May 2, 2026

SoberNotMature - Episode 219 (Two Old Men Discussing Their Ailments)

Show Notes
Transcript

This week we have...

Mike and Bill are back this week, to have some fun and to fill some time.

Mike started off with his reading and it was about control. It's something that "we" all want, but realize we can't have it. It's an illusion and it's dangerous. It was a good conversation.

We acknowledged an anniversary, did a recap of our weekend in Cleveland, talked about sitting alone, Anthony Kiedis, medicinal marijuana and going deeper in sobriety.

We wrapped up with an article and about a finger in the ass. You need listen, it will make sense.

Enjoy the episode.

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00:00:02.17
Bill
all right everyone welcome once again to another episode of sober not mature and yeah we're recording early again and this time it's on me and i was thinking about this and i'm gonna get i'll get your opinion okay because i know you'll give you'll give it to me whether i want it or not yes yo i'll give you my opinion to ah but um so

00:00:12.60
Mike
a

00:00:16.34
Mike
all right i've you're right i want your opinion i'll beat it out of you

00:00:25.88
Bill
what Yeah, I want your opinion. I'll give it to you. But, okay, so um i think I think maybe I've gotten soft, okay? And I've got to tell you why I'm thinking that.

00:00:34.33
Mike
all right

00:00:34.72
Bill
Because um literally the reason that we're recording early, and it wasn't really planned, it wasn't Monday or Tuesday, I think. Maybe even, yeah, I think Monday or Tuesday.

00:00:42.20
Mike
Yeah, I don't know.

00:00:43.90
Bill
Whatever it was earlier in the week, I just started thinking about it.

00:00:45.46
Mike
Somebody texted me.

00:00:46.81
Bill
And i hadn't I hadn't thought about it.

00:00:47.77
Mike
a

00:00:49.33
Bill
I'm babysitting for my grandson. So actually both of them, you know, first time I get to babysit for the little, little one this weekend.

00:00:52.38
Mike
Yes.

00:00:56.44
Mike
Juggle them.

00:00:57.37
Bill
Yeah. One's a little heavy to juggle. Remember, I got a bad shoulder. I'll tell you about that still, too.

00:01:02.26
Mike
Ah.

00:01:02.85
Bill
But um but yeah, so the the littlest one and then obviously the four year old, I'm sure he's a big old, big old helper now that it's going to be fun. But um I've got to be up there at like 11 in the morning and I'm started looking.

00:01:13.86
Bill
I'm like, I got to leave it like fucking ungodly, you know, an ungodly ah ah morning time or early time.

00:01:19.16
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:01:20.28
Bill
So I'm like, yeah, he'd be nice because then, you know, ah all I'm looking at is a little bit of, you know, less sleep, blah, blah, blah. So I'm like, you know, it's not that I just, i I want sleep, but I think, you know, I need that extra sleep.

00:01:25.43
Mike
Right.

00:01:30.73
Mike
Right.

00:01:31.08
Bill
But then then I'm thinking about, am I being, am I being soft or am I being responsible? Because I will have two little humans that I, that I have to take care of.

00:01:39.26
Mike
right

00:01:41.56
Bill
And, you know, why why is grandpa sleeping?

00:01:41.98
Mike
aha

00:01:44.34
Bill
Yeah.

00:01:44.94
Mike
Because that's what grandpas do. Teach them.

00:01:46.58
Bill
yeah Yeah, that's, you know, that's, goddammit, that's actually a good point. So maybe I've got to start conditioning these kids and the the fact that, you know, wherever I'm there, I'm just going to be...

00:01:50.58
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:01:56.02
Mike
Right. I'm old and I'm asleep. Be quiet. Play quiet.

00:02:00.22
Bill
ah Yeah, be be quiet over there. Okay, so maybe i'm maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm not soft.

00:02:05.59
Mike
Well, no, this is getting old, man.

00:02:06.28
Bill
I'm just... Just... just for

00:02:09.14
Mike
It's all part of the territory.

00:02:11.00
Bill
Well, but, you know, and here's here's the thing, though. if it If I was just going someplace tomorrow, because I've done it plenty of times when you and I have recorded, and, you know, I kind of did the backtrack and did the math, and um I'd still get i still get enough sleep. It's not like it's only a couple hours of sleep I'd get, but...

00:02:27.51
Bill
I mean, I know what my threshold is and it would be within it, but I'm like, well, seriously, I got to kind of be on my game, you know, with these, with these kids.

00:02:34.58
Mike
Right?

00:02:35.63
Bill
So i'm like, ah if it works out, it works out. So thankfully it did. And thank you. I know it doesn't necessarily step on your necessarily in your week, but it also, you know, neither one of us are huge fans about recording on a, on a weeknight.

00:02:40.35
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:02:44.61
Mike
Yeah.

00:02:49.49
Bill
where We actually have to work again in the morning, but Hey, it is what it is.

00:02:51.48
Mike
Right? yeah It is.

00:02:52.21
Bill
So yeah.

00:02:53.04
Mike
It's fine. It's fine. Okay. Uh-huh.

00:02:56.28
Bill
Yeah, well, good. Well, good. So um and I don't know if ah and we've got a ah follower of ours. Her name is Wendy. She lives in Florida.

00:03:02.18
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:03:03.12
Bill
She'll know if she's listening. But she was we were chatting back and forth. And she's one of those individuals that I met. um One of our followers, again, on Instagram and things like that. And just again, we we chit chat back and forth every once a while.

00:03:12.32
Mike
aha

00:03:14.86
Bill
very cool. Been around the program a long time. a a person. Uh, she also, uh, introduced us to a lot of people down there. Some people have ordered some stuff and things like that. So, you know, she's got to spread our name and the podcast around down there, but, um, I knew she had, I forget every year.

00:03:25.07
Mike
Cool.

00:03:27.79
Mike
All

00:03:31.09
Bill
i knew she had a lot of time. Um, but she just celebrated 35 years, um, this, this week, I think Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, whatever it was.

00:03:35.86
Mike
Damn.

00:03:39.36
Mike
Yeah. Yeah.

00:03:40.53
Bill
And i mean, relative, I won't say, I think I've got a pretty good idea how old she is, but um let's just say she's, she's in our age range, you know, so right around, right around our age range.

00:03:48.30
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:03:50.49
Bill
So it's not like she's,

00:03:50.58
Mike
So she pulled her head out of her ass before we we did.

00:03:52.95
Bill
Yeah. It's not like she's 85 or anything like that.

00:03:56.06
Mike
Right.

00:03:56.39
Bill
You know, yeah she, well she wasn't, you know, wasn't like a late in life type of thing, but it was, she, she was young, you know, when she, when she got sober, but, but yeah, she had mentioned that she was listening to last week's episode, just made a couple of nice comments about the conversation with Lane.

00:04:01.05
Mike
Right. Yeah.

00:04:10.00
Bill
And, you know, so yeah, so Wendy, congratulations.

00:04:10.62
Mike
he

00:04:12.76
Bill
I already obviously did.

00:04:13.11
Mike
Absolutely.

00:04:13.84
Bill
And on Instagram, but I'm 35 fucking years. I mean, again,

00:04:16.70
Mike
Yeah. I wonder how she did it. Ah.

00:04:18.58
Bill
um I'm guessing she's she's old school, I guess.

00:04:19.77
Mike
I see.

00:04:21.54
Bill
So I'm guessing it'd be it'd be one day at a time.

00:04:21.75
Mike
ah

00:04:23.86
Bill
so

00:04:23.93
Mike
i see

00:04:25.50
Bill
But yeah yet yet another yet another one. Another chick that's got you know double what we have.

00:04:27.77
Mike
this

00:04:29.89
Bill
you know she's She's got, in this case, where she's got you know three years on us, you know even if we double ours.

00:04:30.04
Mike
Right.

00:04:35.45
Bill
So, goddamn. Whatever, man.

00:04:36.76
Mike
Right. Good.

00:04:38.33
Bill
Anyhow, congratulations, Wendy Booth.

00:04:39.99
Mike
Yes.

00:04:41.75
Bill
But, um yeah, so, I mean, i got I got some other stuff out here. I've got plenty of things, little little thing. oh I won't call them knickknacks. I'll call them, what are we calling them?

00:04:50.17
Mike
Tidbits.

00:04:50.49
Bill
Tidbits, yeah. Knickknacks are all the things.

00:04:53.93
Mike
Nick-nack patty-wax. Give a dog a bone.

00:04:55.93
Bill
Yeah. Nick-nacks are all the shit that you got laying around your house, the but yours are, ah no, i don't not bad stuff.

00:04:59.77
Mike
Hey now.

00:05:01.96
Bill
I don't mean that in a bad way.

00:05:02.07
Mike
Yeah.

00:05:03.42
Bill
you know i've I've said it before.

00:05:03.84
Mike
It is.

00:05:04.74
Bill
You've got a lot of stuff laying around your house nicely. It's not cloud not, you know, crowded or, you know, clouded up with anything.

00:05:10.10
Mike
me

00:05:12.14
Bill
it's ah It's a wonderful, wonderful, I mean, just a bunch of stuff, you know, but I mean, it's it's an ungodly amount of stuff, but I mean, it's it's a it's a lot.

00:05:14.28
Mike
I got a lot of crap. Yeah. yeah it is

00:05:21.26
Bill
It's a good amount of stuff, so. Yeah.

00:05:22.42
Mike
i got a lot of crap

00:05:23.83
Bill
So yeah, yeah, but it's not crap, though. I mean, it's cool shit. You know, I walk around even even to this day.

00:05:27.64
Mike
if yeah

00:05:29.32
Bill
I mean, when I was there, we can be a little recap of when I was there. What, two weeks ago now?

00:05:32.41
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:05:33.28
Bill
But, you know, I was I think after.

00:05:33.55
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:05:36.07
Bill
a Yeah, I was after I took a shower where when I was taking my contacts out, I noticed you had ah a new Detroit Tigers picture in your bathroom.

00:05:42.55
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:05:43.31
Bill
you know But I mean, we figured out I hadn't been there since Founders Day. you know So I mean, no got a little busy around the middle of the middle of that time frame, a little heart attack and stuff like that.

00:05:47.26
Mike
Right.

00:05:54.23
Bill
oh

00:05:54.26
Mike
Right.

00:05:54.97
Bill
that

00:05:55.00
Mike
Stuff like that.

00:05:56.44
Bill
And stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, i I still, I mean, I get used to some of the things, but you know I definitely notice when you get a new thing. So all right. But anyhow, so anyhow, I have some stuff. I'm sure possibly, possibly you you have a reading, I think, maybe.

00:06:08.28
Mike
yeah yeah yeah i got a reading

00:06:11.93
Bill
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:06:14.33
Mike
yeah yeah yeah we're doing the thing so if we're doing the thing we should do the thing So, um yes, a reading.

00:06:19.96
Bill
Right.

00:06:23.16
Mike
Let's see here. This is ah from Touchstones. I'm leaning heavy on it because, you know, I've burned a lot of God grant me.

00:06:27.33
Bill
Right.

00:06:30.07
Mike
Every time I get a good one, I'm like, oh, I think we already did that one. Oh, I think we already did that one.

00:06:34.45
Bill
Right.

00:06:35.64
Mike
So, yeah, right.

00:06:36.05
Bill
Yeah.

00:06:37.32
Mike
um So, yes, Touchstones. um I don't know. This is some random date. It's April 18th. Does that ring any bells with you?

00:06:45.19
Bill
Hmm.

00:06:46.32
Mike
yeah.

00:06:47.61
Bill
Happens to be somebody's anniversary. I'm not sure who, but maybe, maybe maybe me, me, me, me.

00:06:49.53
Mike
ah Okay. o

00:06:53.23
Bill
I did.

00:06:53.85
Mike
I thought you might recognize it. Anyway, yeah.

00:06:57.40
Bill
I did. they did

00:06:58.17
Mike
um Whatever. when the you know It's been a couple of weeks, and I marked it when I read it, and I opened the book today and opened it up and looked at it and went, oh, hell yeah, that is a good one.

00:07:10.77
Mike
So here we go.

00:07:15.22
Mike
Touchstones April eighteenth Free man is by necessary by necessity insecure. Thinking man, by necessity, uncertain.

00:07:27.38
Mike
Eric Fromm. Apparently he was a German psychiatrist and philosopher dude. All right. um We hear comments like, hang in there.

00:07:39.13
Mike
Don't quit now. Don't give up the ship. When our outlook is gloomy and pessimistic, we should remember we are not in charge and we are not all-knowing.

00:07:51.77
Mike
We cannot predict what will be around the next corner. If a difficult problem looms before us, we cannot be sure what might what help might also be there for us to meet the problem.

00:08:05.53
Mike
Our compulsion for control tempts us to quit and give ourselves over to defeat. Then the outcome would be settled and predictable. We no longer would have to live with the insecurity of not knowing the future.

00:08:20.86
Mike
When we are tempted we are tempted to indulge in our addictive ways or to return to a relationship that isn't good for us or to face a painful problem, it helps to recall that change is a basic fact of life. However stressful this moment is, it will change. Not at our command, but it will change.

00:08:44.66
Mike
We aren't in control of outcomes, but we can choose now to hang in there and give our energy only to towards positive solutions.

00:08:56.54
Mike
The Touchstone's thought of the day. May I have the serenity to accept the process and the courage to be true to my part.

00:09:07.58
Mike
Outcomes i will leave for the future.

00:09:11.22
Bill
Hmm. That could be, it could be the touchstones tidbit.

00:09:14.76
Mike
It could. It may be from now on.

00:09:16.58
Bill
I, I, you know, I'm trying to force that one out. Yeah. just, I thought that this sounded kind of funny because we were, i was like, what are knickknacks? No tidbits, the touchstone tidbit one, one way or the other, whatever you call it.

00:09:24.47
Mike
yeah Right.

00:09:29.42
Bill
I like the fact that you'd label that last little part of it because, uh, yeah, whatever it is, uh, you know, obviously God grant me has the action and then, uh, I mean, keep it simple as something that it kind of wraps up, you know?

00:09:32.38
Mike
Right.

00:09:39.13
Mike
Right.

00:09:39.74
Bill
So, um,

00:09:40.28
Mike
Yeah, and right, Touchstones just has a line on the page. It doesn't transfer to audio very well.

00:09:48.60
Bill
Yeah, it's the ah it's the it's the closing statement from from Touchstones is basically what it is.

00:09:52.70
Mike
Yes.

00:09:54.76
Bill
But okay, so that was kind of serenity prayer-ish, that last part of it.

00:09:58.65
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:09:59.44
Bill
So read that read that part again, if you would, please.

00:10:02.71
Mike
Sure. May I have the serenity to accept the process and the courage to be true to my part. out Outcomes I will leave for the future.

00:10:13.50
Bill
Okay, so um what is that? what I mean, what do you think about that? I guess your opinion on that. Accept the process, true to my part, and then obviously leave the rest for the future, correct?

00:10:24.45
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:10:24.82
Bill
what are What are your thoughts, Mike, on the touchstone tidbit or thoughts for the day, whichever you want to call it?

00:10:26.49
Mike
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

00:10:31.38
Mike
Right. um Yeah, you know, I mean, it's it's pretty much laid out there, man. You know, um having the serenity to accept the process, right?

00:10:43.83
Mike
Right. I mean, the the entire, i the read way the reason I like the reading, Jesus, I'm tired. um It's been a long day. um The reason I like the reading is, you know, it taught it touches on control, you know, which is, you know, i'm I read somewhere that lack of power was our dilemma.

00:11:03.70
Mike
um You know, we're control freaks. And and it's ah a big part of, ah it was for me, getting loaded, right?

00:11:06.45
Bill
Right.

00:11:11.78
Mike
You know, it was... um controlling the chaos, you know, being out of control was a certain was a certain control.

00:11:17.27
Bill
yeah

00:11:20.13
Mike
You know, um we knew what the effects were going to be, you know, um yeah for the most part.

00:11:20.66
Bill
Right.

00:11:25.43
Mike
You know, at the end, it got kind of sketchy. You know, he'd sit there and drink all fucking day and then don't pass out or you take two drinks and you fucking pass out um because your system's all fucked up.

00:11:37.80
Mike
It was for me anyway. But I'm right. Yeah. But the control thing. So the the serenity to accept the process. I mean, you know, having that that piece, you know, knowing that that shit's going to work out, you know, it is the process and entrusting the process and,

00:11:48.51
Bill
Right.

00:11:55.81
Mike
And yeah, having faith in the process that it's going to it's going to process and and we don't have control over that. um You know, the process is going to take care of us if we stay in the process.

00:12:11.02
Mike
and And there is, and there's serenity in that. There's peace in that. Um, you know, and the courage to be true to my part, you know, um, shit's going sideways and, um, you know, we're doing the next round.

00:12:24.14
Mike
I'm um baby steps, man. i I'm baby stepping here. I'm doing it. Um, I'm doing my part and shit still going sideways because we don't have fucking control and shit's going to go sideways life on life's terms.

00:12:36.52
Mike
Right. Um,

00:12:37.41
Bill
Right.

00:12:38.94
Mike
You know, but yeah, so trusting in the process and in and having the courage to continue to do that next right thing and and working the process and and your part. And, um you know, yes, it's going sideways, but it will straighten out eventually. That is the future, trusting that the future is going to take care of itself.

00:13:01.08
Bill
Right.

00:13:01.62
Mike
So how about that?

00:13:02.14
Bill
Well, well, in the fact that I, I really enjoy the fact, cause I mean, we, we get used to it, but I mean, I pick up on it all the time.

00:13:09.40
Mike
m

00:13:10.19
Bill
I don't know if anyone else does, you know, every time, but you know, that, that what you just said, it'll work out eventually. Some of it, mostly some of the this, there's always these, you do it.

00:13:16.82
Mike
Right. Right.

00:13:21.21
Bill
And so do I, we use these qualifying statements because we've learned to.

00:13:22.33
Mike
aha Yeah.

00:13:24.73
Bill
You know, um you know, I don't do this much anymore.

00:13:24.92
Mike
Yeah.

00:13:27.86
Mike
Right.

00:13:28.09
Bill
i'm I'm not as big of a dickhead anymore.

00:13:28.72
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:13:30.37
Bill
You know, I'm I'm an asshole less than he to you know, it's not like once again, it goes back to everything that we that we talk about the fact that I mean, clearly, we're not fucking cured, you know, we get all that stuff.

00:13:30.42
Mike
Yelp.

00:13:33.02
Mike
Yes. Right.

00:13:41.31
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:13:42.21
Bill
But so, I mean, accepting the the process itself, i mean that I mean, that's like, I mean, first off, shit, that's you know very, very new to recovery stuff where we had to begin with, you know um slow down, relax, come on, sit down, relax.

00:13:42.25
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:13:52.45
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:13:57.05
Mike
me Right. Trust the process.

00:14:01.56
Bill
Yeah, trust the process. We've said it. you know Again, all these little things like this, we've said kind of, and i don't want to say jokingly, but every once in a while, you know kind of tongue in cheek, maybe jokingly a little bit.

00:14:11.82
Bill
You know, when, when shit's kind of blowing up, to oh it's okay.

00:14:11.81
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:14:14.98
Bill
Trust the process.

00:14:15.95
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:14:15.98
Bill
You know, I think there's a, yeah there's a meme out there with, I think it's Will Ferrell and it's probably with other people too, but you know, like there's, there's a fucking fire in the background, there's shit going on and you know, Hey, I'm so-and-so, uh,

00:14:16.45
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:14:29.50
Bill
Grateful alcoholic and glad to be here type of thing. You know, and it's just this this visual of, of you know, kind of what we're talking about, you know, when what's just just literally going, like you said, fucking sideways.

00:14:31.80
Mike
a

00:14:38.39
Mike
he

00:14:38.66
Bill
And like you said, you're baby stepping and you're doing it like motherfucker, man.

00:14:41.91
Mike
Yeah.

00:14:42.86
Bill
I'm doing everything.

00:14:43.10
Mike
Right.

00:14:43.90
Bill
I think I am. I mean, I don't think I'm.

00:14:45.43
Mike
Right. What happened to that do good, get good shit?

00:14:46.26
Bill
i'm ah Yeah, it's.

00:14:49.03
Mike
I'm doing good.

00:14:50.97
Bill
Yeah, this, I mean, this fucking building is burning, ah burning down around me.

00:14:54.80
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:14:55.05
Bill
And I'm like, I, what, ah I'm doing everything I can. I'm doing everything.

00:14:58.14
Mike
Yep.

00:14:59.01
Bill
I've got the manual here.

00:14:59.30
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:15:00.42
Bill
I'm doing, you know, going through all this. I got years of, you know, years of practice.

00:15:01.68
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:15:03.45
Bill
And it's like, what the fuck, man?

00:15:04.14
Mike
Uh-huh. Right.

00:15:05.37
Bill
But, you know, to your point is that, you know, yeah.

00:15:07.48
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:15:08.13
Bill
I mean, when yeah it goes back to another saying that I remember one of the silly ones that I don't, this isn't really recovery thing, I don't think. But, you know, the whole point when people say, hey, if you're, if you're going through hell, keep going, you know.

00:15:18.84
Mike
Right.

00:15:18.89
Bill
And I mean, that's all you could do is you got to keep fucking moving and you got to move forward, not backwards and and all those sort of things.

00:15:22.10
Mike
Right. Yeah. Yeah. The only way out is through.

00:15:25.28
Bill
So exactly.

00:15:26.48
Mike
Yep.

00:15:27.37
Bill
Yes. So accepting the process, although, although difficult, I think that, um, and I'm not going to say it's even necessarily easy for me, but I know I have to, because I know what the, I know what the result is going to be if I don't.

00:15:32.04
Mike
Hmm. Hmm. Right.

00:15:39.67
Bill
Um, but yeah.

00:15:40.48
Mike
Right.

00:15:41.08
Bill
you know True to my part is that, like you said, it comes down to the fact that it doesn't fucking matter whatever's going on. However good, bad, or indifferent it is, we always have our part.

00:15:48.86
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:15:50.28
Bill
you know

00:15:50.65
Mike
Right.

00:15:51.54
Bill
and We've used that you know kind of kind of dumb, but you know so realistic example. I'm walking down the street. Some guy fucking punches me in the balls. I mean, partially my fault. I got figure out why Maybe I shouldn't go that way.

00:16:01.80
Mike
Yeah. Right.

00:16:04.62
Bill
Maybe I should be paying attention. Maybe I i looked at the guy funny, whatever the case is.

00:16:06.32
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:16:08.62
Bill
you know Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, trusting, you know, your part in that and keeping up your, your end of the bargain, because as soon as we say, you know what, I'm fucking done.

00:16:08.92
Mike
Right.

00:16:13.40
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:16:19.62
Bill
This is too goddamn much. I mean, that, that is, we are done, you know?

00:16:22.17
Mike
Right. We are done. Exactly. Right. Yeah. And I mean, and i I took the reading, you know, the courage is, you know, continue to do your part. Yeah. You know, which isn't always easy.

00:16:32.19
Mike
So, you know, yes. Well, okay. So I'm going to go back to the part of the reading that I did like a lot, which was, ah you know, our compulsion for control contempts, tempts us to quit and give, give ourselves over to defeat.

00:16:40.84
Bill
Right.

00:16:46.07
Mike
Cause that way we know what the outcome is going to be. You know, I mean, and and there's, you know, and especially in in early recovery, I think that's a big part of why people go back out, you know, um because they know what the fucking result is going to be, you know, and and there's a there's a sick comfort in that.

00:17:05.72
Mike
um you know And thankfully, we have proven to ourselves and had it proven to us um at this point in our recovery that the The process is going to get us through it.

00:17:19.85
Mike
It is going to be okay in the end. um And, um you know, and and the surrender part of it is is huge. We can't fucking control um anything.

00:17:35.07
Bill
Right.

00:17:37.26
Mike
into things that's the only control that we have um so yeah you know um you know don't give into that that that you know yes i will control it i'll fucking light it on fire and burn it that's my control Yeah.

00:17:50.22
Bill
Right. right

00:17:51.55
Mike
Right.

00:17:52.06
Bill
right

00:17:52.57
Mike
You know, um and and again, you know, the sick comfort of knowing the outcome of that, you know, it's, it's, you know, like we've talked about, you know, yes, laying in a pile of shit can be comfortable.

00:18:03.85
Mike
It's soft and it's warm and it's. But it's a pile of fucking shit, man.

00:18:10.17
Bill
Right.

00:18:10.70
Mike
um you know, and I don't want to live in a pile of shit anymore. So, um, yeah, you know, trusting the process, having the serenity that it's going to work out and then having the courage to keep doing the next right thing, keep working the process, keep working the program and, um, let the fucking outcome happen.

00:18:33.67
Bill
Right. Well, and and that's the thing, too, when you were saying all that, you know, that the obviously giving into, you know, what what we know and having a comfort to it, that that's before you even said that, i I mean, that I didn't have the word in my head, but I had the feeling, you know what i mean?

00:18:42.88
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:18:47.20
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:18:48.49
Bill
And it just I couldn't have immediately put the word comfort in there, but I knew what you meant.

00:18:52.12
Mike
Yeah.

00:18:52.49
Bill
And I knew as soon as you said, I'm like, well, yeah, of course, it's fucking comfortable because, you know, they're in.

00:18:52.63
Mike
Yeah.

00:18:55.74
Mike
Right.

00:18:58.10
Bill
I don't have any examples, but I know there there is and has been and will continue to be days when it's just that whatever's going on in a moment, it's like, you know, I don't know, maybe you'rere you know you're getting a phone call and in your phone bus, and you're getting a text message and then something's happening at work and something's going on outside and this and that, all these different things, this this bombardment of of things, you know, that are that are happening, which individually are not a big deal.

00:19:11.25
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:19:19.58
Mike
Right.

00:19:22.66
Bill
And even all at once are not a big deal, depending on what your fucking state of mind is at that point, you know?

00:19:23.13
Mike
Right.

00:19:27.42
Mike
Right.

00:19:27.62
Bill
And if you're if you're a little bit wigged about whatever the case is, whatever it is, you know, and then all these different things start and you're like, oh.

00:19:30.84
Mike
right

00:19:35.42
Bill
And I mean, have those moments where I'm just like, it's like you put down the phone, you sit aside for a minute, you're just like, Jesus fucking Christ. You sit there for a second, you know, you're like.

00:19:42.73
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:19:44.54
Bill
Okay, I need to be, I need to get grounded for 30 seconds. Then I'm taking a deep breath and I'm fucking good, you know?

00:19:48.09
Mike
Uh-huh. Yep.

00:19:50.58
Bill
But that's the moment right there. That is, I know where the moment is.

00:19:53.09
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:19:54.66
Bill
I know exactly where the fucking moment is. You know, it's the moment when all, again, all these things, these things that shouldn't bother me, even whether it's individually or all 17 of them going on at the same time should not bother me.

00:20:06.76
Bill
But they do because again, my shit's not right in my head for whatever reason, got a lot going on, whatever the case is, we all got a lot going on.

00:20:06.92
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:20:10.30
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:20:13.96
Bill
um you know, at that moment. And then, but, but that is, that's the point. What do we do? You know, now I wanted to ask you a question because you said something earlier, you said control the chaos.

00:20:24.19
Bill
Now you were clearly talking about us before. So we, what did you, mean when you meant, or I'm sorry, when you said control the chaos and again, previous to sobriety, what did you mean by that about control the chaos?

00:20:27.53
Mike
Right.

00:20:31.87
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:20:34.35
Mike
Right.

00:20:36.57
Mike
I mean, i was using it in terms of the the substances, you know, right.

00:20:40.70
Bill
Okay.

00:20:41.21
Mike
You know, you know yeah, getting getting out of your mind, but but having the illusion of control over it.

00:20:48.86
Bill
Right.

00:20:49.56
Mike
Yeah, that that was it. You know, no, I mean, you know, and yeah, clearly in in in my past, um you know, there there were some there was a lot of chaos.

00:20:57.08
Bill
yeah

00:20:59.47
Mike
ah It wasn't all mine, um but I certainly invited it in. And again, the the comfort of of knowing what you know, um as opposed to the uncertainty of what might be different out there, whether it's better or worse, it doesn't matter.

00:21:17.15
Mike
It's still uncertain. And so you're, you're comfortable with the nonsense that's going on now. um

00:21:23.56
Bill
Right.

00:21:24.18
Mike
And, and yeah, and again, the illusion of control over it. um You know, yeah, you know, I got this. How many times did we say, you know, how many times did we say that to ourselves and to everybody around us?

00:21:32.02
Bill
hey

00:21:36.14
Mike
Oh, I've got this. Don't worry about it. It's fine.

00:21:38.31
Bill
Right.

00:21:38.62
Mike
Right. Yeah. Well, clearly it wasn't, but, but we believed it and we thought we were controlling things. We clearly weren't.

00:21:45.85
Bill
Right. Well, and in I, and I've said that on here, yeah, I mean, a number of times that, I mean, I, and I literally, honest to God, 100% considered, considered this to be true.

00:21:56.58
Bill
I thought of myself as a survivor, you know? And I mean, i yes, I had, and I still do. I mean, I've got some street sense and I got some common sense that I got some things where I think I can survive.

00:22:08.98
Bill
You know, I'm not saying circumstances that other people can't, but I, I'm, if somebody had to put it and put me down and say, okay, are you more book smart or are you more street smart?

00:22:12.15
Mike
Right.

00:22:18.44
Bill
I don't mean like hood smart, but I mean, I'm i'm more street smart probably than I am book smart.

00:22:18.86
Mike
Right.

00:22:23.24
Bill
Now, granted, I know some shit, you know, and I'm not saying that, but, you know, I'm not I'm not a bookworm, you know, i'm I'm just not I never have been.

00:22:23.45
Mike
right Right.

00:22:30.43
Bill
I know some things I know. I know a lot of things. I know a little bit about a lot of fucking things. And I know completely random stuff that that I shouldn't, you know, that there's no reason why that should stick in my brain, but it does.

00:22:35.22
Mike
Yeah. Yeah.

00:22:41.24
Mike
Right. Right. Right.

00:22:42.49
Bill
You know, and i I usually know enough about things, whether it's words, concepts, processes, whatever the case is, to know where to look if I if I need to figure it out. You know, it's it's rare that I run across and I don't necessarily use the you know, the a lot of highbrow vocabulary and things like that.

00:22:52.41
Mike
right

00:23:01.08
Bill
But it's it's very rare that I can put a word that I don't really know. And if it's in clearly it's going to be a context somebody is speaking it to me. And figure out what it means.

00:23:08.98
Mike
right

00:23:10.29
Bill
I may not be able to define it, but it's rare that I'm like, I have no fucking idea what that thing means, you know.

00:23:14.95
Mike
Right. Right. Right.

00:23:16.21
Bill
um

00:23:16.45
Mike
Aha. Aha.

00:23:17.75
Bill
But it was my opinion, you know, again, prior to sobriety that all this, all this, thing all these things that happened to me, in these air quotes around that happened. to be, but again, everyone clear on that, that they happened to me?

00:23:26.14
Mike
right how

00:23:30.36
Mike
right

00:23:30.54
Bill
was my fault. It was happening to me.

00:23:32.92
Mike
bright

00:23:33.77
Bill
um That I was surviving all these things and I wasn't surviving anything. you know i was I was either, you know whether it was somebody was taking care of me, somebody was picking up my pieces, ah somebody was loaning me money and whatever the case is, you know somebody was you know um ah bowing down to my feelings and in all this different stuff.

00:23:41.27
Mike
aha aha

00:23:46.04
Mike
Yeah.

00:23:49.42
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:23:50.69
Bill
you know, or, or walking on eggshells.

00:23:50.68
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:23:53.01
Bill
But that was one of, one of my dad's favorite sayings, you know people walk around, walk around in eggshells.

00:23:53.56
Mike
Right.

00:23:56.80
Bill
You know, he wasn't talking about me.

00:23:57.03
Mike
Yep.

00:23:58.20
Bill
People used to do it to him, you know, and I, I know for a fact, I learned a lot of that from him.

00:23:59.83
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:24:02.60
Bill
I saw him, he had a very commanding attitude that way, but not in a good way. You know what i mean

00:24:07.99
Mike
Right.

00:24:08.57
Bill
You know, and I mean, he commanded attention, but he didn't necessarily, he would, he would command, um you know, respect by consequence.

00:24:08.63
Mike
Right.

00:24:11.25
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:24:17.49
Bill
I guess that that's the right way to put it, you know,

00:24:18.11
Mike
Right. ya Yeah, yeah, yeah. hey Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I got it, man. Demanding respect instead of earning it.

00:24:26.91
Bill
Yeah.

00:24:27.29
Mike
Yeah, which we all did.

00:24:27.45
Bill
And then, you know, it's, oh yeah, yeah, It's if you, if you don't, I will, or well, since you did that, I guess I will, you know, that sort of thing.

00:24:28.45
Mike
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right.

00:24:35.48
Bill
And which is ridiculous because I mean, well, we know it now. I didn't know it then, but um I mean, you're never gonna, you're never going to come to a common ground with somebody.

00:24:40.08
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:24:44.03
Bill
You're always goingnna be fucking fight with somebody back and back and forth, you know?

00:24:46.72
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:24:47.71
Bill
But, um, but yeah, the, the control of the chaos. And I just, I was, I didn't know if you meant something a little bit different or I was just kind of curious. Cause that was it was a very specific statement and I liked what I heard.

00:24:56.60
Mike
o

00:24:57.94
Bill
I'm like, I like that, but not because I want to control the chaos, but I'm like, does that mean?

00:24:58.97
Mike
ya Right. Yeah.

00:25:02.85
Bill
Yeah. But yeah, it always reminds me, it's so stupid. It's from the movie Days of Thunder. Nicole Kidman says to Tom Cruise, control an illusion.

00:25:13.42
Bill
You infantile whatever it is. He just wants to get out there and he wants to control.

00:25:15.26
Mike
Yeah.

00:25:18.34
Bill
He feels complete control. She's like, control an illusion. You infantile.

00:25:22.17
Mike
yeah

00:25:22.72
Bill
Calls it some sort of fucking name.

00:25:24.22
Mike
h

00:25:24.52
Bill
And, you know, it's I know that's not the only place I've ever heard it, but it's ah it's just one of those things I remember from, you know, from that movie. um But, you know, the a couple of the other things that I wrote down on here, you know, gloomy and pessimistic.

00:25:37.63
Bill
I wrote down those words, words. I believe it I wrote down not in charge. And I don't know if that had to do with us not being in charge. I was towards the beginning. Um, don't know what's around the corner. I like that, you know, cause you don't, I mean, we've got to keep walking around that corner.

00:25:51.16
Bill
I mean, it could be another, you know, pile of shit that we had to lay in for a minute or one that gets thrown at us, but Hey, that, that might be the, you know, that we might be, um, exactly.

00:25:52.15
Mike
Right.

00:25:56.06
Mike
Right.

00:25:59.58
Mike
It might be the solution to the problem.

00:26:01.96
Bill
Yeah.

00:26:02.17
Mike
Yeah, right, which is what I got from, yeah, exactly, right.

00:26:02.36
Bill
You know that the, the brightness,

00:26:05.21
Mike
you You got to keep going because, I mean, yes, around that corner, yes, like you said, it might be more shit, but it's it very well could be, hey, oh, wow.

00:26:16.65
Mike
That's, it solved itself. Look at that.

00:26:19.70
Bill
Right. And it was talking about, you know, obviously not knowing the future. I think it mentioned something off facing. I wrote down face painful problems. I think it talked about relationships. I can't remember all this stuff. These, i swear to God, I like these readings, but it's, it's crazy.

00:26:33.04
Bill
i don't, I don't know. i don't understand what the difference is in the structure of the readings. Cause when I read them, I don't see it that way between that and a God grant me and a keep it simple. But in this circumstance, I'm just like, I'm like, Oh my God, fucking I'm writing, trying to write my fucking ass off here.

00:26:42.36
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:26:46.56
Mike
Mm-hmm. thank you he

00:26:48.98
Bill
You know, because it's just it's this nice it's almost like more of a flowing type of story, whereas I think the other ones are almost like paragraphs of bullet points or something like that.

00:26:57.59
Mike
he

00:26:58.05
Bill
I don't know if that's the right way to put it, but that's what it feels like. um You know, but I think one of the ones was, you know, trying trying to face a painful problem or going back to. you know, a fucked up friendship or relationship however you put it.

00:27:10.41
Bill
i mean, all of these things, you know, I mean, we've, we've got to learn when to, we've got to know when to, you know, do the positive things for us, which is, you know, again, not sit the shit, you know, try to move forward, continue to move forward, you know, and not, you know, continue to try to fuck ourselves up.

00:27:18.20
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:27:21.46
Mike
Yeah.

00:27:25.43
Bill
And in worst case scenario, like you said, you know, I, I know for a fact that and we've talked about it, You know, right now, today, whatever the case is, either one of us could sit back and, you know, go pick up whatever type of booze that we want.

00:27:37.43
Bill
We could sit down by ourselves somewhere, you know, where nobody else is around and, and we can just consume and we can escape and we can whatever.

00:27:37.68
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:27:40.36
Mike
Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. Yup.

00:27:46.21
Bill
And what do we figure 20 minutes would be the first, you know, and then again, you get a, we get too much fucking recovery and too much fucking AA in our heads.

00:27:46.64
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:27:49.28
Mike
Yeah, right.

00:27:56.74
Bill
Yeah.

00:27:57.08
Mike
Yeah, exactly.

00:27:57.90
Bill
I'm glad that I haven't you know had to experience that yet.

00:27:58.12
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:28:00.74
Bill
you know But from I believe everyone that's told me, they're like, you know you you're buzzed and you're drunk and you're high.

00:28:01.28
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:28:08.04
Bill
They're never the same again. And I'm like, well, I don't want to do that then.

00:28:09.24
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:28:13.40
Bill
you know I mean, if somebody's like, you know hey, you can have all the, I mean, pick some pick some food.

00:28:19.62
Mike
Right.

00:28:19.83
Bill
uh, that you, that you like, and you're like, Oh, you can eat as much as you want and no consequences, but it's, it's never going to taste as good as it tasted, you know, up and from this point forward, it's not going to be terrible, but it's not going to taste very good.

00:28:29.63
Mike
Right.

00:28:32.55
Mike
Right.

00:28:32.71
Bill
It's going to have a little bit of an off taste. You're like, well, I don't want to do that then.

00:28:37.19
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:28:38.94
Bill
So, um, I don't know. I mean, yeah, it's a, and, and I noticed that obviously you're leaning into the, the touchstone readings, but they're, they've been pretty good. You know, the only reason I haven't picked up on them, uh, I think this week, I don't think I, I might've grabbed one out of there.

00:28:46.54
Mike
Yeah.

00:28:52.24
Bill
Um, you know, but a lot of them still, you know, you get, it's like the main part that I really like has got God in it or men, or, you know, it's more of this specific.

00:28:52.27
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:28:59.98
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:29:01.78
Bill
So I, I, Not that I don't use them, you know, or it's specific to Alcoholics Anonymous, which I do a couple of times, you know, here and there.

00:29:08.38
Mike
Right.

00:29:09.15
Bill
I'm like, you know, so sooner or later, it's like, well, fuck you people out there. If you want to read the reading that I'm going to put on here, just you're going to get AA every once in a while.

00:29:13.14
Mike
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:29:17.03
Bill
And it's a good one.

00:29:17.11
Mike
yeah

00:29:17.91
Bill
And it means something to me and just, you know, put up with it.

00:29:20.06
Mike
this Right.

00:29:23.06
Bill
So what else? I mean, what else did we did we miss anything? Anything that we missed in the reading?

00:29:29.80
Mike
No, I think we covered it fairly well.

00:29:32.54
Bill
Okay. So I've got, you know, kind of a side note on that. I i made a made up note about it while you were talking and I, again, didn't write it down. I was listening to a a podcast and they were talking about kind of the same type of type of thing.

00:29:45.12
Bill
You know, if you're in a problematic area dealing with some stuff, kind of in a shit storm, blah, blah, blah. And I don't exactly remember how it was brought up, but one of the things that the, one of the individuals said was um that going and in and sitting by yourself, if you're dealing with something like that is dangerous.

00:29:51.17
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:30:04.18
Bill
Okay.

00:30:04.63
Mike
h

00:30:04.94
Bill
So, I mean, okay, I get it, but do you agree with that 100% or you think sometimes sitting with yourself is a good thing or does it, what's your opinion on that?

00:30:15.58
Mike
he um My opinion is they're probably right. um

00:30:22.82
Bill
Right.

00:30:23.48
Mike
You know, I mean, problem shared is a problem cut in half. um But... i Honestly, I don't always do it. um You know, i i I sit and stew occasionally. um i keep I keep things to myself sometimes, um probably longer than I should sometimes. um But Yeah, you know, yeah it can be dangerous. um You know, I i find myself, you know, stewing on things. And, you know, I mean, the the the solutions to my problems are clearly not in me.

00:31:03.19
Mike
um You know, there are solutions to my problems that are in me because I've allowed them to be in me um from outside of me.

00:31:03.47
Bill
Right.

00:31:13.19
Mike
But, you know, ah my my nature and my, the inner government doesn't work. It's been broken since day one.

00:31:23.61
Mike
um And I know that. So I know that, you know, sitting by myself and stewing and and and and trying to solve it by myself is not going to work in the long run.

00:31:34.08
Bill
Right.

00:31:34.82
Mike
um But again, that it doesn't stop me from doing it occasionally. Yeah.

00:31:40.40
Bill
Right. And you know what, maybe, maybe I should have qualified that, I guess, because you made a couple of good points. I mean, I, I think it did. Well, do you agree that it depends on the, it depends on the severity of the issue too?

00:31:51.20
Bill
I mean, if it's, you know, just if you're, know, bad fucking mood, you know, versus, you know, if you just had a life event or something like that happened.

00:31:51.91
Mike
Mm.

00:31:54.42
Mike
Right. Oh, yeah.

00:31:58.04
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:31:58.09
Bill
I mean, I, I, and I, I get the point that maybe I was just thinking, but when, when I listened to it on a podcast, I'm like, I do this lot of times, you know, kind of, if I'm, if I'm in a weird mood and I don't know why,

00:32:08.70
Bill
um

00:32:08.82
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:32:09.98
Bill
if I'm around other people, try to somebody, you know, and

00:32:11.88
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:32:15.76
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:32:23.67
Mike
Yeah, right. Impose your nonsense on other people.

00:32:26.84
Bill
Yeah, and and i and i know my I know myself well enough that it's it wouldn't – not that it wouldn't take much, but it it's it's a real possibility that that could happen.

00:32:27.03
Mike
Yeah, I get that.

00:32:36.48
Bill
It didn't matter – it wouldn't matter if it was, you know, you or Kathy or my kids or or anything like that.

00:32:36.95
Mike
Sure.

00:32:42.52
Bill
It could easily happen, um and then, you know, then I got to fucking apologize, you know? and Like we talked about – Neither one.

00:32:47.06
Mike
Right. Sure. Mm-hmm.

00:32:49.97
Bill
I mean, we will wholeheartedly.

00:32:51.42
Mike
off for sure

00:32:51.57
Bill
We're going to apologize, but um I don't want to be in that position. I don't want to I don't want to try to put something back together that I just broke. You know, um I have no desire to do that.

00:32:59.32
Mike
Right.

00:33:01.25
Bill
Even it's just a little break, i don't want to do that. But. um Yeah, I get that. And yeah, if it's see if it is a big thing that, that is not going to necessarily go away.

00:33:08.56
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:33:10.43
Bill
Cause what I'm, what I'm talking about, like with these moods, that's going to go away. You know, it's going that's going to change.

00:33:13.98
Mike
Right.

00:33:15.84
Bill
But if it's something that happened to me that, or it's going on in my life, that is a, that is a big deal.

00:33:19.45
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:33:21.38
Bill
Yeah.

00:33:21.39
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:33:21.98
Bill
I ah personally, I, I, I agree with that. I do need to talk to somebody. If I don't sooner or later, it's just, it's going to fucking, it's going to stew and I'm going have a real fucking problem.

00:33:26.05
Mike
Right.

00:33:30.70
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:33:32.44
Bill
So I, I guess I could see, I can see both ways now.

00:33:32.44
Mike
Yeah.

00:33:34.88
Bill
And again, I wasn't thinking, I wasn't really thinking about the, the extreme, but, um, you know, yeah, that's a, that could be, and would be a ah real problem I would think.

00:33:35.42
Mike
Sure.

00:33:43.78
Bill
Right.

00:33:44.30
Mike
Yes. Yeah. yes

00:33:47.35
Bill
All right. So, um, nothing else, nothing else out of the ordinary, nothing else that we might've missed or seem to be good. Okay. Um, let me, um you want to, you want a funny thing here real quick?

00:34:00.95
Mike
sure.

00:34:01.85
Bill
Okay. um I'm taking chick vitamins.

00:34:04.47
Mike
not right. Uh-huh.

00:34:06.74
Bill
Okay. Sure. Short story. Short story. So after I got, uh, I got, um, blood work done, i don't know, a month ago or whatever it was. and I told you about that. I think I mentioned on here, my, uh, whatever is it red bloods.

00:34:17.11
Mike
You needed geritol. Your iron was low. Mm-hmm.

00:34:20.54
Bill
Yeah. Red blood cells, blah, blah, blah, iron, low, on all that stuff. So, um you know, I started looking around because I got the I haven't gone in for my that my primary doctor got the results.

00:34:31.71
Bill
She put a note in the chart and basically said, you know, hey, you're good because I mean, I get notified when there's a note in there. So literally that it was to be um everything looks OK, little low in these categories, but nothing to be alarmed.

00:34:38.99
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:34:43.27
Bill
um We'll see at your next appointment, which is June. And I'm like, okay, well, that's good. But I'm like, well, if it's low anyhow, I started doing a little bit of research because I don't take any vitamins or anything like that.

00:34:49.49
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:34:52.54
Mike
Right.

00:34:52.94
Bill
And I started researching. That was the first thing I started looking at is iron. Now, iron can cause a problem if you take too much or depending on the dose and blah, blah, blah.

00:34:59.74
Mike
Mm-hmm. Sure. Mm-hmm.

00:35:01.06
Bill
You know, it could actually cause, you know, upset stomach and diarrhea. And I'm like, i need none of that. I don't need to deal with all that shit. But then, so I'm digging through all this stuff and I'm, I'm reading about, you know, B12 and God, what was the other one?

00:35:12.37
Bill
I keep forgetting. Oh, folic acid is one.

00:35:14.16
Mike
Uh-huh. Right.

00:35:14.57
Bill
And you know, it's getting to these multivitamins. So i'm like, okay, so I'm narrowing it down. I'm like, okay, I'm looking. Basically what I'm finding is if I can find a multivitamin with B12,

00:35:24.44
Mike
b twelve

00:35:25.59
Bill
B12 and folic acid and I'll be good.

00:35:26.36
Mike
he

00:35:28.10
Bill
Anything else that's in there is not going to kill me, you know.

00:35:28.59
Mike
aha right

00:35:30.26
Bill
But they said the main thing to like make sure that that the iron dosage, you know, even based on whatever, you know, keep that low ER so you don't have a reaction to it or or until you know type of thing.

00:35:38.78
Mike
right

00:35:39.71
Bill
So like, okay, so I go to Walmart. I mean, you know, you've been where all the medicine stuff and the vitamins. I mean, there's just an ungodly...

00:35:44.02
Mike
Yeah.

00:35:46.65
Bill
Looking about and I'm looking, I even looked some of this stuff up and I can't find the things that looked at.

00:35:46.66
Mike
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:35:50.91
Bill
I'm looking up. They were like 10, 15 minutes. Finally, I go up to the pharmacy area and that's one of the people, not the pharmacist, but one of the, I guess, a tech that's, you know, by the counter.

00:35:58.49
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:36:00.96
Bill
And I just told her, I'm like, this is what I'm looking for. I said, is there anything you could just point me to? I'm trying to, you I'm kind of pulling my hair out, trying to figure out what I, what I want. They're just looking for a basic thing.

00:36:10.69
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:36:10.99
Bill
So she talks pharmacist real quick and then walks over. She's like, this is going to sound kind of weird.

00:36:14.85
Mike
Yeah.

00:36:14.93
Bill
She said for, you know, for, you know, your, your age group, cause she has, how old are you, this and blah, blah, blah.

00:36:15.09
Mike
Yeah.

00:36:20.49
Bill
So for your age group with the multivitamins, she said for, for men, they don't combine, you know, she has a pharmacist. I mean, folic acid obviously is a benefit. B12 is a good benefit. have a little bit of iron that was one thing they said to, you know, all these things, but they don't put it into a vitamin for men.

00:36:30.52
Mike
who

00:36:36.32
Bill
That's for women. Yeah.

00:36:37.46
Mike
ah

00:36:38.10
Bill
And she's like, it's going to hurt you. I'm like, I'm not worried about it hurting me. And she's like, there's nothing in there. She's like, you know, there's nothing in there that's going to have an effect on you.

00:36:44.86
Mike
Not going to grow breasts?

00:36:46.20
Bill
Well, you know, that was kind of my thought. You know, I'm thinking, I'm like, oh, if I don't, you know, start growing boobs and, you know, my attitude changes and I can't figure out what I want for dinner.

00:36:53.91
Mike
if you Wow.

00:36:55.24
Bill
I'm like, you know, maybe maybe I should stop taking it, you know. But joking ladies, any ladies that listen, just messing with you. um But I mean, again, nothing in there that that's any of any problem and all the stuff that I might need.

00:37:06.17
Mike
Right.

00:37:06.98
Bill
So I just thought it was kind of funny because I mean, whatever it is, it's like Centrum. it's the It's the Walmart version of Centrum, blah, blah, blah.

00:37:12.81
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:37:14.62
Bill
But it's yeah it's ah it's ah it's a chick vitamin. So...

00:37:16.92
Mike
All right.

00:37:17.82
Bill
And I don't, I don't feel any differently. I don't mean from the chick vitamin.

00:37:20.89
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:37:21.30
Bill
I'm just saying that now that I'm actually taking a vitamin, um I mean, I, I don't know.

00:37:21.75
Mike
Yeah. aha

00:37:25.95
Bill
I mean, I don't, I can't be hurting me, you know, cause I mean, it's, you know, it's not doing anything bad for me, but um you know, I just, I, I've, I've taken multivitamins at, I don't know, once or twice in my life, but just kind of never really got into doing it.

00:37:28.86
Mike
Right.

00:37:31.42
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:37:37.82
Mike
Well.

00:37:40.14
Bill
But I know. I'm like, I'm one way or the other. It can't, it can't hurt me. So it is what it is.

00:37:44.86
Mike
Exactly. Yeah, well, good. I mean, you know, I take a fistful every fucking morning, so... um

00:37:50.52
Bill
Well, I mean, what you do in your own time and the privacy of your own home, are you just fit fisting yourself, you said?

00:37:52.92
Mike
Hey. Right. yeah That's exactly what I do every morning. Right.

00:38:02.20
Bill
it's That's why your shoulder hurts.

00:38:02.38
Mike
Yes.

00:38:03.60
Bill
I can tell you about my shoulder too.

00:38:04.28
Mike
Right.

00:38:04.84
Bill
I'll tell you later.

00:38:06.42
Mike
yes

00:38:06.60
Bill
What what even what do you do? Why your shoulder hurts? need Never mind. i but that' it its I don't know. I did say, never mind. Never mind why.

00:38:12.79
Mike
Right. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I take stuff and yeah, you know, um I, I take, ah I take a ah good multi. I take, ah um I take fish oil.

00:38:23.26
Mike
I take, well, what the hell else do I take? I take a CoQ10. I take zinc and an extra vitamin D and the stuff called Maca, which is kind of a B vitamin, right?

00:38:39.18
Mike
Um, and, um, the house do I take? Um, Oh, I, Oh, so palmetto.

00:38:43.16
Bill
yeah

00:38:46.87
Mike
So, you know, my prostate doesn't get huge. And, uh,

00:38:50.12
Bill
Right.

00:38:50.62
Mike
Yeah, and what the hell is this shit? Closamine and chondroidin because, you know, I got the arthritis.

00:38:57.56
Bill
right

00:38:57.56
Mike
It helps. Yeah, you know, and um and the hells of the shit. I can't think. ah There's one other one that helps the muscle stuff.

00:39:07.87
Mike
And yeah, you know, anyway, but yes. So I take a bunch of shit in the morning plus a regular plus a regular aspirin.

00:39:12.69
Bill
right

00:39:14.46
Mike
And of course, I take a caffeine pill don't have time for coffee in the morning. um That it all goes down with it.

00:39:18.30
Bill
yeah

00:39:20.14
Mike
Yep.

00:39:22.39
Bill
Yeah. And you know what? I mean, i I, I felt a little, and I even told you this, I mean, I felt kind of a little tired, but, but I'm doing more, I'm more active. I'm walking more and get more steps in and this and that.

00:39:33.88
Bill
And, you know, and I can tell the days that when I, when I really get out and do stuff and I, I had a little bit of a cold for a while and I've had these lingering colds probably not since I had my procedure, but yeah, probably the holidays, you know, just that time of year.

00:39:47.07
Bill
You know, whether it was whatever the case is, just lingering shit, nothing really bad except for, you know, it was bad that, know, it was a couple of weeks. But um I don't know. I'm like one one way or the other. I mean, i it can't hurt me.

00:39:58.25
Bill
And I just thought it was kind of funny that, you know, that it has to be a, you know, a half female blend of.

00:39:58.95
Mike
Right.

00:40:02.26
Mike
a

00:40:03.77
Bill
And I don't i don't know what the difference is. I mean, why why wouldn't they want to combine B12 and folic acid for men?

00:40:06.65
Mike
Right.

00:40:09.77
Bill
just don't.

00:40:10.81
Mike
I don't know.

00:40:12.02
Bill
Who fucking knows, you know, but a I don't know either.

00:40:12.98
Mike
and I don't know. if

00:40:15.14
Bill
So. Anyhow, speaking of all the all the stuff that's in Cleveland, meaning your vitamins, we hung out in Cleveland a couple of weeks ago. so i kind of put ah I put a note on that i just maybe to do a a recap on on that because a couple of things came up.

00:40:23.80
Mike
We did.

00:40:30.31
Bill
i mean the The main reason we went out there, or we went out there, but the main reason we were kind of hanging out that weekend was the shuffle, you know obviously the documentary.

00:40:38.58
Mike
Right.

00:40:39.79
Bill
so um I don't know. Tell tell people about how how shuffle was and Playhouse Square and all that stuff. so

00:40:46.81
Mike
Yeah, it was...

00:40:47.64
Bill
I know, i threw yeah I threw you at a spot, but...

00:40:50.46
Mike
Yeah, that's fine. No, um, yes, you know, we went downtown and saw a screening of Shuffle at the Cleveland International Film Festival. Um, it wasn't, uh, hugely attended, but, um, it was, you know, there was a nice little crowd at the screening and, um,

00:41:06.33
Mike
Yeah, you know, it seemed to get a really good reaction. I mean, people, it did what it was supposed to do. People were freaked out and pissed off and, um you know, enlightened. And yeah, it was, ah you know, I heard some comments and stuff afterwards that were nice. And, you know, people got it. It was good.

00:41:23.77
Bill
Right.

00:41:23.93
Mike
You know, and did that one guy yelled out, that's why my premiums are so high.

00:41:27.67
Bill
Yeah.

00:41:28.60
Mike
Shut up, asshole.

00:41:29.26
Bill
Yeah. That guy that was right in front of us. I was like, you fucking idiot. I mean, just, just sit there watch the goddamn movie.

00:41:33.36
Mike
Yep.

00:41:35.42
Bill
Yeah.

00:41:35.70
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:41:35.74
Bill
You know, there's a, there's a reason why everything's really fucking expensive right now. I mean, and you know, if that's the, that's not the only reason your premiums are high, but yeah, I mean, that's shady shit going on all over the goddamn place.

00:41:39.42
Mike
Yep.

00:41:44.74
Mike
Yep. Yeah, 30, 35, something

00:41:46.40
Bill
Yeah. But um I mean, I thought the same thing that, you know, again, i don't even know how if we had to put a number on the number of people, 25, maybe if that.

00:41:55.42
Mike
yeah thirty thirty five something like that.

00:41:55.45
Bill
if that Wasn't that? Yeah, it's just it it was a we were in a smaller, um you know, kind of like a smaller theater, um you know, but it was it was set up nice and they had plenty of volunteers.

00:42:02.84
Mike
right

00:42:06.97
Bill
And, you know, it's up. It's just everything. It was just it was nice seeing it because, you know, just as a reminder to everyone, you know, of course, Mike and I, before we had before we had been on, you know, both got an initial screening of it.

00:42:16.71
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:42:18.73
Bill
So we sat and.

00:42:19.14
Mike
Yeah.

00:42:19.61
Bill
you know, individually watched it before we, before we sat down with, and had Ben on, which Ben unfortunately was not, not there, but that was kind of a, kind of a bummer.

00:42:24.92
Mike
Right.

00:42:27.60
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:42:29.37
Bill
But I mean, he is, know, he lives in Austin, you know, so, and we, that's another quick side though.

00:42:29.96
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:42:32.63
Mike
Right. Yes.

00:42:34.76
Bill
We did buy our, we bought tickets. I got, got tickets for, for shuffle ill or not shuffle. God. For a Sands Bar, let me, I'll, I'll add to that here in a minute once we get done with this.

00:42:42.30
Mike
yes

00:42:44.87
Bill
But um so that was nice.

00:42:45.21
Mike
this is

00:42:47.28
Bill
But here's the thing that if, if anyone, and that's the first time that I remember, and I don't know why would have other than because Mike and I decided that, you know, when I was young and I lived there, it would have been, we probably would have died if we would have went down to that area where Playhouse Square is.

00:43:02.03
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:43:03.77
Bill
I don't know of any other reason or any other time that I would have been to that area.

00:43:07.16
Mike
Right.

00:43:07.26
Bill
And it's really fucking nice, you know, um

00:43:07.55
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:43:11.10
Bill
And especially it's like when you you're walking, it's a theater district. I mean, it it is.

00:43:14.94
Mike
Yeah.

00:43:15.62
Bill
And it's like what you have never been in New York City, but it's like what you see in the you know TV shows and stuff like that with the little marquee signs and all this different stuff.

00:43:15.85
Mike
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:43:20.82
Mike
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:43:23.26
Bill
And, um you know, when we got there, it light out. when we left, it was dark. And that when when you're walking through there, it was everything's all fucking lit up. And it's just really cool, you know.

00:43:30.84
Mike
Yeah.

00:43:32.02
Bill
And it's just really, really nice. And it's just ah just a nice, you know, for no better way to put it, just a really nice fucking vibe down there. You know, and clean and comfortable.

00:43:39.48
Mike
Yeah.

00:43:42.36
Bill
And I don't know, it just I really liked the atmosphere of everything about it.

00:43:43.24
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:43:48.08
Bill
You know, I just really did.

00:43:48.48
Mike
Yeah.

00:43:49.36
Bill
And I mean, granted, seeing that, you know, that documentary in a crowd, it was cool. It was really nice.

00:43:54.13
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:43:54.71
Bill
I'm glad we did it. You know, but just playhouse square.

00:43:56.01
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:43:57.42
Bill
If anyone, if you ever get a chance to get to Cleveland, all the rumors, if you've heard rumors about Cleveland, they're all wrong.

00:43:59.85
Mike
Yep.

00:44:03.29
Bill
I mean, it's a, the downtown area, especially probably used to be, well, I know it was, it was a shithole years ago.

00:44:03.64
Mike
Yeah. Right.

00:44:09.93
Bill
Pittsburgh was a shithole years ago.

00:44:11.42
Mike
h

00:44:11.57
Bill
Milwaukee was a shithole years ago.

00:44:13.21
Mike
Right.

00:44:13.37
Bill
i mean, all these, all these downtown areas, a lot of them have been revitalized and Cleveland is really, in my opinion, I think Cleveland is nice downtown, you know?

00:44:21.75
Mike
Yeah. I was just down there yesterday. Yeah.

00:44:24.63
Bill
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's, you went down. I saw that. You went down, saw that buddy of yours.

00:44:28.15
Mike
Yeah, a friend of mine from high school, he's, ah ah you know, well, basically he's a roadie, but, you know, he's got some sort of title.

00:44:33.97
Bill
Perry Kivolowitz-

00:44:36.63
Mike
But, yeah, he's out with the Temptations and the Four Tops.

00:44:38.59
Bill
Right.

00:44:40.39
Mike
and they're Actually, they're playing tonight at at ah buts MGM Northfield.

00:44:44.19
Bill
Perry Kivolowitz-

00:44:47.06
Mike
um Yeah. Yeah, so we ah they got into town last night. Actually, I pulled in right behind the tour bus. um He was already in.

00:44:53.94
Bill
ha

00:44:55.77
Mike
He flew in. He didn't have to ride in on the bus. um But, yeah, so um and he's stayed they were staying at the, you know, the May Company building, right?

00:45:05.40
Bill
Um, probably, i probably do.

00:45:06.55
Mike
Yeah, well, you know, Winford Lauder from ah Drew Carey Show.

00:45:10.71
Bill
Oh, sure. Sure. Sure.

00:45:11.38
Mike
Yeah, the department, well, the the outside shots of all that from the Drew Carey show were the May Company building um downtown.

00:45:11.59
Bill
Yeah.

00:45:17.66
Bill
Okay.

00:45:18.94
Mike
There was Higby's, which was in the Christmas Story, which is now the casino.

00:45:21.20
Bill
Hmm.

00:45:23.42
Mike
And in the May Company now is apartments and a hotel.

00:45:23.61
Bill
Right.

00:45:28.28
Bill
Really?

00:45:28.79
Mike
Yeah, so that's where they were staying at. So I went and picked them up down there, and we went out and had some dinner and hung out, and it was very cool.

00:45:36.34
Bill
Well, that's cool.

00:45:37.11
Mike
Yeah.

00:45:37.50
Bill
Yeah. God, Higby's and May Company. Those are, I mean, if, if you're not from a Cleveland, I don't think that those stores were outside of that area.

00:45:39.89
Mike
Yep.

00:45:44.31
Mike
No.

00:45:44.38
Bill
Were they? Yeah. And then, uh, what was the other one? Uncle Bill's was at a little, you remember that it was a drug store. Remember Uncle Bill's?

00:45:53.09
Mike
No.

00:45:53.75
Bill
Yeah, it was because, of course, my dad, you know, had great sense of humor. You know, his corny sense of humor is like, oh, look at that. they said We're going by Uncle Lus. You know, he used to always say that all the time.

00:46:02.49
Mike
you see

00:46:04.57
Bill
But there was I'm trying to think of the well, you had obviously Woolworth. That was nationwide.

00:46:08.12
Mike
Right.

00:46:08.33
Bill
That was ah the diners and all those sort of things.

00:46:08.48
Mike
Yeah.

00:46:11.22
Bill
But yeah, Higby's and May Company.

00:46:11.23
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:46:13.09
Bill
I don't even know. I mean, like in Milwaukee, i mean, they had they had Boston store. That was a that was a big deal.

00:46:17.49
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:46:18.37
Bill
But I think Boston stores were all over place, weren't they? um you ever heard of it no um boston store was another it went by different names throughout the country i think i could be wrong but um yeah they they all went out but um but yeah higby's a may company that's kind of funny but yeah right yeah

00:46:21.02
Mike
Now. Nope.

00:46:27.54
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:46:32.28
Mike
Yeah, right. Lord and Taylor was Chicago and clearly Basie's and, you know, is in New York and Detroit had Hudson's and yeah, you know, all the major cities had their own major department stores.

00:46:40.47
Bill
oh yeah

00:46:44.60
Mike
Yeah. You know, and then you were talking about the little drug stores where we had Kresge's in Detroit, which most people know as Kmart. The K in Kmart stands for Kresge's.

00:46:54.78
Mike
It was five and dimes and stuff in Detroit and it turned, turned into Kmart.

00:46:57.52
Bill
Oh, no shit.

00:46:59.36
Mike
Yep.

00:47:00.31
Bill
Huh. I had no idea. had no idea.

00:47:02.53
Mike
Yep.

00:47:02.79
Bill
Huh.

00:47:03.77
Mike
Shop smart. Shop S-mart. Nobody gets that.

00:47:06.23
Bill
ah

00:47:08.99
Mike
No.

00:47:09.27
Bill
Yeah.

00:47:09.53
Mike
Evil dead. Come on.

00:47:11.69
Bill
No, no, no, no, not, uh, not, not clicking on that one.

00:47:12.63
Mike
All

00:47:16.07
Bill
Not ringing, not ringing any bells, but, uh, yeah, it's just kind of funny.

00:47:16.54
Mike
right.

00:47:19.60
Bill
I mean, that's again, some of these things when, when we were kids and you know, it's, it's, I mean, I, I despise fucking malls, but I mean, that's, that's all there was to do in high school.

00:47:23.23
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:47:26.07
Mike
Right.

00:47:27.46
Bill
You go to fucking mall, you know, um, cause she had nothing better than to do.

00:47:27.96
Mike
Sure.

00:47:30.42
Mike
Right.

00:47:30.90
Bill
Um, you know, but, uh, but the same thing, these department stores, I mean, you know, I remember, God, again, Higby's and May Company. I mean, we, I'm sure I, a mom, I, JC Penney, obviously that those were everywhere.

00:47:37.48
Mike
Yeah.

00:47:42.14
Bill
Sears was everywhere, you know, but when, you when you went into a, like a department store is one of those things.

00:47:42.24
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:47:47.72
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:47:47.96
Bill
and it's like, Ooh, these are, it's kind of nice in here.

00:47:49.08
Mike
Yeah.

00:47:51.29
Bill
Yeah.

00:47:51.29
Mike
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Fancy high-end shit.

00:47:54.33
Bill
yeah And I think that it it it might have been a May Company one when I think when Pam and I first got together, i think one of the first credit cards I ever got was a, I'm pretty sure it was May Company.

00:48:03.68
Mike
Hmm. Well.

00:48:06.52
Bill
you know Because, again, it was you know was a decent enough, however we got approached with it you know and got the card. and it was It wasn't like the the size of a regular credit card. It was about two-thirds. It was still width-wise, about as long width-wise.

00:48:19.66
Mike
All

00:48:19.80
Bill
But you know from top to bottom height, it was about two-thirds. It was this thin little card. It was weird.

00:48:25.48
Mike
right.

00:48:25.53
Bill
And it was, it was white, um, if I remember correctly, but, um, I don't know.

00:48:25.68
Mike
Right. Right. We did. We did.

00:48:29.87
Bill
It's just, yeah, it's just like, you you know, we've got a, I got a clothing store card or a department store card, but I mean, that's where you got a lot of your shit. It's kind of like, you know, I got buy all my clothes from fucking Kohl's now, you know, same, same concept, just on a different level, you know, but, uh, I don't know.

00:48:37.40
Mike
right

00:48:43.10
Mike
right

00:48:45.09
Bill
Yeah. That's, uh, that's cool. So you guys had a good time. You went to do, you have Mexican food.

00:48:47.80
Mike
weed we did

00:48:49.53
Bill
Cool. That's cool.

00:48:50.35
Mike
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was good seeing them, man, got caught up and stuff. And yeah, you know, I could be seeing The Temptations tonight. But as he's told me, yeah, you saw him a couple years ago. It's the same show. I said, yeah, I know.

00:49:03.77
Bill
Yeah, but it's, ah I don't know. I remember remember you talking about that. You said it was a good show, though, correct?

00:49:07.45
Mike
Mm-hmm. Oh, absolutely.

00:49:08.41
Bill
Yeah.

00:49:08.53
Mike
Yeah, Temptations in the Four Tops, man. Good shit.

00:49:10.87
Bill
Right. Yeah.

00:49:11.61
Mike
Motown.

00:49:12.73
Bill
Yeah, exactly. Well, cool. So, I mean, I've got a couple more things i've gotten a couple more things on the Cleveland part of it, but looking at at the time, what do you think?

00:49:19.26
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:49:20.41
Bill
Should we take a little split here?

00:49:22.17
Mike
No, absolutely. Well, let's, ah let's see. Ah, Jesus Christ. I'm going to go take a nap and we'll be right back after these words from our sponsors.

00:49:41.09
Bill
All right, everyone. Welcome back.

00:49:45.50
Mike
What?

00:49:45.69
Bill
ah

00:49:45.70
Mike
Hey, hey.

00:49:48.38
Bill
yeah It's ah yeah it's not not the first time that either one of us have stumbled over something, but it's kind of funny.

00:49:53.68
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:49:55.43
Bill
but Well, let me let me step back to Cleveland in a minute. Now I think about... You know, these these are the things that make us so, you know, award nominated and all that stuff, you know, the the things that we do. But yeah, um so I went on and I posted it a couple of times.

00:50:08.90
Bill
But yeah, we're I mean, well, we had we had mentioned on here that we're definitely going, you know, it's obviously yeah be a cool, ah cool thing. And what do they what did they say?

00:50:15.41
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:50:16.62
Bill
Win, lose or draw?

00:50:17.91
Mike
Right.

00:50:18.06
Bill
But yeah, I'll tell you what, there can't be a tie. If there's a tie, mean, I think they're all women. and then We'll beat them up or something like that. If Kathy beat up the women, if Kathy beat them up, you know.

00:50:25.91
Mike
Wow. Right. Is there going to be an octagon there?

00:50:29.76
Bill
Chick fight. you know it's, uh, I don't know. We could, uh, Joe Rogan's in the area. Maybe he's got some fighting things set up there, but, um, but no, I mean, it's, uh, it, it was, you know, all said and done.

00:50:37.66
Mike
Right.

00:50:42.50
Bill
And I looked at the, I knew the ticket prices went up, uh, beginning of may, you know, so i'm like, I better, better hop on there. And then I had taken a look and I hadn't looked in a while, but, you know, ah same thing we mentioned about all the all the fucking money that we make around here, you know, this is podcast generates.

00:50:57.78
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:50:59.32
Bill
But I looked in. We had three hundred and like fifty seven dollars in our bank account.

00:51:04.10
Mike
Whoa.

00:51:04.79
Bill
Yeah. And I'm like, where the fuck did.

00:51:06.49
Mike
Well, I'm not going to work tomorrow.

00:51:08.18
Bill
yeah like Where did all that come from? But still, I get these, you know, we we get um all that like the the ads that play on our episodes. I mean, there I don't know what, I never pay attention to any of this stuff, but we get we get a little bit of money from Spotify.

00:51:17.02
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:51:20.91
Mike
Right.

00:51:22.66
Bill
We actually get money from Facebook and Instagram now, depending on on what's posted.

00:51:23.39
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:51:28.42
Bill
we get We get paid for these episodes. posts. And I don't know the criteria, just whatever it was handful of months ago, let's say they they're like, oh, you're eligible to earn on you know Facebook and Instagram.

00:51:36.04
Mike
Right.

00:51:40.23
Bill
Do you want to do that? like, yeah, fine, fuck it. So I just had to type in a couple of things.

00:51:42.14
Mike
Sure. Mm-hmm.

00:51:43.91
Bill
And, you know, so, you know, Facebook is sending you $8. Facebook is sending you $4, you know, whatever.

00:51:49.01
Mike
Yeah.

00:51:49.27
Bill
And I don't fucking pay attention, you know.

00:51:51.00
Mike
Sure.

00:51:51.70
Bill
And the same thing with Spotify that these little 30 second ads that, that run, you know, I mean, it, I think it depends on how many people just run across them. So, so here, here's the thing.

00:52:01.29
Mike
Sure.

00:52:02.24
Bill
And here's my point of even mentioning all this for anyone who's listening. And I understand it. I'll tell you again, if you haven't figured it out, this is how I do our commercials. Okay.

00:52:10.54
Mike
Yeah.

00:52:10.56
Bill
I put, I put one in the beginning and

00:52:10.90
Mike
Mm-hmm. out

00:52:13.10
Bill
There's a total of six commercials to run at the end of the episode. So if you if you stop listening as soon as it goes into our prerecorded thing that Mike or Breeze did for us with Mike, you'll never get the last two.

00:52:23.35
Mike
the

00:52:25.22
Bill
So you're going get four ads throughout there. And it really depends on where you are at the time and whether it's going to drop in in your area from what I understand.

00:52:32.47
Mike
Right.

00:52:33.34
Bill
So you may only get three.

00:52:33.59
Mike
Yeah.

00:52:35.04
Bill
OK, OK.

00:52:35.39
Mike
Mm

00:52:35.54
Bill
I never put two in a row except for at the end because I figure if somebody wants to listen through and listen to another episode, you can you can get through two commercials at that time.

00:52:44.26
Mike
hmm.

00:52:44.66
Bill
But I bury them there on purpose, not to dump them on people. Okay.

00:52:48.06
Mike
Right.

00:52:49.11
Bill
So um listen to the 30-second ad. if you if Even if you don't like what it is, if you get bored with them, that's fine, people. But but here's the point.

00:52:56.06
Mike
Mm

00:52:56.86
Bill
We don't need the money, okay? But as it turned out...

00:52:59.30
Mike
hmm.

00:53:00.47
Bill
That money, you guys sitting there and listening to those ads is you bought our tickets to, you know, to this, to this event. Okay.

00:53:07.51
Mike
To the awards show.

00:53:08.94
Bill
It's not going to pay for us to get out there.

00:53:10.90
Mike
Right? No.

00:53:11.61
Bill
It's not that much.

00:53:11.66
Mike
see

00:53:12.77
Bill
Okay. You know, which we're not asking for that, but I mean, little things like that.

00:53:15.32
Mike
No.

00:53:16.45
Bill
That's, what's kind of cool. Like literally out of the blue, looking into like, Jesus Christ, man, we got 350 bucks in there. You know, and it was $117 or whatever it was for the tickets.

00:53:26.17
Mike
Right?

00:53:26.50
Bill
wasn't any big deal, you know, but, um you know, so the tickets are purchased.

00:53:26.59
Mike
Yeah. Yeah.

00:53:29.90
Bill
But so anyhow, so so thank you for anyone who who actually does listen to those because um I don't know, we get we got paid for it.

00:53:32.94
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:53:36.90
Bill
and It's, you know, it bought our tickets.

00:53:37.66
Mike
Yeah.

00:53:39.24
Bill
So um back to the Cleveland thing for a minute. So you and I had an opportunity to, I mean, it was my anniversary on Saturday. So you would suggest that I'm glad you had mentioned it going to a meeting.

00:53:49.36
Bill
We went down to Stella Maris, which is a a meeting that we've gone to off and on.

00:53:51.33
Mike
Right. Right.

00:53:53.60
Bill
i went I went to there years ago or went to it years ago every single Saturday because that's where my dad my dad got sober at Stella Maris.

00:53:58.52
Mike
Right.

00:54:01.02
Bill
Um, but then, uh, yeah, but you would suggest that. And then, so we're like, Oh, went to the meeting. I saw some people. It's a lot of the people that the guys that used to go to our home group, uh, which is, you know, one of our, well, one of your home groups, uh, who do you know?

00:54:10.65
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:54:13.98
Bill
And, you know, so we saw, you know, a handful of people there.

00:54:14.15
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:54:16.42
Bill
was just nice. Oh, we saw, we saw your buddy. What's what Jack? Jack says Jack. Yeah. yeah

00:54:22.96
Mike
Oh, yeah.

00:54:24.09
Bill
Yeah. The guy comes, well, this guy comes walking in and I'm like, I'm like, is that, and you're like, yeah, that's, that's Jack.

00:54:25.50
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:54:28.96
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:54:30.84
Bill
I hadn't seen him in years, you know, so I recognized him, but I wouldn't have, if I would have seen him on the street, I'd be like, i know I know that dude, you know, but I wouldn't have known it was, it was him.

00:54:33.02
Mike
ahha right

00:54:41.05
Mike
Right.

00:54:41.62
Bill
um But then our, our sponsor showed up, our sponsor Joe, which we haven't seen.

00:54:44.47
Mike
Yep. Mm-hmm.

00:54:45.98
Bill
Well, we saw him last year, but I mean, basically, I mean, I get to see him if, if I'm lucky, I get to see him once a year and I don't, you didn't see him since last year, did you?

00:54:47.49
Mike
Yeah.

00:54:51.99
Mike
Right. um Yeah, I've seen them since then, but yeah, just like once.

00:54:56.44
Bill
Oh yeah. You, yeah well, you led for him, didn't you?

00:54:58.62
Mike
Yeah, yeah. um he'll call me up out of the blue once in a while.

00:55:00.34
Bill
Hmm.

00:55:02.00
Mike
Hey, can you just pitch for me? Yeah. When we're to say no.

00:55:05.53
Bill
Right.

00:55:06.40
Mike
So yeah, you know, we see each other yeah couple of times a year, but yeah, you know, right.

00:55:07.80
Bill
But it was...

00:55:11.40
Mike
Yeah. But it's always good to see them.

00:55:13.14
Bill
Right. And it was, it was nice. It was, i I thought it was a good lead. I mean, it's been a little bit since I've, um you know, been to a meeting and I mean, i not, not since I've been to a meeting and seen a good lead, but kind of, I mean, I really enjoyed this guy's lead.

00:55:25.38
Bill
He was a cousin of another guy that we kind of, well, you know him more, Chuck, more than I do.

00:55:25.83
Mike
Yeah.

00:55:28.44
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:55:29.62
Bill
But I again, know who he is, but I don't know. I just, I really enjoyed the guy had what, almost 20 years or 21, somewhere in that area.

00:55:36.15
Mike
Something like that.

00:55:36.42
Bill
Yeah.

00:55:36.84
Mike
Yeah.

00:55:37.59
Bill
So, I mean, he got a little time behind it behind him and it was just a good meeting. But yeah, mean, it's just all in all.

00:55:41.82
Mike
Yeah.

00:55:43.43
Bill
It was it was nice getting out. But so on on a on a side note, we're on the way home and we're going to get to Chinese food.

00:55:51.48
Mike
who

00:55:52.18
Bill
And I only laugh because Mike's like, what do you want for dinner? i'm like, um, you know, cause it's usually fucking Chinese food because there's this place around corner from his house that I mean, it's relatively inexpensive.

00:55:57.82
Mike
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

00:56:02.71
Bill
What was it? Twenty bucks for the two of our stuff?

00:56:03.96
Mike
Yeah.

00:56:04.64
Bill
Yeah. Yeah.

00:56:04.96
Mike
Yeah.

00:56:05.62
Bill
um You know, so, you know, to get to it, it's plenty of food. There's, we're not going to go hungry, you know, so get plenty of food and they're, they're quick and they're simple and blah, blah, blah.

00:56:09.62
Mike
Oh, yeah.

00:56:14.97
Bill
So we're, we're driving back and we're, we're talking about an individual.

00:56:14.96
Mike
Yeah.

00:56:17.93
Bill
not going to, there's, I'm not going to bring up the individual's name because it's completely unimportant and we wouldn't do it anyhow.

00:56:20.69
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:56:22.73
Bill
But I'm like, I'm like, so, you know, how much time now it is,

00:56:22.91
Mike
Right.

00:56:26.55
Bill
does so-and-so have compared to us?

00:56:27.83
Mike
Yeah.

00:56:28.36
Bill
Or no, I said, you know, how much time does so-and-so have?

00:56:28.83
Mike
Right.

00:56:30.72
Bill
Because this this individual has had, at least in my opinion, had, you know, two, three, four years on us forever, you know?

00:56:36.27
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:56:36.73
Bill
And Mike said something. I'm like, what? Because if first of all, I thought you said 34. And I'm like, I know he has that 34 years.

00:56:42.71
Mike
All right.

00:56:43.26
Bill
And then what my friend Mike over there said was three or four. And I'm like, I'm like, what what are you talking about?

00:56:46.78
Mike
I did.

00:56:49.42
Bill
And then, so you enlightened me on this individual that there was those pain pills, right? And I was just like, I'm like, fucking really?

00:56:55.52
Mike
All

00:56:58.38
Bill
Because I, because I've seen this individual when I've been back over the last handful of years and I just, I didn't know.

00:57:00.54
Mike
right.

00:57:02.86
Bill
i had no idea.

00:57:03.58
Mike
Yeah.

00:57:04.26
Bill
um And my first thought was like, I'm like, i fucking God damn it. But then again, I'm like, well, God damn it. You know, it's just kind of, it's, it's what you say.

00:57:10.20
Mike
Yep.

00:57:12.96
Bill
I mean, a couple of things, you know, no bad examples um gave into whatever the whatever the deal was.

00:57:15.87
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:57:18.40
Bill
It's a story we've heard, but.

00:57:18.71
Mike
Right.

00:57:19.88
Bill
I don't know.

00:57:20.39
Mike
Mm

00:57:20.76
Bill
It's just when it comes down to what is people in our group? Um, I, it's, it's hard for me to say that I expect more and that's not the case. I just, and I wasn't, I wasn't like crushed by it, but I'm just like, God damn, one of ours, you know?

00:57:29.85
Mike
hmm.

00:57:33.55
Mike
Sure.

00:57:35.88
Bill
And, um, don't know.

00:57:36.22
Mike
Right.

00:57:36.84
Bill
Does that make any sense?

00:57:38.01
Mike
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. You know, right. But I mean, you know, fucking A, man. um You know, it can happen to any of us, which is, like you said, no bad examples.

00:57:43.67
Bill
Right. Right.

00:57:47.77
Mike
um

00:57:48.19
Bill
Right.

00:57:48.89
Mike
Yeah, you know, and I mean, I don't know. I mean, he went through some serious medical shit and, and you know, they were prescribed to him and, um you know, he he was doing okay with him for a while, but, you know, eventually a bit him in the ass and, he you know, he started abusing him.

00:57:52.30
Bill
Right.

00:58:05.32
Mike
And i I don't know that I wouldn't do that. you know I'd like to think I wouldn't. you know If something serious happened to me and you know they had to fucking cut some shit off of me and um you know i needed pain pills, um a you know fuck, I don't know you know.

00:58:23.64
Bill
Right.

00:58:24.42
Mike
I'd like to think I would handle it. and and you know um You know, i' use Phyllis as an example. I mean, she had major surgery and she was eating like one Vicodin a day, you know, for a while.

00:58:37.27
Bill
Right.

00:58:37.77
Mike
And then she stopped, um you know, which was way under which she was prescribed and and she got through it. um I'd like to think I'd do something like that. I also know myself and I may very well, you know, treat them like my vitamins and take them by the fistful.

00:58:55.34
Bill
Right.

00:58:55.90
Mike
Yeah, I don't know.

00:58:57.34
Bill
Yeah. Yeah.

00:58:58.30
Mike
It's not happening right now, so I can't tell you.

00:59:01.03
Bill
Right. And I mean, thankfully, even with the things that I was just talking to Kimmy about this one, I don't know i think the last time when maybe when I was up there, don't know, whatever it was. But the I mean, that the procedures I had, although although invasive, they were I mean, surprisingly enough, I never had any pain in my in my chest after the procedures.

00:59:14.80
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:59:21.60
Bill
You know, it wasn't like underneath.

00:59:21.85
Mike
Right.

00:59:23.20
Bill
You're like, God damn, they're fucking with some shit, you know, which they were.

00:59:25.14
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:59:26.28
Bill
But it never it was never that.

00:59:27.80
Mike
Right.

00:59:28.29
Bill
Now the groin, don't get me wrong, that was, that was fucking sore, you know, but, um, you know, I got out and I didn't, I didn't let myself sit, you know, I, I walked a lot, you know, and I think I kept the, I was careful, but I, I don't know if that helped by keeping the you know muscles loose and whatever.

00:59:28.47
Mike
you Right. Yeah.

00:59:38.46
Mike
Right.

00:59:43.70
Mike
Sure.

00:59:44.25
Bill
um You know, but I didn't take a lot of, you know, pain medications or anything like or not. No pain medications. I mean, any like, because after that, theyll like, don't take ibuprofen. So, you know, obviously in the Tylenol. The worst thing that I had since that, well, since I've been sober and I've got another story on that that I was going to read off about somebody. um And I've had dental work here and there, you know, which is kind of that could be bad pain.

01:00:07.88
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:00:09.64
Bill
But um i've I've gone, you know, gotten through that without any pain medications, you know, except for, again, over the counter, or whatever is aspirins or blah, bla blah, blah.

01:00:09.91
Mike
Right.

01:00:16.25
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

01:00:18.20
Bill
But. Um, I know, know exactly what my plan would be if I had a procedure and I was given pain medications.

01:00:24.61
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

01:00:26.28
Bill
I do know what my plan would be, is that to give the medication to somebody.

01:00:26.49
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:00:30.40
Bill
And I even thought about like when I was in Germantown, you know, the fact that, uh, you know, Don and Derek and them, they were in town, not right next door, but I would make them, you know, hold my shit.

01:00:30.68
Mike
Right.

01:00:35.67
Mike
Mm-hmm. Sure. Right. Yeah.

01:00:40.23
Bill
And, you know, so I literally had the drive over there to get a pill, you know, you know, or I may, if I was, you know, incapacitated or whatever the case is, make one of them drive over.

01:00:40.88
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

01:00:47.00
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

01:00:49.37
Bill
you know cause i To your point, i don't know that i don't know you know I don't know that I would trust myself.

01:00:53.40
Mike
Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm.

01:00:55.31
Bill
It even you know just made me think about you know last week when I was kind of joking about the whole fentanyl thing. And you know Lane had said, again, 29 years sober.

01:01:00.30
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:01:02.53
Bill
And she said, she's like, that makes me nervous.

01:01:03.03
Mike
Right.

01:01:04.45
Bill
you know, you know thinking about me going, you fucking hit me with it, man.

01:01:04.90
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:01:07.81
Bill
I'm sitting there and I'm trying remember the high and all this different stuff, you know, and I'm like, cause I'm like, well, I'm never going to be here again unless I have something like this happen.

01:01:08.13
Mike
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

01:01:16.32
Bill
But I never had, I got through it. I never had a craving, never were another thought about it.

01:01:20.50
Mike
Right.

01:01:20.56
Bill
Never thought, man, I could hit that again, you know? um

01:01:22.90
Mike
see

01:01:24.02
Bill
But, but then again, if it was every day and it was numbing, you know, a severe thing like that, who knows, you know?

01:01:28.33
Mike
Yeah. ahha right

01:01:33.01
Bill
But yeah, I just, i I don't know. I just don't, I don't know. But I, um I mean, I feel for the person. I really, really do. You know, I mean, it's a tough thing, you know, especially the crowd that, you know, that that we're around and, you know, that that individual is around.

01:01:39.32
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:01:43.86
Mike
Right.

01:01:45.81
Bill
And i know that I'm sure they didn't give him any shit about it, but yeah.

01:01:46.42
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

01:01:49.41
Bill
you know, still, yeah, much, you know, but, but still it's a, uh, it's, it's a thing that, um, and we talked about it before.

01:01:49.72
Mike
Much.

01:01:53.37
Mike
Yeah.

01:01:56.78
Bill
I think it'd be, I mean, yeah, I'm still, I'm a fucking egotist, man. I mean, I don't think that I would just completely be like, well, fine.

01:02:01.16
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:02:05.08
Bill
You know, I've abused that. I took that like my vitamins, like you just said, um i guess, I guess this, this runs over. I'm going to go, you know, fuck everything. i don't, I don't think I would do that.

01:02:16.82
Bill
That's different than, you know, getting to point where, you know, I was taking a drink. Um, I think, but I, again, I, I'm guessing on shit that I had no idea, you know?

01:02:20.77
Mike
Right. yes

01:02:25.40
Mike
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Don't speculate. Mm-hmm.

01:02:29.24
Bill
Yeah, and it's it's hard. you know I mean, it's hard not to, but but again, as as I'm saying this stuff, I'm like, yeah, I can't i can't fucking speculate. So, so but I mean, to give you an example is this shoulder thing. A week ago, I was you know obviously talking about it on here, and it was it it popped up on Thursday, but it was really bad.

01:02:46.74
Bill
Thursday morning, I felt a twinge of it. Thursday night, I mean, you know, starting to get in there and then by Friday morning as fuck. So by the time we were on here last week, I mean, it was, again, I'm trying to reach my arm just to, you know, type on my laptop or whatever.

01:02:59.51
Bill
And I couldn't, I mean, I could, I'm like lifting my arm up.

01:03:00.91
Mike
Yeah.

01:03:02.59
Bill
That's how it it hurt fucking bad, you know?

01:03:04.77
Mike
Right.

01:03:05.47
Bill
And, and I took, um, you know, obviously the Tylenol and stuff like that, that I could take her acetaminophen, but I'm trying to, trying to be even with that stuff because it's not good for you.

01:03:09.95
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:03:15.09
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:03:15.38
Bill
But it fucking hurts, you know, and I got this little like um lidocaine that I'm putting on, the liquid I'm putting on all the time, you know, two, three times a day.

01:03:16.63
Mike
Yeah.

01:03:21.78
Bill
And I'll tell you one thing, Friday night, last Friday night, I got four and a half hours of sleep. And i got I got four and a half hours of sleep the fucking hard way, okay?

01:03:28.29
Mike
Yep.

01:03:31.64
Mike
Right.

01:03:32.38
Bill
Like 20 minutes at a time.

01:03:33.89
Mike
yep, yep. yep

01:03:35.48
Bill
And i get ah I get up on Saturday. I'm like, I'm going to be a fucking wreck. I look at my, because my watch keeps track of this. Now I look at the app and like, oof, it's like four hours and 37 minutes.

01:03:45.68
Bill
And I see these, usually I've got, you know, one or two little marks where I get up. So I get up, go to the bathroom, grab water, do whatever. That's, you know, 10, 20, a few minutes here and there, not a big deal. Um, but I mean, I just, it it was fucked.

01:03:57.56
Bill
And then, I, I went out and I was walking, did my grocery shopping. I'm walking around me. actually, I didn't feel good, you know, and like physically didn't feel good.

01:04:04.66
Mike
Right.

01:04:06.31
Bill
Cause I didn't get, i didn't get enough sleep.

01:04:06.34
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:04:07.98
Bill
And I'm like, I'm like, this is fucked up. I'm sitting there walking on these trails and stuff, but that was a little bit chilly, not bad, but I walk along. I'm like, I'm like, I feel like a fucking zombie, you know?

01:04:19.13
Bill
But, you know, again, mean, if I'm like, God, man, if I could have, it's the same thing, you know, if I could have, knowing I can't take pain medication, but knowing if I could have got, it was that fucking bad, it hurt that fucking bad.

01:04:30.01
Mike
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

01:04:31.67
Bill
You know, and if I could have taken a pill, it would just be like, whew.

01:04:34.78
Mike
yeah

01:04:34.84
Bill
yeah You know, even after, even after all these, all these years, I mean, I can, I can see it. So I don't know.

01:04:40.47
Mike
yeah

01:04:41.30
Bill
It was, it was good seeing everyone and I had a great time. I mean, the, everything was nice. It was a short, kind of a short trip. I obviously had it back on Sunday, but I don't know, Playhouse Square, i highly recommend the documentary.

01:04:48.38
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:04:53.18
Bill
If you if follow us on Instagram, you know, if you don't, you should because, you know, and then figure out if you want to see that documentary, it's, it's playing all over the goddamn place.

01:04:57.02
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:05:04.13
Bill
And, I don't know if he's going to it released anywhere else.

01:05:04.62
Mike
Right.

01:05:06.90
Mike
I mean, yeah, well, part of the deal with doing the film festival thing is having a distributor pick it up.

01:05:06.93
Bill
If it's going to be.

01:05:12.46
Mike
So, yeah.

01:05:13.30
Bill
Oh, really? Okay.

01:05:14.07
Mike
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

01:05:16.25
Bill
So sooner or later, it's going to be on stream streaming someplace.

01:05:17.62
Mike
I would hope I'm sure it's going to stream somewhere at some point. Yes.

01:05:21.21
Bill
Oh, okay. well that's cool. Okay. I guess I i didn't know that. I didn't know that at all. So, okay, cool. So my, my next question kind of goes along the the lines of, you know, kind of like what you were talking about a few minutes ago, as far as, you know, like the, well, I mentioned dental procedure, but things like that.

01:05:36.80
Bill
So um Anthony Kiedis was on with Joe Rogan and for anyone who doesn't know, that's the lead singer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

01:05:40.82
Mike
right.

01:05:44.80
Bill
And so I i know I had talked about flea before, but those guys were out in your area at the time that they were not big.

01:05:45.16
Mike
hmm.

01:05:51.66
Bill
Am I correct?

01:05:52.94
Mike
Yeah.

01:05:53.56
Bill
When they first started.

01:05:53.80
Mike
Yeah.

01:05:54.28
Bill
So you, you knew them. Do I remember that correctly or no?

01:05:56.38
Mike
I mean, you know, i when I lived in Hollywood, I mean, they were they were getting there. um You know, I mean, I'd see Flea around. And, um yeah, you know, I mean, Anthony at that point was pretty fucked up.

01:06:08.02
Mike
um

01:06:08.44
Bill
Right. Right.

01:06:09.18
Mike
You know, but, yeah, you know, and and when John joined the band, I mean, I saw them, the original band, I saw i saw a sock show.

01:06:17.94
Bill
Oh yeah, that's right.

01:06:18.34
Mike
It's a place called Lord Beaverbrooks in Sacramento.

01:06:19.39
Bill
That's right.

01:06:23.33
Mike
um But yeah, so um if you don't know what a sock show is, they came out in tube socks, one tube sock and nothing else strategically placed.

01:06:34.17
Bill
Right.

01:06:36.01
Mike
Um, anyway, so yeah, you know, it, uh, when John first joined the band, when they did, um, mother's milk was the first album he did with them.

01:06:46.18
Mike
Um, he had moved from Orange County and they recorded the album and he had given up his apartment in Orange County and didn't have anywhere to live. So he actually stayed in my apartment for a couple of weeks.

01:06:56.45
Mike
Um,

01:06:56.73
Bill
Oh, really?

01:06:57.50
Mike
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I mean, yeah, I knew those guys around. I never knew Chad, but um yeah, you know, they were around. there were that That was, Hollywood's a very small town. It definitely wasn't the late 80s.

01:07:09.42
Mike
So if you were around, you were around.

01:07:10.06
Bill
Right. Right.

01:07:12.79
Mike
Yeah.

01:07:12.98
Bill
no i And I remember that you, the Sock Show, now I remember, and I remember about the, you know, that staying in your apartment, but that's actually cool.

01:07:19.46
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:07:20.10
Bill
But i knew that I knew that you had been, you knew of them or were in their vicinity during that timeframe.

01:07:24.90
Mike
Yeah.

01:07:25.50
Bill
And that's in the the episode that I listened to, I think was from, it was from a few years ago.

01:07:25.78
Mike
Yep.

01:07:29.66
Bill
I was scrolling back and Ran across and it was he's in or he's an interesting guy. It was an interesting conversation. I don't know that I've ever heard him, um you know, interviewed or anything like that. So, I mean, part of it was was interesting.

01:07:41.00
Bill
I knew he was sober, but I mean, basically, like, you know, 25 years sober now, I think we're roughly in that area.

01:07:46.52
Mike
Right.

01:07:47.86
Bill
But he was describing how he got sober and he never mentioned, never said the words Alcoholics Anonymous, never said AA.

01:07:47.97
Mike
Sounds right.

01:07:56.53
Bill
But is, I think, kind of clear just that the way the way he was talking about things, that that that's what it was. You know, he was just again, he was on the outskirts.

01:08:03.22
Mike
Right.

01:08:05.88
Bill
And maybe he's one of those guys that just figures that, you know, he believes in the purity of the name and not wanting to whatever is, you know, not considering that part of the anonymity thing, which is fine.

01:08:10.68
Mike
Right. Yeah.

01:08:14.28
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:08:14.38
Bill
Not a big deal.

01:08:14.90
Mike
Right.

01:08:15.14
Bill
Don't care. But, um you know, I think that's what his background was. But he said when when he relapsed prior to this 25 year run, um he said it was from painkillers from a horrible dental procedure.

01:08:24.51
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:08:27.86
Bill
And he said that he had left all the work fall by the wayside. And as soon as he took the painkillers, that was it. OK, so and I'm like, well, yeah, that's the story.

01:08:34.93
Mike
Yeah. Right.

01:08:38.15
Bill
That's the story that we hear.

01:08:38.49
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:08:39.51
Bill
As soon as he said horrible dental procedure, I'm like, well, I know where this is going, you know.

01:08:43.42
Mike
Yep.

01:08:43.67
Bill
But it was just kind of interesting, just an interesting conversation. But that I just when I when I heard that part of it, I'm like, it's just that, you know, it doesn't matter who the fuck you are. You know, i mean, whoever we we've heard the same goddamn story from, you know, people from years ago to recent people to it's always the same goddamn thing.

01:08:54.08
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:08:59.58
Mike
Yeah.

01:09:01.02
Bill
You know, you're you let your guard down.

01:09:01.52
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:09:02.74
Bill
You're not doing all the right things. And then all it takes is that, you know, somebody to introduce that one thing.

01:09:04.31
Mike
Right.

01:09:07.45
Bill
And you're like, oh, this seems like a pretty goddamn good idea.

01:09:08.03
Mike
Mm-hmm. Yep.

01:09:10.71
Bill
yeah

01:09:11.92
Mike
yalts

01:09:12.85
Bill
Yeah, which, you know, obviously we don't we don't want to get to that get to that point this way. but So kind of a third question along these lines, and I didn't realize that these were all going to be falling into place. but um and And I was, again, I think this was, this might have been because of a podcast.

01:09:28.31
Bill
I don't even know, right? Article I read, doesn't even matter. So um if you were, let's say you were, I don't want to, let me, do I want to put terminal? hey I don't know. If you were sick to the point where um you had to be on some sort of medication regimen, okay?

01:09:42.34
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:09:42.50
Bill
And let's not even say, let's not say terminal because I know what the, know what your mindset is on that. So this is this is one where you can, you can function, you know, you can do all these different things, but it was, you know, that basically on a medication regimen, but these doctors are going back and forth with all these different things, trying to figure out what the right mix is, blah, blah, blah, because this normal medication either isn't working or isn't working well, they're always going back and forth, up, down, blah, blah, blah.

01:09:47.31
Mike
Aha.

01:09:49.83
Mike
Yeah.

01:10:00.35
Mike
Mm. Mm.

01:10:05.51
Bill
um One way the other was all fucking you up. So my my question is, is that if you found out through that whole process that medicinal weed fixed your thing, would you do it?

01:10:16.89
Mike
Yeah.

01:10:20.15
Mike
um Um, um, um, um, I mean, um, the probably not.

01:10:33.27
Mike
Um, just because, You know, it it all comes back to to my mindset on all of it. You know, if I, if yeah, I, you know, I, I, I'm running until the wheels fall off and I'm running on my own steam till the wheels fall off.

01:10:39.85
Bill
Right.

01:10:48.84
Mike
Um, I'm, I'm not allowing. Yeah. You know, I'm not allowing any medical stuff to happen. I'm, I'm just, it's not, I don't want to do that. It's not the way I want to live my life. Um,

01:11:04.28
Mike
You know, I mean, yeah, I get a physical for work, you know, and and they they test basic stuff and um the basic stuff is working. And so I leave it at that. um if If it comes down to I'm going to need a bunch of intervention from whatever, you know, I don't give a fuck if it's weed or it's fucking painkillers or it's, ah you know, everything.

01:11:27.86
Mike
you You know, the, any of the medications that we see constantly on television all the time with all the side effects, right.

01:11:34.74
Bill
Right. Right.

01:11:36.51
Mike
I'll let you, I don't want any part of that shit. I just don't, you know, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to live my life that way. If it gets to the point where I'm not functioning on my own um in a reasonable fashion, but I'm done.

01:11:56.20
Bill
Right.

01:11:56.38
Mike
That's, what yeah. So, yeah, no. So um I don't care what it is, you know, ah whether it's weed or it's, you know, they tell me a fucking drink a bottle of vodka every day and I'll be okay for a couple of years.

01:12:07.32
Bill
ah

01:12:07.50
Mike
um You know, no thanks.

01:12:09.83
Bill
Right. Well, and and that was the thing. There was two things behind that, that, I mean, I've never smoked, you know, so, I mean, and I know that you always said that if you, and it wasn't even talked about, you know, literally on a medicinal side of things, but you said if you, you know, every, you enjoyed smoking weed and if you, but if you, but if you smoke weed, you're going to get thirsty and then you're going get some vodka and then you're going you know, end up, as you always say, you're and in a corner in a room or someplace, you know, with it with a needle in your arm.

01:12:25.02
Mike
I did.

01:12:28.28
Mike
Yep.

01:12:33.85
Mike
Yeah.

01:12:35.79
Bill
So, um that's i asked for those two reasons first of all thinking that you know would if it was would you be able to so separate the medicinal part of it but i mean i and i understand where your mindset's going with that i get that 100 percent um but i just didn't know if i don't know if my brain would be able to to separate the medicinal part of it because again because i'm like who's gonna who's gonna prescribe a bottle of whiskey to be every day you know whereas you know you know we can take care of from a medicinal side of things there are certain things that that it can it could do that it has these properties to you know make people feel better yeah right yeah and so does so does codeine and so does fentanyl and you know they mean they yeah they

01:12:35.83
Mike
Yep.

01:12:44.22
Mike
Sure. Uh-huh.

01:12:58.93
Mike
Right.

01:13:07.16
Mike
Yeah, sure. Well, so does heroin.

01:13:15.32
Mike
Right. Yeah, exactly. I mean, they're all opiates, right? Yeah, it's, you know, right. It's, yes, it's going to make you fucking feel better. It's going to, you know, yes, absolutely. You know, I i felt fucking fantastic on heroin.

01:13:28.24
Mike
um I thought I'd found the answer to everything.

01:13:30.65
Bill
ah

01:13:32.56
Mike
You know, I mean, I don i i probably said it on here, but I mean, you know, um heroin cured my alcoholism.

01:13:33.14
Bill
right

01:13:40.57
Mike
You know, i didn't I didn't drink.

01:13:40.63
Bill
Right.

01:13:42.17
Mike
I was shooting dope. yeah I didn't, you know, it was like one of the longest stretches of my adult life that I didn't drink because I was getting loaded on heroin.

01:13:44.25
Bill
Right.

01:13:52.40
Mike
So there you go.

01:13:52.93
Bill
Right.

01:13:53.97
Mike
One substance for another.

01:13:54.84
Bill
right

01:13:57.33
Mike
No, thank you. I don't want any of them.

01:13:59.45
Bill
Right. Do you think, I mean, is that, and i guess that just could another question I had in my head that nothing to do with anything else, but um do you, is that normal for people who is, somebody is, is using shooting, whatever heroin, do people normally not drink?

01:14:12.09
Mike
a

01:14:14.47
Bill
Is that a complete replacement usually?

01:14:15.29
Mike
Yeah, they don't mix very well. Yeah, I mean, yeah.

01:14:17.72
Bill
Okay. That was my question. Okay.

01:14:19.45
Mike
yeah um You know, I mean, I certainly tried a few times early on, and I was like, yeah, you yeah it didn't work very well. They don't mix well. So, yeah, I mean, some do, and, you know, whatever, and blah, blah, blah.

01:14:27.74
Bill
Okay.

01:14:31.60
Mike
But, yeah, no, I didn't ah i didn't like drinking when I was high on heroin, so, no.

01:14:37.92
Bill
Okay.

01:14:38.15
Mike
Yeah.

01:14:38.62
Bill
I was just, again, that was curiosity because so it's, you know, I mean, I know people can drink and obviously, you know, alcohol and cocaine mix, um, you know, weed, weed can mix with, you know, whatever I suppose anyone wants to do.

01:14:46.17
Mike
Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:14:49.81
Bill
Um, I'm sure there's other things that people, I know people take, you know, drinking while they're taking certain pills and blah, blah, blah, but it's just, okay.

01:14:54.04
Mike
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah,

01:14:56.54
Bill
So I just, I didn't know when you, when you had said that, uh, you know, I'm, I understand cross addiction and, you know, replacing one thing for the other, uh,

01:15:02.36
Mike
Oh, sure. I mean, you know, and I drank and took pills. And I mean, so, yes, I did do opiates and drink. Absolutely. But, um yeah. But when I was strictly shooting heroin, no, I didn't drink much.

01:15:14.79
Mike
Yeah.

01:15:14.85
Bill
interesting though. I mean, seriously, I mean, it's just, um, and I, like you said, it doesn't, that's the easiest way to put it.

01:15:15.65
Mike
Yeah.

01:15:19.77
Bill
And I guess I don't really need more of an explanation than they don't mix. Well, I get that, you know, I mean, if they don't mix well, they just don't fucking mix well, you know?

01:15:23.83
Mike
Yeah.

01:15:26.42
Mike
Right. Yeah. You know, I mean, in hard alcohol, it upset my stomach. I'd get nauseous and stuff. And so, yeah, i'd I'd rather do the heroin at that point.

01:15:32.11
Bill
Really?

01:15:37.02
Bill
Well, I mean, I suppose, yeah, because if you're do if you're doing both and you're getting an upset stomach, like like I was just talking about, i'm like, I don't want to do anything that...

01:15:41.24
Mike
Yes.

01:15:43.62
Bill
Well, and, you know, even with the...

01:15:43.77
Mike
Right. Yeah. The whole point is to make myself feel good.

01:15:47.06
Bill
Right. Well, and even with these, you know, um and i take I take... One of them is baby aspirin, so I believe in setting that aside, but I take... You know, there's a total of five things that I take now.

01:15:57.02
Mike
Right.

01:15:57.30
Bill
Whatever it is, it's so one for my cholesterol and blood thinner and um blood pressure medication. I don't know... Don't remember what the fourth one is, and then... ask for it You know, but I asked that question right away.

01:16:08.49
Bill
I said, does, what are the side effects of any of these fucking things?

01:16:09.86
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:16:11.60
Bill
I'm like, I understand aspirin. I think I understand, you know, blood thinners whatever, but I'm like, I, I, for whatever reason, I tend to be sensitive. If there's upset stomach, I don't get it. I'd never get an upset stomach unless I happen to take some medication that could cause that.

01:16:25.23
Bill
And then I will, you know, or, you know, something that could fuck with your digestive system.

01:16:25.65
Mike
Right. Mm hmm.

01:16:29.15
Bill
And it then it, for me, it does, you know, And they're like, no, no, no, you shouldn't have anything. The only thing they warned me about was with the, uh, there was maybe there's two things, with blood pressure and whatever. Cause they said, there's one thing that I'm taking that they said, just be careful.

01:16:42.34
Bill
You know, when you first start taking it the first couple of weeks, because sometimes you could get lightheaded, you know, if you stand up too quickly or, or whatever the case is.

01:16:45.14
Mike
Right.

01:16:49.97
Bill
And I noticed that every once in a while, sometimes I'll be, if I'm walking someplace, like if I'm walked doing my walk and I'm looking at my phone and I look up, I'll get that initial, Ooh, yeah.

01:16:50.14
Mike
right

01:16:57.61
Bill
You know, that sort of thing. it's It's never taken me off my feet type of thing or never made me stumble. But I had like bits of that lightheadedness. I'm like, if that's the only thing I got watch for, I'm like, I'm cool, you know, um because nothing else has affected me.

01:17:08.27
Mike
Right.

01:17:11.12
Bill
But, man, I guess same thing. man i use do You watch a lot of, ah you watch a lot of that I wouldn't say network TV, but commercial TV. You know, some of these shows and things like that that you're watching, um even a baseball game, you know, it doesn't matter what it is.

01:17:18.87
Mike
Yeah.

01:17:22.97
Mike
Right.

01:17:23.97
Bill
But there's at a ton.

01:17:24.16
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:17:25.29
Bill
I mean, all of it is these pharmaceutical ads.

01:17:28.66
Mike
Right.

01:17:29.46
Bill
ah fucking all of it is, you know?

01:17:30.58
Mike
hey Right.

01:17:31.02
Bill
And, um, and just every time I hear one of those fucking ads and it's most most of the times when, and I've done it before I've watched commercial, you know, things that have commercials on that I've been watching, but you sit there and you're like, I just wait for the, I wait for the side effects.

01:17:46.55
Bill
It's like it, let's say if the, the medication is, um, blah, blah, that's the name of the medication is blah, blah.

01:17:47.10
Mike
Right.

01:17:51.99
Mike
here

01:17:52.67
Bill
It's like, well, if you're allergic to blah, blah, don't take blah blah, blah, blah, could kill you.

01:17:55.35
Mike
right

01:17:56.51
Bill
Don't take blah, blah. And I'm like,

01:17:57.62
Mike
me

01:17:58.68
Bill
Wait a second.

01:17:59.70
Mike
is

01:18:00.73
Bill
And if you're trying to fix stomach cramps, if you have stomach cramps, don't take this. well Wait a second. What? Or if you're, yeah, if you're allergic to stomach cramps, whatever the case is, then all these different things, you know, suicidal thoughts, your eyeball, your eyeball.

01:18:08.63
Mike
Yeah.

01:18:11.67
Mike
Sure. Weeping sores.

01:18:13.62
Bill
Your eyeball might pop out.

01:18:13.94
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:18:15.02
Bill
You're going have, you know, anal, anal leakage and whatever the stuff is.

01:18:17.82
Mike
Yeah.

01:18:18.94
Bill
I'm like, oh, that's just fucking awful. Again, to, to your point, that's fucking awful.

01:18:21.21
Mike
Good times.

01:18:24.75
Bill
Just fucking awful.

01:18:24.94
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:18:26.31
Bill
So, um, a couple more, couple more things at some point. Um, yeah I won't do it now. I want to bring it up when we have, when we have time, cause i want to play some stuff for you. It's it, it'll, it'll hold.

01:18:34.80
Mike
All

01:18:35.97
Bill
It's, it's held for many years so far, not necessarily with us, but this thing is held for many years.

01:18:38.96
Mike
right. All right.

01:18:41.11
Bill
So um I was listening to a podcast. Can't remember which one it was. Doesn't matter. And the the podcast, um the individual said that his sponsor said to him, do you want to just scratch the service or do you want to go deep?

01:18:55.58
Bill
and And he was talking to him about whatever the case was.

01:18:55.91
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:18:58.54
Bill
And then he said, he goes, how sober do you really want to be? And i'm like I'm like, okay, so in in I'm just going to, I don't know exactly what the question is, but we've talked about this and and in a couple of different ways. But um I guess my my first question is, what are your what are your initial thoughts? If somebody said the statement to you, ah how sober do you do you really want to be? What does that, I mean, how would you answer that? what does that mean?

01:19:24.44
Mike
um It depends on what part of my sobriety I'm at. um

01:19:29.56
Bill
Yeah.

01:19:30.20
Mike
You know, I mean, clearly early on, yeah, I want to be as sober as I possibly can be. um You know, if you ask me that now, I'm like, fuck, I'm sober, dude. You know, yeah we've talked plenty on here about muddying up the waters.

01:19:40.19
Bill
Mm-hmm.

01:19:44.10
Mike
And, you know, yes, um yeah I'm um sober. You know, but the obsession's been lifted. i have no desire to drink or do drugs.

01:19:54.11
Mike
um I think I'm doing the next right thing, you know, to the best of my ability, all that good stuff. Um, and I have peace and serenity in my life.

01:20:05.36
Mike
So fuck, I'm sober. You know, um if, if somebody said, do you want to go deeper?

01:20:09.85
Bill
yeah

01:20:11.94
Mike
I would tell them, no, ah you know, no, I don't.

01:20:13.82
Bill
Right.

01:20:15.88
Mike
Um, if it got to a point where, you know, I, I was restless, irritable and discontent to coin a phrase. Um, yes, that I would have to go deeper clearly, but right now I'm sober.

01:20:28.76
Mike
I'm good.

01:20:29.82
Bill
Right. You know, and I thought about the same thing because, you know, the, the, the mindset that, you know, there's, well, first of all, in, in the beginning, I mean, what is it within, how long is it to get alcohol and drugs out of your system completely?

01:20:43.11
Bill
I mean, where it's not affecting you. I know that weed can show up for a certain period of time and hair follicles blah, blah, blah.

01:20:46.49
Mike
Right.

01:20:48.55
Bill
But until what is the timeframe? Do you know that, you know, it's kind of like all the, all the toxins, all the bad shits out of your body. Is that two, three weeks? Is it a month or?

01:20:56.79
Mike
but Yeah, something like that. I mean, you know, there's there's some people say it's 72 hours, um you know, that that it's really, it's it's pretty much out, um you know, which I kind of subscribe to.

01:21:02.85
Bill
Right. Right.

01:21:09.72
Mike
Yeah, you know, for the most part, I mean, if you're not putting it in, it doesn't take the body long to to get it out. Now, all the damage you've done and right, that takes time to heal.

01:21:21.02
Mike
But, you know, as far as the actual substances, most stuff's out of you pretty fucking quickly.

01:21:27.80
Bill
So even if we had to put up, even if you said even three days, five days, even if you wanted to be generous and say within within one week from the time that you stopped putting shit in your body, even if you went through detox and had medications through that, you know, you're you're not going to get any more alcohol free.

01:21:31.89
Mike
Sure.

01:21:36.78
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

01:21:42.62
Bill
As long as you don't drink again, you're not going to get any more alcohol free than you are at seven days, let's say, if we put a mark on it, right?

01:21:44.09
Mike
Right.

01:21:47.58
Mike
Sure.

01:21:48.60
Bill
Okay.

01:21:48.60
Mike
Yeah.

01:21:49.46
Bill
So, but that but then we talk about, you know, sobriety is a is a lifestyle and it's a mindset, the things that we learn and grow over time.

01:21:53.96
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:21:56.58
Bill
So that's the reason, that's the only reason I wrote that down because, you know, that's, it's an interesting question because like you just said, you know, in in the beginning, um i i was I was alcohol free after, you know, again, what do we call it Seven days, doesn't matter.

01:21:56.73
Mike
Right.

01:22:11.51
Mike
Sure.

01:22:11.67
Bill
So I'm alcohol free at that point, but I'm not fucking sober, you know?

01:22:15.48
Mike
No, no, not by a long shot.

01:22:16.06
Bill
And that's why i And so I still, even even to this day, you know um drive sober or get pulled over.

01:22:17.45
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:22:22.76
Bill
It's like you're not fucking sober.

01:22:22.87
Mike
a

01:22:24.12
Bill
You just don't have the alcohol in your body right now.

01:22:25.82
Mike
Right.

01:22:25.92
Bill
you know You're just not actively drinking.

01:22:26.62
Mike
oh yeah.

01:22:27.97
Bill
A normie is not sober. They're just not drinking. you know And most most people may not understand that, that are normies.

01:22:30.36
Mike
e

01:22:33.20
Bill
And I get that, but it's a wrong word for that.

01:22:34.36
Mike
Right.

01:22:35.56
Bill
you know So so at that at that point, you know at what point are you

01:22:35.72
Mike
Uh huh.

01:22:41.18
Bill
I don't know, at what point where we were we cool? You know, we're not cured.

01:22:43.80
Mike
Yeah.

01:22:44.46
Bill
We're not fixed.

01:22:44.82
Mike
h Right.

01:22:45.26
Bill
But, you know, we're we're at a good point. um We can always, we we want to be open-minded. We talked about that.

01:22:50.71
Mike
Sure. Right.

01:22:51.22
Bill
We're not closed off. We're not saying, fuck you, I'm done learning.

01:22:54.55
Mike
right

01:22:54.62
Bill
But at at some point, we hit a point of sobriety that we're we're good, you know?

01:22:59.09
Mike
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

01:23:01.46
Bill
Yeah.

01:23:01.96
Mike
Drive sober and get pulled over. Right. You're fucking raging out behind the wheel.

01:23:04.41
Bill
yeah

01:23:05.88
Mike
You haven't had a drink in fucking 20 years, but, or never had a drink in your life, but you're completely out of your fucking mind, raged out at the guy next to you because he didn't use his turn signal.

01:23:07.70
Bill
hey

01:23:15.60
Mike
Yeah.

01:23:16.02
Bill
Right.

01:23:16.57
Mike
How sober is that?

01:23:18.30
Bill
Right. Yeah, exactly. That's ah once again, that's, that's where we come into the point of, you know, it's, it is, it's a lifestyle.

01:23:23.02
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:23:24.49
Bill
It's not just, you know, taking the, taking the booze out or changing your breath or whatever the case is.

01:23:24.98
Mike
Yeah. Yeah.

01:23:28.73
Bill
So that's what I was curious about. Cause i'm like, I don't, I don't know that, um, I can, I can learn a few more things. You know, I can learn probably an infinite number of things, you know, whether it's about, you know, ah alcohol or drugs recovery or whatever it is.

01:23:35.51
Mike
Sure.

01:23:38.10
Mike
Yeah.

01:23:42.96
Mike
Right.

01:23:43.02
Bill
But, you know, can I become, like you said, you know, I'm the peace and serenity and, you know, I'm, I think I'm being a good person.

01:23:47.63
Mike
Mm

01:23:49.78
Bill
I've, I've fixed all the shit in my, all the the things that I had the ability to fix, I've fixed, you know, I'm not making new mistakes or if I am, I'm, I'm minimizing them to a certain extent, you know, but, Is we got to qualify again.

01:23:54.73
Mike
hmm.

01:23:58.51
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:24:02.77
Bill
you know, and we're also making mistakes, but not blatant ones.

01:24:02.97
Mike
Right. Sure.

01:24:05.49
Bill
And if we do, we, you know, obviously say our apologies.

01:24:05.93
Mike
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

01:24:08.01
Bill
So, so yeah.

01:24:08.19
Mike
Right.

01:24:09.66
Bill
And it, the only thing like when you just said, if somebody walked up to you now and said, do you want to go deeper, dig deeper? And you're like, fuck, no, I don't.

01:24:17.01
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:24:18.07
Bill
Yeah, it it reminded me of, it it's now it's been um six years ago, whatever it was, probably seven, eight years ago now, when but that sponsor of mine name in Wisconsin asked me that.

01:24:22.26
Mike
aha well

01:24:27.75
Bill
He goes, you know, wanted me to, be to he he threw it out there, supposedly is it is a test, and I'll use air quotes on that. But I didn't like it when he said it, because he's like, you know, what if um when I started using him or having him as my sponsor,

01:24:33.51
Mike
Right.

01:24:40.50
Mike
isn

01:24:40.85
Bill
He goes, what if I, you know, had wanted you to do a fourth and a fifth step again, or wanted you to go through that?

01:24:45.91
Mike
Right.

01:24:45.96
Bill
I'm like, well, it would depend on the circumstance, but I'm like, I don't believe in that. You know, yeah the way that we were taught, we've talked about it enough on here.

01:24:50.14
Mike
Right.

01:24:53.18
Mike
hu

01:24:53.23
Bill
You know, you go through that. If you do it thoroughly and to the best of your ability to begin with, you shouldn't have to do it again.

01:24:58.20
Mike
right

01:24:58.71
Bill
I'm like, if you if you really felt the need for me to do a fourth and a fifth, I'm like, I will do a fourth.

01:25:02.87
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:25:04.60
Bill
And I said, I'm not doing my fifth with you. I'll find a priest. And he's like, why would why would you do that?

01:25:07.35
Mike
Right.

01:25:08.72
Bill
I'm like, because that's what we were taught.

01:25:09.28
Mike
Yep.

01:25:11.16
Bill
you know I said, I'm not doing my fifth step with you. He's like, i I was just teasing Eddie out.

01:25:13.70
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:25:16.25
Bill
Because I'm like, i i think he wanted to see. I don't know.

01:25:18.90
Mike
Right.

01:25:19.24
Bill
Yeah.

01:25:19.30
Mike
yeah How willing you are. i'd get that. Absolutely.

01:25:22.01
Bill
Yeah.

01:25:22.10
Mike
From a sponsor point of view, you know, what are you willing to do? Which is important. for That's good that a sponsor asks you that.

01:25:28.28
Bill
Right.

01:25:29.50
Mike
You know, are you willing to go through this shit? Yeah. I'm willing to go through this, this, and this. But at this point, right. You know, you were, you know, like you said, it was what, seven, eight years ago. So, you know, so you were...

01:25:39.37
Bill
Right.

01:25:41.30
Mike
seven, eight years sober. And it's like, yeah, you know, yeah. If you really fucking need me to, I'll do this, but you know, yeah. And I will do that, but not with you.

01:25:52.60
Bill
Right. Yeah.

01:25:53.18
Mike
Yeah.

01:25:54.01
Bill
And I mean, that's just the way that um in I, I hear it on podcasts all the time. It seems like it seems.

01:25:57.88
Mike
yeah I'm not rearranging the bricks in my foundation.

01:26:01.53
Bill
Yeah. yeah

01:26:04.54
Mike
Yeah.

01:26:06.07
Bill
But I hear plenty of people talk about it and leads and on podcasts and things like that, that they did their, they did their fifth with their sponsor. That seems to be almost more common than, than not, you know, I, I don't know, you know, but,

01:26:12.38
Mike
Right.

01:26:15.00
Mike
m Right. I mean, it's, you know, I mean, and it's, it's from the early days. I mean, you know, a lot of times that's what happened. Um, and, and people doing that's fine and whatever.

01:26:27.98
Mike
Um, yeah, you know, I'm glad we weren't taught that way. I'm glad that wasn't the system that we were brought up in because, um, yeah, it'd just be fucking weird to I don't know that I continue to work with a sponsor that I did a fifth step with.

01:26:32.09
Bill
Right.

01:26:45.09
Bill
Right.

01:26:45.50
Mike
Yeah, I just don't know. I mean, maybe, maybe it would bring us closer and blah, blah, blah, blah. blah But, i you know, I don't know. Or maybe I would, kill fuck, dude, you know way too much about me.

01:26:57.37
Bill
Right. Right. I mean, you and I already have one person that already knows way too much about each other.

01:27:01.59
Mike
Right.

01:27:02.94
Bill
And it's you and i you know, and I mean, and I don't think, but I mean, maybe we, you and I know everything, but I mean, it's, if if we don't, it's because it's not on purpose.

01:27:03.10
Mike
Right. Exactly. Hmm.

01:27:11.92
Bill
You know, I'm sure there's some shit that, that you don't know about me, but sooner or later, it's going to come up and you're like, really?

01:27:12.36
Mike
Right. Yeah. Sure. Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:27:17.19
Bill
Right.

01:27:18.30
Mike
Yeah, you know, I mean, stuff pops up. Really?

01:27:20.41
Bill
Right.

01:27:20.62
Mike
That happened already? But, yeah. But, I mean, the the fundamental stuff, we we fucking know.

01:27:26.19
Bill
Right.

01:27:26.22
Mike
Yeah, exactly. So what's what's the point of doing that? I don't know. Yeah, go to go to a guy and and tell him your shit, and he looks at you and goes, for yeah, you were a piece of shit, weren't you?

01:27:38.20
Mike
Yes, I was. Good. You know that about yourself? Yes, I do. All right, now don't do that anymore. Okay, I won't.

01:27:45.30
Bill
yeah Yeah. And, you know, and the other thing too, is that, uh, I mean, that the number of, um, you know I've, I've heard the stories before, thankfully not a ton. I've heard enough, you know, stories where, you know, sooner or later it's, uh, I've heard it from men and I've heard it from women that, you know, ah somebody that they, that they sat down and did that, did that stuff with, you know, got, you know, got open with, with other people about it, you know, which, Um, is, is a shame.

01:28:06.30
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

01:28:08.41
Bill
You know, I think that, I think the odds of having a priest, you know, run around, if he wants to gossip with all those other priesty friends, I mean, I'll give a fuck.

01:28:12.76
Mike
Yeah. Yeah, right. He wants to tell some fucking random nun. I don't care.

01:28:19.67
Bill
Yeah. And they, cause they probably don't give a fuck one way or the other, but.

01:28:22.52
Mike
you know Something to talk with the altar boy about between them.

01:28:25.40
Bill
and Oh yeah.

01:28:25.96
Mike
Anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

01:28:28.86
Bill
I heard this story today.

01:28:28.91
Mike
I'm fine. Mmm. yeah

01:28:33.88
Bill
But yeah, I just, I don't know. It was just, it was, I liked the way you put that. if you you want to go deeper with that? No, I'm good. And and again, i i I hope that comes across the right way.

01:28:40.76
Mike
yeah i'm fine

01:28:44.95
Mike
oh

01:28:45.25
Bill
think we've made it clear that we're not, and and that's why I made the distinction of saying that i' I don't think I'm fixed or cured or done.

01:28:51.61
Mike
Right.

01:28:52.20
Bill
Um, but my level of sobriety right now, um, I'm, I'm comfortable with where I am.

01:28:52.22
Mike
Right. Yeah, me neither.

01:28:56.32
Mike
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

01:28:58.43
Bill
I'm willing, I'm willing to change and grow and whatever the case is, but I don't think that I need to, you know, both of us right now, it's kind of like, again, same thing, sitting in the middle of a pond in a boat, you know, And there's no motor on it.

01:29:00.44
Mike
Sure. Mm-hmm.

01:29:09.86
Mike
Yep.

01:29:11.71
Bill
We don't need to. We're just kind of floating around.

01:29:13.04
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:29:13.79
Bill
And it's like somebody, if somebody just kind of, you know, came up with a helicopter, just lowered a fucking, you know, 350 horsepower outboard on there.

01:29:14.06
Mike
Yeah.

01:29:20.79
Bill
It's like, light that fucker up now. And you're like, I don't want to do that.

01:29:24.10
Mike
Yeah.

01:29:25.23
Bill
Yeah. It'd be kind of fun to go fast for a minute, but man, look at the goddamn ripples.

01:29:28.26
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:29:29.82
Bill
Look at all the shit that I want. I don't, I don't need to. And same thing as I've said before, I'm, I am 100% sure that there's things in my brain and in my, you know, whatever it is there, there probably, um, you know, would fuck me up if I, if I, well, here's the thing.

01:29:40.92
Mike
Yup. Mm-hmm.

01:29:47.62
Bill
I'm sure there's things in there that I could probably dig through and, you know, find the, the root cause and the core and all that stuff.

01:29:50.30
Mike
Yup.

01:29:53.22
Bill
But, but the, here's the deal.

01:29:53.36
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:29:55.20
Bill
Yeah. The same thing.

01:29:56.03
Mike
Right.

01:29:56.36
Bill
I mean, again, I'm not, I'm not perfect.

01:29:56.37
Mike
Yeah. Yeah.

01:29:58.32
Bill
You know, right now, I mean, maybe if I've got, I've got a, you know, a scar on my, on my arm, you know, I've got a scar on my leg where I fucked it up from there.

01:29:58.78
Mike
Right.

01:30:05.64
Bill
And I look at that i'm like, huh, you know, it's healed, but it's not really, it's not fixed.

01:30:08.55
Mike
Yeah.

01:30:10.46
Bill
You know, so, but do I want to go in and have somebody do surgery on that to fix it all up so it doesn't, doesn't have a goddamn dent in it anymore so have full feeling back in my, in that part because I still have little deadness in there, I think, you know.

01:30:13.91
Mike
Right.

01:30:20.86
Mike
right

01:30:21.46
Bill
So it's not perfect, but I'm okay with it.

01:30:23.42
Mike
Yeah, right. I'm still getting around on the leg. It's fine.

01:30:26.68
Bill
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:30:27.61
Mike
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

01:30:28.44
Bill
I can walk. I'm not limping. is it No issues. No issues at all. so But no, that was just kind of, I don't know.

01:30:32.02
Mike
Yeah.

01:30:34.40
Bill
if That was an interesting interesting thing. So, okay. Real, real quick. Real, real quick. Because I know we're at time here.

01:30:40.28
Mike
Yep.

01:30:41.40
Bill
um

01:30:41.52
Mike
Yep.

01:30:43.06
Bill
I just got to read this headline to you. So this this story I just came across today. and Where the fuck did it go? God damn it. Hmm.

01:30:50.46
Mike
Yep.

01:30:52.38
Bill
Okay. um Headline. Diagnostic dilemma. Okay.

01:30:56.38
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm.

01:30:57.58
Bill
Rectal exam stabilized man's irregular heartbeat.

01:30:59.00
Mike
Mm.

01:31:05.80
Mike
Mm.

01:31:09.14
Bill
And of course, I'm like, you know, i I don't know, probably because of what I went through. and that My algorithm gives me these articles every once in a while. So the man was walking home one night, started feeling heart palpitations. I don't know how old he is, even if it says it in here. Never had issues with heart disease or anything like that.

01:31:26.84
Bill
um Basically, heart palpitations, I think we all know what those are. If we don't, you can look those up yourself. Basically, they did a did an EKG and they noticed a little bit of an off rhythm, like an AFib type of thing, basically a little bit of his erythmi and whatever.

01:31:44.92
Bill
So in order to um do the actual treatment before receiving the cardioversion, whatever that was, to kind of fix that up, the patient patient required an angiopsylid.

01:31:57.37
Bill
or I'm sorry, anticoagulant to prevent the formation of blood clots. But first, this is where the rectal thing comes in.

01:32:04.98
Mike
Yes.

01:32:05.43
Bill
First, doctors needed to make sure the patient did not have gastrointestinal bleeding. Okay. performed a digital Yeah, he was digital.

01:32:16.13
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:32:16.59
Bill
This is fucking finger. No, digital rectal exam to check for blood in the patient's stool.

01:32:22.87
Mike
ah ha

01:32:23.19
Bill
At the time, his heartbeat 140 beats per minute, normal for an adult 60 to 100. Once the exam was over, the patient's heartbeat had slowed to 80 beats per minute and then showed the irregularity.

01:32:34.58
Mike
It relaxed him.

01:32:35.99
Bill
Exactly. And then, um you know, he was discharged from the hospital, came back for a follow-up and palpitations never returned. And I'm like, I'm like, this is problematic. And I'm thinking, thinking this doctor from now on is going to be like, are these doctors going like, Hey, he comes in with with a heart issue.

01:32:57.21
Bill
ah I can help yeah turn around.

01:32:59.03
Mike
yeah

01:33:00.47
Bill
Yeah.

01:33:01.62
Mike
Bend over. Moon river.

01:33:05.12
Bill
So you got the whole fist in there, doc.

01:33:08.86
Bill
Uh, but, uh, it just literally came across that today. I was eating lunch and scan it through my, my Google articles. And I'm like, God, that one, that one made me laugh. So anyhow, folks, uh, who knows? I mean, I, I, maybe next time I go in, I mean, my primary is a, is a female. It's going to be like, Hey, I'll take the article and say, read, did you, did you read this?

01:33:28.15
Mike
Right. Are you aware of this procedure?

01:33:29.13
Bill
Hmm. but if If you are going to do it, young lady, you're going figure in the ass, yeah figure in the ass, and I expect to reach around.

01:33:34.42
Mike
Well, 20 bucks, 20 bucks enough?

01:33:40.16
Bill
Just while while you're there, just give a little give you a little assistance up front.

01:33:41.34
Mike
Yes. Well, yeah. Yes. Yes. Digital stimulation. Ah.

01:33:46.84
Bill
All right. So on that note, on that note, we're going to wind down this award-nominated podcast.

01:33:48.28
Mike
yes

01:33:52.19
Bill
We're talking about rectal tests.

01:33:52.41
Mike
huh

01:33:55.03
Mike
yes digital stimulation

01:33:55.16
Bill
Yeah.

01:33:59.03
Mike
ah

01:33:59.06
Bill
He shoved a fucking vibrator up his ass.

01:34:03.86
Mike
All right.

01:34:04.06
Bill
All right, enough. It's it's your turn.

01:34:04.95
Mike
Well, shit, maybe I do need you to go to the doctor. um ah

01:34:11.54
Bill
ha

01:34:12.22
Mike
All right. On that note, thank you, everyone, for listening to yet another episode of Sober Not Mature. As always, be kind to each other, be good to each other, go out and do something nice for somebody else this week, and don't tell anybody you did it.

01:34:27.80
Mike
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,

01:34:39.16
Mike
Fuck you. Now it's time, kids. It's time for you to fuck off. Then keep fucking off. Keep fucking off till you get to a gate with a sign on it saying, you cannot fuck off past here.

01:34:53.30
Mike
Climb over that gate. Dream the impossible dream. And keep fucking off forever.

01:35:00.50
Bill
Yes, yes, yes.

01:35:01.37
Mike
Yes. Sure.

01:35:02.86
Bill
And yeah, I wrapped up. It's pretty easy little Thursday night going on here. And next week we have Justin, I believe, the fellow sober curator next week.

01:35:07.00
Mike
Sure.

01:35:12.86
Mike
Cool.

01:35:13.31
Bill
So obviously join us for a guest. And yeah, if you guys didn't listen to Lane's episode yet, I think it played really well.

01:35:21.18
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:35:21.77
Bill
You know, and number one, her audio was fucking killer. So she sounded, she actually sounded better than us, I think.

01:35:25.59
Mike
Right.

01:35:28.76
Mike
Right.

01:35:28.99
Bill
But Doesn't matter. doesn't matter. It a good episode. But yes, Justin is an author, sober curator. And obviously I don't remember how sober or how long he's been sober, but yeah, definitely join us this week.

01:35:38.65
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:35:40.24
Bill
And I'm going to leave you guys with, with one word. So everyone grab your pen, grab your pens and your pencils and your paper, write down the word scrotox, C S C R O T O X.

01:35:51.83
Bill
Yes. It's exactly what you think. And there's treatments out there for it. Now we don't need to go.

01:35:57.37
Mike
Finger in the ass.

01:35:58.88
Bill
What's that?

01:35:59.58
Mike
Finger in the ass.

01:36:01.77
Bill
Yeah, scrotox.

01:36:01.82
Mike
It's a cure for everything.

01:36:04.92
Bill
All right. all right. So on that note, scrotox and finger in the ax.

01:36:07.77
Mike
Yes.

01:36:09.50
Bill
yeah Jesus Christ.

01:36:10.42
Mike
Wow.

01:36:11.74
Bill
Finger in the ass. Let me get that right if I'm going to say bad words, right? Okay. I love you, brother.

01:36:17.08
Mike
Love you too.

01:36:18.17
Bill
I believe we will talk soon.

01:36:20.15
Mike
We shall.

01:36:21.92
Bill
Bye.

01:36:22.93
Mike
Bye.

SoberNotMature - Episode 219 (Two Old Men Discussing Their Ailments)

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