SoberNotMature - Episode 231 (Austin R. - One Last Hit - Puffs Of Smoke Up Each Other's Nether-Regions)

00:00:01.59
Bill
All right, everyone. Welcome once again to another episode of Sober Not Mature. And we, yes, Mike, we have a guest. You know that already because we just talked to him

00:00:10.95
Mike
Ah, I know that already. Right. We've already been talking to him.

00:00:14.33
Bill
Yeah, I know. When he was out there, what, would you have to go run and get your tampon, Austin? Is that what you said?

00:00:18.36
Austin
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, my my bag of tampons. Yeah, no, I had to go get my my ah my nicotine pouches because, you know, shit.

00:00:21.24
Mike
he

00:00:25.20
Austin
ah

00:00:25.53
Bill
Well, well, you know,

00:00:25.94
Mike
Right. no hit but

00:00:26.39
Austin
We didn't give it all up, you know.

00:00:27.38
Mike
My pack of Marlboro Reds is sitting right next to me. So, Yep.

00:00:29.98
Austin
There you go.

00:00:30.84
Bill
Yeah, and I yeah i had to.

00:00:30.84
Mike
yelks

00:00:32.16
Bill
i had ah i had a health issue about six, eight months ago, and and I had to quit everything. I quit smoking a few years ago, and then I was vaping and stuff like that. So, yeah, I had a heart issue, and yeah, they they frowned on that after you have those sort of things.

00:00:43.22
Bill
but But anyhow, enough about me. But now, actually, there's going to be more about us here in a minute i just thought of something.

00:00:46.14
Mike
Right.

00:00:48.50
Bill
So as soon as I said Austin, I thought, hey, ladies and gentlemen, does everyone know, just as a reminder, this little podcast of ours was nominated for an award?

00:00:51.38
Mike
Hey.

00:00:54.68
Mike
if you

00:00:57.72
Mike
Hey.

00:00:58.03
Bill
We were nominated, Mike, for best podcast by Sands Bar Academy, weren't we?

00:01:02.81
Mike
Yes, we were.

00:01:03.83
Bill
And what else?

00:01:05.05
Mike
yeah i don't know. What else?

00:01:06.33
Bill
Top three. Come on, man. Jesus Christ.

00:01:07.96
Mike
Yeah, right. Yeah, we're top three.

00:01:09.34
Bill
Fuck, do I? First day?

00:01:10.48
Mike
you' Right.

00:01:11.19
Bill
first

00:01:11.40
Mike
Podium. Right. We're on the podium no matter what happens.

00:01:14.50
Bill
We're bronzing. Come on, we're fucking bronzing in this thing is what... Austin, this is what this is what got us nominated. See, I try to go in and i think I think that I got, you know, me and Mike are on the same page here and he's like, well, I don't fucking know.

00:01:20.54
Mike
Right.

00:01:24.51
Mike
don't know. I don't know anything, man.

00:01:26.35
Austin
A lot to be said for banter, you know?

00:01:26.97
Bill
here

00:01:28.63
Mike
Right.

00:01:28.75
Bill
Eh, yes, it's it's fucking stupidity. I still, we don't, honest to God, we don't know, number one, how people found us, why they would want to vote for us, why we ended up in the top three.

00:01:34.55
Mike
Yep. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

00:01:37.68
Bill
It's un-fucking-believable. It's great. You know, we're happy about it and not egotistical even.

00:01:40.95
Mike
it is

00:01:42.28
Bill
It's it's humbling, but fuck, whatever, man. You guys need to get better, better things to do with your lives and listen to this fucking shit or or get more people like you to listen to us.

00:01:44.95
Mike
yeah

00:01:51.13
Bill
So there, anyhow.

00:01:51.45
Mike
Mm hmm. Right.

00:01:52.73
Bill
But we we do have our friend Austin on tonight. And actually, Austin comes to us not only sober, but as an author. And you're a podcaster, too. So I'm guessing we've got a few things to talk about tonight.

00:02:01.38
Austin
I am.

00:02:04.02
Bill
But i first of all, just a brief maybe one minute, two minutes at the most. Just kind of a brief intro. Who are you? Where are you at? That sort of thing. Just brief, and then we'll get into everything.

00:02:15.22
Austin
Yeah, excellent. So what's what's happening, guys? My name's Austin Ramp. I'm located in Orlando, Florida. Wrote a book called One Last Hit, which chronicles my life of addiction all the way until I fled the country to Mexico for a couple of years, living with the cartel.

00:02:20.66
Bill
Okay.

00:02:31.38
Austin
Barely came back, man. Smoked a lot of crack in Mexico. And, ah and and you know, I survived. Surprisingly, the the money ran out before my heart did. Speaking of hearts.

00:02:41.54
Austin
And today i'm ah I'm a father five, married, all sorts of happy shit that we can get into, man. But that's my one minute. So there you go.

00:02:50.78
Bill
Nice. Well, very cool.

00:02:51.19
Mike
Cool.

00:02:51.61
Austin
Yeah.

00:02:52.41
Bill
Yeah. And a father of five, you know, our normal, our normal thing to that.

00:02:54.71
Mike
Yeah. Please.

00:02:55.46
Bill
Cause we've got, we've got a friend of ours that has actually, she, well, she's one of the sober curators has eight. So we try to let people know you could, you could do it just for fun. Every once in a while, Austin, it's okay.

00:03:03.38
Austin
Yeah.

00:03:04.09
Mike
you please

00:03:05.34
Austin
You know, funny story. I i actually had a vasectomy before I went to Mexico, which is good.

00:03:09.66
Mike
hu

00:03:10.55
Austin
Probably a great thing that that happened.

00:03:11.54
Mike
Right.

00:03:12.63
Austin
So we're we're at five. but But when I came back and i met my my current wife, who is my third wife, my final wife, she said, dude, if we go the distance, you gotta got to get that reverse. I didn't even know that was a thing.

00:03:23.74
Austin
And and it was, and it did.

00:03:23.93
Mike
Right.

00:03:26.02
Austin
So what I'm really driving at is I've had a lot of surgery beneath my belt line.

00:03:31.03
Bill
Right. Well, what, and here's the thing.

00:03:31.24
Austin
Yeah.

00:03:33.06
Bill
So just what year did you have it? Did you have it done the first time? Not the reversal, but the, the thing.

00:03:37.66
Austin
Yeah, so the the first time was in early 2014. early two thousand and fourteen

00:03:42.78
Bill
um Okay, so I had mine done in 2003. My son was just under three years old when I had it done. So 20, almost 26 years ago, or no, I'm sorry, 23 years ago. But at the time, I mean, they used to just cut and tie and whatever, and that though the reversal was easy. um You know, but They cauterize.

00:04:02.01
Bill
They burn some shit. So I don't want to go through. First of all, I'm 57 years old. I don't need to be fathering anything, let alone.

00:04:07.80
Mike
Right.

00:04:08.33
Bill
And plus, on top of that, I could just what? blow up Shoot my wand into the wind, Mike. Right. with And just do what do whatever the hell I want to do.

00:04:13.56
Mike
Right.

00:04:15.53
Bill
But no, there's no reversing. if i If I ever ran along a woman that could still have kids, because, you know, most of the people our age, the women can't anyhow. So um but if I ever ran across it, you're going to have to.

00:04:27.40
Bill
No, I'm Yeah.

00:04:28.50
Austin
yeah Yeah.

00:04:30.10
Bill
I'll tell you what you're going to to You're going to have to another man. If that's your goal, it's not It's not me.

00:04:34.49
Mike
Hey, i'm I'm right here for you, brother.

00:04:34.71
Austin
Were you awake? Yeah.

00:04:36.66
Bill
ah oh Well, okay. So, like ah you know, the same, the same type of thing we've already.

00:04:41.46
Mike
My gun's still loaded.

00:04:43.19
Bill
Okay. So here, here's the deal. So i' I'll just, you know, this is my, my new woman that says, Hey, if, and you got to, and I'm like, well, here's the choice, honey.

00:04:48.09
Mike
Nope. right

00:04:51.48
Bill
Um, either this or right, that guy right there.

00:04:51.98
Austin
Yeah.

00:04:54.01
Mike
yeah

00:04:54.97
Bill
And, and he's, and I'll tell you one thing, he wants it natural. He is not putting into the tube. So Do you want do do you do you want to lay down with him or are you good with no more kids?

00:05:00.15
Mike
no

00:05:00.34
Austin
Yeah.

00:05:03.61
Mike
<unk> po

00:05:04.95
Bill
So it's, we'll give her a choice.

00:05:06.94
Mike
Yep, exactly. Life's all about choices.

00:05:08.47
Bill
yeah

00:05:08.63
Austin
Did you, Bill, question for you. Did you respond, were you awake for years?

00:05:10.71
Bill
if

00:05:13.56
Bill
Yeah. And it, uh, I, I've told, I don't know if I told the story on here before, but, uh, we, the, the one, the one thing, the only thing I'm going to tell is when the, the doc is, not I'm laying down and I'm nervous as fuck.

00:05:14.45
Austin
Yeah.

00:05:23.10
Bill
And he's on my, the right side of my body, you know, and again, they get their thing, everything's doing whatever. And that so they get that side, he goes around and only they got that thing.

00:05:28.86
Mike
I thought they got your thing.

00:05:31.14
Bill
So he's doing the thing, you know, with the thing. And he goes around the other side and he tells me, he's like, he goes, just so you know, he goes, this is going to feel like somebody just kicked you into balls.

00:05:41.17
Bill
And I'm like, eh, you know, he's overselling it. Well, he didn't. He didn't. He actually undersold that because whatever he did over there and then they start burning shit and I'm fucking gagging and and it's just fucking terrible.

00:05:47.13
Austin
Yeah.

00:05:53.43
Bill
It wasn't really.

00:05:53.72
Austin
Yeah.

00:05:53.94
Bill
I mean, it is what it is. But, uh, um, yeah, I was awake. I was just numbed up and yeah.

00:05:57.94
Austin
Yeah.

00:05:58.26
Bill
Yeah.

00:05:58.84
Austin
Same as me, the the plume of smoke. And i it it surprises me how few people know what the plume of smoke is when they cauterize your vas deferens and you know, it's it's something.

00:06:01.69
Bill
No, no shit.

00:06:01.94
Mike
yeah

00:06:05.18
Bill
ah

00:06:08.44
Bill
ah You know what? Austin, you and I already are already your buddies. this is This is fucking great.

00:06:12.24
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:06:13.00
Bill
that po

00:06:13.21
Mike
And I'm going to step away.

00:06:13.91
Austin
Yeah.

00:06:14.78
Bill
that Okay, i'm I'm sorry. But yeah, the plume of smoke, that got me. that is that no get Can it be an episode title?

00:06:21.08
Austin
Yeah,

00:06:21.62
Bill
The plume of smoke. Anyhow, so I'm sorry. I apologize. So Austin...

00:06:26.21
Mike
Balls crack. Yeah, there's lots of smoke involved here.

00:06:29.18
Austin
yeah. Yeah.

00:06:29.90
Bill
We're fucking six and half minutes in this talking about nuts and vasectomies in plumes of smoke. Welcome. Welcome, guest. to Welcome, everyone else, too.

00:06:37.72
Austin
yeah

00:06:38.14
Bill
Okay, so, Austin, we do want to hear your story. We've got a little bit different way. I think you've listened to some of the episodes from what you said. But, Mike, tell Austin, our new friend, and my plume of smoke buddy over there, of how we how we handle our stories.

00:06:45.28
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:06:48.76
Austin
yeah

00:06:48.95
Mike
uh-huh right well basically um you know we know how to get fucked up we know how to fuck up our lives and fuck up the lives of everybody around us you know so um basically we hate drug logs um tell your story low qualification you know everything's gonna come up but you know nobody wants to hear about that one time where you did the what you know fuck man we've all done it we all know it We're interested in the solution.

00:07:18.03
Mike
That's what we're interested in.

00:07:18.48
Austin
Yeah.

00:07:19.27
Mike
So, you know, whatever. I mean, tell your story, you know, again, little qualifying, but yeah, cool.

00:07:21.94
Austin
Let's go. Let's do it, man. Yeah.

00:07:25.18
Mike
Do it.

00:07:26.17
Austin
So here's here's, yeah, yeah.

00:07:26.33
Mike
So who the fuck are you?

00:07:28.33
Austin
So here's the drill. By the way, did your doctor stick his finger up your ass too? I, that was worst, at worst dentist I ever went to, you know?

00:07:33.59
Bill
He just always...

00:07:33.83
Mike
Don't you have to pay extra for that?

00:07:35.54
Bill
No, no, no. Moon River.

00:07:37.50
Austin
so i

00:07:38.93
Bill
You got the whole fist in there, Doc?

00:07:39.32
Austin
yeah God, I hope my, my mom doesn't listen to this episode.

00:07:43.58
Bill
somebody Somebody named that movie.

00:07:44.15
Mike
awesome

00:07:45.54
Bill
Come on. Hey, Doc, you got the whole fist in there?

00:07:46.26
Austin
yeah

00:07:47.34
Mike
Fletch.

00:07:47.58
Bill
Come on, Mike. There you go, Fletch. I just...

00:07:49.72
Austin
course, Chevy Chase had to be.

00:07:49.86
Bill
I swear to God. Yeah, i just watched I just watched that like a year ago.

00:07:51.49
Austin
Yeah.

00:07:53.02
Bill
as it stand It holds up.

00:07:53.46
Austin
Classic. All right.

00:07:54.82
Bill
So anyhow, Austin.

00:07:55.86
Austin
And anyhow, that's my time, folks.

00:07:56.92
Bill
Austin.

00:07:57.42
Austin
No.

00:07:57.51
Bill
Yeah.

00:07:57.94
Austin
so So, you know, interestingly enough, right?

00:07:57.96
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:08:00.82
Austin
So I think back to when I was a kid, I had i had really like crazy ass involuntary tics as a child. So I would sit in the back of the room, twitch all out. I actually had auditory ones.

00:08:11.43
Austin
So I'd be in the back of the room moaning like a dolphin, I guess is the way I could put it.

00:08:14.88
Bill
Ha!

00:08:15.99
Austin
Like, er like that. And kids were just fucking brutal, man. And so by the time I got to my first drink, I was 13.

00:08:20.20
Mike
Right.

00:08:25.07
Austin
You know, and I know in our in our sphere, right in 12 step recovery, we we hear the same thing all the time. But but it was like it just solved the problem I didn't know I had.

00:08:34.75
Mike
hmm.

00:08:34.95
Austin
And it was this is so good. Why would I ever want to be sober? And that that proceeded to, you know, I was addicted to opiates by 15, smoking crack by 17, overdosed 21 and in my first rehab at 22.

00:08:37.79
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:08:46.35
Austin
And

00:08:50.04
Austin
the the one cap The one thing I think worth mentioning from my childhood without getting into too much minutiae when I was 17 – So junior to senior year, summer, I was growing weed in my closet, as we do.

00:09:02.65
Austin
I was really bad at it.

00:09:02.65
Bill
Nice.

00:09:03.73
Austin
They were both male plants. I was really bad at it.

00:09:05.53
Mike
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

00:09:06.09
Austin
um But but i in my 17-year-old wisdom, had these grow lights hooked up to a switch on my wall. And my mom had come in during the day, unbeknownst to me, and hung some laundry up over one of them.

00:09:19.55
Austin
And about seven o'clock, I flicked the switch on, and by 8.30, the entire house had burnt down.

00:09:23.23
Bill
Oh.

00:09:25.91
Austin
and And so if there wasn't like, you know, I was already walking around as this, in my mind, right, this huge pile of shit and I just compounded it and compounded it, right?

00:09:25.88
Bill
Oh, fuck.

00:09:26.18
Mike
No, wow.

00:09:33.81
Mike
Uh huh.

00:09:35.88
Austin
So um arrests happened, you know, the usual things that we have we have happened to us. And by by i actually got sober when I was 22 and stayed that way till I was 31 in the rooms, 12-step recovery, the way that we do it.

00:09:45.27
Mike
Hmm.

00:09:48.25
Mike
Okay.

00:09:48.46
Austin
And, you know, got the the gifts that sobriety give you. I got married, had my first two kids, excuse me, started a business that was very successful and inevitably, ah at least in my case, the the the gifts that sobriety gave me took me away from the thing that gave me sobriety.

00:10:07.20
Austin
And I stopped being honest.

00:10:07.12
Mike
Aha.

00:10:10.10
Austin
I started hiring all my sponsees that had more than five years. I i brought them into my company. The guy who had been sponsoring me for a number of years, I started a company with him. And and I, you know, I don't know if I knew this going into it or if maybe subconsciously I was setting myself up for the next run. But yeah.

00:10:28.44
Austin
But I dismantled my own support system and then I started signing their checks, which totally, you know, it puts us in a different a different league together. And when I relapsed at this point, you know, before when I was 22, like if i had a $200 night, boy, I was blowing it out. ah But at this point I had resources.

00:10:46.17
Austin
And, and I went on a run, a hard run, uh, that, you know, I married another girl who was a, who was a schizophrenic, uh, who came from a mafia family.

00:10:46.24
Bill
Right.

00:10:46.37
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:10:55.58
Austin
So I was like, I'd be smoking and cracking a hotel room and she'd be out on the fourth floor balcony doing handstands and crazy, crazy shit. Um, So anyhow, I get Marchman acted here in the in Florida, which, you know, I think other states have a similar version of this.

00:11:12.69
Austin
But it's basically where if your family or somebody close to you can prove that you're drinking and getting high to the point that you are going to die and and heroin had started making its way in at this point, they can get the courts involved.

00:11:22.06
Mike
Mm-hmm. Okay.

00:11:24.13
Austin
And and so I'm in a ah hotel room in Fort Lauderdale with with cuckoo wife number two and and the cops bust in bust in the door.

00:11:24.46
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:11:34.20
Austin
And they they grab me and they take me to detox and they put me up in front of a magistrate and in ah in Broward County. And so I go in front of the magistrate and she says, you know, essentially you go to you go to treatment or you go to jail.

00:11:46.74
Austin
Right. You have these are your two choices. And and granted, I had the information up until this point. Right.

00:11:51.57
Mike
Right.

00:11:51.82
Austin
I was not lacking in the information, but I had stopped having the experience that comes from it.

00:11:55.01
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:11:56.82
Austin
And And so I went to the treatment center for five days, grabbed my my suitcase and my passport and hopped on a plane to Mexico. And and I lived in ah in Cancun for 18 months and then in Mexico City for six, blew through about a million bucks doing what we do.

00:12:03.75
Mike
Mm

00:12:11.36
Austin
Yeah. And you know, the the great thing about the great thing. Wow, I should not call it.

00:12:15.58
Mike
hmm. ah

00:12:16.73
Austin
It's not the great thing unless you want to destroy your life. ah But the thing about Cancun is, you know, from top to bottom, it's run by the Sinaloa cartel. You can't be a taxi driver, a police officer.

00:12:27.97
Austin
You can't do anything in that town unless you're somehow adjacent.

00:12:30.14
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:12:31.81
Austin
And so when I got there and started buying drugs, And they kind of summed me up as somebody that was willing to throw a lot of money around. They let me just, you know, they were going to ensure I could destroy my life in the way that I had always dreamed.

00:12:39.44
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:12:44.50
Austin
And,

00:12:44.63
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:12:45.40
Bill
ah

00:12:46.23
Austin
and And I did.

00:12:46.44
Bill
Yeah.

00:12:47.99
Austin
And you know what? After two years, it's still like, you know, kilos coming up to the condo. It still wasn't enough, guys. um

00:12:56.53
Mike
Right.

00:12:57.50
Austin
it was It's never enough. And so the end of this, where where I land at the end of this is homeless in Mexico City sitting on my drug dealer's couch while he holds a gun.

00:12:59.08
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:13:06.94
Austin
pointed at me for a few hours because he thought I disrespected his dog.

00:13:08.16
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:13:10.55
Austin
And, you know, as we do.

00:13:10.94
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:13:13.51
Austin
So I come back to the States.

00:13:13.88
Mike
Right.

00:13:15.47
Austin
We'll get into some good stuff now.

00:13:16.84
Mike
Yeah.

00:13:17.56
Austin
I come back to the States and I just think I'm going to slide into the other fellowship, which is, you know, not the fellowship that I'm a ah member of today, just to kind of respect the traditions and not identify it.

00:13:29.88
Austin
But, um you know, just thinking no harm, no foul, man. I was sober for a long time. I've got the I've got the information. I had no clue how bad I had fucked my brain up.

00:13:37.15
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:13:39.32
Austin
I was ah just delusional. And I came back, relapsed on creatum pretty quickly, overdosed, and then landed in treatment again.

00:13:42.01
Mike
All

00:13:46.68
Austin
And this is kind of where things take a different turn. You know, i um I don't know why, but for some reason in my 20s, and I'm sure people relayed this information to me, but but for some reason at this point, I started to get it. I didn't realize...

00:14:05.50
Austin
that an alcoholic without a solution is guaranteed to drink again. I didn't know that, you know, I mean, that's, it says it, it's obvious.

00:14:08.61
Bill
Right, right.

00:14:09.27
Mike
all right Right.

00:14:11.88
Austin
Um, and the other thing I didn't realize was that alcoholism, the ism part starts with the bag and the bottle end that, that it's not the drinking isn't the alcoholism, the drinking and the drugs were the solution to what I've got going on inside, but we got, we have to solve that shit that's going on inside.

00:14:20.79
Mike
Right.

00:14:27.16
Mike
ah

00:14:29.62
Austin
And so I, you know, I i gauged in the process and, uh,

00:14:29.85
Mike
right

00:14:33.40
Austin
You know, again, life just started to blow up, ended up meeting my now current wife. we We had three more kids and and I didn't get into a lot of the details of it. But but people start saying to me, dude, you you should write a book.

00:14:46.28
Austin
That's some crazy shit. And ah and I was like, yeah, that's cute, you know.

00:14:47.57
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:14:48.02
Bill
yeah

00:14:50.68
Austin
um

00:14:50.65
Mike
Right.

00:14:51.54
Austin
But I started to get that like gut feeling. intuition nudge um after a little while and and that's when i when i i picked up the pen and the paper and it took me four years man and uh and i'll tell you i don't know if you guys do this but i do this when i when i was writing now at the book i started having to recall these situations that i had memories of but now i needed to put them in detail right so people like understand what the hell happened and i'll tell you

00:14:56.17
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:14:56.38
Bill
Right.

00:15:02.81
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:15:15.55
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:15:19.74
Austin
no shit. I misremembered so much of my life to fit the narrative. I wanted it to be, to put myself in the victim role, to make other people, the perpetrators.

00:15:26.03
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:15:26.13
Bill
Right.

00:15:29.02
Mike
Right.

00:15:31.62
Austin
And, and of course, you know, a lot of that came up on my four step, but a lot of it didn't because it just wasn't tied to resentment or anything like that.

00:15:31.67
Mike
Uh-huh.

00:15:35.93
Mike
Sure. Right. Mm-hmm.

00:15:38.89
Austin
And, uh, and so, ah you know, writing this out really kind of helped me defragment my own life. And, uh, And yeah, so that that kind of brings us up to to present day, which, you know, like like I kind of gave you my intro earlier.

00:15:53.40
Austin
I'm a member of a 12-step fellowship here in Orlando, very active in that, sponsor a lot of guys, believe in the solution that that I know you guys believe in.

00:15:53.39
Mike
Yeah.

00:16:01.84
Austin
And and it's worked for me.

00:16:02.13
Bill
Right.

00:16:02.08
Mike
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:16:04.76
Bill
So a couple of quick questions. First of all, and it's your choice. If you don't want to mention the fellowship, you don't have to. um We do. We make it very, very clear that we are not part of the, this is not a podcast that's sponsored by that fellowship or anything like that.

00:16:19.70
Bill
So although we do recognize that some people do and some people don't, we'll just say it. You could bring up and you could say those letters if you want to. You don't have to. Okay.

00:16:29.34
Austin
Well, so I'll tell you my reasoning.

00:16:29.31
Bill
It's up to you.

00:16:31.22
Austin
I actually spoke with my grand sponsor prior to starting my podcast and and kind of asked him, all right, said, how do I do this?

00:16:31.80
Bill
Okay. Right.

00:16:35.35
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:16:37.62
Austin
You know, like when I was writing the book, throughout the book, it said the fellowship.

00:16:37.75
Mike
Yeah.

00:16:41.18
Austin
And then I had to change it to 12-step recovery.

00:16:41.66
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:16:43.18
Austin
So, you know, somebody out in Minnesota or somewhere didn't get a wild hair up their ass. But my first and last name is on the book.

00:16:46.80
Mike
Right. Wow.

00:16:49.62
Austin
And that's the only reason why if I was just rolling by Austin, you know, who gives a shit, right?

00:16:53.08
Mike
Yeah.

00:16:54.17
Austin
I'll just I'll throw it all out there.

00:16:54.10
Mike
Right.

00:16:55.41
Austin
But so I say 12 step recovery, even though the the two same letters squeak out all the time, ah you know.

00:17:01.24
Mike
if Okay.

00:17:01.37
Bill
Right.

00:17:01.47
Mike
Okay.

00:17:02.30
Bill
No. And again, I mean, that's ah it's perfectly fine. And like I said, I wasn't it was certainly wasn't a judgment. Some people come on here and they don't know what they can or cannot say. So that's the only reason I said it. But we'll respect that.

00:17:12.38
Bill
This is your episode. We won't use the letters. It doesn't we don't give a fuck one way the other. Anyhow, um I just wanted to let you know that it I didn't know if it was you know just the thing you weren't sure about that.

00:17:16.63
Mike
Mm-hmm

00:17:16.82
Austin
Yeah.

00:17:21.12
Bill
But. So a couple of questions that I, that I do have though, the first one that that came to mind, this, this thing where the, where the courts got involved in Florida, what did you call that again? I've never heard of that before where your family can get involved in.

00:17:31.86
Austin
So, yeah, so we have two acts that that you can impose upon somebody in Florida. The first one's a Baker Act, and that's where they like lock you up and take your shoelaces.

00:17:41.93
Austin
And that's, you know, the the second one is called a Marchman Act named after some dude named Marchman.

00:17:42.71
Bill
Right.

00:17:46.65
Bill
Marchment. Okay.

00:17:48.89
Austin
Uh, and, and that's, you know, that's really hard to get onto somebody like you've got to go through lawyers and and interventionists and all sorts of different shit. Uh, but they did.

00:17:57.56
Mike
Right.

00:17:58.58
Austin
And, and actually, here so here was the problem. Uh, so I still had a company running and that company was, was, ran by all of my former sponsees.

00:18:11.26
Austin
So when i relapsed, it was, it was a thing, right? It, it hurt them. Um, and they were, they were essentially funding my run and they knew, so they could look at the company bank account and see how much profit I was pulling out every month, which was in the six figure range.

00:18:27.33
Austin
And so what they told the judge, even though I wasn't spending all of this on dope, uh, was that he was spending six figures a month on drugs.

00:18:27.69
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:18:31.27
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:18:35.29
Austin
That's how they got it.

00:18:35.54
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:18:36.66
Bill
Right. Okay.

00:18:37.43
Austin
Yeah.

00:18:38.44
Mike
Okay.

00:18:39.37
Bill
Yeah, I just, mean, seriously, I had never heard of that before. So um that just kind of is curious to me. But the other thing that made me laugh, and I'll tell you why in a second. But so so when you got down to Mexico and you started spending that kind of money on ah drugs, immediately the cartel, you popped up on the radar like, hey, this dude this dude's a buyer. Let's make sure we keep him keep him flush.

00:19:01.11
Austin
yeah

00:19:01.62
Bill
is that Is that right?

00:19:03.26
Austin
Yeah, I mean, that's pretty correct. When i so you guys ever been to Cancun either you guys?

00:19:07.77
Bill
no

00:19:07.90
Mike
I have, yeah. not i But I've been sober.

00:19:09.56
Austin
ah yeah you probably that you do Okay, okay. So Cancun is like, there's a, what they call the party zone, which is a row of clubs.

00:19:14.10
Mike
Right.

00:19:18.07
Austin
And then you've got the the hotel zone, which is all the hotels.

00:19:18.30
Mike
Right.

00:19:18.61
Bill
Okay.

00:19:20.25
Mike
Right.

00:19:21.23
Austin
And i I put my ass right in the middle of the party zone for a reason.

00:19:24.40
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:19:24.57
Austin
And so when I started walking around, they they have all these tours that they do in Cancun. Like there's these guys out front saying, you know, you want to go to Chichen Itza or, you know, the different places.

00:19:32.25
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:19:34.13
Austin
But what they are, they're all fronts for the cartel selling drugs.

00:19:36.76
Mike
Okay.

00:19:37.40
Austin
And so I, you know, i would walk by them and and this is just so happens. One of them was like, you want to go on a tour? I'm like, no. He's like, do you want to buy some blow? I said, yes. And um and he takes me into this back room and and he tries to sell me a gram. I'm like, what am I going to do this?

00:19:52.34
Austin
Where can I get a ah couple ounces?

00:19:52.44
Mike
Right.

00:19:54.09
Bill
Ha ha ha.

00:19:54.26
Austin
And so he calls the other guy in.

00:19:54.49
Mike
Yeah.

00:19:54.71
Bill
Ha ha ha.

00:19:56.82
Austin
His name was Gustavo. And that was the, you know, the cartel guy. And ah and when I when I started buying from from Gustavo, he

00:20:00.39
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:20:04.76
Austin
So first they put me up in um in a hotel that was theirs.

00:20:07.13
Mike
Sure.

00:20:07.88
Austin
It was just adjacent to his condo. where He was like, you stay there.

00:20:10.68
Bill
ha ha.

00:20:11.36
Austin
And I'm all paranoid and shit. Like he used to put, they he would put police outside of my door just to like make me less paranoid.

00:20:14.41
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:20:17.21
Mike
Nice.

00:20:18.84
Austin
It was weird. um And then eventually I ended up living in a condo called Salvia, which is right above Carlos and Charlie's in the party zone. And and I'll tell you, for all that time I was there, I never once set foot on the beach.

00:20:27.63
Bill
Oh, okay.

00:20:31.98
Austin
Never once. I barely opened opened the blinds, man.

00:20:32.59
Mike
Yeah, right.

00:20:34.38
Austin
You know?

00:20:34.36
Mike
Sure.

00:20:35.04
Bill
Right.

00:20:35.86
Austin
Yeah, it was ah it it was a sad time.

00:20:36.25
Bill
Right.

00:20:36.79
Mike
Yeah.

00:20:37.82
Austin
I had a huge Xanax addiction to at the same time, and I'm pretty sure that's why I survived.

00:20:40.36
Mike
Hmm. Hmm.

00:20:42.78
Austin
Kept my heart going.

00:20:43.93
Mike
Right.

00:20:44.09
Austin
Yeah.

00:20:44.92
Bill
Yeah, it's just, it was interesting because what it reminded me of, and we've talked about it on here, because I, when Charlie Sheen, you know, kind of came out over the last year or so, whatever it was, and did the, he did the, what was it, Netflix special, then he wrote a book, and I listened to the auto book audio book, plus he's been on a ton of podcasts, but the audio book was interesting because he was, um I mean, seriously, everyone knows about, I would think, unless you lived under a fucking stone for your entire life, even, you know, young or old, all these generations know about Charlie Sheen.

00:20:56.86
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:21:12.67
Bill
He's a fucking legendary fuck-up, you know? um But he's talking about all these different things that in one case he had the the cartel. they They actually, to begin with, they ordered a hit on him because they thought he was he was actually ordering or consuming or buying so much product through his drug dealer that they thought that he was selling behind their back.

00:21:34.49
Austin
Yeah, yeah.

00:21:35.45
Bill
So they were they literally they they were going to put a hit out on him. And then they got a hold of the dealer. I think somebody looking for I forget the details, but somehow and he found out after the fact, he had no fucking idea to begin with. But until he was safe and then the drug dealer was like, no, no, no, he's this is all personal consumption. They're like, they're like, are you fucking kidding me? So the cartel actually they cut him off a portion.

00:21:58.10
Bill
So whatever he was, I forget.

00:21:58.39
Austin
Wow.

00:21:59.30
Bill
And Mike, you and I talked about the numbers. i don't remember what they were because I wrote them down at the time.

00:22:01.21
Mike
Mm-hmm. um

00:22:03.14
Bill
They, he went from, they were selling him a lot down to less than a lot, you know? Um, so Charlie's like, he's like, I don't care. if He goes, let's just, he told the drug dealer, he goes, go find somebody else to fill the difference.

00:22:14.39
Bill
So he didn't, you'd think that'd be a fucking, I mean, possibly a red flag. Okay. The cartel was about to put a hit on you. The cartel cut you off. And then you're like, yeah, I'm just going to go over here.

00:22:25.55
Bill
You know, it's just, it was so, it's so fucking mind blowing. It was his, his story was so goddamn entertaining because it's, it was so raw, you know?

00:22:32.62
Austin
Mmm.

00:22:34.29
Bill
And I mean, it was, he was almost through the whole thing. It was just kind of like, there was criticism with that story that he didn't take, um, he didn't take it seriously. And it was kind of, his story was almost mocking the, almost like mocking the recovery field or the recovery industry, um You know, because of how just kind of flippant he was.

00:22:53.44
Bill
And it wasn't that he it wasn't that he was trying to be like, oh, hey, everything's a joke. He was just I don't think he could really comprehend how he was standing there telling the story, kind of like what you said.

00:23:05.00
Bill
You know, the the good news is, hey, spoiler alert, I made it.

00:23:05.56
Austin
Yeah.

00:23:07.72
Bill
I made it through. You know, so some of these things, these stories we have, although I have nothing as extreme as that. But some of these things you're like, yeah, I did this, this, this and this. And yeah, I get to sit here and and tell this story on some fucking podcast tonight. You know, it's it's insanity. I mean, how do how do we get to to where we are sometimes? I mean, it's just it's crazy, you know.

00:23:28.31
Austin
Well, I mean, it's the only room you can walk in where you you go in and say, i have destroyed my life and get a standing ovation, you know, for for the things that we've done.

00:23:30.85
Bill
Right. Yeah.

00:23:34.22
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

00:23:35.61
Bill
but a

00:23:37.91
Austin
So, yeah.

00:23:38.01
Bill
yeah

00:23:39.61
Austin
But, you know, you know i mean, if we don't die, right, which the three of us haven't, you know, ah you know our our our past is the key to the future, man.

00:23:42.75
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.

00:23:47.74
Austin
We can help more people with it than anything else. And I remember being...

00:23:49.85
Mike
Absolutely.

00:23:50.78
Austin
you know, 23, 24 sober sponsoring guys. And I had so I'll tell you a real quick story. I had a sponsor of mine who and of course, I won't mention his name, but he worked for a guy named Whitey Bulger up in up in Boston.

00:24:03.94
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:24:04.81
Austin
And and so when we were doing his fifth step and I won't he had done some stuff for this guy that that was just really like he didn't want to put on paper.

00:24:11.06
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

00:24:14.52
Austin
And in my heart, I was like, damn, I wish I had more of a story that I could share with this guy about myself so that it would make it easier for him to share with me.

00:24:19.60
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:24:22.94
Austin
And, you know, in no world did i hope I would cause the damage that I caused with this run. But but but I remember that vividly. And then, you know, now I got that story. So if if anything, I got to use it.

00:24:31.99
Mike
sir Yeah, absolutely.

00:24:34.67
Bill
Well,

00:24:34.95
Mike
I mean, we talk about that all the time on here, you know, that all the shit that we did in the past has worth today because we can use it to help somebody else.

00:24:43.69
Bill
Right.

00:24:43.87
Austin
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:24:44.53
Bill
Right. Yeah. And you know, the the thing that is too, and we've talked about that too, like you said, the standing ovation that, you know, the, when, when you walk into, into some of these, in some of these meetings and yeah you get to somebody up at a podium and you know, they're, they're telling this, this thing and it's, it's this wild story where they've done some just ridiculously horrible and unthinkable shit.

00:25:04.04
Bill
And we're all just sitting there kind of like, I mean, almost bored. Cause we're like, yeah, so we get it. Yeah. We understand. Oh, yeah, that's cool.

00:25:10.18
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:25:10.84
Bill
You know, so you did that, right? Okay, go okay, come on, come on, you know, and there's very few things that that shock us, you know, um i mean, you burn down the house, that's something you don't hear every day, you know, so, I mean, so that that's a thing, you know, but um it it just it's, it's mind blowing that, you know, that's that these are the rooms that we can that we can walk into and tell these stories and just people don't even blink an eye because, You know, the number one, they've been there, even though they haven't, I haven't been there to that extent, but i I understood what brought you to that point, you know, and I understand what brought Mike to that point.

00:25:20.31
Mike
hu

00:25:41.54
Mike
Right.

00:25:41.75
Austin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:25:43.91
Bill
I didn't do it, but I can see that my my path would have led there eventually. It was whatever you did, Austin, was a yet for me or was a yet for Mike.

00:25:49.82
Mike
Right.

00:25:52.81
Bill
Whatever Mike did, same deal, you know.

00:25:53.16
Mike
Right.

00:25:54.97
Bill
um it It shocks me because, you know, Mike's done every drug 14 times each, you know.

00:25:59.96
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:26:00.17
Bill
Um, you know, I've done none, you know, but every once in a while I'll say something, he's like, well, fuck, I never did that.

00:26:06.23
Austin
yeah

00:26:06.20
Mike
Yeah.

00:26:06.94
Bill
And it's not like he's like, Jesus Christ. But you know, it's when I do something, I actually feel pretty good when I do something that's when I, when I've, you know, kind of upped him on a couple of things.

00:26:09.82
Mike
yeah

00:26:15.78
Bill
I had a higher blood alcohol level going into detox. I'm proud of that.

00:26:19.06
Mike
barely.

00:26:20.02
Bill
Barely.

00:26:20.16
Austin
Mmm.

00:26:20.36
Bill
It doesn't matter.

00:26:20.86
Mike
yeah i know.

00:26:21.34
Bill
It's wait.

00:26:21.38
Mike
Yeah, I know.

00:26:21.88
Austin
yeah

00:26:22.14
Mike
It was more.

00:26:22.78
Bill
Okay.

00:26:22.86
Mike
i give you that, right?

00:26:23.22
Bill
Okay. I, I apologize.

00:26:24.10
Mike
You know, that and your four days.

00:26:24.85
Bill
Let me, let me, let me step back for one second.

00:26:26.97
Mike
Yeah.

00:26:27.37
Bill
So you're a baseball fan, right?

00:26:27.31
Mike
Mm-hmm. Great. It was. Yeah.

00:26:28.85
Bill
Mike?

00:26:29.43
Mike
yes

00:26:30.49
Bill
The score ends up four to three after a long battle who who wins.

00:26:32.22
Mike
yeah this is great

00:26:35.35
Bill
The score was kind of close though, wasn't it?

00:26:36.76
Mike
it was

00:26:39.96
Bill
Ding. No, I bet I get it. But yeah, the, the four days that we don't, I've got, I've got four days on Mike, but you know, the, the thing of it is, is that the the four day thing, um, it, we've got stories behind that. We fucked around.

00:26:50.01
Bill
We laugh about it every once in a while. It doesn't come up as much these days but where it did in the early days.

00:26:53.99
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:26:55.09
Bill
And it wasn't even like, I wasn't saying it because I was proud of it. I was saying it to just fuck with them, you know?

00:26:58.90
Mike
I know. Yeah, I know.

00:27:01.02
Bill
And which was, which was fun, you know, but the, the worst part about that is that I can, I can hang my hat on that without having done a thing. I, I did not want to go in on that day, you know, and, and I had, I had my, had I been left to my own devices that, that four days that I have on Mike would have been possibly four years until I got in there if I would have lived, you know?

00:27:10.06
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:27:12.38
Austin
Mm.

00:27:23.35
Bill
So given given that circumstance, it's it's not something I can i can hang my hand on it just because yeah it's on paper and it's stuck to this point.

00:27:28.59
Mike
Right.

00:27:32.51
Bill
But yeah, it's just it's something to fuck with. But um again, mind numbing with all that stuff. Now, the other thing that when you were talking about trying to remember these things, so We've told a ton of stories on here and every once in a while we'll, we'll tell something.

00:27:46.96
Bill
I'm like, what was that guy's name or Mike's? I kind remember this person. So it takes two of us to get half a story these days, you know, I mean, seriously. And, you know, cause we were there the majority of time for a lot of these things.

00:27:58.15
Bill
You know, and neither one of us remember it completely. So we're like, but we went here like, no, no, no, this was this time. This just happened two weeks ago when I was talking about the, uh, where one of the, I, is it that simple?

00:28:08.94
Bill
You're like, no, no. We were at the three quarter house when this happened and that happened.

00:28:09.69
Mike
Right. Right.

00:28:11.98
Bill
I forgot what fucking place we lived, you know, because Mike and I lived together, you know, for a total of almost three years, you know,

00:28:14.78
Mike
Right.

00:28:17.21
Mike
right right

00:28:20.44
Bill
But um yeah, it's just, it's, I couldn't, I couldn't even imagine trying to write a book from that type of, that type of memory. I mean, so who did you, who did you go to Austin? Did you just dig through your brain or ask people?

00:28:32.22
Austin
Nah, so here's here's what I did. this This was super helpful and it's probably the only reason it actually came into production. So i I connected with a bestselling author and because I'm not a great writer, but I can tell you a story like, you know.

00:28:43.09
Bill
Right.

00:28:43.06
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:28:47.25
Bill
Right.

00:28:47.86
Austin
And so he and i had two hours of Zoom every week for three and a half years. And I just kind of relayed the stories to him and he would put them down and I would proof them.

00:28:57.66
Bill
Oh. Right.

00:28:58.18
Austin
OK, let's change this. Let's change that. And back and forth. and And it did take a while. Like it was not a not an easy process to get all of that done. And then at the end, it was just it was just me proofing it, making sure that the voice was correct, you know, that it sounded like me and all that shit.

00:29:12.04
Austin
But I am curious, as you were you were saying that build you guys partied together or was it just that you got sober together?

00:29:16.00
Mike
No. Yeah.

00:29:17.46
Bill
Yeah, we we met. So again, random, because if anyone's seen, you know, and we say it all the time, but all you got to do is take a look at our pictures. We don't look like we belong together. We don't look like we should be walking walking down the street together.

00:29:26.78
Mike
We do not.

00:29:29.63
Bill
And, you know, we've we're 100% not even convinced. It's ah it's ah just a known fact. There's no reason in the world that our lives ever would have crossed had it not been for this.

00:29:40.41
Bill
Okay. Okay.

00:29:40.80
Mike
Right.

00:29:40.96
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:29:41.13
Bill
So we just both ended up at the, at the Keating center in Cleveland, Ohio. I ended up there on on one day and five days later, you know, he came in, um, you know, he was there at the Keating center five days later, but I just happened to go into detox four days before he did or got, you know, yeah, for that, whatever it was.

00:29:52.25
Mike
Yeah.

00:29:55.51
Mike
Yep. Yep. Mm-mm.

00:29:57.78
Bill
So, um, that's where the four days in are in, but we ended up at the Keating center five days apart. Now we didn't become friends right away, but what happened was, is that listen to him in the background, um,

00:30:05.13
Mike
Mm-mm. Mm-mm.

00:30:09.05
Mike
he

00:30:09.85
Bill
it' It's this motherfucker all the time, Austin. When we're sitting here telling stories all the time, listen to him because you'll hear it you'll hear it a couple of times tonight. He'll be in the back of him. Or he'll go, mm-mm.

00:30:21.73
Bill
He's got this little fucking... He's like Ed McMahon every once in a while in the background. Yes!

00:30:25.85
Mike
i

00:30:27.90
Bill
but But yeah, so we we were not friends right away. And then um what happened was is that ah Marty and ah maybe the universe, if we want to call it that, kept putting us together in these in these circumstances.

00:30:36.74
Mike
Right.

00:30:38.32
Bill
you know So we were we ended up, but we he was at the upstairs dorm, I was in the downstairs dorm, but we ended up in the same three-quarter dorm. But before then, we were house fathers together. And then Marty used to send us out on on jobs together.

00:30:49.64
Bill
And then we ended up here, there, and everywhere together. And then We roomed together at the three-quarter house.

00:30:52.12
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:30:54.21
Bill
And then after that, we, you know, like mike Mike says, we weren't ready to do it on our own. So we got a place together, you know.

00:30:58.36
Mike
Yeah.

00:30:59.89
Bill
But, I mean, what do you figure, Mike?

00:31:00.14
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:31:01.37
Bill
It took us, by the time that you came down to Mom and Larry's at Easter, we were pretty goddamn good friends at that point.

00:31:06.20
Mike
Yeah.

00:31:06.61
Bill
Or had a really good, solid, let's say, start to this friendship, you know.

00:31:06.81
Mike
Yeah.

00:31:09.53
Mike
yeah Yeah, absolutely. Mm-hmm.

00:31:11.32
Bill
and And that was at a year, you know, or right, right in that range. Because again, like he and I used to go to meetings together. um He had, he had a car before I did, but you didn't like driving yours very often.

00:31:21.84
Bill
So once I got a car, he'd be usually like, but but it but it it ran down the road, but he'd be like, Hey, you You'd be like, hey, you know, kind of grab a ride to the meeting.

00:31:22.80
Mike
It was a piece of shit. It did.

00:31:30.46
Bill
So we drive to meetings together all the time. So again, we just ended up together, you know, so it, no, we, I don't think we, he would have fucking killed me if we ever met on the street, you know, while we were using or you know, drinking and using.

00:31:39.16
Mike
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:31:40.26
Austin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:31:41.98
Mike
Yeah.

00:31:42.10
Bill
There's no, I,

00:31:42.14
Mike
Well, I just knocked you over the head and taking your money. But yeah.

00:31:45.56
Bill
Well, and and as i as I've said before, every time you said that, the joke would have been on you because I probably didn't have a fucking dime in my pocket.

00:31:51.80
Mike
Yeah, i know. hmm.

00:31:54.01
Bill
But still, you tried to steal whatever I did I might have had in my pocket.

00:31:55.83
Mike
I did. I'd find I get something.

00:31:56.73
Bill
But...

00:31:57.59
Mike
I take your fucking cheese. Yeah.

00:31:59.58
Austin
z

00:32:01.21
Mike
Yeah.

00:32:01.74
Bill
She's got a hole in him. I got, I got fucking torn underwear out. He's digging around trying to figure out what he could take for me.

00:32:05.87
Mike
Yeah. yeah

00:32:07.02
Bill
But no, there was no reason in the world why we should have, you know, ended up, you know, being friends, let alone, you know, meeting. But so the, the other thing too, and here it's kind of funny when you just said that, or interesting, let me say that when you talked about this writer, So we ended up, but and Mike and I talked about this a few years ago, would have been fun to kind of, there's a few of our early episodes that have some, we thought were really, we just started telling stories back from the the early days and in those early episodes.

00:32:34.04
Bill
We're hey, wouldn't this be fun to coffee table book and whatever. And at that point, there wasn't the technology in place that we have available now to do this. So um what I ended up doing, this was a couple months ago now, Mike, I think maybe a month, month a half.

00:32:42.55
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:32:46.04
Mike
Yeah. Yeah.

00:32:47.18
Bill
I don't know. Um, I told him, I'm like, I figured out a way where I could do it. I could go back using AI. Um, all I got to do is grab transcripts. And with the the help of AI, we went through our first 26 episodes of this podcast and had AI draw out all the, all the solid stories, you know?

00:33:05.32
Bill
So this stuff, this back and forth, all the uh-hums and the dick jokes and everything else that's in between AI got rid of those and made our, our story into an actual story on paper, you know?

00:33:16.66
Austin
Let's go.

00:33:17.43
Bill
Yeah, which was really fucking cool. And honest to God, it was, it took a lot of time to do it, but I was doing it while I was working. I have a job where I'm on the phone all the time. Not, it's not a thinking man's job, really. You know, just, just fucking not. um But I would, I would do all this stuff and have it, have it generate in these things that I, that I'd read them in the same type of thing. I was using AI was kind of like my, you know, my professional writer, my editor, my proofreader, whatever the case is.

00:33:44.98
Bill
But the biggest thing was, and maybe think of it, like you said, making sure things are in the right voice. I have a way of telling a story versus Mike. Mine's usually, you know, it's it's more flowery.

00:33:53.31
Austin
Wow.

00:33:55.55
Bill
It's got more fluff to it. Mike is more straight to the point. And I had to really work on the AI model to be able to say, no, no, no, Mike doesn't do that. I do this.

00:34:06.38
Bill
Mike does this.

00:34:07.94
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:34:08.92
Bill
You know, but yeah, I mean, we've still got it. We've got to go through everything, but we've got, I don't know, it turned out to be 50 some chapters or something like that, you know?

00:34:15.83
Austin
wow

00:34:16.24
Bill
um But yeah, it's it's the first.

00:34:17.88
Austin
I hope you do that, though. I hope you go through that because, you know, I think that's what endears you to a lot of people is when you guys banter, it feels like you're sitting out in front of your garage with a couple of your buddies having a beer.

00:34:19.26
Bill
i i think we will.

00:34:27.99
Bill
Yeah.

00:34:28.47
Austin
that Really, i think that's what it is.

00:34:28.66
Mike
A cup of coffee these days, but yes.

00:34:30.94
Austin
It's a great thing. Coffee these days, you know.

00:34:32.41
Bill
Yeah.

00:34:33.06
Mike
Yeah.

00:34:34.58
Austin
Exactly, exactly.

00:34:37.37
Bill
Hey, you know what? I mean, more power to them. If there's anyone out there listening to us that's drinking beer right now, fucking more power to you.

00:34:43.61
Austin
Yeah.

00:34:43.97
Bill
Because I'll tell you what, if i was if i was not sober and I was drinking anything, I would not listen to this shit.

00:34:43.98
Mike
Mm hmm.

00:34:50.95
Bill
I'd be like, what the fuck, man?

00:34:51.36
Mike
No.

00:34:51.47
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:34:51.99
Bill
I gotta listen to music or something. But, you know, and we've we've been told that before. And the the thing of it is, is that um I mean, this podcast, the only reason that and we joke about, you know, being nominated and all that stuff and whatever, I still don't understand how we were picked out of this group because we were picked by peers, you know.

00:35:10.07
Bill
um So that's number one. And out of all the sobriety podcasts out there that have longer legs than us, more time than us, certainly ah you know more of ah ah a coverage base than we do.

00:35:21.94
Bill
you know I guess more, i don't know, respect than we do easily, which is a low bar, right, Mike?

00:35:25.45
Mike
Very.

00:35:28.30
Bill
um you know and But the fact that we got nominated was kind of crazy.

00:35:28.34
Mike
very

00:35:32.13
Bill
But if we are given a compliment, usually it's something along those lines that Because we don't, we try not to preach to people. We're not, we're not um you know, this fellowship-based or this 12-step-based program.

00:35:43.46
Bill
We'll tell people this is the way we did it, and we'll make suggestions based on what we were told. But we're not going to tell people, you've got to go do this and you've got to go do that. You know, I mean, the only thing I think we've said there in in a, probably in that circumstance, is that I don't think that anyone out there can be happy and stay sober if they don't have help in community.

00:36:04.41
Bill
We talk about that.

00:36:05.26
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:36:05.61
Bill
Now, if you don't want to do that, well, fine.

00:36:06.03
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:36:08.05
Bill
Fuck you. Go sit in a corner and be miserable and and don't drink. But if I was going to sit in a corner and be miserable, I mean, what do you think you'd do, Mike? Would you would you drink or would stay sick?

00:36:16.68
Mike
I would get loaded. Yeah, absolutely.

00:36:17.88
Bill
Yeah, so would I. mean, it wouldn't it wouldn't even be a question mark. i'd be like, ain't doing this fucking shit. Right.

00:36:23.16
Austin
Yeah. Well, you know, if I'm not around people that are like me, that are that are moving in the same direction of me as me, like I heard a guy say once I got two brain cells, one's selling bullshit and the other one's buying it.

00:36:29.24
Bill
Right.

00:36:33.88
Austin
I don't remember who said that, but I don't want to take credit for it. but But I will convince myself that I wasn't as bad as I thought I was.

00:36:36.42
Mike
you're Right?

00:36:36.57
Bill
yeah

00:36:39.24
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:36:41.78
Mike
Of course.

00:36:42.26
Bill
oh yeah yeah right yeah right

00:36:42.78
Austin
Absolutely. Absolutely.

00:36:44.69
Mike
Yeah, if i if I allow myself to.

00:36:44.89
Austin
Hands down. Absolutely.

00:36:47.38
Mike
Yeah, yeah, right.

00:36:48.09
Austin
Absolutely. Absolutely.

00:36:48.62
Mike
That's why you need other people to go, please.

00:36:51.29
Austin
Yeah, right, right, right.

00:36:52.35
Mike
Yeah, yeah again, yeah, it was a quote I heard early on, man. Left on my own devices, I can convince myself I can rationalize and justify anything.

00:37:02.92
Bill
Right.

00:37:03.20
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:37:03.52
Bill
Right.

00:37:03.67
Mike
Yep.

00:37:04.47
Bill
Yeah. And you know what? I mean, that's, that's one of the things that and we've, we've had that we've had those conversations on, on here specifically where, you know, I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll be telling a story and Mike's like, well, yeah, of course.

00:37:14.89
Bill
I'm like, why no, but you know, it's or, or I'll say somebody's like, well, no, you were thinking this. I'm like, was I, I'm like, ah, fuck. I never thought about that. You know, and, but, but the thing of it is I, I trust that what he's telling me, he's not, we joke and we fuck around and all sorts of things, but there's nothing on a, uh, when it, when it's a life and death type but type of circumstance, I'm not going to get fucked up advice from my friend, Mike in nine times out of 10,

00:37:29.14
Mike
h

00:37:38.25
Mike
Right.

00:37:39.83
Bill
sight Unless you get some weird people in in the rooms and in recovery. But the majority of the time, I'm going to get decent advice.

00:37:43.32
Mike
Oh, yeah.

00:37:46.85
Bill
People are out there to help me, not to hurt me. you know and And I think, Austin, you probably ran into the same thing, I'm guessing, right?

00:37:49.13
Mike
Right.

00:37:52.85
Bill
what?

00:37:53.19
Austin
I've got, ah honestly, so this is what I tell the guys I sponsor.

00:37:53.19
Bill
Hang

00:37:56.27
Austin
I say, you could go down to OBT, which is the road with the hookers and the crack dealers in Orlando.

00:38:00.54
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:38:02.78
Austin
So I say, you yeah, OBT, Orange Blossom Trail.

00:38:03.61
Mike
He's going to write it down.

00:38:07.32
Austin
ah You can head down to OBT, find a crackhead on the side of the road and tell him one of the problems you're going through.

00:38:07.42
Mike
Ah.

00:38:12.80
Austin
And very likely he will see it more clearly than you will.

00:38:12.80
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:38:16.25
Austin
Because he's not, there's no emotion involved.

00:38:16.31
Mike
Right.

00:38:18.49
Austin
You know, it's objectivity.

00:38:18.39
Mike
Yeah.

00:38:19.89
Austin
And that's, that was one of the hardest lessons I had to learn was that I don't view my own life in reality much of the time.

00:38:20.29
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:38:23.63
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:38:27.79
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

00:38:30.78
Austin
And that's a hard one.

00:38:30.98
Bill
Right.

00:38:31.51
Austin
Yeah.

00:38:31.90
Mike
Yeah, it is.

00:38:32.07
Bill
Right. Yeah. And you know, the the thing it is too, is that, uh, so I, and we talk, and if you've, I don't know if you've ever caught it on episodes that you've listened to, but, um, Mike goes to one meeting a week and and you go, why, why do you go Mike?

00:38:44.50
Mike
To be of service.

00:38:45.59
Bill
Yeah.

00:38:46.00
Austin
Yeah.

00:38:46.55
Mike
Yeah, that's it.

00:38:46.85
Bill
that's his,

00:38:47.60
Mike
Yeah, right. I mean, was telling the guy the other day, man, you know, look, if I need to go to a meeting, there's a whole bunch of shit that's wrong with me other than whatever. Right. You know, I go to a meeting, I go to my home group to be of service. You know, I work 12, 13 hour days. I'm fucking tired. My life is full today. certainly didn't get sober to sit in a church basement for the rest of my life. You know, so yeah, you know, I could, should I go to more meetings? Probably. Do I need to? No, I don't.

00:39:20.95
Mike
I don't. You know, I'm connected with the community.

00:39:21.99
Austin
I'm curious though.

00:39:23.07
Mike
Go ahead.

00:39:24.06
Austin
well I was gonna say, I'm curious how much shooting this show has filled some of that bill in your life.

00:39:27.80
Mike
Mm hmm. Oh, absolutely. It has.

00:39:30.58
Bill
Huge, huge.

00:39:31.38
Mike
Yeah, absolutely.

00:39:32.45
Austin
Yeah.

00:39:32.95
Mike
Yeah, it has.

00:39:33.37
Austin
Yeah.

00:39:33.71
Mike
You know, yeah, doing this is is a part of our sobriety today, part of our recovery.

00:39:38.19
Bill
Right.

00:39:39.23
Mike
Absolutely. um You know, right.

00:39:40.68
Austin
Yeah.

00:39:41.47
Mike
I mean, I do recovery things every day. You know, I work my program every day. Have to. Right. You know, I can't miss my medicine, man, or I'm going to fucking get sick again.

00:39:50.62
Austin
yeah

00:39:51.90
Mike
i so thoroughly convinced of that. um You know, there's stuff i was hell I was telling my granddaughter the other day, you know, yes, there are things I have to do every day to keep myself sober. And I do those things.

00:40:05.65
Bill
Right.

00:40:05.66
Mike
you know And if i if I stop, I mean, that was, Christ, man, early on, right? Bill and I both, you know, somebody would go out and come back in and and we wanted to know what happened.

00:40:16.74
Mike
and And, you know, right?

00:40:17.30
Bill
ah

00:40:19.19
Mike
You know, what the fuck, man? What happened? And, I mean, you get lots and lots and lots of words, but the bottom line, to a person, they stopped.

00:40:30.33
Mike
Right? They stop praying.

00:40:31.64
Austin
Yeah.

00:40:32.09
Mike
They stop going meetings. They stop helping another drunk. They stop working their program. And, you know, right.

00:40:36.52
Austin
Yeah.

00:40:37.66
Mike
yeah i mean You can put it in as many words as you want, but the bottom line is you stop. Well, fuck.

00:40:42.46
Austin
Yeah.

00:40:42.89
Mike
So don't stop. don't Don't stop doing the things you have to do to stay away from that first one. And if you don't, you're you're okay. You're not going to pick up that first one. Period.

00:40:54.46
Mike
Yeah, thoroughly convinced of that.

00:40:55.50
Austin
there's There's so much beauty in that, Mike, though. And I'll tell you why in just a recent experience I've had having so many kids, right?

00:41:01.09
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:41:02.11
Austin
Like when I you know was first getting sober, it was like meeting every night, out to dinner, attacking the newcomer, like, let's get them, you know, all that shit.

00:41:03.45
Bill
ah

00:41:08.79
Mike
Right. Right. Right.

00:41:10.29
Austin
And my wife was like, dude, you're not a single guy.

00:41:10.52
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:41:12.85
Austin
Like, you can't do that shit.

00:41:13.53
Mike
Yeah.

00:41:14.05
Austin
So I get to two i get to two meetings. I get to my home group and I get to a detox commitment in a week.

00:41:16.98
Mike
Yep. Mm-hmm.

00:41:18.83
Bill
Right.

00:41:18.98
Austin
But but it forced me to lean into...

00:41:19.48
Mike
Cool.

00:41:22.48
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:41:22.65
Austin
the other aspects of the program that maybe I had, you know, denied myself prior because I was just involved in so much, you know, step work and fellowship.

00:41:24.89
Mike
Right.

00:41:28.44
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sure.

00:41:32.24
Austin
And and it's been a ah beautiful experience, man.

00:41:32.41
Mike
Absolutely.

00:41:34.56
Austin
So I can totally jive with what you're saying.

00:41:35.96
Mike
Yeah. Well, I mean, like our our grand spot grant sponsor used to say all the time, man, look, this is an inside job. You know, nobody's going to do it for you. You got to do it yourself. And it's got to, it's inside of you.

00:41:47.45
Mike
You know, all the outside stuff is great and it helps and and it's it's part of it. But bottom line is you got to work on that shit inside of yourself. Otherwise, none of it's going to work.

00:41:58.53
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:41:58.50
Bill
Right.

00:41:58.71
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:41:59.16
Bill
Yeah. And, you know, you you mentioned the podcast and we talked about that openly on here. So the obviously COVID messed up a lot of people's schedules. but There was plenty of online meetings that I say this all the time. it It it blew my mind how the recovery community. But I mean, this is it's what we do, you know, as a community. um Everyone adapted. These meetings went online and, you know, people didn't theoretically, people didn't miss a step or shouldn't have if they if they want to look around.

00:42:22.90
Bill
And then, you know, obviously things start opening up again and meetings start opening up again. These, you know, online meetings are going away. And there was just a, this meeting that I went to, i was in Wisconsin at the time and it was the the meeting I went to every week, usually a couple more depending on my schedule for a couple of meetings a week.

00:42:39.38
Bill
But then I saw some shit on Facebook over over covid, which is unimportant even explain. But it I made a decision as I'm not I don't need to go back to that meeting because I don't want I don't want to deal with those people anymore.

00:42:51.77
Bill
You know, and it was a decision I made because I thought that things were just going in a weird direction.

00:42:56.98
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:42:57.37
Bill
So what I started doing was, cause I had this void I did, I didn't even realize, but I started listening to a recovery podcast first. It started off with, of all things, the first audio book that I ever listened to was, um, Dave Grohl for the Foo Fighters, his autobiography, huge Foo Fighters fan, like Dave Grohl, listened to his whole autobiography.

00:43:11.53
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:43:16.67
Bill
Then I'm looking around for other shit and I'm like, well, maybe I should and listen to some recovery shit, you know? Yeah. So I started listening to this podcast, which is no longer there. She actually, she shut down her podcast even before I started listening to it.

00:43:29.47
Bill
But she had 135 episodes, I think. So on the way home from work every day, I'd listen to that. So it occupied, did two things for me. Get a meeting every day because I'm listening this recovery podcast.

00:43:40.14
Bill
And it, you know, occupied this 45-minute drive home that I was getting so fucking pissed off on, you know. So it reduced my stress plus put good shit my brain, you know. And then we're sitting here at my sister's house, our sister's house, the Thanksgiving before, what would that have 2000, November of 21, right?

00:43:53.77
Mike
Yeah.

00:43:58.42
Bill
Yeah, yeah.

00:43:58.36
Mike
Yeah.

00:43:59.02
Bill
So yeah, November of 21, end of November, we're sitting outside and I was still smoking. He and I are outside smoking a cigarette and I'm telling about this podcast, you know, and some of these things and these, you know, kind of getting this enlightenment, you know, from all these different guests she had on.

00:44:11.22
Bill
And I really enjoyed it. And I said, i just looked at him like, we could do that. Right. He's like, we could do what? And I'm like, we could tell stories and talk shit into a microphone.

00:44:16.92
Mike
he

00:44:20.89
Bill
Right. He's like, sure. So then we procrastinated it for another four months and didn't, it didn't start the podcast until the end of February of 22.

00:44:25.27
Mike
Of course.

00:44:29.58
Bill
So at that point, um, our goal was to do what Mike, you know, mean, we just wanted to get on there and get together.

00:44:37.40
Mike
Yeah.

00:44:37.65
Bill
Right.

00:44:37.76
Mike
Yeah. Just get together every Friday night like we used to. Yeah.

00:44:40.91
Bill
Yeah, that's all.

00:44:41.56
Austin
Yeah.

00:44:41.54
Mike
Yeah.

00:44:42.20
Bill
That's all that it was. We were going to get together on a Friday night. We used our phones. We used Anchor, which is now Spotify for creators. So we're on our fucking phones trying to plug headsets in. Terrible fucking audio.

00:44:52.64
Bill
It was terrible.

00:44:52.95
Austin
ah

00:44:53.88
Mike
It was.

00:44:54.17
Bill
You know, in the in the first, you know, 20... Two episodes, because I think episode 22 or 23 is when we got Riverside before we got Zencaster here um in the audio audio.

00:45:02.96
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:45:03.89
Bill
Literally, you listen back now. And that's the other thing, too. Like episode four is one of the ones that has a lot of stories, four, five, six, and maybe even seven. Those are some of the core stories that we told within those episodes.

00:45:15.70
Bill
But to listen to those episodes, I mean, anyone, if you're listening, you want to go back and and listen to them. I mean, more power to you because it's hard to listen to, but the stories and I'm not patting us on the back. They're just good, solid early recovery stories.

00:45:26.66
Mike
Right.

00:45:27.90
Bill
And they're they're fucking true. And we're we were honest about them, you know. Um, but the, the audio was fucking jacked, you know? So we get about six months in and that's where, you know, at the beginning of our, of our podcast where Mike's like, yeah, man, we're just going shoot our one into the wind and see what happens.

00:45:46.06
Bill
And that was six months into this podcast.

00:45:47.89
Mike
Yeah.

00:45:48.34
Bill
He's just like, I don't know what we're fucking doing. I'm like, I don't know either. You know? So that's that's what we did, and that's what we kept doing.

00:45:52.38
Austin
Yeah.

00:45:55.42
Bill
And then we got a little bit cocky, only to the sense of we are not going to do what everyone else wants us to do.

00:46:01.58
Mike
Yeah.

00:46:01.78
Bill
you Everyone's like, well, you should do video. Fuck you. We don't want to do video. We tried we tried once, and we didn't like it. you know I know, Austin, you do video.

00:46:09.62
Mike
yeah

00:46:11.61
Bill
It's fine. and i have I have no issue, you know but some of these ones that people do, they're just done wrong.

00:46:12.59
Austin
I do.

00:46:17.72
Bill
I've seen your videos. I could watch one of your videos. They don't fucking annoy me. And I'm not just saying that because you're on here.

00:46:22.74
Austin
Why, thank you.

00:46:22.96
Bill
if If, if they did annoy me, I never would have brought it up.

00:46:24.02
Mike
see

00:46:25.68
Bill
I promise you.

00:46:25.82
Austin
Shit talk me after I leave.

00:46:26.24
Bill
i No, no, no.

00:46:27.22
Austin
It'll be fine. It'll be. No, I'm just kidding.

00:46:28.54
Bill
if I swear to God, Mike knows me well enough.

00:46:28.69
Austin
Yeah.

00:46:30.54
Bill
If I, if I did, if I thought your video was annoying, I wouldn't have brought it up because I don't want to talk about it.

00:46:30.90
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:46:34.01
Mike
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:46:34.62
Bill
So I don't want to get drawn into it trying to, you know, saying, Oh, so what do you think of my video?

00:46:35.10
Austin
Yeah.

00:46:36.47
Mike
Right.

00:46:38.78
Austin
Right, right.

00:46:38.90
Bill
um But no, yours yours are fine. I just haven't, I haven't listened to them, but I mean, your video is fine. But, you know, so people are saying, do that.

00:46:43.91
Austin
hmm.

00:46:46.37
Bill
And, you know, you should, whatever the, whatever these fucking rules are that we should do when we're like, no, no, no, we want to do it this fucking way. Well, why don't you, why don't you edit? Nobody's really asked us that. But when we tell people we don't edit, they're like, really?

00:47:00.41
Bill
And then it's kind of like, well, why would you why wouldn't you edit? it Because it's not fucking true. That's why. Plus we're lazy.

00:47:06.90
Mike
Right.

00:47:07.32
Austin
Right. Yeah.

00:47:08.73
Bill
You know, but, i but on top of that too, and then, oh yeah, to begin with, we didn't know you should, you should bank what three to five episodes to try to grab your audience. We didn't fucking know that, you know, and then they're like, they're like, well, when, when you're doing all these things, you don't want to go, go more than, you know, probably 20, 25 minutes because of people's, you know, ability to, you know, their, their time, you know, their, their focus.

00:47:28.16
Bill
What am I thinking?

00:47:28.18
Mike
Attention span.

00:47:29.27
Bill
Jesus Christ.

00:47:29.56
Austin
yeah

00:47:30.03
Bill
See, I have, I don't even have any of that.

00:47:30.36
Mike
Right. See?

00:47:31.61
Austin
yeah

00:47:32.54
Bill
So, yeah, the attention span. So we're like, well, no, we started. Mike took us to an hour first. now was That was the second real episode that we did.

00:47:39.48
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:47:39.93
Bill
we're like, well, I guess we're doing this now.

00:47:41.53
Mike
a

00:47:41.62
Bill
you know

00:47:42.13
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:47:42.62
Bill
And then and then we went we had a guest on that I think we went an hour and 15 minutes.

00:47:42.75
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:47:46.54
Bill
And by the way, Mike, within the first year, we were hitting almost an hour and a half because after after doing the episodes that I did for the all these stories.

00:47:50.62
Mike
course

00:47:54.78
Bill
But people like, you know, why do you? God, geez, you you guys go an hour and a half. What do you do for an hour and a half? I don't know.

00:48:00.71
Mike
Yeah.

00:48:01.37
Bill
I mean, i have I have no fucking idea.

00:48:02.07
Mike
This.

00:48:03.33
Bill
Yeah, we've been talking right now for 48 minutes. You know, we're going to go for another 43. So, you know, it just it was just kind of like, well, whatever.

00:48:07.76
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:48:11.09
Bill
People are going like us, so they fucking won't. And then we just go on with it. So, right, Mike?

00:48:14.62
Austin
You know what i I think about you guys? though I don't think so. You know how you've got some people who have enough history, have enough friendship, have enough personality overlaps where you could have a two hour conversation and not not have a lull in the conversation.

00:48:26.10
Mike
hmm.

00:48:28.93
Austin
I think you guys are really good like that.

00:48:29.14
Mike
Right. Meh.

00:48:31.35
Bill
Right.

00:48:31.45
Austin
Now, again, I feel like i'm blowing smoke up your ass, but no, it's a genuine it's a genuine compliment, you know?

00:48:33.61
Mike
Meh.

00:48:35.93
Bill
Right.

00:48:35.93
Mike
Well, thank you.

00:48:36.95
Bill
Well, yeah. and I mean, seriously, thank you. Because I, I know just from, just from us talking, the, the thing of it is we don't, neither one of us can do this on our own. And we, we just talked about this a couple of weeks ago.

00:48:47.58
Bill
Again, um, audio has gone down or I'm sorry, the internet's gone down on me like twice. And, and Mike's like, you know, it's like you just threw him in the middle of a spotlight as a, as a six year old and he doesn't know how to speak.

00:48:54.16
Mike
Right.

00:48:57.94
Bill
And he, there's nothing, Mike, you can have a great conversation with Mike right now.

00:48:58.26
Mike
right

00:49:01.70
Bill
But as soon as he's by himself, he's like, waka, waka.

00:49:04.03
Mike
I'm...

00:49:05.85
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:49:06.86
Bill
And he literally, the one time he's like, hey well okay, kids, I'm going to take a drink of my water real quick. Yeah.

00:49:11.80
Austin
yeah

00:49:13.02
Bill
And, but, but when I'm just on by myself, I've only done it with a guest. I don't know how to go into a break, which we're going to do here in a minute. I don't know how to close out an episode. The only thing I know how to do is talk and tell stories.

00:49:24.92
Bill
I could open up the episode. I could talk and tell stories, but these other things that Mike does in these, some of these anecdotes, you know, that he has, I can't do that. And I don't know why, but it doesn't fucking matter, you know, because he does that and I to fucking worry about it, you know?

00:49:36.13
Mike
huh

00:49:39.13
Mike
Right.

00:49:40.31
Bill
So.

00:49:40.28
Mike
Right. Well, speaking of taking fucking breaks, we're going to let Bill take a breath. We're going to come back and talk with Austin right after these words from our sponsors.

00:50:01.53
Bill
All right, everyone. Welcome back. Sorry for that delay.

00:50:04.26
Mike
He he he he.

00:50:05.20
Bill
I wanted to even up to the 50 mark. It made it easier for my brain.

00:50:07.13
Mike
Yeah.

00:50:07.81
Bill
See, again, Austin, we're so fucking simple, I can't count.

00:50:07.99
Mike
Right.

00:50:10.57
Bill
if we Anytime Mike does that to me, where we do the break at at the switch, where it goes from like 49 minutes to 50, I've got to let it go.

00:50:12.79
Mike
Yes.

00:50:19.12
Bill
I'm a fucking simpleton. So anyhow, Austin, you have a book and I do, I want to talk a little bit more about your podcast.

00:50:22.90
Mike
yes

00:50:24.86
Austin
I do.

00:50:26.42
Bill
I want to hear how you started that and all those sorts of things, but um dig into the book again, ah you know, a little bit more.

00:50:27.51
Austin
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:50:32.22
Bill
I know you were talking about a little bit, but you know, obviously let people know, you know, where they can get it, what the name of it is. I'll, I'll have a link. Tell me where the best place to put the link is to in the, in the description, all those sorts of things, but let people know what you got with that book.

00:50:45.72
Austin
Yeah, yeah, I definitely will. So, I mean, you know, most, if I'm being really honest with you, most of the book, as I started to write it, I realized that it was a, it was a, an experience that was enhancing my own life.

00:50:57.34
Austin
And so it was just something I wanted to continue to do.

00:50:57.72
Mike
Right.

00:50:57.91
Bill
Right.

00:51:00.06
Austin
But, but, ah but as it's come out, right, I've gotten a bunch of reviews on Amazon, or people ah kind of, I guess that people have appreciated the honesty, but you know, it's a shit show, man. It's ah it's every bit of it's every bit of ugliness, debauchery, um just stuff that I carried a lot of shame around for for a long time with.

00:51:20.64
Austin
And you know along the way, through good sponsorship and inventory, instead of it becoming, you know instead of it being who I was, it just became my story. And you know once it it became my story, I'll be honest, I did have some fear about releasing it, you know, because it's like, that's my name on that cover, man.

00:51:39.86
Austin
um And, you know, the cover's got a bunch of blow and Xanax on it.

00:51:39.95
Mike
Right.

00:51:42.90
Austin
Like it's not, it's unambiguous as to what the, what the subject matter is.

00:51:46.07
Bill
hey

00:51:47.83
Mike
Right.

00:51:48.01
Austin
um But it was, it was such an experience for me to be able to do that. And, And, you know, I hope people I hope people enjoy it. I hope people get some stuff out of it.

00:51:58.23
Austin
And and to be honest, I've gotten a ton. So this has been the coolest part. And I don't know if you guys know this, but since you're going to publish your book, I'll tell you, nobody makes any fucking money from a book unless you're, you know, J.K.

00:52:05.60
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:52:08.50
Mike
No.

00:52:11.04
Austin
Rowling. Nobody's pulling in a paycheck from a book. But. What it has done thus far, and including me being able to have a conversation with you guys, is the people I've gotten to meet, the connections I've gotten to make, and all and i'm I'm having fun, right?

00:52:20.23
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:52:25.29
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:52:27.34
Austin
I'm having such a, like, this is my third podcast I've been on today.

00:52:27.45
Mike
Yeah.

00:52:30.30
Austin
Not to, you know, you're not sloppy seconds or anything, but like, you know, it's sloppy thirds, right?

00:52:31.45
Mike
Yeah.

00:52:33.27
Bill
We're sloppy thirds. if

00:52:34.94
Mike
Right.

00:52:35.74
Austin
I showered beforehand, it's fine.

00:52:36.23
Bill
it's fine fine you know a you know said fuck fuck you austin it's okay it's all right

00:52:37.82
Austin
But, you know, but...

00:52:37.82
Mike
nay

00:52:40.22
Austin
yeah But I'll tell you, man, the juice for me and really the juice for me today, more than almost anything else, is connecting with people.

00:52:53.72
Austin
because you know we're we're much more brothers in our defects than our virtues, right?

00:52:53.80
Bill
right

00:52:58.78
Austin
and

00:52:58.87
Mike
right

00:52:59.64
Austin
And it's that that level of, wow, man, I can share with you the worst parts of my story.

00:53:06.32
Mike
Mm-hmm. Yep.

00:53:08.09
Austin
And and it will almost, you know not everyone, but but a lot of people, it will almost endear me to them. like They will want to connect with me based upon, you know there's like something in each of us that can sniff out authenticity, at least I think there is in me.

00:53:14.92
Mike
Yeah.

00:53:21.39
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:53:21.51
Bill
Right.

00:53:22.55
Mike
Right.

00:53:23.19
Austin
And, uh, and man, what a trip, dude. So, uh, to answer your other question, my, my website is one last hit book.com. You can buy the book there. It's on Amazon. If you especially like my voice, you can listen to it on audible.

00:53:37.01
Austin
Uh, it's, uh, it's all the, all the formats and, and honestly, it's anywhere you can buy a book Barnes and Noble, Walmart, it's everywhere.

00:53:36.96
Mike
Hmm.

00:53:41.88
Mike
Right. Cool.

00:53:44.06
Bill
Yeah, and I just, as you were as you were talking, I looked it up.

00:53:44.31
Austin
Yeah.

00:53:46.42
Bill
So i'll i'll put a I'll put a link to your website in there, but I'll make sure that that's in the in the description, too, because i didn't have that. I just had your Instagram page, but I'm guessing your Instagram page hooks to that, but some people don't have Instagram, so I'll make sure to link that.

00:53:59.38
Bill
But...

00:53:59.52
Mike
Hi there.

00:54:00.28
Bill
But, you know, and and you know, the the thing that is I've done, um I've actually written, well, put together four books and they've been three business books some years ago, 10, 10 plus years ago.

00:54:01.09
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:54:10.64
Bill
And they were basically, I took articles. I've always loved writing. It was, it's always been a release of sorts for me. So I used to write a lot of business articles based on the industry I was in. And some of the articles, it was like a life situation. If I had a a weird thing happen or even a good thing, I would i would tell a story, make it business related, but kind of have that veiled in the background.

00:54:33.21
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:54:33.21
Bill
you know So I did that for a number of years. And I think it was just kind of a way to release some of that, you know whatever shit was in my head. And then um I did one couple years ago now, or almost a two almost two years ago, And it was the, uh, my Airbnb travel book.

00:54:44.59
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:54:47.91
Bill
Um, you know, so I did that. That's a modern day hobo shit that I do. And then, um, you know, this thing, if we do it and you know, the, the thing with it is, and I, I've done self-publishing on all of them and we, we know one person actually, yeah Mike Amy from sober curator that has the eight children.

00:55:04.88
Bill
Uh, she does, she does book stuff or publishes for helps people publish books.

00:55:05.12
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:55:08.72
Bill
So, You know, we might be able to throw the manuscript at her and have her take a look at it. But from everything that I've read, the fact that we're we're looking at stories from a podcast, the first thing we're going to look at is, you know, what what do we get from a – how much draw do we have in our podcast?

00:55:23.64
Bill
So nobody's going to want to pay us a lot of money, you know, because we don't have a lot of – you know, we just don't have that big of a draw.

00:55:23.94
Mike
Mm-hmm. No.

00:55:25.84
Austin
Hmm.

00:55:28.68
Mike
Yeah.

00:55:29.60
Bill
We're not –

00:55:29.53
Mike
Nobody wants to pay us any money for anything, so there you go.

00:55:31.67
Bill
Right.

00:55:32.65
Mike
Why would they want to for this?

00:55:32.87
Bill
Yeah, exactly.

00:55:34.10
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:55:34.90
Bill
You know, just because, you know, maybe it, maybe it would have cool stories and whatever. So we'll, you know, more than likely we would, you know, self-publish. So did you, did you do that? Did you self-publish or did you have working with that editor Austin?

00:55:45.38
Bill
Did you have somebody do it with you or how did you do that?

00:55:47.70
Austin
So I used a um ah hybrid so sort of publisher called Manhattan Book Group, which were they were actually, you know, in retrospect, looking back on it, had I known then what I know now, you know, with most publishers, right, you're going to get kind of a flash in the pan and then it's on you, man, go grind, ah which is, you know, kind of what like I'm doing now.

00:55:53.43
Bill
Okay.

00:56:03.58
Mike
Right. Yeah.

00:56:07.09
Austin
I'm just on that podcast grind, which is honestly, love it.

00:56:07.45
Mike
hu

00:56:11.00
Austin
ah but But, you know, I own 100%.

00:56:11.10
Mike
Yeah.

00:56:11.41
Bill
Right.

00:56:14.40
Austin
They didn't take any percentage of the book or anything like that. So I can, you know, move around freely.

00:56:17.50
Bill
Okay.

00:56:19.16
Austin
So it's as if I had self-published.

00:56:22.17
Bill
Yeah. And you know, the the thing of it is, that so the first, the other books I did years ago, I did through Amazon KDP. It's ah just easy to to set it up.

00:56:29.30
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:56:30.38
Bill
And then this one I did through, um think it Publish Drive or whatever, but it ends up, ends up on Amazon anyhow. And I had Amazon throw it into a, it's not read by me, but they, um Amazon did an audio book version because I just wanted to do digital.

00:56:42.55
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:56:43.66
Bill
I didn't want to do actual book for this one, the travel book that I did. Cause like how it would, it just made more sense to me to do digital, but anyhow, so Amazon put in a paperback also, and I still haven't, I don't, didn't, I never formatted that.

00:56:55.63
Bill
So the formatting on that is fucked really quite honestly.

00:56:57.34
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:56:58.74
Bill
Um, but I mean, this one that we would do if we do it, you know, the sober, not mature one, um, it it would be, you know, I probably, again, i would assume Amazon or publish drive, whatever the case is, but again, self-publishing for the same purpose.

00:57:10.06
Bill
But you know that the thing that is with this, if we end up doing this, it's just a matter of, and like like when Mike and I were talking about it, I mean, you you go back and you listen to like you were doing, digging back into this life, you know, this and digging back into the, into these stories.

00:57:22.67
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:57:25.53
Bill
And, you know, we get to do the same thing, but just on a little bit different. It's, it's in the same lane. It's just over here. It's in this lane rather than that lane. Whereas it's it's a combination of both.

00:57:36.38
Bill
It's sobriety shit, you know but it's also these stories, these war stories, quote unquote, I suppose, if you want to call them that. But we never really told our stories much like a drunk-a-log because we've never liked drunk-a-logs.

00:57:47.66
Mike
Right.

00:57:47.96
Bill
you know But on top of that, too, that as I'm going through all this stuff with with AI, you know i'm I'm asking some questions about certain things. And you know some of it didn't know. So I'm like, well, how would this how do we promote this? Where does this go? Whatever. And a couple of the things that came back was...

00:58:03.06
Bill
I don't even know that this, that you know where to put this, what type, what type of book is it? It's not a memoir, you know?

00:58:08.80
Austin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:58:09.40
Bill
um It's not really a recovery book. It is, but it isn't about sobriety. It isn't, it isn't about, you know, drunk stories. So it's, it's kind of a it's kind of a different thing, which I think is kind of fun to begin with because what we, that's the way it should be.

00:58:19.48
Austin
Mm-hmm.

00:58:22.96
Bill
If we're going to do a book that are podcast stories that are our stories, but told on our podcast, it should have a different sound and feel to it. So i don't know, whatever. It's just, It would take some work to put it all together.

00:58:33.64
Bill
And if nothing else, it just, all it's going to be is, you know, possibly a feather in our cap. And like you said, it's not a fucking moneymaker, but you know, it just kind of is what it is, you know? yeah

00:58:43.26
Austin
kind of immortalizes your podcast and print anyhow.

00:58:46.84
Bill
Yeah.

00:58:46.96
Austin
And I'll tell you, I had an experience. My wife was like, dude, you got to go on social media. And I'm not a huge fan.

00:58:53.20
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:58:53.44
Bill
Right.

00:58:53.55
Austin
Although I did a lot in social media, but in a different industry. And I'm just not a fan because to me, what it feels like is, all right, I got to come up with some topic today, come up with a hook, shoot a video, like all these things that are just like, they're just like, not me.

00:59:05.79
Austin
I'll just want I'll wrap with you. But, um, But anyhow, so that was kind of the the catalyst for for me starting a podcast, because I've i've had a number in the past and in the digital asset space for about seven years.

00:59:19.15
Austin
And ah and so that's where the one last hit podcast kind of came about is I thought, OK, well, I'll just have other people create the content for me and I'll just crank it out short form, you know, like a machine.

00:59:27.74
Bill
Right, right.

00:59:28.09
Mike
Mm-hmm.

00:59:28.38
Bill
yeah

00:59:29.89
Austin
And that's kind of what I've done.

00:59:32.31
Bill
So onto the podcast too, because I mean, we'll go back and forth at anything. The thing that is the rest of the time we have the talk on here, it's you talk about whatever the fuck you want, you know, but i'd I'd like to, you know, obviously ask you about the podcast.

00:59:40.82
Austin
Yeah. yeah

00:59:43.59
Bill
And so how long, obviously that was the reason that was going to be one of my questions. Why did you start the podcast? Would you just explain that? But how long have you been doing it? And um I guess let's let's start there.

00:59:54.78
Bill
How long have you been doing it?

00:59:56.09
Austin
Yeah, so ah podcasting as a whole, I've been doing since 2020, but this sobriety, and it was funny, while I was doing, you know, I worked in the crypto space for a long time, had a pretty fair level of success there in media, but um but never did anything in sobriety, never did anything in recovery, and in fact, nobody in that space even knew I was sober.

01:00:14.12
Austin
Like, it just wasn't wasn't anything I was putting on Front Street until the book came out. and ah But I had always kind of laid my head down at night and dreamed like, you know, dude, what I really want to be talking about is this stuff.

01:00:24.88
Austin
And totally. And and so I started I fired this up a couple of months ago um and just started yanking drunks on and be like, yo, and i'm so I'm very sad and sorry to say that two of them have relapsed since they came on my show, um which happens.

01:00:38.82
Mike
hmm hmm it's about right yeah

01:00:41.69
Austin
Yeah, yeah, it happens, man. But but what I've started to do and you guys really inspired me to do this again.

01:00:48.46
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:00:48.82
Austin
I'm a fan.

01:00:49.22
Bill
Hmm.

01:00:49.66
Austin
is, you know, I would have people come on, tell their story. But what I've started to do is bring on a co-host that we don't know what we're talking about.

01:00:58.16
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:00:59.86
Austin
I'm just going to fire something off the hip and we're going to have 45 minute to an hour conversation about it. And people are going to look in on it like it's a phone call that they're peeping in on.

01:01:04.25
Mike
Yeah.

01:01:07.51
Austin
You know, that's sort of a thing.

01:01:07.74
Mike
Yeah.

01:01:07.96
Bill
Right. Right.

01:01:08.79
Austin
And man, I love that shit so much. And I understand when you say you you guys get a lot out of that.

01:01:11.39
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:01:14.58
Austin
I get a lot out of that, man.

01:01:14.62
Mike
Yeah. Yeah.

01:01:15.83
Austin
I get a lot.

01:01:16.24
Bill
Right.

01:01:17.11
Austin
You know, it's cool.

01:01:17.17
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:01:18.65
Bill
Well, and you know that, again, the the thing of it is when, same thing, when we started this and I now have, and I've right now I've got, I've got sheets of paper that I print off every week because I get things that'll pop into my head um or things that I ran across or, or whatever it is.

01:01:33.07
Bill
And I'll just give you the, I mean, we talk about sobriety stuff, but like for instance, Mike, I have a new email from Shirley. These will be all things we're talking about next week.

01:01:41.04
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:01:41.14
Bill
um I have the song,

01:01:42.66
Mike
It's what we call a tease in the business.

01:01:44.06
Bill
i i have a I have a note about the song Champagne Supernova, which, you know, again, so nobody's going to know.

01:01:44.76
Austin
Man.

01:01:49.21
Mike
All right.

01:01:51.96
Bill
I've got cargo shorts on here. I've got Carrot Top. I've got Kenny Rogers.

01:01:55.06
Mike
All right.

01:01:56.18
Bill
um

01:01:58.19
Mike
Hell, I'm going to have to tune into that one.

01:01:58.28
Bill
i've got

01:02:00.63
Austin
man

01:02:00.66
Bill
I've got, um

01:02:04.28
Bill
you know, Snake from The Simpsons?

01:02:06.42
Mike
Yes. Yes.

01:02:07.16
Bill
Okay, so I've got a note on snake for this instance.

01:02:08.89
Mike
Right. Yeah.

01:02:10.23
Bill
So this, this Austin, these are my notes. Okay. Now they have, there's a reason behind every fucking one of them. Some of them have to do with sobriety. Some of them don't. And to begin with, I think we were a little bit more, do you think, I mean, were we, we were a little bit more focused on that figure.

01:02:25.29
Bill
We don't want to talk about just life shit, right? To begin with.

01:02:27.38
Mike
right

01:02:28.09
Bill
Okay. Cause I was trying to think back. It's been so long since we've, since we've just focused on sobriety stuff.

01:02:31.13
Mike
he

01:02:33.89
Bill
But, and then we just started talking about stuff, you know, it's like, what happened in your week? Well, you know, and we talk about, we, uh, some funny shit that happened to the goddamn grocery store. Now it had nothing to do with sobriety, but then again,

01:02:42.94
Mike
Right.

01:02:45.69
Mike
But it, but it ends up being about sobriety because, Hey, guess what? That's the center of our lives, you know, right.

01:02:51.70
Austin
Yeah.

01:02:51.83
Bill
right, right.

01:02:52.49
Mike
Practice these principles in all our affairs, you know?

01:02:54.62
Bill
Exactly.

01:02:55.49
Mike
So, yeah.

01:02:56.11
Bill
Yeah.

01:02:56.05
Mike
So, I mean, you know, we find shit that, you know, yeah, whatever, you know, we talk about holding the door for an old lady, you know, or not. Right. You know, you know we didn't used to, and now we do wonder why that is

01:03:08.18
Austin
Yeah.

01:03:09.82
Mike
Yeah, you know, bullshit like that. i mean, that's all it fucking is. and And you talk about Austin, you talk about getting a ah co-host on and and not doing any prep. Right, Bill's got those sheets.

01:03:20.88
Mike
I sure as fuck don't. You know, he throws the shit at me and then we talk about it.

01:03:22.62
Austin
Yeah.

01:03:25.24
Mike
I don't know what it's going to be. Now I do. See, you fucking blew it for next week, Bill. ah I won't.

01:03:29.75
Bill
you will you will You won't remember... When I bring this stuff up next week, when I swear to God, when I bring...

01:03:32.87
Mike
I'll remember. I'll remember Kenny Rogers. I will remember that.

01:03:36.41
Austin
yeah

01:03:36.41
Bill
i um You know what? i' um I should write that down because I don't think you will. Because the thing of it is...

01:03:41.46
Mike
Only because I'll remember Will Sasso's impersonation on Mad TV.

01:03:46.33
Austin
Yeah.

01:03:46.64
Mike
Swilling bottle of Jack Daniels and it it sounds nothing like Kenny Rogers, but it was fucking hilarious.

01:03:46.74
Bill
ah

01:03:53.05
Bill
Okay. Well now you put it in full context. So of course I'll give that one to you. But so in, in that came up, that came up really early.

01:03:56.60
Mike
That's

01:03:59.25
Bill
You know, I said, do you want, I'm like, do you want a copy of the things we're going to talk about?

01:03:59.67
Mike
how my brain works.

01:04:03.54
Bill
He's like, fuck no. Why Mike?

01:04:05.27
Mike
Because it'll give me time to think up a lie.

01:04:08.28
Austin
Yeah. yeah

01:04:09.66
Bill
You know, it it was, it was, it was so fucking funny.

01:04:10.34
Mike
know myself.

01:04:12.77
Bill
So in a lot of times, like I said, we, we write these things down and it's, it's a matter of, um, you know, just something that crosses my mind in two weeks ago. I think it was, I read this thing and I'm like, I literally, I read through this thing and I out loud on here.

01:04:26.74
Bill
I hadn't read it since I wrote it down. I'm like, I have no idea why I wrote this down. And then I remembered the story. So I i wrote down this note as far as like, again, to, to hook my brain into the story.

01:04:32.17
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:04:36.74
Bill
I didn't even fucking remember.

01:04:38.52
Mike
No, no.

01:04:39.77
Bill
but But the thing with it Austin, I mean, in what what we found, and there's a lot of people out there. I listen to um two specific podcasts, sobriety podcasts on a weekly basis. And we talk about them on here quite a bit.

01:04:50.48
Bill
um Sober Friends podcast. We had Matt, one of the hosts on here a few years ago.

01:04:52.64
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:04:54.84
Bill
um Good dude. And they run a good, solid podcast. And it's just, they're structured to an extent, but not. They started to get more open, you know, over the over the years. They've opened up their, they they're a little bit more loose.

01:05:06.79
Bill
They're not as structured as they used to be, but still they are. Um, and then, um, do you know, Brad sober friends or I'm sorry, sober motivation podcast, Austin?

01:05:15.64
Austin
I don't, but so you guys don't know this, but there's a ah ah site called sobrietytalk.com, which I think, which I know that you guys are on because I've i've had had you guys pinned up there.

01:05:24.01
Mike
Hmm.

01:05:26.20
Austin
So i was I was laying my head down one night a few weeks back and I thought, how would I get in front of people?

01:05:26.49
Bill
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

01:05:31.35
Austin
And it was this. And so I created this. And this has turned me on to more recovery shit, ah recovery media than anything else.

01:05:38.58
Bill
Okay.

01:05:38.53
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:05:40.42
Austin
And so I've gotten to know these names, even if I haven't had had a chance to listen to them yet.

01:05:44.54
Bill
Okay. Yeah. And, uh, and I got, I got your emails and I ended up, um, you know, obviously, I don't know. I, I popped in there, signed up for something. I didn't like complete a profile or do anything like that. Cause I was like, when I looked it, I'm like, ah, fuck, that's going to take me like five, 10 minutes.

01:05:57.66
Bill
I'm like, I didn't have it, but I'm like, it's a we're going to have this dude on.

01:05:57.67
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:06:01.38
Bill
I'm like, ah you know, I want to, I want to be able to obviously talk about, or, you know, do that.

01:06:03.48
Austin
No, no, you're you're actually solid. I mean, you're you're you're pretty filled out. All of your episodes are in there. You're you're featured on the top.

01:06:08.50
Bill
Oh, really? Okay.

01:06:09.68
Austin
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're in there.

01:06:10.65
Bill
Oh, okay, cool.

01:06:11.00
Mike
Wow. Okay.

01:06:11.93
Bill
And then, then the other thing I just, the other little side note that I thought about.

01:06:13.75
Austin
ah

01:06:15.81
Bill
So you, um, your book was reviewed by the sober curator a month or so ago, if I'm not mistaken.

01:06:19.26
Austin
It was. Yeah, Elise.

01:06:21.01
Bill
Okay. So, and you know that we're affiliated with them, right?

01:06:24.06
Austin
I don't know that you're affiliated with him. No.

01:06:25.75
Bill
Okay, we are.

01:06:25.88
Mike
Yeah.

01:06:26.55
Bill
So um the the short story behind that, and that we don't even have to go through it, um we've been affiliated with them now for, it's been three years now, when I was at the monthly meeting, Mike, ah a couple of weeks ago, then it was ah it was our three-year anniversary of being affiliated with them.

01:06:27.29
Austin
Cool.

01:06:38.68
Mike
Wow.

01:06:39.51
Bill
Yeah, can you believe it?

01:06:40.60
Mike
now

01:06:41.02
Austin
That's awesome.

01:06:41.78
Bill
So, um yeah, as soon as I saw that, and it was in one of the monthly meetings I saw that, I said, by the way, I said, we've we've got the guy scheduled. So this episode is going to end up being a companion piece to the what Elise already did.

01:06:54.14
Bill
So you're your're your book in this episode or is going to get another spike probably in the next two to three weeks, whenever they whenever they get it up there.

01:06:55.27
Austin
that's awesome.

01:07:02.66
Bill
But I'll i'll turn in the episode with ah just a brief description, blah, blah, blah, like like we do. And then um so again, they they'll tie it to your book. And then so you'll get another, again, another wave of of promotion on that.

01:07:13.95
Austin
Well, make sure the name of this is something like smoking balls or like, you know, some just be sure to put something.

01:07:18.23
Mike
ah Smoke will be involved.

01:07:21.05
Austin
Yeah, really embarrassing in the title.

01:07:21.07
Mike
Yes.

01:07:23.45
Austin
That would be that's awesome.

01:07:23.74
Mike
Absolutely.

01:07:24.73
Bill
Well, and here's the thing.

01:07:25.03
Austin
Yeah,

01:07:26.81
Bill
So in well um I'll just tell the story how we met Elise. It's very, very brief, but this will give you an idea. you Obviously, you've already talked to her She's a cool shit. She's a little bit off the wall, but in the best way possible.

01:07:35.61
Austin
yeah. yeah

01:07:38.04
Bill
So there was a, and this was our first year, was Father's Day the first year. There's this this article on Instagram, because I'm just getting into social media at that point. I'm up getting all these sobriety things. you know We're trying to, again, kind of lay of the land about who's what and all these different things.

01:07:52.95
Bill
So I see this article come out by this sober curator, which I had never heard of, and it said, you know, the the list, you know, for Father's Day, here's a list of the top, whatever it was, 10, 15, or whatever, male-led or male, you know, obviously, led podcast or, you know, whatever it is, podcast.

01:08:12.02
Bill
And, um, you know here's a list for father's day top 15, whatever it was I'm looking through. And of course we're not on there, you know? And I'm like, well, what the fuck? Not only do we have one guy, we got fucking two of us on here.

01:08:23.38
Bill
So I, I created this post on, on Instagram and, just being kind of a, kind of a dick, but in a fun way. So I was being a fun dick. And, and I just like, I'm like, okay. Cause I'm like all of our, all of our followers, anyone follows us, anyone listens to our podcast. I'm like, whose leg do we have to hump to get on this list? You know? And I took a, I took the screenshot of the, the sober curator and the article I linked the whole, you know, i like do this and do that. I'm like, everyone contact the sober curator and television feature us. Yeah.

01:08:53.59
Bill
So I get this, I get this fucking email or this message from Elise. I didn't even know, I didn't know it was a man or woman. I have no idea. There wasn't even a name on there. It's just like, Hey, you know, let's blah, blah, blah. Let's talk type of thing. Got your, you know, laughed about it. And then she ended up doing this really nice piece on us on the website.

01:09:11.93
Bill
And she told the story and then she reviewed our podcast and then she asked us to be sober curators and, you know, the rest is kind of history, but that's how we met her.

01:09:18.68
Austin
Man.

01:09:19.29
Bill
Just all I was doing was fucking with her. I'm like, okay, come out and play, you know? if Yeah.

01:09:23.44
Austin
I love that.

01:09:24.45
Bill
If we're we're not on your list, how of fuck do we get it? What do we got to do, man? You know?

01:09:27.90
Austin
Oh, that's so good. So, good you know, great people over there. Or Elise Elise. Elise is the one that I've met. I'm sure they're all wonderful, but she was super, super kind back and forth the whole thing.

01:09:37.53
Bill
Well, and here's the thing with the, with the sober curator and, you know, ah like, like you said, you know, like if you want to write a book, don't plan on making any money. If you want to run a a website like that, don't plan on making any money.

01:09:45.31
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:09:48.29
Bill
She's just starting to, after, think it's four or five years now that it's been up. Cause I think it was 2021, it's been around for a while, but she's just starting to go after advertisers and trying to get some sort of just, all she wants to do is, you know, just cover the cost of, you know, keeping the site up type of thing. And then maybe try to monetize it. But, you know, they put out a lot of really, really good content and we say it every time. So it's the sober curator.com. If anyone's listening and you don't know what it is, it's not, I'm not saying it's not for newly sober people, but it's probably more geared towards at probably 80%, 70% Right, Mike? Wouldn't you think?

01:10:27.35
Mike
Yeah.

01:10:28.12
Bill
Okay.

01:10:28.25
Mike
Oh, yeah.

01:10:28.80
Bill
there's There's a lot of that.

01:10:29.43
Austin
Wow.

01:10:30.08
Bill
It's more it's probably more female-driven and a lot of pop culture and that sort of thing, which is perfectly fine. There's probably 70%, 80% of it that Mike and I would never spend any time on it, but a ton of books, a ton of TV show reviews, a ton of movie reviews that could appeal to anyone.

01:10:46.47
Bill
But on top of that, it's just got a very fun opportunities and things to read and connections to make for anyone who's living a sober life. It's a great resource. you know And the other thing too is that you know you might end up, again, you know meeting somebody like Austin, you know running into you know somebody else's book. It's all recovery-based, all recovery-based. So if nobody's listened to it or I'm sorry, not listened to it, but visited it, definitely get over there and you know check that out.

01:11:14.10
Bill
So back to the podcast thing though, Austin. So you just kind of out of whim, figure get people in. So, so your format basically is just get somebody on. Do you ever do solo episodes or is it just guests?

01:11:25.59
Austin
So I haven't yet. i used to do solo episodes in the the digital asset space for for a while, actually. So I could do a solo episode, but I riff like like you guys, right?

01:11:37.01
Austin
I i need a counterpart to fuck with.

01:11:37.14
Bill
Right.

01:11:40.37
Austin
You know, and to and to give it back to me, because that's where that's where he if I'm living in my head and I'm just I'm just spitting you what's coming out of my own brain, you know, you might get something decent.

01:11:40.44
Bill
Right. Yeah.

01:11:52.85
Austin
But more often than not, we'll get to the end of it and I'll listen to it. I'll go. That was garbage. Like that was just crap. But if i if I have somebody else there, um that that there's just so much more to it.

01:12:00.98
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:12:03.86
Austin
There's, you know, and inevitably what has happened on, ah you know, I've only done two of the the co-host episodes so far. But the last one that I did, and I've done nine, yeah, nine interviews.

01:12:10.87
Bill
Oh, Right.

01:12:15.51
Austin
The last one that I did, we ended up getting into like basically it was like a 10 step on Facebook. on the air and I had to kind of let down my walls for a minute and get into something that was really jamming me up as it was happening in real time.

01:12:24.89
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:12:28.02
Austin
And, uh, and it was cool. It was cool, man. You know, I enjoyed it.

01:12:33.24
Bill
Yeah. You know, and the the thing that is the only reason I asked about, and there's, again, you know, there are, you know, like sober, sober motivation. Brad's done. i think he's probably done. He's been around a little bit longer than, than we have. And I think he does more episodes per week. i don't know, maybe, maybe not, but I think he's probably in the 270 to 280. He's closer to 300 episodes than, than we are. We're at 230. This is 231.

01:12:55.92
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:12:57.18
Bill
But in Sober Friends has got right around the same as us, maybe a little bit less, but they've been around longer than us. but the But the same deal. So Sober Friends is usually Matt and Steve. And Brad always has ah a guest on there. Every once in a while, he'll do like a short 15-minute spot on his own. And the only time that I did a solo episode, the first episode, when I told my story, that was just me. And then I've done a couple of short things when we when an episode wouldn't wouldn't air. I did up you know a quick you know three or four minute thing explaining why our episode, you know, our fucking software messed up and we couldn't put an episode up that week. But I have no desire. And I know Mike doesn't, you know, to sit on here and just fucking talk.

01:13:40.54
Bill
Right. I mean, without somebody else.

01:13:42.24
Mike
Right. No, absolutely not. Well, yeah, that would, that would be insane. You know, I do enough of that in the truck by myself.

01:13:45.78
Bill
Right?

01:13:46.08
Austin
Yeah.

01:13:46.06
Bill
Yeah.

01:13:51.19
Bill
Yeah, it's just, ah I don't know. It just, it's, a and I have nothing against, there's solo episodes I've listened to from a lot of people that, um you know, they're great topics and I love them. I just don't want to do it, you know, and I, again, I know, I know Mike doesn't. So um I don't know what, what else with the, whether it's the book, the podcast, um whatever else you're doing, Austin, what else is on your mind? What else you want to, you know, kind of get out to people? And, you know, I mean, it's your time.

01:14:16.41
Austin
You know, man, I'm just up honestly, aside from all of that shit, like I'm just a ah dude in sobriety. And i I love I love talking about sobriety. It fires me up. And I don't mean that in any sort of like weird way.

01:14:28.86
Austin
But for anyone that's listening, that's sober, you probably do, too, if you're anything like me.

01:14:33.15
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:14:33.42
Austin
And so, you know, I just I've kind of been on the grind lately of of podcasts.

01:14:33.35
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:14:39.18
Austin
It started out. as, you know, okay, this is how you get a book out. Just block out the next five years of your life. That's basically what you're gonna do. ah But in the midst of it, you know, like I, dude, I did one today with a dude that was like a ah ah psychic medium and like, you know,

01:14:57.11
Austin
any ah impressions on that aside, it was like just some wild spiritual shit. You know, it was cool.

01:15:02.26
Bill
Right.

01:15:02.75
Austin
And I'm getting to meet people that I never, ever would have met otherwise. And isn't that kind of the way that it works, right? Is, is just one day leads into the next and it's like, well, my, my head just rolled off my shoulders onto the floor about how cool that shit was, you know?

01:15:09.78
Mike
Absolutely.

01:15:16.15
Bill
and Right.

01:15:17.05
Austin
So that's kind of what's propelling me forward at the moment is the connections I get to make with other people. Um, and yeah, You know, I have real businesses that, you know, are my non-sobriety based, you know, things that I do, but that's not why, you know, that's not why I do any of this.

01:15:31.69
Austin
I'm luckily, you know, with with so many kids, i'm I'm fortunate to kind of be in a position where I can kind of go on this podcast tour and and and fuck around all day long.

01:15:39.41
Bill
Right.

01:15:39.48
Mike
Right.

01:15:41.82
Austin
And it's great.

01:15:43.10
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:15:43.83
Bill
Well, you know, the thing that is, is that when, you know, same type, same type of thing, you know, when, when we started, you know, doing all these things and um we had, well, first of all, we couldn't, we couldn't get a guest on until we had a decent studio.

01:15:55.52
Bill
So we, we tested out with a couple of family members to begin with, with Riverside. And then um we started chasing down people to come on with us. and it's been, with the exception of ah ah a handful of friends that we've asked to be on here, we get approached every once in a while kind of in waves.

01:16:10.57
Bill
Like you approached us, Austin, a couple of months ago, but I think that we were we were filled up for almost a month and a half, I think, or two months, which was odd-ish because we, but it happens, you know, depending, usually's usually one or two times a year when, I don't know, whatever happens, we get this flood of requests, you know.

01:16:16.82
Mike
Yeah.

01:16:28.02
Austin
Sure.

01:16:28.02
Bill
And you were one of them. And I remember, and I mean, first of all, I am the one that gets the emails that I always forward it to Mike. Usually don't give an opinion, except that if it's really out of the fucking ordinary.

01:16:35.00
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:16:39.00
Bill
I'm just like, you know, I'm getting a weird vibe about this or this guy seems really fucking cool or this person seems I'm not sure. Give me your opinion type of thing. You know, but I know whatever it was, I think Mike's comment that yours, Austin, was, well, at least he gave us a compliment on something.

01:16:53.64
Bill
You complimented us on something.

01:16:55.07
Mike
Right.

01:16:55.36
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:16:55.49
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:16:55.77
Bill
and And Mike's like, well, he likes the way we do this thing. He goes, let's he goes what ah let's just have a mod.

01:17:00.31
Mike
right

01:17:01.29
Bill
Let's see.

01:17:01.37
Austin
yeah

01:17:02.36
Bill
But it it wasn't just that. But I mean, on top of the fact, we we get approached by a lot of authors. you know So that's number one, which is which is cool, kind of interesting, but also cool. Because we've been able to meet a lot of people that way.

01:17:11.13
Mike
who

01:17:13.81
Bill
Like you said, Austin, the connections that we get. But then every once in a while, I just got an email today, Mike, today or yesterday, and maybe the guy will get back to us.

01:17:20.21
Mike
Right.

01:17:22.14
Bill
But, you know, it's just like, hey, I'm this guy. I've been sober for this long. I'd love to get out and tell my story. Let me know. kind of like, hey love you. And I just wrote back and I'm like, OK, great.

01:17:30.89
Austin
Mm-hmm

01:17:35.06
Bill
You know, it sounds very interesting, but tell me more.

01:17:35.02
Mike
Yeah.

01:17:39.64
Bill
You know, I.

01:17:40.44
Mike
right

01:17:41.08
Bill
what what what about what do you want to talk about is your what is your story about you know it's just some guy wants to come on and tell a story i mean depending on what it is we've had guys just come on ladies just come on and tell their story but do more than i don't give a fuck if you've been sober for 40 years versus four you know i know mike doesn't care either um what substance do you have are we going to be fucking bored you know are we gonna to draw this conversation out we want to talk for you know we're going to talk for a certain amount of time The only time I've done that, we've had a couple of shorter episodes every once in a while, you know, where somebody is just they they've been a little bit wishy washy.

01:17:50.66
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:18:02.97
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:18:14.25
Bill
And I think that you can feel it. They're going to be more comfortable with a shorter episode. so it's kind of like, well don't worry about it You don't to worry about stuff to talk about. You can come on for the first half. We'll do the other half ourselves.

01:18:24.51
Bill
And couple of people have been, oh, thank you. That works perfectly for me. Because I think people are nervous about, you know, being on too long.

01:18:30.47
Mike
Yeah.

01:18:30.62
Bill
And I don't understand what that is.

01:18:30.79
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:18:32.26
Bill
But um but my point is, is that um at this point, thankfully, we've been able to, every once in a while, it's just, it's been, i don't want to say better.

01:18:42.40
Bill
Sometimes it seems like our episodes might be more received or better received. Sometimes if it's us versus a guest, it has nothing to do with the guest. But I think that depends on who the guest is versus what they're trying to peddle, you know, and um what are our core base is listening at.

01:18:59.68
Bill
But we we try to be picky, right, Mike, to make sure it fits everyone.

01:19:03.80
Mike
A little bit.

01:19:05.38
Bill
Yeah, you know, but quite a few.

01:19:05.62
Mike
Yeah, we've definitely said no to people.

01:19:08.86
Austin
Well, you guys have an energy and a dynamic that if it, you know, if it gets jacked up, it's a, it's an off episode. I think people, at least me, when I tune into you guys, I know what we're getting.

01:19:16.92
Mike
Yeah.

01:19:19.62
Austin
I know what your intro is, man. you I think you say fuck in the first three seconds of it.

01:19:23.08
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:19:23.78
Austin
Right. And so it's like, we know what we're getting with you guys.

01:19:24.47
Bill
Yeah, probably.

01:19:26.94
Austin
And if that, you know, if that skews, you know, it may not be on brand.

01:19:27.06
Mike
a hare

01:19:30.34
Mike
Yeah, right.

01:19:31.13
Bill
Right.

01:19:31.43
Mike
Exactly. Right. Well, I mean, you know, ah we had a ah ah priest on a couple of years ago, right?

01:19:35.26
Bill
hey

01:19:38.36
Austin
Nice.

01:19:38.33
Bill
ah

01:19:38.46
Mike
And, andd and yeah, and and we're going through the episode and we were being respectful.

01:19:39.48
Bill
So great. Mm

01:19:43.73
Mike
It was a great episode, great conversation.

01:19:45.64
Bill
hmm.

01:19:46.21
Mike
The guy had killer smiriety, all that good stuff.

01:19:46.30
Bill
Yeah.

01:19:49.61
Mike
And we're getting towards the end and he's like, you know, I'm kind of disappointed in you guys. You didn't say fuck.

01:19:55.64
Austin
Yeah.

01:19:56.12
Bill
hey

01:19:56.23
Mike
Yeah. so we spent the last 10 minutes or so just swearing like sailors, all three of us.

01:20:02.42
Austin
Yeah.

01:20:03.04
Mike
It was beautiful.

01:20:03.51
Bill
Right.

01:20:05.08
Austin
Yeah.

01:20:05.34
Bill
Yeah, that was that was Father Bill. And I'm going to look at, we have brought that up a couple of times over the last number of weeks.

01:20:10.52
Mike
Yeah.

01:20:12.61
Bill
And I just want to see if episode one...

01:20:14.58
Mike
Yeah.

01:20:17.14
Bill
Okay, so if anyone is is interested, it's episode 174. And surprisingly enough, his his last name is starts with don't remember. he He says it openly. But um it's father Father Bill, Father Bill W.

01:20:26.36
Mike
Yeah.

01:20:29.54
Bill
And it's titled ah Three-Way Prayer.

01:20:33.38
Mike
Three ways, something, I forget.

01:20:34.49
Bill
What did you say? three No, Two-Way Prayer and Three...

01:20:35.98
Mike
Uh-huh.

01:20:38.82
Bill
Oh, fuck it.

01:20:38.91
Mike
threeway something i forget

01:20:40.12
Bill
yeah if Mike is Mike is the person that does all of our episode titles and our pictures.

01:20:44.05
Mike
aha

01:20:45.08
Bill
And I tell you what, every once in a while, I just say what he sends us over. I'm like, oh my God, it's fucking perfect. But yeah, seriously, anyone, if you want to listen to these two fucking knuckleheads, talk to a goddamn priest that's in his late seventies that has been sober, you know, since, you know, fucking dirt was around or was invented.

01:21:01.63
Mike
Right. His last drink was with Jesus.

01:21:02.54
Bill
Um, and, yeah Yeah, Jesus turned water into wine for his last drink. ha But it was it was a great fucking episode, you know? So every once in a while we get surprised. But then we had another guy. There was only been one person. Because you've heard our ending, right, Austin? You've heard the ending in the episode?

01:21:22.07
Austin
I think I have. Maybe I haven't.

01:21:23.06
Bill
Hey, well...

01:21:23.39
Austin
I don't want to lie to you guys.

01:21:23.86
Mike
Well, you'll get to hear to it soon.

01:21:24.27
Austin
i don't know that I have. All right, here we go.

01:21:25.72
Bill
Yeah, you're going to hear it soon. But um we I think we've only had, we had one guy that we know for sure that we think we're offended by it. he was He was kind of a guy that leaned in that more religious religious standpoint.

01:21:32.24
Mike
Yep.

01:21:36.52
Bill
But he was really cool and kind of laid back throughout the thing. And, um you know, the the thing about is that's the other part, too, is that we, I used to really um ask people, have you listened to us?

01:21:47.08
Bill
Did you whatever? And finally, I'm like, micro Mike and I are both like, well, fuck them. If they don't know what they're getting into, that's their fucking problem. That's it.

01:21:55.93
Austin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:21:56.44
Bill
And if they don't like it, then you know fine. That's fine. if youre If you don't want to talk to us and you get offended by it, then we'll cut the episode off. You can go on your own fucking merry way and we'll start with we'll start another episode. Don't give a fuck. you know so I don't know. this This whole thing has been a lot of fun. But to your point, back to to begin with, this this has been...

01:22:14.84
Bill
um and and continues to be because I don't in a normal everyday week, I don't go to meetings. i'll I do when I go to Cleveland and when I go to Cleveland, anytime I'm out there, i it's not like I demand it.

01:22:27.40
Bill
We end up going to a meeting anyhow, but I wouldn't think of going to Cleveland unless it was something out of the ordinary and not going to a meeting because that's that's where we both got sober.

01:22:34.77
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:22:36.76
Bill
Mike is still there. We get to see friends nine times out of 10, get to see people that I haven't seen in a long time. And It's just, it's like, that's like for me, that's my, that's my sobriety home, you know, going back there for that. And I want to go to a meeting, and hang out with those dudes, you know?

01:22:51.89
Austin
yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will tell you, you know, so having, again, five kids at home and I had to kind of come to an ah adjustment as to what that was going to look like.

01:22:58.68
Bill
Right.

01:22:59.77
Austin
But I and it was a very strong suggestion and and it was one that I took was to I needed to start putting my my home life on the same plane that I i would put my 12 step recovery life, which is of service.

01:23:11.39
Bill
Right.

01:23:12.14
Austin
And but when I get to a meeting, that's almost like the place that I get rejuvenated. not from a mental necessarily standpoint or or even a sobriety standpoint, but it's like, all right, I'm away from the madness and and I can speak that language that is that language of the heart, that that language is kind of different than I'm getting from a three-year-old, you know?

01:23:32.10
Austin
And so um I love it.

01:23:33.18
Bill
um right

01:23:33.88
Mike
Hopefully.

01:23:34.58
Austin
Yeah, I love it.

01:23:34.58
Bill
Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, hopefully.

01:23:35.70
Austin
I love it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, maybe not. I don't know. My three-year-old, I think he's ah an ISIS member in training some days.

01:23:38.50
Mike
Nice.

01:23:42.04
Mike
nice

01:23:42.22
Austin
He's kind of a little terrorist, but he's ah he's awesome.

01:23:46.74
Bill
So on on a daily basis, I mean, do you have, or I guess, let let me ask you this. So what is your, and I'm not looking for you to to name off, you know, um A to Z exact list of what you do every day.

01:23:51.30
Austin
Sure.

01:23:57.10
Bill
But so coming from a 12-step recovery background, we were taught certain things. And to this day, Mike and I still do certain things that we did from literally day fucking one when we were in the the Keating Center.

01:24:10.25
Bill
So when when you wake up in the morning versus how you run your day, there are there certain things that you do all every single day no matter what? Or how do you how do you do that?

01:24:20.31
Austin
Absolutely. And I will i got to honestly tell you, I fall short on occasion. um I had a sponsor a while back who who said this to me, and it really just stuck.

01:24:25.20
Bill
Right.

01:24:29.26
Austin
He said, if you're an alcoholic, like the book defines, I want you to pretend you got a bomb strapped to your back that's guaranteed to go off unless you do certain simple things every single day that'll add time to that bomb.

01:24:39.89
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:24:41.80
Austin
But if you ever stop, it's guaranteed to explode, right?

01:24:43.59
Mike
Right.

01:24:44.64
Bill
Right.

01:24:45.03
Austin
Like you were talking about earlier. And so, you know, the the morning prayer meditation, it's it's one of those kind of non-negotiables.

01:24:46.56
Mike
Yeah.

01:24:51.59
Austin
I know not everyone does it, but it's one of those, you know, in my life, it's one of those non-negotiables.

01:24:51.84
Mike
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:24:56.43
Austin
um At night, we do a nightly inventory.

01:24:56.46
Mike
No.

01:24:59.10
Austin
I share it with my sponsor and and the guys that I sponsor, a whole group of guys throughout the day.

01:25:00.03
Bill
Right.

01:25:04.78
Austin
Here's really the big one. And this is the one where I know if I'm on the beam or way the fuck off the beam. if you know, and generally this happens in my own home, cause I don't know, are you guys married? Either guys married?

01:25:17.78
Austin
Okay. My wife is legally required to point out my defects of character whenever they are, arrive it is a, it's on paper.

01:25:21.90
Mike
ha.

01:25:25.18
Austin
It's a legal requirement. And, uh, and God bless her for that.

01:25:26.62
Bill
a

01:25:26.88
Mike
Right. Right.

01:25:28.62
Austin
And so when I, you know, when I offend, I think this is something that a lot of the world really could use a good dose of is that

01:25:28.73
Mike
Right.

01:25:36.82
Austin
being honest where I've fallen short and making amends for that sort of thing, right?

01:25:40.66
Bill
yeah okay

01:25:40.74
Austin
Taking ah a personal inventory, a 10 step. And so, and then i I sponsor a lot of guys and that keeps me really, really in the game. And I have a detox commitment and, you know, my home group and different things, but, but that's kind of the, but there, but none of them are like, these are not like quantum mechanics or anything.

01:25:48.60
Mike
ah

01:25:59.91
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:26:00.19
Austin
They're all certain simple things that a monkey could do,

01:26:00.31
Bill
Right.

01:26:04.51
Mike
Mm hmm.

01:26:05.21
Bill
but right

01:26:05.27
Austin
But but my brain will convince me that I've got all sorts of other shit that's way more important.

01:26:10.48
Mike
Uh huh.

01:26:11.02
Austin
It happens all the time, man. It happens all the time.

01:26:12.38
Mike
Right. Yeah.

01:26:13.50
Bill
Right. Yeah. And I mean, you know, to it's almost the same. We don't do, we don't do a 10 step with other people, but we do one every night. um You know, we've got certain readings.

01:26:20.44
Mike
hmm.

01:26:21.96
Bill
I do three or I do four. Mike does three. You know, and a fourth, cause he can't put the fourth one down if he picks it up. And that's the other thing we tell a bike about adding something.

01:26:29.05
Mike
Right.

01:26:31.88
Bill
That's always make me laugh.

01:26:32.09
Mike
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Right. I won't start reading a fourth book because if I do, then I have to read a fourth book for the rest of my fucking life.

01:26:33.74
Bill
Yeah.

01:26:36.34
Bill
Yeah.

01:26:38.30
Austin
ah

01:26:39.42
Mike
Now, I rotate the third one.

01:26:39.70
Bill
yeah

01:26:41.74
Mike
I've always done that. But, yeah, there's two I absolutely read and then I rotate a third one. But if I add a fourth, I'm fucked. I got to read four.

01:26:48.89
Bill
Yeah.

01:26:49.62
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:26:49.62
Mike
You know, I cannot pull that Jenga piece out of the structure.

01:26:53.82
Bill
Right. Yeah.

01:26:54.01
Mike
Once it's in there, it's in there.

01:26:54.34
Bill
What's it, what's it's in there and, and we, And that was that was based on, and I remember the the lead that we listened to, the the guy, he was talking about this. And again, we were probably 30 days sober at the time.

01:27:05.12
Bill
We're sitting in this meeting at the at the Keating Center. And um this guy's talking about all these different things that he does. And he's given us, ah again, this laundry list of of how his day goes, whatever it was.

01:27:10.85
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:27:14.43
Bill
It doesn't even matter what the list was. But then he probably had a handful of years sober at the time. And what he said was, he goes, the thing that is, he goes, he goes, yeah I think, yeah I should probably put it as the problem.

01:27:25.45
Bill
He goes, the problem is, is that he goes, I don't know um if all those things are keeping me sober or just three of them, or if, if seven, or if he goes, I don't, he goes, I can't, he goes, the only thing I could do at this point, he goes, I can add, but I can't, I can't take away from.

01:27:25.43
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:27:30.99
Mike
Mm-hmm. Right.

01:27:33.55
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:27:39.88
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:27:40.21
Bill
from my program. I can't take away from my prayers. And the guy was dead serious, you know, and that's where it really stuck with us.

01:27:45.06
Mike
Yeah.

01:27:45.25
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:27:47.09
Bill
I i remember that. i don't know if that's where you were thinking the same thing, Mike, but whatever the deal was, that's been in our minds for a long time.

01:27:49.62
Mike
I don't know.

01:27:53.58
Bill
The only reason, honestly, and I don't know where either one of us came up with three at the time, the 24 hour book, that was just a given because we read that, you know, at the at the Keating Center.

01:28:01.53
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:28:02.54
Bill
And then Mike started yeah mike started reading God Grant Me.

01:28:02.90
Mike
Every day.

01:28:05.88
Bill
And then I got up on that a couple of years after that. And then the the third one is the one that he rotates out. I read to Keep It Simple. And then now I read Touchstones on top of that.

01:28:15.52
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:28:16.31
Bill
So the fourth book for me got added because I used to read a daily quote from a website. And don't remember what the name of the website is now. Cause then they stopped.

01:28:26.54
Bill
They used to, I used to get an email every morning with this, with this daily, either a daily quote or a daily reading very short. So that's where my fourth one was at that point. Then that went away. So then I, I added a book and same thing.

01:28:37.30
Bill
I can't put it down now, you know, but um yeah, it's just, Oh, go

01:28:38.97
Mike
Hmm. Hmm.

01:28:39.51
Austin
Yeah, i picked up I picked up this book.

01:28:39.43
Mike
Hmm.

01:28:43.22
Austin
It was suggested to me by a guy out in in Tulsa, I think is where he lives. But it's it's called Stumbling in the Right Direction.

01:28:47.78
Bill
Oh,

01:28:50.65
Austin
And it's it's by a guy named Don Major, who's since since passed away.

01:28:50.71
Bill
oh

01:28:54.09
Austin
he's ah He was a 12-step guy. And it it it almost takes all the books that you just mentioned and kind of distills it down into one book. It's remarkable. Nobody really knows about it, but it's a tremendous book.

01:29:02.13
Bill
Right.

01:29:03.85
Austin
Been part of my arsenal for for a number of years now.

01:29:07.19
Bill
Yeah. And you

01:29:07.51
Mike
Stumbling towards what now?

01:29:09.46
Austin
Stumbling in the Right Direction by Don M.

01:29:10.94
Mike
Ah, okay. Okay, cool.

01:29:14.63
Austin
Yeah.

01:29:14.62
Mike
I'm going to have to look that up to put in my third rotation for next year.

01:29:18.53
Austin
There you go. Menage a book.

01:29:21.78
Bill
Yeah, I'm actually writing that down too. Stumbling in the right direction. When I can't read my read my writing, i'll I'll ask Mike about it. but um

01:29:28.22
Mike
yeah

01:29:29.56
Bill
But yeah, I mean, the same thing. and the the The coolest part about this and then, um you know, I had the readings that I do every morning and I sit down and I look forward to it. and I look forward to that time and, you know, it doesn't matter.

01:29:40.23
Bill
I do all my readings on my phone because I started traveling years ago for work and just put everything on my phone. Mike mike has a paper book still, but I have everything on my phone so I can take it with me.

01:29:50.95
Bill
But I love that time in the morning because it's, you know, just it's my time, you know, and I do that in a short set of prayers and and I'm done. And the whole thing takes me like 20 minutes, you know, and that's that's reading four books, four meditation books, short, but still four books.

01:30:02.28
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:30:06.73
Bill
um I look at my sobriety counter every day. So that's kind of a fifth thing that I do. And then I do a short set of prayers and I'm done. And I had this and I said this, ah I probably told this story seven times, 10 times, 70 times, doesn't matter.

01:30:18.65
Bill
There was a guy that went through the Keating Center, and same as we did. The only thing that I asked him, I sponsored him for a little bit. I'm like, you just read the 24-hour book every day. And every time we got together, he's like, oh, I'm running late for work and I handle whatever.

01:30:32.16
Bill
And the 24-hour book takes... three minutes. You know, I said, you don't even really have to comprehend it.

01:30:36.31
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:30:38.70
Bill
I said, if you read it enough, you're going to start slowing down. So you do comprehend it. But I said, just go through the fucking motion and do it. And he wouldn't do it. You know? And I'm like, it's, you know what?

01:30:46.41
Austin
Wow.

01:30:47.65
Bill
You and you understand that Austin. It's just a matter of, it doesn't take the action as Mike always says, you know, but okay.

01:30:49.37
Austin
Yeah.

01:30:52.15
Mike
hu

01:30:53.13
Bill
So, so you don't have three minutes of your day. And for me to say that that my, my problem, not my problem now, my thing now is that I need to, I need to start or set my, whatever time I got to get up has to account for a lot of things now in the morning.

01:30:56.56
Austin
Mm-hmm.

01:31:07.99
Bill
It's normal shit, you know, waking up, grumbling about how tired I am, my back hurts and all this stupid shit. Drinking some coffee, taking the shower, doing that. That's part of it. That's got to happen. Okay. But now there's readings I got to do.

01:31:20.06
Bill
I run through Facebook real quick. No big deal, but I got to, I do now. I've got a commitment with this podcast and whatever I get on Instagram every morning. and I post a couple of things. That's a commitment that I made, you know, so whatever that timeframe takes, I got to build that into my day.

01:31:30.11
Austin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:31:35.18
Bill
And I, and I've never missed, I've never missed a reading and I've never missed a thing with, you know, with anything I have to do with this, with this podcast.

01:31:37.74
Mike
Mm-hmm.

01:31:42.10
Bill
Now I've lightened up on the weekends because I'm out trying to enjoy whatever this life is that I have, you know, but. All of this shit is just everything that we were taught. Same thing you were talking about, you know, just things that you do on a daily basis that, that we need to do.

01:31:56.55
Bill
You know, it's, I like the time bomb, you know, analogy and it's true, you know, there's something going on.

01:31:59.16
Mike
hu

01:32:01.93
Bill
And, uh, the, the, the, the feet on the edge, Mike, tell them the story about the feet on the edge, the,

01:32:06.26
Mike
Oh, yeah, that we were at a retreat and this young woman gave us this great story, right? She's like, I wake up every morning and I'm standing at the edge of a cliff and I spend my entire day backing away from the edge of that cliff. I do all the good things I have to do, right? And I, you know, by the end of the day, that cliff's pretty far off in the distance, you know?

01:32:28.73
Mike
I go to sleep and, you know, if the day was good and I spent the day doing things. Wake up the next morning. I'm standing at the edge of the cliff again. Right. And that is perfect.

01:32:38.49
Bill
Yeah.

01:32:40.18
Mike
Perfect.

01:32:40.44
Austin
Yeah.

01:32:40.58
Mike
We love that, man.

01:32:40.77
Austin
Yeah. Yeah.

01:32:41.70
Mike
You know, and that's the way it is. Every day I wake up on the edge of that cliff and I got to start backing away from it every day. Because if I don't, I'm going to wake up at the edge of the cliff again.

01:32:52.82
Mike
And before I know it, I'm going wake up and going be over the fucking cliff.

01:32:56.39
Bill
Right.

01:32:56.57
Austin
yeah yeah

01:32:57.91
Bill
Yeah. And it's just ah some of these, some of these simple lessons that she was, I don't think she was more a couple years sober, maybe a year, if that, you know, um you know, and that's the thing that I, we, we talk to people sometimes and I,

01:33:03.00
Mike
Nah. Right. Yeah.

01:33:07.58
Mike
And I'm sure she stole it from somebody else and we stole it from her and hopefully someone will steal it from us.

01:33:10.10
Bill
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. and And it's, it's my opinion that, cause I mean, both Mike and I were, you know, little over 16 years each, um, which is, you know, I, we're happy and proud and we've worked for every day and all that stuff.

01:33:23.14
Bill
But when I talk to people that are, you know, one, two, and three years sober, once you get past that year, Mark and gets, get all that, at least some of that initial shit out of your head. Um, ahead you had to have your head pop out of your ass, right?

01:33:33.61
Bill
Yeah. Um, you know that, but that, that's, you know, that second and third year, that's, those are the beautiful years.

01:33:34.09
Austin
Yeah.

01:33:34.07
Mike
Right.

01:33:39.83
Bill
Those are when people are usually really just digging in, you know, just as you said before us, just fucking out there grinding. I love listening to those people, you know, because it, it inspires me a little bit to think that, well, you piece of shit, you know, all you do is do a little reading, you do a fucking podcast.

01:33:55.98
Bill
Look at this fucking dude is out there doing, you know? And I, it doesn't make me do anything more, but I get inspired for a minute. You know, it reminds me of, of at least the things that I'm doing. I can't, I can't let that shit go away.

01:34:06.48
Bill
You know? So there's always that there's, yeah, there's no, no bad examples, like we say, but man, there's a lot of really, really good examples out there.

01:34:08.12
Austin
Certain simple things. That's it.

01:34:13.98
Bill
So. um

01:34:14.55
Mike
and the

01:34:15.67
Bill
All right. So ah last thing, last thing, Austin, anything that we missed, do you want to mention the book again, mention your podcast again? um Obviously I'll put a link to your website in here because a website I think catches everything, but just do a quick recap of everything there, that part.

01:34:23.00
Austin
sure

01:34:29.21
Austin
Happy to guys. Yeah. So again, the book is named one last hit. My name is Austin ramp. R-A-M-P-T. Get it anywhere. Books are sold. One last hit book.com. Don't be a stranger. I'd love to love to chat with you if you read it.

01:34:42.87
Mike
cool

01:34:42.98
Bill
Cool.

01:34:43.96
Austin
Yeah.

01:34:44.06
Bill
All right. So Austin, you and I are going to quiet down for a couple of minutes here. Mike's going run us out of here, but don't, don't hang up yet. We're going to chit chat for a second and then we'll, we'll wrap up after Mike's done, but Mike, it is your turn.

01:34:55.03
Mike
All right. Well, thank you everyone for listening to yet another episode of Sober Not Mature. Thank you, Austin, for coming and hanging out with us. We really appreciated it. And go check out his book, kids.

01:35:07.86
Mike
And 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 that you did it. Now, from the bottom of my heart to the depths of my soul, from the beginning of time until the ends of the earth,

01:35:25.34
Mike
always and eternally 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 the sign on it saying you cannot fuck off past here climb over that gate dream the impossible dream and keep fucking off forever

01:35:47.74
Bill
okay And that, Austin, is our wrap-up.

01:35:53.27
Austin
Incredible.

01:35:53.40
Bill
ah

01:35:53.95
Austin
I bet the priests love that.

01:35:54.33
Bill
Yeah, it's... You know what? he Father Bill did. he He laughed his fucking ass off. on it There's only been the one the one guy that we we think had a problem with it, but you know what? Fuck him.

01:36:04.57
Bill
He should have known what he...

01:36:05.14
Austin
Yeah.

01:36:05.57
Mike
Rule 62, motherfucker.

01:36:06.14
Austin
ah

01:36:06.42
Bill
Seriously, he you know i we have...

01:36:06.39
Mike
love you too.

01:36:09.85
Austin
That's it, man.

01:36:10.52
Bill
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. But if you listen to a podcast and you get caught up in something that you don't expect, then again, it's your own fucking stupidity. That's my opinion. But I don't know. On this one, i don't think I don't think I'm wrong.

01:36:22.04
Bill
But anyhow, Austin, thank you very, very much for coming on.

01:36:24.34
Mike
and through

01:36:25.62
Austin
Hell yeah, guys.

01:36:25.72
Bill
Great conversation. um Obviously, don't don't hang up.

01:36:27.62
Austin
Dude.

01:36:28.73
Bill
Stick with us for a minute once we would we're done recording. Mike, obviously, I love you, brother.

01:36:33.40
Mike
um love you too

01:36:34.49
Bill
I believe we'll talk soon.

01:36:35.80
Mike
We shall.

01:36:37.55
Bill
Bye.

01:36:38.84
Mike
by