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This week, it's the same old stuff, just a different week.
Mike did his reading and it was about loyalty and cleverness. The way we are now and the way we were then. Guess which one we choose?
We received our update from Google as far as how people find our podcast website and the search terms that they use. You don't want to miss this part.
April is National Alcohol Awareness Month and we talked about that a little bit.
The Easter weekend wrap up, Craig Ferguson, the point of no return and spiritual bank accounts.
And some nonsense. Enjoy the episode.
Visit us
Podcast www.sobernotmature.com
Bill (00:02.542)
All right, everyone. Welcome once again to another episode of Sober Not Mature. And you know what? What? What? You know, I was I was kind of hoping that that you and nobody else heard that. But OK, well, let's start off with the with the physical ailment that I had. I took a breath and swallowed a little bit of spit and like half choked on it right before I started to, you know, that deep breath.
Mike (00:08.751)
the hell was that? You're welcome.
Mike (00:17.871)
Hehehehehe
Mike (00:30.241)
Nice. Uh huh.
Bill (00:31.214)
Deep breath to open up to get that full thing going in. Hi everyone, sober. So yeah, that was a minor, minor flem ball. Well, you know what, two things. First of all, I'm actually happy that you heard it and I'm glad that you brought it up because that's kind of what, not even kind of, that's what we do. But yeah.
Mike (00:34.159)
Sure. Hi there.
Mike (00:43.151)
sounded like you were choking on something.
Mike (00:55.663)
Uh -huh.
Bill (00:57.326)
All right, so we started off with my Flemball. I was gonna say we're all number ones this week because this is episode 111. So I mean, this has gotta be good, right? It literally started off with a fucking Flemball. So yeah, let's see how good it's gonna be. Oh, real quick, quick side note. So I get a text from Derek today and he's like, he goes, I just got to the 150th jockstrap birthday and he has a big laughing emoji.
Mike (01:04.591)
Duh!
Mike (01:12.559)
Uh -huh.
Mike (01:16.911)
Yeah.
Bill (01:26.798)
So obviously he's listening to that episode. And when I saw them, whenever it was last, yeah, like, was that last weekend or weekend before? But I was asking him, yeah, I know, you know, time flies and blends and all that stuff. But I asked him, I was talking about something. He's like, yeah, he had had a problem with a pair of headphones or whatever. So he's like, yeah, he goes on behind in episodes, but yeah, he must be catching up. So yeah, hi, Derek.
Mike (01:26.895)
Aha!
Mike (01:34.479)
You saw me last weekend!
Mike (01:50.159)
Huh? All right. Hi Derek.
Bill (01:55.246)
Hope you enjoyed the flem ball at the start of this episode, just like everyone else did. So yeah, I know, I know. So yeah, this is my last official night in Valpro. I'm heading down to the Ozarks tomorrow. So kind of fun. Yeah, a couple of weeks down there, then I'm gonna grace you with my presence for a week. And then yeah, Tennessee, Texas, and then I still got the book on the way back and Wisconsin's still down the road, but yeah, I've got some shit working, so I'm all good.
Mike (01:57.615)
I'm sure he did.
Mike (02:05.775)
Mm -hmm.
Nice.
Mike (02:12.655)
Yes you are.
Mike (02:25.551)
Traveling man made a lot of stops all over the world.
Bill (02:27.598)
Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny is that, I mean, I got like this whole bed's full of fucking clothes and all this shit. And because there's I've got, you know, like a suitcase for electronics is the main thing, because I've got my work stuff. I get this stuff. And I'm like, I can't there's certain things I just can't put away until I'm done with this tonight. I've got a lot of shit all packed up and ready to go. And, you know, it only took me, I think last time when I went up to Fond du Lac, I think it should it didn't take me more than 20 minutes to.
Mike (02:42.639)
Uh -huh.
Mike (02:46.223)
Right. Right.
Bill (02:57.07)
to pack the car, so, and well, you saw it. You saw how it was, yeah, because I, yeah, you did. It's gonna look the same with one exception. I'm gonna have a box of books and another suitcase in the back somehow, but I think I got that worked out, so. Yeah, yeah, and that's, it's relatively, it probably is about the size of, I think you could take a six pack of cans and just put it in there, so that's about the size interior. And then, you know, the exterior is not, it's not that big.
Mike (02:58.447)
Mm -hmm. Right, I did. I helped you unpack it.
Mike (03:10.671)
in a cool new cooler.
Mike (03:22.255)
Uh huh. Right.
Bill (03:26.766)
You know, and it's got the, I was gonna test it out, but it only has the, it just has a cigarette lighter charging, which is fine, you know, but, but I'm like, yeah, I didn't this week after I get done with everything, I'm like, well, I could go sit out in my car for 15 minutes and see if this thing actually works. But I'm like, yeah, fuck it. I'll plug it in on my way out. I got nothing to put in there on the way out. So yeah, you know, oh, side note on that too. So this morning, cause it's,
Mike (03:46.159)
Trust the process.
Hehehehehe
Bill (03:54.51)
The long story, I told you about the work thing and the dialer and all that stuff, but one of the things that they, we've got an audit team and one of the things they keep an eye on is how long you've had certain accounts in your queue or in your route, because we get these personal routes. And after 30 days, they look and they're like, okay, hey, just so you know, there's a certain number of accounts, so I gotta clean some out, not a big deal. But this morning when I get in, my backlog there and this and that and I...
Mike (04:07.023)
Sure.
Bill (04:19.47)
I just emailed my boss or messaged him and I said, hey, this is what I'm thinking, but I'd like to clean this up and blah, blah, blah. I said, could I, you know, at least stay off the, would it be okay? You know, if I obviously stay off the dialer, but I put, I put right my message. I'm like, I trust the process, but I said, just figured I'd ask. And he's like, yeah, he goes, just go in your, in your route after, after one. So after lunch, the morning I was, is a couple of meetings and shit like that. So I was on a dialer a little bit this morning, but.
Mike (04:35.695)
Ehhahahahah
Bill (04:47.95)
I was just as I'm like, do I want to put them like, fuck yeah, I want to I trust the process. But he's again, my manager, he's he's really cool. And unless, unless he's hiding something where he's like, you know, a dick after like three months or something like that, he's pretty fucking cool. So yeah, it's, it's nice. Nice to have it's been been a while since I've had a really cool manager. I mean, the, the one that the job I had down in Fairlawn, and I'm still
Mike (04:50.799)
Yes you do.
Hehehehehe
Mike (05:05.135)
Good.
It is.
Bill (05:16.75)
I'm connected with him on LinkedIn, but that guy that was my manager down at that agency, he's probably the best manager I've ever had. He's a good dude. So it is. It's nice to have people that not only you work with, you know, that are cool, but, you know, clearly, you know, somebody that you work for that's not a complete jag, you know? So I know we both had those. I know that for sure. So.
Mike (05:25.967)
Right. It is.
Mike (05:34.671)
Right. Exactly. Yes. Uh huh. Yeah. And apparently we both have pretty decent ones now. So that's a good thing. I think I'll be grateful for a minute. All right. I'm done.
Bill (05:45.55)
Yeah. Right. So what is your in the guy that I met at the at the Indians game? Is that the guy that's still here? OK. What's his name? OK, yeah, I could never remember his name, but yeah, I like him. He's nice. Yeah, and he is a kid, probably in his 30s, right?
Mike (05:52.239)
Yeah, he's still there. Yep. Running the Cleveland. Andrew.
Mike (06:01.359)
Yeah, he's a good kid.
Mike (06:05.711)
Yeah, early thirties. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, he's a good guy.
Bill (06:09.838)
Well, good. Cool. All right. So speaking of, I was going to say good guys, but we're not. I was going to say speaking of good guys, you know, good guys that need some good thoughts in their head, but how about a reading?
Mike (06:15.183)
Hehehehehe
Mmm. Yes, they do. How about one? All right, so God grant me nothing jumped out at me this week So I flipped around a little bit and I found this one. It's October 24th an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness Albert Hubbard apparently he's a writer and a philosopher and according to Wikipedia an anarchist so I like them already. All right, um,
During our using days, we prided ourselves on being so clever. We were often very proud of all the things we were getting away with. However, it is time that we put cleverness aside and become loyal to our spiritual principles and the fellowship. Loyalty involves caring about something other than oneself. Being loyal to recovery involves sacrificing at times. For example, maybe we want to be
We wanna spend the evening at home, always, but a member in need calls. Loyalty means that we answer that call. As we deepen our loyalty to our recovery, we heal deeper wounds. We become more skillful in how to be a friend, a partner, and a member of a community. We give up trying to be clever and just work at being better people. Prayer for the day, higher power.
My cleverness got me in trouble, helped me to turn my desires to be clever into deeper loyalties to you and your wisdom. Today's action. Today I will list five ways my cleverness has backfired on me.
Bill (08:05.262)
Oh, that was a short one. I was sitting there waiting for that like, and I will speak to my sponsor about it.
Mike (08:06.511)
Yeah, that was it. It was a short one.
Mike (08:13.423)
Right. Nope, not this one. This one, just fucking look at yourself and see what an asshole you are.
Bill (08:19.79)
Right. So, okay. So it started off obviously loyalty, you know, versus cleverness, which, which, yeah, I like that. I wrote down a few different things like so clever, meaning that obviously we thought we were so clever, getting away with things, loyalty equals sacrifice, healing deeper wounds, and then working on being better people. So to begin with, in that, that opening line, I just talked about loyalty versus cleverness, right? Is that how it opened up? I was just, you know, kind of scribbling notes, but.
Mike (08:29.679)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (08:45.967)
Right. Oh, I don't know. Let me see. I don't remember. Come on. That was, that was a whole three, four seconds ago. Uh, um, but, but, but, but the opening line, no, no, it's none of that. Uh, Oh, they mean the quote. The quote was an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.
Bill (08:49.166)
I know. I know.
Bill (09:01.454)
Yes.
Bill (09:07.054)
Okay, gotcha. So, and I guess that goes down to, you know, the next part, you know, we thought we were clever. That's probably, you know, kind of goes in line with what we talk about, you know, all the time thinking that, you know, thinking we were getting away with things and thinking other people didn't know. I mean, I consider myself to be a relatively clever person, you know, in a general sense. But I know at the time, you know, basically I'm sure that, you know,
Mike (09:14.959)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (09:26.031)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (09:30.191)
Hmm.
Bill (09:36.654)
I don't know. I know I wasn't getting away with anything, but I'm sure I thought so, right? I'm guessing you probably were the same way.
Mike (09:45.999)
Oh, absolutely. Right.
Bill (09:50.286)
God, are we delaying already?
Mike (09:53.711)
already.
Bill (09:56.238)
That's crazy. I mean, we're literally what 10 minutes into this. Yeah, because I heard I thought it was as you were talking. I'm like, God, are we are we really delaying already? That's crazy.
Let's just take a look here. Keep talking. Let's see if anything.
Mike (10:10.767)
Yeah, yeah, well, you know. Yeah, you know, once again, I could tell what it's going to happen because you and it like stops your speaking and then it comes back in. So I'm like, OK, it's going to start stretching out between the two of us. And it did it pretty heavily for you.
Bill (10:33.838)
Yeah, so can you hear me now? I just turned my load data mode on. Let me turn yours on real quick and just see if that I can do this real quick. I'm going to try to pause our uploads and stuff too. Give me one second.
Mike (10:51.247)
Yeah. I mean, I could hear you. I just don't know how close we are in real time.
Bill (10:54.382)
Right.
Bill (10:58.35)
Right. Yeah, and I just put on the load data mode and I just pause both of our uploads. So I guess we'll give it a minute and see if that works. But OK, so yeah, and that was the next thing, though, that I wrote down was obviously getting away with things. I mean, clearly, there's no way in the world that we were getting away with even what we thought we were getting away with or dare I say hope we were getting away with, right?
Mike (11:05.327)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (11:21.967)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (11:25.647)
Right. Oh, absolutely. Right. And I mean, I liked the part where it said, you know, we were, we were proud of our cleverness. Right. You know, talk about false pride. Yeah, it was, yeah. We were proud. Look at me. I'm so great. I'm getting, nobody getting over on people now. Um, I mean, I really liked the reading because it puts the value on the loyalty over the cleverness, you know, doing that next right thing. I mean, I'm, you know,
Bill (11:31.95)
Right.
Mike (11:52.975)
I'm neck deep in it right now, which we haven't really talked about. Um, yeah, we might a little bit, but, um, yeah, being loyal to the principles and doing the next right thing, even when you fucking don't want to, when it's the harder path, um, you know, but yeah, uh, it's in the long run and deep down, um, it feels better. It really, really does.
So being loyal to these principles and, you know, your higher powers, um, way of doing things, um, is far superior than being clever. You know, I mean, I could still be clever. Um, I could still let myself be clever and think I'm taking the easier, softer way, but thankfully this program has taught me that, um, you know, taking shortcuts and shooting corners and all that fun stuff, um, doesn't.
It's not satisfying at all. Um, sometimes taking that, that harder path and, and, yeah, walking that rougher road, um, is, is the better way to do it. And certainly more satisfying and fuck it, man. You know, I'm still selfish and self centered and I do want to feel good and to have that satisfaction. So I'm kind of willing to work harder at it to get it for real. Not.
clever way.
Bill (13:18.99)
Right. Well, and we had talked about that. Um, I mean, we have talked about that a lot and I'm sure it's come up on here as far as, you know, like, like you just said, I mean, it, it feels better and it is, I mean, the, the things that we have to, um, work for, don't get me wrong. I mean, every once in a while it's, it's nice to get a gimme on, you know, on, on something or, you know, fucking anything. Um, it's, it's great to get, to get a gimme, you know, but, um, you know, if that happened for me all the time and.
Mike (13:37.487)
So yeah, right?
Mike (13:42.511)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (13:48.622)
And the same thing, you know, when we had talked about, I know to begin with, and it's come up on a couple of different occasions, even though, you know, I personally believe that if I'm comparing, I've seen other people struggle a lot, you know, in their sobriety journeys. And for the most part, I feel like my, and yours too, I'm not gonna speak for you, but I think that yours too, but definitely for me, I think I've had a relatively easy and smooth, sober path.
Mike (14:03.695)
Mm -hmm. Sure.
Bill (14:17.966)
Now, I've had that shit fly at me, I've had life, but the things that have happened to me are life things. They have nothing to do with me getting sober. Actually, me getting sober helped me deal with process, work through all those sort of things and handle all those things. But, it is when we look back at the days, and maybe that's why the days matter so much, because in the beginning, I didn't have these, like, again, people, we joke about it, but people call them God moments or flash moments or.
Mike (14:18.415)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (14:32.655)
Absolutely.
Mike (14:47.311)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (14:47.566)
I had light bulb things, you know, when my head popped out of my ass, I mean, shit, I had that. But I did in the beginning, you know, getting, getting started on this thing, building this foundation that we talk about took a lot of fucking work. It was a lot of work. It was a lot of meetings, a lot of, you know, late days, long days, late nights, all those sorts of things. Every, every second of it, that was worth it, you know, but none of this stuff is just like, I didn't just put down the booze one day and I'm like, look at that. I'm all good.
Mike (14:50.735)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (15:14.991)
Right.
Bill (15:17.166)
And and and if that would have happened or if I would have gotten everything back and we talked about that endlessly if I would have gotten everything back right away or Even along the way. I mean, I've lost some shit along the way I've had I've had to work my ass off, you know financially and work things and all this sort of stuff No regrets. It bothers me a little bit at the time because I'm like again. Hey, I'll take a gimme here and there you know, but even I walk in and somebody
Mike (15:29.807)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (15:38.927)
Hmm.
Bill (15:44.942)
Where was I at somebody gave me a free fucking cup of coffee not too long ago I don't even know where I was probably you know one of my drives and something guys like got coffee the guys like God just just take it I'm like really I said I don't mind he's like no no no go ahead you're good for no fucking reason and I'm like, thank you You know, and that was it that was one of those little gimmies But if I walk through life and it always got fucking free coffee, I'd expect it, you know, wouldn't it? Yeah
Mike (15:51.471)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (16:04.143)
Hehehehehe
Mike (16:11.023)
Oh, that's just it. Right. The expectation of the gimmies is the dangerous part. Yeah. I mean, getting, you know, it's, I still struggle with that a bit too. Um, you know, accepting help, accepting, uh, accepting a gimme, um, because, you know, I, I've learned that I need to earn these things. Um, and so when I do get something without.
particularly working at it hard. I have to be careful because, you know, that's the way I live my life with that expectation. But I also have to flip it around and be grateful and gracious in accepting things from other people too, which I have to find that balance. I'm, you know, I'm still working on that, man. You know, 14 years into this fucking thing, I'm still working on that balance of expecting people to do things.
for me and allowing people to do things for me now.
Bill (17:08.686)
Right? Yeah, it is. And that word again, that you bring it up far more than I do is the word balance, you know, and that is exactly what all of this stuff is. It's finding that balance between, you know, even the good moments and the bad moments and let somebody help versus doing it yourself or even, you know, not even letting somebody do it for you, but saying, hey, you know, come with me and assist me, you know, and because I can't do this thing, whatever this thing might be, you know, I can't do it on my own or hey, I don't
Mike (17:16.079)
Hmm.
Mike (17:23.727)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (17:32.751)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (17:39.118)
Like we were talking about too, you know, the whole Venus versus Mars type of thing, you know, guys are, guys are the same goddamn way. You know, sometimes I have, I don't need anyone to fix me. I just want to, I just want to vent. And you know, if I know that I can, I can vent to you, you're one of those people that, you know, unless I say, listen, I need a solution. Um, I mean, nine times out of 10, I could just, I just shit the shit's on my mind, blah, blah, blah. And you're just like, you're like a psychiatrist, you know, in the movies that sits there with your hand on your chin.
Mike (17:57.903)
Right.
Mike (18:03.919)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Bill (18:08.782)
How does that make you feel? Mm -hmm, yeah. Which is fine, I don't take offense to it. If I need something, I've got the nuts to fucking ask you and just say, you know what, dude, I need it, help me. What am I doing wrong? Or point me in a direction, you know? So.
Mike (18:09.775)
Right.
Mike (18:20.783)
Right, right, right, right. Absolutely, yeah. Just did that the other day.
Bill (18:26.766)
So the next thing on there that I...
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So we wrote, or we wrote down, I wrote down loyalty equals sacrifice. Do you think, or do you feel at all like being loyal or loyalty is a sacrifice at all? Have you ever feel that or no?
Mike (18:50.159)
I mean, oh yeah, right. Very much so. But again, it's the loyalty to others, you know, losing self. Of course it's a sacrifice because selfish, self -centered, all I give a fuck about is me and being loyal to those higher principles means caring about other people. So yes, it is a sacrifice. Again, thankfully I understand today.
that those sacrifices actually helped me in the long run. But it is that AA math. It doesn't make any fucking sense to me how, you know, sacrificing for someone else makes my life better. Still doesn't make any sense, but I understand that it works. I understand that much. So, yeah, but of course it's a sacrifice because, yeah, I mean, I wanna.
Bill (19:40.238)
Heheheheh
Mike (19:44.495)
do everything for me and it's all about me and me, me, me, me, me. But sacrifice is good for the greater good. Yeah, in the long run, it makes me feel good, which is what all I want anyway.
Bill (20:01.838)
Right. Yeah, and I know that's kind of what we were talking about just a minute ago, but I mean, I just more specifically wanted to, you know, just look at that. And I agree, you know, it's just like exactly like we were talking about that we do have to, and I don't want to say give up something, but basically, you know, either it's given up, giving up time, giving up, you know, something, you know, our, our manly hood or not manhood, but our independence, you know, for instance, you know, in order to ask somebody say, yeah, I mean, it is, it's a, it's a sacrifice and loyalty, you know.
Mike (20:24.751)
Hmm.
Bill (20:31.726)
going like you said, or like in the reading, you know, somebody calls and needs help and you go, or you gotta go to a meeting, you gotta do this, or you have to do that. And we look at it that way sometimes, like I have to go to a meeting rather than I get to, and all those different things. So it's important for me that when I see those posts and all that shit that says, ooh, this is what I get to do, and I try to challenge myself to do that, I get to do this versus I have to do this. I get to get up early and go to work.
Mike (20:38.127)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (20:43.919)
Right?
Mike (20:57.295)
Right.
Bill (20:58.99)
I go to work, but I get to get up early and work here. But I have a fucking job. So what about healing deeper wounds? I mean, I know that we kind of, I don't know, that's like the past trauma type of thing, but do you agree that going through that stuff, being loyal, does it help to heal any wounds we might have?
Mike (21:00.911)
Hmm. Yeah. Right.
Mike (21:10.255)
Mmm.
Mike (21:15.663)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (21:19.951)
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, right. I mean, many of our wounds are self -inflicted. Um, and they are, they just are, you know, if you want to, if you're still saying all of your wounds are everyone else's fault, you need to go back and do some work on some shit. Um, but you know, and not all of our wounds are self -inflicted, but many of them. And.
Bill (21:41.806)
Ha ha ha ha!
Mike (21:47.791)
Probably the majority of them are and so healing those wounds again is is doing for others being a part of something bigger than yourself That's how that shit gets fixed inside of you is and again, it doesn't make sense and it and it isn't easy but um Yeah, that's you know all those my wounds are you know looking back on my life and what an asshole I was and and
But if I don't act that way today, then those hurts that I inflicted on myself are healed. They are. They become gone because that's not who I am anymore. It's kind of nice.
Bill (22:31.79)
And the other thing too is that, I mean, that's a big part of the, you know, the four step, you know, as far as what is, even if our wounds were not self -inflicted, you know, what's our part? And that was the, that's the challenging part of the four step, speaking of the fourth month of the year, right? You know, but, you know, trying to find out, like we talked about, you know, you're walking down the street, you're minding your own business and somebody, you know, punches you in the fucking nuts, you know, that doesn't seem like you would have a...
Mike (22:42.831)
Uh huh.
Mike (22:50.351)
Uh huh.
Mike (23:00.257)
Hmm.
Bill (23:00.782)
a part in it, but you gotta figure out if you wanna get over it, you can have a resentment, you can be pissy about it, you can stew about that, that the person who popped you in the nuts is not gonna give a fuck, they're on their way, you know? So if you wanna cause yourself more grief and pain, then yeah, just let it fester, but maybe it's something as stupid as you're like, well, I never walked down that street before, and why did I walk down it? Well, I'm not gonna do it again, so I got my nuts punched.
Mike (23:08.463)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (23:13.679)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (23:19.887)
All right.
Mike (23:23.887)
Right.
Uh huh. Exactly. Right. I wasn't paying attention and you know, I mean, I'm pretty, uh, I'm pretty, uh, hyper vigilant about a lot of things. My head is generally on a swivel and, um, yeah, you know, I, he didn't just appear out of nowhere. You know, he came from somewhere before he punched me in the nuts. Um, I probably should have seen him coming and maybe paid attention to someone other than myself.
Bill (23:47.502)
Heheheheh
Mike (23:54.927)
And so, hmm, this guy looks like he's coming towards me and his fist is about nut level.
Bill (24:02.126)
Maybe it was the attack of the invisible nut puncher.
Mike (24:07.471)
Ah, that's one of my favorite Lon Chaney movies.
Bill (24:11.822)
Attack of the invisible nut puncher coming to a theater near you. But yeah, other than that, I mean, yeah, you're fucking and you're running your.
Mike (24:18.767)
All right, and I caught myself, it was Claude Rains was the invisible man.
Bill (24:24.206)
So Claude Rains was.
Mike (24:28.911)
Which you know, I really really should have been at the top of my head because it's in the fucking lyrics to the opening of Rocky Horror Picture Show Claude Rains was the invisible man. God damn it.
Bill (24:38.99)
Well.
Don't be so hard on yourself. Heal those wounds there, my friend.
Mike (24:47.407)
Finding my own part in my mistakes.
Bill (24:51.47)
But the last thing I wrote down, which is kind of elementary, but obviously working on being better people, which is that that's the backbone of everything that we're doing. If nothing else, and I think that we not only have talked about it, but agree on it is that obviously we don't drink, we pray, we try to go to beings, try to help other people. But if we're going through life,
Mike (25:06.063)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (25:17.422)
trying to be better individuals and we're not drinking, we're not being horrible people, we're gonna end up just being better people and being better individuals to those around us and everything gets better, right?
Mike (25:29.199)
Yeah, absolutely. Gets better for us and the people around us, which is pretty, and not necessarily in that order.
Bill (25:33.838)
Right, yeah, imagine that, as Marty would say, right? Imagine that. So what else? What else in the reading? I mean, I like that one. That was a good one, for sure.
Mike (25:40.239)
Imagine that.
Mike (25:49.455)
Um, you know, just being loyal to something, uh, bigger than yourself, um, makes your life fucking better. And it's, it's, you know, but yeah, but it is a sacrifice and that's okay. Cause you're not the most important fucking thing in the world. I know I'm not.
Bill (26:05.87)
Right. Well, and I think that's the, you know, that's a, that's a great point to make just in general that, um, anything, if, if anyone out there, and it doesn't matter whether you're, you know, I know I say this all the time, but it really doesn't matter whether you're AA based or 12 step based, or even if you're in an organized type of program, you know, um, if, if you are doing all these things, you know, on a daily basis, um, it, it is going to be it's work number one, and it is.
there are some sacrifices, there's things that you are giving up, but the number of things you're giving up or sacrificing for is so much smaller than the rewards that we get. Back to that AA math, we do a few of these little things every day. I gotta read a fucking book or two, I gotta be a good person, I gotta do some fucking prayers, go to meetings when I can, try to be a good person. And then, you know what?
Mike (26:48.079)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (26:57.455)
Hmm.
Bill (27:00.11)
I end up with a life that I actually not only enjoy, but is worth living and people around me seem to be pretty happy with me these days. So I think the fuck more can I ask for, right?
Mike (27:10.511)
Hehehehehe
Not a goddamn thing.
Bill (27:17.518)
Right, right. So anything else? You all good on the reading?
Mike (27:21.999)
I think we're good.
Bill (27:24.27)
Okay, so I had a thing about April is alcohol awareness month. So I wanted to kind of touch on one thing I read on that, but I also, there's a every month, well, I don't know if it is. Yeah, I guess it is every month. And maybe I just don't pay attention to it, but we get, we get these results from Google as far as our podcast website. And it gives us just some statistics and things like that and how we showed up in search results.
Mike (27:47.375)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (27:51.662)
And I wanted to read this off because this made me laugh. So if you want to hear about that first, you want to talk about alcohol and awareness.
Mike (28:02.575)
No, no, let's talk about us and our results. I'm fully aware of alcohol.
Bill (28:05.486)
I know, I know. Okay, so these are our March search performance or yeah search performance for sobernotmature .com. So we had 52 clicks, nothing big, 2000 impressions, which means just, you know, obviously places where our website was pushed out to on the web, you know, 7 -10 pages of new impressions. We don't get...
For everyone out there, we don't get a lot of traffic on our website. That's fine. It is what it is. It serves its purpose. But here is, this was the fun part, okay? They give you a list of where you came up in search results. So basically what people type in, where they end up finding us, okay? So people looked up mature .com. I'm guessing somebody was looking for a porn.
A porn site. Okay, so mature .com, so we got found that way. Here's another one. Mature pissing. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Mature piss. That's another one. We got pissing mature. We got piss mature.
Mike (29:13.647)
Hmm. All right.
Bill (29:29.486)
We got the term not sober. And then this one's weird, shoddy workmanship. Okay. But let me not glaze over the fact. Let me not glaze over the fact that three of the search queries, things that people typed into the Google machine had the word piss or pissing in it. I'm sorry, four. So, so we've got some people out there.
Mike (29:54.447)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (29:57.902)
that are looking for potentially what golden showers and they run across.
Mike (30:02.927)
I was going to say, yes, elderly water sports.
Bill (30:07.534)
I looked at that and I'm like, I've seen them before and they've been weird ones, but nothing that bad. One was, I think that the one search one time, and this was probably six or seven months ago, was I hate sober people or I hate sobriety or something like that. And that, you know, obviously it tells us our page popped up, but this, I have to say, this is the first one where it showed up where,
Anyone's, can you imagine? Okay, so anyone out there, whatever your, whatever your fucking fetish is, fine, okay? So you're out there and you're like, okay, let's look up for mature pissing. What's this? Sober, not, who are these fucking guys? Okay, let me try, let me try pissing mature.
Mike (30:54.447)
And why aren't they pissing on each other? They're clearly elderly.
Bill (31:05.102)
Jesus Christ, it's them again. What the fuck? Hang on, how about just piss mature? Fuck me, it's them again. I just, I thought about this. She is some fucking guy with this fucking junk in his left hand, typing one hand and keeps getting our faces. And I'm like, that makes, again, so this isn't a sacrifice.
Mike (31:07.535)
Hehehehehe
Mike (31:14.575)
Hehehehehe
Mike (31:29.839)
That makes me happier than it should.
Bill (31:32.366)
I was just going to say this, this is not a sacrifice or anything like that, but I am, I am, this is one way to help people that makes me really fucking happy actually to get in people's way. That makes me really fucking happy. Who would have fucking known that? What the fuck is Google doing? That's shooting people to our page when people are looking for piss. If we, well, I don't know. Is that in any of our episode titles? Is the word piss in any of our?
Mike (31:55.311)
I don't believe so. No, no, it's going to be, but.
Bill (31:58.382)
Well, okay, so here's the thing. Okay, now here's the thing. So seven or eight episodes ago, God, maybe more than that. I went, well, God, probably went back 20 episodes, come to think of it. All the episodes that I could, now that we can get transcripts, I went back and I put those on, took our transcripts and put them on pod page, you know, which is our, it's not our podcast webpage, but it's the,
Mike (32:22.543)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (32:27.502)
It's our web host, his pod page for everyone out there, not that it matters, but, and basically what it said, it's like, oh, when you get transcripts, you might show up and better, you know, get more exposure on Google. Now that I'm thinking about it that way, something pisses me off, piss this, piss that. You know, it kind of makes more sense, I guess. Okay, so I'm gonna take that one. I'll take one for the team.
Mike (32:39.919)
Uh huh.
Mike (32:44.623)
Mmm.
Bill (32:54.542)
Probably my fault. I'm not the one that said all the words, but I did add the transcripts, you know, so I've, I've let these folks into our front yard and, uh, Hey, I'm just, fuck it. It does. Like you said, it, I enjoy the fact that it, that people are coming up with our website, looking for those types of things. It makes me happier than it probably should, you know, so.
Mike (32:56.111)
Hmm.
Mike (33:03.855)
Hehehehehe
Mike (33:12.367)
Absolutely. That's a wonderful goddamn thing. Alright, that's some good damn news. Who says all the news is bad?
Bill (33:17.71)
Right. Yeah. And the other. Plus, yeah, who says we don't talk about timely things? This just fucking happened today. I just got the email today. But so what I what I figured, too, just for just so you know, I thought that, you know, I know we got a little bit of a delay so far, but I figured that we'll talk until we till whatever we want to take a break and then we can we can start up a new session just to be safe. So I don't have to.
Mike (33:30.319)
There you go.
Bill (33:47.726)
cut three things, one being like a seven minute clip again. But I don't know, all in all, I still hear a mild delay, but I think it's gotten better. But all said and done. When we take a break, we'll restart either way. So all right, we're back on. Is everyone still there? You didn't listen to that part to everyone, did you? Hello there. OK, so I didn't know that the album, alcohol. I don't know.
Mike (33:52.207)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (33:56.047)
It has.
Mike (34:00.015)
Okay.
Hi there. No, of course not. Hi.
Mike (34:13.743)
You all right stroking out?
Bill (34:15.886)
I don't know. No, I've got my I got my pants on and both my hands are on paper. So I'm not stroking out. But anyhow, so I just saw that posted somewhere, obviously, April being Alcohol Awareness Month, which that was you. You kind of you kind of stole my line when you said you're well aware of alcohol, because I was going to say, Mike, are you aware of alcohol? So thank you. So I.
Mike (34:20.111)
Ah!
Mike (34:32.079)
Alright.
Mike (34:35.983)
Uh huh. Why yes, Bill, I am.
Bill (34:44.974)
I copied and pasted this on here, but I just wanted to read it. So this is from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. April is Alcohol Awareness Month, an opportunity to update your knowledge about alcohol use disorder. Don't like the word or term and the adverse impact of alcohol misuse on health and society. Alcohol related problems continue to take a heavy toll on individuals, families and communities. Researchers estimate that each year,
more than 178 ,000 alcohol -related deaths, making alcohol a leading preventable cause of death in the United States. In addition, more than 200 disease and injury -related conditions are associated with alcohol misuse. So I'm like, okay, so great. I mean, I like hearing numbers every once in a while, and I like the fact that somebody gets out there and is talking about it. But my first thought was, okay, so there's...
There's a lot of things that I understand more so, you know, the suicide awareness and all those different things. And, you know, when, when there's groups out there that are actually doing things for those communities. And here's my, my selfish thought of the evening. Okay. Is, okay. So what the fuck is everyone doing? Okay. So you wrote an article and what, what does alcohol awareness month mean? What, what does everyone do? You know, does I, I don't, it doesn't make any sense to me, you know?
Mike (35:54.479)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (36:04.718)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (36:10.191)
Ah.
What action are you taking to solve the problem?
Bill (36:16.43)
Right. Right. And if there, again, if there is a problem, you know, 178 ,000 alcohol -related deaths sounds problematic to me, you know, and, you know, 200 or more diseases and injury -related conditions associated sounds like a problem to me. So what are we doing? You know, and I don't mean we, I mean, I know what we're doing every day, you're trying to do every day, but as a society,
Mike (36:29.167)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (36:40.751)
Right?
Bill (36:44.782)
In this, I mean, honestly, it's a real question. What is society doing to help out? You know, any thoughts?
Mike (36:53.711)
Um, yeah, generally not a hell of a lot. Um, clearly, you know, um, they're focusing on other substances at the moment, you know, that are more flashy fentanyl. Um, but yeah, but you know, like we've said on here a million times, the substance doesn't matter. It's, it's, it's all the same, um, for us. Um, yeah, I don't know. What the hell are we doing? We're we're, um,
We're advertising it on television and making it look glamorous. And, um, yeah, I mean, I could go down the path of, you know, being anti -alcohol, which I'm not, um, you know, I know I love this stuff. Uh, apparently, um, but I mean, yeah, Jesus, I don't know what, what's anybody going to do? I mean, when it all comes, when it all comes down to it, if, if it is affecting your life that.
Bill (37:32.206)
Which we're not. Right.
Mike (37:53.135)
Badly, it's, you know, we've said it a million times. It's an inside job. You've got to do it yourself. You've got to, you know, check. Chris just posted something about that the other day. My girlfriend, for those that you don't know, hang on a second. And she doesn't post very much on Facebook anymore. Click, click, click. And yeah. Nobody gets sober unless they want to.
Bill (38:08.654)
Heheheheh
Mike (38:22.319)
Not if you beg them, not if you shame them, not if you use reason, emotion, or tough love. There's only one thing that makes someone get sober, their own realization that they need to do it.
Bill (38:34.67)
Right. And, and I agree. And yeah, and you know, I mean, you know, you and I are on the same page about that. And I guess mainly, maybe what I was getting to, what I don't even know is that, okay, so, so for those of us or those, you know, us people out there that do that, um, you know, are the, I don't even say the resources. So the, the care, the costs and that sort of thing. So, you know, there's so many people that, you know, these, these rehab centers that, I mean, not everyone had the, had the good fortune in, in my opinion, you know, that.
Mike (38:35.823)
Yeah.
Bill (39:03.598)
Even though, you know, it obviously sucked at times, but the Keating Center, what a wonderful opportunity, you know, to go in there and not have to have the money to do it. And the amount of money it would have cost, you know, and I know just, you know, our family was searching around for me. Where can we put this motherfucker for? And it was, it was 28 days and insurance only paid a certain portion. And in this, that even after, after all said and done, and after, I mean, I had medical insurance at the time and I think I owed.
Mike (39:06.511)
Great.
Mike (39:18.127)
Mm -hmm, right.
Bill (39:31.15)
I owed like $3 ,000 or $2 ,500 for my fucking detox bill. You know, um, it took me, it took me a couple of years till I was able to pay that, but I did, you know, I ended up paying those two separate parts to it. But, um, you know, it was, it was in collection at the time and it was like, you know, fucking 2200 bucks or something like that. And, um, you know, by the time all said and done it, I got it paid. But, um, you know, I don't know, like, like things like that, it would be nice if, you know, and I granted, I agree with you. You can't, you can't.
Mike (39:36.175)
Right.
Mike (39:41.775)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (40:01.134)
You know, you bring that horse to water, but you can't make them, bad way to put it, you can't make them drink or not drink. You know, but then what's in it, you know, it'd be nice if it wasn't so costly for people because so many people get, I don't know, you know, people are just placed in debt trying to get better. And then, I don't know, that goes back. And I don't know about socialized healthcare and all this sort of shit. I suppose it goes into that. But if there was more, I don't even know.
Mike (40:05.679)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mike (40:20.111)
Right.
Mike (40:23.823)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (40:29.134)
Now I'm running myself, I'm kind of blocking my mind going, ah, fuck it, we're fine.
Mike (40:33.487)
Right. Right. Well, clearly exactly. I mean, it does it right. There are opportunities out there. There's also a whole system out there that, um, I won't say takes advantage, but, um, certainly is profiting off of the disease. Um, you know, right. Oh, but there are there again, you know, uh, we got lucky. We found a great place. Um, there are other.
great places out there. Um, there is some, you know, there is some government help. Um, you know, and there's, there's, I mean, there's also AA meetings are fucking free, man. You know, you, I mean, there are people, I know this is a crazy thought. There are people that stay in their homes, stay with their family, go to a meetings, get involved in the program.
Get a sponsor, start working the steps, pay the 13 bucks for a big book and fucking get sober and stay sober. So, you know, right.
Bill (41:36.846)
Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there are, there are people out there that don't go, don't need to go to detox. Like both of us. I mean, both of us medically needed to go to detox and then, you know, people that don't, don't need to be taken to the Keating center and both of us need to go to the Keating center. You know, and, but yeah, I mean, I, I know, I know a number of people. I mean, people I've been in meetings with people we know, you know, that, uh, that are sober to this day, you know, I've been sober for a number of years. It didn't go through the Keating center.
Mike (41:46.927)
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Mike (41:52.623)
Yes, we did.
Mike (42:00.335)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (42:04.015)
Right.
Bill (42:05.102)
you know, maybe did an IOP or something like that, you know, so I agree, I agree.
Mike (42:08.111)
Mm -hmm. Yeah again many paths, but yeah, so I mean there's it's out there. There are systems in place Again, you got to fucking do the work. Otherwise, nothing happens. Nothing happens. Nothing happens
Bill (42:23.758)
Yeah, and it was just the more literally the more I was talking about. I'm like, oh, fuck it. I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about because the when I first when I when I first saw it, I was just kind of like, OK, great awareness. So what are you doing? I was kind of like that. That was my stance going, OK, so what are you doing? That it's if somebody like knocked on the door right now and said, oh, we're raising money for alcohol awareness month. I'd be like my first thought would be so what do you what are you planning on doing? You know, because I I.
Mike (42:29.039)
Right.
Mike (42:36.783)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (42:51.182)
And I wouldn't mean to come off as a dick, but I know I would because I'm like, what are you doing? You know?
Mike (42:55.407)
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. What the hell? Yeah. Okay. You're going to take my fucking money. What are you going to do with it? Yeah, exactly. You know, I mean, I, I got to, I got a basket that goes around my meeting. It's called the seventh tradition. That's what I'm doing.
Bill (43:03.15)
You go...
Bill (43:11.214)
Right.
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I don't know. It was just one of those things where I, and I do, I mean, I pay attention to these things and I'm glad when, I'm glad when people are out there and, you know, somebody's making the effort. I guess I have to give them that. I don't have to, but I want to at least give people that, you know, they're somebody that took the time to write the article. Somebody took the time to, you know, I mean, and that, that is that, that's taken a step, getting that out there. People are reading, people are clicking and that sort of thing. And
Mike (43:18.767)
Buh -huh.
Mike (43:30.831)
Hehehehehe
Bill (43:39.758)
Sometimes like everything that we've talked about, you know, all it takes sometimes is to have that initial seed planted. And maybe this, this article, you know, that was written or, you know, maybe what we're talking about plants a seed with somebody. I don't fucking know, you know.
Mike (43:57.679)
All right.
Bill (43:59.822)
Did I lose you?
Mike (44:03.407)
No, we're just, uh, we're, uh, we're lagging again. So you know what? Let's take a quick break.
Bill (44:07.47)
Okay, well you know what? That's perfect.
Mike (44:12.879)
I was trying. All right. We'll be right back with more of Sober Not Mature right after this word from our sponsor.
Bill (00:02.029)
All righty everyone, welcome back. Is it still Friday night or is it some other day yet? I don't know, I think we have, I told Mike right as we're popping back in here, I'm like, well, we got this set, we got that set and I think we're gonna be good now. I'm gonna throw some positive vibes out there. How's that Mike? Okay, cool. All right, so.
Mike (00:09.442)
Hehehehe.
Mike (00:26.306)
Sure.
Bill (00:30.702)
Yeah, we have no confidence and we have no, I couldn't hear Mike at the end, so I have no idea where we ended off, but I think it was word from our sponsor. And I think we're, no. But yeah, so I think we're done being aware about alcohol, right? We're done, we're done talking about being aware of it though.
Mike (00:38.21)
All right.
Mike (00:46.114)
Right. No, I'm still aware of it.
Mike (00:52.834)
Okay, good.
Bill (00:54.734)
Done talking about pissing on other people, I think. So, okay. Okay, for now, for now maybe. All right, so, well, you know what? And you somehow pulled up our website, right? Now I know what's wrong with your computer, hello.
Mike (00:58.882)
Now hold on.
Mike (01:03.586)
Alright, yeah fine.
Okay, it was me, it was all me. I've been searching for pissing matures.
Mike (01:14.882)
Yeah, I know. What the fuck, man? I'm trying to do something here. I know what this shit's about.
Bill (01:23.758)
But yeah, you know, the other thing I wrote down, I mean, we were, we actually spent, spent a day or two together last weekend. So let's, yeah, let's, let's talk about that. We haven't, we haven't spent any time together since like New Year's. So, but yeah.
Mike (01:23.97)
Hi there.
Mike (01:32.13)
We did!
Mike (01:36.002)
Right. Well, it's shit. I mean, I, you know, I haven't been to Cathy's it's been like a year. Cause I don't think I've been there. Well, uh, when we went up to, uh, Wisconsin for the food fighter. So yeah, summertime, it was like the last time I was there, but I got sick at Thanksgiving and then, yeah, you know, it's been a minute.
Bill (01:52.238)
Yeah.
Bill (01:59.022)
Yeah, and usually the getting her place, I mean, at a minimum, it's twice a year. I mean, when, you know, in normal circumstances and you have the Foo Fighters. Yeah, that was that was last summer, wasn't time fucking flies. I'm like, holy shit. So, yes, that would have been it because I was trying to think I was like, yeah, Thanksgiving. I remember you got you got sick because Derek was here. But yeah, I remember that. So but yeah, it was it was nice. I mean, you know, obviously, you know, your daughter and granddaughter came up with you and I came back from.
Mike (02:06.018)
Right.
It was.
Mike (02:25.186)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (02:27.79)
good old Wissberg and got back what 15 minutes after you guys got here and it was nice. It was kind of a short amount of time. I mean, you were here for about 24 hours, I think total, but it was nice. It's always nice getting together, especially for something like that. We do our little Easter breakfast, but I'm sure we've talked about that before, but just the, I don't know the, yeah, I don't know if we have, okay. So here's the thing there is.
Mike (02:32.13)
Right?
Mike (02:38.338)
Yeah, it was.
Mike (02:46.434)
Huh? Right. Yeah. I don't know if we have the cold breakfast.
Bill (02:55.758)
my family, my side of the family, you know, for years and years back, we've never been a religious family. And, you know, certainly not since we've been sober, since Mike's been involved, you know, there's, right. But I'm, but I'm just saying that you've, you've not experienced any, you know, even any of us in the family going to church or anything like that, you know, because it's been, you know, since we were kids. But there's this tradition that started, we figured probably with our, with my, our sister and I, on
Mike (03:05.666)
Well, clearly.
Bill (03:24.974)
great -grandma's, great -grandma, grandpa. And it was this thing, this European tradition that it is, it's a cold breakfast. There are seven things and it is a religious, has religious backgrounds and bases to it and all that stuff. But there are seven items that have something to do with different things, which we couldn't remember. And our mom did had, she had an article on what each thing represented, but I'm sure it's around.
Mike (03:36.93)
Right.
Mike (03:43.202)
She did. And not a damn one of us can remember what they are.
Bill (03:51.886)
Right. But we know there's seven things, you know, it's it's kielbasa, it's eggs, it's horseradish, it's cottage cheese, it's butter, it's hot cross buns from Heinen's, which we which we talked about. And then, you know, you have to have, oh, it's champagne. But we might get I drink ginger ale. But the original one and I think I brought. Yeah, was whiskey, you know. And so the way it used to be in, you know, again, way, way, way, way back is.
Mike (03:53.794)
There are.
Mike (04:00.002)
Right?
Mike (04:09.218)
with whiskey. Yeah, right.
Bill (04:18.894)
People would prepare this basket of food for the next day and the priest would come around to every house in the village or town and bless the meal and piss on it. Back to pissing, pissing not mature.
Mike (04:30.69)
Just got to keep that, uh, that Google search going.
Bill (04:36.046)
All right piss But um, but yeah, so then you know, I mean we don't leave it out the night before don't do anything like that But it's it's it's literally the only family tradition that our family does and I don't know everyone doesn't do it all the time every year but even when I you know when I went out on my own and I did it with Kimmy's mom and I did it with dawn and you know, I didn't do it every year but because a lot of times I would come back to Cleveland, you know, and obviously do it as a family but
Mike (04:42.722)
Hehehehehe
Mike (05:04.802)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (05:05.422)
You know, so, you know, everyone that comes into this family, you know, now you got introduced to it years ago and you obviously Amber, your daughter and your granddaughter and there's been all these other people over the years. Chris, I don't know if Chris has ever, is she, I was gonna say, I thought she had been here. So, but yeah, everyone looks at it kind of funny, but it's nice. I mean, it's, it's just, it's a nice tradition. It's an Easter breakfast and we'll just hang out and have fun. And I don't know what it is. It's a.
Mike (05:10.018)
Right?
Mike (05:17.378)
Yeah, curse is done, Od. At least one.
Mike (05:24.002)
It is.
Bill (05:32.11)
I am not one for these family traditions like that, but that is the one thing that it's important, you know? It is, it's a lot of fun.
Mike (05:39.298)
Yeah, it is. Right. And it's just, it's tradition and, you know, there's something to be said for that. It is nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Bill (05:49.006)
Right, yeah. And, God, it was just so funny. I mean, because after you guys left, I went to the grocery store. And I mean, you know, it's fucking eggs and it's sausage and it's all this other fucking garbage that I don't normally eat. And I'm burping and I'm walking around the grocery store, burping. I'm like, oh, there's a kielbasa. I'm like, ugh. Fucking, fucking egg and kielbasa burps. And I'm just like, this is just unpleasant. But I don't know, it is. It's.
Mike (06:01.922)
Hehehehe.
Mike (06:08.514)
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Bill (06:17.102)
There is something like you just said, there's something to be said for tradition and it's the one that we have and I do, I like it, it's a lot of fun.
Mike (06:24.77)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (06:26.894)
So the other thing though, and I was just thinking about this the other day, but we were sitting at the table and Mike was on one side or we were all on the same side, me, Amber and Mike. I don't know if we were sitting down to eat or whatever it was or in the morning, but talking back and forth. And of course I'm yapping about some story and Mike's on his phone doing whatever. And then, I did it. I literally, I finished up my story and then his daughter.
Mike (06:45.666)
course.
Bill (06:53.838)
starts to talk and on purpose I interrupted her as if I was still talking about my story and then Amber's like, oh I apologize I didn't mean to interrupt you I thought you were done and then Mike says...
Mike (07:05.218)
He's never done.
Bill (07:07.438)
And I thought that was the line of the week and he's never done it. I'm like, yeah, yeah. But then I thought about it. I'm like, okay, so smart boy. I'm not gonna talk on here, but then I couldn't do that anyhow. I...
Mike (07:20.674)
Right. I mean, you know, I'll fill the time with something, but.
Bill (07:25.39)
Right, right. But you know that you and I compliment each other very well with this because you're not a huge talker. I don't rule this podcast, but I mean, I do. I talk a lot on there. In some cases, I'm guessing you're probably happy that I'm filling space.
Mike (07:33.282)
Mmm.
Mike (07:42.018)
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, no, I don't talk a lot. Um, and you know, I, I choose my words and if I have something to say, trust me, I'll say it. Um, but yeah, you know, I try to, again, it all comes down to the wasting time shit. I wasted so much of my life. I try not to waste any time anymore. You know.
Bill (07:52.494)
Right.
Bill (08:03.79)
Right.
Mike (08:05.506)
I mean, you know, I, yes, I will lay around and watch reruns of Seinfeld or something that I've probably seen 50 times already, but, um, you know, that's just decompressing. That's kind of not wasting time. That's making myself able to get up the next day and do it all again.
Bill (08:13.294)
Ha ha.
Bill (08:22.574)
Right? No, I agree. You know, and, and that's the thing, you know, it's since I was, um, well, my, my first sales job was, I mean, I started selling cars when I was 19 years old, you know, so from literally, literally, literally from, from that point forward with a short amount of time, I spent like four months in a factory and I had a couple of jobs where, you know, we're not sales based, but, um, I mean, for, I'm,
Mike (08:34.434)
Right, of course she did.
Bill (08:50.222)
I mean, I'm 55 years old now, you know, so for, you know, for all these years, um, I mean, my, literally my jobs have been talking. I mean, that's how I, that's how I make my fucking living. And then, you know, this, this is no big deal. You know, every once in a while, I think to myself when, and we talked about this, that now it's not a big deal. Cause I know we're going to fill the time, you know, but, but literally if somebody would have said to me, and I know when we started this thing, when we went for, we went almost an hour.
Mike (08:58.498)
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Bill (09:18.702)
45 minutes to an hour on that on your episode, which is episode three and I At that point, I mean we used to be an hour or just under with every episode then we went over and over and over and then we settled that for whatever reason now we're considered to be quote -unquote long form, you know podcasters and Most thing that's the other thing if anyone ever if you ever want to like again waste some time look up, you know the the
Mike (09:21.474)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mike (09:29.57)
Right. Mm -hmm.
Mike (09:36.354)
Ooooo
Bill (09:47.118)
ideal podcast length and they say it's about 20 to 30 minutes. We do three times that. Now, now what's ideal though? You know, I mean, if somebody wants to, I'd listen to podcasts all the time that are summer 30 to 40 minutes, summer, an hour longer. Um, I just, I listen to it in two different things. I mean, I watch TV shows the same way or movies, you know, in, in this day and age, it's not like you're turning on, you have to sit down at 7 PM and watch a TV show and you're never going to fucking see it again, you know.
Mike (09:50.21)
Mm -hmm. Right.
Mike (10:08.066)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (10:16.226)
Right.
Bill (10:17.294)
I mean, this isn't the 70s. You know, just just fucking pause it and go go do something else and come back to it. I mean, certainly we don't give a fuck. If you listen to even like 10 or 15 minutes of our podcast that shut it off, we get that we get the mark. You know, I mean, I don't give a fuck. Yeah, stop stop listening now if you want. It doesn't matter to us, you know. But but yeah, it just now it's not even it's not even a big deal. And.
Mike (10:18.978)
Hehehehehe
Mike (10:33.858)
Yeah, right. That's a play.
Hehehehehe
Bill (10:45.966)
And now I think about it, I'm like, well, it's just, it's just our thing now. You know, we, we talk for an hour and a half or fill up the time and it's, it's turned out to be comfortable and nobody, we have yet to have anyone, you know, send us a note and say your podcast episodes are too long. Never, you know, now I've had people that, that I've said, you know, listen to some episodes, whatever. And, and, you know, I have one person, I forget who it was that was going to be on as a guest. And they're like, how long are your episodes? And they're like,
Mike (11:01.89)
No?
Mike (11:12.738)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (11:14.766)
Like man, I got that much time. I'm like, you don't have to listen to the whole hour and a half. You know, I said, yeah, listen. Listen to bits and pieces. Listen to any 15 minutes of any fucking episode. You're going to get the point. I mean, we're not we're not like curing, you know, cancer here or anything like that. You know, it's it's we're not doing anything of the sorts. So but but yeah, so back to back to Easter and the fact that I've never done is probably.
Mike (11:18.146)
Right, yeah, get a sense. Yeah, you'll pick it up pretty quickly.
Mike (11:28.354)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (11:33.026)
No we are not.
Mike (11:43.33)
Oh yeah, it is right. And again, but like you said, we kind of compliment each other. So right. It works.
Bill (11:43.438)
It is, it's a true statement, so there.
Bill (11:51.47)
Right. Yeah. And I think that, I think if both of us will clearly, if neither one of us talked much, there wouldn't be a point of, I mean, why? Yeah, really. It'd be like, you know, it'd be kind of like this. Hi, Mike. How are you tonight? I'm doing good. Let's, what sober thing do you want to talk about tonight?
Mike (11:58.85)
Well, yeah. Thanks. Good night. We're sober. You can be too. Bye.
Mike (12:10.978)
Hi Bill. I'm okay, how are you? Good.
Let's talk about gratitude. Are you grateful? So am I. And scene.
Bill (12:22.03)
Oh, I am Mike. Okay. Thanks for listening. And that everyone is a bad podcast of what could be. So if you don't like what we're doing, we can start doing that shit. We won't, we won't. So, but yeah, exactly. So Easter was fun. And then, you know, we, we reached out to our buddy, Michael, who we had on, can't remember what episode if you happen to.
Mike (12:38.018)
Right. But we won't. We will do this shit.
It was.
Mm -hmm.
Bill (12:51.47)
have your phone there. We might as well plug Michael's episode since we're talking about it. But so probably what do we figure five years ago when we hit the casino the last time? Yeah. And we're going to do that again. So I'm going to be in the Ozarks until the 20th. So from tomorrow to through the 20th and then drive to Cleveland. I'm going to spend that week at Mike's place and then Saturday the 27th, I think. Is that the date? Whatever it is. Yeah, I think.
Mike (12:52.962)
Dude, hang on a second. I gotta go here.
Mike (13:00.354)
Yeah, sounds about right.
Bill (13:19.982)
Um, we're planning on, uh, Mike and I wanted to go to the casino again. So we texted our buddy Michael and said, Hey, Mr. Rowley, we'd like you to join us again. So, okay. God 90. Wow. That's, that's a long time ago. 21 episodes ago. Holy hell. So yeah, Mike, uh, Michael, he, he came in the Keating center in July of 2010. Um, you know, it took a little bit, you know, for us to, we, we, we liked him right away. Don't get me wrong, but.
Mike (13:28.579)
Mm -hmm. Episode 90.
Mike (13:36.29)
is. Yep.
Mike (13:43.554)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (13:49.198)
you know, until we became friends, moved over to the three quarter house and, um, you know, got to know him. And, uh, now he's, he's certainly, um, you know, he's, he's one of our, one of our best friends and Tony's another one. Tony's a couple of years behind us, but, um, you know, I mean, Tony's another one, right? You don't have to. And then his wife, Angel, and then, then Michael's Michael's wife, Megan, let's just sit there and look up episodes all night. No. So, uh, so yeah, it sounds like it sounds like Michael's in for that. And then, uh,
Mike (14:01.506)
I'm not looking up his episode.
Right.
Mike (14:12.482)
No.
Bill (14:19.63)
Yeah, it'll be nice. But yeah, that anniversary weekend, and I know we touched on it, I don't know, last episode or before, but I don't know. I love that weekend. And even if we don't do much of anything, we don't have to go to the fucking casino or make an event out of it. But, you know, it just happened to be.
Mike (14:35.01)
No, but it's going to be nice. We haven't done it in a while. And we, uh, I think we talked about it on his episode, but yeah, the buffet, the buffet, the casino downtown Cleveland has a buffet that is just absolutely amazing. It's like, I don't know, 35, 40 bucks or something per person. And, um, yeah, just tons of really good food. And last time we went, we.
Bill (14:43.95)
Right.
Mike (15:01.762)
pretty much almost killed ourselves because we're alcoholics and drug addicts and we just ate until we couldn't eat anymore and then we ate some more.
Bill (15:10.35)
I don't know.
Right. Yeah. And it's the thing that amazed me with that. And I looked it up. It said it's 35 bucks. I think it was the same 30 or 35 last time. But we get some sort of a discount last time. The lady gave us like the players club discount. We got it for like 28 or whatever. But it didn't matter. I would have paid. I would have paid the 35. And it had there. I've never seen a buffet set up like that. And it's got everything all different from American to Italian to Asian food to steak.
Mike (15:39.106)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (15:43.054)
Like regular steaks plus the area where you know the carving station for you know, the prime rib and what I mean literally fucking everything but I'm gonna I I'm gonna try really I'm gonna to have some self -control cuz I in and I'm not I I wish I was joking when I when I say this and I said it when we were talking to Michael on his episode was I mean, I I hurt I literally I was in physical pain And I don't I don't think I've ever been that full, you know
Mike (15:54.69)
Hehehehehe
Mike (16:05.666)
Mm -hmm. Yes.
Mike (16:11.906)
Hehehehehe
Bill (16:13.742)
But, you know, it's not like we have a time limit on it. We can actually take our time and, you know, we could sit there and eat for, you know, an hour or so and not have to, I don't know, it just, I don't know, maybe it was just the sheer volume, but maybe we ate too quick. Who fucking knows, but it was a lot.
Mike (16:21.762)
Yes, we could.
Mike (16:29.314)
It was, yeah, it was wonderful and I'm looking forward to doing it again.
Bill (16:34.286)
Right? Right? Yeah, but that I got to figure out too. I don't know. I don't know what time I'm I got to I don't have to, but I guess I actually do when I think about it from a timing standpoint. I need to get out of your place relatively early Sunday morning because it's a it's a good 10 hour drive out to out to Tennessee where I'm going. And, you know, it's Sunday. I got to work the next day. I got to get some figure out what I can, you know, try to get something to eat. I probably won't grocery shop till Monday night, I suppose. But then get all my my work set up. But I don't know. Whatever.
Mike (16:47.202)
Uh -huh.
Mike (17:03.458)
Don't worry, I'll kick you out. It's fine. I'll get up early and I will throw you out of the fucking door. It'll be great.
Bill (17:03.694)
You know, it said what.
It... No, and I'm not worried about it because the thing of it is that you probably won't get up and I'll get up at some ungodly hour and then I'll just leave, which is fine. But no, first thing I thought about and I'm like, okay, I got a plan around my sleep. I'm like, ah, fuck sleep. What does it matter? I'm more concerned with getting there and making sure I got my shit set up for the morning and getting the sleep.
Mike (17:14.274)
Yeah. Great.
Mike (17:24.866)
Great.
Bill (17:32.014)
early enough on Sunday night where I'm not up till, you know, fucking midnight setting up, setting shit up, you know? So, but yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So yeah, it sounds like Michael's in and I don't know. It's, I'm really looking forward to it. I get all these things coming up and founders day shit. That's only a couple of months away. And you know, that's, that's coming up too, which would be fun. So, Oh, um, I, I requested off that Friday for founders day and Monday in that Monday. So,
Mike (17:48.674)
Right?
Mm -hmm.
Bill (17:58.67)
Coming back which will help because I think when because I think I'm gonna probably pick up Kathy on the way through Because I should be in Wisconsin at that time, but then you know, I'm not same thing I'm not rushing back on a Sunday night and stuff like that. But But yeah, I requested often my boss, you know approved it that same day and I was I was like I thanked him too because I'm like Obviously, it's you know, it's a couple months away. I'm getting my feet under me and all that stuff But you know, he just nobody has to approve anything, you know
Mike (18:03.842)
Right.
Mike (18:17.506)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (18:25.282)
Right. Right. Yeah. Nobody has to do anything. Exactly. Yeah.
Bill (18:28.494)
Right, right, and I said thank you and I didn't necessarily need to, but I felt the need to and that's, I guess that goes back to what we are today, right? I've got the time, I've earned it and I will have been there long enough where I have the ability to do it, but I thought it, thank you seemed appropriate.
Mike (18:46.498)
Absolutely. Yes. Being grateful. Yeah.
Bill (18:49.39)
Right, and I certainly am. So the other thing too, and I mentioned to you that I got Craig Ferguson's audiobook. Yeah, and I know you're a fan. You and I talked about Craig Ferguson off and on quite a bit. I don't know if we've ever talked about him on here, but if anyone doesn't know who Craig Ferguson is, stand -up comedian, did the late show for years.
Mike (19:00.546)
No, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mike (19:04.962)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (19:15.982)
Scottish, he's funny as fuck and he's been sober now for, he's got to be in his 20 plus years, mid twenties. Yeah. I'm it's, I don't think he's talked back and forth about being sober and his drinking days through the parts that I'm up to right now. So I, if he said when he got sober, I don't remember, but he's, he's been sober for a long time and he's just, he's a good dude. So look him up. But the, the book is called Riding the Elephant and it's based on a story.
Mike (19:21.73)
Oh yeah, I'm sure. Yeah.
Mike (19:32.002)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (19:43.054)
Did he did he tells which is which is actually kind of funny? but one of those things the I've got I'm in a trial right now and I've done it before but I'm in a trial right now with audible so for like whatever it is a dollar 99 for three months and I end up getting three free books and you know his was one of the books that I grabbed and Figuring all this driving that I'm gonna do I can listen to podcasts But I'm like what a what a great time to listen to somebody I want to learn more about you know, and that's the whole point but um, I
Mike (19:44.29)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (20:09.794)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (20:12.782)
The hardest part though is driving down the road listening to an audio book. I'm like, ooh, that was interesting. I'm like, eh, that's not interesting enough. That was interesting. That was not interesting enough. You know, what the fuck am I going to do? You know, best I could do is pop up my message app and try to talk, text a message and try to clean it up later, you know, or fucking pull over. But either way, there was one thing that that he said that I, that I ended up making a note on.
Mike (20:32.482)
Hmm.
Bill (20:39.15)
So one thing he said is that we as alcoholics need to watch out for the good times, not necessarily the bad times. He said, in the good times, we tend to get more competent, even cocky. And as he put it, feel less alcoholic than we are. Okay? So, and I know we've probably talked around that topic, but I just, I thought it was just the way that he put that, because he just made a specific things. He's like, you need to watch out for the good times.
Mike (20:53.57)
Mmm. Mm -hmm.
Mike (21:06.85)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (21:07.374)
He said the bad times we're well aware of the problems we have and the things we could do. But do you agree with that, that the good times could be worse for us? Okay.
Mike (21:13.154)
Oh, completely. Yeah. I mean, and he explained it perfectly. We get cocky. We, yeah, we think we're less alcoholic than we actually are. You know, that the whole, you know, Oh, life's pretty good. I must have this thing. You know, I must not be that bad because look how wonderful everything is. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I love that dude, man. Oh man. We should mention too. Yeah. The book, but he, he has a podcast too called joy, which is, um, I've listened to a few episodes. I'd like to listen to more. I just, I,
Bill (21:18.094)
Hahaha!
Bill (21:26.35)
Hahaha.
Mike (21:42.818)
actually don't have the time anymore at work to like get into as many podcasts as I'd like to. Um, certainly when I was, you know, I was driving eight hours a day straight. Um, I don't do that anymore. I'm local now. So it's start, stop, start, stop. Um, but yeah, I've listened to a couple of them. Um, you know, he, he will talk about sober stuff. Um, kind of like Marin, you know, depending on the guest, um, you know, if the guest is sober or whatever, they will talk more about it. And if, uh, the guest isn't.
Then they won't. They'll talk about other things, but yeah, he's just, um, he's a really smart guy, really fun guy. And, um, if you really want to get, um, what he's like and the way he works his program, there's a clip on YouTube. It's really easy to find. Uh, it was when he had his late night talk show and, um, Britney Spears was going through all that shit and like shaving her head. What, you know, that episode, right? Right.
Um, he did a monologue on that. That is really fantastic. Um, you know, just talking about how we judge people and how we react to people going through troubles and stuff. And it's, it's really good. So yeah, I'm sure if you just go to YouTube and type in Craig Ferguson, Brett, Britney Spears, um, it'll come up and it's pretty damn cool. So if you like this kind of nonsense that we talk about, you'll really like that.
Bill (23:05.55)
You know and I mean honestly and I think I think you are the one that pointed that out to me Whenever that was and I know I watched it. I can't remember what he talks about But and he is he's a good dude and the one thing that you know on top of everything else I mean, he's definitely he's our kind of people. I mean he really he really is and Plus on top of that, you know, and I I fucking love his accent too. I always have it just the way he
Mike (23:15.17)
Great.
Mike (23:24.45)
Yes he is.
Mike (23:32.002)
Sure. Great.
Bill (23:34.446)
I mean, I don't know some of the shit that he says and just the way he says it and how the accents like, you know, Jody's husband James, um, our, our cousin Jody, her, her husband James, I mean was from Ireland has been in the he's been in the States for 20 plus years, if not longer than that. Um, but the first time I met him at the beginning of the night, I was still drinking at the time too. And, you know, I told him that as soon as he started talking, I'm like, I'm like, dude, I said, by the end of the night, I'm going to get you to say somebody keeps stealing my lucky charms.
Mike (23:40.002)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (23:48.13)
sure.
Mike (24:02.818)
Right.
Bill (24:03.438)
And he's like, he's like, fuck you. I'm not going to say that. Well, he did. And it was the, it was a fucking funniest thing on earth. But, um, you know, but great, great to listen to him because some of the shit that he says, uh, it just, it's funny. But, um, so yeah, I mean, he is our kind of people and I, I'm just so far, I don't remember how far in, uh, to the book I am, but I'm enjoying it. It's a, it's something great to listen to. But I wanted to do that because I still want to get, um,
Mike (24:05.474)
Right.
Mike (24:14.882)
Hmm.
Bill (24:29.934)
Like I told you, when my next credit comes up, Rob Halford, I want to get his because I mean, literally it's like starting tomorrow until I come out to see you for Founders Day. I probably got, I don't know, in my head between the trips, 50 hours of driving, you know, in the next couple of months. So I mean, I can listen to podcasts. I can listen to music. No, I know. I know.
Mike (24:33.122)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (24:40.45)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (24:50.626)
Yeah.
I call that a week's work, but go ahead.
Bill (24:57.998)
But I'm just, and I wasn't, I didn't mean that as far as that comparison, but, but, um, I'm saying that I've, I've got the time, you know, to listen in that. That's the only thing that I, um, I started listening to, um, the podcast and that sort of thing. The November before I came down here and, uh, I did that on my way home from work because it, it relieves some of the stress, you know, from the fucking job that I hated, but, um, it was also like having a.
Mike (25:00.386)
I know, I know.
Mike (25:05.666)
Right.
Bill (25:26.222)
having a meeting every night and I loved it. You know, so that's kind of what I do now when I take trips. I don't listen to a lot of music now in the car. I do. You know, but I just I'm getting into it. You know, just listening, just taking in all this information because because I don't I mean outside of this, I've talked about it enough. I do not go to a lot of meetings. I go to meetings when I'm in Cleveland. When I'm traveling, I'll go to meetings because I like to go in and meet and see new people and see how meetings are run. So I'll probably be.
Mike (25:43.33)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (25:53.934)
to more meetings over the next couple of months than I have in the last year. But these podcasts and this podcast, this is how I get my recovery shit, man. And I fucking love it, you know, I do. You know, it's a different channel, different way to get it. And it's the same goddamn thing as sitting in a fucking room and watching some fucking chowder head, you know, tell the same fucking story I've heard a million times anyhow, you know? Yeah, yeah.
Mike (25:57.986)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (26:04.098)
Right. Mm -hmm.
Mike (26:14.69)
Hehehehehe
Uh huh. Right, yeah, it's fellowship. Exactly. You know, I mean, the three of us going to the fucking casino and eating ourselves silly is gonna be fellowship. Yeah, absolutely.
Bill (26:26.318)
Right, yeah. Exactly. But um, so I highly recommend it. I mean if you if you if you know who Craig Ferguson is if you don't like him in a general sense, don't listen to the fucking book because you're not gonna like him anymore, you know. Yeah, that's a that's a good point. That's actually a really good point. Same thing if people don't like Mark Maron, they probably they're probably not listening to us either. So, you know.
Mike (26:39.202)
If you don't like Craig Ferguson in a general sense, you're probably not listening to this podcast.
Bill (26:53.23)
All of those things probably line up completely. But yeah, so anyhow, I mean, I'm sure I'll have more on his thing as I'm listening through it. But yeah, that one, I'm like, I knew you'd agree with it, but I 100%. It is so fucking easy to forget who we are when shit's good. I mean, it really is.
Mike (26:55.138)
Hehehehe
Mike (27:01.858)
Yeah, cool.
Mike (27:05.89)
This is...
Mike (27:11.458)
Yeah. I love that. I'm not as alcoholic as I think I am. It's great.
Bill (27:16.75)
Yeah. And I, and I wrote it. I, uh, what I did was I think I was pulling, I was pulling in someplace when, um, it was like right before, and I paused it so I could listen to it. And, and I said, I, I voice texted it to myself, um, exactly in his exact words, because I thought it was so fucking great. You know, it was just, it was wonderful.
Mike (27:24.354)
Mm -hmm. Right.
Mike (27:29.282)
He he.
Mm -hmm.
Bill (27:38.318)
So yeah, okay. Anything else?
Mike (27:40.226)
And let's not forget the Cleveland connection, you know, he was on the Drew Carey show.
Bill (27:44.814)
Yeah, you know, I forgot about that. He talked about that. I wasn't What was his name? That's what I thought. Yeah, okay and I I Almost forgot about that until he was talking about it. But then almost I'm clearly almost forgot about it again You know until until you brought it up. But yeah, so he's he's fun. I recommend it I highly recommend it Stretches Lee recommend it
Mike (27:46.37)
He's Mr. Wick. Mr. Wick. He was Drew Carey's boss. Yeah.
Mike (28:07.266)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (28:12.174)
Alright, so random one I've got here. So I don't know if we've actually talked about this, but do you think there was a point anywhere in your drinking days where you could have decided to control your drinking or drinking in like a relative moderation type of thing and not have become an alcoholic? I mean, any I suppose we're I know that's asking do you know where you cross the line? But I guess I'll just open it up. Do you think you ever?
there would have been a point where you could have stopped the progression. All right, next topic.
Mike (28:43.778)
No. Well, no, I mean, I've talked about, I mean, the first time I got to drink, I was nine years old. I was at my mom's wedding party and I got drunk. No, that was the first time in my life where I could, I mean, I had sips of beer and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, when I was younger. But I mean, first time I was allowed, I wasn't allowed, but the first time I went and drank.
Bill (28:59.694)
Oh yeah.
Mike (29:13.794)
Um, I drank to excess and, um, I always, yeah, nine years old. So no, absolutely not. And I never, I, anytime I was forced to control my drinking, I hated it. Always, always. I mean, yeah, from nine years old on, um, you know, yeah, I mean, I drank until I couldn't anymore. And, um, and yeah, I, anytime, I mean, as young as.
Bill (29:21.294)
Heheheheh
Mike (29:43.81)
1718 where I was in a situation where either there wasn't enough there or I had to you know for whatever reason try to control myself I fucking hated it so no absolutely not I I've been a full -blown raging alcoholic since I came out of the fucking womb
Bill (30:02.894)
Yeah, and you know, it just, I thought about the same thing. And once again, try not to think about these too deeply. But as you were talking about that, I mean, when we were, when we were kids living in, in Parma and for everyone who doesn't know Parma is outside of Cleveland and that's actually where I was born. So I was, I was born outside of Cleveland. We were there until I was eight and then moved to Pittsburgh, Wisconsin, and blah, blah. But, um,
We used to sneak beer and stuff from our parents and drink it in our fort and do whatever. And little sips here and there, that sort of thing. Did the same thing when we moved to Pittsburgh. I would drink like that with buddies of mine. Not to excess. First time I ever got sick from drinking too much was when I was 14. That's when I drank the wine and threw up and all that stuff. But from every time I drank, it was, didn't realize this clearly until after I got sober. There, I.
Mike (30:46.018)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (31:00.418)
Mm.
Bill (31:01.774)
There was never a time when I ever drank normal, you know, and if it, it was going to happen regardless, you know, whether or not that I, maybe there was certain points where I, where I drank to excess and got into certain patterns and that sort of thing. Maybe I accelerated the path in certain cases, or maybe I didn't, you know, um, I'm a firm believer that the fact that I never did drugs is the only reason I'm alive. You know, I think if I truly believe in, you know, in my heart that.
Mike (31:15.298)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (31:25.186)
Right?
Bill (31:30.062)
knowing how I was and how much I was drinking and what I needed to try to feel the way that I wanted to feel, I think I would have OD'd. You know, inadvertently, I don't think I would have, you know, tried to fucking kill myself. Would I have, would I have been homeless quicker? Maybe. Would I have been able to maintain whatever? I don't, I don't fucking know, but I just think drugs would have killed me. So same deal. I don't know that there was the only point that I could have
Mike (31:40.802)
Right.
Bill (31:58.638)
changed it as if I never would have started drinking. I mean like ever.
Mike (32:01.09)
Right.
Right, yeah, exactly. Right. That just never ever touched it. Yeah. You know, I've talked about, you know, uh, tradition in the family, teething babies, you rubbed whiskey on their gums and yeah, you know, um, I think I talked about here that my mom's doctor recommended that she drink a beer when she was breastfeeding me. Right. So, I mean, yeah, I'm getting it from the tap from the get -go. Oh, so that was never an option for me. Alcohol was part of the family and, um, yeah. And, and.
Bill (32:21.646)
Right.
Mike (32:32.482)
And I always wanted it. I always, even before I could get it, I wanted it. So yeah, I'm a drunk. Hi.
Bill (32:40.398)
Right? Hello there, nice to meet you. It's just one of those questions that I thought I knew the answer, but you know, and I think that has to be, I know for a fact that has to be a question for a lot of people, especially if they're newly sober, you know, because everyone hill has those areas in those timeframes of regret thinking, fuck, if I would have just done this or not done that. And yes, in certain cases, maybe, you know, I'm not saying that,
Mike (32:54.146)
Mm.
Mike (33:04.994)
Mmm. Mmm.
Bill (33:10.222)
any one of us, if you're a real alcoholic, that it wouldn't have happened again, unless you've never started. But, you know, maybe, maybe you didn't, I didn't have to get to the level I was at. Maybe you didn't have to get to the level you were at. All those things are what ifs, but they're, they're fucking pointless, you know, because we are who we are, you know? So, um, you know, I think it's a, it's a dangerous question to, to dwell on, but I thought it was interesting enough to talk about it, to basically let people know that, Hey, you know what? Um,
Mike (33:14.53)
Right.
Mike (33:23.362)
Hmm. Yeah, exactly.
Mike (33:32.194)
Mmm.
Mm -hmm.
Bill (33:38.382)
Wherever you are right now, it's you had everything he went through. You had to fucking go through. And as Mike always says, what do you say? All that shit has what now? Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Mike (33:45.73)
It has worth because we use it to help other people. Right. Yeah. But, but I mean, to the point of the whole conversation, right. I wouldn't you hear somebody lead and you know, I crossed the line. Shit, man. I never knew where the line was. I crossed it. Like I said, out of the womb. I was already across that line.
Bill (34:04.942)
Yeah, and there was a, you know, I -
Mike (34:05.57)
thoroughly convinced of that.
Bill (34:08.558)
Well, and I go back to, I think I've talked about this, but when Dawn and I used to go out, when we were together, so we would go, a lot of times we'd just go and play pool. We'd get there early, it was a Saturday night or something like that. We would get there right when they opened, because nobody was there and we could snag a table. We knew all the people at this little pool hall. And it was a nice place. It was a decent crowd and whatever. But we'd get there early and I knew that I could, and it wasn't that.
Again, you know, this typical thing, it wasn't that far home, you know, we didn't have to drive that far, you know, but I mean, I would, I would, I would drink pretty hard. I would never usually get stupid in those circumstances, but then, you know, I'm like, Oh, I'm going to slow down at this point. Now I know well enough, um, then probably whether I wanted to admit it, but certainly now, um, I'm sure I was never okay to drive, you know, I mean, I could see, you know, and I could see straight ish, you know, yeah.
Mike (34:37.954)
Mmm.
Mike (34:46.594)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (34:58.658)
Right.
Hmm. Mostly right. Yeah. Aim for the middle.
Bill (35:04.558)
You know, but then, you know, you wake up in the morning, you got a little, but yeah, you wake up in the morning, you got a little bit of a, you know, fucking headache and you're like, oh fuck man, I guess, you know, but okay, you know, but, um, you know, all those things like that, it's just, we don't, I don't know. None of us have that. Like you said, the line I, I, I tried to maintain and manage my drinking while I was out, but I know I wasn't, you know, I know now that I certainly wasn't, but yeah, what, what's the line? Who knows? You know, the, the only line.
Mike (35:26.434)
Hmm. Right.
Bill (35:33.87)
is again not drinking, you know, it's just, yeah right, which you know, I wouldn't, I know of that. And you know, at the time had I known that, and again, that would have been a dangerous thing for me to have learned at that timeframe because from everything that I've heard, you know, yeah, stay up longer and drink more. Really? Sign me the fuck up. I mean, yeah, seriously, because it,
Mike (35:35.49)
Yeah, or on the mirror so you could drink more.
Mike (35:41.378)
Hehehehehe
Mike (35:47.842)
Mmm. Mmm.
Mike (35:55.618)
Mm -hmm. Yup. Hehehehehe
Bill (36:03.15)
That's the one problem, but one of the problems with drinking is once you do get to that point where you missed your mark that night, there's really no coming back from it. I mean, it's gonna take a while for you to ease off of that. At that point, it's like, fuck it, I'm just gonna keep drinking. So, right. Yeah, and if somebody would have said, here, I have this magic white line over here that.
Mike (36:19.522)
Right. Better living through chemistry.
Mike (36:28.546)
Uh -huh.
Bill (36:29.742)
can make you drink more and you'll actually be able to stay up for a little while. Really? Really?
Mike (36:32.706)
Oh, you can get it in pill form too. Well, yeah, I'm speeding, you know, yeah, sure. There's all kinds of, you know, well, you could shoot the stuff, you know, there's all kinds of ways you can put chemicals into your body and yes, continue to drink more.
Bill (36:37.422)
Oh yeah, okay, I gotcha. I gotcha. Yeah, I wasn't thinking about that.
Right, yeah, and you know, like I said, you know, I'll say luckily because I think that would have been that would have been a deadly path for me, but luckily I I never I never found that path. So But yeah, yeah, I know I know
Mike (36:59.298)
Right. I found it. Walked down it and, you know, drove my car into a tree on it. Metaphorically, of course, I never actually hit a tree because I was a good driver.
Bill (37:06.382)
But that's a cool.
Right. But the thing of it is, and we talk about this all the time, that all the different paths that you went down or I didn't and I didn't, you didn't, I mean, we ended up in the same fucking place, you know, which is... Yeah, it doesn't and it didn't. So I had one other thing on here. I got more other, more other... I do have more other things. All right, so...
Mike (37:24.45)
Absolutely. Does not matter.
Mike (37:30.21)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (37:35.49)
More other things?
Alright.
Bill (37:41.518)
from Keep It Simple, talked about placing things, and this goes along the lines of more of one of these AA or more recovery type of sayings, but it was in the reading, I think, that said placing things into a spiritual bank account. And then one is said when times get weird, drawing from that savings or investment. Does that work for you or do you believe in that? That you...
Mike (38:03.682)
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, do that again, I fucking spaced out on it!
Bill (38:07.79)
Okay, I'll start over. Okay. Hi, Mike.
Mike (38:13.218)
Okay. Hi, Bill. Lay some shit on me. Some more other things.
Bill (38:19.886)
So this is, I believe it was from Keep It Simple. Talked about placing things into a spiritual bank account. And then when shit gets weird, that did not say shit gets weird in the reading, but that we draw from that savings account or the investment that we made in our bank account. Is that something that you think about, that you use? Does that concept work for you at all or no?
Mike (38:21.954)
Uh -huh.
Mike (38:38.082)
Uh -huh.
Mike (38:44.13)
I mean, okay, I mean, now that I've heard it and I do remember it and to a point, you know, what we did yesterday does not count for today. But having put the work in for whatever it is and, you know, becoming better people and all that good stuff. Yes, when this shit hits the fan, we have reserves that we could draw from.
I don't like the concept of the bank account and yeah, I've done the work and the stuff's there and I can, I understand the concept, but I think that's a little dangerous to, again, what we did yesterday doesn't count for today. Other than the fact that we are hopefully better people today than we were yesterday because of the work that we did yesterday.
But yeah, having like some magical thing off there that we could draw off of the power. Nah, I don't like that at all. But so the basic concept I kind of agree with, but you know, again, it's a dangerous thing to go, oh, I've got all this, this equity built up for lack of a better word. So I don't have to do the work today because it's, you know, I did it yesterday. Nah. Yeah.
Bill (39:47.566)
Hehehehehe
Bill (40:10.382)
Right. Yeah. And I think, I mean, honestly, that the word equity or the concept that's, that's a good way to put it, you know, is, is believing that we, you know, we, we paid into this and that's one, you know, right now you have, you have a house that you make payments on, you know, you're, you're building equity. So that would be as us trying to say, we've done all this work and now we've got all this past equity we could draw from. And I agree with that. And that's why I wrote that down. Like, you know, does this work for you and that sort of thing? Because it's, I,
Mike (40:17.218)
Hmm.
Mike (40:21.442)
Mmm.
Mike (40:31.81)
Mm -hmm.
Bill (40:39.054)
Same deal, I understand the concept, but I don't necessarily buy into it. But the other way that I just looked at it as you were talking is that the way we talk about this is the work that we did yesterday was placed into our foundation. So we're not drawing from it, but it's making the ground we're walking on a little bit stronger every day based on the work that we did, right?
Mike (40:44.45)
Ha ha ha ha.
Mike (40:57.506)
Hmm, right.
Mike (41:02.498)
Yes. Nice. Yes.
Bill (41:06.894)
Oh, wait a second note to self. Holy shit. Hang on. I I just got a fucking compliment what I I kid it
Mike (41:12.002)
You did. Yes, right. It's basically what I was saying. You just said it better than I did.
Bill (41:15.598)
I just put it into different words. I'm a fucking simple guy. You know that you know, you know, I'm a fucking simpleton That's all it is and I've got wait this goes this goes back to the same deal I'm I'm a visual learner and when I get in work I mean all this training that I went through over the last couple of months and you know that the shit comes out of people's mouths and this that okay, so it means this and like
Mike (41:21.378)
Yeah, right.
Mike (41:27.138)
Yeah.
Bill (41:42.702)
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I'm like, thank you. Cause I, I have to dumb all this shit down in, in when I train people, I did the same thing. I would give the long version, but I had to put it in something realistic, these bite sized things, because you know, I, I'm not the, I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I'm certainly not the fucking, you know, most unintelligent guy either. Um, but I'm simple. I am really fucking simple and I need it. I need certain things just kind of spoon fed to me and little morsels so I can, I can place them in the right.
Mike (41:46.498)
Mm -hmm.
Mike (42:02.53)
Yay.
Bill (42:10.99)
and then I'll remember I won't forget them, you know, but, but anyhow, I'm taking it as a compliment anyway, so you gave me a fucking compliment. So there.
Mike (42:18.434)
Ah, well, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you did all right.
Bill (42:21.678)
Thanks, dad. And you know what? I think this is about a good time to wrap up because I think for whatever fucking reason, we're just starting to delay again. So what do you think there, Michael Mike? Why don't you take us out of here?
Mike (42:26.818)
Hehehehehe
Mike (42:37.698)
Hmm?
Mike (42:41.506)
Alright, well thank you for listening to another episode of sober not mature So it's be kind to each other begin to each other go out there and do something nice for somebody else and don't tell anybody that you did it Now it's time kids. It's that time It's time for you to fuck off then keep fucking off Keep fucking off till you get to a gate with a sign on it saying you cannot fuck off past here Climb over that gate
Dream the impossible dream and keep fucking off forever.
Bill (43:17.102)
You got right all up into that business, didn't you? You're just right up into your microphone. But yeah, I think we're, I don't even know if you can hear me anymore, so I think we're delaying, but here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna say, Mike, I will talk to you soon. I know I'll talk to you soon. I love you, brother, and I'll say my goodbyes.
Mike (43:27.106)
Hehehehehe
Mike (43:41.986)
Love you too, brother. I will talk to you soon. Bye.
