SoberNotMature - Episode 190 (Let's Go Spelunking)

00:00:01.39
Bill
All right, everyone, welcome once again to another episode of Sober Not Mature. And you know what? I had this little this little thing kind of, and I'll say planned. I don't plan many things, but I had this this headline planned because, you know, just to let everyone know kind of like, hey, it's just us.

00:00:17.29
Bill
But something something even something even better happened before the podcast started.

00:00:17.88
Mike
Yeah. Yeah, said I thought we had fucking guest.

00:00:22.99
Bill
First of all, Mike says, go ahead, tell them what you said.

00:00:25.45
Mike
um yeah i said i thought we had a fucking guest

00:00:29.54
Bill
No, because at first of all, he's like, he's like ah where are you? And i'm like I'm like, wait, because I thought maybe we were having technical issues. He couldn't hear me. So um the short story is, and I'll talk about it. I'm going to the Lake of the Ozarks again, but I'll talk about it that that again. That's not until next week.

00:00:42.61
Bill
He's like, don't we have that author person?

00:00:44.50
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:00:46.01
Bill
And I'm like, no, next week. And this is, I wanted to bring up and obviously promote our guests anyhow. So thank you, Mike. This was a perfect, perfect opportunity for me to, for me to kind of make fun of the situation and enjoy our little pre-podcast meeting, even though we didn't plan on one.

00:00:51.92
Mike
her

00:00:58.53
Mike
aha

00:00:59.76
Bill
um But yeah, next week we have ah Tony who is with the Sober Curator, one of our fellow Sober Curators. um And also the creator of um so the Sober Stoic, I believe it's called. a

00:01:12.10
Mike
That sounds right.

00:01:12.19
Bill
Working off a memory here. Hang on one second. Oh, wait a second, Mike. I'm going to look at our upcoming guest list real quick just so I can...

00:01:17.85
Mike
yeah yeah yeah yeah

00:01:18.84
Bill
yeah

00:01:20.28
Mike
Fuck and you.

00:01:22.69
Bill
So the other thing I told Mike, I'm like, it helped with you. Cause you know, just, just so away as a side note, just so everyone knows. So like, I don't think anyone ever even looks at those. Cause like, for a while I wasn't updating updating stuff.

00:01:31.21
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:01:32.69
Bill
And he's like, he's like, I look at it. That's how I know.

00:01:34.59
Mike
Yeah, right.

00:01:35.64
Bill
That's how I know. Who's going to be there. That's.

00:01:38.41
Mike
Right. It is. Yeah. and And I, you know, I had, I didn't look this week because I had it. but I was like, oh, we've got guests like lined up, so I don't need to worry about shit. I can just crack the microphone and sit back and yeah. Hmm.

00:01:53.85
Bill
Right.

00:01:53.93
Mike
Apparently not.

00:01:54.01
Bill
Well, it was was funny because, i of course, I threw that back at my friend's face. And I'm like, well, maybe you should have taken a look at the upcoming guest list.

00:01:59.03
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:02:01.09
Bill
But anyhow, so um ah Tony is a fellow sober curator, founder of A Stoic Sobriety.

00:02:01.65
Mike
Yes. Yes.

00:02:06.79
Bill
um If you do, just on on a real notes... positive note, sincere note here. Take a look at our Instagram post.

00:02:11.58
Mike
Yes.

00:02:12.58
Bill
Anyone out there, there's ah ah link to his Instagram handle, but that also goes to his website. He's got a blog, all those sort of things. But yeah, Tony's going to be on next week. I just confirmed everything with him today again, so we're good to go.

00:02:23.54
Mike
Cool.

00:02:24.56
Bill
um Week after that, the 24th, it's, well, it's us again.

00:02:28.67
Mike
Okay.

00:02:28.69
Bill
And then the 30th, we're

00:02:29.60
Mike
Wait, where's my pencil?

00:02:31.21
Bill
yeah And then on the 30th, we have ah Beth McDonough, and she's the one that, former journalist and also author, that's the author person, another one.

00:02:36.33
Mike
Right.

00:02:40.84
Mike
Okay. glad did i don't

00:02:43.60
Bill
But we're we're doing God, doing it a a cat do it her. was going to say doing doing it with her.

00:02:47.34
Mike
Hey now, settle down.

00:02:50.14
Bill
Neither one sounds good. um

00:02:52.17
Mike
it's

00:02:52.40
Bill
Beth is going to be a guest of ours on Thursday that week because Friday's Halloween and Mike wants to sit outside and throw candy at children.

00:02:54.09
Mike
Yes. Yep.

00:02:59.14
Bill
so

00:02:59.44
Mike
Yes, I do. It's one of my favorite things to do.

00:03:00.86
Bill
But, yeah.

00:03:01.75
Mike
Fourth of July and Halloween. I get to do it twice a year.

00:03:04.66
Bill
Right. So, so yeah, so those are our upcoming guests, which ah again, i mean, I wanted to, you know, kind of mention those anyhow, since we, you know, got out of a couple of guests, but, and then also, ah I mean, seriously, a quick thank you to the guests that we did have over the last couple of weeks, of course.

00:03:18.22
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:03:18.65
Bill
um Our friend Mara was from episode 188. That was two weeks ago.

00:03:23.66
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:03:23.82
Bill
And then we had Betty on last week, episode 189. Take a look at both of those because Mara's episode actually did better than our average. And I know why, because Mara got pissed that she started yelling at her.

00:03:35.18
Mike
Yep. Mm-hmm.

00:03:37.04
Bill
She started yelling at her at her friends. And I support all you guys.

00:03:39.41
Mike
youpe

00:03:40.56
Bill
that You can't listen to my fucking episode.

00:03:43.03
Mike
see

00:03:43.17
Bill
So... That one did better than average, but I have a point. I'm going to prove a point with that a minute here. um Betty's did about average. So, you know, I mean, it's great. Still about the same number, you know, not high, and not low, right in the middle there with us.

00:03:52.52
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right?

00:03:55.08
Bill
um But the anyone who, well, there's, there's a couple of different things. If, if anyone's listening that ends up being a guest on here We have a certain audience, and I think we've made that pretty clear.

00:04:05.23
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:04:06.19
Bill
We're small. um We've got a very loyal audience.

00:04:07.24
Mike
Right?

00:04:09.10
Bill
And quite honestly, we know for a fact there's one in particular that would rather just listen to us.

00:04:14.17
Mike
Okay.

00:04:14.43
Bill
you know

00:04:14.71
Mike
It has.

00:04:16.20
Bill
and We don't have to call the person out, but you know it's it's been said on here before, so I guess it wouldn't be a big deal.

00:04:18.32
Mike
okay it has

00:04:22.20
Bill
um But the thing of it is is that I think that the reason that... that happens is that the the guests that we have don't promote themselves, you know?

00:04:31.44
Mike
he

00:04:31.95
Bill
So, you know, you're going to get your normal listeners. Maybe a few of ours will drop off if it's somebody they don't know, um you know, or somebody they think that are they to be interested in.

00:04:37.38
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:04:40.29
Bill
i the Same way with podcasts, you know, but the guests can can help that episode out by promoting it and then, you know, we build a new audience. So we, my point is, is in we've said it before, we need help to, we're not looking at it growing huge necessarily.

00:04:47.56
Mike
Sure.

00:04:53.51
Bill
be wonderful though, wouldn't it? Yeah.

00:04:54.86
Mike
That would be great. Well, you know, there's a bunch people out there that don't have Mark Meriden to listen to anymore, so they can listen to us now.

00:05:01.18
Bill
Yeah, speaking of that, his final episode is coming up on Monday. So this Monday is his final one.

00:05:04.50
Mike
Right.

00:05:06.09
Bill
His last one, he did the the last one in the garage, second to last one that came out, must have come out yesterday.

00:05:10.74
Mike
Yeah. Matt Groening. Oh, yeah. Right. Well, he did. His last one with the guest was Matt Groening, which I actually listened to.

00:05:16.23
Bill
Yeah. I haven't listened to that one yet because I listened to the one before that with that dude Flanagan that runs Largo, the comedy club. um The dude's from Ireland. Actually, very interesting episode.

00:05:26.48
Bill
but who' was so funny.

00:05:26.58
Mike
Hmm.

00:05:27.36
Bill
Mark's known him for 25 years or whatever it is.

00:05:29.68
Mike
Right.

00:05:30.42
Bill
Didn't know his first name was Mark. Had no idea.

00:05:32.30
Mike
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

00:05:32.82
Bill
everyone Everyone just calls him Flanagan. but does yeah So I'm almost done with that. I want to listen to that. Graining? Groening? Groening? Groening?

00:05:38.68
Mike
Grating.

00:05:38.70
Bill
graing Matt Groening. And then, you know, i saw him a couple episodes behind. But yeah, so Mark's podcast is done as of Monday.

00:05:42.64
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:05:44.49
Bill
So sure. Anyone that happens to listen to Mark Barron, tell all the Mark Barron folks, come on over here.

00:05:48.56
Mike
Yep.

00:05:49.31
Bill
so If our numbers raised by like a million, then we know where those came from.

00:05:49.40
Mike
Right.

00:05:52.45
Mike
Yeah.

00:05:53.71
Bill
okay But no, seriously. And then, you know, if, if you guys as as listeners, if you like a guest, especially um fucking tell somebody about it, you know?

00:06:03.47
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:06:03.68
Bill
And that's, that's the whole point is that, I mean, I end up on listening to random podcasts because of a guest or because I was told about a guest or something like that. So we do the same thing. I mean, I, I mean, we pop around to different things based on guests. So, you know, help out, help out the folks that we have on here. And, know,

00:06:19.94
Bill
Just real quick, Mike, how do we pick our guests? Give people an idea about how we pick our guests. yeah

00:06:26.06
Mike
Uh...

00:06:27.73
Bill
It's okay. let's We're always honest.

00:06:29.48
Mike
Right, yeah.

00:06:29.58
Bill
We're always honest.

00:06:29.96
Mike
Well, i mean, generally, they somebody reaches out to us, sends us an email, and says, hey, we'd like to be on your show. And then we look at it, and we go, eh, it might be all right, or that might suck.

00:06:40.38
Mike
and

00:06:41.35
Bill
ah

00:06:42.83
Mike
And then Bill gets back to him and says, sure, come on on, or no thank you.

00:06:47.90
Bill
yeah yeah appreciate Appreciate it. to Wish you all the best.

00:06:50.12
Mike
Yeah. Yes.

00:06:50.94
Bill
Wish you the best. Little pat on the back.

00:06:53.00
Mike
ah

00:06:53.08
Bill
But I mean, the the other thing, too, is that we do, um we take our, we a lot of the guests that we, I think it's usually, it's a coin flip between guests that we don't think we're going to necessarily mesh with.

00:07:03.70
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:07:03.91
Bill
um You know, maybe even less than that, maybe 30% that we don't think we'll mesh with.

00:07:07.35
Mike
Right.

00:07:07.66
Bill
But I think the majority of them are things that we don't think they're going to appeal to those of you that are listening.

00:07:12.97
Mike
Right.

00:07:13.21
Bill
You know, so we take that if we're not selfish when it comes to the guests, I guess is my point.

00:07:17.47
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.

00:07:18.33
Bill
And even our friends, our friends that we come out, we know for a fact there they they have worth to the people who listen to us, you know. um You know, and even a a random one like Shirley said with Mara, she's like, well, you guys took a took a little bit of a, you know, a detour with that one.

00:07:30.90
Bill
But it was one of our friends still sober, but now doing.

00:07:31.25
Mike
right

00:07:33.87
Bill
Yes, that the topic was something we've never done, you know, um but interesting as fuck, you know, so.

00:07:37.36
Mike
Sure. Yeah, right. You know, i we can talk about other things.

00:07:44.35
Bill
Right. Yeah.

00:07:45.08
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:07:45.48
Bill
and And it is it's it's nice to have something, I think, out of the ordinary. But, you know, again, the fact that it was I mean, you know, it's obviously brought to you by a sober person. But even if it wasn't, I mean, if we had somebody that we thought would be interesting, that was not, you know, not sober, but not a fucking a-hole and had something interesting to to talk about.

00:07:54.94
Mike
Yike.

00:07:59.58
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:08:02.84
Mike
Right.

00:08:05.07
Bill
I mean, I don't see why we'd have somebody on that, you know, you know, was out of the ordinary, you know

00:08:07.54
Mike
Yeah, I'm right. Exactly. I mean, you know, and and if you've listened to any of these episodes, trust us, we'll bring it around to some sort of sobriety.

00:08:18.11
Bill
Yeah, exactly. there's there's there's a lot of There's a lot of goddamn talk outside of sobriety anyhow.

00:08:23.39
Mike
Yeah.

00:08:23.52
Bill
And speaking of that, the fucking dogs are barking. And I'm looking, you know, Kathy is not not home yet, but and she's not like driving up or anything.

00:08:26.11
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:08:29.06
Mike
ah

00:08:30.94
Bill
But hang on, I'm going to mute and I got to yell real quick. or They're just going to keep barking.

00:08:33.91
Mike
All right.

00:08:34.86
Bill
Hang on.

00:08:36.29
Mike
Well, Bill's off smacking some dogs around. He'll be back shortly. In the meantime, i could do the reading, but I won't do that without Bill here.

00:08:48.31
Bill
Okay.

00:08:48.44
Mike
um

00:08:48.63
Bill
I'm good.

00:08:49.16
Mike
Hi there. Yeah.

00:08:51.13
Bill
Yeah. That was just a quick one. It's just, you know, the doors right behind me, open the door, tugger, knock it off.

00:08:55.87
Mike
Sure.

00:08:55.87
Bill
He just, I don't know. He's, it I know I've talked about the dogs plenty, but they're, they're two little shit shoes.

00:09:00.09
Mike
Sure.

00:09:01.51
Bill
um They're like 11 and 13.

00:09:03.65
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:09:04.23
Bill
They're not going to change their ways. I try, especially when I'm downstairs making dinner and then Kathy gets home and they're barking.

00:09:06.15
Mike
No.

00:09:09.83
Bill
I try to stop them, you know, figure, try to train that into them a little bit. But I mean, that,

00:09:13.16
Mike
Right. So, wait, wait, wait, wait. So, they're old dogs and they won't learn new tricks. Okay.

00:09:19.55
Bill
Wait, I've heard that. Yes. Yeah, they can. They cannot. They cannot.

00:09:22.87
Mike
Okay.

00:09:23.60
Bill
But, uh, yeah, it just, uh, I don't know. It, it kind of, it kind of is what it is, but, um, oh yeah, I guess speaking of, she maybe should just get home. Oh, well, yeah, whatever, whatever. So anyhow, the, the dogs are done, but back to the episodes real quick. So yeah, we've got a couple of people coming up.

00:09:36.97
Bill
Um, we're, we're free and clear, I think for the month of November, December, which is usually our thing. We still have that one guest that you and I have to decide on, which maybe we can fit into the month of November or whatever, but, um,

00:09:44.90
Mike
Oh, yeah.

00:09:47.74
Mike
Yeah.

00:09:48.73
Bill
I don't know. Person seems kind of interesting. I looked at a couple of things, but you and I could chit chat on that later.

00:09:52.43
Mike
And we'll have our Thanksgiving spectacular live from Valpo.

00:09:52.73
Bill
So yeah, one, one way or the other, whether, yeah, I'll be here.

00:09:58.63
Mike
Wait, are you going to be there? Okay. Yeah. I probably will be too.

00:10:03.51
Bill
Well, I was going to say, yeah, cause last year you weren't feeling good or something was going on in your, was it car issues?

00:10:06.34
Mike
Right. Yeah. And it was ah the car. Car. Yeah. Bunch of shit, man. Yeah. I couldn't make it out last year. Um,

00:10:13.48
Bill
Right.

00:10:14.27
Mike
Oh, and I mean, not that anybody gives a fuck right now, but um yeah, the 14th of November, since we're talking about it, or yeah, the 15th, 14th, whatever that Friday is, we need to record the day before because I'm going to Chicago to hang out with Donnie and all the kids.

00:10:14.40
Bill
Right. Well, you,

00:10:30.06
Bill
Oh, so we have to record on November 14th.

00:10:30.18
Mike
Everybody's going to be there.

00:10:34.38
Mike
Whatever the fuck the day is, that that Thursday before that Friday. Ha ha ha ha ha.

00:10:41.35
Bill
That would be November 13th.

00:10:43.43
Mike
All right. It works for me. Sure.

00:10:45.57
Bill
11, 13, record.

00:10:46.41
Mike
Yeah.

00:10:46.82
Bill
record okay I'm just, I'm making my, you know what I'm going to do once once we're done here? I'm going to add that to the upcoming guest list.

00:10:52.48
Mike
Okay.

00:10:52.66
Bill
Yeah.

00:10:54.41
Mike
That I won't read.

00:10:55.92
Bill
Right. Which is, I don't know. hey It's just, it's just kind of funny because I, um, seriously, I don't think that I seriously don't think anyone looks at that. I think the only, the only reason that people even notice that is that, uh, I, I tagged the guests in that.

00:11:07.74
Bill
So I'm sure they, they see it. They, you know, pulls them to a post, but, uh, I mean, I truly, I just don't think that anyone, anyone reads those, but.

00:11:09.90
Mike
Right.

00:11:14.41
Mike
Yeah, again, i i usually do. ah And I thought I had i whatever I had in my head that yeah doesn't fucking matter.

00:11:24.27
Bill
so it's

00:11:25.00
Mike
Here we are.

00:11:25.06
Bill
It's just, it's all of it. All of it's okay because it it just gave us 11 and a half minutes of material basically. so

00:11:31.67
Mike
Sure.

00:11:33.19
Bill
yeah But hey, so now that, and yeah, that was the other thing. Mike's like, God damn it. I got to go grab a book. Hang on.

00:11:39.43
Mike
hear

00:11:40.36
Bill
Before we started. so um And you did, you you grabbed a book.

00:11:41.87
Mike
yo

00:11:43.39
Bill
So you're you're good.

00:11:43.51
Mike
I did.

00:11:44.15
Bill
and You found a reading, I think, even from today, if I'm not mistaken, right?

00:11:47.09
Mike
Dav, right. i i yeah

00:11:49.08
Bill
Yeah.

00:11:51.82
Mike
Right. Half awake this morning and went, oh, that one's not half bad. dad Too bad I can't read it tonight.

00:11:59.82
Mike
it

00:12:00.02
Bill
Eh, best laid plans.

00:12:01.81
Mike
Right. But um yeah, so anyway, a reading. Let's do a reading, Bill.

00:12:05.76
Bill
Okay. All right, Mike, let's do...

00:12:08.90
Mike
This is ah October 10th.

00:12:09.58
Bill
yeah

00:12:12.11
Mike
This is from Keep It Simple. I didn't clearly didn't have time to do shit, um ah so I don't know who this person is that the quote is from, but here is the quote. ah The foolish and the dead never changed their opinions.

00:12:28.71
Mike
James Russell Lowell. Google it yourself. All right. um We need to stay fresh in our program. We need to be open to new ideas.

00:12:40.37
Mike
We need change. The ways we work the steps to change for us as the years go by. And as we grow, more of the fog of our denial clears away.

00:12:53.22
Mike
Then we see the world and our program in different ways. We need to allow this to happen. At times, it's scary to give up old ways and old opinions, but this is what allows new growth.

00:13:07.49
Mike
Every day, we wake up to a new world. Being alive means change. Being alive in our program will also mean change. Opinions and ideas are like a sturdy tree.

00:13:20.71
Mike
The base is strong, but the leaves change with the seasons. Oh, how poetic. All right. Prayer for the day. Higher power. Help me stay fresh and alive.

00:13:32.10
Mike
Help me stay open to new ideas and attitudes. Let me not become rigid. Action for the day. Goddamn actions. Today I'll ask two friends to tell me how I may be rigid.

00:13:44.91
Mike
i will listen to what they have to say.

00:13:48.34
Bill
um'm going to try to keep it clean. Okay.

00:13:49.96
Mike
Yeah, I know.

00:13:50.14
Bill
Cause,

00:13:50.80
Mike
As I'm reading it, I know exactly what's going through your fucking head.

00:13:50.92
Bill
but

00:13:53.73
Bill
yeah but you know, what and it's funny though, that first of all, I posted this this morning cause there was, there was this one and there was a one from touchstones, but the the problem with, and I think I mentioned this with touchstones before it's supposed to be a reading for men um or guided tour or leaning towards men, but it's only like every,

00:13:58.63
Mike
Oh, did you?

00:14:10.29
Mike
Yeah, right.

00:14:13.51
Bill
Every handful of readings, the word men is in there, but it's not like, it's not like God in the 24 hour book. You know, it's not that type of reading, like men, men, men, men.

00:14:19.41
Mike
Right, right.

00:14:21.60
Bill
men um

00:14:21.85
Mike
Right.

00:14:23.55
Bill
But one of the most

00:14:23.84
Mike
Penis, testicles.

00:14:27.42
Bill
prostate exam, finger in the butt.

00:14:28.64
Mike
You need a shave, right?

00:14:30.09
Bill
Yeah, exactly. Balls.

00:14:32.35
Mike
I said testicles.

00:14:33.72
Bill
I know.

00:14:33.97
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:14:34.36
Bill
I just threw in the balls part because it made me think of old school. Cock, balls. But dumb it was just the the last line of it was kind of nicely wrapped up. The reading had that in there.

00:14:44.84
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:14:44.87
Bill
And I'm like, yeah, I like to they keep it. I both keep it simple in that, so I chose to keep it simple one. Um, but I mean, the, the thing of it is it's, it's, to me, it's kind of funny that you pick that not only, you know, kind of randomly cause you weren't ready, um, or planning on a reading and then thought about it.

00:14:58.05
Mike
Right.

00:14:59.30
Bill
So that one stuck in your head and obviously stuck in my head cause I posted the goddamn thing.

00:15:03.44
Mike
Right.

00:15:03.53
Bill
So I think that's pretty good indication. That's a damn good reading. So, um, at least, at least to us are that's, it's our opinion.

00:15:09.68
Mike
Right.

00:15:11.14
Bill
And I think that's a mention in there.

00:15:11.60
Mike
see

00:15:13.48
Bill
Yeah.

00:15:13.94
Mike
a

00:15:16.16
Bill
Yeah, just the opening line I thought was really funny. What is it? The um something in the dead, right? um

00:15:21.45
Mike
The foolish and the dead never changed their opinions.

00:15:22.56
Bill
Yeah.

00:15:25.21
Bill
I just, I laughed, you know, it's like right away at, you know, some ungodly time of the of the morning today.

00:15:30.63
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:15:30.66
Bill
And I'm sitting there kind of, you know, chuckling at that. But um yeah, I mean, the things that I wrote down were, Obviously, well, not obviously, but I wrote down about stay fresh. um Steps can change as far as how we work them, ah seeing the program in new ways.

00:15:39.63
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:15:42.01
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:15:44.99
Bill
the The last part where you said that, you know, obviously the the the roots and the leaves um or the base and that sort of thing, that that I want to say for for last. Because that when I looked at it, i and I agree with you, it's kind of poetic and I don't know, it is what it is, but...

00:15:56.25
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:15:57.96
Bill
um It was a strong statement, I thought, you know, so let's save that one, let that one for last.

00:16:00.71
Mike
Yes. Yeah.

00:16:03.94
Bill
But so the first one, my my question, when the the steps. OK, so it says the steps can change or how we work.

00:16:09.83
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:16:11.69
Bill
The steps can change or maybe maybe even should change over time, because i think we've talked about that.

00:16:12.47
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm. Should.

00:16:16.05
Bill
But what does that what do you what does that mean? I don't want to say what does that mean to you, Mike? But you know what i mean?

00:16:20.80
Mike
Right.

00:16:21.83
Bill
What is that? What do you what do you think about that?

00:16:24.16
Mike
I mean, well, yeah, clearly. I mean, it talks about, again, the poetic, you know, the fog clears. ah You pull your head out of your ass and you can see.

00:16:31.44
Bill
Right.

00:16:34.26
Mike
um Yeah, I mean, it's, yes, i I definitely work the steps differently than I did, you know, at six months or, you know, whatever. Well, at six months, I hadn't gone through them all.

00:16:46.43
Mike
um But, i mean, yeah, okay. So, I mean, I've said it on here plenty of times, right? I work the first three steps before I get out of bed in the morning. It's absolutely true.

00:16:54.62
Bill
right

00:16:55.46
Mike
I do. I still do. um But, yeah, I mean, you know, yeah. yeah, I clearly work them all differently. They mean different things to me at 15 and a half years than they did at a year and a half. They better.

00:17:10.50
Mike
um

00:17:10.54
Bill
Right.

00:17:11.56
Mike
You know, I mean, yeah, you know, um the powerlessness is far clearer today than it was then. um You know, the unmanageability. um Absolutely. I mean, I didn't, i you know, today I thought I was, you know, at, let's say year sober, I thought I was managing things fairly well.

00:17:32.21
Mike
um I mean, it was, it was probably, you know, two, two and a half years, somewhere in there that I went, you know, hey, asshole. um You're not managing your life. This thing, these principles are managing your life. That's why it's working so well.

00:17:48.28
Bill
Right.

00:17:48.39
Mike
You know, yeah. oh yeah So yeah, that definitely changes and it's and it's deeper now. you know um You know, and clearly, you know, the God steps, right? You know, two and three um have changed. You know, the powers greater than myself are deeper and deeper.

00:18:08.41
Mike
you know, uh, more abundant than they were back then. um and yeah, you know, i hopefully another couple of years, uh, if I make it at another 15, uh, not hold my breath on that one, but no, um,

00:18:18.83
Bill
yeah

00:18:23.69
Mike
ah Yeah, you know, it's, it's, yes, these change, um, the way I work my 10 step absolutely has changed. Um, the way I work my 12 step absolutely has changed the way I work my 11 step absolutely has changed.

00:18:37.48
Mike
Um, you know, and, and I can't get super specific about it because I haven't thought about it long enough to get that specific, but, um, I know it's, I know it's different.

00:18:45.06
Bill
Right. Right. right

00:18:48.88
Mike
I know it's deeper and it's, You know, um yeah, you know, I mean, you said you wanted to get to the, you know, the base of the leaves thing, you know, the roots of the leaves, whatever the fuck. of Right. But ah that's just it. You know, yes, the the basic structure is there. But yeah, the the the edges definitely grow and, you know, old ones fall off and new ones grow in. And yeah, I like that analogy a lot.

00:19:14.37
Bill
Right. Yeah. And it was, ah I mean, it was a great way to wrap up. I mean, in my opinion, ah a really good and like, you like you just said, you know, I, I haven't sat there and thought about, that's why I asked the question.

00:19:23.56
Mike
a

00:19:24.17
Bill
I thought about it a little bit this morning, but um you know, again, you know, i have to fucking sleep and I get shit to do it.

00:19:24.56
Mike
Right.

00:19:29.69
Mike
you're Right. Right.

00:19:29.94
Bill
And I did, I did, I did my reading, you know um but I did, I thought about it for a minute.

00:19:33.43
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:19:34.45
Bill
Cause especially anytime i I grab one like that to, to post.

00:19:40.03
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:19:40.04
Bill
I do read it a couple of times to make sure that, you know, it's getting everything that I need. Is it going to hit right? Do I think it's going to, and I'm not looking, I don't know, maybe that's the wrong way to put it. When I say hit right, I don't mean, I don't give a fuck how many people actually, I'm not looking for clicks or likes or anything like that.

00:19:49.17
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:19:55.70
Bill
I don't mean it like that, but um is it going to possibly, you know, hit somebody the right way that it needs to?

00:19:55.96
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:20:02.55
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:20:03.26
Bill
And that's all I, that's all I really think about. You know, if it, I don't necessarily think of numbers.

00:20:05.16
Mike
Yeah.

00:20:07.06
Bill
I'm just like, okay, is this good? Do I want to put this out into our, into our universe? You know, you know, be yeah.

00:20:11.58
Mike
Sure. Absolutely.

00:20:13.18
Bill
Before I post, you know, like memes about rock papers and scissors. Did you see that one? See, I got it.

00:20:17.12
Mike
i did not. i haven't I haven't been online like at all today. I've been driving. Mm-hmm.

00:20:22.26
Bill
Well, you'll laugh about it when you see it later. So, but yeah, so I tried to get some good shit out there first. But um when when you first started talking, I was thinking about, you know, just right off the bat, you know, things that were different.

00:20:32.82
Bill
then you mentioned it, 10 step, definitely 12 step by all means. Because I mean, i didn't know how to help people, you know, to to begin with.

00:20:36.36
Mike
see Right.

00:20:39.68
Bill
And I kind of laughed when you said it a year sober. You thought that, you know, you had you're managing your life pretty well.

00:20:44.19
Mike
but

00:20:44.45
Bill
And I'm like, well, I knew you then you weren't a fucking mess, but I get what you mean.

00:20:44.88
Mike
Yeah. but Right.

00:20:48.11
Bill
You know, you didn't you didn't really comprehend. Neither did i that it wasn't me.

00:20:51.11
Mike
see

00:20:51.71
Bill
It was this, you know, and ah I didn't.

00:20:52.29
Mike
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

00:20:55.27
Bill
Neither one of us was in a position to take credit for what we had or or the growth that we were you know experiencing.

00:20:58.64
Mike
hu

00:21:01.69
Mike
Right.

00:21:01.83
Bill
um But yeah, that when you mentioned the higher power, I mean, shit, that goes back to what we were told. All that we were told was what we did not have to believe in. not really We didn't really have a conception of what to believe in.

00:21:12.36
Bill
We were told that we don't have to believe in anything, just that it's not us.

00:21:12.65
Mike
Right.

00:21:15.56
Bill
So we get all we we were given like a break to begin with.

00:21:16.12
Mike
Right.

00:21:19.12
Bill
Like, okay, here's here's a do-over. You'll figure it out. just You get a mulligan.

00:21:22.42
Mike
right

00:21:23.41
Bill
You get a fucking mulligan until you get to figure this shit out. That's all.

00:21:26.27
Mike
right

00:21:27.08
Bill
You know, and then, you know, but now, I mean, I have a conception, same thing. Can't write it down. Can't draw it. Can't anything like that.

00:21:31.96
Mike
h

00:21:32.87
Bill
But I have a true connection with the power greater than myself. And I understand it. You know, I understand that the power behind it.

00:21:36.51
Mike
Right.

00:21:38.63
Bill
And I understand, like you just said, to the powerlessness, you know, that that we have. So um in shit, I mean, I didn't I didn't fucking understand step six or seven until Joe started working with us.

00:21:49.10
Bill
And I was, you know, almost two years sober, you know, so I didn't understand that I wasn't done with those.

00:21:51.36
Mike
Right.

00:21:55.57
Mike
Right.

00:21:55.85
Bill
You know, so yeah. Have I, have I, do I work the steps differently? Uh, yes. Yes, I think, I think I do.

00:21:59.73
Mike
Yes.

00:22:00.88
Bill
I think I do.

00:22:01.75
Mike
Mm

00:22:02.36
Bill
Um, but yeah, that, uh, you know, and the, the base is, the base is strong, but the leaves change. And that's the whole point. You know, we work, everyone talks about, well, not everyone. We were taught to focus on the foundation, build this foundation, build this strong foundation.

00:22:14.33
Mike
hmm. Right.

00:22:16.40
Bill
And, you know, I, I heard people, somebody just talked about it on a podcast recently about, uh, gave the same example of looking at it, like building a house. You've got to have that foundation first.

00:22:24.39
Mike
hmm. Mm hmm.

00:22:26.06
Bill
Even if you, you know, there's no basement, it doesn't matter. Just have a strong foundation and then start building.

00:22:30.15
Mike
Right.

00:22:31.12
Bill
And this, uh, this individual was explaining all the, all the different rooms and what they meant to her. Like as she was building this house and I'm like, Jesus Christ, she's driving me building this, speaking about, um, this, this picture, you know, or building this picture in this description.

00:22:45.78
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:22:47.11
Bill
I'm like, God damn, that's fucking amazing. But the bottom line is, yeah, but the leaves changing, that's a great fucking analogy, you know?

00:22:53.26
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:22:54.04
Bill
and And if we're doing things right, you know like ah the tree, for instance, it'll come back with all fresh leaves and new things, you know some new growth and everything on there.

00:23:01.02
Mike
Right.

00:23:03.13
Bill
And hopefully that tree is not only as strong, but stronger than the year before, right?

00:23:08.75
Mike
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

00:23:10.48
Bill
Right.

00:23:10.50
Mike
Right. it could Right. you know The trunk of a tree expands as it grows.

00:23:14.57
Bill
Right.

00:23:15.27
Mike
Yeah. You know, the rings and all that. Yeah. that That first little core, that little tiny stick that was sticking up out of the ground is still in there.

00:23:23.43
Bill
Right.

00:23:23.51
Mike
But there's all, yeah, but it's been, you know, added to and added to and added to. And yeah. Yeah. i've I love that that analogy. It's great.

00:23:31.99
Bill
Yeah, it really, really, really is. um But yeah, seeing the program in new ways was the other thing. I think that that's, know, that's all that I wrote down on that. But um yeah, I mean, I really did. I really, really did like that reading.

00:23:43.42
Bill
I mean, it was, again, very, i don't know, visual to to me, um descriptive, but also just very just visual in my in my head, you know, um just picturing all this stuff.

00:23:44.05
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:23:52.57
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:23:53.91
Bill
But I don't in the same thing. I mean, I've been reading here on what year three with Keep It Simple or year two.

00:24:00.13
Mike
a I think two.

00:24:04.47
Bill
too? Okay.

00:24:04.94
Mike
Yeah.

00:24:04.95
Bill
Yeah.

00:24:05.40
Mike
um Yeah. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. The end of the year will be the second time through it.

00:24:10.21
Bill
And I think, I mean, I'm probably on year four, maybe three or four.

00:24:13.29
Mike
Hmm.

00:24:14.07
Bill
I don't remember that in both of us, both of us right now.

00:24:15.96
Mike
Right. Oh yeah.

00:24:18.35
Bill
We're like, this is so fucking cool, man. What a great saying. I really like that.

00:24:22.32
Mike
Right.

00:24:23.09
Bill
We're like, yeah, I probably read it three times before you've read it at least once before. So I don't know that's

00:24:28.54
Mike
Possibly twice.

00:24:30.27
Bill
Yeah, but you can't you can't even remember how many times you've read your read your book.

00:24:32.09
Mike
I don't know.

00:24:33.51
Bill
But yeah, I don't know. he was ah It was a good reading and and quite honestly, a goddamn good reading for, you know, for being on the fly as you as you did it.

00:24:42.68
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:24:42.75
Bill
And, you know, again, remembering very early this morning that, hey, by the way, that was ah that was a good reading.

00:24:45.55
Mike
Yes. Mm-hmm.

00:24:50.39
Bill
All right. So any anything else with that?

00:24:52.89
Mike
No, no. Just, ah yeah, you know, I mean, that's... Working the steps differently. um Yeah. Again, the tree analogy, you know, yes, the the roots are there, but I mean, you better be doing something different than you did at six months or what the fuck, man. ah

00:25:13.05
Mike
No. read Okay. So, um, the hell was that? Yeah.

00:25:16.98
Bill
Oh, I'm sorry. That was that was a Kleenex. i just i

00:25:19.95
Mike
Yeah.

00:25:20.30
Bill
when i When I said anything else with the reading, I was hoping that you had something to talk about.

00:25:23.63
Mike
ah

00:25:24.99
Bill
longster I'll talk about it a minute. I've had allergies or a cold or something, so i I muted and blew my nose.

00:25:26.22
Mike
but Okay. All right.

00:25:29.15
Bill
So I'm sorry about that.

00:25:29.48
Mike
he

00:25:30.19
Bill
But I thought it was smooth until I rubbed it up against the microphone. Hey.

00:25:33.31
Mike
I see. Hey. No. Okay. So, um, and I listen to the radio at night, right? And I listen to it through the iHeart app where you can listen to this very podcast if you choose to.

00:25:46.13
Mike
Anyway, right.

00:25:46.29
Bill
Right.

00:25:48.00
Mike
um But so, you know, I listen to talk radio to go to sleep. And um the last week or so, they've been running this ad. um I haven't heard it on the radio. i've just on like regular terrestrial radio, but I've heard it up through the app a bunch of times.

00:26:03.70
Mike
And it's this broad on in there and she's going... every day i treat my opioid addiction the same way. And it reminds me of my opioid addiction.

00:26:14.96
Mike
And then she goes, every day i treat my addiction the same way, every day, the same way.

00:26:14.98
Bill
hu

00:26:21.63
Mike
And then some good dude comes on and goes, if you're, if you're recovery, I don't know, like question your recovery and go to this fucking website and, ask for a doctor or something. I, I meant to, keep meaning to like, look and see what the fuck this bullshit is. Um, I haven't yet.

00:26:38.88
Mike
Um, but yeah. And, ah and they're like kind of presenting this thing in a negative way. And I'm going, yeah, every day i treat my addiction the same way. And it reminds me of my addiction.

00:26:53.50
Mike
That's a fucking good thing. That's what you're supposed to do. want to scream as I'm drifting off to sleep. Um,

00:27:03.41
Mike
So, yeah, you know, um it gets kind of reminded me of, yes, working the steps the same way every day, but working them differently, you know, with experience and, and you know, working that muscle, getting it stronger, working it better.

00:27:12.07
Bill
Right.

00:27:18.55
Mike
um Yeah, you know, that kind of reminded me of that. And i I was going to talk about that at some point um when we didn't have a guest. Yeah.

00:27:27.53
Bill
i I was just going to say that I was just going to kind of rub that in again, but I'm like, i've I rubbed it in and up again. I'm glad you did.

00:27:32.91
Mike
I'm about to beat to it.

00:27:33.04
Bill
Thank you.

00:27:35.59
Mike
I'm rubbing myself.

00:27:37.23
Bill
Nice.

00:27:37.93
Mike
Yes.

00:27:37.99
Bill
Nice.

00:27:39.48
Mike
But anyway, so yes. um and And hopefully um i will look that shit up. I'll probably hear it again tonight as I'm drifting off to sleep. And I will remember to look it up tomorrow morning and see what the fuck this bullshit is about.

00:27:53.89
Bill
yeah You know, what's it's what's funny is that, and I haven't listened to, um i was tuned in where I was listening to the morning show in Milwaukee, but I kept hearing them talk about, they're like, go to the app, go to the app, because they have they have an app now ah for the for the morning show in Milwaukee.

00:28:01.22
Mike
Right?

00:28:04.29
Mike
Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

00:28:07.18
Bill
So i started I started doing that. The only thing I don't like about the app is I do, I voice text all the time. And i if looking something up, I just speak it.

00:28:13.81
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:28:15.30
Bill
I fuck typing, you know, if I if i don't have to.

00:28:18.75
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:28:18.82
Bill
And it's, Any other thing like Spotify, anything like that, obviously it'll interrupt whatever's playing, but it'll go back to it.

00:28:25.69
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:28:26.09
Bill
Problem with the app is it interrupts it, it goes back and then the app stops. So you got to go into the app and just kind of like, hey, I'm still here type of thing.

00:28:29.62
Mike
Ah.

00:28:33.31
Bill
um But TuneIn used to not only have ads from clearly local where I was, because obviously it's figuring out your location.

00:28:42.71
Mike
Right.

00:28:43.15
Bill
But, you know, I think every once in a while, you know, the, those, those ads, the same as, you know, Facebook, Instagram, whatever will target you, you know, or me or whatever based on, on that sort of thing.

00:28:50.81
Mike
Sure.

00:28:53.67
Bill
Same thing with, with Spotify.

00:28:53.74
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:28:55.19
Bill
That's why I'm like, I don't understand why i get, you know, when I'm listening to our podcast, why I get fucking American express ads. I mean, I'm not American Express, you know, customer material.

00:29:06.51
Bill
I'm just not, especially not American Express business card, spend $20,000 in your first three months and get, you know, I'm not that guy, you know?

00:29:06.75
Mike
Right.

00:29:12.02
Mike
Right.

00:29:15.32
Mike
Yeah.

00:29:15.63
Bill
um But so I'm wondering, and somehow it's like, oh this guy, somehow we know he's recovery, whatever. And, but they're, they're giving you a thing, which I don't know. They're probably, I'm i'm guessing once you look this up, it's probably going to be like, yeah, don't do your recovery the same way.

00:29:30.68
Bill
Take a drug instead.

00:29:30.86
Mike
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty much, yeah. it's it Yeah, right.

00:29:34.21
Bill
It's gotta be.

00:29:35.83
Mike
I mean, I get to i get the idea, you know, yeah taking fucking methadone or something. you

00:29:41.09
Bill
Right.

00:29:42.77
Mike
Don't take methadone, take diploxenodone, right, or whatever. Yeah, i fuck, man, you know, if it may cause diarrhea.

00:29:52.35
Bill
Yeah. May cause everything that you don't want.

00:29:54.68
Mike
Right, exactly. and So anyway, yeah, work a fucking program and you don't have to worry about that shit.

00:30:00.52
Bill
Right. Right. But that's, ah that is interesting though. Yeah. When, when I get up every day and I do the same thing, it reminds me of the same thing.

00:30:07.55
Mike
shit

00:30:08.74
Bill
You're like, um and what's wrong with that?

00:30:09.11
Mike
Right.

00:30:10.77
Bill
What's wrong with it?

00:30:10.77
Mike
Yeah, exactly. i'm like, yay

00:30:12.18
Bill
Right.

00:30:14.01
Mike
Yes, I want to be reminded I'm a goddamn junkie and a drunk because I will forget and I'll think I have this and then I'm fucked.

00:30:18.25
Bill
Right.

00:30:22.33
Mike
Really fucked.

00:30:24.29
Bill
Yeah, there was something I something I wrote down that just I think I just reminded myself of something. But OK, before before I jump onto that and let my brain wander off into something else, anything else with the reading?

00:30:33.18
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:30:34.20
Bill
I mean, that that that ad, by all means, write that down. I want to I'd love to be able to talk about talk about that, make fun of that, whatever fucking website that is.

00:30:36.79
Mike
Yeah.

00:30:40.33
Mike
m

00:30:41.45
Bill
But but um anything else on the reading at all or no?

00:30:45.39
Mike
no I think we covered it pretty well.

00:30:47.85
Bill
Okay. And just real quick, before I forget, and I almost forgot, but I wrote myself a note here. So I had, i did I mention, no, i probably didn't mention on here because we had a guest. So I mentioned to you that I wrote an article for the Sober Curator called No Bad Examples.

00:31:02.06
Mike
Right.

00:31:02.32
Bill
And it actually just got posted up on the Sober Curator today. um Completely forgot that it was that it was going up

00:31:05.75
Mike
Yeah. Uh-huh.

00:31:08.96
Bill
um But so anyone out there, and i I'll tell you what it's about. And if you, if you take a minute in saying, I'm proud of it is probably not the right way to put it. um But it's a, it's an article that I wrote.

00:31:16.39
Mike
green

00:31:19.13
Bill
Let me explain what it is. So um my friend, Sarah, we already talked about that when she died and blah, blah, blah. And quite honestly, and I think I said it then, but, um, that one hit me probably harder than any of them in in a long time, if nothing else.

00:31:32.66
Mike
Right, right.

00:31:32.96
Bill
But first, it's the first person I've ever had a relationship with. And I'm not going to get filthy, but been intimate with and whatever, had a really deep, you know, caring and what I consider loving relationship with a human being like that.

00:31:39.31
Mike
Right.

00:31:44.35
Mike
Mm-hmm right Mm-hmm

00:31:44.48
Bill
um That's died, you know, and, I haven't had that yet. And yeah's that's that's a first for me in 15 years. um So it was just, it hit me in a weird way, you know, but I started thinking about it and I'm reminded, you know, reminded me of all these people, even back to the to the first one, which I explained in the in the article, to to the Daryls, to the guy that jumped off the bridge and, um you know, a couple other things that that we had in there.

00:32:04.69
Mike
Right Mm-hmm Sure

00:32:07.51
Bill
And But then I remember the good people too, like my sponsor that died, Dan, um Ray, you know, 55 year, year sober Ray or whatever he was.

00:32:14.76
Mike
Right. hu

00:32:15.56
Bill
And I might've got the number wrong, but I put 55 in the article. So if you're, i was going to say, if, if you're my fact checker, just, it is what it is.

00:32:18.56
Mike
Yeah. it was It was over 50.

00:32:24.27
Bill
I put 50, I put 55 because it sounded right.

00:32:24.57
Mike
Yes.

00:32:27.41
Mike
Sure.

00:32:28.14
Bill
I figured you're the only one that could, you're the only one that could say it's wrong. So I'm good.

00:32:32.20
Mike
I've, yeah, I've, I don't, for some reason, the number 54 pops in my head, but it doesn't fucking matter.

00:32:32.20
Bill
Um,

00:32:39.69
Bill
Okay. Well, you know, in close, close close matters and in that circumstance.

00:32:41.69
Mike
Right.

00:32:43.43
Bill
But so that's what I wrote about. I started with the guy that was, you know, in in July when we were like three months sober that died, went all the way through with with Sarah.

00:32:49.77
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:32:51.35
Bill
And the point was, is just um there, we talk about it all the time, that there are no bad examples. is As much ah as painful as it is to have any one that we know die and, you know, having that hit like that.

00:33:01.81
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:33:04.72
Bill
It is what it is, but what what can we learn from it? That's the same thing I talked about when um when we were talking about Sarah's that, OK, it forced me.

00:33:11.33
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:33:13.39
Bill
I forced myself to look at my life and say, OK, she clearly got to this position. um That's the first time I've ever done this with anyone is look at myself and say, where am I at? You know.

00:33:23.70
Mike
who

00:33:24.75
Bill
Because I think I'm in a good place, but I don't necessarily, I do a 10 step and I get people around me and all those different things, but I don't sit down and figure, Hey, am I, where am I at?

00:33:30.61
Mike
Right.

00:33:33.78
Bill
Really? Am i these frustrations I have sometimes, is it just life shit or am I really, am I in a bad place?

00:33:39.27
Mike
Sure.

00:33:39.62
Bill
You know, so it, it forced me in a very good way to take a look at myself. And then, um, I, it's therapeutic for me to write. So I did, you know?

00:33:47.04
Mike
hu Yeah.

00:33:47.90
Bill
But, um but yeah, if anyone, I take a look at it and ah if anyone has any comments, I'd be, I'd be interested. I don't know ah when I, when I turned it into the sober cure and I'm like, I don't even fucking know if this is too dark. If it is, um you know, don't post it. I said, I'll post it someplace else. I don't care.

00:34:02.57
Mike
Right.

00:34:02.59
Bill
um You know, I said, it was just, I wrote it and, you know, probably 20 minutes to a half hour and it was on my mind. And, um you know, it's all it has to do is get out on paper. I don't have to post it, but um you know, so they did, they went over there like, no, no, no, it's, you know, it's, it's good. It's from the heart, whatever. And I was like, okay.

00:34:17.94
Bill
you know so So it's up there. It's on the Sober Curator. if you go on the and It should be on the front page now or anytime. If somebody's listening to this way down the road, if you look on the Sober Curator at any point, look up Sober Not Mature Lab, all the shit that we've ever done on their articles or podcast episodes.

00:34:32.44
Mike
h

00:34:36.02
Bill
Anything we've done is in there. You'll find it. It's just under No Bad Examples. And I would. i'd just be I'd be interested if it if it means anything to anyone or if it it's just like somebody looks and goes, eh, okay.

00:34:46.31
Bill
Yeah.

00:34:46.83
Mike
Right.

00:34:47.34
Bill
and That's fine. I don't care. It's it's therapeutic for me.

00:34:48.64
Mike
Sure.

00:34:50.11
Bill
Right.

00:34:50.81
Mike
Right. and And actually, i you know, um i I don't actually I look at there because I get the emails to them on their email list.

00:34:57.09
Bill
Right.

00:34:57.99
Mike
And, you know, I scroll through. i used to just go oh yeah and move on and delete like I do to all my emails. Um,

00:35:05.29
Bill
right

00:35:06.41
Mike
but i actually, because but we've been a little more active with them and whatever, um, I, I, I scroll through and and, you know, again, and I, see I told Elise this, you know, most of it's not for me and and it's not, um, you know, it's, it's kind of female, uh, modern, whatever the fuck centric.

00:35:11.02
Bill
and

00:35:19.94
Bill
Right.

00:35:29.52
Mike
Um, yeah, none of which I am.

00:35:29.87
Bill
right

00:35:32.73
Mike
Uh,

00:35:34.86
Mike
I'm old and crusty and guys. Um, but, uh, but yeah, no, I have been cause you had, had mentioned it to me. So yeah, I'm, I, I'm looking forward to reading it. So there.

00:35:46.60
Bill
Well, good. Well, good. Well, appreciate that. And, you know, I thought about it, too, the other day, and I haven't had a chance to talk to Elise about it. The the monthly meetings tomorrow, but I don't know if I'm going to sit in on it because um I think Johnny's coming into town tonight because the marathon thing with Jameson.

00:36:00.73
Mike
Oh, cool. Oh yeah. yeah

00:36:04.30
Bill
Yeah, that's the marathons actually on Sunday. There's a 5k.

00:36:07.41
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:36:08.46
Bill
I think the Kathy is running with the kids, maybe James to tomorrow.

00:36:12.05
Mike
Mm.

00:36:12.12
Bill
um But Johnny's coming in. I think he's coming in tonight. um Kimmy's like, oh, I'd love to see everyone. So her and Ali are coming down tomorrow, ah which I just found out for sure, like yesterday, um probably later tomorrow.

00:36:19.46
Mike
Nice. Right.

00:36:23.45
Bill
And then I I'm guessing they'll whatever time they'll they'll probably head out of here, whatever time they got to get to, you know, obviously see everyone on Sunday. I'm not driving into the city.

00:36:31.50
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:36:32.60
Bill
I have no, no desire to fight the traffic, but, um, you know, so, but, um, I don't even know where I was going with that.

00:36:33.26
Mike
Right. Uh-huh.

00:36:38.36
Bill
So anyhow, Oh, the meeting, the meeting, the meeting tomorrow.

00:36:39.67
Mike
Johnny's coming in. Yes. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes.

00:36:42.81
Bill
God, I'm like, Jesus Christ, where's my fucking mind. So I told Elise the other day, anytime that I always let her know if I'm going to show up or not. Cause I think it's courteous.

00:36:51.62
Mike
Sure.

00:36:51.75
Bill
And she always thanks me. She's like, thank you for always letting me know. She's like, nobody else ever does, which i mean, ah it's it nobody else's. they They don't, it's not a requirement.

00:36:59.65
Mike
Nobody else got sober in Cleveland.

00:36:59.78
Bill
don't have to show up.

00:37:01.47
Mike
Right.

00:37:02.10
Bill
yeah right right Yeah, that's true. There's no other, except for you, no other Clevelanders on there.

00:37:07.60
Mike
right

00:37:07.71
Bill
But so, and I told her, you know, I said, whatever, I may or may not, but blah, blah, blah. But um I was looking at, and I've i've seen it for a long time. So same, same deal.

00:37:18.04
Bill
Our, our split on here for our listener base, probably 60 to 63% male and the rest female on here, the podcast.

00:37:24.99
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

00:37:27.51
Bill
And in our our age range is 45 to 59. Okay. And that's that's this that we're doing right now.

00:37:32.19
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:37:34.25
Bill
um Whereas Instagram, it's flipped. We get, you know, 60 to probably 58 to 62% female to male. And then our age range is 35 44%.

00:37:45.58
Bill
thirty five to forty four

00:37:47.74
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:37:48.12
Bill
Um, that's our higher age range on there. So females in that, and that's the, that's the money range, right?

00:37:52.83
Mike
Right.

00:37:53.30
Bill
You know, I mean, from a marketing standpoint, it's a, it's the money range.

00:37:55.16
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:37:56.64
Bill
So exactly what you were just saying, I was thinking about that. I'm like, I, I'm going to talk to Elise cause I don't, we've tried, you know, I've, I've done all this different research. You're like, Oh, try to what? Cause I'm like, how do you, how can you market it to an audience like that?

00:38:09.75
Bill
Like your Instagram audience, um,

00:38:10.99
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:38:11.28
Bill
They're like, Oh, try to do this event. Try candles. Try it up. Like we tried fucking everything.

00:38:14.34
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:38:15.31
Bill
None of it worked. I went, I set up all this shit, you know?

00:38:18.39
Mike
ha

00:38:19.51
Bill
You know, and then, oh, if you're selling merchandise, make sure you have, you know, female size. right We did, and we do, you know.

00:38:24.82
Mike
Yeah.

00:38:25.52
Bill
None of it works, and it's fine.

00:38:26.55
Mike
Right.

00:38:26.83
Bill
You know, the only thing that we get any hits on are when yeah it's it's the filthiest memes, and thank you, ladies. if you If any women are listening to this or on Instagram, I fucking love you guys for loving those dirty, filthy things.

00:38:38.06
Mike
Right.

00:38:38.72
Bill
You know, but I don't know. Should we start selling vibrators? I don't know.

00:38:43.88
Mike
um

00:38:44.64
Bill
Note to self, self.

00:38:45.59
Mike
ah Right.

00:38:46.40
Bill
This sober, put a little sober, not mature in you.

00:38:49.09
Mike
Put our faces. Right. Put our faces on there.

00:38:51.02
Bill
Oh, oh my God.

00:38:51.47
Mike
Right.

00:38:53.84
Bill
Can you imagine that?

00:38:55.80
Mike
okay

00:38:55.86
Bill
That's little, ha.

00:39:01.42
Mike
Mike and Bill go splunking.

00:39:01.75
Bill
ah

00:39:06.01
Bill
Again, see this again. Yeah, we're back. We don't have a guest tonight, by the way, just in case anyone is the case.

00:39:09.00
Mike
yeah

00:39:11.35
Bill
It's certainly not a female guest, but, but anyhow, so I was going to talk to Elise about that. I'm like, if there's, if there's a way that the sober curator can, you know, can pull from our, you know, basically our audience, I think that our audience, the audience based on age range and that sort of thing.

00:39:26.38
Bill
um And the female side of things, which is more what server curator is. I think that. people would benefit from what's on that sober curator. I really do. You know, whether they buy anything on that, I just think that the traffic would be good.

00:39:37.74
Bill
So anyhow, I plan on mentioning that to Elise because the same thing, I look through those emails and there's probably one article, maybe two a week that are of interest to me, you know, um and it maybe it might be a TV show that I watched and I don't necessarily look at it because I watched the TV show, you know, but, um but yeah, it's not, it's, they're not marketing to us.

00:39:48.00
Mike
Right.

00:39:53.24
Mike
Right.

00:39:56.36
Bill
And I mean, they, they know that, you know,

00:39:57.10
Mike
Right. Yes. Right.

00:39:59.34
Bill
yeah that's That's why, you know, when I'm, you know, when I write a fucking article about people killing themselves, I wasn't sure if that would, if that would fit with the, you know, fit with the, with the program over there.

00:40:06.36
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:40:09.57
Bill
And that's what I told him. Like, I just don't, if you don't, you don't post it, you don't have to, but they did.

00:40:13.77
Mike
right

00:40:14.01
Bill
And I appreciate them. I really, really do.

00:40:15.27
Mike
easy

00:40:16.10
Bill
So, okay. um Back to whatever I think I was trying to remember with things that I wrote down. um Oh, you know what? You know, it's kind of funny.

00:40:25.83
Mike
Sure.

00:40:26.37
Bill
um The last note I wrote on here, since I ah wrote down that opinions and ideas are like a sturdy tree. The base is strong.

00:40:33.45
Mike
That makes two of us.

00:40:35.11
Bill
Because I forgot that I put that down for us to talk about because obviously had no idea that you were going to grab that reading.

00:40:35.69
Mike
Hmm.

00:40:38.44
Mike
sure

00:40:40.39
Bill
But um yeah, exactly.

00:40:41.26
Mike
and makes two of us

00:40:44.69
Bill
All right. So I'm just going to read the the next one up from that because this is from 24 hour book, which I don't i actually got two from there, which I don't pull from very often. But OK, so I pray that I may serve well this fellowship that I have needed and that needs me. I pray that I am willing to go out of my way to be of service.

00:41:02.27
Bill
OK, So the question that I have, do you ever feel like you're going out of your way or do you ever look at it as if you're going out of your way to do service work?

00:41:13.38
Mike
Every goddamn Sunday.

00:41:16.69
Bill
yeah You do? You feel like it's like it's out of your way type of thing or?

00:41:19.91
Mike
ah her said Okay, not every goddamn Sunday, but yeah, no, I mean, well every Sunday at some point, yes.

00:41:30.13
Bill
Okay, no, i I get that. I mean, that that makes sense because, yeah, it's just like anything else. Like we've been told for years and have talked about for years.

00:41:34.92
Mike
yeah

00:41:37.80
Bill
It's, I don't feel like doing this, you know, that type of thing.

00:41:40.21
Mike
right yeah did dragging my ass up out of you know whatever i've you know sunday generally is spent relaxing it's one day a week where i don't do a hell of a lot um you know uh chris and i lounge pretty much that's what we do on sundays and um

00:41:41.11
Bill
Okay, I got you.

00:41:50.91
Bill
Right.

00:41:57.57
Mike
Yeah, well, you know. Anyway.

00:42:02.33
Mike
But, yes. um You know, get my ass up and jumping in the shower and going to a fucking church basement to, you know, sell raffle tickets and pass the basket and blah, blah, blah. um Yes, and of course, when I get there and I'm a part of something bigger than myself, it's all fucking wonderful.

00:42:22.34
Bill
Right.

00:42:22.47
Mike
But, yeah, Everett. Yeah, yeah. ahll gar ah There's never... and There's always a point every before I go to my home group where I'm like, you know, but I, yeah, it just is.

00:42:34.35
Bill
and

00:42:36.65
Mike
It's, it's part of it. Um, you know, I don't want to, i don't want to go sit in a fucking church basement and, you know, listen to some asshole go on about his dumb ass fucking problems and, you know, whatever.

00:42:40.57
Bill
Right.

00:42:48.17
Mike
And, I'd stone, you know, um, but you know, um I want to get there. i want to hang out with my boys and I want to, you know, be of service and be part of something bigger than myself. Absolutely. All that stuff.

00:42:59.83
Mike
Um, but yeah, there's, there's always a moment every fucking Sunday. as I was like, you know, yeah, but I, Hey, guess what?

00:43:04.35
Bill
Right.

00:43:08.34
Mike
I get up and I go and I fucking do it.

00:43:11.34
Bill
Suit up and show up as I, as we've heard.

00:43:12.89
Mike
I believe so.

00:43:13.26
Bill
Right.

00:43:15.25
Mike
It's funny. Actually, so there was a, it was the first this week. It was right. The first Sunday of the new month. Right.

00:43:23.66
Bill
Right.

00:43:24.56
Mike
Um. Our secretary wasn't feeling well, so she didn't show up. um And the chairperson for the month didn't realize that it was his month. He thought he was next month.

00:43:35.81
Mike
So, he yeah. So he comes walking up about 15 minutes before the meeting starts and went, oh, it's me? Well, shit, clearly he didn't have a lead set up.

00:43:46.81
Mike
Yeah.

00:43:50.08
Mike
right So we're like you know the home group members were like, okay, well, which one of us has been the longest since we led? And it was our buddy Sean. oh Yeah, right.

00:43:59.38
Bill
oh nice. Right.

00:44:00.75
Mike
So um Sean literally lives like three blocks away from the church. So was probably... it was probably 13 minutes to the top of the hour when the, when the lead star, you know, and he's, he's there to t-shirt and shorts and he fucking flew up the stairs, ran home.

00:44:17.73
Bill
right

00:44:23.45
Mike
He was back with about two minutes to spare in a shirt and tie.

00:44:27.54
Bill
Oh, shit.

00:44:28.24
Mike
Yeah.

00:44:30.66
Bill
oh

00:44:31.27
Mike
It was fucking beautiful. So there you go.

00:44:33.48
Bill
Yeah.

00:44:34.30
Mike
Service.

00:44:35.69
Bill
Right. And you know what? um I don't think I would have, if I would have been that close, I'm like, Jesus Christ, i don't feel like fuck going on.

00:44:41.62
Mike
Right, right.

00:44:42.10
Bill
But I mean, again, that great commitment. And the dude's been around this thing, you know, what, two, three years longer than us, I think.

00:44:47.30
Mike
Yeah, two.

00:44:47.62
Bill
So...

00:44:47.74
Mike
Yeah, she's got 17.

00:44:49.35
Bill
Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. And I knew it was at least a couple, if not three, but yeah. So he's been, you know, he's, he's had two more years to be more jaded than we are. And he still went ahead and did that.

00:44:57.40
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:44:58.64
Bill
So that's, so that's great. But you know, the, the thing of it is, and that um like when you were, when you were mentioning as far as, you know, um at some point every Sunday, and I get that I, I, especially when I, there was the meetings that I ran ah like the one in Cleveland on, you know, Thursday.

00:45:09.05
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:45:13.36
Mike
Right.

00:45:14.68
Bill
And then I did the Saturday one and,

00:45:16.75
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:45:16.91
Bill
Wisconsin for god three, four years and same deal.

00:45:18.59
Mike
Right.

00:45:19.39
Bill
You know, I mean, that one in Wisconsin was a Saturday night and I'm running it around and doing whatever. And a couple of times I just, I had some emergencies with Derek or whatever that I had to take care of um where I had to call somebody and where I missed it.

00:45:23.10
Mike
hu

00:45:27.33
Mike
who

00:45:31.04
Bill
But um other than that, I mean, my entire fucking day is, is basically built around.

00:45:31.72
Mike
Right.

00:45:37.06
Bill
I need to be here at this time, you know?

00:45:39.02
Mike
Right. Yeah.

00:45:40.30
Bill
And, but, but the same deal though, i I don't, I don't remember ever. And I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I don't remember ever. Cause I mean, never as a long, never as a, it's a hard word, but I don't remember ever being at one of those meetings that I had to be at.

00:45:51.39
Mike
Right.

00:45:56.05
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:45:56.18
Bill
And after the meeting, still feeling the same way, or even once I got there, you know, you know, so again, leading up to it, I, I think that's really fucking normal, you know, yeah.

00:45:59.03
Mike
Oh, yeah. Right. Right. Yeah.

00:46:05.68
Mike
Absolutely.

00:46:06.75
Bill
You know, at some point when you're, yeah, when you're just lounging, you and Chris are, I'm quote unquote lounging. rare

00:46:12.46
Mike
Right. Uh-huh.

00:46:14.37
Bill
And you're like, you're like, yeah, I don't want to keep doing this, you know, lounging. I want to go, want to go play with, you know, fucking grab ass with some dudes in a, in a church basement.

00:46:18.10
Mike
ahha

00:46:22.78
Mike
Right. Yep. Mm-hmm.

00:46:25.00
Bill
So I get it.

00:46:25.24
Mike
right

00:46:25.44
Bill
I get it. I understand. I understand.

00:46:27.27
Mike
yep

00:46:28.13
Bill
But, okay, so yeah, it's it's it's a yes, but then a no, and it's a yes to begin with at some point during the day. But when all's said and done, even if we put a percentage on it, you're 100% like, ooh, every single time, but also 100% fine once you get there.

00:46:41.69
Mike
yeah

00:46:44.94
Mike
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And, and, and 100% grateful and, and, and yeah, you know, um again, doing the thing.

00:46:46.98
Bill
Right.

00:46:54.83
Mike
How could it, how could it ever be bad?

00:46:55.11
Bill
Right.

00:46:58.71
Bill
Right.

00:46:59.17
Mike
Right.

00:46:59.83
Bill
Right.

00:47:00.07
Mike
Yes.

00:47:00.11
Bill
Whatever.

00:47:00.23
Mike
Right. Yes.

00:47:01.17
Bill
I suppose whatever the thing I was going to say whatever the thing is, but no, that. Yeah. Doing doing this thing that we do this, this thing, this this thing that is our thing.

00:47:05.90
Mike
Yes. yes

00:47:11.23
Bill
All right.

00:47:11.23
Mike
right

00:47:11.87
Bill
You know what? Speaking of things, you think it's about time for, for our thing?

00:47:13.49
Mike
yes

00:47:15.89
Mike
you

00:47:16.96
Bill
Yeah.

00:47:16.96
Mike
I believe so. I believe so. Well, we'll be back with more service work right after these words from our sponsors.

00:47:34.58
Bill
All right, everyone. Welcome back. And yeah, you know what? um and We've talked about that before. I guess this this thing that this thing that we're doing right now, speaking into these fucking microphones with our potty mouths, this is yeah' service work, right?

00:47:40.20
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:47:45.25
Mike
Right.

00:47:48.08
Bill
You know towards towards this thing.

00:47:48.50
Mike
but Yeah.

00:47:49.49
Bill
Right.

00:47:49.73
Mike
And, and, and to my point before there's so generally at some point I'll go, ah, fuck, I got to do the podcast again. You

00:47:57.92
Bill
Right. Right.

00:48:01.04
Mike
you know, again, brief moments, just like going and being of service at my home group. Same thing. It's a brief moment. It's flashes of, ah, fuck, I don't want to do this. Um, yeah.

00:48:09.81
Bill
Right. Yeah.

00:48:10.51
Mike
And, but you know, I also, I know better, right?

00:48:17.29
Mike
You know, somewhere, yes, deep in there somewhere as fuck. I don't want to do this. And even probably deeper is a asshole. You know, you have to. So.

00:48:26.01
Bill
right

00:48:26.37
Mike
Right.

00:48:26.89
Bill
yeah Yeah, I mean, it's ah it's a it's a need for us, and this has become, and we've been and completely open about this. I mean, there was the, you know, when when it started and when I when i started listening the podcast, I did.

00:48:33.57
Mike
right

00:48:38.16
Bill
i there was I felt that something was missing, and, you know, listening the podcast filled a void, and then this this filled a whole different one.

00:48:43.13
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:48:44.75
Bill
And this is like our, this is, this is our our Friday meeting or sometimes our Thursday or Wednesday meeting.

00:48:45.26
Mike
Yeah.

00:48:48.48
Mike
Yes. Right.

00:48:50.70
Bill
um and And that's the other thing, too. We've only had, and, you know, you had a, um I'm not even going to put a word legitimate on it. There was a life thing that was going on with you when you missed you know that that one night.

00:49:01.76
Mike
Right.

00:49:01.79
Bill
But there's been no other reason. We've we've not missed. This 190 fucking episodes that we've done.

00:49:07.09
Mike
Yeah. Uh-huh.

00:49:08.37
Bill
We didn't miss. We don't take fucking breaks. And I wanted to talk about that, too.

00:49:10.65
Mike
Right.

00:49:11.77
Bill
I wrote that shit down before, too. But...

00:49:13.85
Mike
Mm-hmm

00:49:14.11
Bill
Um, because it is a it's ah it's a commitment granted. We just talked about, you know, I, I missed a couple of meetings here and there, you know, that I was running. I know you've, you know, missed your, your home group a certain number of times over the years, but based on, it's not just cause you don't fucking feel like going, you know, yeah you got something going on, you know?

00:49:26.74
Mike
Sure. Oh, yeah No, no never never Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, right. I'm sick. I'm out of town, you know, whatever.

00:49:37.64
Bill
Right. Right.

00:49:38.27
Mike
Yeah. But I mean, that's it. You know, I'm, I'm too sick. Um, and generally, um, and I mean, I've gone feeling like shit before. Don't get me wrong. That's happened plenty of times. Um, but you know, like if I'm contagious, um, you know, I'm not going to go cause that's, you know, other people, you know, trust me, I've shown up feeling like garbage before, you know, and doing what I had to do.

00:49:52.84
Bill
Right.

00:50:01.63
Mike
And yeah. Hmm. um But yeah, no, the only time I miss, I'm either not in town or I'm contagious.

00:50:09.85
Bill
right

00:50:10.10
Mike
Yeah, yeah, that's it.

00:50:12.18
Bill
Right. and And that's the same thing, like I said, you know, with, with this and I, I, I'm not trying, I'm not, well, I try not to judge, you know, podcasts when they, when they take a break. I mean, it's in your, your normal every day.

00:50:21.31
Mike
Hmm.

00:50:23.00
Bill
i'm I'm talking about crime shit and, you know, whatever these, whatever these fucking people talk about.

00:50:25.35
Mike
Sure.

00:50:27.35
Bill
I mean, that's, that's fine.

00:50:27.85
Mike
Secular podcasts.

00:50:29.93
Bill
Yeah, whatever the whatever the, you know, the normal half a million podcasts are. But um the sobriety ones I get a little judgy about, you know.

00:50:34.32
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:50:37.75
Bill
And um when when people take, you know, take a break.

00:50:38.08
Mike
Yeah.

00:50:41.09
Bill
and but But then, you know, the the same thing. You know, I got judgy about that one podcast. And, you know, they took a break because the guy, and he admittedly said afterwards, he goes, he goes I had a fucking mental breakdown. He goes, I had to take care of myself.

00:50:52.54
Mike
Right.

00:50:52.64
Bill
um You know, so we stopped doing this. And he goes, I wasn't, he didn't go inpatient, but he was doing like an outpatient program, this intensive shit. He ended up leaving his job, took a leave and all this different stuff. And I'm like, Jesus Christ, now i feel like a fucking idiot.

00:51:02.66
Mike
Sure.

00:51:04.90
Bill
um You know, but then I've seen other people, you know, like, oh, we're taking the summer off to go enjoy life and whatever. And I'm like, well, OK, you know, but um you get to enjoy life because you you're sober, you know, and you get to enjoy life because of the commitment that you have to these folks out here.

00:51:11.39
Mike
there

00:51:14.21
Mike
h

00:51:19.88
Mike
Right.

00:51:24.82
Bill
um And I don't know if that's I don't know, maybe that's just us, you know, the way that I would.

00:51:28.55
Mike
Well, again, didn't get sober in Cleveland.

00:51:31.71
Bill
Right. Well, and here's the other thing.

00:51:32.32
Mike
Yeah. Yeah.

00:51:33.33
Bill
I remember the first year that you went to Mexico, um we were fully prepared to have you not do it if it didn't work.

00:51:35.78
Mike
hu

00:51:39.23
Mike
Sure.

00:51:39.84
Bill
Cause I'm like, cause both of us were like, i don't know, you're fucking Mexico. Yeah. Mexico is, you've got the internet, you're in a hotel. Who knows how the connection is.

00:51:46.73
Mike
Right.

00:51:46.82
Bill
And I remember you got, you got there on a Tuesday and then i like like, let's, let's try to connect on Wednesday. Just do a little bit, do a test.

00:51:54.32
Mike
Sure.

00:51:54.34
Bill
So we literally did a test, you know, for 15, 20 minutes to make sure we could connect.

00:51:58.96
Mike
Yeah.

00:51:59.12
Bill
Um, You know, and, but it wasn't like, oh, I'm going to Mexico. Fuck you. You know, we're, we're fine.

00:52:04.63
Mike
Yeah, no, no, Yeah, no.

00:52:05.14
Bill
You know,

00:52:06.39
Mike
i I packed a little microphone and, yeah, in my laptop and and off I went. it Yes, absolutely.

00:52:12.64
Bill
right.

00:52:12.97
Mike
You know, yeah. ah Because, yeah, again, commitment, you know.

00:52:14.29
Bill
Well,

00:52:16.54
Mike
This is fucking part of my sobriety. what i'm I'm not going to miss it because I'm, you know, going to lay on the beach, you know.

00:52:20.73
Bill
right.

00:52:23.29
Bill
Right.

00:52:23.81
Mike
At 8 o'clock at night, even in Mexico, I'm not going to be laying on the beach. It's dark out. Yeah.

00:52:29.24
Bill
Right. Well, and and that's the other thing, too, is that, I mean, we've done, like I said, the the I can't remember why we recorded on Wednesday. Oh, when we recorded on Wednesday is because we were in the Chippewa Lake thing.

00:52:40.86
Mike
Right.

00:52:41.52
Bill
was a family thing.

00:52:41.56
Mike
Yeah.

00:52:42.24
Bill
Yeah. We didn't, we didn't not do the podcast.

00:52:42.56
Mike
Right.

00:52:44.24
Bill
We just fucking recorded on Wednesday, you know?

00:52:44.98
Mike
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Eh.

00:52:48.89
Bill
So I don't know. It just, I, I, whatever I, I judge. It's not my place to judge other people, but I just, I just, I think about, you know, I, may, maybe I judge because it makes me uncomfortable if I did the same thing or if we, you know, did the same thing.

00:52:53.84
Mike
Right.

00:53:01.32
Mike
Right. Well, exactly.

00:53:03.57
Bill
The only, right.

00:53:04.60
Mike
yeah and No bad examples. i mean

00:53:06.39
Bill
Right.

00:53:06.88
Mike
I mean, early on, you know Bob said, he I remember that. you know Because, I mean, that's ah it's a big thing in the rooms, right? Don't judge. Don't judge. bob just I remember Bob looked at us and said, fucking judge away, man.

00:53:15.49
Bill
Right.

00:53:19.73
Mike
I judge all the time. Yeah, we we have standards today.

00:53:21.37
Bill
Right.

00:53:23.30
Mike
That's why we do this thing. you know Again, you know the The unmanageability, this thing manages. We have principles now. We have standards that we have to live up to to do this thing right. And, and yeah, absolutely. I judge myself and I judge you. God damn it.

00:53:40.54
Mike
Not you, you, but, you know, everyone.

00:53:41.96
Bill
Well, of course, of course you do.

00:53:42.59
Mike
Yeah. ah Well, i judge you too.

00:53:43.37
Bill
Don't fucking lie.

00:53:44.29
Mike
Well, I mean, yeah, of course, I didn't mean you in that example, but of course I judge you.

00:53:51.04
Bill
Yeah, i'm I'm part of the collective you. I'm like, yeah, of course.

00:53:53.17
Mike
Yes. Yes, you are.

00:53:54.26
Bill
Of course. Yeah, I'm not ah fucking special. Like my friend Mike doesn't judge me. Oh, he judges everyone else but Bill.

00:53:58.04
Mike
who

00:53:59.64
Bill
No, no, I get I get judged worse.

00:53:59.74
Mike
No, no, no, no, no. I judge Bill. Plenty. Yeah, of course.

00:54:02.61
Bill
yeah I get judged worse.

00:54:04.83
Mike
Standards, right? Because we come from the same goddamn place.

00:54:05.85
Bill
Yeah.

00:54:07.55
Mike
so we

00:54:07.93
Bill
Yeah.

00:54:08.66
Mike
Yes, we do not allow ourselves and we don't allow each other to slack the fuck off.

00:54:15.69
Bill
I can see us being out someplace that I do something. You're like, you don't do that at home. Why are you doing that here?

00:54:20.45
Mike
Right. Yeah.

00:54:21.72
Bill
it'd be, it'd be that conversation. Like something for like, you know, talking to a child.

00:54:24.93
Mike
Yeah.

00:54:25.20
Bill
um I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

00:54:26.56
Mike
You wouldn't do that in a fucking church basement. Don't fucking do it here. You're

00:54:30.69
Bill
And that's the thing. I wouldn't.

00:54:32.64
Mike
right.

00:54:32.83
Bill
there's

00:54:33.16
Mike
Right.

00:54:33.33
Bill
I wouldn't. But, and here's the funny part. I'm trying to think, why would I, why would I not record on? Cause I'm like, okay, what if I went, you know thinking about this in my head, what we're talking about, you know, these, these going away things like, oh, well, okay.

00:54:44.17
Mike
Sure.

00:54:45.14
Bill
So what if I was someplace that I really wanted to take a trip and go see And I knew I was going to be allowed the internet for three, but I'm like, that's, it's a long weekend. I can't go a week without internet.

00:54:53.48
Mike
Yeah.

00:54:54.86
Bill
Cause I got to fucking work.

00:54:56.12
Mike
Right.

00:54:56.14
Bill
Even if I'm not doing this thing that I'm doing, whatever work I do, I'm going need, ah there's no reason i would, and you and if I was going to go away for a long weekend and I was going to be in out someplace with no internet connection, you and I would record on a Wednesday or Thursday.

00:55:00.08
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:55:06.82
Mike
Right.

00:55:09.20
Mike
Yeah, we would. Right. Mm-hmm.

00:55:10.97
Bill
And I would just release the episode beforehand because I couldn't release it on Saturday because I'm going to be out in the middle of, you know, where else enjoying, enjoying my fucking sober life.

00:55:16.44
Mike
Right.

00:55:18.10
Bill
But, um, right.

00:55:18.40
Mike
Be mauled by a bear somewhere.

00:55:21.66
Bill
But I, I don't forget, i have a knife now.

00:55:24.68
Mike
oh yes, that's right. Mm-hmm. he

00:55:27.05
Bill
it's it's about as It's opened up. It's about as long as a pen.

00:55:30.89
Mike
and

00:55:31.66
Bill
But it's a Smith & Wesson, okay? So just calm the fuck down. I'm fine.

00:55:36.32
Mike
Protected by Smith and Wesson.

00:55:36.90
Bill
yeah um'm I'm fine. I got a knife. I got bear spray and a knife.

00:55:40.47
Mike
Protected by Smith and Wilson.

00:55:40.63
Bill
I'm good.

00:55:44.99
Bill
That's awesome. Yeah.

00:55:46.35
Mike
but yeah You never saw that t-shirt?

00:55:47.25
Bill
this No.

00:55:49.16
Mike
Oh, yeah.

00:55:49.18
Bill
No.

00:55:49.76
Mike
I've i've seen them at Founders Day. Yeah.

00:55:51.59
Bill
Oh, God. You could have just taken credit for that. I was going to give you all the credit in the world for that.

00:55:53.59
Mike
No, couldn't. No, no, no. No. no i couldn't never

00:55:58.11
Mike
no

00:55:58.13
Bill
No, I've never seen that. It's protected by smith Smith and Wilson.

00:56:01.84
Mike
Wilson.

00:56:01.89
Bill
That's awesome.

00:56:02.08
Mike
Yeah, right.

00:56:02.75
Bill
That's awesome. Okay. I like that. I like that a lot. But no, so anyhow, I don't know. but Fuck them. I'm going to judge people that take off because I don't i don't i don't understand it.

00:56:10.88
Mike
yeah

00:56:12.66
Bill
if you're If you're doing a sobriety thing, you you should be around for this. all these, even us, we've got a small audience, but people expect us to be here. So, um, you know, we put ourselves in this position.

00:56:19.83
Mike
Yep.

00:56:21.89
Bill
So fuck it. We got it. We got to do it.

00:56:23.77
Mike
sir Yeah.

00:56:23.85
Bill
And we want to, yeah, fuck it.

00:56:26.00
Mike
Mostly.

00:56:26.10
Bill
We got to do, God damn it. Fuck it. We got to do this. Fuck.

00:56:28.45
Mike
Yes. Right. Yeah. For a brief moment and then we do it We're happy.

00:56:32.66
Bill
Yeah.

00:56:33.73
Mike
All

00:56:34.59
Bill
yeah All right. So this was a, just a note that I wrote down. Do you ever, or did, I'm not, do you ever, God, this is not present tense, not present tense.

00:56:42.62
Mike
all right. Okay.

00:56:44.54
Bill
Did you ever get to a point where you hated what alcohol was doing to you and for you? And the reason where the question came from, um i was listening to a podcast and the guy had said that he loved it, but he ended up hating what it was doing. So did you ever have that revelation where you just, ah you hated alcohol or what it was doing for you? did you have that kind of revelation or no?

00:57:06.08
Mike
a yeah, I'm sure I did, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, um yeah sure, you know, what

00:57:09.16
Bill
Did you? Okay.

00:57:16.04
Mike
well, clearly at some point, yeah, um, no, of course, i mean, yeah, you know, again, that, that's, that's too black and white, um, you know, do I mean, yes, I hated what it was doing to me, i also loved what it was doing to me, um,

00:57:26.98
Bill
Right.

00:57:35.00
Mike
Yeah, both. Yes. Hmm. both yes yes

00:57:40.91
Bill
God, I just, i I never, I didn't, when the reason I wrote that down is I never got there. I never got to that point where where I hated it. um i And i I mean, was I just so so fucking delusional and just so fucking clueless?

00:57:55.55
Mike
Well, I mean, ah you know, and again, you know, and then you get that fucking, you know, yes, you hated it, but you had to do it anyway.

00:57:55.65
Bill
Right.

00:58:01.16
Mike
And then you fucking, you know, you got that nice 20 minutes of, you know, oh I love this. This a great.

00:58:06.35
Bill
Right.

00:58:07.20
Mike
Yeah. You know, I mean, I go through all of that and in a 24 hour period, 12 hour period. um yeah Yeah. You know, and with other substances too.

00:58:17.40
Mike
And sure.

00:58:18.03
Bill
Right.

00:58:18.69
Mike
ah hey Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, yeah, I got so bad that, yeah, of course, I mean, it was, you know, and, and, and being a slave and and all that. Yeah. It was, it was awful.

00:58:30.36
Mike
And it was also fucking wonderful.

00:58:30.61
Bill
right Yeah, I mean, all all of it in hindsight. But, you know, I even look back at the fact that every morning when I was putting contacts in contact and and had to had to drink to a point to even myself out, I wasn't mad about it.

00:58:41.54
Bill
I just did it, you know.

00:58:42.64
Mike
Right.

00:58:42.98
Bill
and i And I didn't even think about the fact that, um God, I can't believe I have to do this. ah that's the That's the whole point of ah that that blows my fucking mind.

00:58:47.41
Mike
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:58:50.52
Bill
I'm like, how who was I, you know?

00:58:52.86
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:58:53.73
Bill
And I mean, I was, I was inhuman, you know, that's the only way I can, I can think about it.

00:58:56.57
Mike
right

00:58:58.41
Bill
I was just that this fucking robotic thing, this robotic being, um, that had no, no conception and no outside feelings and no anything like that. Because to me, even the, like, I didn't have money to pay rent, never blamed alcohol. I didn't have money to do this, never blamed alcohol.

00:59:14.05
Bill
Um, If I got, I don't know, I got, I got called out at it work a couple of times because I didn't know what the fuck I was doing and I was loaded, but low, you know, somebody thought they smelled alcohol on you.

00:59:21.34
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:59:23.63
Bill
Don't want me, you know, that sort of thing.

00:59:24.89
Mike
Right. Right.

00:59:26.47
Bill
There was none of it. There was nothing that even if I got anything like that, it it never, and that's the thing that just, it,

00:59:29.06
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:59:33.70
Bill
it I don't to, that not even bothers me. It blows my fucking mind. It's, I can't, it can't bother me because it was what it was, you know? um And I'm not bothered by the fact because I'm not that way anymore.

00:59:44.57
Bill
um But it just fucking blows my mind that that, that's why I wrote that down. Cause I'm like, when I, my initial thought was, I never got to the point where I thought that it was, I mean, ah just never got, it's fucking weird.

00:59:54.92
Bill
I don't know.

00:59:55.73
Mike
Right.

00:59:56.80
Bill
and just

00:59:57.09
Mike
Yeah. Well, I mean, clearly, i mean, clearly, I mean, I went into rehabs several times and, you know, but again, you know, yeah, I mean, it wasn't.

01:00:01.89
Bill
Right. Yeah.

01:00:06.36
Mike
yeah Yes, it what it was a substance, right? That was, you know, it it wasn't me.

01:00:10.74
Bill
Right.

01:00:13.07
Mike
it sure as hell it wasn't me. It wasn't my thoughts and behaviors and attitudes that was the problem. You know, yes, I drink too much. Well, maybe I should try to drink a little less. Well, they'll teach me how to drink a little less and then I'll be okay.

01:00:28.17
Mike
Right.

01:00:28.36
Bill
right

01:00:28.41
Mike
Yeah. Yeah. It was never, you know, the root of my problems is selfishness and self-centered. No, no, no, not me. I'm a goddamn wonderful guy. You should be happy to be around me.

01:00:40.58
Bill
I'm a swell guy. People like me.

01:00:41.88
Mike
That's right. That's right.

01:00:42.81
Bill
Yeah, yeah yeah that's ah's just so fucking funny. and i've We've heard so many stories about that, that, you know, again, people going in and, um you know, figuring that you just, I just need to learn how to drink better.

01:00:57.54
Mike
Right. Drink like a gentleman.

01:00:58.40
Bill
You know, yeah. Like it says in the book, drink like a gentleman, you know?

01:01:02.36
Mike
ha ha ha ha.

01:01:02.89
Bill
Um, which again, I, I just, I was gonna, I had no idea what I was going to do, but like like we were talking about even last week with Betty, i man, I was just going to go in there.

01:01:10.11
Mike
<unk>

01:01:10.50
Bill
i was going to fucking hang out. I wasn't ready to quit, but I didn't, I wasn't on my mind that, okay, when when I'm out of here, I'm gonna fucking rip it up.

01:01:13.65
Mike
Right.

01:01:17.31
Bill
I just, it's just the way that I lived and I didn't expect to be, to be transformed, you know?

01:01:19.86
Mike
Yeah.

01:01:22.92
Bill
Um, and maybe that's, maybe that's the point.

01:01:23.08
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:01:24.96
Bill
It's kind of like being in an accident. They say, if you tense up, it's when you get hurt.

01:01:28.10
Mike
Sure.

01:01:28.30
Bill
Maybe that was the point that I was just so fucking clueless that, you know, all this shit just seeped in without me knowing.

01:01:28.50
Mike
Yeah.

01:01:33.30
Bill
was hey, where'd that fucking come from? of a sudden, I'm, you know, I'm walking the, you know, the fucking Kylie mile and I'm praying and, and I'm, you know, I'm six months or well, three months sober. And I'm like, where the fuck did I get here?

01:01:43.01
Mike
Uh-huh. Right. Yeah,

01:01:46.66
Bill
What the fuck? yeah Like, what'd you say? Billy Bob Thornton out in the middle of nowhere. Where am I? Where am I?

01:01:52.02
Mike
yeah right. Uh-huh.

01:01:53.13
Bill
yeah

01:01:53.50
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:01:54.50
Bill
Yeah. Oh, and by by the way, so I didn't even know what i was, oh, what was looking at. i i saw an article that said that there's a bunch of like Android update, Android updates where certain apps now are going to, are going to be tied in and um actually work with, sync up with the satellite on T-Mobile.

01:02:11.77
Mike
ah hu

01:02:11.99
Bill
um So it two of the big ones, AllTrails, which I use, Google Maps, and then obviously Messenger.

01:02:15.94
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:02:19.10
Bill
Messenger works on satellite right now, the text message.

01:02:21.59
Mike
Okay.

01:02:22.64
Bill
So that works on there.

01:02:22.68
Mike
Yeah.

01:02:24.04
Bill
um I can't remember. There's a couple other. Maybe WhatsApp ah works because then you could send more detailed messages. I don't know if you can make phone calls yet through it. But, you know, so I went in and I'm like, you know, trying to figure out, like, God, how can I figure out if if my phone is now because only they're they're rolling it out to certain devices, you know, little by little.

01:02:40.88
Mike
Right.

01:02:41.77
Bill
Like the Google Pixel always gets it. And some of the Samsung ones always. But the Motorola ones, I think, are on the lower end. um But I looked in there and I like I went popped into satellite part and like, oh, yeah, you don't have that on your package. I'm like, what the fuck?

01:02:53.60
Bill
I set it up like two months ago. You know, somehow it went away.

01:02:55.09
Mike
Right. Oh.

01:02:58.42
Bill
And I'm like, fuck. So I went in there and set it all up again. I still don't know if all trails and everything works. But two of the biggest things, um I always download a map on all trails. But what I run into is if I go to an area and I want to go to um a trail here and then there's another trail within like a few miles, there's no way for me to, if I get there and there's no cell phone service, I can't map myself to it.

01:03:17.58
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:03:22.82
Bill
I can't, I can't, sometimes it's luck of the draw if I can find it.

01:03:26.62
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:03:26.64
Bill
You know, or sometimes I got to go out and come. I've done that before. I've gone out where I can get service. I'll go back in um to where the second trail is.

01:03:31.92
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:03:33.69
Bill
But if I can get all trails and if Google Maps works now, I'll be fucking beautiful for what I do.

01:03:36.64
Mike
Right? Sure.

01:03:39.41
Bill
Because, I mean, the I can download a map so I don't get lost on a trail that I'm on. That's already there. um But to be able to, you know, get connections on both of those, it would just make my my personal life a little bit easier um and more enjoyable, you know?

01:03:53.93
Mike
Right.

01:03:54.02
Bill
So, yeah. and for And for only $10 a month, all of this could be yours.

01:03:58.80
Mike
yeah Hashtag not an ad. All

01:04:02.67
Bill
yeah Hashtag blessed. Hashtag living my best life.

01:04:05.82
Mike
right.

01:04:09.05
Mike
la la la

01:04:09.43
Bill
Yeah. But no, just anyhow. So, um so, yeah. So, yeah, that was that that part. There was one other one that I was looking at here. Oh, yeah ah you know, I got a couple of things I want to talk about with the Charlie Sheen thing.

01:04:21.92
Bill
It's actually good stuff, but there was like one other one that I wanted to.

01:04:23.38
Mike
right

01:04:26.63
Bill
Oh, I know. This is another one, another podcast one that I that I have. This is right above this. So this lady was talking about, she lives in the area. I think the, the North Eastern part of the Carolina is up by, i can't think of the town that got hit really hard by Helene.

01:04:42.23
Bill
Um,

01:04:42.41
Mike
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

01:04:45.29
Bill
yeah i Yeah, I can't think of it now.

01:04:45.34
Mike
Right. That one.

01:04:46.73
Bill
Yeah, but I want to go there at some point once things kind of get back. And it's been, you know, a year and a half now. But there's a there's this gorge up there.

01:04:51.45
Mike
Yeah. Sure.

01:04:54.04
Bill
It's supposed to be like the New River Gorge and stuff like that. But um I want to go up there after things kind of get cleaned up. i don't I don't know. I don't want to be part of the problem, I guess, is the only reason I haven't tried to go up there.

01:05:03.16
Mike
Sure.

01:05:03.42
Bill
But she said that, um you know, so as this is going on, you know, no power, this and that, no cell phone service. She went to she was trying to find um ah she had heard someplace that like there was a community center or church or something like that that had Internet service like Wi-Fi ah services. She's going to go in just to let her family know she was OK because she had been on power for a couple of days. But, you know, she's sober at this time, however long.

01:05:26.23
Mike
Right.

01:05:26.29
Bill
Um, but you know, she gets there and you know, their, their wifi is not working. So can't do that. But then on the way back, she's like, she's like, I just, I wanted to stop at the store. Cause she's like, there was nothing else. I wanted more of the world, but diet Coke, um, you know, cause again, she's sober.

01:05:37.49
Mike
o

01:05:39.60
Bill
Right.

01:05:40.28
Mike
Right.

01:05:40.73
Bill
So she's standing in line at this, uh, at this store um And all she sees is everyone in line, you know, armfuls of wine and beer, whatever. And she said, like in North Carolina, it's one of the ones where they have, ah which again, thankfully, I've been to North Carolina a couple of times and I don't know this.

01:05:55.51
Bill
It's, you know, it's like the the states where you have to go to ah a state store to buy booze.

01:05:59.74
Mike
Sure, like Ohio.

01:06:01.23
Bill
Yeah. um um I keep forgetting about that, too. Which, again, I don't know.

01:06:04.38
Mike
Help.

01:06:05.88
Bill
I wasn't up drinking age in Ohio.

01:06:06.60
Mike
Hehehehehehe.

01:06:08.12
Bill
yeah um But so, you know, she just she mentioned that. And I was just like, God, you know, maybe think about back when you're in your drinking days where you were ever in a situation like that, where there was some sort of like natural disaster event or anything like that, where were you specifically went out and to get more booze to to make sure that you were taken care of?

01:06:29.31
Mike
Um, I mean, i yeah, I, you know, snow storms and whatever. Yeah, sure.

01:06:34.08
Bill
yeah Yeah, right.

01:06:35.09
Mike
Yeah. Right. You know, gonna get snowed in better. Make sure I'm stocked up. Yeah. I mean, as you started talking about it, I remember I was, when I was out on the road, I was driving truck and still drinking back when I first started driving.

01:06:50.51
Mike
Um, I was, ah you know, I always, I mean, I've talked about it on here. i I knew where the liquor stores were at. I could get to a fucking race.

01:06:57.83
Bill
Right.

01:06:59.89
Mike
you know, all over the goddamn country, man, I had it, I had it down pretty well, um but I, early on, I remember I was down south somewhere, and, you know, I'm i'm pretty sure I had, like, hard liquor, i was okay with that, but I needed beer, right, um to, you know, because you got to have something to chase the hard stuff down with, yeah, and, ah right,

01:07:19.79
Bill
Well, of course. I understand that.

01:07:23.26
Mike
Yes, I know you do. ah Anyway, yeah i was down south somewhere, and um it was a fucking dry county, and I didn't know it.

01:07:33.84
Mike
Thankfully, this was back when it was paper logs and stuff, and you could continue to drive. and yeah ah so i i drove like probably miles two

01:07:46.54
Mike
into a wet County so I could, yeah, absolutely. i remember I was, um, ha ha. I was actually pretty close to where you are One time i was in South Bend and, uh,

01:07:57.98
Mike
It was a Sunday and I was in, in I was in a bar.

01:07:59.18
Bill
Right.

01:08:01.47
Mike
um Cause so I think football games were going on. I had the day off and whatever. And again, early on, right. Didn't know the lay of the land and all that good stuff. And I was in a bar and they, they closed like when the football game was done, it was like, i don't know, three in the afternoon or something. And I sure as hell wasn't done.

01:08:21.17
Mike
And yeah, you couldn't, I had to drive up to Michigan

01:08:24.07
Bill
Right.

01:08:27.29
Bill
Yeah, you know, we we did that.

01:08:27.89
Mike
Yeah.

01:08:29.15
Bill
Mark and I did that a couple of times when we had the the Cousins weekend, right right when my when I was, we got to get together. It was like around my 40th birthday.

01:08:39.50
Mike
Right.

01:08:40.18
Bill
We had a, we were down at, um ah down here. well not at this house, obviously, but when they had their house on Flint Lake, just up the road from here.

01:08:46.63
Mike
Right. Right.

01:08:47.85
Bill
And Johnny was in town. Courtney and Ryan were in town. um And I mean, yeah, ah Johnny and Mark went to, they either drove to Michigan or Illinois that day. it was like from where, well, you know, from where we are here right now, you can, it's, it's a horse at peace regardless of where you want to go.

01:08:57.97
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:09:00.84
Mike
Right.

01:09:04.19
Mike
Yeah.

01:09:04.53
Bill
I mean, you could be in either state.

01:09:04.85
Mike
Right.

01:09:06.19
Bill
Normally we went to, we went to Michigan, but um yeah.

01:09:06.28
Mike
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

01:09:08.95
Bill
And, you know, usually we'd, for the most part, and I say, and I say, we, you know, it was like me, Kathy and Mark, when we had a bunch of people, I come down and they have bunch people over, whatever the case is, you know, you try to plan, but you know, when you get, well, I mean, you get, you know, me and Mark and Johnny and, like well, and, and, you know, I mean, me and Mark, I mean, me and Mark drank and then, you know, ah obviously, you know, throw a couple of other, the guys in there and stuff like that.

01:09:20.09
Mike
Sure. yeah get you. Yeah.

01:09:26.97
Mike
I know. Right.

01:09:30.44
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

01:09:31.45
Bill
And it's like, all a sudden you're like a fuck, how the fuck can we be out of? Well, okay. I guess we're going to Michigan. Yeah.

01:09:37.14
Mike
Yep.

01:09:38.42
Bill
But, yeah, you know what? The the only one that that i can that I can think of is it was just, and this was kind of a funny one, when same thing when you mentioned being being snowed in. And I think I mentioned this on here before. That's when they, Kathy and Mark lived in miller Miller Beach. And they had that that house kind of up on the hill.

01:09:55.49
Bill
And, you know, same thing.

01:09:55.59
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:09:56.41
Bill
I was down there for New Year's Eve. And, you know, on the news, it's like, and this was like going into 1999. ninety ninety nine And I remember, cause it was like, they keep on the news.

01:10:06.69
Bill
They're like, oh get prepared. Blizzard of 99. And we're looking outside and there's fucking flurries and whatever.

01:10:11.91
Mike
Right.

01:10:12.64
Bill
And it's, I think that a new year's Eve was on a Thursday and I, or a Wednesday, whatever it was, I was off for a couple of days.

01:10:17.14
Mike
Sure.

01:10:18.76
Bill
Um, and we're just laughing like, Oh, blizzard of 99. And I mean, it it ended up being like fucking 18 inches of snow in like 24 hours.

01:10:25.60
Mike
Nice.

01:10:26.28
Bill
It was fucking terrible.

01:10:27.90
Mike
Yep.

01:10:28.17
Bill
And, you know, I mean, I wasn't going anywhere. Fucking freeways are shut down. We're trying to shovel the driveway.

01:10:31.82
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:10:33.01
Bill
Just we couldn't get. i mean, you can't get down. it was this big hill driveway. And same deal. I mean, we didn't plan for it. So Kathy walked down. They had this market just down like this little corner store down towards the beach.

01:10:44.59
Bill
And she she took a sled and their dog.

01:10:44.63
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:10:46.79
Bill
They had Ziggy, which was, you know, kind of their moxie at the time.

01:10:47.57
Mike
Right.

01:10:50.82
Mike
Right.

01:10:51.26
Bill
And yeah, she walked down with a sled and got two or three cases of beer and fucking pulled it back out on a sled.

01:10:55.54
Mike
Sure.

01:10:57.53
Bill
We're like our hero.

01:10:59.03
Mike
right

01:11:00.01
Bill
You know, so it was just it was it was fun. I mean, we weren't being were being we were going to I mean, we wanted the beer, but i mean, we weren't like, you know, fucking scratching our chest and Jones and for it.

01:11:05.32
Mike
sure

01:11:08.66
Bill
But she's like she's like, I'll go down. I'll take the dog. And I walked up to the store it's like take a sled, man.

01:11:13.08
Mike
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

01:11:14.62
Bill
And she did. It was great.

01:11:16.42
Mike
he

01:11:16.43
Bill
But, um yeah, I mean, I mean, the yeah, the snow thing, I remember doing that a couple of times. But, I mean, I've never been involved in any sort of, you know, natural disaster like that where.

01:11:26.22
Mike
yeah

01:11:27.14
Bill
um But I don't know. I just didn't know because know from you living in, obviously, California and stuff like that.

01:11:31.24
Mike
right

01:11:31.58
Bill
didn't know if there was any fucking earthquake or landslides or fires or whatever or something.

01:11:34.17
Mike
yeah Sure. but Yeah, there's all that shit, but yeah, there I always manage.

01:11:37.53
Bill
that sure

01:11:43.96
Bill
Right. Nah. Well, and that that's the thing too. And I know I've said it before. i never ran out of booze.

01:11:51.24
Mike
No.

01:11:51.35
Bill
Never. I mean, I not, there was never, ever, unless I, you know, I could be at somebody's house, you know, a holiday or something like that, where, you know, the, all the booze got drank the night before, but me, you know, at my own place, wherever I was, I fuck, I never did.

01:12:03.09
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

01:12:06.13
Bill
I always had extra. you know, I always had an overage, you know, to make sure and I was planning to head, you know, for my work schedule and somebody is going to be around or, you know, if obviously the same thing bad, it's bad to say, but if Derek is going to be there and whatever and, you know, can't be walking into the store and grabbing cases of beer and a fucking big old bottle of whiskey and shit. So, um yeah, I don't know. I mean, I, of course, you know, didn't didn't eat very well and didn't pay my bills, but I i never and never ran out of booze.

01:12:31.16
Mike
Right.

01:12:32.33
Bill
Priorities. Priorities.

01:12:34.12
Mike
ah

01:12:35.25
Bill
All right. So a little bit about Charlie Sheen. So, I mean, I talked about the documentary. If you still, if you get the chance, I think, I think you'd enjoy it.

01:12:42.47
Mike
Right.

01:12:42.54
Bill
um I'm, I think I'm down to the last, might be down to the last half hour to 45 minutes of the book. um You know, with back and forth, driving back and forth to Wisconsin and wherever I was and blah, blah, blah.

01:12:54.28
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:12:54.66
Bill
Or no, when I i went to a couple places when I did some hiking over the last couple of weeks, that's what it was. so i was listening to it. um Just very interesting. I mean, it's just one of those things I didn't really write down a lot of things, you know, or remember to, you know, obviously make notes about stuff, but a couple of things. So did you know um and what a, what a fucking wild man, Nicholas cages.

01:13:16.60
Mike
Oh yeah.

01:13:17.60
Bill
Really? I, if, if I knew, I just didn't remember, you know, but I mean, apparently he and he and Nicholas cage were, were good friends and they hug out a lot and got into a lot of fucking trouble.

01:13:27.04
Mike
Sure. Yeah. They like grew up together.

01:13:29.50
Bill
And,

01:13:30.32
Mike
Yeah.

01:13:30.85
Bill
was it maybe, was that it? I can't, you're um I'll take it where I don't remember that either. If that's probably one of the things I heard in the book. So yeah, he might've known him for years and years come to think that probably makes more sense.

01:13:39.34
Mike
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

01:13:41.50
Bill
But, um, I mean, into their adult life and all, all of Charlie's mess and all that stuff, you know, and fucking Nicholas Cage was just a fucking wild man.

01:13:43.98
Mike
Sure.

01:13:48.38
Bill
But, um, So the one that I just thought this was funny. So um Cage visited visited Charlie at rehab and was telling him this story about losing this fancy lighter um when they were in Palm Springs.

01:14:01.59
Bill
I think that's when they went down there, the judge, the bikini competition, whatever, when Charlie skipped out of rehab and came back.

01:14:06.32
Mike
ah ahha

01:14:08.41
Bill
Um, and, and Grabe with his initials and the whole thing. So, um, Cage ends up calling this girl, uh, that he was, he was with and spent, you know, spent the time with over the weekend, um, to see if she had it, you know, and apparently she had the, the same initials as him, you know, as Nicholas Cage.

01:14:23.41
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:14:24.68
Bill
So whatever her name was, Nicole, pick your favorite C word.

01:14:28.53
Mike
Sure. hair

01:14:29.47
Bill
Um, So, and so this girl, this chick that he just was fucking banging for the weekend, Nicolas Cage was um thought, thought it was a sign that he left his lighter there.

01:14:38.60
Mike
Ah.

01:14:39.46
Bill
So she's like, she wanted, she's like, I want to bring the lighter to you and spend the weekend and blah, blah, blah. So apparently Nicolas Cage. Now, I guess from what I, from what I'm gathering from the story, she did not have his number. He somehow had her, her number or knew how to get ahold of her because he, she's saying all this shit to Nicolas Cage. He's just like, he says, Merry Christmas to her and hug up the phone.

01:14:59.51
Mike
Hehehehehe.

01:14:59.58
Bill
and And then Charlie's like, oh, by the way, it was August.

01:15:03.21
Mike
Hehehehehe.

01:15:04.78
Bill
And I'm like, it's this fucking lighter that he's all tripping over that he forgot his lighter. but he's like, yeah, fucking Merry Christmas and hug up. And then ah did you have you heard any of this? Some of this stuff has been out in the news. Did you hear that um Charlie Sheen got cut off by the cartel?

01:15:19.32
Mike
No.

01:15:21.04
Bill
Okay, so one of his, so he had a dealer that was getting his, who had a connection from the cartel, obviously, in Mexico.

01:15:26.57
Mike
Mm hmm. Mm

01:15:28.14
Bill
um Again, not obviously, but this connection was in Mexico. So um Charlie was doing so much cocaine. He went through, at one point he was going through two two kilos, and I wrote this down to make sure I rewound it, to make sure I had it right, two kilos of coke um every three weeks, okay?

01:15:42.16
Mike
hmm.

01:15:45.70
Mike
Nice.

01:15:47.15
Bill
So um his dealer goes to to get him, obviously, to re-up. And basically the cartel is like, they're like, yeah, we we're not going to give him any more.

01:15:57.15
Mike
Right. Right. Uh-huh.

01:15:58.71
Bill
And they're you know it's like, well, why? he goes he goes He goes, because you know we're we're giving people, we we did not give this, whoever this fucking individual is, and apparently they knew who he was, but they're like, whoever this guy thinks he is, um we did not give him permission to deal.

01:16:06.87
Mike
ah ha

01:16:13.25
Bill
We gave him you know permission just for his you know personal consumption.

01:16:16.24
Mike
right

01:16:16.51
Bill
And Charlie's dealer is like, he's not dealing.

01:16:20.23
Mike
right

01:16:20.82
Bill
And they're like, there's like, there's no way that he's just using that all on his own.

01:16:23.88
Mike
ah hu

01:16:24.56
Bill
So basically the dealer comes back to Charlie and says, says, well, here's, there's like a good news and bad news. He goes, the good news is they like you. So they're not going to kill you. He goes, that's, that's the good news.

01:16:32.72
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:16:34.51
Bill
um He says, but the bad news is he goes, they're not going to, they're not going to supply you with the amount that you want. They'd be willing to go half. And Charlie's like, well, you got to go find somebody else to get the other half.

01:16:42.34
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:16:46.21
Mike
right

01:16:47.19
Bill
So instead of which, of both of course, both of us can understand instead of him going, maybe if the cartel is cutting me off, I should probably cut down.

01:16:55.02
Mike
yeah

01:16:55.18
Bill
um Instead of that, he's just made his dealer go out and find another connection for the other half. So um which I thought was ah fucking crazy. But yeah, that was ah that was the only reason they didn't kill him is because apparently they knew who he was and they liked him.

01:17:08.02
Mike
Ah.

01:17:09.22
Bill
So, um, so then, uh, in, uh, it just, came it just popped up that, uh, he was on, um, uh, Charlie was on Dax Shepard podcast.

01:17:17.12
Mike
Okay.

01:17:17.33
Bill
So the interesting part was, first of all, um, I told you, I i have my, I have my good and bad opinions about Dax Shepard. Um, for the most part, I think he does a really good job.

01:17:25.05
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:17:27.37
Bill
Mark actually makes cuts on him every once in a while. Cause people like, gu you know, what are people going to listen to that now that you're not around? He's like, well, apparently Dax is trying to do what I do. So go listen to him.

01:17:36.65
Mike
Right.

01:17:37.78
Bill
You know, he said shit like that every once while. They're friends, I guess. But yeah, he, I think, I think Mark's got a little bit of a, of a thing against them.

01:17:40.96
Mike
right

01:17:43.78
Bill
But um so I, I think he's a decent enough interviewer. He bothers me sometimes, but one way or the other, this was a, I just think a wonderful conversation, very laid back.

01:17:54.00
Bill
Charlie was very open about stuff. Here's a, here's the fun part though. Is it like right in the beginning of the podcast, um Charlie, king is he goes, he goes, first of all, he goes, I got to apologize for something. Dax, like, what do you mean? He goes, you may not remember this. He goes, you remember when,

01:18:06.66
Bill
He goes, it was Halloween. It was like 15 years ago. And we were this place. He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes, do you remember that we that we had had a conversation? And as Charlie puts it, he goes, yeah. He goes, I remembered.

01:18:18.27
Bill
He goes, that's like when I first met you but blah, blah, blah.

01:18:20.62
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:18:20.70
Bill
Somewhere along those lines. And what happened was is that Charlie was there with whoever girlfriend he was with, wife at the time. And they're with kids. And ah Dax, I think, was there before he's with his wife now, before he's with Kristen, I think.

01:18:33.94
Bill
Or maybe him and Kristen were just dating. So And Dax and whoever he was with, they were out and just enjoying Halloween, doing the single life thing. Right. um Whereas Charlie's out there, you know, carting around kids, doing this and that, blah, blah, blah.

01:18:46.02
Bill
So apparently Dax is just like, this has been the greatest night doing all this and doing that. And apparently Charlie just flipped on him and just said, try doing it with fucking kids, you idiot. it And blah, blah, blah.

01:18:55.19
Mike
for her

01:18:55.57
Bill
Like, like lit them up. Right.

01:18:56.97
Mike
Right?

01:18:57.87
Bill
So Charlie made amends to him.

01:19:00.19
Mike
ah

01:19:00.39
Bill
15 years later on the on the podcast, the Dax is like, I don't even remember that. He goes, I, I remembered you talked to me. and he goes, I was just thrilled that you spoke to me.

01:19:08.10
Mike
Right.

01:19:09.19
Bill
You know, so that's kind of what we talk about all the time. about I'm like, well, that's kind of fucking fun. You know, so they're talking back and forth about it, about a bunch of different stuff, just a bunch of different stuff. But here's the thing. And I mean, all these different things that between the documentary in the book, that the doc is kind of, um you know, he's,

01:19:26.43
Bill
He's personally, he's having a conversation back and forth and add some personality to it. The book is a little bit more, you know, when people read an audio book and he's got inflection to it, it's not boring. But again, it's just a straightforward type of thing.

01:19:38.18
Bill
This podcast episode was just this off the cuff back and forth conversation. So it was really fresh to me, um that to begin with. But the thing that I pulled from it, like about halfway through, I'm like, like, God damn it. He just sounds healthy.

01:19:52.81
Mike
Right.

01:19:53.67
Bill
And I was like, Jesus Christ, you know, and I, I mean, all the things that we've watched over the years and this and that, but you know what I mean? When you, when you talk to somebody that's in recovery and doing the thing, right? I mean, you know what I mean?

01:20:05.18
Bill
Right. When somebody just sounds healthy and it just clicked, I'm like, fucking amen.

01:20:06.07
Mike
Yeah, sure.

01:20:09.55
Bill
He sounds, he just really sounds healthy, you know? um

01:20:12.37
Mike
Cool.

01:20:12.74
Bill
I don't know. I mean, i'm I'm getting, I'm gaining a lot of respect for him just as an individual, some of the, his openness and and all that sort of thing, but that's, ah that's what I thought about. But so my side note on that with, with that part of it, um and I don't know, I mean, do you, let me, let maybe let's put it this way.

01:20:28.75
Bill
i hope that I would hope that both of us come across, you know, healthy and recovery. I mean, I, I think, I think we are healthy in recovery.

01:20:35.47
Mike
Sure.

01:20:38.32
Mike
well

01:20:38.67
Bill
Um, but I mean, I, I hope we come across that way. If we don't, it is what it is, but let's just, let's, let's take the leap and say, okay, if, if we sound healthy in recovery, when do you think, um, we would have grown into that? Cause that's what,

01:20:51.49
Bill
I mean, Charlie's probably seven, eight years sober, whatever it is.

01:20:53.76
Mike
Right.

01:20:53.85
Bill
I mean, I haven't heard him talk in years, so he might have had this this verbal verbal glow about him for years.

01:20:55.80
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:20:59.68
Mike
Sure.

01:20:59.88
Bill
But um what do you think that that you felt healthy or maybe spoke healthy?

01:21:00.04
Mike
Right.

01:21:05.09
Bill
yeah What time is it, right?

01:21:06.87
Mike
right

01:21:07.96
Bill
yeah

01:21:08.66
Mike
Exactly. oh i yeah. yeah yeah That's a question I cannot answer. Right.

01:21:14.38
Bill
Right.

01:21:15.01
Mike
that's that's That's outside. i don't know.

01:21:17.55
Bill
Yeah.

01:21:17.62
Mike
um Yeah. I mean, you know, clearly... I mean, ah deal again, I can't answer that for myself. Um, I can answer for you.

01:21:28.84
Mike
Um, I think, you know, probably, probably about a year and a half in is when, you know, I mean, yeah, you you had your, your little epiphany at about nine months and then, uh,

01:21:41.18
Mike
Yeah, and then probably about nine months or so after that, you really started, you know, actually, you know, again, another nine months after the epiphany um ah of like doing, you know, because you had been doing the work um and then, you know, and then doing the work after going, oh, you know, after you heard the popping sound.

01:21:52.58
Bill
hey

01:22:02.49
Mike
Yeah.

01:22:02.93
Bill
right

01:22:03.99
Mike
well Well, you know, ah that's when you started, i think, really, you know, and again, um you know, you started taking on sponsees, you know, they were assholes and didn't do it.

01:22:15.40
Mike
You suggested. But um yeah, yeah i same thing with me.

01:22:16.77
Bill
right

01:22:19.13
Mike
Right. You know, I've had lots of them and none of them fucking did. I talked about it on here.

01:22:23.74
Bill
right

01:22:24.94
Mike
There's one who, you know, um he's still sober-ish. um You know, he smokes and and he's been open and honest about that. And he's like, you know, that's why I don't come around for respect for the program.

01:22:37.31
Mike
But, um you know, he does things that are sober. Like he he lives, you know, by the principles. um He just happens to smoke pot, which is fine because apparently he can.

01:22:48.74
Bill
Right.

01:22:51.43
Mike
You know, I can't. Um, but yeah, you know, he's the only sponsor that's even come close to, you know, getting this thing and, and, and working these principles and being a better human being, you know, consciously.

01:23:04.17
Mike
um but anyway, yeah, you know, so I'd say probably about a year and a half is when you started to become healthy. Yeah.

01:23:13.48
Bill
Right.

01:23:14.08
Mike
Yeah.

01:23:14.34
Bill
Well, you know, and and I think about it, I've used you, um and I still do, you know, because i i still don't trust um I still don't trust my own mind, you know, um in in a lot of ways.

01:23:20.59
Mike
Yeah.

01:23:26.84
Mike
Mm. Right.

01:23:29.99
Bill
I don't think, well, not even think. I'm not going to just... Walk out the door and, you know, get a case of the buckets and, you know, go start drinking.

01:23:37.96
Mike
Right.

01:23:38.22
Bill
But that's, that's not my problem. You know, my problem is, is the little things, you know, ah my problem isn't the, I'm going to go out and get drunk.

01:23:40.34
Mike
Right. Uh-huh.

01:23:45.94
Bill
My problem is, is it really a good idea to do this next thing?

01:23:49.57
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:23:50.21
Bill
You know?

01:23:50.49
Mike
Right.

01:23:50.94
Bill
And I ah just went to Kathy a week or so ago because the i had the I had the two weeks booked in Lake of the Ozarks, the same host I went to twice before in the same area and all that stuff.

01:23:54.81
Mike
Mm.

01:24:02.48
Mike
Right.

01:24:03.58
Bill
And I mean, it's $750 for two weeks, which is what i paid. I don't know, a year and a half ago, I think when I was down there in April or September, one of the few off season and her prices came down and and all that stuff. And then i was looking at it and I had nothing going on the following week.

01:24:20.62
Bill
And I was like, God, I wonder, you know, cause she's always just, she's just so fucking nice, you know, and always very appreciative.

01:24:20.69
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:24:25.13
Mike
Yeah.

01:24:26.98
Bill
I've only been there twice, but I mean, she, ah she's probably is, seems like she's appreciates me as a guest as much as I do as her as a host, which is nice to begin with, you know?

01:24:32.83
Mike
sure Right. Right.

01:24:36.32
Bill
Um, so I just, i said, you know what? I said, I don't know that I ah want to take the time, of which I do. Um, but I said, I don't know if I fit in the budget, but I said, what would you charge me for another week?

01:24:42.38
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:24:47.19
Bill
Um, and she came back and I mean, it was the tax and fees on top of it, but it was like $250 for another week.

01:24:51.58
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:24:53.90
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:24:55.09
Bill
And I'm like, okay, let me think about it. So I, I asked Kathy, I'm like, okay, so here's what I have. And here's what I can do. I said, what do you think? And she's like 250 for a week.

01:25:08.05
Bill
And I said, yeah. And I said, I mean, it's not like I'm i'm not taking $250 away from something.

01:25:13.57
Mike
Right.

01:25:13.75
Bill
You know, i can I can put this on my, you know, little travel account that I use, these two little things, um you know, relatively small thing that i that I could pay for over a handful of months.

01:25:16.95
Mike
Sure. Right.

01:25:22.08
Mike
Right.

01:25:22.53
Bill
And she's like, yeah. and And I'm like, okay. I said, I just, and I told her the same thing. I'm like, I don't, I need to make sure that it seems logical to me. $250 for another week in Ozarks. i mean,

01:25:35.98
Mike
Right.

01:25:36.52
Bill
it's almost a no brainer, but I'm like, is this so almost like asking permission? Is it okay for me to think this way?

01:25:41.40
Mike
Yes.

01:25:41.73
Bill
You know? And cause I, I do, it matters to me what other people think.

01:25:42.61
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:25:45.30
Mike
Right.

01:25:45.40
Bill
And it matters to me if I'm making the right decision. So anyhow, I'll be there for three weeks.

01:25:49.22
Mike
Right. Yeah.

01:25:49.28
Bill
yeah

01:25:49.93
Mike
Right.

01:25:50.71
Bill
You know, and, you know, so it's, it's three weeks for, you know, I mean, granted it's a thousand dollars, but it's three weeks. I spent, you know, seven or 800 on a week in these other places over time, depending on where I'm at.

01:25:59.87
Mike
he right

01:26:02.43
Bill
It's a fucking great deal. It really, really is.

01:26:04.04
Mike
yeah right

01:26:05.37
Bill
um And, you know, I told her, I'm like, well, here's, here's the thing. I'm like, worst case. I mean, still money's a little tight, whatever, but I got the money to get there. This is a good deal. I got the all this stuff covered. Yeah. And I'm like, here's my point.

01:26:17.10
Bill
I'd not rather be, but why not? If I'm going to be broke, I'll be broke in the Ozarks for three weeks or or I'll sit here broke for three weeks.

01:26:21.51
Mike
Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

01:26:24.38
Bill
yeah

01:26:24.80
Mike
Yeah. Yeah.

01:26:25.44
Bill
But so to get back to my point with you, I have used you from, and I think about, because when you just said a year and a half, I was thinking about that. about the time that we moved out of the Keating Center.

01:26:34.76
Mike
right

01:26:35.18
Bill
Um, got our own place and stuff like that. And you remember that first upper, that small upper, we going to look at right up on West Boulevard, up from where you live.

01:26:40.31
Mike
yeah yeah listen

01:26:42.69
Bill
And then, you know, that one was taken. So we're looking at the other one. I'm like, this is fucking great And you're like, no way. You're like, we can't do this.

01:26:48.08
Mike
Yeah.

01:26:48.92
Bill
I'm like, why can't we?

01:26:51.06
Mike
Right.

01:26:51.40
Bill
And you're like, cause we can't afford to eat. That's why.

01:26:53.49
Mike
Right. Sure.

01:26:54.40
Bill
and I'm like, I'm like, God damn it.

01:26:57.33
Mike
right

01:26:57.52
Bill
You know? So the, that's me. That's the impulsive. I'm the same fucking guy. I was, you know, 13 and a half years ago when it, in, in, Not as bad.

01:27:05.48
Mike
sure

01:27:06.84
Bill
um But the the difference is, is that I, in that circumstance, I won't be convinced that it's the right thing. If I have any inkling that it doesn't fit, I'll ask somebody.

01:27:17.12
Bill
And if it doesn't fit, I won't do it, you know?

01:27:17.70
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

01:27:19.77
Bill
So that's, that gets back to me again, asking, you know, if I'm thinking the right way today.

01:27:21.90
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:27:24.04
Bill
so my point there is that I think easily at that same time, um, you had grown into, um, and I don't know how responsible or irresponsible you were but when you had your shit together before you became full blown.

01:27:29.24
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:27:37.62
Bill
I don't know. Didn't know you then.

01:27:38.62
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:27:39.13
Bill
Um, but you were, you were very level-headed and responsible without a doubt at that point. Um, you know, and far more than I was, maybe, maybe I was growing in other areas, but not that.

01:27:50.27
Bill
Yeah.

01:27:50.30
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. ah yeah Jesus, man. i mean, Chris and I have this conversation all the time. When the fuck did I become the responsible one?

01:28:02.02
Mike
No, because trust me, before, know.

01:28:02.08
Bill
i just I just told you. i just told you when you did.

01:28:04.63
Mike
Yeah. advances But I mean, okay. Why? How? Guys?

01:28:10.49
Bill
yeah I know. I know. I'm just fucking with you.

01:28:12.82
Mike
Yes. And no, trust me, I was not that person before I was. Yeah, I was broke. And again, yeah, right. Didn't pay my rent, didn't pay my bills, but I always had booze. I said pot.

01:28:22.76
Bill
Right.

01:28:24.10
Mike
Yeah, right. Exactly. um No, I don't know. It. Yeah, these principles, this fucking program, man, it's it's turned me into this responsible person, and it fucking freaks me out, man.

01:28:38.04
Mike
But, yeah, know, I'm going to get up tomorrow morning and drink some coffee and pay some bills.

01:28:38.57
Bill
Right.

01:28:44.18
Mike
Fuck.

01:28:44.26
Bill
Right. Yeah. And you know what? I mean, I've got, I, I, I mean, one of the reasons I haven't, the last trip I took was, I mean, yeah, I took the weekend over, over Labor Day, but I mean, that was, ah that was a couple other bucks when I went down to, you know, I don't consider really that to be, you know, a trip, but I, I was up in, you know, Wisconsin for that week.

01:28:54.31
Mike
Hmm.

01:29:02.16
Bill
You know, and that was the end of August, you know?

01:29:03.76
Mike
Right.

01:29:04.35
Bill
And the reason I've been, I've been sitting is because, I mean, it's, it's, I've got, I got plenty of money I can charge up or plenty of room to charge shit up, you know, but in the only reason I booked this Ozark trip is because, um, basically on my, the, the payments that I have, I'm getting 200 bucks back, uh, monthly off of the, the, the Phoenix one is the, that's one that's still that that's the one that it was one of the best trips I've ever taken in my entire life.

01:29:10.56
Mike
Mm-hmm. Sure. Sure. Sure.

01:29:29.55
Bill
That whole seven week thing.

01:29:29.94
Mike
Right.

01:29:31.60
Bill
Um, I have zero fucking regrets, none.

01:29:34.21
Mike
Sure. this

01:29:35.11
Bill
um It hurt financially. you know

01:29:37.01
Mike
Yeah, right.

01:29:37.59
Bill
It didn't break me. um

01:29:39.30
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:29:39.84
Bill
But man, it's it's I bent a little bit over the last... over the last

01:29:43.92
Mike
Stretched it a little thin, Right.

01:29:45.63
Bill
Oh, that no doubt, you know, because it was, it was a lot of fucking money.

01:29:48.99
Mike
Right.

01:29:49.10
Bill
Um, you know, and the, the gas I paid for, I budget, I told you, you call me a fucking nerd or something like that for budgeting out my gas.

01:29:55.46
Mike
right

01:29:55.72
Bill
But I mean, in, in the gas, if I remember correctly, I might've, there might've been maybe one leg of the trip where I threw, I don't know, one or two tanks of gas, maybe a hundred bucks of gas onto a credit card.

01:30:06.58
Bill
But, um, I think that that, that entire trip, it was like $700 in gas, know?

01:30:07.21
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:30:11.40
Bill
know

01:30:11.41
Mike
Sure.

01:30:12.24
Bill
And I paid for it. It was, it was money I budgeted and and paid for because I knew i was charging the rest, you know, not the rest, but a lot of it.

01:30:14.05
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah, right.

01:30:20.30
Bill
Um, but yeah, there's still, I mean, but I, I, I made those decisions. Um, you know, they were calculated decisions and I budgeted everything out to make sure that I could do it. I didn't just be like, ah, fuck it. I'll be fine.

01:30:32.09
Mike
Right. Right.

01:30:32.87
Bill
You know, which is what I used to do. I'm like, eh, 30,

01:30:34.90
Mike
Oh, yeah, it'll work out.

01:30:36.10
Bill
third

01:30:37.65
Mike
I'll worry about that in a couple weeks.

01:30:39.61
Bill
yeah Yeah. And I don't know.

01:30:41.29
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:30:41.90
Bill
I said budget out, you know, usually a couple of pay periods ahead. I and I still I fucking write it all down. I know where I'm at.

01:30:47.38
Mike
Right.

01:30:47.94
Bill
I mean, I give him fucking point.

01:30:48.48
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:30:49.42
Bill
You know, I know how how tight things are when I got a little bit of cash extra, you know, but um I don't know. It's just the the responsibility part. And. um and that sort of thing. And that's, I know it went back to the, you know, when we started sounding healthy, but I'm i'm glad, i don't think we've ever really talked about that part. Well, first of all, thank you, you know, for, for bringing that up as far as that.

01:31:08.93
Bill
I don't remember, you know, that I grew in that timeframe. um I know there was, there was comments that I got every once in a while from, you know, family members or friends or, or probably Dawn maybe at the time or,

01:31:16.63
Mike
um um Sure.

01:31:21.47
Mike
Right.

01:31:22.22
Bill
You know, or even, you know, two, three years down the road, you run into somebody and then, you know, people who know what you went through. They're like, man, you know, you you sound great. You know, you you look good and you sound good.

01:31:30.64
Mike
Yeah.

01:31:33.13
Mike
Right.

01:31:33.28
Bill
You know, and I guess that's what I that's what I hear from, you know, from Charlie, too, is he just the dude fucking sounds healthy, you know.

01:31:37.23
Mike
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Well, I mean, you know, I believe I read in some book somewhere that, you know, people, ah other people are going to see it before we do.

01:31:47.04
Bill
Mm hmm.

01:31:47.66
Mike
mrs

01:31:48.27
Bill
Right. Was that book big?

01:31:51.22
Mike
It may have been, it was, it was large.

01:31:52.72
Bill
Large, large book.

01:31:53.78
Mike
Right.

01:31:55.53
Bill
It's, it's a venti book.

01:31:59.32
Bill
yeah

01:31:59.53
Mike
Grande. Yes.

01:32:00.96
Bill
Yes, Grande and Venti.

01:32:03.38
Mike
Yes.

01:32:03.65
Bill
Okay, so um I won't even get into this whole thing, and I was going to save it, but i this is too good to save. I'm just going to read the headline, and I'll tell you what it is that it came across on a, I don't remember if I, it's not even been a kicker story, but okay, headline.

01:32:18.45
Bill
Adult star hospitalized after 50-man backdoor challenge goes wrong.

01:32:27.41
Bill
So you can imagine what that was, right?

01:32:29.50
Mike
ah Yeah. I don't need to imagine it.

01:32:34.06
Bill
yeah So was, it was a couple of, couple of fucking porn stars. The one, the one chick got her friend to join in too. And literally, um, yeah, she, I mean this, the one of the chicks got her fucking, fucking butt blown out, you know, for being, mean, thank you much. And she, um, yeah, she said, uh, hang on one second here. She said, uh,

01:32:55.07
Bill
The drama of the ordeal has led to many people online questioning the authenticity of her claims. Obviously, her fucking asshole blew out.

01:33:01.27
Mike
Mmm.

01:33:01.36
Bill
And she said, that she said, I refuse. One person says, I refuse point blank to believe this is real. um But people saying it's satire. um But basically, she said that. Back to our challenge gone wrong. Yeah, we knew that part. um She said, yeah, in this business, so you know, I got it.

01:33:18.31
Bill
Oh, yeah. With this line of work, I'm in. It needs to look perfect. So here I am at the surgery place.

01:33:24.41
Mike
Mmm.

01:33:27.08
Bill
I mean, I suppose if you you know if your one of your work tools is broken, you've got to get her fixed, right?

01:33:31.37
Mike
yeah Yep, take it into the shop.

01:33:41.86
Bill
I've got nothing for that. I've got nothing for that. I'm just like, God damn.

01:33:44.35
Mike
i

01:33:44.91
Bill
but I mean, again, it just you you knew what it you know the headline was going to. But yeah, it says adult star. Yeah, fucking porn star. Fucked by 50 dudes. She got a friend involved with it, too. So maybe she only took 20.

01:33:54.09
Mike
Well, you know, it's always good to have a friend with you.

01:33:56.34
Bill
I think so. I mean, especially if you're getting, getting ass fucked, you know, to get, maybe you only take on 20, 25 them.

01:33:57.30
Mike
Right. Right.

01:34:02.28
Bill
I mean, I don't, I don't know.

01:34:02.69
Mike
Sure. Yeah. Problem shares is a problem cut in half.

01:34:07.21
Bill
yeah Yeah. And then you're in your anus only gets, uh, you know, bruised up by 25 big fucking dicks rather than 50. So, all right.

01:34:15.67
Mike
All right.

01:34:16.71
Bill
So on, on that note, um, I don't know.

01:34:18.22
Mike
e

01:34:18.63
Bill
I mean, are we, uh, we going wrap this up on big fucking dicks or, you know, I mean, speaking of,

01:34:22.17
Mike
Apparently we are.

01:34:24.25
Bill
Speaking of a couple of big fucking dicks. Hi, Mike.

01:34:26.34
Mike
Right. Hi there.

01:34:28.80
Bill
I said a couple, so me too. I'm just joining in.

01:34:31.05
Mike
Right. Oh, i yeah, exactly.

01:34:33.25
Bill
Okay.

01:34:33.39
Mike
Right. but Plus, I got a baseball game to go watch.

01:34:36.58
Bill
Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Baseball, your Tigers are playing. Are they playing tonight?

01:34:40.49
Mike
deb Right now, second bottom of the second inning, 0-0.

01:34:41.68
Bill
Oh, shit. Are they? Okay. Sorry about that.

01:34:44.69
Mike
Oh, um trust me, I'm paying attention.

01:34:45.10
Bill
God damn it. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Come on. Get us out of here. Get, get.

01:34:49.18
Mike
Yeah, right. Well, fuck, man. Thanks for listening to another episode of Sobered Outmature.

01:34:51.44
Bill
yeah

01:34:53.99
Mike
always, be kind to each other, be good to each other. out and do something nice for somebody else this week and don't tell anybody you did it. Now, from the bottom of my heart to the depths of my soul, from the beginning of time until the ends of the earth, always and eternally, fuck you.

01:35:16.09
Mike
Now it's time, kids. It's time for you to fuck off. and 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.

01:35:28.30
Mike
Climb over that gate. Dream the impossible dream. And keep fucking off forever.

01:35:35.86
Bill
Yes. And keep your anus safe this week. And everyone, that's our public...

01:35:40.09
Mike
Right. or At least bring a friend along. Don't go in there alone.

01:35:43.56
Bill
Yes. Well, here's, okay, worst case scenario. We at least know that 25 is the limit. Keep it to 24 or under.

01:35:51.84
Mike
o

01:35:52.70
Bill
You might be okay. try Play it safe. 19 and under. Don't get fucked by more than 19 guys in the ass this weekend.

01:35:57.00
Mike
Wow.

01:35:59.20
Bill
Let's try that.

01:36:00.46
Mike
and Okay. I'll try that.

01:36:01.33
Bill
Life goals. All right, man. love you, brother.

01:36:04.95
Mike
Love you too.

01:36:06.30
Bill
Talk to you soon.

01:36:07.29
Mike
You shall.

01:36:08.79
Bill
Bye.

01:36:09.73
Mike
Bye.