside. Then we lived in a town called Long Beach for a while. We got hit with Hurricane Sandy in 2012, like super hard. And...

And I decided, we decided it might be time to get off the coast. And, you know, he had just retired, FDNY. He was, like, 25 years as a transit police officer in the subways in the late 80s. And then he transferred to be a fireman. So he had retired. And it just seemed like a good idea. So we came out here in 2015, took us a little time to get out here. And about a year after we moved here, I had my second emotional breakdown.

And that, you know, that one, you know, the way I kind of moved out of that one was service. Service has always, always saved my ass, you know, like the first breakdown, sponsoring people, working the steps, sponsoring people, right, being a service. The second one, we started a clubhouse here in Castle Rock, Colorado. It's called the Castle Rock Clubhouse. And it provides meeting space for a bunch of different 12-step programs.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (10:19.084)
And I didn't know what else to do with myself. Like before I had that breakdown, I moved out here and I was just like a total friggin' mess because I just, I couldn't get connected. There wasn't a very large pool of people to like choose to like hang out with. And I just like couldn't imagine like, like my life out here. And I was just really missing my people. And it was just really hard for me to get connected. So when I heard that they were talking about, somebody mentioned a clubhouse, I was like, yeah. Like I got on the phone with this guy

after the first conversation, he was like, we tried it, but it didn't work because we're not very organized. And I was like, well, I'm your girl. I'm your girl. I got it. I can totally do that. Like, let's do this. So we just, we spent like three years fundraising and we opened it up at the beginning of 2019. Then in 2018, my brother overdosed and died from obviously this addiction overdose. And that was where my third breakdown came in.

That one was really, really wretched. It seems like each one was worse than the one before. And I think that's because the longer I stay sober, the more spiritual I become, the more vulnerable I become, the more open I become, and the more I feel. It's just kind of the natural process of how this whole thing works. If I want to continue growing spiritually, I'm gonna have to feel more.

Ginny (11:36.029)
Thanks for watching!

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (11:43.548)
things are gonna hurt more, you know, I'm gonna feel more joy, but I'm also gonna feel more pain. And that one really kind of took me to my knees. I was in bed for about three months after my brother died, couldn't do anything, but take a bath and go to meetings. And that was pretty much it. My husband took care of the kids. And then I decided about two months after that, that I didn't love my husband, that I never loved my husband, that I thought I wanted a divorce. And I was 12 years sober at this time.

And he's also sober, he's in the program. He has 10 years more than me. So he had 22 years sober at the time. And he was like, your brother just died. He goes, do you think maybe like your grief is playing a part in this? And I was like, maybe. So we go to counseling really because I just wanted to do the right thing by my kids and give them a chance. And

You know, I just kept peeling the layers in therapy, and then I did the steps around my marriage, specifically just around my marriage. I got really much deeper into meditation. I kind of just took it to like the next level. My relationship with my higher power just was like so much more strengthened. It was so much more personal. It went from somewhere out there to somewhere inside. And I really kind of met my true self through like that whole process. And...

I had no idea though, a 12 year sober I was still such a mess. Like I was carrying these like false beliefs of what I believe is like generational family dysfunction. Like these messages that would just kind of like pass down to me and then compounded by some like various childhood trauma and stuff like that. And what I learned is that when my brother died, that I call it the great myth that everybody leaves and hurts me, that's the generational dysfunction. When Jeremy died, it became true. And then I had learned that my

What I did was I pushed my husband away because this is how fucked up I am. There's another fuck, guys, you should be proud. My brain told me, you know, you're never gonna feel that pain again like you did when your brother died. Jim's 12 years older than me. He, like a 9-11 first responder, he's chronically ill, he has respiratory illness, and he's gonna die next. So we're just gonna push him away now.

Bill (13:41.474)
Ha ha ha!

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (14:02.192)
I'm just gonna kind of grieve it all right now. So you like never have to do this again. And, you know, just really, if I hadn't been sober, I think, and had that like muscle memory of like continuing to do what I know works and staying open enough to like contemplate the things people were telling me, you know, like I went to like the women that I knew that were older than me and had a lot more time in the program and.

very experienced and had life experience. And I went to them and I said, what do I do? And they told me what to do, you know? And I listened to professionals and I got out of my own way, you know, and I found a measure of humility, which I believe is underneath this whole deal is humility. And I was able to say, maybe I don't know what the hell is going on. Maybe I'm wrong, you know, maybe there's something more. And it was just really.

Ginny (14:41.242)
Thank you.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (14:57.712)
the most harrowing, grueling time of my sobriety at 12 years over. But the most, I grew so much, I'd say, in like three years from like 12 years to 15 years over than I did for the first 12 years before. And I just had this like crazy, crazy growth. And each one, that was a major, I've had a couple of different spiritual awakenings in recovery. And that was probably the-

biggest one. And I really feel like I kind of was able to tackle some kind of like soul mission shit. Like I was put here to like learn this, how to deal with the fear of loss. Right? So right underneath, I was actually just working with Sponsi this morning. She's starting her fourth step. And I was explaining to her how underneath everything is fear. Every resentment or anger, right? And then what's under anger is fear. Fear that I'm not going to meet something that I want. Or fear something's going to be taken away. Or other fears.

Mike (15:45.827)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (15:57.448)
So this was like the, that was like my ultimate thing. It's like this loss, you know? It's like just been this story, like even throughout my childhood, like different types of loss. Ginny and I are gonna show out next week called The Many Faces of Grief. And it's about how loss shows up in all these different areas of our lives. We don't even recognize it as loss. You know, some are obviously more glaring. So yeah, that's pretty much like my story of sobriety up to this point is...

Yeah, I mean, I started drinking at 13. You know, I did everything everybody else said, right? Fuck no, that's exactly what you didn't want me to talk about. It's just like, oh, that's all the shit that we all know that we do. But my, you know, story is, you know, not 100% unique, but for me, it's unique, you know, having like three, I didn't have three emotional breakdowns before in State Sober, I drank through everything. I can now, right? Like, I know how, like when I was going through the second one after I moved to Colorado,

Mike (16:30.435)
Mm-hmm. Right. Hehehehe.

Bill (16:32.716)
Hahaha!

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (16:56.528)
And actually, no, it was when Jeremy died. I remember total fucking mess, like just anxiety, like just a mess. And these girls kept asking me to sponsor them. And I'm like, what do these girls want from me? Can't they tell that I'm like totally insane right now? And they knew that I knew how to stay sober when shit hits the fan. And that, that's it, that's it. That's what sobriety is for me in a nutshell, you know, using the tool, turning to the people. And yeah, it works for me.

Mike (17:16.079)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (17:27.862)
Yeah, so in the one thing you said too, is that the breakdowns got worse. You know, everyone was worse than the other one. And my first thought, and I don't know if there was any truth to this, but I've known that, and we talk about this every once in a while, that none of us are ever, I mean, in life you're never prepared for, you know, obviously things that happen. But when we get all these firsts that happen in sobriety, we don't have the booze or the drugs to numb ourselves out. You never know when that...

You don't know what you're not able to handle or what you can handle until it happens. And what happened to me along the way, there's nothing in particular, but you know, they have this one thing and it's a gut punch and then it's a nut punch and then somebody pops me in the face and kicks me in the nuts. And I'm like, fuck me. You know, and you know, when, I don't know, what was it, was it two years ago, Mike, when I was all, I told you I got all fucked up by my dad's, the anniversary of my dad's death. It was true.

or three years ago. He died 30 days before I got sober. So I mean, at that point would have been, you know, 13 years prior that he died. We're coming up on 14 years in April. And there was no reason for it. First of all, I almost forgot that it was coming up. It was like that Sunday. Usually I'd think about it whatever. Sometimes just post a picture or post his picture on like Facebook or whatever. I wouldn't, I wasn't making a big...

Ginny (18:26.592)
Ugh.

Bill (18:49.206)
you know, like, I don't know a big production about it anymore. You know, cause I deal with it, I thought on a daily basis. And then that particular day I had a training class at work and I'm, um, pissy and I'm short and I'm fucked up in my head and I don't know why. And then I figured out that it's, you know, obviously the day he died, but I'm like, why, you know, we talked about it. I'm here. I'm like, I don't fucking know, you know, but it hasn't happened since, you know, there's been one more anniversary since then. And.

I was fine, but why that day? And was it just, I don't know, was I lacking in something? Was I not doing something right? Like you said too, I love the fact that you said that with growth you became more vulnerable. And I think that's true. I mean, for the most part, and Mike and I talked about this, that we're a little bit more trusting, we're really guarded, but when we trust, we're way open. And when you open yourself up like that to people, a lot of people suck.

Ginny (19:40.528)
No.

Bill (19:45.82)
You're going to get stepped on sooner or later, right, Mike? I mean, that's happened to us.

Mike (19:48.611)
Absolutely. Of course. Yeah. You know, just cause we're doing the next right thing doesn't mean everybody else is.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (19:50.444)
Yeah.

Ginny (19:54.636)
Exactly.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (19:55.496)
Yep.

Bill (19:56.094)
Right. But yeah, and I didn't know, I guess I heard you talk that your husband was a firefighter. I didn't know it was all 9-11 stuff. That's a shame though. I mean, that's a lot to deal with on top of that. But yeah, you know, the first thing when you said these girls were asking you to sponsor, I'm like, okay, they see you in turmoil and they see you're handling it. Yeah, those are the people that are just walking along, you know, whistling Dixie all the time, you know, and never talk about the things that are going wrong in the light. Those are the people, the sober people I look at.

Ginny (20:14.746)
That's right.

Bill (20:25.994)
Okay. You know, you know, I mean, I trust somebody who's, I mean, I can't air in all your dirty laundry is not, I don't know, not a thing for anyone. But, you know, when you see somebody that's open about the struggle and asking for help and dealing with it, you know, those are the people that you want to go, you know, help you go through something with. So I get that completely.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (20:28.288)
Yeah.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (20:45.296)
Yeah, they just feel more real when people are just like telling the truth. They're just telling the truth. And then they're walking the walk. And that's what we're attracted to.

Mike (20:52.339)
All right. And like you said, you know, this it's, it's humbling yourself and saying, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Please help me in accepting the help.

Ginny (20:59.662)
Exactly.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (20:59.72)
Yes.

Bill (21:00.226)
Hahaha!

Mike (21:04.971)
Yeah, accepting the help and then, and then actually doing the work to help yourself.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (21:10.36)
Yes, yes, 100%. It's all worth it. Sometimes it sucks, you know, but it's so worth it what's waiting on the other side. You know, going through that tunnel, I was talking about it metaphorically like this morning with my sponsor, it's like kind of like a tunnel. Like she's feeling it, like this girl's in it. Her brother died also from addiction and she's, you know, I think that's why she asked me to sponsor her, but.

I'll say, you know, I'm just really proud of you because like you're feeling it, like you're really feeling it. I said, and if you weren't, if you were like, everything's great and I'm great, I'd tell you you're full of shit, you know? And then I would be worried. Then I would be worried and I'd be like, she's hiding. I said, but there's a light at the end of that tunnel, but you gotta go through the tunnel, the tunnel of pain. You gotta go through that tunnel of pain to get to the other side, to where the serenity is in the piece.

Bill (21:44.386)
Hehehehe

Bill (22:01.894)
Right. Well, and there's been there's been plenty of times, I mean, Mike and I got sober at the same time and we've been around each other basically from the start. And, you know, to the point of being in the sober living facility, the three quarter house, we live together. And I mean, now we're family. You know, we're brothers more than more than friends, you know, but I don't know how many times that, you know, either one of us, I mean, we're literally we've been sober the same amount of time went through the same process, got the same information. And sometimes I don't.

Ginny (22:18.213)
Absolutely.

Bill (22:31.038)
I don't understand something. I'll go, I'm like, what the fuck, man? And then that he comes back with the, or I'll say something he's like, oh, you know, and you know, like being open with people. I'm not, there's a very small, I've got a small group of people and Mike does too, you know, that we feel really close to, you know, but in as far as normies, I mean, I mean, it's my sister and my kids that I would basically talk, you know, deep conversations with.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (22:49.191)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (22:57.142)
You know, and when it comes to sobriety, Mike's the first one I'd go to, but we get a whole group of people in Cleveland where we got sober that I would feel comfortable of telling any one of them anything, you know, but, um, I don't have any, any other like normies in my life, you know, or other, all the friends I had, like from high school and from years past, um, I'm not friends with those people anymore. They didn't do anything wrong. Um, they're just, I'm over here. This is my life and that's yours. Cool. You do what you got to do over there. But.

It's just not my deal anymore, you know? I mean, did you guys find that same thing as the longer you were sober?

Ginny (23:32.657)
For sure. I, for sure. I think that there's, well, I was just about to say the reason, the reason those people aren't around is because you grew, right? It's like some of them grow in different paths. And I noticed that right after I got sober and oddly enough, it, it. Bothered me a little bit. It took me a little bit to get past the idea that a lot of the people that I had friendships with that I thought were friendships or that I thought I had really great relationships with, they weren't what I thought they were.

And most of them were based on us getting fucked up together and escaping. You know what I mean? We were like, we were like Houdini partners. So say, how, how do we not feel, you know, what do we do to not feel? And it felt, it was weird to have certain people that I had been around for so many years, just literally cut me off and not really saying anything, not saying much, or they were just so uncomfortable about it. And at the time, very early in, right, just starting my recovery.

Bill (24:10.03)
Hahaha!

Ginny (24:30.601)
I of course took that personally out the gate. I'm like, what the fuck you guys? Like, how is it, you know, I'm, I'm finally better. And I had this sense of like, why is it that it almost seems like the bigger chunk of people I had been around liked me better when, uh, when I was drinking and when I was, when I was just breaking myself apart and it felt that way. But then I came to realize, I'm like, well, no, it's just because you guys were on that frequency together. You know, you guys were on the same train of escaping and

Bill (24:33.873)
Hahaha.

Ginny (25:00.461)
It didn't have to do so much with me. And I started realizing, cause I have a lot of normies in my life. I heard to hear you say, you know, yeah, I am not, not too many normies. My husband is, um, I have lots of friends, you know, who somewhat are, but it's. I have a lot of friends who aren't as well too, but that, that experience was a whole thing in itself, you know, of realizing and coming to terms with. Hey, this isn't.

You know, this isn't because you're, you're being abandoned, right? That's a whole other set of issues that underneath, underneath that fear in drinking, this is because you are growing into a healthier, better you. And you guys aren't, you know, the, the thing that you thought was such a bond. It was an, it was a bond of escape is what it was. You guys bonded over numbing this pain out. And that finally gave me some peace, you know, when I was able to, to realize that, and it was by being in.

rooms with people like Amanda, people like you guys, people who had been doing it for a long time, um, to help me realize like, Hey, and first off, you know, what they think about you, it's not even your business. Second of all, you know, like that's none of your business, what they think about you. And those were all things I had zero idea or any tools to work with prior to being in rooms that, that help with 12 step recovery. So yeah, it was, it was a weird deal to see people kind of fall off.

Bill (26:09.013)
Right.

Ginny (26:26.997)
some of them lifelong friendships that I had up to that point. And it's like, okay, well, this was built on a different foundation than I thought it was, and that's okay. You know, cause I'm, I'm growing in a different direction and, and that's all right, but there was a little bit of like, yeah, I had some, it definitely had some ego wounding in those. I know. Can you imagine?

Bill (26:45.75)
Imagine that an alcoholic or a drug addict that's gonna get her ego hurt.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (26:49.096)
Laughter

Ginny (26:49.817)
It's so weird. Well, and also it was really odd. I come from a long line of professionals, long line of professional alcoholics and addicts. And I'm like really good at it because I got those genes. But a really interesting thing that had happened too along the way, which I didn't expect and had to also, I still have to work through all the time, is that I had even family members that I don't think were super comfortable with me.

getting out from under this thing. And they may not have even noticed. Stop it! You don't know, Amanda, I know you've never gone through that. I know you've never gone through that. How about you guys?

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (27:20.764)
Really? No, I can't imagine any family member who wants to be a public health care system. Wow, never. Never.

Bill (27:23.906)
Hahaha!

Bill (27:29.198)
So we have been really lucky. It's like, I'll say my side of the family, my biological side of the family, which Mike is now deeply, deeply part of, every single one of them. There's not one person, we don't have a huge family, but there's not one person that turned their back the other way. Even my, I was able to rebuild relationships even with not just family members that I had harmed. Nobody walked away from me while I was drinking, but people do.

Mike (27:40.665)
Mm-hmm.

Ginny (27:57.19)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (27:59.386)
I wasn't myself and all that sort of things. But we built relationships with my ex-wives that then brought along my ex-families at that point. Yeah, and I mean, running into, going to events or something like that, or being invited to things where ex-in-laws and their aunts and uncles and all those people, and I walk into these places and I'm just got, it's like almost mentally have my fists up going, Jesus, where's the punch going to come from?

Ginny (28:08.381)
Wow. That is awesome.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (28:09.28)
That's awesome.

Ginny (28:27.558)
No.

Bill (28:27.69)
Because I wasn't a good human being. I wasn't abusive or anything like that physically, but I was mentally and verbally abusive to both of my exes. And I know that those stories get back to them. But the thing of it is that thankfully, people see us resolve those relationships with the individuals like my ex-wives, and then the family comes back along. And Mike, I mean, I don't think you didn't have any troubles with your family members on your side, did you?

Mike (28:55.667)
No, I mean, I really don't have many. Um, right. But, um, no, not really. But when it comes to friends, I mean, I was almost, I almost feel a bit lucky that I burned every goddamn bridge that I had. Um, so I mean, at the end, nobody wanted to be around me. Nobody. Um, and I had, I had pretty much, you know, um, I had done geographic. And so I wasn't around any, I was, I was.

Bill (28:58.433)
Right.

Bill (29:11.138)
Ha ha ha.

Ginny (29:12.812)
I'm sorry.

Mike (29:25.067)
alone in a room doing my thing at the end. You know, my daughter was on the other side of the door. We moved in together. If you listen to my story, you'll know that. But she was the only one that, you know, really dealt with me at the end. And she was just completely relieved that I went and did something about it and still is. But yeah, you know, as far as friends and stuff, I didn't have any.

Bill (29:51.394)
Hehehe

Mike (29:54.843)
So I didn't have anywhere to go but up. So like, yeah, everybody in my life today pretty much is in the program. Very few exceptions. My girlfriend is an army, but we as the people in the rooms, I mean, she comes to the fundraisers that we do for the sober house that we went through that I'm still active with. So all of the drunks and junkies that are now my friends,

have adopted her as one of us. So, and plus I'm not her first alcoholic, I'm just her first sober alcoholic. Imagine that.

Bill (30:31.17)
Hehehehe

Ginny (30:32.943)
I'm not doing that.

Bill (30:34.178)
Well, in Chris's, yeah, we've said this, I don't know how many times, Chris is, she's a member of this fellowship and she just didn't have to pay any dues. You know, we all said, yeah. Well, not, right, that's what I mean. That's what I mean. But no, yeah, she dealt with, yeah, she dealt with others that weren't as fortunate as us to find a positive way and stick there. But yeah, exactly, exactly.

Mike (30:43.043)
Mm-hmm. Well, she made dues, just not personally. Right. Yes.

Ginny (30:47.377)
That was nice.

Mike (30:54.341)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (30:59.455)
I had the solution. Great.

Bill (31:02.39)
But yeah, Chris is great. I mean, she's, I never look at her one way or the other. And well, we talk about it enough that she's ignoring me, but if it weren't for the fact that we pointed out on here, I'd never think about it, I just never do.

Mike (31:12.819)
Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Because when she's with us, I mean, she hangs out and she she's one of us. You know, she just she just doesn't have the disease. She's just had it surrounding her life her entire life.

Bill (31:23.71)
Right

Ginny (31:26.733)
Right. So she's comfortable around, she's comfortable around a bunch of. Oh.

Mike (31:29.799)
Yes, she is. And she's far more comfortable around sober alcoholics and junkies. Yes. She doesn't have to be nervous around us.

Bill (31:31.054)
Oh yeah, yeah.

Bill (31:34.767)
Hahaha!

Ginny (31:35.357)
I'm sure. I'm sure she is.

Bill (31:38.07)
Yeah.

And I'll tell you one thing, man, our sober friends, and we've got this group that we play poker with, and we did it New Year's Eve, and we do it as much as possible. I don't get back there as much as I used to. I don't play as much as when I lived there, but this whole group of people, and if it was everyone that was involved, Mike, how many people do you think? 15 or 20? I mean, not that are always there, but, I mean, we talk about that all the time. We're sitting around this table, and I mean, these are all the...

Mike (32:00.523)
Yeah, something like that. Right. Yeah.

Bill (32:08.482)
There are some of them are married, some have kids. I mean, we all have jobs. We all have a positive impact on society these days. We all came from the same sober living facility or try to get back and we're involved. And I know it's been brought up a couple of times. Can you imagine if somebody threw booze or drugs in the middle of this table and we all decided to just say, just say, fuck it. I mean, I think Mike, I think your comment, the one time we were talking about fights, whatever you're like, you're like, no, no. We would just burn the fucking house down.

And I'm like, okay, yeah, that's probably better. Better way to put it. So Ginny, kind of step back a little bit and I know that you kind of, obviously jumped in a little bit in there, but kind of like Amanda did, tell us what your deal is. Go back and to your side.

Ginny (32:57.253)
Yeah, well, I had, you know, again,

Ginny (33:04.689)
I think I was somebody who had what I thought was the normal relationship with alcohol for a while and then realize You know, it's like I don't have a problem. I'm just a lot of fun I'm a lot of fun is what this is. It's not a big deal that I can out drink everyone I obviously like we all do came to that point where I crossed that bridge and Realized it absolutely was not something I had a normal relationship with it all and it was something I had a

Bill (33:10.398)
Right.

Ginny (33:33.773)
You know, it wasn't a DUI or anything like that. It was just really pushing myself all the way to the point where I definitely knew I needed help. I, like many of us, it was, my husband was sitting, you know, standing by and watching and trying to figure out how to help me and had no idea because again, he's a normie. So kind of stepping back and not understanding at all where I was at with that. I was a mom at that time.

I still am, but I just had my son 18 months prior to that was going through the postpartum stuff, which I had no idea, by the way. I had no idea that that's what was going on. Looking back, it took a while to kind of put the pieces together. But not sleeping and having the postpartum and clearly just already being wired this way and having this disease, it was a perfect.

A perfect, wonderful storm of everything culminating together and me getting to the point where I, I definitely, for sure, it was very clear to me that I did not have control of this thing. Um, I knew, I thought I could stop by myself. I was, cause you know, I don't need you, I don't need you guys. I don't need anyone. I'm great. I can, I don't have a problem, first of all. And then, uh, yeah, I, I made this attempt. I had it in my mind that, well, I'll just be able to stop by myself. This is fine.

Bill (34:41.304)
Hehehe

Bill (34:48.666)
Yeah

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (34:50.336)
I'm sorry.

Ginny (35:00.065)
I made that attempt a few times where I actually was getting physically ill at the time of that and realized, hey, guess what? It dragged me down to the place of realizing like, you cannot do this alone. You cannot do this alone. You need help. And I made the decision at that time. I was working full-time, mom of two kids, all the things with life. I also kept having the excuse in my mind of...

I can't stop my super busy life to get better. I can't do that. I'm so important. The world's gonna fall apart if I have to not be around to get better. And then I quickly realized like, no, you know what? This is, I knew in my mind, I had spent my whole life, I know like many of us have done this too, telling myself and being thoroughly convinced and committed to that I would never be my mother who's an opiate addict.

Bill (35:32.05)
Right.

Ginny (35:58.105)
and go figure, like the irony and how funny it is, I did not become an opiate addict. I went ahead and just jumped in with the alcohol. But I had the realization, you know, it dawned on me as I was physically getting sick, trying to stop, that I needed that help. And I'm so grateful for that now because I went ahead and just made the decision that I knew I needed to be.

I needed to be in house somewhere. I needed to be just all the way in. So I went to rehab. I went to a 30 day program, which was the very first time I had ever been into any room of any type of 12 step program. It was part of what we did every day. And I didn't hear a fucking word anyone said for about the first four days. I sat in there and I was angry.

Bill (36:48.038)
ha

Ginny (36:51.897)
I was annoyed. I didn't like that there were people in there that were just like, oh yeah, I'm living life and things are great because they were not for me. And I was mad because how am I gonna go about this world and being in a job of sales and all these other things? Just very, very much newly just wounded, right? In my mind. And suddenly about day three or four, as we had to go to these,

I had to go meet with this group every day. When I started listening, I started hearing my story over and over. I started hearing my story. And I couldn't believe it because I was hearing my story from people that, you know, from the older white guy who didn't have kids, who had nothing in common with me, all the way down to, you know, the CEO who was running a company who wouldn't have had anything in common with me. I started hearing my story.

Bill (37:40.374)
Hehehe

Ginny (37:52.045)
and everyone in those rooms. And I realized then I figured out like, okay, wait a second, these guys are onto something because I was hearing people talk about being able to make it through, you know, losing children and losing jobs and losing marriages and all the things without ever having to rely on alcohol to make it through that. And that was where that started for me. And I had made the decision in that.

30 days, I knew early in that, cause we had the opportunity after the whole, like, you know, the whole seven day blackout where no phone calls and no seeing anyone, you could start scheduling time to see family. And I made the decision not to, because I knew that if I saw my kids, I would talk myself into every reason why I was gonna be great, you know, why I needed to leave and why I needed to get out of there. So I didn't do that. I took that full.

30 days and in the midst of that was able to be exposed to, to solutions that I would have never thought that I would be exposed to in any way, shape or form. And I'm grateful to this day. Um, I am somebody who, you know, we're talking about mental breakdowns and emotional things like that, that occur. I am someone who has.

become very aware even more recently, right? And I always heard it, you know, people would say like, stay in the middle of the vote, you know, stay with the winners, stay involved. And I was super, super strong in running a, just really, really having a, working a strong program for my first five years. And I still, it wasn't even one of those situations of like, nothing, well, I guess a few small things happened. COVID really, I think COVID kind of.

gave me a few little loopholes where I have not been as strong and committed to my program as I know that I need to be, and I see it coming out at times in my emotional sidewaysness. I've managed to not have any alcohol in that period of time, but I'm also wise enough to know that it's not a place to be for long periods of time. But just...

Bill (40:01.667)
Ha!

Ginny (40:13.677)
You know, being completely transparent about it because I don't know. I feel like that's important too, to share with people who might be working, working a program and sometimes you, you know, progress, not perfection where it's like, oh shoot, you fall off a little bit for a little while. Um, but also in my mind, it's a constant like, Hey, you should come back. Come over here with the winners. I still, I, uh, I.

Bill (40:35.574)
Hehehehe

Ginny (40:40.801)
I go to meetings and, but that's definitely not enough of them because I catch myself and I have wonderful friends more like family like Amanda. And I'm surrounded by a lot of, a lot of people who do work a 12 step program. And I'm so grateful for that because I know that it's not something that you want to do for too long, you know, or you want to be, Oh, I'm good. I'm great. You start getting all that, you know, bullshit talk. I'm fine. Everything is awesome.

Um, and then, you know, I go, I don't know, murder some people. No, just kidding. I'm just kidding guys. So I wouldn't do that. Um, but you know, lose my shit a little bit on some things or find myself becoming resentful or find myself in a place where it's like, um, you forget for a minute. Like, Hey, you learned about these life on life's terms things and you'll, you'll keep being reminded and remembered and supported if you get more consistent on, on being around the people who.

Bill (41:08.229)
haha

Bill (41:15.842)
Ha ha.

Ginny (41:38.001)
who work it every day. So I owe and I definitely believe that I have been able to not have a drink of alcohol based on the support and how well those miraculous programs work. But again, in that state of like progress, not perfection, I have not run like the most awesome stellar program my whole time.

So I'm at that stage right now where I'm like, ooh, we need to do one of these like, start back at step one, do it, run through those things again. So that's kind of been, that's my story really. I've lost a lot of family members, lots of friends. I'm from New Mexico, that's where I'm from originally. And we seem to be riddled with it there, just all over the place. But we have lost.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (42:16.894)
Yeah.

Ginny (42:34.249)
Very, very close family members. In 2020, we lost two, my sister-in-law's younger sister, who we were just a few years apart, and then one of our best friends were 60 days apart and both to alcohol. And these were people who, you know, professionals in the world. One was a, was a nurse working on being like a physician's assistant. One of them was a professional realtor and esthetician and all these things. So.

It was a tough time. I lost my grandfather to that. We've just, we've lost countless people to this disease. So it is something that has surrounded me for a long time. And it's, you know, in a lot of places, it's almost normal. And I think a lot of, a lot of friends and family that I have from New Mexico have, almost everyone I know has lost somebody to some form of addiction. And

You know, it's something I know for me. I am so grateful every day that I am not one of the people who lost their lives as of today for today. And I feel like it's, I'm grateful for the people who are willing to be open, vulnerable, like you guys were talking about earlier, and share the solution and how they were people who some people had counted out, you know.

They were done. They were gone. There was no way they could get any kind of, that they could be redeemed, right? And you hear those stories and it's just a constant miracle. And I love the fact that some of these, the 12 step programs, they're an ongoing living thing in a way that they're constantly going. You have this basic hardware and these solutions that are provided for you if you're willing.

to listen and if you're willing to do what people before you have had to work for them. So I love, I love, love 12 step programs and as much as I've definitely want to work on mine being better and stronger, I'm grateful because I believe that those rooms saved my life for sure.

Bill (44:52.734)
Yeah, absolutely. And Mike and I, you know, we're taught and grew up in this in this program and in the same thing, you know, I don't think any one of our programs or our sobriety, you know, is 100% perfect all the time. But, but if, like you said, willing, able, do the work, all the sort of things that, you know, obviously that once we get that, that base in that foundation there, the rest is up to us. But yeah, we've got to keep coming back and

Ginny (45:10.631)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (45:21.727)
Taking a taking a drink from that well every day right Mike

Mike (45:25.395)
Absolutely. Yep. Uh, I believe I read somewhere there is no cure for alcoholism. All we get is a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

Bill (45:37.238)
Aha! Yeah. That's it. That's Mike's, Mike's

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (45:37.8)
Mm-hmm. And growth.

Ginny (45:38.286)
Interesting. Hmm, I think I've heard that somewhere too. It sounds really familiar.

Mike (45:41.411)
Heheheheheheh

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (45:43.112)
This is probably the word growth in for maintenance because it really is not maintenance, it's growing. If we're not, if we're always just maintaining our spiritual condition, like isn't there like a, I don't know, like a risk of, I don't know, maybe moving backwards. I mean, I wanna be growing. I don't wanna just be like coasting along. When I coast, that's when I get fucked up. That's when I get like, I'm blazing. Like I'm just coasting, I'm good, I'm maintaining. I feel like the word growth needs to be thrown in the next version of the big book, which I hear they're making like a.

Ginny (45:48.262)
It's gross.

Ginny (46:02.916)
Oh yeah!

Mike (46:10.755)
Hehe

Bill (46:11.414)
Hehehehe

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (46:12.965)
like a big book for dummies kind of thing. They're making it like, it's called simple English, actually. Simple for dummies, sorry I shouldn't have said that. It's written, it's gonna be a fourth book.

Mike (46:15.06)
Mmm.

Ginny (46:15.317)
Oh, really?

Ginny (46:21.893)
1932.

Bill (46:35.344)
Well, and

Ginny (46:52.914)
Hmm.

Bill (46:53.438)
Every one of us has done it before. And if you're, the escalator's going down and you're walking up and you stop, what happens? You go down, right? So it was the analogy that was given to us that it doesn't matter, um, you know, where we are in our program, we always have to keep moving. We always have to keep walking, you know, keep walking up. Cause if we, if we stop, it's not as though we maintain anything or even stay, you know, stay as is, we're always going to go backwards, you know? So we have to work to, you know, to maintain and

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (46:54.92)
Thank you.

Ginny (47:00.497)
Right.

Bill (47:21.55)
obviously attain that additional growth and obviously keep going. But yeah, that's one of Mike's favorite sayings in the big book, right Mike?

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (47:29.801)
Wait, Trish.

Mike (47:29.979)
Mm-hmm, it is.

Bill (47:31.882)
But so we're, I think it probably now is probably a good time to take a break here. But for real quickly before, I just want to let everyone know. And I, Mike, I didn't even have a chance to tell you about this, but I know you'll approve because it's, it's a group that we, that we work with. So we usually have our, our website promo now in the middle of the episode. I think, um, who knows everyone's listened to it now. I may not have it at all or may have it have had at the beginning, but the ad that's going to run night right now, if you usually skip over this advertisement, please take a moment to listen to it. It's like 46 seconds.

It's with the Sober Curator. They are affiliated or banding together with a group called Break Free, the Break Free Foundation. And it's a foundation that actually tries to help out folks like us get treatment and get resources and that sort of thing. So the Sober Curator, we're in with them, we're curators with them, we're involved with them. So you're gonna hear a lease and then the other individual from the Break Free Foundation. So please, rather than skipping through this advertisement, please listen to it, okay? So Mike, your turn.

Mike (48:31.375)
All right. Well, I think Bill took care of it. Listen to this message and we'll be right back.

Bill (48:33.046)
Hahaha!

Bill (48:46.654)
All right everyone, welcome back and sorry Mike to steal your thunder on that but Well, you know what's funny is that uh, Elise had told me about it Um, she's like hey, we're gonna do this ad she sent it out to To everyone and uh had said that you know, we're gonna do this ad You know if anyone wants to put it on there i'm like she was supposed to have it Like a week or so ago and I didn't get it So I didn't bring it up to you and literally I got it like this afternoon like late this afternoon

Mike (48:51.667)
Oh, absolutely, man. I had no clue, so I'm glad you did it.

Bill (49:15.646)
and just had the opportunity to download it. I'm like, Oh, fuck. If everyone out there, anyone out there is like me, you can forward through advertisements on a podcast and that's fine. If it's just us, you know, with our fuck this back and forth with our website thing, I don't care. But this Break Free Foundation is kind of a it's kind of a big deal and they're doing good things for a lot of a lot of people. So we're trying to. So yeah.

Mike (49:23.4)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (49:28.801)
Right.

Mike (49:36.223)
Exactly. So you assholes that just fast forward, go back and listen to it.

Bill (49:39.886)
Yes. Yeah, you motherfuckers go, yes, do something for somebody else. Like Mike always says, God damn it.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (49:41.356)
Thank you.

Ginny (49:42.781)
with tears.

Ginny (49:48.373)
I love that. It sounds like, yeah, that sounds like an amazing thing to be supporting and getting out there to people because there's just, when people are out there and they haven't found guys like you yet, not everybody knows exactly where to even begin or where those resources are available. So that's amazing that you guys are involved in supporting an organization doing that.

Bill (50:15.394)
Well, and the sober curator, we ran across them completely accidentally. And it was literally for me fucking around with Elise because there was a list about, I don't know, she posted some list about, well, the sober curator itself, if it's called the sober curator, the sobercurator.com, look them up on Instagram, the sober curator. It's basically a place to go. It's almost like a, I don't know, an entertainment type of thing, but it's a place to go for sobriety. It's got articles and...

Ginny (50:23.726)
I'm going to go.

Bill (50:44.606)
They do fashion things, they do sports stuff, they do a lot of different things, but it's pretty cool. And we got affiliated with them, got coming up on not quite a year ago, eight or nine months ago, right, Mike, I think. So Elise, who is the founder of it, she did this list on the top 10 or top 15 male led sober podcasts. And I see this list and it's posted on there by one of somebody else that I followed this other podcast. And I look, I'm like, hmm.

Mike (50:54.371)
Something like that.

Bill (51:12.802)
I'm like, I wonder if we made the list, you know, I'm like, now reading through this and I see all these fucking things that I'm like, what the fuck, man, not only is this podcast male led, it's led by two guys. I'm like, there's two of us. So what I did was completely sarcastic, um, post. I mean, not, not mean just kind of, I'm like, okay, we didn't make the list. I'm going to at least get noticed. Right? So I took a, I took a picture of the screenshot of the article, wrote this thing. And I'm like, Hey, this and that, yeah, we're two guys. We went on here.

Ginny (51:23.322)
Two of us!

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (51:24.158)
Yeah.

Ginny (51:35.258)
Ha ha!

Bill (51:42.27)
I'm like, if any of our followers on there think we should be on the list, I said, reach out to this sober curator and let them know. You know, because I'm like, you know, who's like, do we got a hump to get on a list type of thing? And I tagged Elise, I tagged the sober curator. And that's, that's how we, that's how we got introduced to each other. So yeah, and she did, she, you know, obviously, listened to us and followed us and all this different stuff, and then asked them to be curators. So

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (52:02.708)
Cool.

Ginny (52:03.03)
I love it.

Bill (52:12.098)
It's a fun group for anyone out there, including you guys, if you haven't looked at that. Also, just so you know, Amanda, she does book reviews every once in a while, and she'll do a review on the website. So if it's something that you want her, obviously neither one of us can guarantee anything, but if you want her to take a look at it, just tell her that we sent you over. And if you want her email address, I'd be more than happy to give that to you, the Sobercurator1 and...

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (52:38.863)
Thank you.

Bill (52:40.106)
Yeah, and you know, worst case scenario, if this episode doesn't suck, then I'll tell her that, you know, she could feature this episode on the website too, because she'd do that for us. So.

Ginny (52:44.922)
I'm sorry.

Mike (52:49.151)
Right. And so that's great. So speaking of the book, let's talk about the book.

Ginny (52:50.257)
That's super cool.

Bill (52:55.294)
Yeah, what? Hey everyone, that's a segue. Go dice one mic.

Ginny (52:58.513)
Good job, I like that. Great way.

Mike (52:58.819)
professional.

Bill (53:00.29)
hahahaha

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (53:01.213)
Very impressive.

So what do you want to know about my book? You want me just to tell you what it's about?

Bill (53:06.558)
Oh, you know what, Todd? Okay, pretend like you're trying to sell somebody your book, because I think that's your point, right? Ha ha ha.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (53:13.133)
I hate that so much. I get so like jammed up. All right, so like that elevator pitch thing is just really hard for me because I'm definitely not a woman of few words. So it's challenging for me to keep it like short and succinct. But yeah, so it's called Trust Yourself to Be All In, Save to Love and Let Go. It is an inspirational memoir slash self-help slash personal development, body, mind, spirit. It's kind of like kind of straddles a whole bunch of genres.

Ginny (53:23.513)
I'm sorry.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (53:40.376)
Um, but it was actually pointed out to me that it's written. I didn't realize I did this. It's written sort of like how we do, um, how we share in the rooms, experience strength, and then hope. Well, the first part of the book. Yeah. Like I did that like unconsciously, like I didn't even realize somebody in the program, they're like, do you realize like you laid it out like that? Um, I was like, no, I had no idea.

Bill (53:52.354)
Nice.

Ginny (53:53.389)
It totally is.

Mike (54:01.411)
So you're saying we've been brainwashed and we do this and everything we do and we don't even realize it.

Bill (54:03.586)
Ha ha ha!

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (54:06.273)
Pretty much. Pretty much, Mike. Yep. It's in there. It's in there. It gets in there. Yeah, so the beginning is like my, you know, memoir-ish. Like just about, you know, my story and, you know, just losses. It starts out with my brother, his death, and then getting sober and then moving to Colorado, you know, Hurricane Sandy. The book is all love and loss, safe to love and let go. So the whole story is basically...

Bill (54:06.619)
Ha ha.

Mike (54:11.395)
Cool.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (54:33.048)
what I explained before, my marriage troubles that resulted from my brother's passing, and then basically uncovering this whole experience of childhood emotional abandonment that I experienced, which I think a lot of us in the rooms probably had some form or another. I don't know. It all came from dysfunction, right? Yeah. And

Ginny (54:51.573)
Nah, there's- I've never heard that.

You've never heard that Amanda.

Bill (54:55.403)
Hehehe

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (54:58.8)
So yeah, so I trace it kind of back to like that's the beginning of it, this beginning of the feeling of this like deep well of like a void, like this void inside that I was trying to fill with all these different things, including my husband's approval, you know, met him. He was 11 years sober. I was a year sober. I couldn't believe he was interested in me. He was like the successful guy. And I was like this newbie, like every, looking back, I had no business whatsoever.

getting involved with him at that time. And so it's basically, you know, my, my journey to, really finding myself and finding myself through pain, right? So basically how to turn pain into purpose and how to go into the pain and really go into it, trusting that you're going to come out the other side and you're going to come out wiser and better. And I don't even like to say stronger. I don't know. I've been having like an issue with that word lately, but

because I believe the strongest people are the most vulnerable, and AKA the weakest. I think the weaker that we can actually be, and the softer, and the more gentle, and the more vulnerable, the stronger we actually are. But then it kind of moves into, it basically teaches you. Then it turns into almost a teaching. Then I turn it back on the reader. So it's not just all about me. Because when I was first writing it, I self-published, but I was going to work with a hybrid publisher. When I told her what I was writing about, she's like, I was convinced that this was not going to be a memoir.

My final editor actually convinced me to make an inspirational memoir because I was like, who the hell cares about me? And she's like, exactly. She's like, nobody cares about you. Thanks lady. But there's a million memoirs you could read out there. You could be reading about like Jessica Simpson, who the hell wants to read about me when you could be reading about like Matthew McConaughey and like all these people, these interesting people.

Bill (56:34.504)
Hehehe

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (56:52.296)
But my editor did say, like, your story is the most powerful tool that you have, and it builds trust with readers. So I just poured over that thing for a good, I guess the first draft was written in very quickly, six to eight months, and then I had to rewrite it and rewrite it and morphed and changed and it became, it wasn't even about what it ended up being about, about this generational dysfunction and this, you know, healing your pain through loss and all that kind of stuff.

coming to your true self and all that. It wasn't even really about that. It was kind of hiding. I didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. And it's not, like you said, I'm not airing my dirty laundry. Everything that's in there is purposeful. It's for a reason. It's to show you a piece of my pain and my story, and to sort of qualify me, to serve people to say, okay, she gets it. She's been through it. And of course, not everything is in there. And...

Yeah, and then it basically is a map. It's a roadmap to learning how to trust yourself to show up in all of your emotions so that you do not have to fear future loss if you've been through loss, and most of us have. If you've experienced some kind of trauma or pain or a traumatic loss, sometimes it can keep us, you know, it can hold us back from fully being all in with not just other people, but ourselves. We hold us back from really diving into our well of emotions.

Um, so it kind of teaches people how to, uh, go in to go like to go really in, and go deeper and deeper. And then you surface and then what, you know, who you end up being at the end of that as somebody who can trust yourself to never self abandon when the going gets tough. So you can be in situations where, um, loss may be, uh, you know, well, loss is inevitable for all of us. We're going to go through it.

Mike (58:48.161)
Thank you.

Bill (58:49.921)
Right?

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (58:51.1)
I'm going to her mother. I mean, it's life. I've come to learn that loss is just as much a part of life as love. Right? We're all so gung-ho about love, but nobody ever wants to talk about loss. And loss is just, it's a duality of life. You can't have one without the other, but we're also afraid to feel it. So my book kind of inspires and motivates people to feel it and know that you're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. It's actually a gift.

Ginny (58:54.148)
Yeah, mm-hmm.

Ginny (58:58.972)
Okay.

Mike (59:18.229)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (59:20.42)
I think pain is a gift. I'm grateful for every traumatic experience I've ever had. I really am. That might sound crazy, but I would not have sought the levels of healing that I have if I wasn't in such tremendous pain. Maybe I would have healed in some way during this life, but the lower that I went, the higher I bounced back, kind of.

It was all worth it. So, yeah, so that's pretty much what it's about. And, you know, just kind of like shifting the narrative in your mind, breaking those chains of that, those narratives, the deeply ingrained stories that are passed down through generations and families that like so many of us don't even know we're carrying. Yeah, I had no idea I was carrying that story. I call it the great myth. That's my story. Great myth is that everybody leaves me. Everybody hurts me.

Mike (01:00:15.855)
Mm-hmm.

Ginny (01:00:19.734)
I think it's for a lot of us, right? There's a lot of us that have common. That's right. About unlearning the bullshit, I had told Amanda one of the things I loved about her book so much is that I obviously know her and I had a vague idea of what it was going to be about in her life. But just exactly how much it made clear for me how much self abandoning I had probably done in my life. And

Bill (01:00:21.6)
Right.

Mike (01:00:21.707)
Right. No, it's about unlearning the bullshit.

Ginny (01:00:46.149)
that it was possible for me to show up for myself. Like I knew that had been like laid in there Amanda, but it honestly, it's one of the things that when you guys, if you haven't read the book yet, you definitely should go pick it up. But it was a thing that impacted me the most. Cause in my mind, I'm like, oh, we're gonna have, we're gonna be able to deal with people leaving us or people abandoning us or things happening in our lives or we're experiencing loss. And actually for me, it just rang super true of like, oh, wait a second.

I have also abandoned myself and I can also get to a point of healing that. So thanks for sharing that Amanda in your book.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:01:20.712)
Yeah, and it's total thank you to me. Thank you for always pushing my book and that you read it and I appreciate it.

Bill (01:01:28.162)
Well, and that's, and we will have, and we do, because obviously people are listening to it. This episode is gonna be out as they're listening to it, but same description I had and like the promotions I was doing, I've got all of your website link in there, your Instagram link, same thing with you, Ginny. I've got a link to your furniture store in there too. So, you know, people take a look at that. You can go onto Amanda's website or either one of their Instagram pages and obviously, you know, see all the different things they're doing, but.

Ginny (01:01:46.961)
awesome.

Bill (01:01:55.102)
And Mike and I talk about this thing all the time as far as that, you know, we, and it took a while. I don't remember for either for me, or I don't know if you remember Mike, when we figured it out that, yeah, all this shit, all these quote unquote bad things that we went through, you know, to get us to this point of sobriety, they've now become tools to teach other people, right Mike?

Mike (01:02:17.115)
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. All that worthless shit that we did has worth now because we can use it to help somebody else get through their shit, which is all the same shit. All of our shit is the same shit.

Ginny (01:02:24.815)
I'm good.

Bill (01:02:27.402)
Hehehehehehe

Ginny (01:02:28.258)
It really is.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:02:28.872)
Yes, it is manifested in just different ways, but it's all the same shit. Yeah. And then teaching people how to like experience this, like emotional freedom. Like you guys sound like you're pretty free. Like that's what like this program and what like just the growth has given me is this emotional freedom to not have to feel like, yeah, I think fearlessness is another myth. I'm I don't know. I mean,

Bill (01:02:32.895)
Yeah, yep.

Mike (01:02:39.075)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Mike (01:02:50.871)
Hahaha

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:02:53.108)
I don't walk around like in fear, like I'm not like hiding in my house, you know, but I think it serves a purpose. It kind of shows me, you know, my anxiety or my fear, whatever, shows me what I have to look at and what I have to grow and what's still, you know, what's still there, what crumbs are still there that kind of need to be cleaned up. And like Ginny said, the self abandonment thing, like that's really what it comes down to is like, my husband now compliments me. Like, yes, of course I'd be devastated.

if he, if he, when, you know, I mean, I could always go first, of course, but like, you know, reasonably, he's 12 years older than me. He's sick, you know, that kind of stuff. Like most likely he will go first. I know that I will be, I'll hit the floor for a while. Don't get me wrong. This isn't like, you're going to be great. You're going to be awesome. You can guess through it all. You got this. No, it's like, you're going to hit the floor. You're going to need to hit the floor, but you're going to get back up because you always get back up because you have a proven track record of always getting back up.

and you're going to be even better for it afterwards. So yeah, it's just about trusting yourself to be all in. That's the title.

Bill (01:04:00.61)
Well, and when, you know, from the death side of things, we've had family death, even, I mean, since Mike's been around, we've had a number of people, and, you know, again, I'll say my side of the family, but, you know, they're all family members on his side now too, but my, so my dad died 30 days before I got sober, no coping skills, still drinking, I was a literally fucking mess, you know? And then my stepdad died when I was a year and two months sober, and I leaned on.

Ginny (01:04:13.649)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:04:28.31)
know, people like Mike and all the people in the program. And Mike had called me when I was down at our mom's house at that point. And he's like, so, you know, what are you, what are you doing? You know, how are things going? And, you know, literally said to me, and I think these words, right, get your ass up here and go to a meeting, you know. And I, it never crossed my mind and I needed him to do that. That's exactly what I did. And then, you know, again, my biological mom, but who's a woman who became Mike's mom also over the last, you know,

Mike (01:04:54.083)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:04:56.438)
well, at that point was 12 years, died a year ago in October, October of 22. And we did an episode on it, and we did an episode that week, and we talked about it, and we talked through all that stuff. And it was doing this thing and having that opportunity to have, for Mike and I to have that conversation openly with ourselves, and also for other people was cool. But, and again, it doesn't, she was sick. I mean, we knew it was coming and all those different things, but still it was...

You know, it was a loss that we got through. But, you know, the, I don't want to say they got easier, but I knew how to deal with the shit, you know? And you learn how to deal with these items as they happen to you. And that's like when you were talking about before with the, I thankfully, and I'll knock on whatever wood there is, I haven't had a full mental nervous breakdown, anything like that. I've been extremely, what I feel like, lost and frazzled to the point where, I mean, I can't imagine, you know, going through a breakdown, but.

every piece of, I don't know, these challenges, you know, all the shit that keeps getting thrown at us, life on life's terms. Somebody already mentioned that, you know. When our mom died, Mike, you're the one that said that. You're like, fuck man, this is life on life's terms, right?

Mike (01:06:09.295)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is it, man. You know, this is it happens and it's going to happen and it will continue to happen. And it's what we do with it. You know, we are going to crawl into our own asses. Are we going to continue to do what we're told to do taught to do, which is continue to help other people best way to fucking get through anything is, you know, get out of your own head.

Ginny (01:06:09.67)
Okay.

Bill (01:06:22.295)
Hehehe

Mike (01:06:34.635)
Go deal with somebody else's problems. And all of a sudden your problems don't seem quite so big. And quite frankly, you know, I mean, the root of our troubles is selfishness and self-centeredness. I'm still selfish. I'm still self-centered. The best way to not be that way is to go help somebody else.

Ginny (01:06:53.221)
Right? That's right.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:06:53.829)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:06:55.41)
Yeah, and it's, I don't know, it's, you know, the thing of it is, and I know it was mentioned, you know, before, but, you know, people that seem to just be, sobriety is a, it's a wonderful gift and all these things that we dealt with, you know, like we said, are tools and they give us the ability to help other people. But this whole thing here, this for us, in the Step Back, Ginny, when you were talking about, you know, you kind of feeling like you're...

your program was either fading or having a lull in or that sort of thing. I had the same thing, you know, going into the pandemic, you know, it was cool. Everyone shifted and it was online meetings, it was Zoom meetings and those started to fall off and that's when I started listening to Sober Podcasts and then Mike and I talked about it and then we started doing this. This thing that we're doing right now only started for one reason and one reason only. Mike and I, two buddies, two brothers, whatever you wanna call it, getting together on a Friday night.

Ginny (01:07:29.679)
Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Bill (01:07:51.258)
and shoot the shit and talking about recovery. That was it. That was the point of this podcast. And for me, at that point, I know, I was feeling, you know, this, this filled a huge void, and it still does, you know, and I mean, this is a, this is a meeting, I don't go to a lot of meetings anymore. Mike goes to, you know, to one a week. I barely go to any meetings unless I'm out in Ohio. I went to one today, and I'm, I'm traveling, and I love doing that, you know, but this is my, this is a huge

huge part of my program. I look forward to Friday nights. I look forward to talking about this. We've every once in a while we're like, God damn, you know, it's like, well, we just said that didn't we're like, oh, well, fuck it, fuck it, like it's like it's stories out now. So, but again, I mean, we none of this stuff. I mean, it's, it's not like it's going out live. If we ever talked about something where we're like, fuck that, we probably shouldn't, shouldn't have, or whatever it was, we could always go back and cut it out. But you know, we haven't had to yet, thankfully, you know, so.

There's been some sense to our minds and our mouths, right Mike? I knew I was going to get about that answer. Sure.

Mike (01:08:52.727)
Sure.

Ginny (01:08:52.742)
Yes, I'm so.

Ginny (01:08:57.337)
It's amazing. It's huge. It's it's I love to hear that. And, you know, see that also helps me in hearing you because I feel the same way about our podcast as well, you know, but also just providing this other this other very accessible tool maybe to people who haven't quite found some type of 12 step program or anything else. This is super accessible to people who have no

no experience yet and you guys going out the way you do as authentically as you do. I don't know about you guys, but I know for me, it took listening to other alcoholics who I knew had, you know, were real alcoholics for me, almost to have the trust, you know, like it's like people, there's a lot of people who can sit there and say, you know, you just, you need to just quit or you need to just stop or it's all mind over matter. And it's like, no, it took some alcoholics that I knew.

Bill (01:09:37.791)
Oh yeah?

Ginny (01:09:52.089)
legitimately had been alcoholics and their stories definitely proved that to me, right? And then sharing them authentically, that was the thing. There wasn't any other type of human being in the world that would have been able to get through to me. So the fact that you guys are doing this and providing that for somebody out there who may be listening, you know, or even new listeners or people who say, hey, I've been grappling with this thing.

Mike (01:09:52.369)
Mm-hmm.

Ginny (01:10:18.093)
and maybe not even ready to walk into some type of 12 step situation, you guys doing what you're doing, like you said, this is almost like a meeting. It's a live meeting every time you guys do this. So that's amazing.

Bill (01:10:28.566)
Right. Well, and that's the thing too, that, you know, I've had, I don't know how many times, you know, it's just whatever you go through. I always go to, I go to people in the program to talk to when I, especially if it's a recovery issue, but even a life issue. You know, I go to people that are, you know, that are in recovery. And we had a, we had a family member die, yeah, 10 plus years ago, and it was a tragic death and really threw our mom off. And she wanted to do this whole group family.

Mike (01:10:51.861)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:10:57.73)
you know, counseling and stuff like that. I, you know, I said, no offense, mom, but I'm like, by all means, you go do that. Do your grief counseling, do what you gotta do, because I know you need that. I said, I've got my grief counseling group and I'm gonna go talk to them, you know? And that's what I did. I don't know, a couple of weeks after it happened, I had led a meeting and that was one of the first things I brought up. Talked to Mike, I talked to other people, I talked to my sponsor. You know, I talked to all these different people about that because...

Mike (01:11:12.995)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:11:25.738)
You know, it's, it's different than I can't, I can talk to my sister about that stuff, but you know, we can talk about that on a family level. But I got this other thing over here that I'm like, I'm a raging fucking alcoholic too, you know, and I don't, I don't need to drink over this and I need to figure out how to process this shit so it doesn't sneak up on me, you know.

Mike (01:11:45.111)
Right. I need another drunk to show me how to get through this. Cause you know, right. I am different. We're bodily and mentally different than our fellows. We need each other with our perspective. How this shit works. Otherwise we can't work it out. Cause we can't go talk to a normie because they don't understand us. We don't understand them. You know, I don't understand how somebody can have half a glass of wine and say, I'm done.

Ginny (01:11:55.182)
All right.

Ginny (01:12:03.941)
No.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:12:05.6)
100%

Bill (01:12:08.366)
the

Ginny (01:12:08.505)
make at all.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:12:12.164)
It would be like a cancer patient going to somebody who got into a car accident and say, how do I heal? Right? Like, you can't, you just can't, there's just something that goes on with one alcoholic talking to another, regardless if it's getting sober or if it's processing grief or it's, you know, going through a divorce, whatever the hell it is that's going on in life. We process our brains, we're just in life. We're just on like a different wavelength, not a better wavelength, not a higher one. We just have a different lens, not a lower one.

Mike (01:12:16.255)
Right.

Bill (01:12:17.27)
Right.

Mike (01:12:26.939)
Mm-hmm. Right. Life.

Bill (01:12:30.24)
Life

Mike (01:12:36.051)
No, and not a lower, just different. Yep.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:12:40.912)
It's just different. It's just a different lens that we see life through, that we get with each other, that we're not ever going to get a similar lens from somebody else. It just doesn't happen. It just doesn't work.

Ginny (01:12:49.786)
No.

Mike (01:12:50.463)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we need each other, man.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:12:56.53)
Yeah, yeah, man.

Ginny (01:12:57.261)
Yeah.

Bill (01:13:16.695)
Yeah. So,

Bill (01:13:25.142)
But you specifically talked about, you know, connection with people either you don't know or that are different than you, which I thought was kind of cool. Cause you said that sometimes brings out, I don't know how you were talking about it, but you were just talking about that human connection. You know, people being afraid to talk to other people, people being afraid to walk up to somebody else. And you know, you walk into like an AA meeting, and again, I went to one today. I'm in a different city, a different state.

There was people there from all levels, somebody from, you know, 30 or maybe 21 days sober up to God, probably 25 years or 40 years sober. This one guy was talking, you know, some people look like me, some didn't. Some people were young, some people were older than me, you know, but the group like that, when you walk into a 12 step meeting, that happens without even thinking about it. That's why I thought that was so interesting when you guys were talking about it because, you know, you walk into a grocery store or something like that.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:14:18.132)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:14:22.922)
You don't just walk up to it. I mean, it's one thing. You walk by somebody, give them the head knob. Guys give the head bob type of thing. Hey, what's up? It's the sup look. You're just like, hey, what's up with you? But there's this comfort level when you walk into a room. Because you don't give a flying fuck where those people came from. You know they're all there for the same reason. And you're not going to surprise anyone, shock anyone. You've got somebody to talk to if you choose to. And they're going to be on the same wavelength, which I thought was pretty cool. But

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:14:33.401)
Yeah.

Bill (01:14:51.362)
So I wanted to mention those couple of things. I've only listened to a few episodes like I said, but also Yeah, talk about the podcast that soul rising sol though, correct?

Ginny (01:15:01.595)
Yes.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:15:03.4)
Yeah, I just want to point out one thing that you just said, Bill. Yeah, like we walk into the room and we're all kind of, you know, equalized. Everything is like level. Nobody's better than anybody, you know, all that kind of stuff. Um, and we all just get each other. But I was also thinking recently about how I probably am so open to the people in those meetings because I need them to survive. I need you guys for my life to survive. I don't need the cashier at the supermarket.

Bill (01:15:22.997)
Oh, God, yeah.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:15:30.248)
for me to survive, right? So I'm gonna be nicer to you guys. I'm gonna be more interested in your lives. It's a selfish program, right? That's what they call it, the selfish program for selfish people. You know, part of it is, has to be true that there's some kind of instinct inside of me that I need you just as you need me. And that's why we're so connected because it's a deeper survival thing. I should think about that. Yeah, Ginny, you wanna talk about the show?

Bill (01:15:31.556)
Great.

Bill (01:15:55.37)
Oh yeah, absolutely.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:15:59.732)
I've been talking all...

Bill (01:16:01.482)
Yeah you have Amanda stop. Shut up!

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:16:03.145)
Shut up, Martha. Mortar mouth. You used to call me mortar mouth when I was a kid.

Mike (01:16:03.677)
Hehehehehehe

Ginny (01:16:05.722)
Is she at it? No.

Bill (01:16:08.717)
Hehehehe

Ginny (01:16:09.221)
You know, the thing about our show, and exactly with what you guys are talking about, Amanda has said this before, I think many of us have said this before, that the way that it, first off, it's like the great, you know, those rooms are the great equalizer, right? Everybody's equal in there, and like you guys are saying, it still always blows my mind, that it never matters where you go in the country, probably in the world, you know, if you walk into one of those rooms, we all like time and time and again, we have the same stories and the same.

scenario and Amanda and I talk a lot about like wow, they should I mean it's too bad the rest of the world doesn't have a 12-step program, right and They should teach this shit in kindergarten. I've heard, you know, Amanda has said that and I agree and quite honestly that is kind of a long, you know the foundation of how soul rising came about because Amanda and I

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:16:47.328)
Yeah.

Bill (01:16:47.457)
Oh yeah?

Ginny (01:17:01.893)
would sit and talk about different things going on in life. And at that time, of course, right, we all were reflecting during COVID. We all have this forced time on our hands, right? Which was, I look back at it, it was a gift really. But this forced time, yeah, like this forced time on our hands to slow down, pay attention to things. And we talk about too, right, underneath most things and even our resentments and all the things.

Bill (01:17:20.061)
Hehehe

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:17:20.733)
I agree.

Ginny (01:17:30.913)
that we learn about in these rooms is fear, all those things that we have, we have tools to talk about. And Amanda and I would have these conversations how we were witnessing around us so much fear and people in so much an ego, fear, all the things. I've never watched the, you know, human beings like so quickly draw a line in the sand and it didn't matter who it was. I don't care if it's your family, what? You're not vaccinated? Like you're not welcome at my house or.

You got vaccinated, you know, you can't come to Christmas. There was crazy shit happening. And we talked about a lot about just really wondering, like, how is it? How are we gonna come back from this? And as she and I would have these discussions, a lot of it was rooted in our experiences and in 12 step, you know, in 12 step rooms and in our journey of trying to get better. And we were talking about Gali, you know, it would be really great.

if we could do this and kind of share these same kind of ideas in a way of getting the connection and bringing connection back in the rest of the world too. Because obviously in the rooms you can always feel that we were just talking about how helpful that would be if we could start at least talking about and sharing so human beings could start connecting with one another again because that connection was just I mean severed, right? We

we didn't even have connection with the outside world. So it was very easy to lose connection with each other. And that really started a lot of saying, you know what? I had been screwing around one night on Anchor. I had that app and it was during COVID. And I was like, how is it, how hard is it to do this podcasting nonsense? And I had like pulled up the music and done a little trailer. And I was like, wait a second. This is not as difficult as I thought it would be.

Bill (01:19:12.366)
Hehehe

Ginny (01:19:22.673)
And I was just rambling on and doing these things. I was like, that's it. Yeah, I wanna do a podcast for sure. And in one of the many times Amanda and I would connect and whether it was over coffee or over, we were at, not Mad Greens, where were we Amanda? Yes, but I always forget. It was the first time I had been there and I was with Amanda. And we were just having these discussions and I told her, hey, check this out, you know, take a listen. I did this last night on my living room floor. She's like, what is this? I'm like, I don't know.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:19:35.956)
Vitality both.

Ginny (01:19:51.877)
podcasting app. I'm just talking shit. I'm like, my husband's asleep. Yeah. And, you know, Amanda at the time was pretty, I think you were already in the middle of writing your book, right? At the time. She was, she was knee deep in it. And not too long later, it was a few months later. She was saying, Hey, you know, you threw that out there about wanting to do a podcast. Like you serious about that? Would you?

Bill (01:19:52.601)
Hahaha!

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:19:54.146)
It was hilarious.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:20:04.285)
Yeah, yeah.

Ginny (01:20:19.153)
Would you want to do a podcast with me kind of based around the things that were in her book and the things that, you know, she was feeling very strongly about at that time and clearly the things that we were able to connect about to try to get it out there for the rest of the world too, right? Because we are fortunate, we know where to go and we're all fucked up. We know there's rooms and people who can help us out and help us through those things and make sense of things when we're at our most insane. And

You know, you hear people say it all the time, like, I'm a grateful alcoholic, I really am, because just like you guys said, you know who to go to, and you know where to go, who to talk to, and how they're gonna be able to give you some tools. So we had hoped to start something that would be accessible to everyone else as well out there to try to talk and have these discussions about all the disconnection that we were having in the world.

about loss, about love, about how they all intermingle and how we were at a point where that disconnection was just so, so prevalent in all of our faces. And that is how Soul Rising came to be.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:21:33.62)
We try to talk about.

Bill (01:21:34.74)
And you guys are available on all the same platforms as we are, Spotify, Apple, all that sort of stuff.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:21:39.048)
Mm-hmm. And YouTube, we just started YouTube video.

Ginny (01:21:41.869)
Yes, YouTube now as well.

Bill (01:21:43.714)
Oh, okay. Yeah, and we did, we've done a little bit. I've been posting our, not all of them, but some of our audio. We did a, we did a live stream a few weeks ago, which, meh, that is what it is. We may try it again. Mike was not a huge fan with the video and I wasn't, I wasn't a fan of how the, how the syncing of it, just so you know, Mike, hey, everyone, this is a sideline, sideline programming note. I'd like to try it just audio only next time, Mike, but, you know, just to, because I want to, I want to load these things up on

Mike (01:21:57.739)
Nope.

Mike (01:22:10.24)
Yeah.

Bill (01:22:13.17)
up on YouTube anyhow. And, uh, you know, it just, the thing of it is in any opportunity we have, we're like I said before, we're small, we grow, we grow incrementally and we're not really losing things except for Instagram reach, but that's a whole nother story. But that's nothing we're doing. We're doing wrong. But, um, but like you said that these days, like when, when we got sober and I know Amanda, I mean, back when you got sober, there weren't these, all these things. So you got to think that the difference like Ginny, when you got sober,

in 2016 versus like us in 2010 and Amanda, you were 2006 in that, you know, 10 to seven to whatever your period in there. This this whole I mean, technology grows anyhow, but these resources that people have and people do, you know, turn to podcasts. So you know, it's amazing.

Ginny (01:23:00.922)
Well,

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:23:03.717)
Yeah, yeah, it really is.

Ginny (01:23:04.601)
It really is. And even with our show where it's not so much about, we don't focus it specifically on sobriety, like you guys do, however it's in there, it's weaved in. And just in that period of time, since we've been out there, I've had at least three people that have reached out from happening to hear our podcast and said, how did you guys do this? How did your friend Amanda get sober? How did you get sober? And...

That's amazing to me too, right? Because it's still reaching those people who don't know where to start at all. And that is something I'm just beyond grateful for because, you know, some of these people might've been someone I went to high school with or friends or family, but who have just flat out reached out and said, Hey, I listened to you guys. And the fact that you were so honest and vulnerable about the things that have gone on in your lives, it made me realize that I am not some piece of shit.

that's alone in this, you know, there's other people. And one of the gals, she's going to meetings now, you know? So it's like, that's the hope, I think. I know at least for me that anybody who may not, because people still, even with all the technology and everything else, right? If we, there's a lot of times we still just can't get past the idea of admitting we need help. So sometimes when we hear someone else talk about.

Bill (01:24:25.491)
Oh god yeah.

Ginny (01:24:29.465)
You know, how they got to that point, even just by listening and maybe not in a, I know people who have this idea, well, I'm not going to listen to this because it's, you know, uh, sober people are just better than everyone else. And it's like, that's not true. You know, it's not true at all. And sometimes they just need a little bit of that, like breaking of the ice of hearing someone else talk about it. So it's the same for you guys. I'm sure that there's people who say, gosh, how do I get sober? I wonder if I could find a podcast regarding this. They probably come across you guys and then they hear that.

And it makes it, you know, it's one step closer for them. So that's huge. And you're right. I think the technology, the hope is that this can be one of the positive things that some of our chaotic things that have got on with technology and social media is a little bit shitty at times, but this right here, this is the good stuff.

Bill (01:25:20.338)
Right. Yeah. And it's, I don't know, it just, it's one of those things that, you know, and we, it's one of the one, it's an A thing, you know, it's, it's attraction, not promotion. So, you know, people, people hear, you know, people hear that, I don't know, whatever it is, they hear you guys talking about a life thing, but also hear that you're sober and like, wait a second, let's, what did they say? And then, you know, just having a general conversation. And, you know, we've had people tell us, you know, that, I mean, how many normies have come up to you, Mike? I mean, random people.

They're like, yeah, we just like listened to you guys. Some people have said, didn't somebody say they like listen to us because we're just fucking goofy or something? Or I don't even know.

Mike (01:25:49.924)
Mm hmm. Right.

Mike (01:25:55.839)
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Well, you know, we're, yes, we're, we're people that have been through some shit and, um, and we came out the other end and we're kind of happy and we're, you know, trying to make the, make our little corner of the world a better place. And, and that's, um, that's, that's good shit, man. That's, that's, you know, despite all of it, you know, whether you're a drunk or not or you're a junkie or not, or you're miserable or not, or you've been hurt or whatever.

Ginny (01:25:55.878)
Thank you.

Ginny (01:26:15.901)
Really.

Mike (01:26:25.055)
Look, man, there's stuff you can do to work on yourself and you come out at the other end and you're reasonably happy. And more importantly, you have that peace and that serenity that were promised. And, and we get it and that's fuck. That's all I care about. I mean, I, you know, I'm happy. I have a house and a car and a job and a couple of bucks in the bank and whatever. That's all great. But I lay my head down at night.

And like Joe used to say, the cowboys and Indians aren't up there fighting each other anymore. And that's, that's fucking all I care about.

Bill (01:26:55.981)
Hehehehe

Ginny (01:26:57.977)
Right? That piece, that sense of peace that you've been able to, and like you said, you know, it's a constant, it's a, it's a constant thing. You sharpen up those tools to continue doing it. You know, the daily reprieve, the daily reprieve.

Mike (01:26:59.731)
Yep, that's it.

Mike (01:27:09.003)
right? Daily reprieve. Yes, right, right. And and I'm gonna go back to that since you brought it up. That word maintenance, that maintenance is sharpening those tools. Um an old timer who graduated this program but he used to say this sobriety thing. It's like a silver ball, right? And if you don't polish it, it's gonna fucking tarnish. You've gotta take that elbow grease every day and polish that silver

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:27:39.82)
Good.

Mike (01:27:39.987)
Yeah. So that's the maintenance. It's just, you know, I've got to do work every day. You know? Um, I mean, the way Bill and I were taught, we do four, five and eight to the best of our ability and we'll ever have to do them again, but the rest of those steps, I have got to work every day, one day at a time, you know, I've said it a million times on here. I do one, two, and three before I get out of bed in the morning. I have to, I have to, I have to work those steps. You know, I hate when I hear people say I worked the steps.

past tense, right? Good for you. You worked them. You're all done now. Huh? Well, you know, well, I, I do 11, I do 10, 11 and 12, because those are the maintenance steps now, man, no, I better fucking work six and seven every day. Cause I still have defects. Yeah. Absolutely.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:28:09.253)
No. Yeah, it's a design for living.

Bill (01:28:15.19)
Hehehehe

Ginny (01:28:15.847)
I'm not going to!

Ginny (01:28:27.673)
Right.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:28:27.848)
Totally. It's a design for living. The book says it's a design for living. It's interwoven. The steps are interwoven. It becomes you live it long enough. It just becomes a natural part of your operating system.

Mike (01:28:36.915)
Absolutely. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:28:40.308)
So I shouldn't have to, you're right. I was actually telling my sponsor today, I was working on fourth step, I said, you shouldn't have to go back and do this big fourth step, like every year or whatever it is. You have to do it at the last. And if something really is jamming me up and I can't clear it up in the tent and talk to my sponsor, then I take out my book and I freaking write it out. I write out a fourth step again, I do a fifth step, I do it, I take care of it, like immediately. Like I can't afford to sit on that shit. Like that'll kill me over time.

Mike (01:28:47.967)
No, that's what the 10th step is for. You do it every fucking day. Yeah.

Ginny (01:28:52.31)
Thank you.

Mike (01:29:04.063)
Yeah. Nope. Absolutely.

Bill (01:29:10.114)
You know, it's funny, Mike, and I think you'll probably be, either you're gonna laugh or you'll be proud of me or both. So I left, what day is it today? Today's Friday. So I left to come down here on Wednesday. I left at like five and drove all night. And like, you know, I'm driving and you know, there's the time changes, stuff like that, but I'm looking at it and it was about, you know, what would have been, you know, 10, 10.30, you know, my normal time, which is about time that I go to bed. So I was listening to a podcast or some,

Mike (01:29:15.073)
Mmm.

Mike (01:29:35.221)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:29:39.842)
fucking music or whatever it was. And I'm like, Ooh, I turned everything off. And I did my 10 step and I did my prayers like I was going to bed. Because I'm like, I'm not going to go to sleep until God knows when. So I did that. And then when I got down here, I figure same type of thing. It was, by the time I thought about it on the way down here, I'm like, well, as soon as I get down, I get settled and whatever.

Mike (01:29:49.311)
Ah!

Mike (01:29:53.574)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:30:06.966)
So I knew I was gonna be able to check in here right away. I did my morning readings at like, again, eight o'clock or whatever it would have been, like my normal time on Thursday. But yeah, I was sitting in a fucking Lowe's parking lot. I'm doing my readings, I'm doing my prayers. And I hadn't gone to bed yet and I hadn't woken up, but I'm like, fuck it, man. I'm like, this is the time that I would normally do this. And I've never had, well,

Mike (01:30:26.93)
Right?

Mike (01:30:32.599)
Right.

Bill (01:30:35.358)
No, I've never had that situation before where I mean, where I just didn't go to bed. I mean, since I was sober, you know, and I'm like, fuck it, man, you know, and that's Mike and I talk about this all the time because it's so important. We were taught this basic routine when we first got sober. It's it's readings in the morning, it's prayers. And then at night, we just do a thing. I mine's a little bit longer than what Mike says, you know, but I mean, we do the same basically the same readings from recovery books and that sort of thing.

Mike (01:30:41.372)
Hehehe

Bill (01:31:05.33)
And it's this, that's part of our daily maintenance every day and as part of our routine. And neither one of us could even imagine, you know, starting our day or ending our day not doing that. No matter what we're doing, where we are, who we're with, you know, we always do it. But the same thing with the steps too with we've been very open. Actually starting with Mike's story, that was like episode three on this, where he talked a lot about, you talked about the big book, you talked more about the steps and.

You know, it just neither one of us really knew which direction this was going to be. We knew we didn't want it to be. This is not an AA meeting. It's not a sanction meeting. We don't represent AA. We don't speak for alcoholics anonymous, but we do talk about the fact that we are members of, we're practicing members of, you know, we utilize this, we utilize the steps. And then the same thing we thought is like however people want to take that, if people want to listen to us or don't, fuck them. That's what we're going to talk about because that's what.

not only saved our lives, but continues, you know, to save our lives every day. Um, but you know, we didn't want to get to the point of, and I'll say we make fun of it a little bit there. There's a lot of these sobriety podcasts that do all these disclosures. You know, this is not medical advice. We're not an AA program. We're not representing this. We're not representing it. And then Mike and I are sitting there. We're like, does anyone think, I mean, can't you fucking figure it out? I mean, we're not this, this is that if you.

Ginny (01:32:30.042)
No.

Bill (01:32:30.846)
If you've ever walked into a room of alcohol, but yeah, if you've ever walked into a room of alcoholics anonymous, my God, they don't talk like we do. And they certainly are more structured than we ever would be. But I don't know, I mean, it's just all these different things. It's just a, we know what we need to do on a daily basis. And thank goodness for this amount of time, both of us have had uninterrupted sobriety, Mike, right? For coming up on 14 years if.

Mike (01:32:31.968)
I thought I was a pharmacist for a while, but

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:32:35.335)
Thanks.

Mike (01:32:56.119)
Yep.

Bill (01:32:59.83)
We're not fronting or anything, but just saying, April would be coming up on that. So.

Ginny (01:33:05.341)
It's amazing. Congratulations. And it's, you're two more walking miracles of the many that, you know, like I get to hear share their stories. So it's always a good thing when you get to hear people.

Mike (01:33:18.787)
I'm not a fucking miracle, I'm a drunk and a junkie that did the work.

Ginny (01:33:22.501)
But you're alive, you're alive.

Bill (01:33:24.101)
Right.

Mike (01:33:24.835)
I did the work and I continue to do the work. I am not a fucking miracle.

Bill (01:33:26.706)
Yeah, and I knew I was wait, I was wait.

Ginny (01:33:33.645)
Okay, fuck that miracle thing I said, you piece of shit. Good job doing the work.

Mike (01:33:36.387)
I'm not a piece of **** anymore either.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:33:38.31)
No.

Bill (01:33:39.812)
Yeah, but it's see the in this is I was waiting for that because I knew it was coming but that's the thing that in Mike and I got we were taught to think very black and white with stuff like that we talked about that word miracle that's why I knew it was coming. And then, because I hear I would hear it on all these podcasts and this was months and months ago. And, you know, it's like, it's, it's a miracle that you know that we're alive but the reason we're alive if you really break it down.

Mike (01:33:51.338)
Uh-huh.

Bill (01:34:04.538)
there's nothing magical about it, there's nothing miraculous about it. We were given, you know, a program of action, as they say in the book, and every single day we make the choice to do that work. And if we don't, if I stop doing that work tomorrow, it's not going to be long, then I'm not, not only am I not going to be a miracle, I'm going to be a dead, you know, past miracle. Yeah, so.

Mike (01:34:12.355)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:34:25.952)
The miracle, I see the miracle as the fact that you're willing to do the work. My brother, who's dead, could not do it. So he was not a miracle, he's dead. But us sitting here in this room, we're able to, in this riverside room, we were able to do that work. That willingness is the miracle. But not everybody.

Ginny (01:34:31.067)
Yes.

Bill (01:34:45.502)
Yeah, that's the thing. Yep. Exactly.

Mike (01:34:45.988)
It's willing to do the work. Willingness is the key.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:34:48.08)
Yeah, that's the mirror. Not that it's almost like you're silver, but that you actually did it.

Ginny (01:34:54.597)
Mm-hmm

Mike (01:34:54.827)
Yeah, right.

Bill (01:34:54.998)
Right? Yeah. Yeah, and there's, you know, based on the way that, and you know, I mean, Mike and I have, we know each other pretty goddamn well, you know, at this point, but there's nothing in our past that suggests that there was any reason why we would have, you know, and I don't want to say bought into it, but a lot of people say that, but no reason that we, you know, would have wanted to come to our senses and be willing to do the work. But a big part of that was the people that we were surrounded by, which is, you know, that goes back to the point.

of what we were talking about, you know, continuing to try to be an example. There's no bad examples. And hopefully we tend to be at least a morsel of a positive example every once in a while, right, Mike?

Mike (01:35:34.787)
Absolutely.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:35:36.032)
Well, I just love that you guys are doing this. The more talk about recovery, anywhere that we can get it is great. More positive, more access to this. We don't need to keep it a secret. I don't even know how sold I am on the whole anonymity thing. We're not talking about it at a public level. What are we hiding? Why are we keeping this a secret? I saw this, I think it was somebody talking about it on a podcast and she was like,

Bill (01:35:41.78)
Oh yeah.

Mike (01:35:48.363)
Right.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:36:01.376)
Do we really think that somebody's going to judge the entire program of alcoholics anonymous if I relapse? Like, that's what we say, right? Like, oh, we're protecting the program and blah, blah. And somebody might say, oh, it doesn't work. Well, I feel like that it could be true. Somebody could say that like, oh, well, she relapsed, so it doesn't work. And I'm not going to go. But like, am I that powerful? I'm not really sure that I'm that important and powerful that somebody's going to judge the entire program based on my life. I don't know. I think we're doing people a disservice by keeping it.

Ginny (01:36:08.273)
Mm-hmm.

Ginny (01:36:27.709)
That's a good point.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:36:30.5)
So much of a secret. Yeah, we don't want to be running around shouting it from the rooftops because our egos will be running wild, all that kind of stuff. But like, I don't know, keeping it a secret is just killing people. So the more that you guys talk about it, the better.

Bill (01:36:44.054)
Yeah, and that's the whole anonymity thing. And again, we talked about that too, is that I can't, based on what Alcoholics Anonymous says to the whole anonymity thing, I'm not supposed to bust you out or Jenny out or Mike out. I can talk about myself all that I want, but what I can't do, it's the same thing. I can't walk around and promote something in a company name, as if I'm part of the company. And by us, I can't go out there and do something on

Ginny (01:36:57.402)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:37:14.166)
as if I'm a representative of Alcoholics Anonymous. There's nothing wrong with me saying that I'm a member of That's My Choice. And if I fail, that's gotta be for other people to take a look at and realize that what Mike just said, that person didn't do the work or that person wouldn't do the work or wasn't constitutionally capable of doing the work whatever the deal is. But AA is protecting its brand is really what it comes down to the same way any company would. But

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:37:31.744)
Thank you. Good night.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:37:38.696)
Yes.

Bill (01:37:43.23)
Yeah, the anonymity part is just, you know, as an individual, we're not supposed to bust somebody else out. If I, if I walk up to you, if I'm in wherever the fuck you are in Colorado and I see you in a store, I'm like, Hey, what's up, abandoned? I'm in with one of my Normie's friends and they say, well, how do you know her? What my answer is always, you know, it's a, it's a work acquaintance. That's all I would ever say. I've said that, you know, I don't know how many times because it's not my point to tell somebody that, Oh yeah, she's a fucking drunk we had on our podcast. You know, I mean,

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:37:54.644)
Yeah, that was that.

Ginny (01:38:01.149)
Um.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:38:01.332)
Exactly.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:38:10.08)
Sure. Damn crap.

Bill (01:38:12.49)
It's true. It's true, but it's not my place to out you on that. So.

Ginny (01:38:13.853)
is true, but...

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:38:18.704)
Yeah. And if somebody's going to judge a program based on like me, me relapsing or something, I think they're just probably looking for a loophole to like not do this thing. Right. Yeah.

Bill (01:38:25.459)
Absolutely, yeah.

Ginny (01:38:26.65)
Who's not to do it?

Bill (01:38:28.598)
Right? Well, and everyone's always looking for that, you know, that's a shortcut. Well, it didn't work for him, so it's not going to work for me. That's fine. That's cool. You know?

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:38:34.121)
Yep.

Mike (01:38:35.523)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:38:36.72)
Yeah, you know, and everybody has their own path too. I mean, like this is not the only way to get sober. I'm sure you guys talk about that a lot of the time. There are a lot of people out there doing all these programs. You know, I personally am not willing to try it, but like there are people who do it. So, it's up to them.

Mike (01:38:41.436)
Oh, absolutely.

Ginny (01:38:47.281)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (01:38:47.401)
Mm-hmm.

Bill (01:38:49.302)
Well, and that's the other big thing there is we talk a lot about AA, we talk about the steps, we talk about the fact that it's what we do, but we've never tried to say that people have to do this. We make suggestions to people about what worked for us, but that's the only thing we can say, this is what worked for us and this was our experience. But we've had people on here that are non AA, found different programs, found different paths, literally. But the thing of it is, and Mike says it all the time, right? You know, just as long as you're not out there hurting other people, how do you put it?

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:39:01.403)
Yeah.

Ginny (01:39:08.569)
Go ahead.

Bill (01:39:16.93)
What do you say, Mike? That hurt other people doing everything and blah, right?

Mike (01:39:19.499)
Yeah. You know, as long as you're not, yeah, making things worse for other people and you're making yourself better and making things better for the people around you, I don't give a fuck how you got there.

Bill (01:39:29.29)
Right. Yep.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:39:29.8)
Exactly. I don't care who you are, what you do. Yeah, as long as you're not out there hurting people. You're good with me.

Bill (01:39:33.974)
Yeah, the solution is the same as they say. So what else guys? What else and just anything else you guys wanna either quickly wrap up with, get out to people. I will have your websites, the Instagram pages, everything and obviously in the description. Anything else you wanna let people know before we wrap?

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:39:58.076)
No, I don't think I have anything else, Jenny.

Bill (01:39:59.778)
Hahaha

Ginny (01:40:00.881)
No, I don't think so either. Just that, you know, that they are not alone. That there's a bunch of us people out here that have been in places that were not anymore. And that there are many avenues for them to not be in that space anymore. They don't have to do it by themselves. And there are people willing, if they are willing to share those tools.

and they don't have to drink another day if they don't want to or use another day.

Bill (01:40:32.973)
Agreed.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:40:33.832)
Damn right. Damn fucking.

Bill (01:40:35.606)
Damn skippy as they say, right? All right, so Amanda and Ginny, it is time for us to be quiet for a couple of seconds here or a couple of minutes and Mike is going to run us out of here, right Mike?

Ginny (01:40:36.56)
Dance, snippy.

Mike (01:40:39.225)
Hehe

Mike (01:40:48.595)
Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you for listening to another episode of sober, not mature. Thank you, Jenny and Amanda for being lovely guests tonight. We really appreciate you being with us. And as always kids go out there, do something nice for somebody else this week, be kind to each other, be good to each other and don't tell anybody that you did something nice for somebody else. Just do it. And now it's that time kids. It is time for you to fuck off. Then keep fucking off.

Keep fucking off till you get to a gate with a sign out saying you cannot fuck off past here, climb over that gate, dream the impossible dream and keep fucking off forever.

Bill (01:41:31.931)
That is both of our favorite parts of the episode. Mike, once again, because he knows we're done, and me because it just it does it makes me laugh every time and it does. It's I don't know, it's just like, you know, like the planet Uranus. I can't say that. I can't say Uranus without laughing either. So it's the same damn thing. You're as Mike,

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:41:33.416)
We're out.

Mike (01:41:40.04)
It tickles Bill.

Mike (01:41:48.595)
Hehehe

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:41:49.68)
changed that you know now it's now it's urinous it is really it's totally little for creators are too immature I guess

Ginny (01:41:52.473)
Yes, yes.

Mike (01:41:54.727)
It's your radis.

Bill (01:41:57.75)
Teachers.

Ginny (01:42:00.454)
kids do it.

Bill (01:42:01.074)
No, teachers in school, even as far back as when I was in high school, used to say uranus. And I'm like, that's fucking uranus. So in other words, Mike, you are as funny as uranus. How's that? Hello. I know you do.

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:42:08.218)
You can just play it for a second.

Mike (01:42:09.322)
Hehehehehehe

Ginny (01:42:13.725)
Absolutely! It was great. I was laughing. I had to mute myself because I was laughing out loud.

Mike (01:42:14.027)
Thank you. I resemble that remark.

Bill (01:42:22.666)
No, that's cool. But but seriously guys, thank you very much. I know, you know, we went through kind of a little bit of back and forth and tried to get everything, you know, obviously set up and organized for this. But we really, really appreciated having you guys on and everyone listening, please make sure to check out the description. Jenny, I know we didn't have a chance to talk about your furniture store, but your website, your websites in our in the description, Amanda's websites in there, both of your Instagram pages plus the podcast Instagram is on there. So

Ginny (01:42:41.597)
That is alright.

Bill (01:42:50.666)
Follow them, visit them, do all the good things with them, and I'm seriously thank you guys, okay?

Amanda McKoy Flanagan (01:42:54.632)
Thank you. Thank you guys so much. So much fun.

Ginny (01:42:55.677)
Thank you so much for having us. This has been a ton of fun.

Bill (01:42:59.054)
Good. Well, good. All right, Mike, I love you, brother, and we'll all talk soon, all right? Bye.

Mike (01:43:02.571)
I love you too. We shall. All right.

Ginny (01:43:08.203)
Good one.