SoberNotMature - Episode 129 (John M - Hemingway Was Right - Keep Trying)

00:00:01.86
Bill
All right, everyone. Welcome once again to another episode of Sober, Not Mature. And you know what? The wait is over. You do not have to just put up with our bullshit tonight.

00:00:13.39
Bill
It's been weeks, right Mike? How long has it been? A month?

00:00:14.87
Mike
It has been, it it was actually almost just going to be you and John tonight.

00:00:15.57
Bill
A month and a half?

00:00:21.39
Bill
Yeah, I know there was power power out in Cleveland. I thought about that and i forgot that I forgot to ask you and then I thought about it probably like an hour ago, but yeah, the

00:00:23.90
Mike
Yes, there was.

00:00:28.63
Mike
It it came back yesterday about four in the morning, but I was out for about 36 hours.

00:00:34.34
Bill
Yeah, well, that that would ah that would have sucked on a lot of different ways. Well, I'm sure it's stuck to begin with 36 hours and now power. But yeah, you know what, I'll say this, I would have missed you.

00:00:40.83
Mike
Yeah.

00:00:43.35
Bill
How's that?

00:00:45.18
Mike
Gee, thanks.

00:00:46.64
Bill
Right. But okay, so we do have a guest. I don't know if e anyone ever pays attention on Instagram, but we're going to have him introduce himself. So john, introduce yourself real quick. Just give sobriety date, little bit of background, just brief background on who you are, and where you come from. And then we'll get everything started. Okay.

00:01:02.77
John Machado
Yeah, no problem. I'm John Machado. um I live out in ah California, Northern California, from here originally. And my sobriety date is ah February 27, 2005. And five and ah so I've been doing this thing for a few years. And I love the name of your podcast because I'm certainly sober, but I'm certainly not mature. That's that's a fact.

00:01:23.15
Mike
Hehehe.

00:01:23.95
Bill
Well, that's good. That's good. And I think you're ah you've written some stuff, if I remember correctly. That's a joke, but I know you've written some stuff, right?

00:01:30.72
John Machado
Yeah, i've written ah I've written four books, two two recently published in the last two years and didn't start writing till about three years into sobriety.

00:01:38.85
Bill
OK. Yeah, and we're going to get into all that. Obviously, one of the one of our main goals, I mean, we want to talk about your story or let you talk about your story and you know what you do and all that good stuff. But um you know, one of the main things is to to let people know about your book and and all that sort of things. And for anyone paying attention, a link to his website is in the the notes. So you guys can click through on that and you should um check out all of his books. But Mike, why don't you let him know how we handle things with telling stories.

00:02:05.76
Bill
yeah

00:02:06.31
Mike
Right. Well, basically, you know, little qualifications good, but we hate drunk logs on this podcast. So ah right, you know, tell your story, tell your background, all that good stuff. But again, drunk logs suck. We don't need to hear them. We know how to get fucked up. We know how to fuck up our lives and fuck up the lives of everybody around us. We're interested in the solution.

00:02:28.03
John Machado
Awesome, and i'm glad I'm smiling as you say that, so I appreciate that.

00:02:28.35
Bill
Yeah.

00:02:34.03
Bill
So yeah, go go ahead.

00:02:34.06
Mike
Cokes, do it.

00:02:34.27
John Machado
Do you want me to jump into it?

00:02:36.29
Bill
Yeah, absolutely.

00:02:37.31
John Machado
Yeah, so i'm ah originally from the Bay Area, ah grew up in, a like everybody else, dysfunctional family. Portuguese side on my dad's side, ah my mom's side's Irish, so there was alcoholism on both sides of that tree.

00:02:49.83
John Machado
I'm the youngest of five. And ah ah my quick drunk log is I started drunking drinking young. I always drank to oblivion and that continued on up into my adult life. ah And then at 43 years old, I tell everybody the stories. I found myself in rehab and I didn't want to be there.

00:03:11.84
John Machado
So yeah, in in in but that wasn't my first wasn't my first ah trek down getting sober, like a lot of people I tried a lot of times.

00:03:11.96
Mike
Right.

00:03:20.02
John Machado
so ah In 1987 was my first AA meeting. And I thought, man, what this is this is a program that's probably good for me. And i did my second meeting was two years later.

00:03:32.33
Mike
Right.

00:03:32.67
John Machado
and Yeah, exactly. so I knew it was good for me and I just ah ah ignored it for two years.

00:03:34.57
Bill
Ha

00:03:37.36
John Machado
and Then ah got sober for 13 months, 89 to 90, and ah got a job transfer down to Southern California.

00:03:38.77
Bill
ha ha.

00:03:47.56
John Machado
ah Changed my phone, changed my address, left, never told my sponsor, and jumped back into what we do from 1990 up until 2005 when I got sober this time around.

00:04:00.28
John Machado
so

00:04:01.40
Bill
okay Okay, so um I guess, and I don't remember what part of California do you live in, not that it matters, I was just curious.

00:04:02.13
Mike
All right.

00:04:06.25
John Machado
no No, no, I'm in the Bay Area, so I'm about 35 miles east of San Francisco.

00:04:12.74
Bill
Okay, and just, and you know what, I was gonna say, mike mike knows ah Mike knows that area quite a bit.

00:04:13.37
Mike
Gotcha.

00:04:13.68
John Machado
Yep.

00:04:14.34
Mike
What town?

00:04:16.32
John Machado
Yep. No, Concord, Concord, California?

00:04:19.41
Mike
Oh, okay.

00:04:20.27
John Machado
Yeah.

00:04:20.45
Mike
Yeah, right.

00:04:20.79
John Machado
and i and i i Okay, yeah, yeah right down yeah.

00:04:20.89
Mike
I mean, I went to, I went to high school in Sacramento, so right.

00:04:24.93
John Machado
I'm only about 80 miles from there, so I got you.

00:04:27.57
Mike
Yeah, exactly.

00:04:27.65
John Machado
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. In I ended up in ah i ended up at a doctor's office wanting to speak to a shrink.

00:04:39.59
John Machado
in ah this it was a It was a female doctor and she had me take a blood test and they called me the next day and she said, ah

00:04:39.81
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:04:46.60
John Machado
i when was the last drink you took as your liver enzymes are out of whack? And I said, well, I had drank the night before, which is reality was I drank to up till about three hours before the medical appointment.

00:04:58.48
Mike
Sure.

00:04:58.59
John Machado
And she said, and she said, a no, I'm letting you check in with the shrink, but I will certainly put you in touch with the chemical dependency counselor. And so that's how that happened and in 2005.

00:05:11.01
John Machado
And so I filled out a form before I spoke to ah the psychologist.

00:05:11.39
Bill
Okay.

00:05:17.27
John Machado
I was actually somewhat honest on that form and ah got into the meeting with him. And it was that quickly he said, no problem, man, we can get you into rehab tomorrow. To which I said, I'm not, I don't want to get on any type of psych meds or anything like that.

00:05:33.24
John Machado
To which he said with a smile, I think the best thing we can do for you right now is to get you off everything.

00:05:39.18
Mike
Mm-hmm

00:05:40.13
John Machado
So and then I had to make that decision, you know, I laugh when it's in the book that there's a decision to made. It's an obvious decision. But for us, it's a difficult decision. It's either keep on doing the same old stuff or or make an attempt at trying to get sober.

00:05:55.53
John Machado
And so difficult decision. But I finally said, yeah, let's do it and then regretted it the first three days of rehab.

00:06:03.69
Mike
Of course

00:06:04.88
John Machado
Right.

00:06:05.34
Bill
Yeah, yeah there's ah there's always that.

00:06:05.47
John Machado
So

00:06:07.37
Bill
We've talked about that quite a bit on here that neither neither one of us are real happy to literally be dropped off at the at the Keating Center where we got sober in Cleveland. But um yeah, I mean, there's you know there's there's days of regret, maybe weeks and months of of regret and you know obstinance and all those sort of things.

00:06:15.77
John Machado
Okay.

00:06:23.89
Bill
But you know it always it impresses me to to hear somebody. And um i it's nice to hear when again you were given a situation in the circumstance even though you had regret regret for a few days once you made it that you sat there that was a decision you made personally on your own with no other outside influence am i hearing that correctly okay that that to me is cool that was that was not my story yours either right mike

00:06:42.02
John Machado
That's correct. Yep.

00:06:47.32
Mike
instance

00:06:47.63
John Machado
Got it. Yeah.

00:06:49.70
Mike
Yeah, I mean, good right. yeah i Yeah.

00:06:52.70
John Machado
Yeah.

00:06:52.75
Mike
You know, I've been around the rooms before. um And, you know, this, this AA crap doesn't work for me because, you know, you got to have a God or something. oh So I went back out for 10 more years and yeah, that 10 more years.

00:07:07.06
Mike
Yeah, yeah i I needed to change something, didn't know what the hell it was, but I knew I couldn't keep going on the way I was. So, right, that was that was my decision to change something, but I had no idea what the hell it was.

00:07:21.57
John Machado
Yeah, you know, I've recently had a family member who just nine months sober about six days ago, and they called me when they were getting ready to go into rehab and crying, telling how they felt like they were a loser.

00:07:22.08
Bill
Right.

00:07:31.70
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:07:34.60
John Machado
And I said, you know, it's amazing to me that if I broke my leg right now,

00:07:39.09
Mike
Hmm.

00:07:39.37
John Machado
I would want to go to a hospital and I would want an orthopedic surgeon to put me back together again.

00:07:44.42
Mike
Right.

00:07:44.47
John Machado
But but but if I have some type of mental issue or some type of ah some type of chemical dependency issue, I somehow think I can solve that on my own.

00:07:53.84
Mike
Right.

00:07:54.83
John Machado
And in that that's still ah it still amazes me to this day, and I'm even talking about myself still 19 years into this thing where ah I finally have to go, oh, that's right. i'm ah I'm a little hungry.

00:08:06.27
John Machado
I'm a little angry. I'm a little lonely. I'm a little tired. I'm a little depressed.

00:08:09.11
Mike
Hmm.

00:08:10.55
John Machado
And I've been kind of ignoring that for about a week now.

00:08:13.34
Mike
Right.

00:08:14.13
John Machado
Yeah.

00:08:14.22
Bill
Right.

00:08:14.41
John Machado
so so But on the third day of rehab, they finally said ah the rooms were going to be a part of the deal that I had to start ah going to AA.

00:08:20.91
Mike
Right.

00:08:23.61
John Machado
When I finally went back, that was the night where something kind of changed with me and I thought, you know what, that willingness piece hit for some reason. and I said, I got i gotta to give this thing a chance and then I dove into it.

00:08:33.93
Mike
right

00:08:39.65
John Machado
so and When I say dove in,

00:08:39.83
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:08:40.66
Bill
Right.

00:08:42.72
John Machado
2 to 5 meetings a ah a day for the first year. And some people say, How'd you do that? Well, my employer didn't want me back.

00:08:47.57
Mike
Right.

00:08:49.65
Mike
right

00:08:49.85
John Machado
And so, so I had, I had, I had a year to of disability where I had plenty of time. And I say this to this day, it was one of the one of the most profound years of my life, but also one of the busiest years of my life because I got a sponsor and um he was a gentleman who said he was there to take me through the book, nothing else.

00:09:12.25
John Machado
He wasn't my ah financial counselor.

00:09:12.91
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:09:14.69
John Machado
He wasn't my relationship counselor.

00:09:15.01
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:09:16.82
John Machado
And he said, you got to show up at my house on time for us to get through this too. And I worked with him for about a year and a half, but he also said at the beginning, when we're done with this thing, you then gotta go get a new sponsor because because I just take men through the book and then I and then i move on to the next guy.

00:09:30.29
Mike
Hmm.

00:09:33.68
John Machado
he's hes He's not with us anymore, but it was a one of those, let's read it, let's talk about it. Do you understand it? and And I think the best thing he said to me over all this and it's the most basic of all basic things was if you if you truly believe in that first step, ah he said you're gonna be all right.

00:09:42.81
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:09:53.35
Mike
Right.

00:09:54.07
Bill
Right.

00:09:54.47
John Machado
Right, yeah.

00:09:54.65
Mike
Yeah. You know, I mean, the, the 12 and 12 oddly enough in the sixth step, it says the first step is the only one we have to do perfectly, which I'm super grateful for because I fall short on the rest of the steps. I work on, but I fall short on them. Um, yeah, that first step, you're absolutely right. It is the most important one if we have to do it perfectly. Otherwise.

00:10:16.09
Mike
The rest of them are a fucking waste of time. I've seen it over and over again. You know, people that don't get that first step 100 percent and they could do all the rest of the shit.

00:10:21.35
John Machado
Right.

00:10:26.50
Mike
But eventually they're going to fuck up because they they didn't get that first step, man. They didn't realize that they were powerless and they can't manage their own lives.

00:10:37.75
John Machado
Right, and that they think, go ahead.

00:10:37.78
Bill
Yeah, can we... No, go ahead, John.

00:10:41.26
John Machado
No, that we think, oh, I can handle this thing. I can do this on my own.

00:10:44.64
Mike
Yeah, absolutely.

00:10:45.45
John Machado
Yeah, there's just no way.

00:10:45.73
Mike
Right. Yeah, we have no power and we can't manage our lives. I mean, you're whatever, 19 years into it, we're 14 years into it. I don't manage my own life.

00:10:55.81
Mike
I don't. I let this program and the steps and the principles manage my life because I can't manage my own life. When I try to, I fuck it up every time. Again, acceptance, man.

00:11:07.56
John Machado
yeah exactly

00:11:08.13
Bill
Right.

00:11:09.66
John Machado
and and so that

00:11:09.70
Bill
And there was a yeah there was a lot of people that we that we ran across that there was one we we brought up and mentioned him on on here quite a bit because he was a really good friend of ours. And by the way, it just came up. I got an email, Mike, that through, I don't know, whatever the the site was of Daryl, Daryl's passing is coming up at some point, some point coming up short shortly or soon, next few weeks, month, whatever.

00:11:25.32
Mike
Mm hmm. Hmm. Yeah, seems about right. Yeah.

00:11:30.59
Bill
um really good friend of ours and he was a firefighter good good dude we all are right bounced in and out but I mean we were to we're to meeting one time it was a big book meeting with another friend of ours who guy who ended up being a good friend of ours but Daryl our friend Daryl's just sitting there he's like he goes I just can't I can't comprehend the first step.

00:11:35.03
John Machado
Yeah, exactly.

00:11:47.17
Bill
I can't get it. i can't He wouldn't admit the fact that he was powerless. you know and um i mean He's dead.

00:11:51.25
Mike
Right.

00:11:51.37
John Machado
Oh.

00:11:53.13
Bill
you know so and it ah It was.

00:11:54.24
John Machado
Yeah.

00:11:55.03
Bill
It was alcohol and drugs. He was on pain meds and all these different things that that led to it. but He did what we do when we're untreated and when we don't get that first step. you know and i mean I haven't sponsored a ton of people.

00:12:07.24
Bill
very few quite honestly. And, you know, there's a couple of guys that I sponsor that came, you know, they bounced back in and I'm sponsoring them and like, okay, we're gonna we're goingnna start with the first step to like, I've already been through one through three, I'm ready for four.

00:12:18.47
Mike
ah

00:12:19.07
Bill
I'm like, um like well, okay, yeah you've been through them, but clearly you didn't get one, so we're starting there. What do you mean I didn't get it? Well, did you drink again? Did you use again? That you didn't get it, you know?

00:12:29.66
Bill
And it's it's ah it's a hard basic thing, but to Mike's point, knowing that, The only thing I have to do perfectly is is understand the fact that, you know, like he just said, I don't run my own life and my life is unmanageable.

00:12:41.52
Bill
um I'm powerless, you know, and my life is unmanageable.

00:12:43.66
John Machado
Yeah.

00:12:45.07
Bill
is if i If I go out and I decide to do this shit on my own, you know, God forbid, um I'm gonna, I'm not like drink, I'm gonna die. I know that.

00:12:52.97
John Machado
Yeah, in in in you know that first year and a half, It turned into a year and five months actually. I dove into the program. I also studied the concepts, the the truth that the steps, the traditions, and there was a a dentist in our program whose wife knew the concepts.

00:13:10.01
John Machado
and I even went that far. That pink cloud had me just wanting thirst for knowledge. and I went and listened to AA historian.

00:13:15.76
Mike
Hmm.

00:13:17.55
John Machado
I wanted to know who these two dudes were.

00:13:20.02
Mike
Mm

00:13:20.54
John Machado
in in They were alcoholics and addicts.

00:13:25.00
Mike
hmm.

00:13:25.47
John Machado
You know, I like telling people that it's not that confusing. It's, it's no different than the three, it's no different than the three dudes on this call right now, on this podcast right now.

00:13:29.18
Mike
Right.

00:13:32.40
Mike
Right.

00:13:33.05
Bill
Right.

00:13:34.52
John Machado
They were just alcoholics and addicts.

00:13:37.85
Mike
right

00:13:37.97
John Machado
And they, this, this thing happened in, and there is something that happens when we get together, whether it's through headset, whether it's, whether it's at a meeting, whether it's having a cup of coffee somewhere or whatever, there is something that happens when we talk about our stuff.

00:13:41.40
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:13:53.75
Bill
Mm

00:13:53.77
Mike
Yeah, absolutely.

00:13:54.57
John Machado
Yeah. So, um so I just, I kind of, I kind of dove into that. and And, and I'm glad I did, because I wanted to have a good understanding of of what I was dealing with. And then I got lucky the first year, and then a couple of older men in the program came up to me and said, Hey, make sure, dude, we see you at a lot of meetings, but make sure you're working the program.

00:14:17.78
Mike
Uh huh.

00:14:18.87
Bill
hmm.

00:14:18.86
John Machado
And I had to take a step back from that. I really, truly did. I had to take a step back from that because I, in, in this one dude said to me, he was a oil, oil well worker for up in Wyoming. He said, ah dude, you want to be working this program. You just don't want meeting sobriety.

00:14:33.36
Mike
Right.

00:14:34.21
Bill
Right.

00:14:34.33
John Machado
And I literally fell out of my chair because ah because because he was right.

00:14:36.92
Mike
Mhm.

00:14:39.64
John Machado
But so I had to take a step back then and go, oh, that's right. it's It comes back to these things you just talked about, these steps and and us working them in our lives because I was a lot more dysfunctional, a lot of other areas of my lives than than than just the alcohol drug problem.

00:14:54.59
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:14:54.76
Bill
Right.

00:14:55.16
Mike
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, the simple way to say it is, you know, it's not what you do between the Serenity Prayer and the Our Father. It's what you do between the Our Father and the Serenity Prayer.

00:15:04.63
John Machado
Nice. Nice.

00:15:05.74
Bill
I was actually gonna, I was gonna tell you, I was like, Mike explains that perfectly.

00:15:06.17
John Machado
Yeah.

00:15:09.34
Bill
So thank you, Mike. That was, I was just about to come out of my mouth to say that. And it is, it's so simplistic, but you know, we heard from the start, you know, simple program for complicated people.

00:15:19.92
Bill
And I'm one of those, I consider myself, and I think Michael backed me up here. I'm complicated, I'm egotistical, I'm impatient. I wanna know the, I'm a why person.

00:15:30.48
Bill
I want and need to know the why behind everything. and And I did that for the first nine months and about, probably about drove myself out out of this program and out of sobriety, but my friend Mike helped me out with that part of it, but we've talked about that plenty.

00:15:38.99
Mike
Mm

00:15:44.31
Bill
But the point there is that now I'm at the point in, you know, and it it didn't take me that long after that to realize that, okay, I can question ah my job, how this podcast works. I can question all these different things in the world, but I don't question sobriety anymore.

00:16:00.04
Bill
I don't understand completely how it works. I just know if I do all these things, I read a couple of fucking books. I read some, you know, work some fucking steps every day.

00:16:05.03
Mike
hmm.

00:16:07.91
Bill
I'd be a good boy. I go to some meetings. I get on here. This is part of my sobriety, um you know, every Friday or Thursday or whatever the hell we do it. If I do these things consistently, um I'm going to stay sober.

00:16:18.89
Bill
And somehow when I get back to people and I do things for people, I get more. AA math is what we what we were told.

00:16:25.86
Mike
Right.

00:16:25.95
Bill
Doesn't make sense. Does it add up? but i know I know that that's all I have to do. I don't question, I stopped questioning it long ago, thankfully, but man, it just, none of it makes sense, you know quite honestly. The the thing that is when you mentioned, I don't know that I've ever heard of the concepts before, but the traditions, I think that,

00:16:44.53
Bill
I don't think I really started getting into those in ah in a deep level, not that I studied them, but there was a meeting that I went to when I moved back to Wisconsin. So probably, I don't know, four or five years sober, they started talking about traditions and again, kind of opened up my mind again. I'm like, wow, this is some crazy shit, you know?

00:17:02.54
Bill
um The steps are one thing it's like okay the steps are for us the traditions are for the group and that's how it was explained and I there's just so many different things and different people that have that different experiences and like you said is that Sitting down whatever it is having a conversation about our issues, our problems. I never feel uncomfortable. And that's the one thing from the start, never felt uncomfortable talking, probably about after until after like that, I get past the first week or two, and then sit down and groom of strangers anywhere in the country or, you know, if I was ever ah anywhere in the world, I could sit down and talk about this stuff and feel comfortable talking about my shit, you know?

00:17:40.67
John Machado
you No, it was that that they pulled this off in the 1930s is pretty amazing.

00:17:45.34
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:17:46.92
John Machado
and and the The one thing I loved about is when they, and I'll get off this story, but when they went to the the Rockefellers to get money for the program, and they were told money would ruin it.

00:17:46.96
Bill
Right.

00:17:54.36
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:17:57.84
Mike
Right.

00:17:58.90
John Machado
That that just that just always gets me that, yeah, money would have ruined this with these egos in in ah and a hierarchy, ah that just would have never worked with us ever.

00:18:04.21
Mike
Oh yeah.

00:18:04.54
Bill
Right.

00:18:09.56
Mike
Right.

00:18:09.57
John Machado
you know and so and so i in the that And not that I remember any of the concepts, I don't.

00:18:09.81
Bill
Right.

00:18:16.23
John Machado
but and it was And it was over my head, candidly. It was more high level in terms of the whole organization. But the traditions, the principles but so before personalities, whichs it's the only one I remember.

00:18:26.46
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:18:26.74
Bill
all right

00:18:27.65
John Machado
Right?

00:18:27.87
Bill
yeah

00:18:28.12
John Machado
And it's so true, though, right? And that family member that just got sober, I told her, I said, Hey, just remember, when you go to these meetings, don't get caught up in the personalities.

00:18:36.84
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:18:37.59
John Machado
You're, you're there. You're there for you currently.

00:18:41.88
Bill
Right.

00:18:41.90
Mike
Right, right.

00:18:42.11
John Machado
You know, yeah. And so, uh, in, in, cause I've seen too many people just get, and I'm not saying I haven't been that guy i've ah get pissed off because somebody says whatever they say in a meeting, right?

00:18:55.19
Mike
Right.

00:18:55.41
John Machado
We're going to, we're going to say what we're going to say. Yeah.

00:18:57.71
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:18:57.74
John Machado
It's not going to go our way. And so, and so I got married in sobriety eight years ago and I, I told my wife at the time, I said, just let want to let you know, I have no clue how to do an intimate relationship.

00:19:13.83
John Machado
And she said, are you serious?

00:19:13.97
Mike
Right.

00:19:14.87
John Machado
I said, yeah. So if you want to give me some pointers along the way, I'm willing to listen and do that because all I've ever done is screw up every relationship I've ever been in.

00:19:25.37
Mike
right

00:19:25.52
Bill
Right.

00:19:26.75
John Machado
And and for someone not being in our program, she had to kind of step back and kind of let that sink in that this dude said he doesn't know how to do it. And I tell everybody the best thing I have today, my best tool in the toolbox is is is to shut up.

00:19:40.93
Mike
Yep.

00:19:41.03
Bill
Oh, God, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's not easy. i'm I'm a talker, you know, and I know Mike knows that.

00:19:45.03
Mike
Mhm.

00:19:47.19
Bill
But man, the the difference, though, practicing the pause is is what we were told early, early, I don't remember who who said it.

00:19:52.31
Mike
Mhm.

00:19:55.54
Bill
But you know, what what used to come out of my mouth, and and we've talked about it, but kind of the, I used to be of the, you know, shoot first and ask questions later and now, um like Mike always says, you know, the thought, the thoughts still come to my head.

00:20:04.07
Mike
Mhm.

00:20:09.13
Bill
They're fucking evil and mean and nasty thoughts, um but they don't come out of my mouth or if they, if ah if a thought comes out, it's now a filtered, nice version. It may be stern.

00:20:20.52
Bill
It's certainly gonna be to the point. I don't piss around with people anymore, um but that, you know, that ability to to not just, fly off the handle. And you mentioned it before, John, when you said that, you know, there's there's more than that to this thing, you know, than just sitting in meetings and just not drinking. I mean, it's a it is every single part of our lives have to be affected by this, because if they aren't, every part of our lives will be affected by this, you know, in a negative way. And there's just no better way to put it. I mean, if it whatever else, if we don't put this sobriety thing first,

00:20:53.28
Bill
and And that's the other thing too that's a tough part I would guess with some people I've only had one individual that I spent time with it. I don't know she ended up getting kind of weird it was about my sobriety but she felt slighted when I had to do this or that I'm like I can't I can't hang out with you. um First of all if you don't trust that that's what I'm doing that's number one I don't put up with that bullshit.

00:21:14.08
Bill
But on top of that, if you can't give me that time, I'm not gonna, I'm not asking. I'm not asking permission. I'm telling you this is what I need to do. If you can't deal with that, then I i gotta go. I can't, you know?

00:21:26.16
John Machado
Oh no, it i've I've had this conversation with people, and again, outside our program, and and they they said, let me get this straight. That comes before anything, this sobriety thing?

00:21:35.90
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:21:36.74
John Machado
Yeah, because without it, without it, I'm not on a podcast right now.

00:21:36.92
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:21:41.43
Mike
Right.

00:21:41.90
John Machado
i'm I'm not doing a lot of things. I'm that guy in a bar with the biggest plans in the world, but they're never executed.

00:21:48.48
Mike
Absolutely. Yeah, you know, I'm definitely not sitting in a house.

00:21:49.74
John Machado
Yeah.

00:21:49.90
Bill
Right?

00:21:53.89
John Machado
right right

00:21:54.30
Bill
at least that At least not your not your own, yeah.

00:21:54.38
Mike
Well, not mine anyway. yeah

00:21:58.41
John Machado
yeah

00:21:58.75
Bill
yeah you might You might be in a house, in some rundown house in the basement with a bunch of other homeless people, but yeah, it's not gonna be your house.

00:21:58.89
John Machado
so

00:22:04.34
Mike
Right. No.

00:22:05.74
John Machado
Yeah. if You know, I'm still in touch with, uh, there's one guy from rehab. He's an iron worker here in the Bay area and we, we get together every month in the house we get together in was, I didn't know him before we got sober was a meth house and he almost burned it down.

00:22:20.30
John Machado
So we always laugh when we're having coffee over there that the house is still standing.

00:22:24.25
Mike
Right.

00:22:26.06
John Machado
Yeah. And during, in our first year of sobriety, I remember he had to get some guy, hire some guys from the program to paint over the the burn spots.

00:22:34.04
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:22:34.44
Bill
Oh, wow.

00:22:34.89
John Machado
And it's, and it's like, I know it seems like it just wasn't that long ago, man. And, and, and it's, it always amazes me and we're still in contact. It's, it's, it's truly, so there's several people in this program that I'm just friends with that, and I wasn't looking for friends and I'm sure you guys can relate to that.

00:22:53.77
Mike
Right.

00:22:55.18
John Machado
I wasn't in, but that it it happened in, in,

00:22:55.56
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:23:00.43
John Machado
it's It's a crazy thing. And then occasionally I'll get that call from around the country of someone I know and they say, hey, will you talk to my nephew? Will you talk to my husband?

00:23:08.26
Mike
Right.

00:23:09.13
John Machado
Will you talk to whoever? They have a drinking problem. And I'm i'm always open to do it in it in it.

00:23:11.89
Mike
Sure.

00:23:14.04
John Machado
And it's like you said earlier, Bill, I'm very comfortable doing it. And um and I just let them know I'm not an expert, but but i can tell you i can I can tell you what I did ah if you think you have a problem.

00:23:27.16
John Machado
And I've had many of those conversations, when I say many, at at least 20, probably only two or three of those people ever got sober. I had a cousin I had that conversation with that passed away a year ago.

00:23:35.67
Mike
sure

00:23:38.13
John Machado
He drank himself to death.

00:23:39.79
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:23:39.91
John Machado
And and that's just what we do. But the the story I like to tell is I'm in Ohio on business in 2015. I'm having dinner and by myself, I order a club soda with lime.

00:23:53.79
John Machado
And they asked, the waitress asked, would you want anything to drink? I said, just a club soda with lime. You know, that holy, that whole just a club soda with lime, right? We have to get, make sure they get that right. And she said, are you a friend of Bill's?

00:24:04.08
John Machado
And she was probably early twenties. And I said, I am.

00:24:06.97
Mike
Right.

00:24:07.53
John Machado
And she said, you're going to go out to Bob's house. It's only 40 miles away.

00:24:11.17
Mike
Mm.

00:24:11.26
Bill
ha

00:24:12.00
John Machado
and aron in And it was weird is the next day I had to go to a town next to Akron. So um I said, you know what, I i knew it was an Akron. I just didn't really forgot about that over the years.

00:24:22.16
John Machado
And so I went out there the next day.

00:24:23.14
Mike
Sure.

00:24:24.55
John Machado
Yep. You there.

00:24:27.60
Mike
Yeah.

00:24:27.66
Bill
Yeah, we're here.

00:24:28.31
John Machado
Oh, I'm sorry. I went out there the next day and it wasn't open yet. I wait for the a lady to open it. She was a nurse. So I got to tour his house by myself.

00:24:37.35
Mike
Nice.

00:24:37.72
John Machado
And so I'm up in his room and I said, so this is where, this is where he died, huh? And she said, well, that's, that's not the important room. and and And I said, why is that?

00:24:48.84
John Machado
And she's standing behind me. I turned around, she's in this other room. And she had said, a lot of men died in this room. and i and I said, you know again, a little ignorant. um I go, what are you talking about?

00:24:59.65
John Machado
she was well they They were going to bars and and getting drunks, trying to get them sober, and they didn't know what they were doing.

00:25:06.76
Mike
Right.

00:25:06.96
John Machado
and She said a good number of them died in this room.

00:25:09.43
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:25:11.55
John Machado
and so Dude, I was just blown away by that, that I didn't know it. and that That's right. These guys, were just they were winging it you know with good intentions, but even they didn't know what they were doing.

00:25:19.64
Mike
Oh yeah.

00:25:25.13
Mike
Right.

00:25:25.81
Bill
Right?

00:25:25.99
John Machado
Yeah, so.

00:25:28.39
Mike
Yeah, we've definitely both been, well, I i live in Cleveland, I'm still in Cleveland.

00:25:28.60
Bill
Yeah.

00:25:32.51
John Machado
Okay.

00:25:32.54
Mike
um So yeah, you know, ah and we we go to Founders Day pretty much every year.

00:25:37.52
Bill
Yep.

00:25:37.53
Mike
um So, and we've actually been to the house not on Founders Day, which is definitely better because there's thousands of people there on Founders Day, they just rush you right through.

00:25:47.98
Mike
But yes, been to the house many times, know exactly what you're talking about.

00:25:51.97
John Machado
oh That's interesting. I didn't know that going into this going into this podcast. so that's I still sit back and wonder about that. You guys you know you live out there in Cleveland, so you know. and ah so It's just a pretty interesting interesting place and kind of that history of these guys trying to figure something out.

00:26:01.35
Mike
Yeah.

00:26:05.79
Bill
Yeah.

00:26:08.45
Mike
Oh yeah.

00:26:09.99
John Machado
yeah

00:26:10.02
Mike
Yeah, definitely. And do you know that after, you know, that they sold the house and after the family was gone and everything, there was a biker gang living in there partying for quite a few years.

00:26:19.03
John Machado
So I knew that they sold the house and people in the program bought it back, but I did not know the biker game.

00:26:24.19
Mike
Yes.

00:26:25.03
John Machado
Oh, that's funny.

00:26:25.53
Mike
Yes. For a while. Yeah. For like about five or six years, there was a biker game gang that lived in that house. And yeah, God knows what was going on in there, but yes, pretty, pretty cool.

00:26:34.52
John Machado
Oh, wow.

00:26:35.81
Mike
Yeah.

00:26:35.92
John Machado
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:26:36.05
Bill
So wasn't it, it did didn't that guy tell his biker gang and then frat house for a little while? Cause we knew about the biker gang, but we didn't, I think he mentioned the frat house too.

00:26:41.57
Mike
Yeah. Yeah. I think there was a fraternity that lived in there for a while too. Yeah. There was a lot of fucking partying going on in that house before and after.

00:26:49.75
Bill
Yeah, it was ah yeah it it was apparently a mess when they when they got it now.

00:26:50.21
John Machado
a Oh.

00:26:53.43
Bill
It's a whole historical you know landmark and blah, blah, blah and all that stuff. But yeah, both of us were, Mike had more of an intention to go there the first year when we got sober. I was taken there.

00:27:03.97
Bill
And then with the exception of what, three years, Mike, that we missed, two pandemic and one other one, um we've been there ever ever since from 2010 through we we just we went again this year.

00:27:06.72
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:27:14.77
Bill
you know so

00:27:15.07
Mike
Yep.

00:27:15.77
Bill
um Yeah, every founders day is usually around what between the 10th and what the 13th or 14th Mike I think that weekend wherever it falls June yep

00:27:21.56
Mike
Yeah, something like that. I i think the 11th is the actual day or the ninth. Ah, shit. I can't remember. Believe it's an odd number.

00:27:27.26
John Machado
Of what month? Of what month?

00:27:28.91
Mike
June, June.

00:27:29.50
John Machado
Of June. Got it. Got it. Okay.

00:27:30.87
Mike
Yeah.

00:27:31.06
John Machado
Got it.

00:27:31.55
Bill
Yeah, and then they have, you know, if you wanna hear some history, they do this lady and she's been sober now for what, 40 plus years, I think, right, Mike?

00:27:31.94
John Machado
Okay.

00:27:38.78
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:27:39.32
Bill
That does the history of the big book. um And that's it, we've done it. One time we went in, you know, literally to soak it all in, and then other years we went there, because it was it was so fucking hot. We got this, yeah,

00:27:49.59
Mike
It's one of the only air conditioned place on the on the campus, right?

00:27:53.01
Bill
yeah in nice nice, comfy auditorium chairs, and ah but she's fun.

00:27:53.28
John Machado
Oh.

00:27:56.52
Bill
You know, they who do the whole background and history of the big book,

00:27:58.43
Mike
Yeah, she was ah she was Lois's assistant for the last like 10 years of her life or something like that.

00:28:02.02
Bill
um that's right

00:28:04.82
Mike
So, yeah.

00:28:05.20
John Machado
Oh, really? Really?

00:28:06.41
Mike
Yeah.

00:28:06.48
John Machado
So connect a connection there.

00:28:06.57
Bill
yeah

00:28:07.92
John Machado
Wow. Okay.

00:28:09.02
Bill
yeah

00:28:09.22
Mike
Yeah. And I think she knew, she knew Bill briefly, you know, he passed towards the beginning of her time there, but yeah, she was Lois's secretary for lack of a better word for that, for the last 10 years or so of her life.

00:28:09.45
John Machado
Yeah.

00:28:21.26
Bill
Oh,

00:28:22.17
John Machado
Wow. That's amazing.

00:28:23.17
Bill
Yeah.

00:28:23.52
John Machado
Yeah. Yeah.

00:28:23.79
Bill
Well, she's, she's a lot of fun. I mean, founders day in general, it's just a, it's, it's a huge sober party. They do a big meeting in the stadium. It used to be the full stadium and now they just do half, but this year, God, they had that was who's 12, 13, 14,000 people there.

00:28:36.17
Bill
It was full.

00:28:36.35
Mike
Yeah.

00:28:37.15
John Machado
Wow.

00:28:37.21
Bill
I mean that the half of it was full.

00:28:37.67
John Machado
Yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm always intrigued by the history, just learning the stuff I just learned today about, you know, the house before they, they bought it back.

00:28:43.37
Bill
Mm-hmm.

00:28:46.30
John Machado
And, and it's just, a it's still just amazing to me that before that you just ended up in a sanatorium. Maybe.

00:28:54.22
Bill
Right.

00:28:54.26
Mike
Oh yeah. but If you're lucky.

00:28:55.60
Bill
yeah Maybe. Yeah.

00:28:56.50
John Machado
Yeah.

00:28:57.25
Bill
Yep.

00:28:58.26
John Machado
Yeah. So.

00:28:58.66
Bill
Yeah, it's a, it's a lot of fun. And I mean, we've had, like I said, a lot of good times down there, but just being in the Cleveland area, we knew people, uh, there was a couple of guys that we knew that we went to meetings with that, uh, this guy Ray, wasn't it Ray that Ray, the new sister of nature, right?

00:29:10.18
Mike
Yeah. Right. Yep.

00:29:13.20
Bill
Yeah. We had a there was another guy that let it who do you know that was our home group out there he had been he bounced in and out but he was telling the story about this guy that that wanted to sponsor him using a church when his buddies brought him in there as guys like you sit down I'll come back and talk to you and the the guy that was telling that was leading at that time in our meeting, he said you know I'm gonna fuck this he walked out.

00:29:33.46
Bill
It was, it was Bill Wilson that was going to sponsor him. He fucking walked out.

00:29:36.27
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:29:37.15
Bill
He just walked out of the church. So yeah, he, he, yeah exactly.

00:29:38.84
John Machado
not interested

00:29:41.35
Bill
This guy probably can't help me. But again, they're, you know, like you just said, you said that in the beginning, I mean, they were just, they were alcoholics and drug addicts that just garden variety, like the rest of us, you know? And I mean, we can't make somebody keep somebody, you know, for somebody to get sober.

00:29:55.40
Bill
Mike always says it, right? The bar stool thing. You can't drag them off a bar stool, right?

00:29:58.65
Mike
That's right.

00:29:59.59
John Machado
No, no, no.

00:29:59.99
Bill
Yeah.

00:30:01.14
John Machado
Yeah, and it's and it's really funny. I've i've been in those those business meetings and stuff down the road where someone says, so not even beer?

00:30:10.02
Mike
Right.

00:30:11.58
John Machado
And I always say, yeah, there's alcohol in beer.

00:30:14.88
Mike
Right.

00:30:15.20
John Machado
So yeah.

00:30:16.91
Mike
Not even beer, man.

00:30:17.97
John Machado
So yeah, not even beer. Yeah. maybe

00:30:21.23
Mike
Right. You know, I mean, you know, generally people won't push you too much. People do push me occasionally. And I'll just look at it. I'm gonna go. You know what? First of all, I drink my lifetime supply of alcohol by the time I was about 25 and I didn't get sober until I was 42. So I drink your share too. So fucking shut up.

00:30:40.95
John Machado
Yeah, no kidding, no kidding, so yeah. so um do Go ahead.

00:30:44.49
Bill
Well, so in in quick question for you, John, like when you, when you got, when you first got sober like that, and I mean, did you ever have, um you know, somebody either didn't get it pressured you say, you know, you can have just one or can't you have just one?

00:30:49.71
John Machado
Yep.

00:30:56.18
Bill
Did you go through that process or no? I mean, with anyone?

00:30:57.75
John Machado
You talking about when I got so this time around?

00:31:00.18
Bill
Yeah.

00:31:01.08
John Machado
You know what? not and Not in the first year, for for sure, because I was just surrounded by a program. and Because I went from 105-day outpatient rehab to 90 days in a sober living house to ah and one-year aftercare to all those AA meetings.

00:31:06.16
Mike
Right.

00:31:13.27
Bill
Okay.

00:31:16.62
John Machado
So I wasn't surrounded by that. But when I had to go back to work 17 months later, ah that first year back to work amongst amongst normal people was probably my biggest, it was difficult for me just to deal with other human beings outside of the program.

00:31:33.71
Mike
Right. Yeah.

00:31:35.00
John Machado
you know in in but i But I know I stayed away from, I stayed away from any, I didn't have to go to any type of cocktail functions, but later on, for sure, three, four, five years into it, I then had to, for work purposes, in one time on a,

00:31:50.46
John Machado
on a boat, a cocktail boat in Tahoe.

00:31:51.94
Bill
I

00:31:52.06
Mike
All

00:31:53.72
John Machado
This one guy I was working with just kept on saying, dude, you can have a drink. And two guys two guys I work with stepped in.

00:31:58.80
Mike
right.

00:32:03.61
John Machado
they They were upset about it. I was just blowing the guy off, right?

00:32:07.05
Mike
Right.

00:32:07.90
John Machado
And I didn't get upset. They did, though. They threatened to throw the guy off the boat you know jokingly.

00:32:11.74
Bill
was

00:32:12.89
John Machado
And so he he backed off. But though there's really only been that one time where it was kind of weird to me, too. I was like, what is this guy? What's he doing?

00:32:21.53
Mike
Right.

00:32:21.66
Bill
Right?

00:32:21.92
Bill
working with you.

00:32:21.93
John Machado
you know why does And why does it matter whether someone drinks or doesn't drink?

00:32:26.00
Mike
Mm.

00:32:26.52
John Machado
But it did.

00:32:26.80
Mike
Uh, misery loves company.

00:32:27.04
Bill
Well, and I, yeah, I was gonna say the same thing and it's usually, and I don't know, I mean, I think there's gotta be some truth to it.

00:32:27.52
John Machado
Yeah, it does.

00:32:35.26
Bill
People who are either questioning our sobriety or trying to get us to drink, it's yeah, like I'm a misery loves company or just people feel out of place if everyone's not doing the same thing.

00:32:46.54
Bill
It's just, even as kids, and if you're gonna go do something wrong, every one of your groups gotta join in or that doesn't feel right. But I don't know, I don't remember I don't remember ever getting pressured. I've gotten asked a couple of times, you know, to begin with, and I have been in those, I skipped a work function or Christmas party because I knew um just from hearing stories how it was going to be. So I said I had other plans or whatever it was. um You know, I've i gone to places to this day, and we talk about this all the time. ah Both Mike and I are of the same opinion, unless he and I are driving together.

00:33:21.63
Bill
Um, but we always drive separately.

00:33:22.05
Mike
right

00:33:23.86
Bill
I never go anywhere that I can't leave, but you were on a boat, you know, so that, that would be the other and the other caveat, I guess. If I was on a boat, I'd be like, geez, I want to throw the guy off the fucking boat.

00:33:34.10
Bill
Cause I would just, I think he was continuing, you know, continuously asking me to drink, just shut the fuck up.

00:33:38.14
Mike
Right.

00:33:39.45
Bill
You're bugging me. You know, go, go take, go take a swim.

00:33:40.70
John Machado
Yeah. ah Exactly.

00:33:42.21
Bill
Go.

00:33:43.38
John Machado
I probably would have been more upset if he was trying to get somebody else to drink who wasn't drinking.

00:33:43.58
Mike
Hmm.

00:33:46.82
John Machado
You know how that goes?

00:33:47.45
Bill
Yeah.

00:33:47.90
John Machado
It's it's okay.

00:33:48.14
Bill
Right.

00:33:48.78
John Machado
It's okay if you tell me I'm i'm a jerk, but don't tell my don't tell me my buddy's a jerk because he's because he's my buddy type of thing.

00:33:53.12
Mike
Right.

00:33:55.16
John Machado
Yeah. But the other thing too is I'll get occasionally is so you're not going to drink the rest of your life.

00:33:57.06
Bill
Hahahaha!

00:34:00.02
John Machado
To which I i say, if I was to make that promise, then I would run far away from me. that i'm not going to drink the rest of my life i know i'm not drinking today.

00:34:08.16
Mike
Right.

00:34:10.08
John Machado
and in I have totally wrapped my head around that concept it actually gave me relief i'm just not drinking today we'll see what happens you know in in in twenty twenty nine whatever so but today i'm not yeah.

00:34:10.22
Mike
Absolutely. Right.

00:34:23.26
Mike
Yeah, right. Well, you know, it was actually, it was ah sort of an exercise that we, when I was at the Keating Center early on, probably within the first 30 days, there was this other guy there and we just look at each other and we go, yeah, not today, man, tomorrow.

00:34:38.48
Mike
tomorrow. Oh, tomorrow we're fucking going, man.

00:34:39.79
John Machado
yeah and Exactly.

00:34:42.50
Mike
And, um, you know, but yeah, and then tomorrow is today and okay. Well, not today, but tomorrow. And it was, it was, uh, it helped get through those early days of going, okay, man, I'm just not going to do it today.

00:34:55.35
Mike
Tomorrow. um I'm going to fucking go shoot up and smoke and fucking do everything, man. You know, do everything right.

00:35:00.75
John Machado
Do it all. Yeah. No, I hear you. Yeah. So, I mean, by this, this story I tell people too, I'm sorry to, you got to say something, Bill, is I tell, bear so this is how I drink for the people that aren't in the program.

00:35:05.23
Bill
Well the other

00:35:08.11
Bill
No go ahead, no go ahead.

00:35:13.08
John Machado
I used to tell them, I'm in Destin, Florida at a meeting there for three days.

00:35:16.45
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:35:17.44
John Machado
The first night they're having a cocktail party, um i I decide, I say, I'm not going to drink because I don't want to make an ass out of myself because I didn't know, I didn't know anybody there. And so I get there and this one girl comes up to me and says, why aren't you drinking?

00:35:25.87
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:35:29.28
John Machado
I said, I'm just not drinking tonight. She called me a pussy and gave me a Bacardi 151 and Coke.

00:35:31.51
Mike
Hmm.

00:35:34.58
John Machado
right

00:35:35.57
Mike
Right.

00:35:36.46
John Machado
I come to in a bar in Alabama with a couple that drove me there and I don't even know who they are.

00:35:39.85
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:35:45.31
John Machado
and so Everybody goes, well how did you get back? I don't know, but I did get back to the hotel.

00:35:48.50
Mike
Right.

00:35:49.55
John Machado
I don't know how I got back, but I didn't make the meeting the next day.

00:35:53.05
Mike
Sure.

00:35:53.34
John Machado
so so that that's That's what happens to us. We end up in Alabama.

00:35:57.59
Mike
Yeah, right.

00:35:58.37
John Machado
yeah yeah so

00:36:02.21
Bill
Well, yeah, that's that's the thing.

00:36:02.30
Mike
Right.

00:36:03.71
Bill
Other people, this so you know and i don't I don't succumb to that peer pressure these days, but um I was, especially when it came to women, you know i mean i Mike and I were talking about that too long ago. I don't remember who we were what we how we got on the subject though, but you know whoever I was with, I would drink what they drank type of thing.

00:36:19.08
Bill
I was kind of a chameleon that way. I didn't drink because they were drinking, but man, yeah, some chicken, a fucking party came up and said, here, pussy, do you want to drink? Not now, but I mean back then.

00:36:30.38
John Machado
Yeah.

00:36:30.69
Bill
Fuck I don't I don't know I might have ended up in Alabama. um But, but you know the what I was gonna say before the the the easiest thing that here's the cool part so it sounds like amazing to me first of all, having one person that just guides people through the book and then puts them on to another one I think that's wonderful I've never heard of that before but I think that's again that's almost like a singleness of purpose thing in my head and I like that.

00:36:33.42
John Machado
Yeah.

00:36:52.56
Bill
um But it sounds like you had the upbringing in this in this whole AA thing like we did. And I'm fortunate, both of us are, you know I feel really fortunate to have gone through, um you know the especially our early beginnings and to still be friends with these these hardcore, don't take shit, old school AA guys um who are not mean, you know but they're just, there it is what it is type of thing.

00:37:16.58
Bill
um but The other thing that they did, we were given these very simple things, these very simple sentences and nuggets of information. And one was, um nobody ever told us that we can't drink it ever again, never. What they told us was, we're gonna show you why you won't have to, you know? So, you know, and that's the way that I looked at it. Yeah, the one day thing, I'm all about that, I get that. One day we've all got one day,

00:37:40.58
Bill
you know But I needed something like that to look at it and say, okay, I know now why I don't have to drink. It doesn't mean I'll never drink, but I sure as fuck know why I don't have to. And as long as I do all the things that I need to do every day, then I'm not gonna drink, whether it's today or 25 years from now. ah but And I said it my first lead, and actually, I don't know if you remember this, Mike, but you brought it up.

00:38:02.75
Bill
I don't remember even saying it. John, I call my first lead my blackout lead, because i don't from the time I introduced myself and my sobriety date, um I talked for 20 minutes, and um I have no idea what I said.

00:38:13.68
Mike
Thank

00:38:13.76
John Machado
Nice.

00:38:13.84
Bill
But Mike so mike stood up at the end and commented. and He goes she goes, you know what you said? He goes, you said that.

00:38:18.88
Mike
you.

00:38:19.22
Bill
He goes, I've never heard you say this before, that you're you're ah you're not afraid of drinking. You're afraid of forgetting what you know. and And that was that was basically from my gut. I'm like, I don't want to, I don't ever want to forget who I am. And the only way that I can I can't ensure it. But the way that I can guard against that is to get up every morning, do my readings, do my prayers, ah be a good boy, um all those different things we were talking about, then if I keep it in the forefront, you know, then I'm, I've got a better chance of not forgetting who I am and then not ending up in fucking Alabama.

00:38:50.62
John Machado
Yeah, you know, it's no it's a good point because it's funny how we talk about these blackouts, these these blackouts that happened to us, some complete, some we come in and out, as if as if that's not a big deal. Do you know what I mean?

00:39:01.31
John Machado
If if if i woke if I woke up tomorrow and my wife said, you know what you did last night and and I wasn't drinking but I can't remember, that would scare the crap out of me.

00:39:01.80
Bill
Right.

00:39:06.78
Bill
Oh sure.

00:39:09.81
Mike
Oh yeah.

00:39:10.67
John Machado
Yeah, yeah. So...

00:39:12.45
Mike
Right. But yeah, but when we're out there, it's like, well, it's just part of, it it's just what it is, man.

00:39:13.24
John Machado
if

00:39:17.12
John Machado
Yeah. Yeah. Everybody laughing.

00:39:19.02
Mike
right

00:39:19.16
John Machado
Oh, he didn't remember driving home.

00:39:21.17
Mike
yeah blood Look out the window and see if my car's in the driveway.

00:39:21.30
John Machado
You know, and so, and you know, in the funny, the thing, yeah, in the, you know, the funny, the, the, the awakening I got on that was, and I drank and drove to my last drink was I'm in a meeting two years into sobriety in Walnut Creek, California.

00:39:37.07
John Machado
And this dude comes into this room. It was my home group. I didn't recognize him. He's chair in the meeting and he just got out of Folsom prison. He did 22 months. It was his first meeting outside of prison. So they had him chair it and he was in there 22 months for head on collision with a family and he killed one of their kids.

00:39:58.44
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:39:58.54
Bill
Damn. Yeah.

00:39:59.59
John Machado
And so, uh, you know, we, we talk about it, but I, to this day I'm getting goosebumps as I'm telling you guys, this, I haven't spoke about this in a while. Man, just so lucky, right?

00:40:10.88
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:40:11.14
John Machado
Could've been me, but you know, but the whole, behold the whole, but for the grace of God, but that could have been any of us at any time.

00:40:12.52
Mike
Oh, yeah.

00:40:12.67
Bill
Right.

00:40:16.51
Bill
Right.

00:40:17.36
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:40:18.33
John Machado
And, but it happened to this dude and, uh, got to know him a little bit and, um, just, just one of those eye-openers we get every once in a while.

00:40:18.42
Mike
Absolutely.

00:40:27.15
Mike
Yeah.

00:40:27.98
Bill
right

00:40:28.07
John Machado
Yeah.

00:40:29.17
Mike
Yeah. I got a buddy here in Cleveland too. Same thing. He, he killed a kid. True. Yeah. And a blackout. And, um, yeah, it you know, it's still great guy and he sees, um, you know, 20 years sober now and, and blah, blah, blah.

00:40:43.18
Mike
But yeah, I mean, you could still see it in his eyes sometimes.

00:40:43.73
Bill
Thank

00:40:46.79
Mike
Yeah. It's a fucking drag, man.

00:40:47.22
John Machado
Yeah.

00:40:48.19
Mike
It could have been any of us. Absolutely.

00:40:49.75
John Machado
it and My wife and I were in a went to a a little small bar in town because her brother-in-law was playing in a band. This is 2019 before COVID.

00:40:58.06
Mike
Hmm.

00:41:00.22
John Machado
and so We stay and and my wife's a normal person in that she'll drink half a drink, which I can't conceptualize.

00:41:04.19
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:41:05.87
Bill
you.

00:41:07.69
Mike
I got one of those.

00:41:08.76
John Machado
Yeah, wow.

00:41:09.13
Bill
hey

00:41:09.76
John Machado
it's it's so we're ah We're leaving at two in the morning because you know we know the band and she's talking to her sister. and so We're leaving and she's going, what's wrong with you when I'm driving home? I said it's after two in the morning and a third of the people out here right now are drunk.

00:41:19.11
Mike
Mm-hmm. Yep.

00:41:24.35
Bill
Right.

00:41:25.10
John Machado
and She goes, oh dude, you're white knuckling that steering wheel. I said, yeah, I know who's out here right now.

00:41:28.27
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:41:30.96
John Machado
so Yeah.

00:41:31.17
Bill
Right.

00:41:34.26
John Machado
so

00:41:34.47
Bill
Yeah. And it's, ah I mean, I've got to spend, well, man, not too long ago, six, eight months ago, i I drove down to South Carolina. So I drove through the night. um But I mean that, yeah, if you're out late at night, anytime I'm out after dark these days, I think about that.

00:41:46.65
Mike
Mhm.

00:41:47.60
Bill
You know, cause I, again, like you just said, every one of us and I, I'm not proud of it, but we've talked about it. I, I was, ah I used to love to get drunk while I was driving. It's a horrible thing to say.

00:41:56.53
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:41:58.07
Bill
um but i I did a lot of traveling in the car and and I drank, you know, and um I just, I mean, whether it be, again, myself, yeah, but I mean, anyone else, my kids, family member, anyone, yeah, again, but for the grace, you know, but um when I, yeah i'm I'm actually in in Northern Wisconsin right now, it's this little town, 25 mile an hour road, and there's, I don't know, I don't think there's more than a thousand people in this town, the population, but,

00:42:12.80
John Machado
Right.

00:42:25.67
Bill
I think they have seven cops, I I mean, I've seen, I've seen, um I've seen SUVs, I've seen cars, and all these different, you know, cops.

00:42:28.36
Mike
No. this

00:42:33.48
Bill
I'm like, Jesus Christ, man. But the first day I was here, I went up um and I actually got groceries and came back. And when you come back into town, it goes from 55 to 45 to 35 to 25 right in town.

00:42:46.31
Bill
And from the time I got across the bridge, because it's right by Michigan, coming across Michigan, this this cop pulls out behind me, and I'm like, fuck me. You know, I mean, I'm not a doing anything, but my first concern was that my drumsticks were going to melt. Because I'm like, if this motherfucker pulls me over, um he's just going to dick with me, because he's going to have nothing to hold me on, nothing to do. I'm not speeding, but if he decides to pull me over, my fucking drumsticks are going to melt.

00:43:15.35
John Machado
That's a tough day right there, melted drumsticks.

00:43:16.77
Bill
I know it's but I mean it's I don't want to get pulled over part of me wants to get pulled over just to be sober, you know, and you know that I've gotten pulled over a couple of times since sobriety and um the last the last thing that's on my record is my DUI and 94 because all the other ones I've got, not that I've got tickets before but

00:43:17.13
Mike
Hehehehe.

00:43:18.41
John Machado
Yeah.

00:43:22.98
John Machado
Yeah.

00:43:34.40
Bill
I've gotten reduced to non-moving violations. So they can see that I got a DUI, if you know, X number of years ago. um You know, did they never said anything, but you know, you this one cop, you could tell he was he was kind of inching closer to the window when he came back, you know?

00:43:47.01
John Machado
Yeah,

00:43:47.38
Bill
And, you know, like, do I smell anything?

00:43:50.66
John Machado
yeah yeah I got stopped at a i got stopped at at a in a DUI checkpoint coming out of a San Jose Sharks hockey game with that buddy for rehab.

00:43:51.51
Bill
Yeah, you smell coffee.

00:43:57.02
Bill
ah

00:43:58.72
John Machado
And when the cop stuck his head in the car, because that's what he did, he stuck his head in the car, I said, dude, you're five years too late.

00:43:58.94
Mike
Nice.

00:44:04.99
John Machado
And and he stood there and he BS'd with us for a good five minutes. He was cool. And I tell everybody, I've had no problems with the law in sobriety.

00:44:12.21
Mike
Right.

00:44:15.84
Mike
Yeah, me neither.

00:44:16.08
Bill
right Right.

00:44:17.20
Mike
I know. Imagine that.

00:44:19.06
Bill
Yeah, I haven't I haven't been arrested once since I've been sober and I get arrested a handful of times before.

00:44:24.24
John Machado
Yeah.

00:44:24.65
Mike
so

00:44:25.19
John Machado
Yeah. and And then do you look, and you'd look at the odds of how many times people, because I knew people in the program who taught DUI classes.

00:44:25.73
Bill
yeah

00:44:33.38
John Machado
I think it's you you drink and drive.

00:44:33.41
Mike
Hmm.

00:44:35.18
John Machado
It's somewhere in the middle, like somewhere like 15 to 2000 times before you get a DUI.

00:44:40.81
Mike
Right.

00:44:40.97
Bill
Really?

00:44:41.54
John Machado
and Oh, it's it's a crazy number. that the the that So there's a lot of people out there. And I didn't think about that when I was drinking and driving, but I think about it now.

00:44:51.43
Bill
Right? Right?

00:44:52.30
John Machado
yeah

00:44:53.25
Bill
Yeah, and there's a, we talked about it on here.

00:44:53.53
Mike
Mm

00:44:54.81
Bill
I mean, Mike said that he just never got caught. And I just say that I only got caught once, because that's literally the truth, you know?

00:44:57.69
Mike
hmm.

00:45:01.27
Bill
um And the only reason I got caught is because I fucking passed out and hit a sign.

00:45:01.26
John Machado
Yeah.

00:45:06.02
John Machado
Right. Or you probably wouldn't have got caught. Exactly.

00:45:08.05
Bill
No, I wouldn't have.

00:45:08.44
John Machado
Yeah.

00:45:08.89
Bill
And i was I was fucking loaded. I mean, loaded. Terrible, terrible, terrible. but um So what do you think, Mike? On that on that note, I'm hitting a sign.

00:45:15.95
Mike
Yeah.

00:45:17.36
Bill
That might be a sign to take a break.

00:45:17.46
Mike
hey

00:45:18.84
Bill
How's that?

00:45:19.54
Mike
Absolutely. All right. Well, stay tuned for more sober, not mature. We'll be right back after these words from our sponsors.

00:45:36.21
Bill
All right, everyone, welcome back. And yeah, so, um signs and hitting them and and DUIs, that, those are a hell of a story, but yeah, I don't know.

00:45:46.66
Bill
It just, ah it is, it's crazy amazing that that none of us, none of us heard it, everyone, and obviously in a good way. So, um John, I mean, this is,

00:45:54.46
Mike
Yeah. So, uh, exactly, man. So what do you do with a sign? You read it, right? What else do you read?

00:46:01.30
Bill
Right, books.

00:46:02.66
John Machado
Yeah, books. So so yeah the the writing thing so started in 2008, right at the beginning. So just before I was three years sober, in I had had notes. the The first book I wrote was called Three-Fifths. what It's about some guy's last three bottles of booze. I had written notes on this book in 1998.

00:46:24.13
Mike
Hmm.

00:46:25.06
John Machado
So, so literally 10 years later, that whole, you know, uh, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, but I never did anything. Um, I, I finally started writing in, in, in, it wasn't that good at first.

00:46:40.87
John Machado
And so I committed to two hours a day, seven days a week. Uh, uh, I read something somewhere that said that's what you got to do. And so I just, I just started writing books and I self published it first.

00:46:48.78
Mike
Right.

00:46:52.09
John Machado
It took me 15 years. up until last year to get my first book published. And ah in when that finally happened, it was two years of rewrites because ah the publisher wanted it.

00:47:07.31
John Machado
changed. And so, and then I just had a short story published recently, um this year, May 2024. And so writing has just been therapeutic for me. And, ah and the people that publish me, there's, there, it's it's hard work. ah and And I just, for some reason, it just kind of gives me a little space to be creative.

00:47:28.47
John Machado
in And I've disciplined with it. in in And that would not have happened ah because it never did outside of the program.

00:47:34.82
Mike
Right.

00:47:34.89
Bill
Right.

00:47:35.32
John Machado
Yeah.

00:47:35.92
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:47:36.03
Bill
Right.

00:47:36.38
John Machado
So yeah.

00:47:39.21
Bill
So, I mean, again, I mean, explain what the what the books are about or I mean, is there is there it well, first of all, that part, and then i'll I'll ask you a hard question.

00:47:42.10
John Machado
Yeah. Yep.

00:47:46.11
John Machado
Mm hmm.

00:47:46.31
Bill
Is there is there one that you're that you're most proud of, but first, what the what the books are about?

00:47:50.23
John Machado
Yeah. Yeah. the So the first book that I got published that i did i mean that i wrote, self-published, is called Three-Fifths. in And I haven't changed it. So it's it's raw. It has to do with with our program. It has to do with alcohol. And so to me, it's my it's my favorite. in and And some people that know me, they liked it. Not that a lot of people read it. um The second book that I wrote that eventually became my first published book is called Bronze Jazz.

00:48:19.19
John Machado
in in And that's i that's got published only because I was trying to get another book published. So I had written a book called Johnny Blue and the Righteous Spin, and the publishing company that got ahold of me, the woman said, yeah, I don't ah don't like that book.

00:48:35.71
Mike
Mm.

00:48:36.22
John Machado
Have you written anything else? And so I said, i have it I have another book, a novel. She could send that to me and I'll get back to you in a couple of weeks. So she got back to me in a couple of weeks and she said, I like it. I like your writing style. I like your storytelling. She goes, but you're going to have to rewrite the whole thing because it's in past tense and we're going to want it in first person. And I'd never written in first person. So I went through two years of rewrites with her. ah Some chapters didn't make it. Some chapters I had to write anew. And ah by the time I was done with that,

00:49:09.13
John Machado
um I was a whole different type of writer. and and then and Then she published this short story, which is called My Newest One, Avocado Andy and Troubadour Tim.

00:49:12.71
Mike
Right.

00:49:19.89
John Machado
in It's kind of a book about acceptance. in in This is the biggest compliment she's ever given me and it was one word.

00:49:24.49
Mike
Hmm.

00:49:26.81
John Machado
She just said, y'all publish it, it's clever. That was it. So I got through a couple of three months of rewrites on that in in and and now that's out too. But you had a question for me, a hard question you said.

00:49:41.44
Bill
No, it's just that which one was your favorite, but I think you you you answered that kind of, yeah, okay.

00:49:44.17
John Machado
three fifths for sure. Yeah. Cause you know, it was, can you even do this? It was my thing.

00:49:49.15
Bill
Right.

00:49:49.67
John Machado
Could you do it? And then my self published forum before the two got published. And then my thing was, can you get published in, and it just took just a lot of rejection. Right.

00:50:00.55
John Machado
So you really, you really do have to put your ego on the back burner.

00:50:00.66
Mike
Right?

00:50:01.14
Bill
Right. Right.

00:50:04.13
John Machado
And, uh, you know, it was a Hemingway quote that said the first draft of everything is shit.

00:50:08.90
Mike
a this is

00:50:09.62
John Machado
And I would like to say the first couple of drafts of everything is pretty much garbage. So, yeah.

00:50:15.26
Bill
right Well, you know, it's funny when ah Mike and I started doing this this podcast, which has been but shit two and a half yeah two and a half years now. um We didn't have this software. I think I was talking to you a little bit about that, John, when we first started. But the the first recording studio ended up getting ah getting transcripts, and then this one has transcripts. And um it was like a a year ago over the beginning of the summer, Mike and I were talking. I'm like, i'm like you know, I got I had I e quit my job. I was going to try to do something else, do my own thing or whatever. and um And I'm like, ah in my free time, which never fucking happened, but I'm like, I gotta go back through the transcripts.

00:50:53.02
Bill
I'm like, wouldn't that be great? Mike and I were talking about maybe doing a book of like short stories, just taking some of our um key things.

00:50:57.76
John Machado
Uh huh.

00:50:58.38
Bill
I'm like, this'll be fucking easy. I'll just go through the transcripts.

00:51:02.06
Mike
Hehehehe.

00:51:02.47
Bill
Well, the the problem was is that the old studio, and I'm sure this one does, and i it doesn't surprise me because I mean, God, there's millions of podcasts, you know or at least hundreds of thousands of them.

00:51:13.33
Bill
and you know they've all gotta be stored someplace. So what they do is at at a certain point, they're not they're not like right in your face anymore, they're archived. So in order to to grab the transcript, I gotta pull the entire episode out of this archive, which literally takes like 24 hours.

00:51:28.35
Bill
So I did it with two and started doing, I'm like, this is too fucking much.

00:51:32.36
John Machado
Oh, yeah.

00:51:32.61
Bill
um you know But I don't know if ah if somebody was asking us at one point, Mike, if ah if we were gonna write something, we've been asked, to submit articles. We did it for the Keating Center.

00:51:42.80
Bill
I did one a couple years ago and then Mike recently did one.

00:51:43.72
Mike
Mhmm.

00:51:45.97
Bill
The Keating Center is where we got sober. It's a sober living facility um in Cleveland.

00:51:47.76
John Machado
Uh huh.

00:51:51.21
Bill
Wonderful organization. It's they teach you how to live like a human being. It's not rehab or anything like that.

00:51:55.70
Mike
Mhmm.

00:51:56.94
Bill
We've talked about it endlessly, but we would do anything for them within reason, you know? So writing up a short thing about our story is not a big deal, but we've had a couple of, since we've been on Instagram, people are like, oh, write this thing and we're gonna do this and we'll post it.

00:52:02.44
John Machado
Right.

00:52:12.80
Bill
And I'm like, can't you just listen to our podcast? Can we just post the posted episodes?

00:52:15.98
John Machado
Yeah.

00:52:16.11
Mike
No.

00:52:17.36
Bill
Do you wanna come on the podcast? We talk all the time. I don't wanna sit down and I like to write, don't get me wrong. But I don't want to write about what he and I do, you know, maybe at some point, if somebody came to a same deal and said, hey, we want we want you guys to write a book, this is a theme, let's do it.

00:52:34.69
Bill
Now, clearly that I doubt might do you think that's ever going to happen? Okay, so

00:52:38.87
John Machado
Well, this, yeah, this format though is, i'm a i'm a i'm I really am, um I keep on using the word amazed, but this this the podcast format has blown me away. And I didn't listen to my first podcast until, man,

00:52:56.45
John Machado
probably 2014.

00:52:59.04
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:52:59.82
Bill
Well, shit, you're way ahead of me.

00:53:00.03
John Machado
And, and I was, and I was talking to my daughter and she said, dude, there's all kinds of podcasts out there. And I love, I love an engaged podcast, kind of like what we're doing right now.

00:53:11.27
Mike
Right.

00:53:12.36
John Machado
in in And I don't think, and you can't, I liked, I love that you guys are doing this because you can't, you can't put this in written words.

00:53:12.52
Bill
Right.

00:53:12.53
Mike
Right.

00:53:22.29
John Machado
You just can't.

00:53:22.38
Bill
Right.

00:53:22.50
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:53:23.37
John Machado
Yeah.

00:53:23.65
Mike
Right.

00:53:24.32
Bill
right

00:53:24.43
John Machado
Hmm.

00:53:24.53
Mike
Yeah, your tone and inflection and exactly, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's like having the sarcasm font, you know, when when I'm texting someone, it doesn't come across quite the same way.

00:53:32.62
John Machado
Yeah.

00:53:32.81
Bill
Right, right.

00:53:36.80
John Machado
It doesn't.

00:53:37.34
Bill
And and when.

00:53:38.26
John Machado
And you guys are, it's it's, I'll shut up, but it's a natural flow with you guys too. And that's that, that in itself is, is takes talent.

00:53:43.62
Mike
yeah

00:53:47.78
Bill
Well, and here's the thing, and the the funny part about that is we never came out of to do this, it was talent. We came into it a little bit egotistical to start, at least I did, you know which which is not it's not unheard of for me.

00:53:57.84
Mike
a Yes.

00:54:00.02
Bill
but um So I didn't start listening to podcasts until, when did we start this, by February of 22, right? yeah Yeah, so February of 22. So it was like um October, November-ish is when I discovered podcasts in 21, because coming out of the pandemic, blah, blah, blah, I started listening to them.

00:54:13.19
Mike
Mmhmm.

00:54:15.61
Bill
It was like my meeting in the car type of thing. and then we always get together Mike and I are family now we're not but we are you know we're not biological family but you know we were brothers and we're all part of the same group so we have we you know we were Thanksgiving and that that November and I'm telling about these podcasts I'm like you know this this chick I'm listening to she's interesting I mean oh I don't really line up with everything she says but I'm learning a lot and I enjoy it but I'm like I'm telling them all stuff I'm like we can do that shit can't we He's like, what?

00:54:43.25
Mike
but

00:54:44.10
Bill
I'm like, well, just fucking talk shit into a microphone. I'm like, can we? He's like, fucking A, we can. So we procrastinated for two months or three months or whatever it was, and then just started doing it. And the only goal that we had, how we approached this was, is just, we're going to get together.

00:54:56.94
Mike
Yeah.

00:55:00.16
Bill
Mike and I are going to get together every Friday night because we, he lives in Cleveland. I moved back to Wisconsin, which shit now Mike, it's been 10 years, all known, 11 years now.

00:55:08.39
Mike
Yeah. yeah

00:55:10.29
Bill
since i when since I left Cleveland, it was three eight three years and a couple years sober when I left. um So we don't see each other all the time, enough here and there, but not out all the time. So okay, this is our time to to shoot the shit with each other. And then we just started telling stories and we we're you know reminiscing and that's how it started. And we didn't have our first guest on until the summer of, that summer of 22, we got the new recording studio, had to do a couple of test things and people started approaching us every once in a while.

00:55:39.94
Bill
Didn't even know how to do that, you know, but um, I don't know It's just the the point of it is all that we want to do first of all We don't edit every anything all the words that come out of our mouth. I cut the middle for our our website promo I'll cut a little bit like a second of silence off the beginning and That's all that I do. We don't go through and you know Polish up the ums and this and that because what do you say Mike? We're not what so we don't do what?

00:56:02.77
Bill
hey yeah

00:56:04.55
Mike
who We don't edit so yeah, we don't lie we don't so we don't have to kind of cut anything out Right that sounds right

00:56:11.61
Bill
Yeah, and we're not polished and professional, so this is not polished and professional, I think might have been your exact words one time, which made me laugh.

00:56:11.79
John Machado
Right.

00:56:19.12
Bill
Yeah, but um but it's just, it's fun. we We tried to get on here, so we've had some people on that have just been insanely nervous when they get on. We're like, to just give it three minutes, you'll be fine. All we're gonna do is just pretend like nobody else is there and we're just having a conversation.

00:56:32.72
Bill
So that that's the point, you know? And it is, it's our it's our meeting every Friday night, and thankfully every once in a while, you know people like you approach us, and you know I don't even know if I asked you, how did you even come across us? We're just always curious to to see how people heard of us.

00:56:47.64
John Machado
Yeah. So no, it's a good question. There's a, I work with a marketing ah lady and she's in, she's up in Reno and she, uh, she said, Hey, you need to, uh, you need to check out some of these, uh, uh, recovery podcasts.

00:56:53.48
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:56:59.60
John Machado
You need to get on a podcast. And I said, how many? And she, she sent me ah quite a big list and I, I put out, prepared the letter that you guys got. I put out 20 requests and I got two hits.

00:57:12.17
John Machado
and and and And that's how that happened.

00:57:12.36
Mike
Nice.

00:57:14.40
John Machado
And and I gotta be honest with you, I didn't even know it existed like the way it existed literally until a month ago.

00:57:21.07
Bill
Right.

00:57:21.21
Mike
Right.

00:57:22.04
John Machado
Yeah, so in here, yeah the way out, the way out, it's a guy from, a Jason from Minnesota.

00:57:22.29
Bill
So who is who is the other who is the other podcast? Just curious. I just wonder if it's the one I listened to.

00:57:29.64
Bill
What's the name? Is it a guy or?

00:57:34.59
Bill
God, you know what, i it it sounds familiar. I don't know that I've listened to it on a regular basis, but I've, again, scanning lists, I've seen they seen them here and there, but it's just interesting to me, because that we had somebody else reach out to us and, you know, said just did an internet search and found us.

00:57:47.90
Bill
I'm like, well, at least Google's working in our favor every once in a while, you know, because...

00:57:50.95
Mike
if Great.

00:57:51.86
John Machado
Well, in in the in in the marketing person who got that, I mean, she's that's what she does is search stuff out. So she searched you guys out quickly.

00:57:58.42
Bill
Okay.

00:58:00.22
John Machado
it wasn't yeah she she She goes, ah I'll get back to you.

00:58:00.65
Bill
Hmm.

00:58:03.21
John Machado
And literally, she got back to me in a half hour.

00:58:05.43
Bill
Nice.

00:58:06.22
John Machado
Yeah. And, uh, and it was funny cause I was on a podcast before this one. And so I'd never been on one. So, you know, you talk about the nerves, but I'm really never that nervous when it's, when it's recovery folks, but this guy, it was on, it was on Skype and you know you guys were telling me, so I'd already bought the headset. And so when I came on with him, he goes, man, you sound clear.

00:58:25.85
Mike
Yeah.

00:58:28.66
John Machado
So yeah, I was laughing. I said, well, the only reason I'm clear is because I'm going to be on this other podcast. And they said, get a headset.

00:58:34.80
Mike
she

00:58:36.04
John Machado
Yeah.

00:58:36.12
Mike
Right.

00:58:36.60
John Machado
Yeah.

00:58:37.95
Bill
Yeah, in all all it all that was like I was saying to begin with all of those trial and error and then this the studio thing like we have here. This is kind of cool. But we were using Riverside that got Riverside got too fucking big for it's for us, you know, they were trying to there and I don't doubt that somebody who's got a lot of money and high quality equipment stuff like that.

00:58:56.85
Bill
And I mean, my computer is I mean, well, Mike's computer is a Chromebook. It's what is that two years old, I think.

00:59:00.48
Mike
Yeah. Yeah. It's a year and a half. Yeah.

00:59:04.94
Bill
Yeah, and I mean Chromebooks basically is just a vehicle to get on the internet, you know, so his should be fine.

00:59:04.98
John Machado
Yeah.

00:59:09.63
Bill
And then my computer, I had to have actual PC um in order to a Windows PC in order to run Riverside. So i this is a second one I've had, but I've only had this one like a year, you know, but we had so many problems and therere every time they're blaming it on us, and it was really it is getting really frustrating.

00:59:26.30
Bill
So I just started doing some research and came across this endcaster. It's 20 bucks a month. And when we first logged on, Mike's like, oh my God, this there's not even a whatever button.

00:59:36.88
Bill
And he's like, this is simple. He goes, I think this is exactly what we need.

00:59:40.44
Mike
Right?

00:59:40.86
John Machado
you You know what, it it is what you need because let's face it, you guys want to do this.

00:59:42.28
Bill
yeah Right.

00:59:45.51
John Machado
It's raw. All we're doing here is talking and telling, I always tell myself before I talk to anybody in the program, just tell the truth.

00:59:52.61
Bill
Right.

00:59:52.61
Mike
right

00:59:52.98
John Machado
And so, and I think that's the, it's kind of like, remember when they said that in the back in the days, the Rolling Stones would do one cut, done.

01:00:01.11
Mike
Yeah.

01:00:01.11
John Machado
right, for an album. and And now you can get stuff so, so touched up that it's not even their real voices. And i I don't want to, I want to listen to music live.

01:00:08.39
Mike
Right.

01:00:08.57
Bill
Right.

01:00:11.04
John Machado
I want to listen to podcasts live.

01:00:11.64
Mike
Yeah, absolutely.

01:00:12.44
John Machado
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

01:00:15.20
Bill
Yeah. And like I said, all of it was, uh, you know, the, the things that we, some of the things that we don't do now, we don't do them on purpose, but to begin with, we didn't do them.

01:00:21.91
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:00:22.63
Bill
So we didn't know any better.

01:00:24.45
John Machado
Well, well, I was nervous as when you said, get the headset, I'm going, oh man, you guys are these got the Zen casters, tell my wife. So these guys got a studio and she's go to, she goes, dude, just do what they told you to do. All right.

01:00:34.56
John Machado
All right.

01:00:35.20
Mike
may

01:00:35.30
John Machado
Which was so simple. I bought a headset on Amazon and they dropped it off on the front porch.

01:00:39.69
Mike
Yup, yup, plug it in and start talking.

01:00:39.86
Bill
Right.

01:00:43.14
Bill
Yeah. And again, all, all of it, all of it trial and error.

01:00:44.28
John Machado
shit Yeah.

01:00:46.40
Bill
That's all, that's all that it's been.

01:00:46.69
John Machado
Yeah. So.

01:00:47.80
Bill
So, um, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's a lot of fun, but so when you just, you just said, kind of say what, you know, kind of what's what comes off to the top of your head and things like that. What was your, the first time you led, speaking of that, what was your first lead like?

01:01:02.17
John Machado
My first lead.

01:01:03.64
Bill
Yeah. If you let up and told your story in front of a group of people.

01:01:06.06
John Machado
oh Oh, you're talking about chair. We called chair in a meeting in California.

01:01:08.27
Mike
Sherry.

01:01:08.44
Bill
Oh, Sherry, OK, sorry about that.

01:01:08.78
Mike
Yes. Yes.

01:01:09.42
John Machado
Yeah, God.

01:01:09.62
Mike
Yes you do. Yes

01:01:11.10
John Machado
So it was really, that that's funny. So I'm still, the guy I was working the 12 steps with, he said, yeah, you're not chairing any meetings until you got a year so sober. So I did, I had a year sober.

01:01:20.10
Bill
Yep.

01:01:21.28
John Machado
And so I was home group, getting ready to do it, just sucking down bottles of water like they were whiskey. And he came up to me and he said, dude, I've never seen anybody drink water that fast because what's going on? I said, I'm really nervous. I don't want to screw this up.

01:01:32.42
John Machado
He said, hey, John, don't worry. He said half the people in the room won't be listening to you.

01:01:36.91
Mike
Yeah.

01:01:37.29
John Machado
They'll be in their own heads. And he said, dude, you he said, dude, you're not that important.

01:01:39.19
Bill
Right.

01:01:41.08
John Machado
Just tell the truth.

01:01:43.14
Mike
Yep.

01:01:43.34
John Machado
And so and and so I did that because you know how you guys started this off, you know, you would hear some people you're so vulnerable that first year that they could get into a good drunk log.

01:01:52.83
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:01:53.98
John Machado
But it It didn't matter about that. We've all been drunk. We've all not had the ability to handle our booze. It's why we're here. And so, yeah, we did all that.

01:02:03.84
Mike
Right.

01:02:04.99
John Machado
And then what God is here, you know, and what's it like now? And and that's why I was so glad to hear you guys say that at the beginning of this.

01:02:08.99
Mike
Yeah.

01:02:12.23
John Machado
I really was. And so that's how that started.

01:02:13.88
Bill
Right.

01:02:15.99
John Machado
Yeah.

01:02:17.34
Mike
Right. Yeah. War stories, right?

01:02:19.09
John Machado
Yeah.

01:02:19.24
Mike
Nobody, we don't fucking care.

01:02:21.26
John Machado
yeah You know, I do know this. It was crazy emotional. That first, that I was such a raw nerve to just talk it out in front of people, you know, versus, that was that was kind of blew me away.

01:02:32.61
Mike
Right.

01:02:35.61
John Machado
ah But, you know, that that that got better over the years. so ah But, ah ah you know, me and my wife were in Phoenix with, I was there for a meeting, we met a friend of mine who's sober, he got sober through the church, even sober longer than me.

01:02:51.41
John Machado
And his wife asked me a question, about my first year of recovery. And dude, we're sitting there eating ice cream, the four of us, like like adults. And dude, I start crying and in and nobody said anything, right?

01:03:02.07
Bill
And nobody said anything right That's where you go, oh, that's right.

01:03:04.00
John Machado
if They're all uncomfortable. And so afterwards, my wife goes, wow, that kind of touched a nerve. I said, you apparently. And it was just about that first year.

01:03:14.82
John Machado
And I had, you know, sometimes you get that, that crazy feeling of gratitude, the the real one, not the one we talk about in November, where you go, Oh, that's right.

01:03:21.51
Mike
Right.

01:03:22.94
John Machado
If, if I don't have that, then I'm not even married or sitting in an ice cream shop in Phoenix talking to.

01:03:23.75
Bill
And I don't have that then. Somebody's been very interested in it. And I think it's not the right option.

01:03:29.19
Mike
Right.

01:03:29.93
John Machado
Yeah. So yeah.

01:03:30.91
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:03:32.59
Bill
Yeah, and it's it is funny because, um you know, the that's another very, very common topic between Mike and I is that, um I mean, gratitude and and being grateful. And quite honestly, and I've said it probably a thousand times, there there are so many times that I forget to be grateful. I forget that I should be grateful, um because again, it's my egotism, it's my My impatience it's what I think I deserve quote unquote, you know, I mean yeah I've i've done the work i I want to get some stuff in return and all that stuff but I don't deserve anything. um Yes, do the work get the results, that's that's it, you know, um but I'm not promised anything just because I'm sober and I'm being a good person doesn't mean that, you know, life's gates are going to open up for me and I get all the whatever it is that I want, you know, but

01:04:17.22
Bill
the times that it really clicks like you're like that comment like that you know about you know how was your first year when I mean I'm I understand what I have I understand what I what I would give up if I don't have this and all the lives I blow up and all that stuff but It's the little things that it's usually my kids, you know, sometimes it's a family member or a friend, you know, that'll just say something like, you know, I just, I want you to tell you how much I appreciate everything you do for me.

01:04:43.71
Bill
Or, um you know, I, the fact that you read my, life whatever it is, it'll be something like that, or I'll get a call to help one of them or to help somebody else. And I don't even think twice about it.

01:04:53.79
Bill
I just do it, you know?

01:04:55.51
John Machado
Right.

01:04:55.65
Bill
And those are the times when you're like, when you're like, God damn it. I'm like the that's that's what this all this shit is about you know um being able to being able to go any like you said you you were driving home at night at two in the morning that's freedom you know that's absolute 100 freedom now granted you're white like knuckling it so you don't get hit by by a drunk driver but

01:05:03.95
John Machado
It is. Yeah.

01:05:18.03
Bill
The fact that you have the ability to drive home at that time, I've gotten calls when my son was a little bit younger. He's almost 24 now, but always told him, I'm like, if you're out and you're drinking with your buddies or whatever, if you need a ride, you need to make the phone call. I will come get you. There's no reason in the world you may wake me up.

01:05:35.55
Bill
I may be a little bit tired, but I will have, I'll have the ability to come get you, you know? And he did it a couple of times. And those are the times that, you know, getting, getting a call at, you know, one o'clock in the morning and, you know, driving 45 minutes away to go get my son. I'm not mad at him. You know, I'm just like really grateful that, that I'm in that position that he has that ability to call me and not do the stupid things I used to do, you know?

01:05:57.24
John Machado
Well, how responsible is that that he makes a call to have someone come pick him up because he's been drinking?

01:06:03.27
Bill
right Well, and and the thing of it is, and I...

01:06:04.89
John Machado
I only say that i only say that because I've never made that call.

01:06:08.57
Bill
Oh, I wouldn't have.

01:06:08.75
Mike
Right.

01:06:09.74
Bill
And you know, that um my my mom during that timeframe, my dad, my dad was ah was an alcoholic, died sober, but I mean, he was ah he was a mess, you know, so my mom dealt with that.

01:06:09.79
John Machado
Yeah.

01:06:20.36
Bill
And you know, she, just the way that she was, I never would have, I never would have called her to pick me up ever, you know, but my ex-wife, my son's mom, she and I, thankfully, and you know, surprisingly enough, and and once I got sober, we started to get along better.

01:06:35.23
Bill
um But um she and I, and I don't even remember how it happened, but we talked to them about it.

01:06:35.29
John Machado
Yeah.

01:06:40.75
Bill
We were open with them and said, you know, you're underage. We're not gonna tell you that it's okay or we condone it or anything like that. But if you're going to do it, this is what you need to do. This is what you don't need to do.

01:06:51.42
Bill
This is what you can't do under any circumstance. And if you do these things that you shouldn't do, I'm going to kick your fucking ass.

01:06:58.85
John Machado
Right.

01:06:59.09
Bill
Because there's just no reason for it. you know And if there was a reason, because we're being open. And the the difference was is that we never gave him the, we'll do it, but type of conversation.

01:07:10.58
Bill
Like, we'll come pick you up, but we're talking in the morning. um Never was that part of the conversation. We'll come pick you up as long as you called us. You're not going to get a talking to the only time that I would have had a conversation with him.

01:07:21.55
Bill
And I did a couple of times is if he, he did something out of character, you know, and then I'd have a conversation saying, you know, basically what the fuck, you know, or if he would have gotten in trouble or done something, um, God forbid illegal or something like that, then he's getting a conversation, you know, but just to be able to call.

01:07:31.27
John Machado
Right.

01:07:39.58
Bill
And the one night I went to pick him up and he called me when about halfway down there, he's like, I could, I could tell when he was drinking because he does, he slurs up a little bit, but he's also more conversational and gets me on the phone.

01:07:51.18
Bill
He's talking to me. I'm like, like, are you okay? Do you still need the ride? And he's like, yeah, he goes, can, you know, can you, can you give Mike a ride home? I'm like, you mean Mike that I know? And then I'm like, that doesn't even matter. I don't care who it is. I said, your friend Mike needs to ride home too.

01:08:03.04
Bill
Yes, absolutely. You know, he just called me because his drug friend Mike needed a ride too.

01:08:08.53
John Machado
and Drunk Mike needs a ride too. I still take a phone call about every three months from a friend of mine who she's still actively out there drinking. and and my wife always goes and She's always drunk. and My wife always goes, so why do you why do you put up with that for an over an hour? i said My wife's name is Joan. I said, Joan, do you know how many people listen to me in drunken stupors over the years?

01:08:33.02
Mike
Right.

01:08:33.81
John Machado
I mean, i it's i i can't catch i i used to I used to unplug the phone before I started drinking, like I couldn't plug the phone back in.

01:08:33.91
Bill
Right.

01:08:44.07
John Machado
And it's that drinking logic. And she goes, Okay, I said, so I need to hear it.

01:08:48.34
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:08:48.34
John Machado
I do need to hear it.

01:08:50.01
Bill
Mm hmm.

01:08:50.43
John Machado
And because, because it's, again, it's it's not that far from us.

01:08:50.95
Bill
Right.

01:08:55.42
John Machado
It really never is.

01:08:57.49
Bill
Right. Yeah, I mean, I am doing Mike and I, I think Mike, you and I were just talking about this, you know, last week or the week before about, you know, the reason that we don't go to, you know, hang out in certain places, is not that we feel like we're going to drink or use.

01:09:09.06
Bill
It's just that we don't want to deal with some of the shit sometimes, right?

01:09:12.42
Mike
No, absolutely. yeah i you know I don't like being around those people that people the those people that are exactly like me. I don't like that person anymore.

01:09:23.70
Mike
I'm a new person.

01:09:23.70
John Machado
Yeah, I have.

01:09:23.83
Bill
Yeah, but it's, but I mean, but if it's, if it's somebody we know, if it was a friend of mine that needed a, that needed a ride, um, you know, to, to your point before, John, I mean, how many, how many thousands of times, uh, you know, how many hundreds of thousands of people are, are driving out there right now and they're loaded, you know?

01:09:38.75
Bill
So, you know, I don't know, just going on, you know, quote unquote out of my way, you know, for a minute to go help somebody I know, give them a ride.

01:09:38.87
John Machado
Oh, yeah.

01:09:45.23
Bill
I mean, I don't mind doing it. I don't want to be taken advantage of under any circumstance, but if, I mean, it's a, I suppose in nothing else, it's a, it's a way to get back a little bit, right?

01:09:54.22
John Machado
it is It is and it's just a realization for us. you know i don't ah when i attend i have There's two meetings I have to attend ah every year. One of them is going to come up in Dallas and at the event ah later on that night, there'll be drunk people there.

01:10:08.33
John Machado
in um and But i do I do notice this though, it's a small percentage of people that really go too far.

01:10:08.63
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:10:15.89
Mike
Right.

01:10:16.07
Bill
Right.

01:10:16.10
John Machado
Most people, most human beings actually drink like, you know, ladies and gentlemen. And so I avoid them because I'm like you.

01:10:22.05
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:10:23.42
Bill
I have a question and I'd like to use it.

01:10:25.43
John Machado
I'm like you guys and that I just, I have, I don't have much tolerance for the repeated story.

01:10:27.32
Bill
I don't have much power.

01:10:30.77
John Machado
That's what I call it.

01:10:32.10
Mike
Right.

01:10:32.34
John Machado
yeah Let me, let me tell you this one more time. louder. Let me tell it to you louder this time, so you really so you really understand me.

01:10:37.80
Mike
Right.

01:10:40.34
John Machado
Yeah.

01:10:41.59
Bill
can I saw you about that time when I did this.

01:10:42.58
John Machado
so Yeah, you did.

01:10:44.23
Bill
Yeah, yeah, you did. yeah seven Seven minutes ago, exactly, you told me that.

01:10:45.95
John Machado
Yeah.

01:10:49.98
John Machado
Yeah, so.

01:10:50.96
Bill
So as far as giving back, I mean, what what do you what do you do, um I guess, to give back, or what do you what do you consider part of your program, part of your giving back type of thing in your in your program?

01:10:52.87
John Machado
Uh-huh.

01:11:02.26
John Machado
So it's not like it was in the first five years, that's for sure. And i in in that first sponsor, ah ah you know, I'll get to present time, that first sponsor, he said, you you're going to do you're going to coffee commitment first.

01:11:05.78
Mike
sir Right.

01:11:13.64
John Machado
Right. That was my first ah ah service coffee commitment. Then I was ah volunteering at a rehab center in the county that I live in now ah that's since been closed, by the way. in And why that was pretty cool was that I would see people from the meetings I was going to around the county end up in there.

01:11:31.72
John Machado
and and some of some of them doing the Thorazine shuffle, that that type of ah rehab center.

01:11:31.94
Bill
Right.

01:11:32.32
Mike
Right.

01:11:37.54
John Machado
And then um after I switched sponsors and that the who I switched sponsors, he's still my sponsor today. He's in his 80s now. um we were We did a homeless shelter over by the San Francisco airport and did that did that for a couple of years with him.

01:11:45.13
Mike
Hm.

01:11:45.18
Bill
Nice.

01:11:52.29
John Machado
And now the services, it's it's either program or not program. like i'm I told you about the gentlemen I have coffee with once a month. There's a lady I got sober with, too, and about right about the same time, Nancy, we're going to be having coffee here in a couple of weeks. And so I stay in touch with them, the family member that's 9 months sober. Right now, I'm talking to you on a way more regular basis.

01:12:15.68
John Machado
ah now that she got sober.

01:12:15.85
Mike
Mm-hm.

01:12:18.14
John Machado
in And that's been nothing but good for me to hear too. I keep on repeating that it's good for me to hear. I i do wanna hear what it's like.

01:12:24.99
Mike
Right.

01:12:26.03
John Machado
In fact, i I had a conversation with her the other night. She was upset.

01:12:30.17
Mike
Mm

01:12:30.38
John Machado
You guys will relate to this. Some some guy in the program who had a year and a half sobriety went back out.

01:12:36.57
Mike
-hm.

01:12:36.67
John Machado
And she she was saying, this dude always, he always just said the right things.

01:12:37.44
Bill
Right.

01:12:40.54
John Machado
And I thought he had his his his act together.

01:12:41.65
Mike
obism

01:12:43.23
John Machado
And I said, hey, here's here's the deal. people are gonna go out, regardless of how good they sound in a meeting.

01:12:47.47
Mike
Right?

01:12:50.43
Mike
Oh, yeah.

01:12:51.03
Bill
Right.

01:12:51.79
John Machado
And and and I told her a story about it. I was ah five, six, seven years sober and used to go to college basketball games with this dude named John. He was 13 years sober at the time.

01:13:02.67
John Machado
He started saying some weird stuff in meetings. He went back out on pills, opiates. He was found dead in a bowling alley nine months later.

01:13:10.65
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:13:11.76
Bill
Right?

01:13:12.47
John Machado
And it were it was, it was literally everything was fine. Everything wasn't fine.

01:13:18.24
Mike
Yeah.

01:13:19.45
John Machado
and and i And I won't forget that. in And it's because it is so she goes, oh, I said, it's it's what happens. I said, you're probably going to see more people go out than stay. Not probably, you're you're gonna.

01:13:29.70
Mike
Oh yeah. No, you will. Right.

01:13:31.93
John Machado
And I said, i said the the odds of us getting this thing right and and staying in this, keeping it right for the rest of our lives is very rare.

01:13:41.76
Mike
who

01:13:41.86
John Machado
That's that's that's to the one day at a time concept.

01:13:45.60
Mike
Right.

01:13:45.64
John Machado
And so ah i had this there was a dude that asked me, so you think you're ever going to drink again?

01:13:45.78
Bill
Right.

01:13:52.52
John Machado
I said, well, if you were a betting man, you should bet that I am.

01:13:56.87
Mike
Hmm. Right.

01:13:57.69
John Machado
And he saw me he looked at me and I said, but I'm not drinking today.

01:14:01.67
Mike
Right.

01:14:02.47
John Machado
And and somebody said, dude, you shouldn't say that. I said, it's true.

01:14:06.18
Mike
Yeah. Yeah.

01:14:07.30
John Machado
yeah Yeah.

01:14:07.62
Mike
The odds are exactly.

01:14:10.20
John Machado
And so people,

01:14:10.60
Mike
Yeah. The odds are that's, I mean, we're alcoholics. That's what we do.

01:14:13.51
John Machado
Yeah, it's it's what we do.

01:14:14.19
Mike
We drink.

01:14:16.93
John Machado
And so people get sad on that comment, but I'm i'm fine with the the just the harsh reality of that comment.

01:14:17.16
Mike
Yeah.

01:14:20.05
Mike
Hmm.

01:14:24.47
Mike
yeah Absolutely.

01:14:25.55
John Machado
Yeah.

01:14:25.62
Mike
Yeah. Right.

01:14:27.28
Bill
Well, that reminds me of Siegfried and Royde when the tiger attacked him and people got pissed off at the tiger.

01:14:27.42
Mike
Yeah.

01:14:31.92
Bill
It's a fucking tiger, man. yeah They trained him to play and do tricks for a while, but you know sooner or later he went back to being a tiger and wanted to eat one of them.

01:14:33.44
John Machado
Yeah,

01:14:38.12
Mike
Yes.

01:14:40.29
John Machado
yeah tigers eat other mammals.

01:14:42.53
Bill
Yeah, it's just, it is what it is.

01:14:42.58
Mike
yes

01:14:42.98
John Machado
That's what they do.

01:14:44.02
Bill
he Oh, you can't get mad at the goddamn tiger. that's That's what they do, you know?

01:14:47.50
John Machado
Yeah. So, so anyway, that, that's what I do now. And I, I, I talked to you guys earlier about, I've, I've taken at least 20 phone calls from around the country. And, and there was this one guy, it was through that same guy I was talking about in Phoenix, a buddy has in Minnesota I talked to and he called me up and he he got sober through his church. He could, dude, I don't think this guy gets it. And I said, Rich, that, yeah, nobody gets anybody sober.

01:15:11.77
Bill
Right.

01:15:12.66
John Machado
I said, dude, so I know you didn't do the church.

01:15:13.69
Mike
No.

01:15:15.36
John Machado
So just, we don't know if the dude's going to get sober or not. He might not. And he goes, so you're not, he goes, you're not pissed off about that.

01:15:19.66
Mike
Right.

01:15:21.51
John Machado
I said, no, dude, no, I'm not.

01:15:22.80
Mike
resistance

01:15:23.80
John Machado
And he said, all right. So literally that guy is like, this was 10 years ago. That guy's like three years sober now.

01:15:30.53
Mike
Nice.

01:15:31.12
John Machado
And Rich called me up and said, Hey, you remember this dude? I got remember him. He goes, he's like three years sobriety. I said, good for him.

01:15:38.08
Mike
Yeah.

01:15:38.09
John Machado
So, uh, yeah.

01:15:40.13
Mike
Yeah, you got to work.

01:15:41.62
John Machado
He got to work.

01:15:41.70
Mike
Finally, finally.

01:15:42.59
John Machado
Yeah.

01:15:43.88
Mike
Yeah, right.

01:15:43.89
John Machado
So, yeah.

01:15:44.90
Mike
Exactly. I mean, you know, my my absolute favorite line in the big book, Bill knows what this is, is, you know, there is no cure for alcoholism. All we get is a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

01:15:59.41
John Machado
That's.

01:15:59.73
Mike
And that's it. That's that's the whole program in a fucking nutshell. There's no cure.

01:16:03.64
John Machado
That's no.

01:16:04.72
Mike
We have to do the maintenance every goddamn day. Otherwise we drink because that's what we do.

01:16:09.64
Bill
Right.

01:16:09.79
John Machado
Yeah, because of this because of this thing that sits on top of our shoulders.

01:16:10.92
Mike
Yeah.

01:16:13.55
John Machado
You're absolutely right.

01:16:14.38
Mike
Yeah, right.

01:16:14.76
John Machado
Yeah.

01:16:15.03
Bill
Right.

01:16:15.37
Mike
it It never goes away.

01:16:16.79
John Machado
Yeah.

01:16:17.00
Mike
I'm an alcoholic. I will always be an alcoholic. That's fine. you know But if I do the work, I take care of the maintenance every day, there's a real good chance I'm not gonna drink.

01:16:27.98
Mike
you know If I don't do the shit, there's a real good chance I'm gonna drink.

01:16:33.29
John Machado
Yeah, that's that's a fact.

01:16:33.66
Mike
Not a good chance, it's guaranteed, 100%. If I don't do this shit, the the things that these people taught me to do to stay away from that first one, I'm picking up the first one, period.

01:16:44.95
Mike
That's gonna happen.

01:16:45.25
John Machado
Yeah.

01:16:46.28
Mike
and I'm, again, thoroughly convinced of that fact.

01:16:46.34
Bill
Right?

01:16:49.26
Mike
you know So I do what these people tell me to do. I mean, ah people that listen to this know I'm an atheist. I was an atheist when I came into the program. I'm still an atheist. I was scared to fucking death, because I didn't know if this was gonna work for me.

01:17:03.44
Mike
um But I pray twice a day because it's an action they told me to take. Now I thoroughly believe nothing hears me and that's okay. Doesn't matter what I believe. What matters is I take the action that they told me to take. They told me to fucking pray twice a day. Say please in the morning and thank you at night. And I do every fucking day.

01:17:25.37
John Machado
Yeah. And in in the beautiful thing about that too is, is around program people, I feel way less judged and I'm way less judgmental.

01:17:38.63
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:17:39.38
John Machado
Right now you take, you take me away from program people and I'm not such a nice guy at times, but then, but that's, that's good stuff that you just said there because it's it is, we' we're just, we're just working this program and that's all we're doing.

01:17:39.55
Mike
Yeah.

01:17:44.27
Mike
Yeah.

01:17:48.22
Mike
yeah

01:17:53.15
Mike
Yeah.

01:17:53.85
John Machado
Yeah.

01:17:54.63
Mike
That's all we're doing, you know, really good buddy of ours. Um, his, his wife got sober. They were, they were running partners for years and years. And, um, she finally, you know, they were in and out and whatever. And, um, so they're familiar with the program and she finally.

01:18:10.16
Mike
made her decision and started working the program. And her sponsor kept her away from him. And he was pissed, right?

01:18:17.34
Bill
Yeah, that's all we're doing.

01:18:18.95
Mike
And he said, Okay, fine. You know what, I know what the program is, I'm going to go and I'm going to work these steps to the best of my ability to prove to you motherfuckers that it doesn't work.

01:18:21.48
Bill
That's all we're doing. You don't really get plenty of art.

01:18:30.25
Mike
And he's 10 years sober now.

01:18:32.04
John Machado
Nice.

01:18:32.60
Mike
Right?

01:18:32.92
John Machado
Nice.

01:18:34.07
Mike
Yeah.

01:18:34.10
John Machado
Yeah, i'm I'll show you.

01:18:36.51
Mike
That's right, I will work this.

01:18:36.57
Bill
Yeah.

01:18:38.03
Mike
And he did, he honestly worked it to show that it didn't work and it fucking worked.

01:18:42.76
John Machado
That's awesome. That's a good story.

01:18:43.99
Mike
Yeah.

01:18:44.55
John Machado
Yeah.

01:18:45.12
Bill
Yeah, that's our that's our buddy Tony. And we actually had both him and his wife, Angel, on here.

01:18:47.10
John Machado
yeah

01:18:49.12
Bill
And and Mike brought up that story. and Because he had told me about it. i just And I've known Tony for a number of years, not as long as Mike has. But um I don't know, whenever he told me a couple of years ago, before Tony was on, I'm like, are you serious?

01:19:01.55
Bill
I did not know that about our buddy. And then, yeah, he we he told that story on here. And we were still, were I laugh every time I hear it. Because I'm like, that's just, if if there's nothing else, it does there's nothing else that proves that this shit works it's taking somebody who did it to try to prove it didn't work and it did it's crazy oh it's crazy so um what else john i mean any anything else about uh you know the books anything about uh you know what you're doing anything else you'd want to i don't know tell people talk to people about as we wrap up i mean obviously uh you know it's your time

01:19:18.90
Mike
Uh

01:19:18.99
John Machado
Yeah, though that's it gets a good ah yeah good exercise, no doubt.

01:19:19.07
Mike
huh.

01:19:35.90
John Machado
No, thank you guys. if Thank you. Thank you guys for letting me talk about the books because I didn't want to come out on here and just do that. And thank you for putting up on your Instagram site too. I appreciate it. No, I think, I think one of the main things that that I heard recently too was, you know, we, we talk about, people always talk about, uh, uh, look at, we'll look at what the booze and the drugs did to them.

01:19:44.88
Mike
Yeah.

01:19:45.13
Bill
Thank

01:19:57.14
John Machado
But I think people don't understand what it did for us.

01:19:57.74
Mike
Hmm. Oh yeah.

01:20:01.19
John Machado
you know that that's the bigger That's the bigger piece of what it did for us.

01:20:03.55
Bill
you.

01:20:05.34
John Machado
in It did a lot for me at first, you know as you guys can relate.

01:20:06.28
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:20:09.89
John Machado
But but the last the last two years it did it, and those were miserable those were miserable years.

01:20:10.22
Mike
Yeah.

01:20:13.15
Mike
Right.

01:20:15.18
John Machado
i didn't even I wouldn't even answer my door. It didn't even matter if you came over. Because if you didn't call me first and tell me you were coming over, I used to have family and friends go, Dude, I came over yesterday and I said, I heard you knock or ring the doorbell, but you don't come over here without letting me know first.

01:20:30.88
John Machado
I mean, that was, that was my miserable attitude hold up in an apartment.

01:20:30.90
Mike
Right.

01:20:35.51
Mike
Yeah, definitely.

01:20:35.52
John Machado
in um And, and, and we're, we're not that way anymore.

01:20:35.64
Bill
Right?

01:20:39.58
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:20:41.16
John Machado
I'm not saying, I'm not saying that I'm the squared away dude, because this, I got this thing on my shoulders called my brain. And it, and it works in overdrive sometimes. And I have to do stuff to calm it down.

01:20:52.42
John Machado
But, but I'm very thankful and grateful that I got here in, and again, It's just a one day at a time thing for me. i don't I don't have any secrets or anything like that for for anybody else.

01:21:07.56
Bill
Right? Yeah, we joked about that that. Yeah, just listen to the next episode. We'll give you the secret of this whole thing because there isn't one.

01:21:15.42
John Machado
Yeah.

01:21:15.57
Bill
Yeah.

01:21:15.66
John Machado
Keep them coming back. You know, there was a guy, I left a meeting once and there was this guy, Roger, he's always, he's always, always speak. He's always to say the same thing. And so outside, I said, dude, he's, he's since passed away.

01:21:24.14
Mike
Uh

01:21:25.63
John Machado
He had a, he died of a heart issue during surgery. And I said, dude, why do you always say the same thing? And he said, John, he goes, yeah, I'm not talking for you.

01:21:31.63
Mike
-uh. right. I need to fucking hear it.

01:21:36.99
John Machado
He said, he said, it's for me and the newcomer.

01:21:37.73
Mike
I gotta keep it reminding myself.

01:21:42.78
John Machado
I said, all right, touche.

01:21:43.00
Bill
Right.

01:21:46.17
Mike
out

01:21:46.79
John Machado
So yeah, and that's that whole principles before personalities where, you know, get caught up in something that's just not necessary.

01:21:46.94
Bill
hey Yeah, but yeah, actually, reminding our last couple of episodes, God constantly, we say that.

01:21:50.52
Mike
anything Absolutely.

01:21:54.91
Mike
absolutely

01:22:01.03
Bill
just It makes me laugh that we have to remind ourselves of these things. OK, don't be a dick today, um treat people nice.

01:22:06.69
John Machado
Yeah.

01:22:08.75
Bill
you know Just don't.

01:22:08.83
John Machado
Right.

01:22:09.71
Bill
all All these things we have to keep doing. OK, listen, you're an alcoholic. you have to You can't do these things today.

01:22:16.39
John Machado
Yeah, you can't act like a child today.

01:22:16.55
Bill
mean it's it's yeah And it's it's it's kind of laughable, but it is.

01:22:18.19
John Machado
Exactly.

01:22:18.76
Mike
okay

01:22:20.79
Bill
I mean, you know quick forgetters, right, Mike?

01:22:23.69
Mike
Absolutely selfish and self-centered that we think is the root of our troubles.

01:22:28.19
Bill
Yeah, right.

01:22:29.49
John Machado
Bingo.

01:22:29.98
Bill
But honestly, John, I mean, seriously, we we appreciate you coming on. And yeah, by all means that the books, I mean, we realize that people want to you know tell their stories, but we have no issue whatsoever, obviously.

01:22:41.36
Bill
And we we welcome that. And when people are doing something, promoting something, other podcasts, books, whatever the deal is, I mean, that's That's a part of, you know, we're all in this, all in this shit together anyhow, you know, is really what it comes down to. But um thank you. I mean, we we truly appreciate it. And once again, everyone, take a look at the the show notes on this or the the description, you'll see a link to to John's website. ah If you're looking on, obviously, if people see it on Instagram, you can follow a link through there. Got a copy and paste it, which I don't think you can do on Instagram. But go on Spotify or Apple, you can click through and obviously get to his website. But do you want to do you want to say what your website is right off the bat, too?

01:23:17.81
John Machado
Oh, it's JohnAllanMishado.com. same as those Same as the title on the books, same as my Instagram.

01:23:20.82
Bill
Okay.

01:23:24.53
Bill
Perfect.

01:23:24.69
Mike
Cool.

01:23:25.09
Bill
Okay. Well, i think I think we're done, right Mike? I think Mike, youth but well, not done, done yet.

01:23:29.35
Mike
Yeah.

01:23:30.21
Bill
mike Mike's turned to to get us out of here. Mike does a closing, so it's time for John, you and I to be quiet for a minute, okay?

01:23:36.78
John Machado
Got it.

01:23:37.30
Mike
All right, well, thank you everyone for listening to another episode of So We're Not Mature. Thank you, John, for joining us and sharing your wonderful story and a great conversation with us tonight. Now go out there and do something nice for somebody else this week. Don't tell anybody you did it. And hey, guess what, kids? It's that time.

01:23:56.04
Mike
It's 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

01:24:12.89
John Machado
Awesome.

01:24:13.59
Bill
ah It's still one of my favorite parts. the The short story behind that is that our sister found that God.

01:24:16.05
John Machado
That's awesome.

01:24:19.10
Bill
Has that been two years ago, year and a half, at least to ago, right?

01:24:20.97
Mike
Yeah, something like that. Well, yeah, because I was just ah I was just signing off with okay kids fuck off

01:24:26.11
Bill
Yeah.

01:24:26.17
John Machado
Nice, nice.

01:24:27.67
Bill
Yeah, I think it was our it was like our first real episode, like episode four or five or whatever.

01:24:28.10
John Machado
I was smiling the whole time.

01:24:33.14
Bill
And I said, we got to think of some fun way to like sign off on this. And Mike's laughing. He's like, the only thing I can think of is fuck off. So I'm like, OK, well, let's I guess we're doing that.

01:24:41.72
John Machado
Nice, nice.

01:24:43.03
Bill
Yeah, but um no, seriously, thank you um you know very, very much. We appreciate it. And then everyone, visit his websites, check out his books, reach out reach out to him on Instagram. um you know We just appreciate, obviously, somebody coming on here and sharing, taking their time, number one, but sharing all their stories.

01:24:59.15
Bill
So thank you very much, OK?

01:25:00.95
John Machado
Thank you both.

01:25:02.41
Bill
Yeah, not a problem. Mike, I know we'll talk soon, right?

01:25:04.60
Mike
We shall. Love you, brother.

01:25:06.54
Bill
Love you, too.

01:25:07.36
Mike
All right.

01:25:07.67
Bill
Bye.

01:25:08.73
Mike
Bye.