I Felt Flat, So I Started Questioning Everything

After travel, disrupted sleep, and a difficult medication taper, Matt feels depleted—and immediately starts questioning everything. Does his work matter? Is the podcast helping anyone? Is something genuinely wrong, or is exhaustion turning a temporary emotional state into a verdict on his entire life?

Matt and Steve talk about the dangerous stories that can surface when they feel flat, including the old urge to fix the feeling or escape it altogether. They also look at the less dramatic tools that help: movement, routine, reaching out, changing up meetings, and remembering that progress sometimes means feeling bad without drinking, lashing out, or believing every thought that enters your head.

Transcript

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Steve: 0:01

I remember telling sponsors, you can go to five different meetings a month and only go out three nights a week. By going to those meetings three times a month, right, you're rotating them out. What I call regularly, which is not every week. And some people say, oh, no, you got to go every week. But if you go to a meeting two or three times a month, you're a regular at that meeting. You could start rotating through this meeting and go to something so that you could hit more meetings, and you could get more experience and exposure to different people. And I think that's part of what I'm going through right now is I think I want to start doing some of that.

Matt: 0:42

welcome to the sober friends podcast. I'm @JSteve is over there. And if you've wondered whether life can really get better without alcohol, you're in the right place. Whether you're new to recovery, have some time sober or you're supporting someone, you love. We are glad that you're here. This podcast is about sobriety, emotional growth and learning how to navigate life without having to drink over it. Boy, Steve, I'm I'm pooped.

Steve: 1:07

Yeah.

Matt: 1:07

It's kind of what we can talk about today, just feeling flat. So I recently came back from a trip with my son to Orlando. There has been a lot going on and I think I've shared quite a bit on the podcast about it, medicine tape or all of that stuff. My sleep cycle is interrupted. I'm going to bed late. And when I don't know if you're like this, but if you feel depleted, you can make the temporary emotional state or an accurate assessment of your life. And I thought about this this morning as I'm planning out the podcast. And I'm like, am I really offering anything of value here? I thought about this at work. Am I really doing something that matters? Am I focusing on the right things? And that flat day or that flat approach can tell you the lie, which alcohol does. Whether it's a warning that something is real or whether I'm just simply, I am curious your thoughts on this. Have you felt things like this?

Steve: 2:18

Yeah. And you know, we talk about life on this podcast all the time. And it's easy. Like listen, it's so easy to think that, especially early on that, oh, once I stopped drinking, once I put the booze away, my life is going to get

Matt: 2:37

much,

Steve: 2:37

so

Matt: 2:37

yeah,

Steve: 2:38

and it does. It does. I don't want to give it a bit before. It does get a lot better. But the problems don't go away. And you said it like the emotional struggles, right, which has always been my issue, the emotional struggles, struggles don't go away. And they can wear you down and then, you know, listen, your case, you know, you had some things going on that physically wear you down, right? You have that going on. And then you know, other stuff start powing on. I spent my day walking a dog contemplating my life and feeling like, I don't know, right? You know, I'm having. I'm not a depressive person. I am absolutely an optimist of glass half, but spent a good part of the dog walking the dog this morning just thinking about what kind of rut I'm in, what

Matt: 3:33

feeling,

Steve: 3:34

which isn't great. And that's the lie, right? That's what happens when you start feeling that way. Then you're right. That alcohol thinking that starts to lie like, Hey, my life sucks, my life's no good. My life is this. My life is that and that starts, that starts you down the path of,

Matt: 3:55

Mm-hm.

Steve: 3:56

First of all, bad behavior or just not feeling great and second of all, the path of, you know, picking up a drink because you're starting to feel like, I don't want to feel this way anymore. So I feel that way and, you know, luckily I have a program that gives me some relief, not all the relief I need, but some relief.

Matt: 4:18

No, it is an all above situation to find treatment for this. I was on a medicine taper or a vendla vaccine and I have been on since last fall and I got to the near the end of the taper a few weeks ago and there were things that came along financially with the trip and stuff. And because I was on the taper, any little thing was just pushing me over and it was just a full on panic all the time and I'd go for walks and I realized that walks and exercise were the thing that were helping me because it was burning off cortisol and adrenaline. It was a real reason why I felt better and a real reason why I didn't last. And I reached out to the place where they prescribed the medication. And the person I talked to said, yeah, this is why I don't recommend or prescribe venal vaccine anymore because it is incredibly tough to get off of. And those withdraw symptoms are terrible. And even though I was going on this taper for nine, ten months, I probably was still moving too fast. And so I made the decision not wanting to have like, okay, I'm going to go on, I'm going to go back to taking this every day at a very low dose. And I'm going to slow down with this. Maybe I need to be on the low dose for a little while and then try tapering again. And lo and behold, a lot of these feelings of panic went away that I could handle things. It's not perfect, but the little things that were coming along were not like, this is catastrophic and my life is not recoverable. Going through that is exhausting.

Steve: 6:14

Having

Matt: 6:15

a trip is exhausting. I could get the bed earlier. There are ADHD reasons why sometimes it is tough for me to shut my mind down. And when I am tired, I just get blah. And I've also up my physical activity too. But there's all types of reasons why things kind of feel blah right here. But it leads into nothing, nothing I do is really making a difference. So let me ask you this, when you feel depleted, does your mind leave it alone? Or do you start going down that road of, tell me what this meeting feels?

Steve: 7:02

Yeah. No, if I start feeling depleted or defeated or anything, no, I take action, I'm an action guy. I don't sit with anything

Matt: 7:11

well.

Steve: 7:12

I'm a fixer, I need to fix it, I need to change it. That's why I drank, right? That's why I drank. I don't want to feel this way. I need to take care of that. That's

Matt: 7:22

an action.

Steve: 7:23

Right, I agree. So I mean, I took an action, right? So I'm 100% in action guy. And some of that for me is physical activity, right? It's the

Matt: 7:33

movement,

Steve: 7:33

old

Matt: 7:33

changes

Steve: 7:34

thought. I'm just a, I'm just an active, physical guy, where, you know, today, I will spend most of the day outside doing some stuff because that's just what I do. I mean, there's nothing inside the house today. There's no World Cup, I'm a big World Cup soccer fan. There's no World Cup till Tuesday, Wednesday. So there's there's nothing much going on that's going to attract me to be in the house. I don't watch a lot of TV. My wife and I haven't been watching a series for a while. We talk about it, but we just don't. So there's just nothing to attract me within this, so I'll be outside. And so I need to take action. It's weird. This whole week's been weird for me. I've been feeling off. And so Monday, I didn't go to the meeting or regular meeting. I

Matt: 8:29

Me neither.

Steve: 8:31

know.

Matt: 8:31

That wasn't in the state.

Steve: 8:33

And I, and part of that was, I just felt like I needed a break from that meeting. I feel like sometimes that meeting wears on me. Just the thing that I feel like I take it even when I'm not going. I'm like, Hey, you know, I feel like I got to reach out and tell anybody because people expect me to be there. Hey, I'm not going in the meeting. Somebody's got to open something, right? Like just be prepared. sometimes that, just that wears on me. And then I made the decision to switch up my Friday night meeting just for a week, just a night, been wanting to do this. Like just instead of

Matt: 9:03

And

Steve: 9:03

going to my Friday night men's meeting, just taking a different meeting. So this week was really different for me. And I don't think that helped me, right? In hindsight, I don't think that helped me. I think I would have been better off because the meeting I chose Friday night wasn't a meeting that worked great for me. It just wasn't. It was a fine meeting. Just wasn't a great meeting that worked great for me Friday night. I mean, yeah, Friday night. And so yesterday I woke up. And this is the thing. Like I had, I had my grandkids. And I'll share this. I had my grandkids up Thursday, great day. And two grandkids, the three grandkids and my son, their mom was up hiking in New Hampshire and they came over and we picked blueberries called Blueberry Bushes and we had breakfast for dinner and we slam in the pool. And it was a great day. And I woke up Friday and Jim Crochi's father and son song came across my feed and I listened to it at six o'clock in the morning, I'm the Deccab and Coffee and started crying, right? Just tells you the type of place I was in, right? And I reached out to a friend and said, listen, here I am, right? I just feel like I feel like crap right now, you know? And there's lots of reason for that because life still goes on. Life is life is hard. And as you get older, which I'm getting and my wife's getting, it becomes harder, becomes, you know, some physical things going on. So It's, it's something that I always have to be aware of for this alcoholic.

Matt: 10:42

Mhmm.

Steve: 10:43

What I'll say about that for me is, routine is good, right? You know, we talk about a lot of things. Talk about all my life's boring now that I'm sober. Boring, and you always hear, boring is good. Boring is good. So the routine for me is good. So next week, I'm already looking forward to getting back to Monday, getting back to Friday, until my regular routine, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, right? And I probably will even put in, like, I may hit a meeting today or tonight. I probably will put in another meeting because that's what I do. When I start feeling like this, when I start feeling like rap, I'll probably throw a few extra meetings in there.

Matt: 11:21

That is probably a good idea for me.

Steve: 11:23

Right. And just, just, and again, and I've been looking for some different people. Every meeting I go to, right? Have different people in it. Like, I know guys, guys mostly, but I know people, not only just guys, but I know people who go to the same meetings, and they see the same people, right? And it's like, and not that there's not different people, but there's the same core groups at these meetings. And I, I don't want that. I don't want to start hearing the same things over and over and over again, right? I want to hear different people's perspective. I want to hear different things that what's going on with other people. And that's why I switched up my Friday night meeting. And I'm going to do that every once in a while. Like everyone's long and a go to a different Monday night meeting. Not, you know, not every month, but every couple of months probably. You know, same thing with Friday. Same thing with my Wednesday noon meeting. I'm going to find another Wednesday, or yeah, probably same day. Wednesday noon meeting so I can keep my schedule and just start to see some other people just to mix it up. And, but, you know, that's, that's the beauty of this program for me is like, I have this solution. And I, and the other thing that I know that this feeling that I have, that this what's going on in my life right now will change. And it will, I will feel better about it. And that doesn't mean it's going to get better. It get worse before it gets better, but I will feel better about it. I will be able, I will be in a different place where I can handle it differently. And I know that because I've been through this so many times, now I don't have to be very, all that reactive. And that's what I noticed about myself in the last couple of days is bad as I felt I haven't been reactive. Right. I haven't been mean. I haven't been short. I haven't been sharp. Um, and that, that's a huge, that's progress for me, man. That's like, that's like a huge win in my life.

Matt: 13:16

Yep.

Steve: 13:17

Oh, um, and that's all because of this program. It's all because of this program never, never been able to figure it out. Like, figure it out now because I sit in meetings and I listen to other people and then what it helps me realize that I'm not alone. That everybody's struggling with their own stuff.

Matt: 13:34

Yeah.

Steve: 13:34

Um, and that, uh, yeah, there's a way out.

Matt: 13:41

If you are someone who listens in the greater Hartford area, especially if you've gone to meetings, I don't know, last 40 years in the East Hartford area, you probably knew Frank C. Frank C was, and this was a name that that came up from a Tony L, who was also passed away, used to refer to him as chocolate chip. And as Tony got older, he became more virulent against homophobia and against racism. He said, as he got more sober, he liked racial humor and he liked people making fun of gay people less. He became a big Italian guy and he became much less, uh, tolerant of that type of thing. So when I call him chocolate chip, or I refer to that, I say that in the nicest way, his sponsor was this guy chip, who is still with us, old chromageny guy who sponsored half of East Hartford, and his first sponsor was Frank C, who they called chocolate chip because Frank was black, and it was said with with love that these are the yin, these two were the yin and the yang. Frank C said, you know, I would, I found a meeting, I found meetings every day of the week and I went to them and I had been going to them every week for like 29 years or whatever. And this was like 14, 15 years ago. I heard this and I'm just, I was appalled. I'm like, how do you do this? How do you go to the same damn meeting for 20, 30 years? Because I can't. And when you said, you know, I'm tired of the Monday night people, I can identify with that, not from a place of, I don't like this meeting anymore, but almost like a marriage type of thing of, I like these people. I just can't hear this for a week or two. I need a vacation from these people. and a lot of times it's something in ourselves that we don't want to hear. But I find myself sometimes in the meetings I'm very familiar with of I can finish the sentence of what the person is going to say because I know these people so well. And sometimes it's just irritating. I don't want to hear you do that. I see those little things like Mr. B is constantly apologizing to me for sharing. He's like, I'm sorry that I'm I'm burdening you with my problem. And I feel like Mr. B, this is the 500th time I'm going to tell you I'm honored that you have shared something and you felt comfortable talking to me. And now I'm going to strangle you. And that's not about Mr. B. That's about me and that's a place of my resistance is down. So I actually think it is actually a good thing. I'm okay. I'm not going to go to this meeting this week. I can't handle it. I've gone to 300 consecutive weeks. I'm going to find a different meeting on Monday for this week. I find those to be energizing, which is why I said, maybe I need to go to a meeting not because I need a meeting, but because just a different experience feels different. And those are the ones I see somebody I know, but rarely talk to at a meeting that I see every week, because I just see them all the time. But if they're the only person I know at that meeting, it is a commonality of I'm going to go and talk to them because we know each other. And there's that familiarity sort of like I see somebody I know down in this is for Bill, a sober, not mature. This is those those drift off moments. When we're coming home in Orlando, I came out of the bathroom and there was this woman who walked to eyes with me and looked at me like I was a celebrity type thing. And I couldn't place how I knew her. And she was one of the moms on my daughter's soccer team. I haven't seen her in about a year because they moved from South Windsor to back to Missouri, but it's so weird that you run into people like that. And she she was always so kind to me. So she came over. I gave her a hug, greeted her husband and her daughter. They were going they were going to universal. I was head in home. And it's weird that you see people in an airport like that. And like why why the hell was that lined up that way. And maybe if they were around, it's not so exciting, but I know them, but all these people are strangers and it's sort of an exciting thing to see somebody that you know in an unfamiliar environment. And that's the way I look at meeting sometimes. It's exciting because unfamiliar environment. And it also it sounds like to you it helped you appreciate what Monday was and helped you appreciate what Friday was I was thinking in terms of like going to Chili's I order the old timer with cheese every single time because I know what I'm going to get. But sometimes I'm like, but what about the fajitas? And then I think, well, what if I don't like the fajitas? And then I'm going to say, I should have got the old timer. And that's how I was hearing the whole I was going to go to a different I went to a different meeting. It's like you ordered the fajitas and it's like, damn it, I should have just gotten the old timer.

Steve: 19:17

Yeah,

Matt: 19:17

should have gone, but I think that he is a good thing of challenging yourself of no, I need to take a break here. From this, I need to experience something different. And you have to understand the difference of not my type of recovery versus this was uncomfortable because I needed to grow a little bit. And I think that's that resonates for me in my situation. And I think sometimes that you'd get emotional data that is not real.

Steve: 19:52

Yeah, a couple of things. First of all, the Monday night meeting, yeah, it's a small meeting, right? It's gotten smaller. It's pretty, it's 12 to 15 people on a regular basis. And it's basically of those.

Matt: 20:04

And it had gotten down to like five. So 15 is good.

Steve: 20:07

No, it's not bad. But they're pretty much the same. I've

Matt: 20:09

was

Steve: 20:10

been small. I there's probably 20 people who come to that meeting on a regular basis. But they come two to three times a month. So it is always the same people. So you do have that same story, but that's not even about this meeting. Because it's a big book meeting and we read a big book. And something often, not as much as it used to, something jumps out at me differently. And there are people who I like tremendously at that meeting. And so it's for me at that meeting, it's the burden that feel and I know this is not true completely. But it's the burden that I feel, and again, it's my burden. Nobody else tells me that if I stop going to that meeting, the meeting might collapse right? Like the meeting.

Matt: 20:57

Ego,

Steve: 20:59

right. And that's that's not true right somebody else would pick up that pace and I'll give you a little bit and there might be people from my Wednesday new meeting as as I told you I don't think it but we're having a big anniversary party in a couple weeks for my Wednesday new meeting and I'm a big control person and I do organization old type things so when we started talking about it we didn't have much we had about two months to plan this thing count really quick so I jumped right in and I pissed a few people off I get Nobody's ever approached me about it but apparently there were whispers going on afterwards that people didn't like the way I was doing stuff and and and rightfully so and I get it I get it But as I told some of my friends at that meeting I get it I'm not the cup of tea for everybody but I get shit as I put it I get shit done right I get it done like you don't have to worry about it it'll be done But it also brought me to realization that I need to back off that's what my point of this thing is like oh I need to back off in that meeting and that's I think maybe what started me of thinking of switching up meetings like not that I want to switch that mean I love that meeting and I'll always go to that meeting but switch it off once in a while is not a bad thing and I remember telling Sponsies and I was on this kick for a while I'm like you can go to five different meetings a month and only go out three nights a week

Matt: 22:29

Mm-hmm

Steve: 22:30

right by going to those meetings three times a month right instead of like you're rotating them out so you could have five different meetings Where you're going again where I call regularly which is not every week and some people say oh no you gotta go every week but if you go to a meeting two or three times a month you're a regular at that meeting yeah And so you could start rotating through these meetings and go to something and so that you could hit more meetings and you can get more open you know you can get more experience and and Exposure to different people and I think that's part of what I'm going through right now as I think I want to start doing some of that the other thing I want to do and again this a little bit of this is for Bill too will sort of go down a rabbit hole But I really got this desire to start doing some road trips right like like go

Matt: 23:21

I

Steve: 23:21

that town

Matt: 23:22

like doing

Steve: 23:23

Right go out of town like hey, let's go to a meeting. Let's go grab a bite to eat. Let's go to a meeting. Right and And I just feel like man, I want to start doing that because I used to do that early sobriety a lot

Matt: 23:37

One of my favorite memories is going with you to a Saturday night speaker meeting. I was pretty new sober.

Steve: 23:43

Yeah

Matt: 23:44

A little long time ago now but those type of things have gone with somebody to on a road trip. Those are fun. I

Steve: 23:50

Great and we've done it before we were taking speaking commitments from our Wednesday meeting and we would get together and then we would go You know three or four of us would go up and support the speaker and they're fun. They're fun And I know like some of the Friday night guys they get together and they have dinner before the Friday night meeting and they go to that meeting But I'm thinking like I said, I'm thinking road trips. I had this mission of like a pizza and meeting night We go around the state of Connecticut. We

Matt: 24:15

the

Steve: 24:16

find all

Matt: 24:16

Places

Steve: 24:17

we have some pizza from all these different places and then we find a meeting in that area wherever it is Like there's some places down in waterberry chusher. Like all right. We got on there. We hit the pizza place We have a bike and we go to a meeting or you do it opposite you know go to meeting depending on what time the meetings are so But they take commitment. They take organization blah blah blah. Right. Um, you know you got to have all the people doing but my point is like sometimes It's not my I guess my whole point of death story is sometimes it's not the people of the meeting that I'm Trying to avoid although that does happen. I get tired of the same stories

Matt: 24:54

mm-hmm

Steve: 24:54

It's some of it's some of the other stuff and just like you said it with mr. B It's always me right. It's always me that I'm the one struggling with it and the perfect example was there were 20 people at this Friday night meeting I went to it's a meeting that was suggested to me by a friend That they went there and they have you know that it was a decent meeting yep And I went there and it didn't work for me like it just didn't work for me and I and I just go It works for these people one guy said I've been coming to this meeting for 18 years. Well, it's working for him Right it's working for him. So I get that today like I go to a meeting if it doesn't if it doesn't hit well with me That's me. That's on me. That's not the meeting

Matt: 25:39

Mm-hmm

Steve: 25:40

You know again it gives me an opportunity to keep exploring keep doing some different thing,

Matt: 25:46

We are really blessed, especially in Connecticut, that there are so many meetings, it's so many different times, that you can find something that is right for you. I've been, especially when you're gone, like, how are these people so excited about this meeting, this sucks? And it's because that's the menu for them. It's sort of like going in and say, "I don't like foe, foe restaurant suck." No, it's just, I don't like that cuisine, but some people are passionate about it,

Steve: 26:15

yeah

Matt: 26:16

and maybe my taste buds are ground down, and I like chilies. That's not wrong, it's just the... it's what I'm in the mood for at that point, and it hits, and sometimes it's just the connection. And so this has kind of turned into, I feel blah, I'm tired, I'm burnt out. And I think the thing that has changed here in this conversation is where we act is... You need to find a change, you need to take some action, and you need to take a risk that doing something different is the thing that is gonna invigorate you a little bit. Or it may not, but the victory is that you tried something, and that's a data point. And then the next thing to do is, "Okay, that didn't work. Now do something again. Now do something again and keep doing it."

Steve: 27:10

Yeah, I will tell you, I agree with that 100%. And it's something that I do a lot is I do stuff, and it doesn't always work out. And my wife and I will talk about this, and I will tell her, like, there are things I will do, and I will go when I get done with them. Sometimes this is like the project you are of, but not always. And I will go, "Man, I don't like that. But I never feel bad about it unless I, some of you, are brushed into it, because I tried something." And I will say this, years ago when I first got into sales, when I first got into the career that I spent almost 30 years doing. I worked for a guy in West Tavern, Connecticut, old Italian guy, and we were selling all kinds of stuff.

Matt: 28:01

a

Steve: 28:02

Wait

Matt: 28:02

second. They're Italians in West Haven, Connecticut.

Steve: 28:05

Yeah. And I remember, I didn't know anything what I was doing. We were selling all kinds of stuff, coming out of IBM processing plants, like all kinds of different stuff, And I didn't know how to price this stuff. They weren't pricing. I wasn't selling widgets that I had pricing. I was selling things, people come in, they would offer me pricing. I would do the best I can. This is well before the internet, right? I had magazines that would try to look up what this stuff was worth, and I can

Matt: 28:31

magazines.

Steve: 28:31

remember my boss saying,"Just make a decision," like giving me that freedom, to just make a decision. And I finally bought into that. But that is hard, right? Because I get frozen sometimes, so it making a bad decision. And sometimes, right? It puts me in a situation where I'm afraid to make any decision. I'm better with that now. But just doing something for me, for this alcoholic, is really, really important. Like I said, I will get done with this podcast. We record most of the time on Sunday mornings. It's not even 10 o'clock, right? It's not even 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning. I've already walked my dog, brushed my dog, and I was doing some I had some algae in my pool. I was doing some pool maintenance, and it texts you like, "Hey, I just need about 10 minutes to finish up this pool maintenance." And I did all that before just 9 o'clock, more or less, this morning, because that's what I do. I get up, I move, and that to me gets me out of whatever I might be feeling. And not avoiding it, either. Because I'm also texting out the little callicks. I've got a text going right now with another alcoholic about what's going on. They checked in on Because that was the alcoholic I checked in with on Saturday, like, Hey, how are you doing today? Better? And I wrote back marginally better. I'm not great, marginally better.

Matt: 30:15

That's progress.

Steve: 30:16

Yay, and that is progress. And I'm good. And I feel good about that. I'm marginally better. I don't feel as down as I was. And it's nice. When I got that text, I was like, it just brightened my day. That's somebody checked in on me, right? So, you know, all of this is program stuff. All of this struggles, you know, it works. And you know, I mean, people will attribute all of this to their higher power. I guess I attribute it to my higher power too, because my higher power is the fellowship. And this is the fellowship coming through for me.

Matt: 30:57

You don't have to have a perfect way of knowing if your feeling flat is exhaustion or whether it's pointing towards something else. It sounds like we went down path here of sometimes exhaustion is, it's, it's repetitiveness.

Steve: 31:12

Yeah, boredom.

Matt: 31:13

boredom. Sometimes it's not knowing and sometimes it's noticing the feelings, the inconnected, give myself enough time to see whether it feels true tomorrow. That's, that's true for me because this, this, this panic I had felt on the medicine table, it was difficult to see tomorrow.

Steve: 31:34

Right.

Matt: 31:35

It was, it was that leak and I'm glad that I changed some things and took a step back to, to feel better. So often it's not the whole truth about your life and I heard a bunch of things here, call somebody, make a change, recognize the feeling, take action. I would love to see how you connect with this, when you feel flat, when you feel exhausted, when you feel burnt out, what do you do? Do you, does the drink seem more enticing in that moment or do you have something that works for you? Share it with me, mad@soberfriendspod.com and I say that because maybe this is something that we can help the next sick and suffering person and let's crowdsource this. Steve thanks for doing this today.

Steve: 32:25

Hey mad, thanks for having me.

Matt: 32:27

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