I Wasn’t Crying About What I Thought I Was Crying About

You can spend a lot of time trying to fix the thing that seems to be causing your anxiety and still miss what’s actually underneath it.

For Matt, the panic looked like money, college costs, and the fear of letting his son down. But when the emotion finally came out, it opened into something bigger: grief, change, getting older, losing control, and realizing that some parts of life can’t be solved before they’re felt.

Matt and Steve talk about why sobriety can bring us face-to-face with emotions we used to avoid, numb, or drink over—and what changes when we stop demanding certainty and start dealing with what’s actually there.

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Transcript

Matt: 0:01

letting go doesn't require certainty. It can mean facing what's true, facing what's present, releasing the demand for complete control, continuing to take the next responsible action. This isn't again about learning how to drink less or not drink. The alcohol problem goes away when you can feel this other emotional stuff. Welcome to the sober friends podcast. I'm Matt J over there is Steve. If you have ever wondered whether life can really get better without alcohol, you're in the right place and whether you need a recovery, have some sober time or you're just supporting somebody that you love. We're glad you hear all y'all are welcome. This is a podcast about sobriety. It's about emotional growth. It's about learning how to navigate without having to drink over it. And Steve, you know, right at the top, I don't think we say this enough. This is not about alcohol or how to drink less or how many drinks I had. We're talking a lot about alcohol. It's just a lot about life shit. And when we get off on the life shit stuff, it's like how is this about sobriety? Because the shit stuff was the stuff we drank over. Would you agree?

Steve: 1:22

100%. I mean, that's what we talk about on this. We talk about stuff that seemingly, especially maybe if you're new and recovery, you may struggle with it sometimes, but I don't think so. I think we touch enough on the actual drinking part too. But we talk about things that bothered us enough that we would try to bury those feelings, right, and we buried those feelings through alcohol use. So, you know, listen, it's for me. It's an everyday thing, right? I mean, it's a it's a thing that I work on. It's not everyday, it's not every minute. But it's a thing that I work on all the time is dealing with those situations that used to drive me crazy and still can today. But today, I have to figure out how do I do, I have to figure out two things today. How do I do those things without overreacting, which sometimes I struggle, I still struggle with that. And then mostly how do I do those things without looking for the easy way out, which was for me to us to pick up a bottle, start drinking. So, That's what we talk about. That's what we do here. We talk about life stuff. You know, if we were a book, maybe we'd be called Living Sober, right? I mean it. So, like,

Matt: 2:40

yep.

Steve: 2:41

trying to figure out how we lives a sober life.

Matt: 2:45

All right, you said it all. Just you stop the podcast now, read Living Sober. Bye, everybody!

Steve: 2:50

So,

Matt: 2:51

I want to share a story from yesterday. I have talked a lot about this medicine taper and the anxiety and I have been up and down and I am fighting through it and the anxiety started to build again. And I think it's because the body get used to the low dose every day. And so, it's like I was fine, I was fine. I was like now it's starting to feel like the taper again. But I think it's medicine related. So, I'm going to share a little bit of a story about my son. I think I've talked a little bit about this. He's He turned 18 in May. He was accepted to end the CAH College going there in the fall. He's going to play Division 3 volleyball. The freaking kids are studed both academically and athletically. A lot of it. All of the things I never I never was or never could be that he can be. And so, I had this crippling anxiety realizing that the financing that I thought was all done isn't. And we got to get this together and there's the one thing that makes me crazy. It is money. So, there were a bunch of pressure points that got hit all at once. And the level of panic attack I had Friday night and woke up with it on Saturday morning was like 71 out of 10. It was high. So, I went downstairs and he did not want to do this and it took all my effort to go in and start doing the checklist of the things I need to do. And realizing through this checklist, I'm like, "Okay, I should not go out this willy nilly. There are things that I in order I need to do and this is manageable." And so, I really I wanted to go look at a picture of him. I was looking for a specific picture of him and somebody else I know. And I didn't find that particular picture, but I found a bunch of him as a baby. And I just uncontrollably started crying that. And I don't cry often. I used to be able to cry often. but probably not in the last 10 years or so, this, I have this thing where if I start crying, I start crying, I don't, I don't just like the tears come down my face. It's either I control my emotions or I am a blubbering mess and I don't want people to see me as a blubbering mess. It feels totally out of control, but I also was downstairs and nobody was around and I'm looking through these pictures and I'm just, I'm sobbing and I'm like, I don't know when this is going to stop and because digital photographs look they kind of look as good, back when we were kids, the photographs looked old after a while. These photographs look like they were taken yesterday and it feels like they were taken yesterday and he's a little baby coming out of the shower with his ass hanging out and he's an 18 year old man. He's walking around without his shirt on and I had noted that like Jesus Christ, your shoulders are enormous because he's doing this different exercise and he's not that little baby anymore. He's got these enormous muscles. He's taller than me and he's not going to be here anymore and we had just had a really good afternoon where I was cleaning up the brush and the backyard and he came out to, quote, help me, but really it was, it was pretty clear, he just wanted a hang and was really, really chatty. I felt like a couple hours and there were other things they needed to do but I just kind of sat there and listened and was present and sitting there talking to him, I realized, this is a moment I'm never going to have again or this is not like something bad is going to but it's like this is a special moment be as present as you can because you're going to look back at this whatever we're talking about with with a joyful feeling that this is a good memory and you're having it now. So stop and be present and all of that hit me and the emotion was intense and once like the crying stopped I felt better yesterday than I had felt in months like it felt I just had this relief of just like everything and I think that fear of him going and the finances have just been building and building and building on top of everything and I finally allowed myself to release it out and I really have felt better even though it's not tied up it's not in a not closed up but I allowed it to come out and it wasn't wonderful feeling without saying everything's going to be great.

Steve: 8:11

Yeah, it's interesting how I'm the same way I don't I do I do get brought to emotion everyone's for a while or something will hit me music

Matt: 8:23

a

Steve: 8:24

video something like that will hit me and it'll bring tears to my eyes and it'll choke me up but I don't do that globally globally crying a lot but everyone's for a while I do the same thing and it's always feels good I mean it always feels good and and man you're you know you're in a you're in a point in your life where you got a lot going on and like

Matt: 8:49

got

Steve: 8:49

I said you

Matt: 8:50

hmm

Steve: 8:51

I remember the same thing my son was a when he went the more went to college more than high school but got into rock climbing and stuff like that and the same thing I remember seeing my son when he was like 19 years old which is shirt off and had this chisel body of a rock climber right strong like just and same thing like you know I still envision him as this little kid and it was like no that's not that anymore and then and then it it became even a little bit more some of that stuff was trickier for me because of my divorce right that that I divorced when he was like nine years old and yeah so I wasn't there 24/7 and I wasn't there I was there for a lot trust me I was a very involved dad but not there is much and everyone's in a while that too would get to me right again same thing I would hold that hold that hold that and then everyone's wild I'd get a trigger either a photograph or something just like you photograph or something else and then have this huge overwhelming emotion so it's I think it's just a a way to cope I remember the financial anxiety when mouth both my kids went to college male my kids are three years apart so they were both in college for a year together um and I just remember trying to get all that nailed down to get housing nailed down because I was same thing like because we were divorced whatever reason all of that financial stuff fell on me that fall on one of us right one of the parents so it fell on me so I was one in charge with work now again my kids were really good my kids did 90% of the work they did like my kids did

Matt: 10:43

he's done like he's done so much work on this

Steve: 10:47

Right, and they did too, like they did and they would, they would come to me, it's, hey, Dad, I need you to do this or I need you to get online do that, like they would tell me what they needed out of me. So, I was really blessed with that that I, that I had children who were able to do some of that stuff. But I also remember that, you know, and that, that, that, that all, all that anxiety because, um, you know, just like I said, the finances, all that kind of stuff. And, and it's hard, it's hard. It's hard to do

Matt: 11:15

Mmm-hmm.

Steve: 11:17

it. Um, I remember looking at it, and, and now that it's behind me, and I just remember like I said, like I had that stretch where my kids were getting to hit college and, you know, I, I got lucky in life. Um, that stretch hit when I sort of hit my peak and making money.

Matt: 11:33

Mm-hmm.

Steve: 11:34

And because I was a salesperson and my compensation package changed all the time. And it changed, and I worked for a big company at the time and it changed in a way that I was able to make some decent money. So, I had a lot of money going out for my kids, you know, they, I, you know, but, um, and I, you know, and I, and I did that, but, man, the anxiety of it was crazy. It was crazy. So, um, I think everyone's fine. We need that. We need to figure it out. We need to let ourselves just let it go. And, uh, it's, so it is. It's therapeutic.

Matt: 12:09

And this is, I know I need to do this when I get numb, and I think I've been numb for a while. I really get numb where there's no emotion. And I think it is the way of me trying to control it. As an aside, money wise, if I were to show you what my wife and I make, you would think, how do you have any money issues? And I look at that, like, how the hell do we have any money issues and how do we struggle? But we're in that like middle ground of making too much to get additional help, but also not making enough to do it on our own. It's just this, it's this weird place that we are in, in American society, where with the amount of money we make, we should not have the problems that we That's a, that's a different. This is where the economy is right now. And things will eventually get better, but Jesus, we're getting hit in the head here, and it, it should not be the case. I think through the trigger here being, I must be a bad dad if I can't support enough for him. Like, what if I fail at this, and then he can't go and we're wasting that intelligence and that academics. I don't, that was the thing I remember solving. I don't want to fail him as a father. And I think it comes back to how I grew up that hate to pat myself on the back. He's having a better experience with parents. I did it at his age. He has a lot, he has two parents at home. He has two parents who can give him the right guidance. He's not alone. I have an extreme, I have an extreme Gen X growing up story of, of typical Gen X that I was a latch key kid where I got no freaking guidance from the parents. And then growing up to be an adult, you're parenting both your kids and your parents that were the sandwich generation. It's like, man, us Gen X people got fucked. But he's, he's not, he's not getting that experience and neither are his two sisters who also are extremely athletic and also smart as hell. And it's like he's wicked smart. And then the other two kids might be smarter in their own way than even he is.

Steve: 15:26

Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's the same thing. I mean, I'm in a weird thing. So I'm considered, I don't know if you've ever heard of the, the Jones the Jones generation, which is the end. It's a generation that spans about 10 years from the end of the boomers into the early part of Gen Xers.

Matt: 15:43

Yeah.

Steve: 15:44

And that's where I fall. I fall into that category. So I really identify, identify way more with Gen Xers than I do. Because the same thing. I was sort of a lachki kid, all that kind of stuff. And my kids, you know, I didn't have good parenting. My wife, that was the only thing my wife had very good parenting, right. My, my kids, mom's, what I'm talking about. She had very, I mean, she grew up and her dad was a doctor, right. Mom was a stay at home mom. They, she had very good parenting. But I didn't, I was like you, I had, I had none. No guidance. Everything I did was on my own. Everything, I mean that everything I did was on my own. No guidance. So I've blessed I lived an alcoholic home. So, so it is nice to see that, you know, your son has that. And I'm sure your son appreciates it. It's hard. And again, it's hard when you're 18 years old.

Matt: 16:38

I know he does, he doesn't say it, but he says it in

Steve: 16:40

Right that's what I mean it's hard and sometimes you know at that thing they they got a lot of stuff going on but they appreciate it and you'll see. So you know it's i just think about your life where you can have this is your first going so you know starting to settle into you like oh my kids are starting to get older and i'm right and the other thing that that happens where you don't realize it like that's you saying to yourself oh i'm getting older too right

Matt: 17:10

yep.

Steve: 17:12

I just remember listen I'm 68 years old i don't know how that happened i mean that honestly you can talk about it but like i don't know how that happened that i got to be that old i certainly don't feel that old but it just but it it's true right i mean i couple years i'll be you know god will i'll be 7 years old i don't give a shit what you say about 70 to 50 70 years old is old so it is now that that thing I talk about it all the time in my meetings i am very much aware today of my own mortality i am i very much aware of where i am in life and at 68 years old i am way beyond you know i am way into the back nine of my life and who knows you know who knows how much longer so i try to appreciate all these things so yeah the thing i would say about having that moment where you break down you cry it's like first of all that i do think i think that's a cleansing thing to do and then hopefully it gives you a chance to sort of start appreciating and being present while the next few steps of your son because you know in the next few months when he first goes off to school you'll have a lot of anxiety over that he may have some anxiety when he gets to school so but it'll hope you it hopefully it'll give you an opportunity to be present during all that and just to take it in and live it and and be there for him because you know then the whole thing starts all i hate my roommate my roommate says you know like trust

Matt: 18:47

me

Steve: 18:48

it goes it goes on for a while right it goes on for a while um you know what it do the cloud you know i mean it still goes on and my again my kids were easy my kids were easy and it still went on with them um but i want to touch base about something my wife and i talked we talked early on is um quick story is my mother-in-law had a cat that my wife got her she picked it up from i think she's i think my wife said the Vernon you know the Vernon pound but i don't know where they got they rescued this cat it was my mother-in-law's cat my mother-in-law died i don't know probably 10 loving years ago and so we had two dogs at the time we didn't want to take in the cat we weren't cat people really i was a cat person um my wife it's my wife grew up with the cat but we didn't want to take it so we gave this cat to a friend who turned out to be an alcoholic and turned out at the end to die from this ugly so

Matt: 19:43

um

Steve: 19:44

this cat was in this situation and i sort of lost try i knew this cat was there and we had a mutual friend who would go and over to see this woman when she would report back how bad she was doing and she would say things like oh that poor cat that poor cat and it never it never hit me that we my wife and i had a responsibility to that cat because it was a mother's cat right and finally one day my wife said i think i got to go get that cat and we did anyway we went and rescued the cat which was a disaster she was a mess maddit bubble-bomb we had that cat for two years she was 16 when i got we got her she died two years later and here's the story i brought this cat and i i really liked this cat and i had a cat for a long time i had a cat for 16 years i'm my own 17 years i'm my own and i brought this cat in the vet and cat wasn't the kidneys weren't functioning i put the cat down i sobbed

Matt: 20:39

for

Steve: 20:40

20 minutes and it caught me off guard because i only had that cat for two years like it wasn't like this was a lifelong pet pet i sobbed and my wife and i were just talking about this the other day and i that i had a cat that i picked up when i was young and single and when i was divorced i left the cat behind because my kids were there and they're you know it's like that was her home and she was older and my cat died shortly after that within maybe two years and i said i have this guilty feeling that i mean i trust me i won't give you the whole thing this cat i moved many times with this cat this cat came everywhere with me this cat was great um and i said i felt like i let that cat down i wasn't there when she died right i wasn't there at the end times because i was her person right and and so said um maybe that's why you cried so hard for Sammie right

Matt: 21:34

yeah

Steve: 21:35

it wasn't Sammy maybe it was you were mourning the fact that you weren't there the other cats name was honey and i had never thought about that But, and my point is, sometimes we're sobbing over things that we're not sure, really what we're sobbing over, that's my point or we're yeah, and it's the same thing, sometimes we get pissed off, we get angry whatever it is, and it's always not what we think it is.

Matt: 22:13

Right,

Steve: 22:15

right, it did, it gave me some resolution to that thing, it was like, you know something, that's right, so because I didn't mourn over the cat, right? I didn't, I wasn't there, and it was interesting, right? We had, you know, my, you know, after she died, we buried it in the backyard of their home, and we went up and we all did that together, but there was no tears, I didn't fear, and, uh, and I do think that it was, it was just me, you know, doing that, so anyway, so, again, sometimes that's really good, sometimes we don't know what's going on, right? And,

Matt: 22:50

uh-huh,

Steve: 22:51

sometimes we gotta let go, let go and let the process be where it is, right? I mean, the other thing we talk about, I talk about it all the time, I'm such a control person, it's the other reason why I don't want people to see me crying and stuff, because I just want to show that I'm always in control, you know.

Matt: 23:07

I think that's the thing with me,

Steve: 23:08

and especially around family, right, I don't want, especially around my kids, right? I don't want my kids to think, oh no, which is, and I'm not saying this is good, trust me. The thing is probably good, if, you know, the kids could see that, and my kids have seen me cry when my parents died and stuff like that, they've seen me whale, right? Like, when my mom and dad died at the end, I, there's always a point, I've said it like for me, I was able to go through the whole thing, but at the funeral home, before you go to the cemetery where the family goes up and says goodbye, everybody goes up and they say goodbye, that's where I break down. It was like, that's it, this is the final time, right? There's a final thing, we're going to go, we're going to put him in the ground and that's going to be end of it. That's where I would always lose it. I could keep it all buttoned up until then. So my kids have certainly seen that there's a motion, but yeah, it's part of just trying to be in control, and, you know, keeping those emotions in check. And like I said, it's not always a good thing, but I'm more relaxed with it today I'm more relaxed with the, I'm more relaxed to let it happen. I'm more relaxed to not sob, but, again, be brought to tears over things that,

Matt: 24:25

it's probably better to you brought to tears than let it build up

Steve: 24:28

right,

Matt: 24:28

when you have to sob.

Steve: 24:30

yeah,

Matt: 24:30

And I am hopeful this experience this weekend is the thing that allows me that emotional growth. As you're talking about this, thinking in the back of the head that I the last time I really was sobbing was probably early 2025. And it was a something else thing that was causing me to sob. It was first watching, I don't know if it was in this order might have been. No, I think I watched, I watched a nor Mcdonald. Nothing special on Netflix. And then it was the 50th for SNL. And I sobbed at both of those things. The nothing special. If you haven't seen it, if you're a norm fan, go watch it on Netflix. Nothing special is you knew he was sick. It was COVID. He wasn't sure if he was going to get the set done. So we did it into like a zoom camera in like in his house. And he does it without any notes without any audience. And it's wonderful. And then they, the camera kind of pulls away from the camera pulls away from the from the TV and cone in and moderately Shannon and Dave Letterman and Dave Chappelle are sitting there and they're kind of talking about norm. And then when they when Adam Sandler did a song, and he had a had a lyric about both Norman Chris Farley. Those moments just make me sob. I have talked about my love for Norm Mcdonald on the show before I love norm. He still makes me laugh like crazy. I can go over all of the old stuff. He was the greatest weekend update host. Don't at me because if you say it's somebody else that you like you're wrong. He was the greatest. And I realized like the stuff about norm dying is really more about me. It's about that letting go of what norm meant to me in that moment in the 90s and college of like letting go of that. Before career that transition from being a kid to an adult that he reminds me of it was that period of time. And if norm's gone, then I have to let go of that time. And I think it's also a norm got sick. He told the son his brother. his business manager slash business partner and his mom and no one else and didn't tell anybody how sick he was for nine years and kind of he kind of kept it to himself for nine years and there's that feeling of what is going on psychologically that you hold something that big from even your closest friends and that we didn't know our time with you was so short that we never got a chance to say goodbye that's how the feeling I didn't know I didn't have that time we enorm not that he's my friend but I didn't know I had that I didn't know time was short

Steve: 27:46

I

Matt: 27:47

wasn't prepared for this and I think that all of those feelings together are about me and letting again letting go which was that was again a trigger of anything norm related makes me incredibly emotional and I can both cry and laugh hysterically watching him a little less for Chris Farley because I think I think we all knew that things were not going well for Chris even though he was hysterical but like norm is gonna norm is gonna be around forever and then he wasn't and that was and it's and it's almost a very similar cry because it's not necessarily about the thing I'm crying about it's about me

Steve: 28:26

right

Matt: 28:26

and it's about letting go and it's about letting go of the past is now closed you can't go back to it you only have the present and you have and if you want something that felt like that you have to build it now

Steve: 28:41

I mean you just said it so a little what I touched on talking about your son it's really one of those lessons of trying to be present right I've talked about it before I my the podcasts that I'd listen to all the time it's what I go to sleep with every night is something called it's from Ram Das and he wrote a book called Be Here Now this

Matt: 29:05

this

Steve: 29:05

thing about be here now and the hope that he was Buddhist right and he's talked about being present now with what's going on now and man that's that's so high it's easy to say that but it can be so hard to do right

Matt: 29:20

very

Steve: 29:20

and I work really really hard on that now is the be present now for the for the for the things and the things that are happening again that does come through back to my own I realize what my mortality is is like no don't waste my time right don't don't waste today by worrying about tomorrow don't waste today by worrying about the my regrets of yesterday

Matt: 29:42

yep

Steve: 29:43

present today for what's happening today and be grateful for that so and I think that's what happens again when when those type of things when when somebody like a Norman McDonnell who I came to much later than you you know you you know I mean I I'm a big norm fan that probably not like you but I came to his stuff much later than you did

Matt: 30:04

I came to him before SNL I knew who he was

Steve: 30:06

right so I'm saying I and I didn't I came way way after then and and then when I started really paying attention to him like it wasn't until I really paid attention to him that I realized like how funny and good this guy was like because you really do I can see where you could watch Norma don't go I don't get this guy I mean I mean I really I really I get that while people could say that um but he was he was so good I'm gonna go watch that special too um so um so anyway it's all you know it's always about that like it's always bring us back to us and you know how we're feeling about us and it might again it may be a relationship that you had with someone

Matt: 30:51

yeah

Steve: 30:51

you realize right again you may not be Norman McDonnell but part of that but also like you're missing some of these relationships that you had you know like whether it's a parent whether it's a parent or a sibling or or or or a close friend you know I have a close friend that um I'm missing that relationship with and it requires me to do some work on that I haven't been willing to do um and I don't know you know maybe I will maybe I won't but you know it gets to the point where maybe maybe someday I'll I'll feel uncomfortable enough with it that I'll have to take some action on

Matt: 31:28

it yep

Steve: 31:30

So, y'know, that's the- that's the lessons of life. That's what we talk about on here, right. We talk about like, "What are we doing? What are we talking about? or Mike Donald for?" We talk about this, we're trying to figure out like, "Hey, what's going on. What's going on with me? What's going on with us?" So, y'know, I'm like, "All right. I've got to- I've got to make some changes and not huge stuff, but I've got to make some changes because I'm realizing like, "Uhh, I keep trying to do this one thing, and it's not working." So, I'm like, "All right. That's the definition of insanity, right? So why I need to- I need to make a change." And uh, and that's- that's the progress that I live in today. That's the place I live where this program has brought me to start finding out what's bothering me. And then taking steps to make those changes necessary. So, I don't keep stumbling over the same, you know, over the same blocks. That's all.

Matt: 32:40

So, since take away is from you, letting go doesn't require certainty. It can mean facing what's true, facing what's present, releasing the demand for complete control, continuing to take the next responsible action. This isn't, again, about learning how to drink less or not drink. It's- the alcohol is- although the alcohol is a big problem. It's teeny tiny. It's about- the alcohol problem goes away when you can feel this other emotional stuff. And the people who don't have addiction are probably not going to relate to this too much because they have at least some structure handle this, and those of us who have a problem did not. And if you're like me and- one of my like 12 years sober

Steve: 33:28

now.

Matt: 33:28

I don't have figured out if the 12 years I would have thought like, "Oh my god, that's forever." Yeah, I don't have figured out. So, if you don't have figured out and you have less than 12 years, you're okay. If you don't have figured out and you have more than 12 years, you're okay, too. It's really about the journey. Steve, thanks for doing this in my latest therapy session.

Steve: 33:47

It was a good map.

Matt: 33:48

Alright,

Steve: 33:49

See ya.

Matt: 33:50

I will talk- we'll talk to you guys next week. Bye everybody.

Steve: 33:53

Sounds good.