E259: You Can Still Be Sober and Have Bad Days

You can be sober and still have bad days — and that doesn’t mean you’re doing recovery wrong.

In this episode, Matt and Steve talk honestly about what it looks like to stay sober through anxiety, physical pain, holidays, and emotional discomfort. Matt shares his experience recovering from surgery, navigating anxiety, and using prescribed pain medication safely without triggering old behaviors. Steve reflects on how holidays and stress at home can still bring up difficult feelings — even with long-term sobriety.

Together, they explore an important truth: sobriety doesn’t remove life’s challenges, but it gives you tools to face them. From meetings and step work to walking, writing, acceptance, and simply sitting with uncomfortable feelings, this conversation focuses on practical ways to get through hard days without picking up a drink.

If you’re struggling, feeling restless, anxious, or frustrated — especially around holidays or physical setbacks — this episode is a reminder that you don’t have to be “okay” to stay sober. You just have to stay connected and take the next right action.

Transcript

Matt: 0:02

Welcome to the Silver Friends podcast. My name is Matt Jay. My co-host is Steve and we're here to help you out if you are on the path to sobriety so be curious where you're already showing a couple days together like the two of us. Let's going on, Steve, it's another Soberday for us.

Steve: 0:23

Another soberday, good morning Matt.

Matt: 0:26

So I want to talk little bit about you can have sober days. You can be sober and still have bad days. you.

Steve: 0:33

Thank

Matt: 0:33

I think I talked last week I had surgery and I had my surgery. It went fine and I have to tell you I have had anxiety over it. Or I've just had anxiety because I'm not as active as I'm used to. I can't go to the gym until I have the stitches out because they don't want my hand to get all sweaty and infected. So I don't have my outlets. already have anxiety about my weight to begin with. So all of this stuff comes in. But I'm still sober as a matter of fact, they gave me vikinin for the pain and I used vikinin the first day. I think I used it once or twice the second day. And that's it. I just, it was very easy to put aside,

Steve: 1:21

Yeah.

Matt: 1:21

which I was surprised by. I'm like, okay, I'm done. We're going over to the Tylenol now. I'm good. Which felt like such a victory of like, all right. This is not, I'm using something as it is prescribed. I need to keep the pain down. And once that happened, it's time to move on. And that was a great feeling. But it's just been, and I know it's not forever. But I'm still sober. I'm not drinking and I'm not thinking of a drink.

Steve: 1:53

Yeah, that's the key. You know, there's a lot of things. You know, as far as pain medicines, medicines go. It's different for all of us, right?

Matt: 2:02

And

Steve: 2:03

how you felt about them? I was never a big pain medicine type of guy. So they never really challenged me. And I, just like you, you know, I've had some surgeries and I've been able to use them as prescribed and actually less, just like you, less than

Matt: 2:18

this

Steve: 2:19

prescribed, like, you know, I would use them. I went, I had my shoulder work done. I basically used them to sleep at night. Like I would put up with any discomfort during the day because I wanted them to last longer because they only gave you so many. I'm like, oh, I'm just going to use these because I was sleeping in a recliner and it's like, I'm just going to use these. I'll take them late at night and it'll, get that four or five hours worth of decent sleep that I needed. And I was able to do that. And that's different. Like I said, that's different for everybody, right? If they trigger you, they can be, it can be a challenge, but they weren't for me. And as we talked about it, right? You know, you, there's lots of things that happen when you have bad days, right? There's lots of

Matt: 3:00

yes,

Steve: 3:00

different dynamics that come into it. And it depends on what your bad days like. And then obviously that's a subjective thing. Like, what's a bad day for people? I will say this most of my, most of my bad days are self, are self-induced bad days. And holidays are difficult here in my household.

Matt: 3:19

Yes.

Steve: 3:20

We struggle. My wife gets anxious. We have a, you know, if we have a big crowd, which we do, then it's a lot of work on me. I get exhausted. It is really, really tough. And really have to work on managing some of those, some of those feelings. And I do, I do the best I can in. It's not perfect. But, you know, our, my friend Jim, Jim K who listens to us regularly in religion.

Matt: 3:53

Yeah, welcome, Jim.

Steve: 3:55

Yeah. And Jim always says that early on, it's bright. And Jim's got a lot of time. Like,

Matt: 4:02

mm-hmm.

Steve: 4:02

It's got a lot of time. And he said that when he came into early on, there was a guy at a meeting in Hartford, a big meeting in Hartford, that everybody knew about asylum street. It was a huge meeting back in the day. And one of the guys there used to say, you know, you don't have to drink today if you don't want to. And you also don't have to drink today, even if you want to. And I'll never forget that. I think that's such a cool saying, right? Like, even on our stressful, bad days when we would head towards a drink to make us feel better. Like, that's what we did. That's what I did. But, it that way. I would, on my stressful days, I would head towards a drink to ease my emotions, my feelings more than anything else. Not so much physical pain, but emotional pain. Today, I don't have to do that. Today, today, I could think that through. And I have other options. And on my worst day, I can stay sober. And you know, I'm grateful that I could do that. And life doesn't not get shitty just because we stop drinking and we get sober. Life still is shitty at times.

Matt: 5:15

Yes.

Steve: 5:16

And that's the whole point of our program. And the whole point of sobriety is not so much, hey, how do I do this? Yeah, how do I do this without drinking? But how do I manage this and embrace the feelings that used to make me want to drink? How do I sit with them? How do I do that? And that's that's the kind of work I have to do on a regular basis. For me to continue to live the life I want to live.

Matt: 5:43

this is really life and life's terms.

Steve: 5:45

Yeah,

Matt: 5:45

And it is a great topic with the new year because we've just gone through holidays. And people think that holidays should be wonderful and when they're not, you feel like you're doing something wrong. When in reality is holidays are tough for everybody. We put too much pressure on them and the pressure is for them to be wonderful. And when they're not perfect, they feel stressful and they take a tremendous amount of planning and that is a very dangerous time for alcoholics. But I really loved what you said about you don't have to drink if you don't want to and you don't have to drink even if you do want to. That once you get sober, there is also that feeling of I shouldn't feel that way. It should just be the switch that's gone, but that's not a good expectation. Especially early on there going to be a lot of times that you do want to drink because you have a problem with alcohol but you don't have to drink. And I think that's the key later on like in my situation. I didn't have to down the ten pain pills.

Steve: 6:52

Right.

Matt: 6:53

I could use them and I had a system of talking to my family of this is an issue, pain pills. This could be potentially an issue. I'm going to use them today and I want to check in of what do you think. And they didn't really have to check in. It was just like I talked around. I'm like, I think today is the day I'd like to try this without the pain pills. But I also wanted them on alert if they saw behaviors were changing.

Steve: 7:21

Yeah.

Matt: 7:22

So I wanted because this is a tough one that if you're in pain, it can hinder recovery of your your surgery. Now with the surgery, I feel like I've had a lot of bad days. I went in with the expectation that I've had knee surgeries before so I can still walk around with this, but not quite. There are a lot of things I can't do one-handed and there's a lot of things I shouldn't do and I'm antsy, but I don't have to drink over it. And I think the number one thing that I do is talk to people about it. Even if it's like, I know you can't solve this, but I need to get this out.

Steve: 8:07

Yeah. I mean, what did you say? What did you say there? I'm antsy, right? That's a

Matt: 8:10

Yeah.

Steve: 8:10

feeling, right? That's a feeling, right? I mean, that's you know, again, it comes down to those of us who drank to numb our feelings or bury our feelings or whatever we did. That's a feeling. And the whole point of my recovery and the whole thing of when I hear and I heard a great share on this exact same sort of thing on my Wednesday noon meeting is a woman who I really like a lot at this meeting said, you know, I need to be able to sit with my feelings, my fear, my sadness, right, my anxiety. I need to be able to sit with those feelings, right? And not have to drink them or think about the drinking. And again, I don't know, it's different for all of us. I don't ever have the thought that I should drink because it'll solve my problems. I like, I know better than that. But there's still an alcoholic thought for me about a drink that comes through once for a while. And then it's usually fleeting, but it's still there. So for me, it's important that I recognize all of these things when I'm going through it, right? It's important that I have plans. When I had my first surgery where they sent me home with 10 pain pills because it seems like that's the number that they give you, whatever it is, 10 pain pills. I remember, I did the same thing. I was not sure about it, right? I was early in this term of sobriety and I gave him to my wife. You handle these, right? You handle these and I'll come and ask you for them when I need them. And that's the way we did it. My last surgery, which was a herniac surgery, which was the most painful surgery I for went through. I really was. I was able to take them myself. I never asked her, I knew I knew I was okay at that point. Plus I had a lot more sobriety. I knew how I was going. And as a matter of fact, I remember saying that to my wife, she was in pain one day. I'm like, hey, there's still a pain pill up there. It's from leftover from my surgery. You're welcome to take it if you want to. So I never even took the last pain pill because, and again, that's me. It's not something that I dealt with. It's not something that calls my name. Like I've shared before, like I can't have a bottle to kill in my house sitting there where other people maybe you could maybe you know that doesn't call your name but that was that's what that's what scares me so. So yeah, I mean I've had some bad days I mean New Year's Eve again it's funny it's I'm not used to it was it's not funny but I was thinking back on it last year. I'd be one of the bad if you go look listen to the recording we did after New Year's last year I talk about how I was really pissed off and I remember clearly and I took the dogs and we went for a walk in the woods and we were going for about two hours and I was just like out of sorts. And I wasn't going to celebrate New Year's Eve with my wife and while I was in the woods I had a change of heart and I called up and I ordered some fake stuff shrimp and we brought it home we had a nice New Year's Eve party.

Matt: 11:30

Nice,

Steve: 11:31

yeah that was last year this year almost the exact same thing that's what I'm saying like these are stressful times in my household and I was frustrated and upset and I got pissed off and I said to my I said to my wife like I'm going out like angrily I'm going out and she's like where you going and at first I didn't want to tell her I wanted her to be worried because I was pissed. And then finally I said I'm going to the Alcatán I'm going to Pathfinders which had an Alcatán which had meetings it didn't go 24 hours from six at night to one in the morning New Year's Day and so and I went up there and I sat sat there for a couple days a couple hours I mean and that's the whole point right I mean I was having a bad time I was having a bad day at that moment. And luckily for me I have I have tools and I know what I need to do and for me the safe spot is I go to a meeting and I sit in the

Matt: 12:31

yeah,

Steve: 12:33

and and for me like that could be any meeting at that point and I'm lucky I got a we got a recovery club that's literally about two miles from my house that has lots of meetings so there's it's often that when I'm feeling that way that's as far as I have to go for a meeting. And and that's what I do right I mean it's like you could you could have some really, really bad days and stay sober. As long as you have a plan as long as you have a program as long as you have different tools to use whether it's picking up the phone calling somebody picking up your own books right the other thing you can do reading meditation you can do a lot of self help. I have a tendency to go outside of myself and find other people that sort of what works for me and the other thing that does work for me sometimes is to get out into nature take a hike take a walk with a dog many times that will make me feel a lot better.

Matt: 13:32

Yesterday was the first day that I really because I've had this back to back I've had the line disease stuff which I feel like maybe I'm not feeling it because I'm feeling the other stuff but it was the first day I could go for a two mile walk I have this. Trough I have this this path mapped out and it is exactly two miles and for the first time since the beginning of November I could do that two mile trip and got it felt good it didn't help that it was under 30 degrees and the cold just cuts three but I muscle through and that was a bit of a victory of like okay I can't go to the gym. But it's so cold that my hands not going to get sweaty so I can at least do this and that was better you had mentioned going to a meeting which is a safe space and that's very helpful to think about it that way because you might think through well I'm going to go to a meeting I have to participate. I have to plan this out like a normally what you don't there are times it's just like I need to go into the bunker and the bunker is a meeting that might just mean I'm going to sit there for an hour an hour and a half. That's okay too. It's an action you can take probably something I could have done. I've just hunkered down because there's so many meetings so fortunate that there are so many meetings in the vicinity at any time or virtual meeting could have done those things I will tell you some things I have done that gets my mind off of it is some writing. I'm doing a little research project and the chat bot that I work with that is helping guide me through it because I'm checking in with Claude has actually told me a bunch of times stop it's time for you to stop. Your hand is not going to get better time for you to stop which is also helpful but just different actions New Year's Eve I've gotten into. Plerobus which I think about about halfway through it and I haven't had a show in a while so just like I can sit there and watch a show that's a different activity. I think a lot of this as well is is being forgiving of yourself that you're not in the place that you want to be. that's also okay to not be in the place that you want to be, because that was something that caused a drink of not in the place I want to be. Let's fix it. Instead of not in the place we want to be, let's sit with it. And

Steve: 16:21

yeah,

Matt: 16:22

how

Steve: 16:22

what

Matt: 16:22

do I get through or how do I how do I make myself feel okay feeling this way?

Steve: 16:26

Yeah, let's accept it. Right.

Matt: 16:28

Mm-hmm.

Steve: 16:28

I mean, we talked.

Matt: 16:28

Yes, acceptance.

Steve: 16:29

That's accept where I am, which is hard for me, right? I mean, you know, when I when I went to New Year's Eve, here's the interesting you said something to me, I have not gone to I'm to a zoom meeting in ages.

Matt: 16:42

Me

Steve: 16:42

I

Matt: 16:42

neither.

Steve: 16:43

mean, ages like as like an AA zoom meeting. So my stress during how it was multiple days. So right. Wednesday was New Year's Eve. That's when I went up to. Pathfinder's for my meetings there. But Tuesday, I was also stressed out and I was pissed off.

Matt: 17:00

Mm-hmm.

Steve: 17:01

And I was like, so I looked at meetings to go to Tuesday. And there was a couple of meetings around that were speaker meetings. And I don't love speaker meetings. I didn't want to go to speaker meetings. There was another one. It was late. Like it was like quarter of the seven. So meetings were starting at seven 30s. If I was going to go to a meeting, I was going to need to hustle out, especially the farther way I had to go, right? I was limited. And then they hit me. I'm like, oh, I can go to a zoom meeting.

Matt: 17:27

Yep.

Steve: 17:28

Right. So I see a local zoom meeting starts at seven o'clock. I'm in my office, which, right? We're recording here. I blog on get the meeting, get the information. And I sit there and low and be held. Nobody ever signs on to start this meeting.

Matt: 17:45

Oh, no.

Steve: 17:46

Yeah. And I'm like, look at this one I decided to try a zoom meeting. And I sat there until like seven after seven. I figured by that time, right? Pup, if you know, somebody's going to be hosting it. They'd be logging in by that time. So I have no clue. I have no clue if it's a valid meeting or not. Or if it was just a bad night. But I was disappointed. I was like, you know, and I ended up not going to a meeting at night. Because like I said, the time ran away to do it. I think there was an eight o'clock meeting I could have gone to. Maybe I just didn't feel like going out that late. But there's lots of things we can do, not all a, like you said, you can do some different stuff. And that's the other thing. You know, we got these weird sayings if you've been around the rooms, move a muscle, change a thought, right? And that's why they're there. That's what you talked about. Like you go for a walk or I talk about going for a walk or you talk about doing some riding, right? It's like doing something else. It's also, we talked a little bit about this Friday night at my mens meeting. And you know, when it came my time to share, I talked about like when I find that when I do, when I do something for someone else, then I'm out of myself, right? So that's the other thing. But then that's what we talk about, either helping other alcoholics or doing other stuff. But what I find is that I get out of my own stuff. And because when I sit, like I was doing Tuesday and then into Wednesday, even into Thursday, when I sit in my own stuff and I'm not taking action to try to change that, it's painful. It's painful. And that's a really bad place to be, especially in early sobriety because you really put yourself at risk of a relapse or picking up a drink. When you sit in that pain all alone, you're isolated, you know, again, I was able to sort of, oh, matter of fact, Thursday night, I went out to the mens meeting, right? The Thursday night mens meeting that you see John and Dave go to. And it's funny, because I even shared there, my wife said to me, we were having a bite to eat. And she said to me, you have a meeting tonight and I laughed. And I'm like to myself. And I'm like, wonder if she's telling me that I need a meeting tonight, right? was that her way of saying I need a meeting tonight? Because I used to don't go out to meetings on Thursday night. And I said, oh yeah, I was thinking I'm going to, so I ended up going Thursday night to a men's meeting, which I haven't been to in a while and it's always nice to go there, see those guys. Even though John and Dave weren't there.

Matt: 20:34

Like

Steve: 20:34

But it was nice to get out there and see a bunch of guys. And again, it was an hour and a half meeting. Sometimes it just eats up part of my life, part of my time. I mean, right? A lot of times I'll tell my wife too. I'm going to go to a meeting because it gets me away from my phone, right?

Matt: 20:52

yeah,

Steve: 20:52

It sort of it works different ways, like it just, you know, it just changes what's going on at the moment. So Again, I talk about that for me. That's one of my go-tos. I you know, and again, we are lucky enough to have lots of meetings around us So I'm able to like hey, I'm almost any given night I'm gonna go out to a meeting and go sit out a meeting with people I know typically because I go to enough meetings that I I know people when I show up

Matt: 21:24

What about step work? We haven't talked about that yet. Are there steps that we can do which I think is yes I think there is definitely six and seven that always comes to mind with that. I can be willing to let go of a defective character and then asked to have it removed and that's

Steve: 21:46

Yeah,

Matt: 21:46

both of those are very Focult for me. yeah

Steve: 21:51

Yeah,

Matt: 21:51

of recognizing it is a defect and then choosing to let it go Some of this anxiety is brought on by the injury that my body thinks it's going through but a lot of it is my mental thinking And it might be worth going through That's a writing thing it doesn't have to be a formal fourth step, but for me, it's it's those are the guidelines of What are these things that I'm thinking about? Is there a defective character? Is there something I need to let go? Is there an immense that I may have to do? Is there some type of meditation? I have to do the recipe is there it doesn't solve everything But I might be able to help

Steve: 22:34

Yeah, I did there's just so many options, you know, there's so many options to choose from if you're working a program of recovery, right? You know, step work is always good, right? You could do some of it yourself, right. You can certainly you can sit down and look at a six seven. Right You can do a tenth step, right? We can do that any anytime we want My our buddy Edson will always say we he talks about I haven't heard him say this in a while When he finds when he hears that someone went out and they come back, he always asked them Hey, what step were you working on when you went out? And it's a it's a trick question because the truth is you weren't working on any step

Matt: 23:23

Yeah,

Steve: 23:24

right. You weren't working on a step when you went out So and it's interesting. I have a I have a guy who came up to me I don't know month to couple months ago month and a half ago and asked me if I take them to the steps He's already sober right. He's been sober for a while. He just wants to go through the steps again And and there's always a little reluctance to do that. I always like, you know that whole thing you know I got to do stuff that I don't want to do. I talk about that all the time and I like this guy So of course, I said yes, I'm like, yeah, sure, go on And then I always start questioning like, oh, can I do this? Somebody already took him through the steps and I get embarrassed my you know, I have all those doubts, right Whether I'm capable of taking somebody else through the steps And then we just I saw him at Friday night and he's like, hey after the holidays, he goes we'll get together We'll start going through the steps and I'm like, yeah, sure we'll do it And I always find that when I am doing that when I'm working with another alcoholic when I'm going through the steps Whether they're for me or for someone else So even if they are for someone else that I'm taking them to the steps I end up going through the steps myself

Matt: 24:26

Oh, absolutely

Steve: 24:26

obviously, right? I mean the only thing I may not do I mean I probably won't do a four or a five if I'm taking somebody else through there But it certainly makes me think about that And even six and seven I may not formally do a six and seven But I again it puts me in that place. So I always love going through the steps with another alcoholic Because of the fact that it just clarifies a lot of stuff for me So stepwork is always it's right there, but

Matt: 24:56

Mm-hmm

Steve: 24:56

For me stepwork means I need another Most of the time I did I need another member and it required that requires some work because I'm serious about the steps, right? I don't I don't take them lightly Because those steps are what helped change my life Um as much as I thought the thought of doing them You know, it wasn't something I was interested in doing, but once I got through all my realize And I continue to do them That they really are a life changing thing for me

Matt: 25:32

That can be an overwhelming thing for me if I'm thinking of taking somebody through the steps That becomes a very large project and then I think about the time commitment Right I think about the work that needs to go in and I get paralyzed

Steve: 25:45

Mm-hmm

Matt: 25:46

On the other hand if you're taking it seriously You can't take somebody through the steps wrong. You can just take them differently

Steve: 25:55

Right,

Matt: 25:55

and I probably would do it much differently My plan would probably sit down where at step one of When do you want to get out of this right We're If you've gone through the steps before where should we where do you want to start And I would do it more of a coaching Mindset because that's what I know how to do And that's just a different way of doing it But if you're going through the steps with somebody and you've already done it before You're probably looking for that Yeah, I already know how to go through the steps. I need to see it through different lens from somebody else. It's going to help me see it differently.

Steve: 26:37

Absolutely. I mean, that's what I did too. I just went, I went to him a second time and I've said this before and I got really think about it because it's something that I need to do with it. I need to go through them again. I need to have some things I want to clean up, nothing big, but some things I want to clean up, some things I want to focus on. I've already been thinking for the last probably a good year now that I should go through them again. And so I probably will think about it, take some time and I like to go through with different people. Like if I go through them again, I'm not sure if I'll go through them with my sponsor or if I'll go through them with a totally different person than even the last person I did and which was Edson, I did him with my buddy Edson last time. For that same reason, I want a different view. Maybe somebody does something a little different. Maybe they have a different opinion on certain steps that I haven't thought about, right. So it just gives me this different view and I always want to be open to those type of things. So, um, Yeah, lots of lots of opportunities there to do step work. And the catalyst may be like I said, if you're having a bad day, that may be something you think about, like what's going on, as you said, like what's going on and maybe I do need to go through the steps or do a many fourth, fifth step, right? That's the

Matt: 28:05

yep.

Steve: 28:05

other thing. If you're in this program and you and you rely on step work to stay sober, then when you hit that and and one you said is when I go back to it, like you said, identify my character defects and get rid of them. To me, that's true, but to me is I know what my character defects are, most of them, the big ones, right? I know which ones still come up and bite me in the ass. I mean it. I know them. Um, and part of me wants to get rid of them and part of me doesn't want to get rid of them. I still struggle with that after

Matt: 28:41

a

Steve: 28:42

long time of sobriety. And as I love to say, I work a fairly decent program, but I have certain character defects that I know are problematic. They're not catastrophically problematic, which is why I'm able to hold on to them. But they're still problematic. And I have yet to find the will, to finally say, I want to remove these from my life and get rid of them. Maybe someday, but I haven't found necessary or that I haven't found the willingness, as I just said, to do that yet. So, And it's one of the reasons why I keep going to meetings and keep working, because I

Matt: 29:20

yep.

Steve: 29:21

hope that one day I'll find that,you know.

Matt: 29:24

Those defects are like a warm hug

Steve: 29:26

Oh,

Matt: 29:26

sometimes.

Steve: 29:27

they are.

Matt: 29:27

And they're, they're my identity in some ways.

Steve: 29:30

Yeah, I

Matt: 29:31

And

Steve: 29:31

agree.

Matt: 29:31

I'm letting, I'm letting go of like cutting my arm off.

Steve: 29:34

Yep. I agree. A hundred percent. Like they are, they are just, they seem to be part of my whole being. And I'm afraid like, well, who am I? If I'm, if I don't carry this around with me? You know, I've always felt like I grew up, you know, I grew up in a fairly decent sized city in Connecticut. And, and that kid, even though my life has changed from that time of growing up and public housing and the projects and all, part of me are still that kid, like I'm still that. And I still honor that person. Like it's, some people like they move out of that and they're glad to get rid of it. I still honor that part of me. And a lot of these things that I struggle with, I think go back to that time. And I'm afraid like, okay, if I get rid of, if I get rid of all these things, then do I lose that piece of me that I still love to think about and cherish even though it's been a long time, you know? So yeah, great. It's really good conversation to think and talk about this. And you know, it's what we, what's what we do on this podcast we sort of worked through some of our own stuff in

Matt: 30:44

time.

Steve: 30:44

real

Matt: 30:44

Yep. Yep. And if you can get something out of this, then that's great. I do this for me. And if you get some benefit out of it too, then we have done something well. Hey, if you like this, if you feel moved, I'd love for you to go to Apple and give us a five star review. It's nice for people scrolling through to see that it lands with them and that they may want to check it out. Steve, happy New Year.

Steve: 31:10

Happy New Year, Matt.

Matt: 31:12

We'll see you next time. Bye, everybody.