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They are peak craftsman tools when craftsmen was a peak brand. It's just that they feel heavy. They're beautiful, they glisten. They've got a gunmetal finish. They lock into place perfectly. And I will talk myself out of using that tool and try and use a butter knife instead to unscrew something.
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Welcome to the sober friends podcast. I'm Matt J. Steve's over there. And if you've ever wondered whether life really can get better without alcohol, well, you're in the right place whether you need a recovery, have some time sober or you're supporting someone you love, we're glad you're here. And this is a podcast about sobriety, emotional growth and learning how to navigate life without having to drink over it. Steve, how's life without having to drink
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Life's great, Matt, without having to drink over it.
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Life is life so it still throws challenges my way
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over?
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in your way
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Yep.
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and everybody else's way.
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But the fact that we don't have to drink over it just makes it so much easier to navigate. And yeah, it's a beautiful life.
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Living a sober life after the kind of drinking that I did and the things I sort of gave up while I was drinking. Yeah, I just can't imagine. I can't imagine ever wanting to go back to that, but I know that being that I'm an alcoholic, I'm always susceptible to that.
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I
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Yep.
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went over to a five year old's birthday party where there was plenty of booze it is such a wonderful feeling that I don't need that
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and
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and it feels more like it would be more of a bother for me to drink. Having said that, getting through life with the stuff that comes along the way, especially when it's like the pain is unbearable, how do I get through this is really difficult.
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As a little bit of an aside, this is the, you know, this two-shot pass type thing. I have really been freaking out over my son going to college and the tuition and all of that stuff.
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And I stumbled upon a five 29 plan that I started for him when he was born. And I didn't put much into it. I mean, I started putting like $50 here and and then I just stopped like we don't have the money and that's the rub when you have, when you first have your kid it's like you're making the least but you have the most time to put money into it to grow but you don't have the money to put into
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it because I'm
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so expensive. So I don't remember how much I put in there.
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It wasn't much and I'm like, you know, I've got to find that account. There was $13, 000 in there.
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Wow.
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I just, I had never touched it and I'm like, I almost fell out of my chair.
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That is not going to cover schooling forever but it's a nice down payment.
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Yeah.
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And it helps buy me some time. And so it's sort of like the whole this two shell past type of thing. It does not solve my problem but it is something and it was a sizable something to help get through of okay we're getting through our problem. And it goes to this topic that I have today that part of me asking for help is doing this podcast of talking it out here of talking to other people. And I think about people I run into who ask me for help and then they apologize for asking me for help. And it is recognizable to me of feeling like I'm being needy. I'm complaining again. I'm so sorry you have to deal with me but I think what somebody really is hoping for when I ask that is, I want to hear back you aren't needy. You aren't a burden. I still love and respect for you.
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So I'm curious about this Steve.
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When somebody repeatedly apologizes for struggling, what do you think they're really asking for?
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Well, there's a couple of things. First of all, it's a very timely subject topic for
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great
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for me. And I'll tell you why it's like, we were just talking about it. Traveling to Vegas for a business tomorrow morning, I'll be gone, I'll come back Thursday. And it's first time I leave my wife's, my wife had some physical struggles.
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First time I'm gonna leave her for that kind of stretch of time.
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And we have a dollar that's been struggling with low GI issues.
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So, a lot of anxiety around that.
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And I've set stuff up for my wife to help out and I've made some suggestions to her. And there's a lot of suggestions.
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The suggestions are all around her asking for help, right?
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That's what they're all around.
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They're all around her asking for help and reaching out for help. And she cringes at some of them, right? And I don't want to gross anybody out, but I'm like the dogs been having some accidents in the house. And I'm like, my wife is physically incapable of getting down on her hands and needs and cleaning those things up. So I'm like,
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mm-hmm.
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Okay, what's the plan?
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Like, what's the plan if that happens while I'm gone? Which is a real possibility. And actually, I don't even think it's a real possibility. We talk about when it happens, not if it's gonna happen, right? 'Cause that's where the pattern has been. And it occurred to me that the thing that stands away, stands in the way of her asking for help. And same thing with me and a lot of other people is pride.
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Mm-hmm. Right?
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It's our own pride. And we don't wanna be embarrassed.
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And I think that's what people who apologize. Like, they feel like they're, you know. They wanna be able to handle things themselves, right? And they want to, and they think, "Oh, I should be capable of handling this myself." And what that is, is that's our pride, not allowing us to really ask for help and let other people help us. Now, lucky for us and for me and particular, and certainly not my wife, and you too, but we have a program. We have a program that specifically tells us in order to be successful in our program, we need to ask for help.
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Right?
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So,
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Mm-hmm,
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regardless of how we feel about it, and a lot of us still struggle with that, I do too.
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I've said it before, the biggest problem I have with asking for help, like if I'm doing a project or something is the word, now, it's like, "Hey, can you help me do this project?" Yeah, what would you like me to help me? Oh, I wanna do it now, right?
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I'm
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mm-hmm.
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not fluent, right? Not next week, I wanna do it now. I mean, I'm in the mood to do it now, and that keeps me from going. There's a little stubbornness there and stuff like that. But it's pride, and I mean it. I think that's, you know, really, that became clear to me when I was, when I was dealing with my wife and talking to my wife about it. Like I just said to her, I'm like, you know, sometimes we may need to have somebody designated that's gonna come to the house and pick up a mess of the floor if that happens, right? And I have people who are willing to do that, right? Like there are people who have said, "Oh, I'll go do that." that.
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I would
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I
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do have two dogs, so.
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Right, that's what I mean.
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I've been
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The name
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talking--
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of dog. My dog was last weekend was...
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This
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vomiting something.
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This is the point, right?
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Is that other people have dogs and pets, and they know this happening.
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Mm-hmm.
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But it's different for my wife, 'cause she doesn't live in that environment. She doesn't live in a 12-step program where we rely on each other.
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So, you know, and I try to do it by example, too, is I have a friend, Frank, right? Frank, who sometimes shows up at the month--
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Frank. Mm-hmm.
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Yeah, for not that, Frank, but Big Frank. And he had a job interview and he called me up and he's got a four-year-old daughter. And he's like, "Hey, can you watch, you know, "can you watch my daughter for a couple of hours on Thursday?" And I'm like, "Yeah,
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this."
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sure, I can do
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[laughing]
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And I have news to it, like, I have four-year-old grandchildren, so my house is set up for a four-year-old come visit and stay busy. And I told my wife that I'm like, "Listen, when Frank needed help, he reached out "and asked for help, right?" So, it's really is a thing, I think, I think it boils down for most of us to pride.
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And for a lot of us, that's a hard thing to overcome. And it gets us in trouble. It got-- listen, I'm not immune to it, you know? The reason why I'm better at that is because I've been doing this program for quite a few 24 hours, you know?
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Nobody's perfect at this.
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This
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Yeah.
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is why at the topic, I certainly am not. And I have been in a place of just apologizing for our-- for help, especially my wife of thinking,"I'm weak, I'm soft." Your wife, not in the program, doesn't have a problem, but is the perfect example because pride can be helpful. Pride can push us through. And I look at her life of her strength to gut through things and to be independent, served her well through life.
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And then it becomes the double edged sword that you can only get through so much of that that sometimes it becomes a problem, you know? Being a single mom, or through her job, or having to be independent through a period of life, that pride helps you, you can get through. Then if you get sick, you can't just muscle through. Then it becomes something that is counterproductive. So it feels like, "Well, this worked for me for so long, and now it doesn't, it must be that I have done something." And I can understand that feeling. I also think about, I've got a buddy, Mr. B. Mr. B.
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Mr. B was actually a guest on this. I think it's episode two and three. You can go back and Mr. B apologizes every freaking time he asks for something. And it's not even something. It like he'll talk to me and then he apologizes and it's like, I want to shake him. Like I don't mind hearing this. As a matter of fact, this is good for me to hear. It takes me out of myself.
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I enjoy talking to you. You can tell me when you've got a problem or something is troubling to you. It's you're doing me a favor. But then I think about this, you ever feel like because you were sober that you no longer should need as much support from other people.
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Yeah, I mean, that's part of it. Listen, I wanted things I struggle with. And I talked about this. I had an anniversary this past week or last week, I guess Sunday starts a new week.
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And I don't think about my anniversary. And it was Monday.
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And I told the story. And it's true. Like I never thought about it. I had to pick up a friend who's going to help me do some work around the house. And until our buddy John, he used to co-host this with us, told me that morning I had not even thought that I didn't remember what my anniversary.
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And part of that is, I think part of that is because I'm a firm believer that I shouldn't have a cake because I'm doing something that most people do without an issue. And I fight that a little bit. I'm just acting like a normal human being these days. And that's not a great way to look at it because not everybody is afflicted with alcoholism and addiction like we are. So I probably need to give myself a little bit more grace, but I just don't feel like I deserve a big pat on the back because I. And, you know, because I've done this stuff. So so that's part of it. Like is I don't think I should need as much help. And part of it is like, Oh, I'm finally living like a normal human being, right?
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That other thing. Right? So that's a little bit of self deprecating stuff like, Oh, you were a piece of shit before and now you're, you're acting normal.
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So there's always work to be done there, always work to be done. Um, and I always gotta, I gotta pay attention to that kind of stuff, right? I gotta pay attention to all of that. And the only reason way I pay attention to it is by, by going to meetings and listening to you guys and, and then, you know, talk, talking to, talking to people in these rooms.
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I think this is where we also get into self graduation.
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Yeah.
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It's not just asking for help. It's, I've gotta beat the crap out of myself. And I hear that in a very subtle way, which is, well, I shouldn't have to celebrate my anniversary because I shouldn't have been an asshole all along.
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Right.
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And to me, that's part of, I don't deserve to celebrate because I'm just doing a good thing. If you think about human psychology, you need something to look forward to and you need a reward for the change that you want to make. And if it, and if that is just a good feeling of dopamine hit for, you know, I'm at 16, 17, 18 years, then that's not, that's not a bad thing.
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That's not a human failing to do.
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It is, I'm setting up a reward so I have a touch point and a milestone to get to where I need to go. There's nothing wrong for feeling that the anniversary thing is really important because I love anniversaries.
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It's not for me.
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Right.
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It is for other people.
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And I'm, I'm trying to remember what you, where you're at 16.
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I am
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16. 16. All right. Because I'm trying to think, I think you were four when I got sober. So now I got to do, you're making me do math, which is, that's a terrible thing. That's a horrible thing for me to do. See, I need help asking for people to do math because it's not how my mind works. But hearing somebody getting 16 years is helpful for the new person, or that person sober, or even hearing, it's helpful to hear you, you know, act like an absolute lunatic from time
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to time.
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When you tell stories about F bombing, when the F bomb start coming into the conversation, that's when I know you're, you're specifically bothered about something and you hear that, and then you get to 16 years and it's like, he got through that without drinking.
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That was rough patch of time, and yet he didn't drink over it.
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That's an amazing thing I can get through today. So the chips for me are motivation for somebody else. It's the point where I don't get the chip for me anymore. I get the chip to show the example to somebody else that this is doable, especially if I have asked for help consistently because they have then seen the pattern of my struggle and therefore if I could get through that, you can get through what the other person is. So I'm gonna go through a little bit of what the reassurance cycle looks like.
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This is, I struggle. I need support. I feel ashamed for needing it. I apologize or criticize myself. Then the other person reassures me. I feel temporally within the fear of return, so the cycle repeats and that this reassurance cycle is real, but it usually doesn't last because it doesn't address the underlying belief of my value depends upon whether this person is pleased with me right now. I think that's what the underlying thing is.
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Yeah, yeah, that need for it to be like, that need to have people be pleased with us. All those things, those human traits that many of us have, not everybody but many of us have.
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And I think you'll find that those traits are prevalent in lots of alcoholics and addicts, right? Like those are the things.
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Like we have those traits to a level that's higher than many, not all, but many, and those are the type of things that we,'cause that's what's happening to us all the time. We're feeling this, people don't like us, people don't love me, whatever it might be. They can sound silly at times. But I wanna go back to something that you were talking about before, and this is it, one of the things that I am really, really proud of is, the fact that I've had some very difficult times during my 16 years of sobriety.
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And by that difficult times, I mean, mostly they're internal, right? They're not like, they felt external at the time. Like this was happening, but the struggles are internal. And I did, I was able to get through those things without drinking and I'm not part of it, I am really proud because I've had some times where I mean, I was just not, I was mentally not in a good place. And I just felt like giving up on the world. I talk about it all the time. You know, I shared this, right? And this, I said Friday night, I shared it at my meeting. I'm like, the second hardest thing I'll ever do in my life is to stay married. No, I mean
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Yeah.
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that. It's because I have this thing where when life gets tough and it's not that I don't love, I love my wife and do, you know, nothing like that. But I have this thing that my brain triggers where I talk about it all the time. I escape fantasy to go away, live by myself somewhere. But the hardest thing I'll ever do is to wake up every day with my alcoholic thinking because that triggers the second part, which is me trying to escape from life, right? And that's what I do. That's why I do this podcast with you. That's why I go to meetings is because I need to treat, my obsession to drink is gone. I don't think about it. I don't think that it's a solution.
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Somebody said at a meeting, my Wednesday noon meeting, this old guy, one of the oldest guys in the room these days, 80-something years old, said, I loved the party. And he said, and if I could, if I still could do it, I would do it. And that's why I feel like I would drink if I could drink. But I know that I can't drink. So what I always have to do is get up each day and work on all of these things, my pride, my self-centeredness, my fears, all of these things, right? And I'm talking about, I'm going to Vegas. I'm leaving my wife for almost four days, three days plus, and there's a lot of anxiety about that.
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There's a lot of anxiety.
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And
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there's a lot of fear.
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But there are some things I can't control. I've worked really hard to put everything in place that I can control. And I, literally, I'm walking out the door, probably like 10 to 4, I got a 5.50 flight. So I'm at the airport by 4.30. I'm walking out my door by 10 to 4 tomorrow morning.
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And then away I go, and once I get there, like, I'll be so immersed into my, my days, and once business started, I got two days of conferences and stuff like that. Meetings with my, my team. Um, like, I won't have time to think about it. I won't, and my wife and I have this whole thing, like, we don't, we don't communicate bad stuff to each other, unless, yeah, obviously unless it's really bad.
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Like, if the dogs crap in all over the house, she's not gonna tell me that, right? Well, I'm in Vegas because she knows there's nothing I could do why worry me, right? She knows, and we know that. Like, you know, we'll wait to get home, we'll give you, we'll give you that news. So, once I walk out of here, uhm, and again, I, I've said everything. I've reached out to her kids, my daughter who lives somewhat locally, like everybody knows, I'm like, hey, uhm, if you've got some time, just check in, you know, even you don't have to come by, just give her a call, check in, see how she's doing. And then I said, I have everything set up. My buddy Chuck is right down the street.
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Yep,
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who's in the program? We, we take care of each other's dogs all the time. And this is the whole point. He was gone for 10 days in New Orleans. He, they have an old dog. I cleaned up, I cleaned up shit for his dog two or three times while they were gone. Right? It's just part of the job. You know, it's just part of the job. And, and you know, he's like, oh, I wish, you know, I'm sorry you had to do that. I'm like, Hey, Chuck, it's part of the deal. Right? You got a dog. She's in the house all day. Right? She used to have him people home with her all day.
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Now you're expecting her to stay, you know, and then, you know, four or five hours at a stretch.
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And, you know, sometimes, you know, things don't work out like they should. So,
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you,
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those are the type of things I work on. Right? And, and the ask them for help is always a big one.
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You are reminding me that I want to go down to Home Depot and rent a steam cleaner, because I have some old spots from the dogs. And that will rectify the old problem. My way of saying, like the worst that's going to happen is.
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You
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may need to go down to Home Depot and rent one of those steam cleaners to get a tough stain out of a carpet. Like that, all of some, all is your wife needs is somebody who can come down with a bottle of resolve, and some paper towels in the moment
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Right.
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to get rid of it.
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Right.
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And,
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Absolutely.
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and, and I think setting the expectation for other people to help your wife, because I think if people regularly coming to the door knocking, she's going to get very irritated by that.
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Yeah.
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That's not, I don't think that's, that's her thing. But if you set it up of, this is how you can help of a text or. Make a phone call,
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Right.
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then that's going to be absorbable for her.
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Yeah. Yeah. Not only that, but just so she doesn't sit with her own anxiety. Right. And the phone calls break things up. Hey, what's going on? It's like everything else the same thing we do, right. Move of muscle change is thought helps somebody else out. So that's what the text went out to her. She has two kids. And then, and then my daughter in laws and then my, again, my daughter is aware. And they're very close. So my daughter will check in. And my point was like, her kids live one lives in Chicago, one lives in Jersey, and I said nothing you guys can do, but just check in,
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don't
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how you
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absolutely.
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is the time you want to stay in touch with your mother for the next couple of days, that's all. And yeah, nobody's coming knocking at the door. But there are some people in AA that my wife is very comfortable with, right.
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This
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We talk about my buddy Edson, all the time. She loves Edson. There's a few other guys, Todd. And I told them on Friday, like listen, guys, if, if you see a call, come from me in the next few days, please answer it,'cause I may be asking you to go to my house and do something.
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And, and to a man, they're like, of course, yeah. Yeah, we'll swing by there and take care of it. So again, easy for me to that work a program. And I try to live a program. But not as easy for someone who's not used to that in normal person. And again, a woman who has very much her whole life had a lot of pride and tried to be proper and things of that nature. So I get it. Yeah, but it's life. And I don't control all of life as much as I I want to
00:24:31.799 --> 00:25:04.294
blazing the root of our problems that we can't control everything and we want to be able to just that that's the thing that sucks. So this is a good time out to talk about where apologies actually are appropriate. Don't misunderstand that when harm was done, you shouldn't apologize. It's useful when you speak cruilly. When you broke a commitment, when you ignored somebody's boundaries, when your behavior created a problem, you need to repair.
00:25:02.273 --> 00:25:18.182
We're talking less. We're talking more about I'm having anxiety. I'm feeling sad. I need somebody to listen. That type of stuff. And I I was this way with my wife of like apologizing for the way I felt.
00:25:20.266 --> 00:25:27.596
I think it was Wednesday or Thursday. I was having that next wave of my son going to school.
00:25:23.215 --> 00:26:02.980
And this was one where I was crying on and off for a couple of hours. And my apology, my wife is, why does life have to just be so hard? It felt as though as hard as life felt right there in that moment. That was the least hard it ever was going to be. I was looking into the future, the wreckage of the future of like, this is really, really hard. I can barely handle this. And this is the easiest that will ever be. I can't do this. Why is life so hard for me?
00:26:03.986 --> 00:26:51.789
And we talked it through and that whole again, it's this almost feeling grief about him going, releasing that. And there was a lot going on there. I was also grieving my mom. I never cried over my mom passing in 2018. And I was as troubling as the relationship was, I wanted to call her because she put me through college. Like, what was it like for you? This is what I'm feeling. And I felt like this is something I could talk to her about. And she's not here for me to talk to. So I was releasing all this grief. And once I got through that, I could think clearly again. It wasn't that all my problems went away.
00:26:51.809 --> 00:27:05.803
I had now the bandwidth to be able to address those problems one at a time. And I realized part of feeling overwhelmed and awful was I did not have the capacity. It became overwhelming.
00:27:05.803 --> 00:27:33.353
I didn't have the capacity to deal with this type of stuff. So you asking for help even when it's repeatedly is going to give you additional capacity. Maybe you feel like I should be able to do this all by myself, regardless of whether you should or not. You can't. However, whatever's going on, you do not have the capacity right now.
00:27:29.073 --> 00:27:33.353
It's like your wife in the past.
00:27:33.353 --> 00:27:37.133
She did have the capacity, but she has had some medical issues.
00:27:37.133 --> 00:27:52.334
And she can't bend down and she can't move around as fast as she used to. The capacity's just not there. And you can't wish that into existence. You got to ask for help. And then you can address those things quickly. My wife did that with me yesterday.
00:27:52.334 --> 00:28:10.105
She hurt her back. She needed somebody to help care for the horses at the barn to lift the to fill the water pales to help with mucking the stalls all that stuff that requires some which I can do so that she didn't continue to hurt herself.
00:28:12.394 --> 00:28:19.515
Yeah, a couple of things you touched on there is one is to understand when we do hope somebody in apology
00:28:19.502 --> 00:28:19.553
to
00:28:19.515 --> 00:28:20.022
and we have
00:28:20.143 --> 00:28:20.912
And
00:28:21.672 --> 00:28:42.531
again, I go come back to it because we have a program that allows us to do some work on some discernment as to is this do I owe you know, do I own this or what, right? So we have a pot. We have a program. We have some tools to be able to do that and the easy part of that.
00:28:38.632 --> 00:28:57.676
Now, that's the simple part of that is picking up the phone, calling your sponsor or another alcoholic and saying, Hey, I'm struggling with this situation, you know, and talk it through and try to figure out do I owe this? Don't I owe this? Whatever.
00:28:54.797 --> 00:29:15.636
Again, a beautiful program that's available for us that makes our life better if we use it. If we use it, um, it's up to us to use those tools that we have and so that's another thing is trying to figure out what what I own and what I don't And again, it's not always easy.
00:29:15.636 --> 00:29:37.972
Most of the time, a lot of times, um, I can do that on my own out these days. Like I could it might take a little bit of time in order to get packed if it's an emotional thing, but I could figure out what I might own and what I maybe don't own. And then in those other times, it's, you know, if I pick up the phone and call another alcoholic, it's easier to talk to so many who has no emotional connection to the situation.
00:29:38.295 --> 00:29:38.335
Absolutely.
00:29:38.834 --> 00:29:52.047
And no able to tell us, um, and I've done that. I do that with people all the time. I do it with people all the time and, uh, who called me up and I've had people call me up, hey, I want to talk to you about this, right? And we'll talk about it.
00:29:52.047 --> 00:30:01.349
And I, you know, they're looking for advice or an opinion or I would tell them in this, here's what I would do in that situation, not telling you that that's what you should do, but here's what I would,
00:30:01.256 --> 00:30:02.067
um,
00:30:03.013 --> 00:30:14.554
and then they get to go choose whatever they want. Um, and it's a perfect. I'll take a give you a perfect example that I had a guy come out with, it's like last month and time. It's, hey, I want to talk to you.
00:30:12.013 --> 00:30:32.125
Someone we met early before meeting. And he had a sponsor who's been in and out. And he was invited over to Sky's house for dinner. Um, his partner, the guy's partner, uh, who was his sponsor. He had, did not know he had, he had relapse and he was drinking.
00:30:32.740 --> 00:30:32.950
Oh,
00:30:32.930 --> 00:30:46.099
but, but he hadn't told his sponsor, he hadn't told his partner. And now this guy was invited over for dinner, knowing that he's drinking his partner doesn't know. And he was like, what do I do?
00:30:46.578 --> 00:30:47.375
Yeah,
00:30:47.963 --> 00:31:15.979
what do I do? And I'm like, you know, so we talked about it. And I'm like, you know, something. Personally, I don't go because if I go contributing for me, again personally, I'm like, I don't go cuz I'm contributing to the lie. You know, and I would call this guy up and say, listen, I can't come because I feel like I'm contributing to the lie. So unless you're willing to go come clean, then I'm gonna have to cancel coming over for dinner.
00:31:13.659 --> 00:31:25.182
He and his wife were supposed to go over. You know, but I was a perfect thing to try to walk through and get some help and talk to another alcohol. I'm not exactly sure what I should be doing here.
00:31:27.340 --> 00:32:05.538
Sorry, I got a tickle on my throat. So, and I don't even know how that made out. Matter of fact, I saw him, I'd be meaning to ask him and follow up on it and say, hey, how to go, whatever. And now I think about the guy has been back to the meeting that I'm talking about, he comes to the meeting. So I'm assuming that it went okay. But again, we have this program, we have steps, we have tools, we could, and if we're willing to use those tools, it gives us this life of sobriety. That man, I don't know, I can't, words can't put it, you got to see it in action. You do, you have to see it in action to understand how, how good and how beautiful that it really is.
00:32:06.522 --> 00:32:18.817
If they are peak craftsmen tools, when craftsmen, craftsmen was a peak brand, it's just that they feel heavy. They're beautiful, they glisten. They've got a gunmetal finish.
00:32:19.123 --> 00:32:19.272
Yeah.
00:32:19.401 --> 00:32:33.587
They, they, they lock into place perfectly. And I will talk myself out of using that tool and try and use a butter knife instead to unscrew something.
00:32:28.010 --> 00:32:49.065
There's got to be a harder way than the easy way that's, and if, and if you feel that way, you're not alone. You may still worry that people lose respect for you when you struggle. Covery doesn't guarantee that the fear goes away, it gives you the ability to recognize the fear.
00:32:49.295 --> 00:32:53.517
Stop disguising it as an apology and communicate more effectively.
00:32:53.979 --> 00:33:02.749
I want to challenge you before you say I'm sorry, pause and ask that I do something wrong, I'm afraid of what this person thinks to me.
00:33:05.859 --> 00:33:45.683
So, you're take away. Don't apologize, when you really need to do is just ask. So, think about this, I love writing stuff down. I'm feeling blank. Would you be willing to blank? Is it okay to tell me what you have capacity for? That is a good approach and it also makes me think about when somebody's asking for help. Do they want a practical piece of advice? Do they want empathy? I, I dealt with my daughter yesterday, grousing about something on her soccer team, and she didn't want a solution, even though she couldn't articulate it, she wanted me to validate a feeling.
00:33:41.737 --> 00:33:48.864
I'm feeling this way. She's like, I do what I'm supposed to do.
00:33:45.683 --> 00:33:48.864
I'm running down the line.
00:33:48.864 --> 00:34:01.203
Nobody else does but the coach else at me. And I think what she needed was I can understand you're doing all the things you're supposed to do. You feel like you're the only one doing what you're supposed to do yet.
00:33:58.144 --> 00:34:30.731
It's the coach taking it out on you, not everybody else. That would frustrate me, and that got her to open up even more. That's the thing she would love to hear what you think about this. Matt at soberfriendspod.com, and if you like what we do, give us a review Apple podcast, Spotify, share with a friend, help us grow this thing to help the next sick and suffering person. Steve, have a great rest of your weekend.
00:34:31.764 --> 00:34:32.643
Thanks for that, you too.
00:34:33.331 --> 00:34:35.751
We'll see everybody next week. Bye, everybody.
00:00:01.078 --> 00:00:21.707
They are peak craftsman tools when craftsmen was a peak brand. It's just that they feel heavy. They're beautiful, they glisten. They've got a gunmetal finish. They lock into place perfectly. And I will talk myself out of using that tool and try and use a butter knife instead to unscrew something.
00:00:25.442 --> 00:00:51.094
Welcome to the sober friends podcast. I'm Matt J. Steve's over there. And if you've ever wondered whether life really can get better without alcohol, well, you're in the right place whether you need a recovery, have some time sober or you're supporting someone you love, we're glad you're here. And this is a podcast about sobriety, emotional growth and learning how to navigate life without having to drink over it. Steve, how's life without having to drink
00:00:51.033 --> 00:00:54.703
Life's great, Matt, without having to drink over it.
00:00:54.853 --> 00:00:58.482
Life is life so it still throws challenges my way
00:00:58.609 --> 00:00:58.918
over?
00:00:58.612 --> 00:00:59.082
in your way
00:00:58.939 --> 00:00:59.459
Yep.
00:00:59.082 --> 00:01:01.942
and everybody else's way.
00:00:59.082 --> 00:01:11.254
But the fact that we don't have to drink over it just makes it so much easier to navigate. And yeah, it's a beautiful life.
00:01:07.316 --> 00:01:27.334
Living a sober life after the kind of drinking that I did and the things I sort of gave up while I was drinking. Yeah, I just can't imagine. I can't imagine ever wanting to go back to that, but I know that being that I'm an alcoholic, I'm always susceptible to that.
00:01:29.903 --> 00:01:30.653
I
00:01:30.257 --> 00:01:30.307
Yep.
00:01:30.653 --> 00:01:43.926
went over to a five year old's birthday party where there was plenty of booze it is such a wonderful feeling that I don't need that
00:01:44.575 --> 00:01:44.667
and
00:01:44.646 --> 00:02:02.894
and it feels more like it would be more of a bother for me to drink. Having said that, getting through life with the stuff that comes along the way, especially when it's like the pain is unbearable, how do I get through this is really difficult.
00:02:03.792 --> 00:02:16.225
As a little bit of an aside, this is the, you know, this two-shot pass type thing. I have really been freaking out over my son going to college and the tuition and all of that stuff.
00:02:17.799 --> 00:02:41.443
And I stumbled upon a five 29 plan that I started for him when he was born. And I didn't put much into it. I mean, I started putting like $50 here and and then I just stopped like we don't have the money and that's the rub when you have, when you first have your kid it's like you're making the least but you have the most time to put money into it to grow but you don't have the money to put into
00:02:41.147 --> 00:02:42.046
it because I'm
00:02:41.955 --> 00:02:45.334
so expensive. So I don't remember how much I put in there.
00:02:45.343 --> 00:02:52.450
It wasn't much and I'm like, you know, I've got to find that account. There was $13, 000 in there.
00:02:52.829 --> 00:02:53.229
Wow.
00:02:53.606 --> 00:02:59.176
I just, I had never touched it and I'm like, I almost fell out of my chair.
00:02:55.937 --> 00:03:03.028
That is not going to cover schooling forever but it's a nice down payment.
00:03:03.509 --> 00:03:03.840
Yeah.
00:03:03.618 --> 00:04:04.462
And it helps buy me some time. And so it's sort of like the whole this two shell past type of thing. It does not solve my problem but it is something and it was a sizable something to help get through of okay we're getting through our problem. And it goes to this topic that I have today that part of me asking for help is doing this podcast of talking it out here of talking to other people. And I think about people I run into who ask me for help and then they apologize for asking me for help. And it is recognizable to me of feeling like I'm being needy. I'm complaining again. I'm so sorry you have to deal with me but I think what somebody really is hoping for when I ask that is, I want to hear back you aren't needy. You aren't a burden. I still love and respect for you.
00:04:05.633 --> 00:04:08.843
So I'm curious about this Steve.
00:04:05.633 --> 00:04:13.670
When somebody repeatedly apologizes for struggling, what do you think they're really asking for?
00:04:14.479 --> 00:04:21.228
Well, there's a couple of things. First of all, it's a very timely subject topic for
00:04:21.321 --> 00:04:22.348
great
00:04:22.298 --> 00:04:36.069
for me. And I'll tell you why it's like, we were just talking about it. Traveling to Vegas for a business tomorrow morning, I'll be gone, I'll come back Thursday. And it's first time I leave my wife's, my wife had some physical struggles.
00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:38.608
First time I'm gonna leave her for that kind of stretch of time.
00:04:39.269 --> 00:04:41.788
And we have a dollar that's been struggling with low GI issues.
00:04:41.809 --> 00:04:46.399
So, a lot of anxiety around that.
00:04:41.809 --> 00:04:54.959
And I've set stuff up for my wife to help out and I've made some suggestions to her. And there's a lot of suggestions.
00:04:51.298 --> 00:04:58.869
The suggestions are all around her asking for help, right?
00:04:54.959 --> 00:04:58.869
That's what they're all around.
00:04:58.889 --> 00:05:14.673
They're all around her asking for help and reaching out for help. And she cringes at some of them, right? And I don't want to gross anybody out, but I'm like the dogs been having some accidents in the house. And I'm like, my wife is physically incapable of getting down on her hands and needs and cleaning those things up. So I'm like,
00:05:14.701 --> 00:05:14.781
mm-hmm.
00:05:15.098 --> 00:05:18.728
Okay, what's the plan?
00:05:15.098 --> 00:05:37.286
Like, what's the plan if that happens while I'm gone? Which is a real possibility. And actually, I don't even think it's a real possibility. We talk about when it happens, not if it's gonna happen, right? 'Cause that's where the pattern has been. And it occurred to me that the thing that stands away, stands in the way of her asking for help. And same thing with me and a lot of other people is pride.
00:05:37.954 --> 00:05:38.843
Mm-hmm. Right?
00:05:39.382 --> 00:05:43.872
It's our own pride. And we don't wanna be embarrassed.
00:05:44.262 --> 00:06:29.149
And I think that's what people who apologize. Like, they feel like they're, you know. They wanna be able to handle things themselves, right? And they want to, and they think, "Oh, I should be capable of handling this myself." And what that is, is that's our pride, not allowing us to really ask for help and let other people help us. Now, lucky for us and for me and particular, and certainly not my wife, and you too, but we have a program. We have a program that specifically tells us in order to be successful in our program, we need to ask for help.
00:06:29.548 --> 00:06:29.858
Right?
00:06:30.007 --> 00:06:30.937
So,
00:06:30.168 --> 00:06:30.230
Mm-hmm,
00:06:30.937 --> 00:06:38.958
regardless of how we feel about it, and a lot of us still struggle with that, I do too.
00:06:34.838 --> 00:06:50.978
I've said it before, the biggest problem I have with asking for help, like if I'm doing a project or something is the word, now, it's like, "Hey, can you help me do this project?" Yeah, what would you like me to help me? Oh, I wanna do it now, right?
00:06:48.478 --> 00:06:50.978
I'm
00:06:50.932 --> 00:06:50.983
mm-hmm.
00:06:50.978 --> 00:07:27.891
not fluent, right? Not next week, I wanna do it now. I mean, I'm in the mood to do it now, and that keeps me from going. There's a little stubbornness there and stuff like that. But it's pride, and I mean it. I think that's, you know, really, that became clear to me when I was, when I was dealing with my wife and talking to my wife about it. Like I just said to her, I'm like, you know, sometimes we may need to have somebody designated that's gonna come to the house and pick up a mess of the floor if that happens, right? And I have people who are willing to do that, right? Like there are people who have said, "Oh, I'll go do that." that.
00:07:27.642 --> 00:07:28.052
I would
00:07:27.901 --> 00:07:29.185
I
00:07:28.052 --> 00:07:30.790
do have two dogs, so.
00:07:31.048 --> 00:07:32.168
Right, that's what I mean.
00:07:31.048 --> 00:07:32.168
I've been
00:07:32.137 --> 00:07:32.627
The name
00:07:32.168 --> 00:07:32.209
talking--
00:07:32.627 --> 00:07:36.206
of dog. My dog was last weekend was...
00:07:37.170 --> 00:07:37.555
This
00:07:37.588 --> 00:07:38.449
vomiting something.
00:07:38.458 --> 00:07:41.708
This is the point, right?
00:07:38.458 --> 00:07:43.184
Is that other people have dogs and pets, and they know this happening.
00:07:43.096 --> 00:07:43.466
Mm-hmm.
00:07:43.605 --> 00:07:51.045
But it's different for my wife, 'cause she doesn't live in that environment. She doesn't live in a 12-step program where we rely on each other.
00:07:53.254 --> 00:08:00.348
So, you know, and I try to do it by example, too, is I have a friend, Frank, right? Frank, who sometimes shows up at the month--
00:08:00.583 --> 00:08:01.810
Frank. Mm-hmm.
00:08:02.411 --> 00:08:14.641
Yeah, for not that, Frank, but Big Frank. And he had a job interview and he called me up and he's got a four-year-old daughter. And he's like, "Hey, can you watch, you know, "can you watch my daughter for a couple of hours on Thursday?" And I'm like, "Yeah,
00:08:14.620 --> 00:08:14.920
this."
00:08:14.641 --> 00:08:15.117
sure, I can do
00:08:15.129 --> 00:08:15.180
[laughing]
00:08:16.452 --> 00:08:40.576
And I have news to it, like, I have four-year-old grandchildren, so my house is set up for a four-year-old come visit and stay busy. And I told my wife that I'm like, "Listen, when Frank needed help, he reached out "and asked for help, right?" So, it's really is a thing, I think, I think it boils down for most of us to pride.
00:08:34.736 --> 00:08:55.775
And for a lot of us, that's a hard thing to overcome. And it gets us in trouble. It got-- listen, I'm not immune to it, you know? The reason why I'm better at that is because I've been doing this program for quite a few 24 hours, you know?
00:08:57.158 --> 00:08:59.457
Nobody's perfect at this.
00:08:57.158 --> 00:08:59.457
This
00:08:58.863 --> 00:08:59.347
Yeah.
00:08:59.457 --> 00:09:32.918
is why at the topic, I certainly am not. And I have been in a place of just apologizing for our-- for help, especially my wife of thinking,"I'm weak, I'm soft." Your wife, not in the program, doesn't have a problem, but is the perfect example because pride can be helpful. Pride can push us through. And I look at her life of her strength to gut through things and to be independent, served her well through life.
00:09:34.089 --> 00:10:22.589
And then it becomes the double edged sword that you can only get through so much of that that sometimes it becomes a problem, you know? Being a single mom, or through her job, or having to be independent through a period of life, that pride helps you, you can get through. Then if you get sick, you can't just muscle through. Then it becomes something that is counterproductive. So it feels like, "Well, this worked for me for so long, and now it doesn't, it must be that I have done something." And I can understand that feeling. I also think about, I've got a buddy, Mr. B. Mr. B.
00:10:16.486 --> 00:10:46.690
Mr. B was actually a guest on this. I think it's episode two and three. You can go back and Mr. B apologizes every freaking time he asks for something. And it's not even something. It like he'll talk to me and then he apologizes and it's like, I want to shake him. Like I don't mind hearing this. As a matter of fact, this is good for me to hear. It takes me out of myself.
00:10:41.850 --> 00:11:04.465
I enjoy talking to you. You can tell me when you've got a problem or something is troubling to you. It's you're doing me a favor. But then I think about this, you ever feel like because you were sober that you no longer should need as much support from other people.
00:11:06.216 --> 00:11:17.106
Yeah, I mean, that's part of it. Listen, I wanted things I struggle with. And I talked about this. I had an anniversary this past week or last week, I guess Sunday starts a new week.
00:11:18.547 --> 00:11:22.677
And I don't think about my anniversary. And it was Monday.
00:11:22.677 --> 00:11:38.527
And I told the story. And it's true. Like I never thought about it. I had to pick up a friend who's going to help me do some work around the house. And until our buddy John, he used to co-host this with us, told me that morning I had not even thought that I didn't remember what my anniversary.
00:11:41.238 --> 00:12:33.730
And part of that is, I think part of that is because I'm a firm believer that I shouldn't have a cake because I'm doing something that most people do without an issue. And I fight that a little bit. I'm just acting like a normal human being these days. And that's not a great way to look at it because not everybody is afflicted with alcoholism and addiction like we are. So I probably need to give myself a little bit more grace, but I just don't feel like I deserve a big pat on the back because I. And, you know, because I've done this stuff. So so that's part of it. Like is I don't think I should need as much help. And part of it is like, Oh, I'm finally living like a normal human being, right?
00:12:30.711 --> 00:12:40.671
That other thing. Right? So that's a little bit of self deprecating stuff like, Oh, you were a piece of shit before and now you're, you're acting normal.
00:12:40.671 --> 00:13:03.028
So there's always work to be done there, always work to be done. Um, and I always gotta, I gotta pay attention to that kind of stuff, right? I gotta pay attention to all of that. And the only reason way I pay attention to it is by, by going to meetings and listening to you guys and, and then, you know, talk, talking to, talking to people in these rooms.
00:13:04.346 --> 00:13:08.998
I think this is where we also get into self graduation.
00:13:09.477 --> 00:13:09.650
Yeah.
00:13:09.537 --> 00:13:28.258
It's not just asking for help. It's, I've gotta beat the crap out of myself. And I hear that in a very subtle way, which is, well, I shouldn't have to celebrate my anniversary because I shouldn't have been an asshole all along.
00:13:28.296 --> 00:13:28.778
Right.
00:13:28.794 --> 00:13:56.081
And to me, that's part of, I don't deserve to celebrate because I'm just doing a good thing. If you think about human psychology, you need something to look forward to and you need a reward for the change that you want to make. And if it, and if that is just a good feeling of dopamine hit for, you know, I'm at 16, 17, 18 years, then that's not, that's not a bad thing.
00:13:56.081 --> 00:13:59.941
That's not a human failing to do.
00:13:56.081 --> 00:14:11.673
It is, I'm setting up a reward so I have a touch point and a milestone to get to where I need to go. There's nothing wrong for feeling that the anniversary thing is really important because I love anniversaries.
00:14:12.277 --> 00:14:14.413
It's not for me.
00:14:14.822 --> 00:14:15.025
Right.
00:14:15.001 --> 00:14:18.062
It is for other people.
00:14:15.001 --> 00:14:20.236
And I'm, I'm trying to remember what you, where you're at 16.
00:14:20.681 --> 00:14:21.220
I am
00:14:21.080 --> 00:14:53.133
16. 16. All right. Because I'm trying to think, I think you were four when I got sober. So now I got to do, you're making me do math, which is, that's a terrible thing. That's a horrible thing for me to do. See, I need help asking for people to do math because it's not how my mind works. But hearing somebody getting 16 years is helpful for the new person, or that person sober, or even hearing, it's helpful to hear you, you know, act like an absolute lunatic from time
00:14:53.134 --> 00:14:53.364
to time.
00:14:53.542 --> 00:15:16.460
When you tell stories about F bombing, when the F bomb start coming into the conversation, that's when I know you're, you're specifically bothered about something and you hear that, and then you get to 16 years and it's like, he got through that without drinking.
00:15:12.369 --> 00:15:22.923
That was rough patch of time, and yet he didn't drink over it.
00:15:17.839 --> 00:15:55.629
That's an amazing thing I can get through today. So the chips for me are motivation for somebody else. It's the point where I don't get the chip for me anymore. I get the chip to show the example to somebody else that this is doable, especially if I have asked for help consistently because they have then seen the pattern of my struggle and therefore if I could get through that, you can get through what the other person is. So I'm gonna go through a little bit of what the reassurance cycle looks like.
00:15:56.788 --> 00:16:30.443
This is, I struggle. I need support. I feel ashamed for needing it. I apologize or criticize myself. Then the other person reassures me. I feel temporally within the fear of return, so the cycle repeats and that this reassurance cycle is real, but it usually doesn't last because it doesn't address the underlying belief of my value depends upon whether this person is pleased with me right now. I think that's what the underlying thing is.
00:16:31.590 --> 00:16:43.169
Yeah, yeah, that need for it to be like, that need to have people be pleased with us. All those things, those human traits that many of us have, not everybody but many of us have.
00:16:44.269 --> 00:16:51.419
And I think you'll find that those traits are prevalent in lots of alcoholics and addicts, right? Like those are the things.
00:16:51.529 --> 00:17:27.537
Like we have those traits to a level that's higher than many, not all, but many, and those are the type of things that we,'cause that's what's happening to us all the time. We're feeling this, people don't like us, people don't love me, whatever it might be. They can sound silly at times. But I wanna go back to something that you were talking about before, and this is it, one of the things that I am really, really proud of is, the fact that I've had some very difficult times during my 16 years of sobriety.
00:17:23.257 --> 00:18:11.929
And by that difficult times, I mean, mostly they're internal, right? They're not like, they felt external at the time. Like this was happening, but the struggles are internal. And I did, I was able to get through those things without drinking and I'm not part of it, I am really proud because I've had some times where I mean, I was just not, I was mentally not in a good place. And I just felt like giving up on the world. I talk about it all the time. You know, I shared this, right? And this, I said Friday night, I shared it at my meeting. I'm like, the second hardest thing I'll ever do in my life is to stay married. No, I mean
00:18:11.656 --> 00:18:11.696
Yeah.
00:18:11.929 --> 00:18:57.544
that. It's because I have this thing where when life gets tough and it's not that I don't love, I love my wife and do, you know, nothing like that. But I have this thing that my brain triggers where I talk about it all the time. I escape fantasy to go away, live by myself somewhere. But the hardest thing I'll ever do is to wake up every day with my alcoholic thinking because that triggers the second part, which is me trying to escape from life, right? And that's what I do. That's why I do this podcast with you. That's why I go to meetings is because I need to treat, my obsession to drink is gone. I don't think about it. I don't think that it's a solution.
00:18:59.612 --> 00:19:43.796
Somebody said at a meeting, my Wednesday noon meeting, this old guy, one of the oldest guys in the room these days, 80-something years old, said, I loved the party. And he said, and if I could, if I still could do it, I would do it. And that's why I feel like I would drink if I could drink. But I know that I can't drink. So what I always have to do is get up each day and work on all of these things, my pride, my self-centeredness, my fears, all of these things, right? And I'm talking about, I'm going to Vegas. I'm leaving my wife for almost four days, three days plus, and there's a lot of anxiety about that.
00:19:44.276 --> 00:19:45.506
There's a lot of anxiety.
00:19:45.983 --> 00:19:46.832
And
00:19:47.011 --> 00:19:50.751
there's a lot of fear.
00:19:47.011 --> 00:20:06.961
But there are some things I can't control. I've worked really hard to put everything in place that I can control. And I, literally, I'm walking out the door, probably like 10 to 4, I got a 5.50 flight. So I'm at the airport by 4.30. I'm walking out my door by 10 to 4 tomorrow morning.
00:20:09.076 --> 00:20:33.246
And then away I go, and once I get there, like, I'll be so immersed into my, my days, and once business started, I got two days of conferences and stuff like that. Meetings with my, my team. Um, like, I won't have time to think about it. I won't, and my wife and I have this whole thing, like, we don't, we don't communicate bad stuff to each other, unless, yeah, obviously unless it's really bad.
00:20:29.806 --> 00:21:06.940
Like, if the dogs crap in all over the house, she's not gonna tell me that, right? Well, I'm in Vegas because she knows there's nothing I could do why worry me, right? She knows, and we know that. Like, you know, we'll wait to get home, we'll give you, we'll give you that news. So, once I walk out of here, uhm, and again, I, I've said everything. I've reached out to her kids, my daughter who lives somewhat locally, like everybody knows, I'm like, hey, uhm, if you've got some time, just check in, you know, even you don't have to come by, just give her a call, check in, see how she's doing. And then I said, I have everything set up. My buddy Chuck is right down the street.
00:21:07.429 --> 00:21:08.173
Yep,
00:21:08.257 --> 00:21:36.696
who's in the program? We, we take care of each other's dogs all the time. And this is the whole point. He was gone for 10 days in New Orleans. He, they have an old dog. I cleaned up, I cleaned up shit for his dog two or three times while they were gone. Right? It's just part of the job. You know, it's just part of the job. And, and you know, he's like, oh, I wish, you know, I'm sorry you had to do that. I'm like, Hey, Chuck, it's part of the deal. Right? You got a dog. She's in the house all day. Right? She used to have him people home with her all day.
00:21:36.696 --> 00:21:44.436
Now you're expecting her to stay, you know, and then, you know, four or five hours at a stretch.
00:21:40.957 --> 00:21:48.409
And, you know, sometimes, you know, things don't work out like they should. So,
00:21:48.415 --> 00:21:49.147
you,
00:21:49.492 --> 00:21:53.971
those are the type of things I work on. Right? And, and the ask them for help is always a big one.
00:21:54.806 --> 00:22:14.759
You are reminding me that I want to go down to Home Depot and rent a steam cleaner, because I have some old spots from the dogs. And that will rectify the old problem. My way of saying, like the worst that's going to happen is.
00:22:15.439 --> 00:22:15.509
You
00:22:16.388 --> 00:22:30.717
may need to go down to Home Depot and rent one of those steam cleaners to get a tough stain out of a carpet. Like that, all of some, all is your wife needs is somebody who can come down with a bottle of resolve, and some paper towels in the moment
00:22:30.665 --> 00:22:30.884
Right.
00:22:30.717 --> 00:22:31.457
to get rid of it.
00:22:31.833 --> 00:22:32.113
Right.
00:22:32.106 --> 00:22:32.836
And,
00:22:32.113 --> 00:22:32.116
Absolutely.
00:22:32.836 --> 00:22:41.980
and, and I think setting the expectation for other people to help your wife, because I think if people regularly coming to the door knocking, she's going to get very irritated by that.
00:22:42.199 --> 00:22:42.459
Yeah.
00:22:42.734 --> 00:22:52.903
That's not, I don't think that's, that's her thing. But if you set it up of, this is how you can help of a text or. Make a phone call,
00:22:52.453 --> 00:22:52.503
Right.
00:22:52.903 --> 00:22:55.310
then that's going to be absorbable for her.
00:22:56.134 --> 00:23:26.513
Yeah. Yeah. Not only that, but just so she doesn't sit with her own anxiety. Right. And the phone calls break things up. Hey, what's going on? It's like everything else the same thing we do, right. Move of muscle change is thought helps somebody else out. So that's what the text went out to her. She has two kids. And then, and then my daughter in laws and then my, again, my daughter is aware. And they're very close. So my daughter will check in. And my point was like, her kids live one lives in Chicago, one lives in Jersey, and I said nothing you guys can do, but just check in,
00:23:26.272 --> 00:23:26.992
don't
00:23:26.513 --> 00:23:26.787
how you
00:23:26.992 --> 00:23:27.393
absolutely.
00:23:28.064 --> 00:23:38.223
is the time you want to stay in touch with your mother for the next couple of days, that's all. And yeah, nobody's coming knocking at the door. But there are some people in AA that my wife is very comfortable with, right.
00:23:38.084 --> 00:23:38.539
This
00:23:38.314 --> 00:23:58.519
We talk about my buddy Edson, all the time. She loves Edson. There's a few other guys, Todd. And I told them on Friday, like listen, guys, if, if you see a call, come from me in the next few days, please answer it,'cause I may be asking you to go to my house and do something.
00:23:54.240 --> 00:24:30.185
And, and to a man, they're like, of course, yeah. Yeah, we'll swing by there and take care of it. So again, easy for me to that work a program. And I try to live a program. But not as easy for someone who's not used to that in normal person. And again, a woman who has very much her whole life had a lot of pride and tried to be proper and things of that nature. So I get it. Yeah, but it's life. And I don't control all of life as much as I I want to
00:24:31.799 --> 00:25:04.294
blazing the root of our problems that we can't control everything and we want to be able to just that that's the thing that sucks. So this is a good time out to talk about where apologies actually are appropriate. Don't misunderstand that when harm was done, you shouldn't apologize. It's useful when you speak cruilly. When you broke a commitment, when you ignored somebody's boundaries, when your behavior created a problem, you need to repair.
00:25:02.273 --> 00:25:18.182
We're talking less. We're talking more about I'm having anxiety. I'm feeling sad. I need somebody to listen. That type of stuff. And I I was this way with my wife of like apologizing for the way I felt.
00:25:20.266 --> 00:25:27.596
I think it was Wednesday or Thursday. I was having that next wave of my son going to school.
00:25:23.215 --> 00:26:02.980
And this was one where I was crying on and off for a couple of hours. And my apology, my wife is, why does life have to just be so hard? It felt as though as hard as life felt right there in that moment. That was the least hard it ever was going to be. I was looking into the future, the wreckage of the future of like, this is really, really hard. I can barely handle this. And this is the easiest that will ever be. I can't do this. Why is life so hard for me?
00:26:03.986 --> 00:26:51.789
And we talked it through and that whole again, it's this almost feeling grief about him going, releasing that. And there was a lot going on there. I was also grieving my mom. I never cried over my mom passing in 2018. And I was as troubling as the relationship was, I wanted to call her because she put me through college. Like, what was it like for you? This is what I'm feeling. And I felt like this is something I could talk to her about. And she's not here for me to talk to. So I was releasing all this grief. And once I got through that, I could think clearly again. It wasn't that all my problems went away.
00:26:51.809 --> 00:27:05.803
I had now the bandwidth to be able to address those problems one at a time. And I realized part of feeling overwhelmed and awful was I did not have the capacity. It became overwhelming.
00:27:05.803 --> 00:27:33.353
I didn't have the capacity to deal with this type of stuff. So you asking for help even when it's repeatedly is going to give you additional capacity. Maybe you feel like I should be able to do this all by myself, regardless of whether you should or not. You can't. However, whatever's going on, you do not have the capacity right now.
00:27:29.073 --> 00:27:33.353
It's like your wife in the past.
00:27:33.353 --> 00:27:37.133
She did have the capacity, but she has had some medical issues.
00:27:37.133 --> 00:27:52.334
And she can't bend down and she can't move around as fast as she used to. The capacity's just not there. And you can't wish that into existence. You got to ask for help. And then you can address those things quickly. My wife did that with me yesterday.
00:27:52.334 --> 00:28:10.105
She hurt her back. She needed somebody to help care for the horses at the barn to lift the to fill the water pales to help with mucking the stalls all that stuff that requires some which I can do so that she didn't continue to hurt herself.
00:28:12.394 --> 00:28:19.515
Yeah, a couple of things you touched on there is one is to understand when we do hope somebody in apology
00:28:19.502 --> 00:28:19.553
to
00:28:19.515 --> 00:28:20.022
and we have
00:28:20.143 --> 00:28:20.912
And
00:28:21.672 --> 00:28:42.531
again, I go come back to it because we have a program that allows us to do some work on some discernment as to is this do I owe you know, do I own this or what, right? So we have a pot. We have a program. We have some tools to be able to do that and the easy part of that.
00:28:38.632 --> 00:28:57.676
Now, that's the simple part of that is picking up the phone, calling your sponsor or another alcoholic and saying, Hey, I'm struggling with this situation, you know, and talk it through and try to figure out do I owe this? Don't I owe this? Whatever.
00:28:54.797 --> 00:29:15.636
Again, a beautiful program that's available for us that makes our life better if we use it. If we use it, um, it's up to us to use those tools that we have and so that's another thing is trying to figure out what what I own and what I don't And again, it's not always easy.
00:29:15.636 --> 00:29:37.972
Most of the time, a lot of times, um, I can do that on my own out these days. Like I could it might take a little bit of time in order to get packed if it's an emotional thing, but I could figure out what I might own and what I maybe don't own. And then in those other times, it's, you know, if I pick up the phone and call another alcoholic, it's easier to talk to so many who has no emotional connection to the situation.
00:29:38.295 --> 00:29:38.335
Absolutely.
00:29:38.834 --> 00:29:52.047
And no able to tell us, um, and I've done that. I do that with people all the time. I do it with people all the time and, uh, who called me up and I've had people call me up, hey, I want to talk to you about this, right? And we'll talk about it.
00:29:52.047 --> 00:30:01.349
And I, you know, they're looking for advice or an opinion or I would tell them in this, here's what I would do in that situation, not telling you that that's what you should do, but here's what I would,
00:30:01.256 --> 00:30:02.067
um,
00:30:03.013 --> 00:30:14.554
and then they get to go choose whatever they want. Um, and it's a perfect. I'll take a give you a perfect example that I had a guy come out with, it's like last month and time. It's, hey, I want to talk to you.
00:30:12.013 --> 00:30:32.125
Someone we met early before meeting. And he had a sponsor who's been in and out. And he was invited over to Sky's house for dinner. Um, his partner, the guy's partner, uh, who was his sponsor. He had, did not know he had, he had relapse and he was drinking.
00:30:32.740 --> 00:30:32.950
Oh,
00:30:32.930 --> 00:30:46.099
but, but he hadn't told his sponsor, he hadn't told his partner. And now this guy was invited over for dinner, knowing that he's drinking his partner doesn't know. And he was like, what do I do?
00:30:46.578 --> 00:30:47.375
Yeah,
00:30:47.963 --> 00:31:15.979
what do I do? And I'm like, you know, so we talked about it. And I'm like, you know, something. Personally, I don't go because if I go contributing for me, again personally, I'm like, I don't go cuz I'm contributing to the lie. You know, and I would call this guy up and say, listen, I can't come because I feel like I'm contributing to the lie. So unless you're willing to go come clean, then I'm gonna have to cancel coming over for dinner.
00:31:13.659 --> 00:31:25.182
He and his wife were supposed to go over. You know, but I was a perfect thing to try to walk through and get some help and talk to another alcohol. I'm not exactly sure what I should be doing here.
00:31:27.340 --> 00:32:05.538
Sorry, I got a tickle on my throat. So, and I don't even know how that made out. Matter of fact, I saw him, I'd be meaning to ask him and follow up on it and say, hey, how to go, whatever. And now I think about the guy has been back to the meeting that I'm talking about, he comes to the meeting. So I'm assuming that it went okay. But again, we have this program, we have steps, we have tools, we could, and if we're willing to use those tools, it gives us this life of sobriety. That man, I don't know, I can't, words can't put it, you got to see it in action. You do, you have to see it in action to understand how, how good and how beautiful that it really is.
00:32:06.522 --> 00:32:18.817
If they are peak craftsmen tools, when craftsmen, craftsmen was a peak brand, it's just that they feel heavy. They're beautiful, they glisten. They've got a gunmetal finish.
00:32:19.123 --> 00:32:19.272
Yeah.
00:32:19.401 --> 00:32:33.587
They, they, they lock into place perfectly. And I will talk myself out of using that tool and try and use a butter knife instead to unscrew something.
00:32:28.010 --> 00:32:49.065
There's got to be a harder way than the easy way that's, and if, and if you feel that way, you're not alone. You may still worry that people lose respect for you when you struggle. Covery doesn't guarantee that the fear goes away, it gives you the ability to recognize the fear.
00:32:49.295 --> 00:32:53.517
Stop disguising it as an apology and communicate more effectively.
00:32:53.979 --> 00:33:02.749
I want to challenge you before you say I'm sorry, pause and ask that I do something wrong, I'm afraid of what this person thinks to me.
00:33:05.859 --> 00:33:45.683
So, you're take away. Don't apologize, when you really need to do is just ask. So, think about this, I love writing stuff down. I'm feeling blank. Would you be willing to blank? Is it okay to tell me what you have capacity for? That is a good approach and it also makes me think about when somebody's asking for help. Do they want a practical piece of advice? Do they want empathy? I, I dealt with my daughter yesterday, grousing about something on her soccer team, and she didn't want a solution, even though she couldn't articulate it, she wanted me to validate a feeling.
00:33:41.737 --> 00:33:48.864
I'm feeling this way. She's like, I do what I'm supposed to do.
00:33:45.683 --> 00:33:48.864
I'm running down the line.
00:33:48.864 --> 00:34:01.203
Nobody else does but the coach else at me. And I think what she needed was I can understand you're doing all the things you're supposed to do. You feel like you're the only one doing what you're supposed to do yet.
00:33:58.144 --> 00:34:30.731
It's the coach taking it out on you, not everybody else. That would frustrate me, and that got her to open up even more. That's the thing she would love to hear what you think about this. Matt at soberfriendspod.com, and if you like what we do, give us a review Apple podcast, Spotify, share with a friend, help us grow this thing to help the next sick and suffering person. Steve, have a great rest of your weekend.
00:34:31.764 --> 00:34:32.643
Thanks for that, you too.
00:34:33.331 --> 00:34:35.751
We'll see everybody next week. Bye, everybody.
