E256: Progress, Not Perfect Sobriety

There’s no such thing as perfect sobriety.

In this episode, Matt and Steve explore why learning from mistakes is part of the process — not a failure. They talk about comparison in recovery, changing needs over time, and how wanting things to “click faster” can quietly work against us.

This is an honest conversation about patience, humility, and staying willing — even when you realize you’re still a present-day alcoholic doing the work one day at a time.

Transcript

Steve: 0:01

OK, I mean it, that I won't get into it, maybe bring it up as a topic, but I had an incident that just told me like, I'm- I'm a real alcoholic. I'm a real alcoholic. Like, this is- I'm not a past tense alcoholic. I'm a present-day alcoholic, and it was very obvious to me last night, and I was like, "You know, I'm glad I know that. And this is my point. I'm glad I know that. That I don't think, "Oh, I'm better. That's all done." Nope. It's still me, which means I still need to put in the work in order to keep myself safe. And that was driven home. I really felt that way last night, I'm like, "You know, and it's- so, it's always good to be able to come here and have this podcast and go to my meetings and do all the other things I do in order to keep that alcoholic mind at bay."

Matt: 0:50

Welcome to the SUBREFERF friends podcast where, hey, if you're on the sober journey, you're in the right place, whether you're so curious for your grizzled old-time. My name is Matt J, and I'm the other side of the laundry. What's up, Steve?

Steve: 1:08

Hey, Matt.

Matt: 1:10

I want to talk a little bit tonight about learning from our mistakes. And I'm going to set this up because I have a bit of a eureka moment from a meeting that I went to, and I hear this type of thought process

Steve: 1:25

lot.

Matt: 1:25

a And it goes into where we need to give ourselves a break sometimes. This does not mean that all the stuff we did in our drinking, we don't have to atone for. We have a process for that. I'm talking afterwards. So somebody mentioned, "You know, I really wish I learned how to use the book, the way I know how to use it now when I first got sober." And I just don't feel comfortable all the time doing the highlighting. So I don't have a lot of highlighting in here and my sponsor wrote some stuff in the margins and I was like, "Ahhhh!" And I just haven't gone down that route. And it made me raise my hand immediately. Try to be careful not to cross-talk. But to talk about how, hey, we gotta give ourselves a little bit of a break here because I hear this too much. But the reason that you didn't use the book properly when you first got sober is you didn't know how to yet. This is anything in life. Think about, gosh, I wish I had learned this topic when I was in high school immediately. But you didn't. You needed to learn. And sometimes you need to fail. You need to not do well. You need to go back and learn it. And I think there's also this idea that we have to speed through to get somewhere. That's not the case. There's a journey. We will never reach our destination. So maybe it takes people two, five, ten years. It's gonna take the time you need to absorb and do it quote right as it takes for you to be ready. And I curious your thoughts on this one.

Steve: 3:10

You know, when we, when you, when you're talking about it, I'm thinking, "How did I feel when I came in?" First of all, I always like to say that, It's that old saying you don't know what you don't know,

Matt: 3:24

"Yeah."

Steve: 3:24

right? And I can remember saying that at work several times. We would have these new systems and stuff. And my boss would say, "If you have any questions, just ask." And I used to say, "I don't know what the questions are." And that's a little bit like when I came in, right? I didn't know what the questions were. I didn't know what I was there for, right? I mean, honestly, I didn't know what I was there for. I talked about many times here. It was that when I first came in in '95, and even a little bit when I came back in 2010, I came there because I drank too much. And it took me a while to figure out that the problems were much more than that. So, yeah, I didn't do a lot of things right. And I said it before, and I say it a lot to people who I've sponsored, is that one blessing that I've had since I came back this time, because it wasn't easy. It took me a while to get going, is that I didn't pick up a drink as I allowed myself a chance to figure some stuff out. And there are some really rough times, but I never picked up a drink, and that allowed me to make mistakes, to not do things the right way. To maybe not use the big book the right way. I didn't do my first Jo and Charlie. The first thing I thought about too was, I wonder how many Jo and Charlie's he's done, which is, we both know his sponsor. I'm assuming he did a bunch with his sponsor, who did him every year for ages. Yes. And I don't know, you know, you go to Joe and Charlie, that's where probably 90% of my highlighting came from because there's a lot more

Matt: 5:14

Oh,

Steve: 5:15

time,

Matt: 5:15

yeah.

Steve: 5:15

I think, at Joe and Charlie to highlight and make those notes in the margins and things of that nature. So it's interesting, and again, you know, everybody does things differently. You know, highlighting is highlighting because the truth is I have so much highlighted in certain areas of the book like the highlights don't mean as much as much to me anymore.

Matt: 5:40

Yes.

Steve: 5:40

Right? Is that at the time I highlighted it because something jumped out about that passage. And you can tell the different times because I tried to make a point that I use different colors at different times. So therefore you look at my book and there's all different colors. That's because it was probably a different year of a Joe and Charlie and I was using a different color. And so yeah, I mean, you got to give yourself a break that, you know, and the truth is, you know, you have another chance. You have a chance to redo this whole thing, right? This guy had the chance to, you know, his sponsor has moved away. Whether he's going to get another local sponsor, I don't know, I think, who knows? But you have another chance to go to the steps again, to do it again, to start it all over again. And to use the big book the way you want to use it now today, now that you have X amount of year of sobriety, you know, now that you know, now that you know, how you might want to use it better to further your, you know, your sobriety. So yeah, I think they have something we all have to learn and figure out. And figure out what we need from this program.

Matt: 6:52

There's nobody who has perfect sobriety, even the grizzled old-timers

Steve: 6:57

Yeah.

Matt: 6:57

that we all know and love. Nobody has perfect sobriety. So when I talk about this character, he's sober and has been sober for quite a while. I've known him the whole time he's been sober. And I have seen how he has grown as a person and overcome family challenges, family successes. I think, think through things watching this person. And he's been sober for a number of years and he's lived pretty successfully. To me, that's success. He also involves himself in the program. The sponsor that he picked is in terms of quality of sobriety and somebody who really knows the program of alcoholics anonymous. I don't know who else you could find better. And not one of these big bookthumpers that is, you know, gruffin. He's not one of those people. He's a rather, he's a pretty reasonable person. So if you're going to put the work in that type of sponsor, it's going to be tough not to learn something. Going in and getting sober in itself is really hard. And if we could have done it ourselves, who would have? The big book. Very hard to understand. Takes time. And even with the best people around you who can break this down, it's still tough, a lot of moving parts. We want this done quickly. You know, even before smartphone culture, now it's smartphone culture. My goodness, I should be able to plug everything into chat GPT, have something spit out and give me step-by-step on how to do that instantly. And that's not the way it works. So if you're complaining, I wish I learned this earlier, I could have myself a lot of pain. Sure, but you didn't. You learned it when you were ready to absorb it, and it just takes time. I'm not saying forgive yourself if you've done, you know, harm. But don't beat yourself up if you were trying, and it just didn't click. That's most of us.

Steve: 9:27

One of the things I'm wondering if, and I think I probably do this myself. You know, I have a pretty good life today. Don't have a lot to complain about, which doesn't mean I don't complain about a lot.

Matt: 9:40

Right.

Steve: 9:41

There's a difference. You know, but I wonder if we get to a certain point, and then we start to nitpick our sobriety.

Matt: 9:50

We

Steve: 9:51

start to look for flaws in it. And maybe that's not such a bad thing, you know, we start to think about what am I not doing well, and what do I need to do more of, and all of these things. So we, so we start to nitpick some of the stuff, and like, ooh, I'm sitting next to, you know, Steve here, and he's got his whole book highlighted. And I've had those comments before. Oh, you don't have much highlight, or you have a lot highlighted because I do. I'm certain areas of my book, not all areas, certain areas. And again we start looking at that and we start maybe come and again maybe we're comparing again you know and if you don't need to highlight or whatever it is then then don't worry about it but but I think it's bigger than just highlighting some things in book or using the book. I do think it's about us trying to figure out is our program working for us today and I would question this person if I had a one-on-one conversation with them like you know maybe that's maybe that's the question you're asking yourself right maybe that's the question

Matt: 10:55

hmm

Steve: 10:55

is my is my program up to par with what I want it to be you know maybe that's what you're searching for and yeah you sort of look at this big book issue you know as a way to sort of start that conversation with yourself I know I have those conversations it's why I you know I've been I've been feeling like I'm drawn to some service work so I've started to you know and that's been going on that that has not been an overnight thing that has been nipping at my heels for months and months and months now and as soon as later I just have to decide you know when that's happening to me personally what am I gonna do about and for me it was time for me to step up and do some more you know

Matt: 11:38

it

Steve: 11:38

to do the next step of service work so I think if we're working a if you're working a program that you're going to try to apply to all aspects of your life life then then I think you always need to question is it working for you because times change right what I needed five years ago is different than what I need today

Matt: 12:01

yes

Steve: 12:02

right so I hope my program will evolve to something that'll help me today was today's challenges

Matt: 12:13

so here's the other thing this this guy who in a sense indirectly is flagging himself or not doing enough we didn't have a chair Monday night and he volunteered to do it last minute so flagging himself and he's already doing more than what would be expected beyond showing up showing up last minute I'll run the meeting that's that's a big deal that is a good thing you're doing does that mean because you're chairing that you have perfect sobriety or sometimes even good sobriety it doesn't but it's something it's something that you're doing and and I mention this because I have been guilty of this this is the social media effect in alcoholics anonymous there is the whole I'm gonna I'm gonna compare my insights with your outsides it's very easy to do this especially with some of the old timers or some people that you see you know they go to every they go to meeting every day maybe they go to a meeting twice a day they can quote they don't even need to read a page from the book if you want them to read it they know it they sponsor people that doesn't always mean everything is great with them and I think this really exaggerated and alcoholics anonymous because we had a drinking problem there is that underlying foundation that when you go to a service meeting or AA and you see people behaving poorly or aggressively or whatever that looks like it's exaggerated because these people are all alcoholics you're not going into a business meeting at work and these are people who had something going on and some people are more vocal because they had to hold really tight to the program and do it perfectly to stay so over that may not be my experience I don't have to do what you did and some people will try and be over the head I look at as positive intent because it was some it was so do or die with them they feel it's do or die with me and it's not a different spectrum and I have felt those things I'm not going as many meetings as so and so okay what is my what is my home situation different am I a miserable prick no I'm not okay then that tells me I'm doing it right

Steve: 14:50

yeah we've got to figure out what's right for each one of us

Matt: 14:53

and yeah

Steve: 14:54

and and I don't there was a time where you know I sort of had this feeling too that you needed to do so many meetings and sometimes that's true and I'll tell you a story of a sponsor that I had years ago he came to me and he was really just going through a really tough time I wasn't drinking I was not had a drink since then I don't believe although he's not doing meetings whatever but I do remember him coming in really having a hard time and I said to him I'm like here's what I want you to do I want you to go home I said do you still use a paper you know wall calendar and I said I want you to go home and I want you to put an ex on each day that you went to a meeting in the last month and then count them up and see if you really think that was enough. And I knew the answer, right? The answer was he probably had gone to maybe one or two or three meetings in the last month. And my point was at that point in this, in his sobriety, it wasn't enough. But, um, but we all have to find out what that is for us. And it is different for everybody. I do think you hit on something there where we live in a different world of instant satisfaction.

Matt: 16:12

Absolutely.

Steve: 16:12

Right. And not only social media, but, you know, we get on our phone and then a package shows up at our door with something that we

Matt: 16:22

sometimes same day,

Steve: 16:23

sometimes the same day. Matter of fact, matter of fact, my stepson was up, help here for the hot Thursday holiday. I mean, thanks, given holiday. And he wanted to play this game. They had gone away with some friends and they wanted to play a game Rubicue. Um, and he's like, Hey, do you guys have it? I'm like, no, I don't think so. So he ordered next day. He shows up at our doorstep. Same day. I mean, showed up at the

Matt: 16:45

same

Steve: 16:45

day, showed up. So they could play it for the holiday. Um, and I, I don't typically get same day's shipments. I don't ever need anything that quickly. But my point is we are used to that now. they don't call it on demand TV for nothing. I'm

Matt: 17:04

Yeah,

Steve: 17:04

the man. I want to watch this movie now. Um, so I, I do think as much as maybe we don't think it does, it builds itself into our minds, our mindset, that we need things to happen faster than they're happening. And I'm certainly guilty of that. Um, although I worked hard, I do work hard to sort of watch that tendency in me. Um, but I do, I do think that's part of it. And I do think that we, we all need to take a deep breath. Um, I think we're viewing where we're at in our program or sobriety, I wouldn't even say our program because maybe it's people out there who don't have a program. Listen to us. But certainly I'm their journey on your sobriety, if you're, if your sobriety is not where you want it to be, then there's something to look at.

Matt: 17:58

Right.

Steve: 17:58

That's what it is. There's something to look at. And like I said, you know, I mean, I, there is no question that what I need today is different than what I needed five years ago.

Matt: 18:10

Oh, yeah,

Steve: 18:11

and you know, which, which to me, to me, still, it's still interesting to me like how much of a mind of an alcoholic that I have. And, you know, I constantly look at that. And when I talk and I share stories, I've started to think to myself, am I, is that really true or am I playing it up, am I telling a story that's not true, or am I trying to embellish something. But every once in a while, I sit back and I go, you know, something, I'm a real alcoholic. And one thing I started to share is that. I love to drink and I, and I say it, not in a past tense, but in a current tense, because I've always said that if you gave me a drink today, then I would love to have that drink. You know, I would, you know, physically, I would take and go, oh, yeah, I remember what that feels like I would, I would do it. Like today, I know I can't do that. And today I know the destruction of that drink, but I think I would still get that same first feeling. And that to me, that's worrisome. So, to me, that's why I do all my program stuff. And I'm going to tell you something right now, my program stuff is just, you know, balls to the wall right now, I am just sort of doing a whole bunch of stuff. And it will settle down a little bit, but I've got some commitment going on that I've made and they're sort of all snowballing. And it's like, boom, right now, like the last couple of weeks, it's like, it's been busy. And that's a good thing for me, because it sets me up for some, you know, some some good sobriety, some good stuff in the future. Again, which is what I feel like I need.

Matt: 19:59

I would hope that I'm not trying to grab the same thing out of sobriety that I did in 2014.

Steve: 20:05

Yeah,

Matt: 20:06

because I should have grown from that point. I'll give you an example. I go to Monday night, we read a chapter of the big book every single. And this can get boring for me, because I have now, I've read this stuff, especially going to Joe and Charlie's. I don't know if I've got it memorized, but I've read it. And there's some chapters that I like more than others. Some people are like, oh, this is my favorite part of the book. And I really, because I hate this part of the book. This is not what I look forward to. And I have to get my mind around. It's not about learning anything more. It's about listening for the new person. I have to, if I really want to get something out of sobriety, now I'm at a place of work and I serve somebody else. what can I listen to in the book and maybe craft it in a share around I can give this something so that you can learn it. Or have a conversation where I think it led to people being very honest because I also talked about God and because the other person said he's got a great relationship with his higher power and raised my hand. I'm like, this is great. I'm envious because I don't. I don't have it the same way. I'm more agnostic and I think it's fantastic that you can have this and I can have mine and both are right. It's not critical to say I believe one way so you must be wrong. It's I believe this way and I see your point and that's okay too and then have an opportunity to just say, look if you're if you're struggling with I don't understand all this stuff you're okay. It's okay not to understand this. You're never going to have it 100% nailed. We don't get to a destination. I've gone through this and they'll be telling like, huh, what? That makes sense now and you kind of learn, you know, you go through. We try to remember what we did. Oh, we did like a 10 and 11 and I look at oh, I'm trying to remember what I said 10 and 11 because I had something there too. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I talked about the the temperature that and this was something that again, I could say, I wish I knew this earlier. I had somebody who just coincidentally was also in the program who worked for me. This person worked on the phones and she would the customers would get her worked up and the temperature gauge would go from green to yellow to red. Now we could listen to a call where she got into the red and she made all the same mistake she always did and I could coach it to here's what you need to do in this situation. The real coaching is I you can't get into the red. I can coach you on things but once you get into the red on the temperature thermometer, there's nothing I can do for you and that's also the way it is for me so my coaching for you is when you start to feel you're losing control because somebody's pushing you, what is the thing that's going to keep you from reacting? You'll stay in the green there. Then I don't have to coach it to if you do this, then you've made this mistake. Well, I don't have to coach to that because you're never going to get there.

Steve: 23:48

Right.

Matt: 23:49

And that's the real thing of how do you well, I wish I knew that sometimes it's how do you keep calm? And I looked at steps 10 and 11 as beauty of those steps are they keep you in the green. They are I don't want to say maintenance step because the old times okay, but they're a place that okay, you've done all this other work. Now you have some experience in the steps. Now you have something that when new things come up, you immediately have a you have tools to help manage and this is one when I'm in step 10 and 11 and I've got to make it a meeting of men's or I'm going through my inventory at night, it's like shit, why did I I should know better than this I lost control of it. I learned this from doing a man's, I learned this from my fifth step and even then it's like no, you got to keep refining it and think about everything is not shit, I should have known better. It's more of a right, this is an opportunity to learn, learn more about myself and learn a new tool that when this comes up again, I know how to adjust to not make it as big of a deal.

Steve: 25:08

Yeah, lots said there, Matt. One of the things that I have figured out that I need to do as I need to adjust, like I said, I need to adjust on the go and my program. And for me, this is one of the advantages that I see of having the group of AA as my higher power is that I can reach out to my higher power, which is another person basically in the program and I can get some guidance. And the other thing I love about it, and you don't need to have AA's higher power. Well, first of all, I guess I would say is that that's the important thing of having a higher power, right? And I know this person too, and they have a very good, seem to have a very good contact with their higher power and

Matt: 26:00

they

Steve: 26:00

they lean on their higher power. So, you know, one of the first places you want to go is do your prayer and meditation and look for help there. So for me, that's going to the group or to an individual. And I said it many times, it sounds like a broken record, but man, I've surrounded myself with some really quality people in the program. And there's a group of them that I can call up and pick their brains. And some are better than others on different Uh, and, and, and, and one of the things, right, and I'll, I'll say something I'll talk about much here, but if I'm having trouble in the sex world, right, I know exactly who I'm going to pick up the phone and talk to. So, if I'm, you know, if there's just so many people, you know, our buddy Timmy or Edson, you know, Todd, all these guys that I know that I can pick up the phone and call these guys and get whatever guidance I need at that moment. And that's what allows me to sort of tweak my program. That's what allows me to change, either on the fly, but also to change my complete direction. We know one of the things I was just talking to somebody about, something we were talking about doing steps,and I said, I am, you know, I'm 15 years in the program, I've done this steps twice, Probably did them like five or six years in after I did it in the first time, so I'm probably sort of set up to do them again, right? That's just to be my pattern,

Matt: 27:52

yup.

Steve: 27:53

like, I'm ready to do them again, and I'm ready to go through them again, and, and, and, and I like to do that with different people, so if I did it a third time, since this time back, I probably picked somebody different to go through them with just to have a different experience, you know. And that to me is how I how I manage these things, how I deal with these things. So again, that's what works for me, that's how I keep trying to work my program, and, you know, I'll tell you, I went out to dinner last night and had with my wife and had an incident, I mean it that, and I won't get into it, maybe bring it up as a topic, but I had an incident that just told me like, I'm, I'm a real alcoholic. No, really, I'm a real alcoholic, like this is this is, I'm not a past tense alcoholic. I'm a present day alcoholic, and it was very obvious to me last night, and I was like, You know, I'm glad I know that, and this is my point. I'm glad I know that, that I don't think all on better, and that's all done. No, it's still me, which means I still need to put in the work in order to keep myself safe, and that was driven home. I really felt that way last night, and like, you know, and it's so it's always good to be able to come here and have this podcast and go to my meetings and do all the other things I do in order to keep that alcoholic mind at bay.

Matt: 29:30

I had a eureka moment when you're just talking here and I'm guilty of this. When we do this comparison, and I've made mistakes, and I'm not like so and so, that discounts that each of us, because you said you call people based on your situation, each one of us in recovery has a special talent, we are a subject matter expert on something. But we don't always see that. So if I might say, gosh, I'm so jealous that Dave has such a great relationship with his higher power. I must be doing something wrong. It dismisses, I might be something Dave would call me for that I'm good at. And you always look at the things that you feel like you're missing. I'm comparing because this person has this many spawncies, goes to this amount of meetings and is doing great here, missing the point of I might be a really good listener, an empathizer that somebody else may not be as good at that, and they may want to utilize me for that. That's a talent. I might be somebody who is really good at doing some service stuff that other people don't want to do. So you got to look inside when you're saying, I should be better at this. It's also worth saying, well what do I bring that is unique strength that I discount because that's just not how the honey mine works. Here we come on. All right. We want to hear from you. How do you feel about learning from your mistakes? How hard are you on it? You consider that. And do you want this to work faster? Matt, it's sober friends pod.com. Run all the socials. You can reach us there. Steve, thanks for another great show.

Steve: 31:22

Thanks Matt.

Matt: 31:23

And we'll see everybody next week. Bye everybody.