E162: Character Defects: How They Affect Our Recovery and Our Lives

In this episode, Matt and Steve discuss how character defects, such as fear, dishonesty, jealousy, and being transactional, can lead to problems in our relationships and our lives, and how they can trigger us to drink or use drugs. They share their personal stories and insights from working the 12 steps of AA, and how they learned to identify and overcome their character defects.

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Transcript

Matt: 0:25

I've been into the new night court because I like those old shows. John Larroquette is in the show and he's a real life alcoholic. And early on last season, the new judge, Abby Stone, talked about her character defects, and he put two and two together that she had alcoholism and she had been working on trying to fix those character defects. That was the theme of the show and why she went back to take over her, The court that her father had to feel closer to him. Character defects are something we always talk about in recovery, and I thought that would be an awesome topic tonight that we could share a little bit. And as we were talking off the air, Steve, you talked about your character defects

Steve: 1:12

Yeah,

Matt: 1:12

coming up.

Steve: 1:12

right.

Matt: 1:13

What do you want to share?

Steve: 1:14

Yeah. You know something? It's something. It was interesting. How you doing, Matt? It's great

Matt: 1:18

Great.

Steve: 1:19

to be with you, first of all. And, yeah, I know you like that show. And I actually saw an ad come on for it, and I'm like, I should probably watch this show. And it's interesting that you brought that up because I didn't know that anything about that. But, you know, we do talk about character defects and and in a 12 step program in our program of AA, you know, one of the things we do, we do a four step, which is to go through a lot of your issues and a lot of harms you caused on others and fears and stuff like that. And in the purpose of that step and usually do it with the sponsor so that you can get some help on it in case you can't see yourself. But the purpose of the purpose of that step is to try to weed out or flush out the character defects, right? The things that we have, whether it's fear, dishonesty, jealousy, whatever they might be that causes you to have problems with relationships and things in your life, that ultimately, I think when we look back at it, when I looked back on it, were the reasons why I drank, right? I mean, we talk about all the time. I thought drinking was my problem. And the truth is, is I was trying to use drinking as my solution and, you know, we don't get it all. But I you know, one of the things that I struggled with back in the day and not even to this day, first of all, as I was thinking about this today and I was sure, especially at my Friday night meeting, I would always share like I'm a transactional person. I always was, I used to say in the past tense, and I realized that that's not true. I'm still to this day a transactional person.

Matt: 2:56

Tell me more about that.

Steve: 2:58

I'm always thinking like, what's on the other end of this thing? Like if you know, and it's not always I shouldn't say it's always, but a lot of it is, you know, what am I doing? Or like, what's in it for me? There's always a little bit about what's in it for me or, or I've done this, so I deserve that. Like there's always that type of deal for me. when I was really active and before and again, I don't, it's not as bad as it used to be, and that's not what I'm going to tell a story about. But it sort of just shows you that I have to be careful with that because I can get into that situation where I start doing everything that's transactional and I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this, but I'm going to expect something back. So what happens in that situation is that if I am transactional and I expect something back from something, number one, I have a motive there. But the problem becomes if I don't get what I'm expecting back, Mm then what happens, right? What happens? You get resentments, you get upset, you get angry. So, you know, it's really it. But that's not what I want. Would I want to tell a story? I was out. So it happened just before New Year's and I was down at Stop shop here locally, a local grocery store and and also on the intercom, I hear them saying, you know, they read off anybody, owner of a gray Camry, my license plate come to the courtesy desk and I go to the currency desk and finally get one of the people on. Okay, that was my car you called about. And they go, oh, here's this woman. This woman wants to talk to you. And it was a little old lady there. And she says, I just wanna let you know, I just clipped your car in a parking lot. Very nice of her. Right. hmm. And she's like, Do you want to step outside, take a look at it? I'm like, Sure. So I go outside and and we look at it, and she had scraped my bumper, you know, it wasn't horrible, but she really, you know, scraped my bumper pretty bad and then came across the back fender a little bit and scraped out. And here's the problem. That fender was already dented. And I immediately

Matt: 5:00

Okay.

Steve: 5:01

and I immediately looked at that as an opportunity to get that fender fixed on her dime. Right. Because

Matt: 5:07

Right.

Steve: 5:08

she thought because she thought she did it. And my first thought was so and now it would be something if it was a fleeting thought. And I went, No, but it wasn't like, you know, we talked about it, We exchanged information. And as soon as I did that and we walked away from each other, I was like, What the fuck are you doing? Right? Like,

Matt: 5:29

Yeah.

Steve: 5:30

like, what are you doing here? Like, you're not going to, like, right away. I'm like, I'm not going to make her fix that. That wasn't hers, you know? So I was like, So right there, right? So two things I have to do. Number one is I have to fix it. I have to fess up to it. And number two, that I have to sort of call myself out on it, right? So and it took me a while and there was a lot of things happening at that point. So first of all, it wasn't enough damage and we talked about it in a suite. We just I'm like, Hey, listen, this is how it was right before the holidays. Like, I'm not doing anything until after the holidays. I'll give you a call. And then we had a thing where my daughter in law's mom died and we were working, so there was a lot of stuff going on. So this whole thing happened and I didn't do anything about it for for a good 7 to 10 days. Right. Like it was just it was hanging out there. And here's the problem with that character defects. For me, it's hanging out there and it's eating at me, right? It's eating at me because I could I did that. So I finally went to Friday night meeting last week and and I'm like, man, I don't want to share this in front of a group of guys. Like, I don't want to share that, you know? I mean, I've got some sobriety. I work a decent program, but you know, one of the things I've learned is that I have to talk about it. And I thought, yeah, it's

Matt: 6:48

Yeah.

Steve: 6:48

probably it's probably a good subject to bring up tonight to so that even somebody,

Matt: 6:53

Great subject.

Steve: 6:53

even somebody who has a decent amount of sobriety, you know, you have to watch this in that course not this doesn't affect everybody, but it certainly is me. But it also shows me why this is a lifetime program for me, right? Mm Like hmm. because this is the things that happen. It sort of creeps in if I'm not paying attention to it and the truth is, if, you know, if I didn't have this program in the past and this is what I mean with some of my character and the transaction how the and and all this kind of stuff, like I would have absolutely gone through with it. Right? There's no question in my mind in the past, I would have gone through I would have brought it down. I would have had this woman and her insurance paid for the whole thing like that is exactly what I would have done. And that's not who I am today, right? I mean, I've done enough work in this program and that that's not who I am. And I don't and I don't want to do that. So. So I yeah, I guess I want to talk about that. Like we always talk about, like, why do we continue to go to meetings? Why do we continue to do work well for me and for anybody who's listening to this, who may be new or maybe the like, that's why we do it, right? I mean, I knew right away that I had done wrong, you know, And there's a lot of things I could have done to take care of it a lot quicker. And one of the other failures. Right. It was I sat on it too long. And, you know, I'm making some excuses. We did there were some things that were going on, but there were some things I could have done right away. And the truth is, it's it's all worked out, right. I did it. We've done it. I'm going to get it fixed. Like I went down. I had it checked out, told the guy she's not responsible for it. And if you know, she's responsible for repainting my bumper, basically is what she's responsible for, you know, and but he's going to fix it, buy whatever he's going to. So so anyway, so that that, you know, that was a life lesson for me and that was like for me like, okay, what's going on? So for me, I have to start looking at, all right, what's going on? Like, why did I feel I know I did. I've been looking at that crashed in Fender for a while now and think, you know, I should go have a fix. I should go have a fix. Yeah. I don't want to pay to have a fixed rate. That's the whole point. So anyway, so that's sort of what I was thinking about tonight. And I'm sure we can kick that around enough to maybe

Matt: 9:12

Sure.

Steve: 9:13

help some people out with who might be having similar type problems.

Matt: 9:17

This is why it's good to bring up stuff like this. Because it's a teaching moment for everybody. There's somebody who might be feeling that way, and therefore, you can teach somebody else. So on the one hand, this is where I start to feel like when we talk about our character defects, sometimes we get ourselves into a place where we talk about we talk about ourselves as we're pieces of shit. And I don't think we are. I think some of this is not different from the way other people think. You might have let it take a step longer than some other people.

Steve: 9:50

Mm hmm.

Matt: 9:51

But we're also human beings and we do stupid shit. The stupid shit we did got us to drink. So that's where the fork happened. What do you think? What was the common and what is the commonality that you. I'm backing backing up for a second. What makes you think that you're transactional? That's kind of a hard that's a hard judgment. You make in on yourself.

Steve: 10:16

It is. I mean, I always think about. I mean, even in my relationship at home with my wife, it's like you know, I always feel like, okay, here's an I don't know if it's transactional sites, but it's like I feel like there's a lot of burden on me here and I take up a lot of stuff just because of lots of things, my wife's health stuff. And so it's like, okay, I'm looking for something in return, whether it's, you know, my wife to make sure that, you know, we have meals on the table, whatever it is. And again, if I don't get that type of thing, if I feel like if I feel like my wife is falling short on something like that, then I get aggravated and I get upset about it. When I was in the past, I was always transactional. Like I was always like, okay, I'm going to do this for you. But I always expected that like whether, you know, like growing up, if I were if I was going to help you move, right, if I was helping you moved. And certainly when I moved, I expected that. We turn now, some people say, sure, that's just courtesy, but I really expected it, you know, like I expected that to happen. It wasn't just like, oh, it'd be nice if somebody can help me. And I just feel like I always And that's the whole thing with any of our character. It's like it's an Mm internal hmm. it's an internal thing, right? More

Matt: 11:30

Yes.

Steve: 11:30

than external. It's how

Matt: 11:31

And

Steve: 11:31

I

Matt: 11:32

I

Steve: 11:32

think,

Matt: 11:32

think it comes from somewhere.

Steve: 11:33

it's how thinking and feeling. And I'm not sure you know, I'm not sure where that came from in my upbringing, but that's how it was, right? I mean, I just, you know, I just felt that way my whole life, you know?

Matt: 11:46

I have some ideas.

Steve: 11:47

Yeah, sure.

Matt: 11:47

You've talked about your upbringing Mm hmm. that you didn't have the best upgrading, bringing, All right. and it feels like it might have been dog eat dog.

Steve: 11:55

Absolutely.

Matt: 11:55

So therefore, you have to get what you need. Lie, cheat or steal whatever can get you what you have, because it's a desperate situation.

Steve: 12:06

Yeah. I don't think there's any question that that that's sort of like the psyche that I sort of grew up under, there's no question. But my point is, like, the same thing we talk about. Like, I grew up in that situation and became a person who I was and I wasn't I wasn't a totally I wasn't dishonest, like I wasn't stealing from people. I mean, again, I saw some little stuff when I was younger. it and within some of it was the crowd I was hanging around with. It really was. But I typically wasn't a dishonest person or anything like that. And I was a good kid. I wasn't in and out of jail. it was a really tough upbringing and it was something where I had to really find ways to figure some stuff out, right? So like, if, if, if I wanted something, I sort of had to figure out at an early age how to get it. You know, one of the things I talked about was like, I started out like literally working at 14 years old, like, literally working at a gas station down the street from me, painting like the curbs around, like I Mm hmm. was working, you know, like illegally at the time, but being paid cash, but like, I did all that kind of stuff because I needed to find a way to get what I wanted, you know?

Matt: 13:20

Right.

Steve: 13:21

And so some of it served me well and some of it was problematic. So I guess, you know, there's the word altruistic out there, right? Mm I mean, that hmm. word that meaning that you just do something for the good of doing it, you know, I means like there there is nothing attached to it. I'm trying to be more like that type of a person. And I think I am just me. I think I am for the most part. I think now I do most things without thinking that I should get something in return.

Matt: 13:55

Right.

Steve: 13:55

but, and that's the whole thing about character defects. They're Mm out hmm. there all the time, right? It's like,

Matt: 14:00

No.

Steve: 14:00

it's like. It's not like I act this way all the time or. Or that I'm going to do this all the time. They're. They're right, you know, like, they're there. And I have to I have to be careful with them because for for this alcoholic and this is the message if anybody's out there and you're thinking, oh, you know, I've been sober so many years, I'm starting to feel good. I don't have this problem anymore for this alcoholic meaning me, I have to be so diligent on that. I have to be so diligent because the first thing that goes, I say it all the time is I do not wake up one day thinking that I want to drink. I don't. I wake up in the it's a very small, small inching, inching, inching. Before you know it, you know, some things are bad and Mm hmm. then that's when things start going, oh, drink sounds like a good idea.

Matt: 14:55

Right.

Steve: 14:55

Now now, having said that, this last thing having said that, I will tell you and again, it probably tells me that I need to do a little bit more work, that I need to reach out to my sponsor. I need to sit down to talk to him, probably probably do some work because I will say this. I was a big tequila drinker and still to this day, still to this day, I, I in my brain, my brain likes to taste like tequila, right? It's not like I don't look at tequila and like, oh, my God, that's, you know, firewater is still that. So there is there are some commercials on for the football games and I was sitting there and it's like, man, that looks good like in and usually I wouldn't you pay attention to them. So I guess my point is there's there's a few things going on that I probably need to Mm pay hmm. attention to. Right. Because

Matt: 15:48

Yup.

Steve: 15:49

it is you know, if I ignore those things, that's where I can get myself into a place where next,

Matt: 15:56

Yup.

Steve: 15:56

you know, opponent or PAC store and I'm buying me a bottle of tequila.

Matt: 16:00

So this is where I caution the whole. I've got these things. I've got to do some hard work. I also like to caution it's continuing education.

Steve: 16:09

Yeah, it is.

Matt: 16:10

I think a lot of this is instead of. I don't want you to beat yourself up too much because I don't see you as as a I have an idea of what a person who is transactional looks like. I've got a person I know right in mine. I know this person is very transact transactional. Yeah. I think it's worth looking at. Why are you transactional? And Yeah. I think it comes from a place of trauma from your childhood that it's fester, feast or famine, and Mm. that's an echo from the past. So you are in that situation, you see, Oh, my gosh, I was just handed an opportunity to fix this bumper. Right. And the bumper was, I think probably you looking at the bumper and being annoyed by it is Yeah. also part of the character defect.

Steve: 16:53

Absolutely. Yeah,

Matt: 16:55

I have those things, too, that I am obsessive and I can see the smallest defect like I'm struggling right now. Something in my headphones. Sounds different to me yeah, and I and as you're talking, I'm flipping through the dials and like, everything, everything is dialed the way it's supposed to. But for some reason, it doesn't sound the same to me. And it is making me mental. right. And it doesn't matter because I can sweetness after the fact when I pull the audio. But it's those little things of it's not perfect the way exactly I want it to be. Yeah. And that gets me into trouble.

Steve: 17:36

Yeah. I mean, that's part of it. Here's the thing, because this, like I said, this, this damage and this fender has been there for a couple of years, at least. Maybe three years. Right. And, and I've always like, I've always I never liked it. And then I have a little this little issue with the front fender. It has popped out, sort of lost a clip and stuff. So my car, it's a 2012. I like driving old cars because I don't like to pay a lot of money for my car, but I don't like driving shitty looking cars. Right. Mm hmm. But I'm also I also don't want to spend a lot of money. You know, I have this fear, right? The other thing is I have this little fear of like, you know something? I'll go spend a couple grand fixing that car, making it look nice, and then I'll put new tires on it, cause I need to do that next year. So I'll spend, like, three grand and then it'll get totaled. Yeah. Yeah, right. It'll

Matt: 18:23

Wreckage

Steve: 18:23

get to

Matt: 18:23

of the future now?

Steve: 18:24

right. Right. It'll get totaled. Right. And then that's what I think. Like it's, I like. So I just want fix it, right. Cause that's, you know, so those, those are the things that go on in my head a lot of times that keep me a little bit paralyzed from doing that kind of stuff. Mm hmm. But, you know, and this is the whole thing that come out of this, right? Like I said, I've taken care of it. I've talked to this woman. I went down I went to the the body place that she suggested because she knew the guy this way she was comfortable that she was going to be treated fairly. And I said, you know, we went we walked through it. And he said, hey, listen, I got a guy. He goes, listen, if I if I do that, if I do that whole fender, like if I have to repaint it all, you know, it's going to be he goes, it's going to be three. He goes, I got a guy who come in for about 200 bucks. Pull that out, clean it up for it won't be perfect. He said he'll go for me. It'll be about three times that much if I do it. I'm like, Now, bring your guy in. Right. 200 bucks. Make it look a little bit better. It doesn't

Matt: 19:17

Yep.

Steve: 19:17

have to be perfect. It's 2012. He'll fix the front thing for me. It's like I'll just put a screw in that, you know? So everything's going to get fixed away. I was hoping to have it fixed, right. And she's only paying for the damage that she has really responsible for. So

Matt: 19:33

Right.

Steve: 19:33

it's all worked out, it's like I put myself through so much hell to get there. This is the point, right? It's like I put myself through so much emotional hell, right? Mm hmm. Like doing what I did. Then realizing like, Oh, this is pretty shitty. And then having to fess up to it. And then again, which I haven't done yet, start really digging into it and start trying to figure out what's going on Mm hmm. before, you know, before something worse happens.

Matt: 20:06

This is a great experience that this happened to you.

Steve: 20:08

Oh, I

Matt: 20:09

To me,

Steve: 20:09

agree.

Matt: 20:09

it's a higher power moment Mm. that you had to go through this journey. And you had to because you could have stopped in the parking lot and turned around to tell you what. Second guess, second thought. I don't need all of that stuff. You didn't do that. It's. It's this Now that

Steve: 20:25

Yeah,

Matt: 20:25

I'm really looking at it, you could have stopped it there,

Steve: 20:28

yeah.

Matt: 20:28

but then you had to sit in a butter tub of pain Yeah, to teach you that this was a bad thing to do. yeah. And this is what is great about a 12 step program and recovery of We now experience this pain because we have learned better. Maybe we don't feel that guilt the same way or it's not as apparent to us now. It's apparent to us and we feel that pain and it is terrible and it eats at us. Right. Because you went through that. You learned a lesson. And part of that lesson is there's other things I got to look at. I'm going to do some continuing Ed, and that's okay. And it gives you this opportunity to tell the story to somebody else so they don't have to feel that pain.

Steve: 21:09

yeah. I mean we talk about how, you know, our, our problems and pain can help somebody else. We always talk about

Matt: 21:15

Absolutely.

Steve: 21:15

it. We don't want to regret the past, but we don't want to shut the door on it because it may be to help the next suffering alcohol. Which is why I brought it up tonight. Because you had talked about Mm hmm. something else you might want to share. And I thought that when I was thinking about doing this, I thought that that could be a message. And you said something very, very important. Right. It's like the fact that I sat in that pain right in the 12 step program sort of made me I mean, actually somewhat made me sit in that pain. The fact that because of the work I've done has allowed me now to fix it. Right. That's

Matt: 21:51

Yeah.

Steve: 21:51

that is that is the beauty of it. It's to fix it and deal with it, Right. Rather than ignore it. Because that's the other thing I used to be really good at ignoring those things. because listen, if I, you know, we talk about all the time, if, if this happened in my drinking days, number one, I don't know, I probably would have been drinking. Right? This is like this was I don't know if this is New Year's Eve or the day before New Year's Eve. I don't remember which day it was, but, you know, I would have absolutely gone home and and started drinking and I would have felt bad about it. I would have known that it was wrong, Mm hmm. but I would immediately drink those worries away. And again, I don't think there would have been any doubt that I would have gone through with it. I would have sucked down some alcohol, make that pain uncomfortableness go away and woke up the next day and and then just go ahead and do it right. And I would Mm have hmm. justified thinking this woman's probably got enough money, but, you know, I would have just done all my justifications that I used to do in life. And and today and again today, I can't do that today. Right? I'm accountable. I'm accountable. And I went to the meeting and I shared and I wouldn't last Friday. I'm like, listen, I don't want to share this with you guys, but I have to. Right. That's part of my program is I have to shine a light on this. And I said, I have to say this so that other guys can hear it and maybe not do it, you know? So I did. it's part of the deal. It's part of my walk as part of my it's

Matt: 23:20

Yep.

Steve: 23:20

part of my program is that I need to continue to do this. I don't expect it to be a perfect human being, right? I don't

Matt: 23:28

You're not going to be.

Steve: 23:29

So and I'm not beating myself up. I am not anymore. I mean, I did for a while. But here's what happened, is that as soon as soon as I win this, this is the beauty of this program. As soon as I talked about it last Friday. Right. That was the first time I talked about it with anybody else Mm hmm. as soon as I talked about it, I felt better. And as soon as I talked about it, guys come up to me right afterwards. Right. And then there's no criticism. And some of them were just joking with me right. But I immediately felt better and like, okay, I'm not I don't have that secret anymore. Because the other saying in this one of the sayings in this program is you're only as sick as your secrets.

Matt: 24:09

Yeah.

Steve: 24:09

Right?

Matt: 24:10

Amen. In that.

Steve: 24:11

Right. And so I didn't have that secret anymore. So again, it was it was an opportunity for me not to have that and that it's an opportunity opportunity for me to be able to call somebody and talk it over with somebody right now, they

Matt: 24:24

Yeah.

Steve: 24:24

know it right there at that meeting. Now they know what's going on and I could call them up and say, Hey, listen, I want to talk about this. You know, what do you think? What's going on? You know, just just like we're doing tonight.

Matt: 24:35

You gave somebody else an opportunity to feel better about themselves. Mm hmm. Because I always feel better if somebody asks me for advice,

Steve: 24:43

Yeah,

Matt: 24:44

that's always a good thing. And it's a reminder for you that there's still work to be done. Now, hopefully, you know your triggers and so something. If the opportunity arises again, you might be able to think differently or, you know, what is that action step you could take if presented with a similar opportunity to go down a different path?

Steve: 25:06

right. And I think for me, there are a few things going on with me. And I know some of it is a reluctance to address some of them ended up well, I consider it a big thing, so I won't minimize. But so it does point out, like I said, the biggest thing you pointed out to me is that I need to do some work. And I don't know if it was here. I think we talked about it like,

Matt: 25:29

We have because I feel the

Steve: 25:31

up,

Matt: 25:31

same way. There's

Steve: 25:31

up,

Matt: 25:32

work I need to do

Steve: 25:32

I'm

Matt: 25:32

and I'm delaying

Steve: 25:33

13

Matt: 25:33

it.

Steve: 25:33

or 14, you know, be going on 14 years sober this year is probably is the right time for me to do another set of 12 steps, Right? Mm That's hmm. what it does. One of the things that this is probably pointing me to towards I've done to since I've been sober this time it's probably time for me to do another one. And there are a few things that I could work on. There's a few amends that are sort of hanging out there. Nothing big. Some old, really old time amends that have popped up. I'm like, I probably should take care of that one and that one. So it's but what this probably is pointing out to me is that it's probably time for me to do that. You know, take the bull by the horns, go to the go to the steps again and do some work and try to try to dig out the root cause of whatever it is going on. because I want to I want to leave live a healthy, Mm hmm. happy, joyous life. And I want to be you know, I talk to her all the time. I want to be helpful and useful. Right. Which is one of the things our book tells us that if we do this program right, will become useful to our fellows and that's what I want to do and become useful to the people around me. so I, you know, so I don't have these burdens.

Matt: 26:44

This. This. This reminds me of an analogy I heard recently, and I can't remember. I heard it on a podcast. I must have. And I am so sorry if I'm going to piss you off with politics, but I'm going to go down this route. Somebody had mentioned Rush Limbaugh and Rush died a few years ago, and nobody talks about Rush anymore. No, not at Rush all. was at a place where he was the biggest radio name for decades, made hundreds of millions of dollars, and now he's been replaced by somebody else. And the point there is he is one of these type of entertainers who really provided cotton candy on a daily basis. Anger. Anger. Cotton candy. Immediate gratification. But there was nothing that had any legs to it that allows for a legacy. And it made me think I want to take the actions that I needed to take today where I have some type of legacy that my life had stood for. Something hmm. that people will talk about my brand, as we say at work when I'm gone of Look at the kids over there. Those kids turned out all right. They have good families. None of them are divorced. They're happy. And they can point back to me or I helped other people get sober. Mm hmm. I think not. I think passing up millions and millions of dollars in Rush Limbaugh's career, it's a lot greater of a legacy when I'm when I'm in the hall that maybe I help one person get sober because the spiderwebs on that change of where that branches out to other other lives lives is so much more important. It really made me think that of like, what is that next right thing I can do for somebody else? And I think in that way I am feeling transactional because it does make me feel better. Mm hmm. But where is it? Even if it's just holding the door or paying for somebody's coffee or something like that that I may not want to do, but I do do that might make somebody else life better?

Steve: 28:54

this is. This is a good point that you bring up, because I am that person most of the time, right? When I'm in the. Mm You hmm. know, if I saw this, if I saw this woman, and I will say this about this woman, she she's. She's probably not driving for much longer, I'll tell you that much, Right? She's. She's

Matt: 29:11

Boy,

Steve: 29:11

elderly,

Matt: 29:11

do I have a mental image.

Steve: 29:12

right? She she's probably not driving for much longer. But I'm the type that if this were more than I would off, I would absolutely like, I would offer her my assistance, you know, to help her get anything into her car. If she couldn't reach you like I would

Matt: 29:28

Yeah.

Steve: 29:28

helpless I would do. Although this is the whole point, which is why I think it was so painful for me. Right. That all of a sudden, you know, I'm just I'm just taken the wrong path, right out of Mm nowhere. hmm. And that's why I mean, it's sort of and this this is the problem, right? This is what we talk about with people. People talk about it all the time. You know, I was feeling good. The next thing I know, I pulled into a parking lot of a package store and I grabbed myself a bottle. Right. You hear those stories all the time. Mm hmm. And I mean, this this this is that behavior without the alcohol, right? It's like I've just tooling along my day. Everything was good. And then all of a sudden I take a wrong turn and I'm doing the wrong thing. Yeah. So it's really important for me to identify it, to acknowledge it right, to acknowledge it, to own it. And then the next thing is to really, really do something about it, really try Mm hmm. to figure out what's going on, do something about it, and then yeah, and then hopefully not have to do it again ever. Right? That's the key. Hopefully never have to never have to do that again. If, if, if I can. I mean that's like I said, I'm not a perfect human being.

Matt: 30:42

The great thing about this program is you had mentioned I have to do another 12 steps again, and you can almost look at that as it's self-flagellation. It's not.

Steve: 30:53

Oh no,

Matt: 30:54

We're

Steve: 30:54

not

Matt: 30:54

lucky

Steve: 30:54

at all.

Matt: 30:54

to have the 12 steps a way of life to get through this crap.

Steve: 30:59

right. Oh, no. It's absolutely I don't look at it like that at all. I look at it like, oh, yeah, this will this will make my life better, right? I mean, I Mm went hmm. through the 12 steps. My life got better, all right? And then I decided to do them again. And when I decided to do them second time, there was nothing bad going on. I just felt like there were some things I wanted to talk about Mm hmm. and things. So I absolutely I just think it's like it's like everything else. It's like, all right, I'm going to take the next whatever it is. 616, 18 week, whatever it might be, three, three. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to focus on that. Right? That's like what it's like. I'm going to focus on that. Mm hmm. And so that's the same thing with doing 12 steps. I'm going to take the next X amount of weeks and I'm going to focus on going through that process because again, if you're out there, that's the process that works for me right? That's the process of Yup. how I get through this stuff. So I'll go into that process and then I'll come out of that process with some more things that I maybe need to fix. But I'll feel better. I'll feel better. And the final thing I want to say, like, same thing. See, I follow some some sober people on social media and it's the same question like we hear about it all in our meetings. People like, Oh, why do you still call yourself an alcoholic? You're not drinking, you're you're recovered. Like, why? Why do you? And it's the same thing I hear from all these content providers, from providers on social media, like, no, no, like I am an alcoholic. Like, I'm not as not I was an alcoholic. You know, I am an alcoholic. And that's what I have to remember is that just because I haven't had a drink in many years, it doesn't mean that that that I'm not still Mm hmm. an alcoholic who needs recovery. And and that's the proof. And that's why that's why we show up and we do this podcast. That's why I'm going out to the GSR meeting Mm hmm. tonight. That's why I do my meetings. You know?

Matt: 32:59

Yeah. And when. When that vote comes down to night of when that one old timer doesn't like the vote, and he says, yeah. That's what I got to get you two now,

Steve: 33:07

Right.

Matt: 33:07

so I'll let you go.

Steve: 33:09

That's it, buddy.

Matt: 33:10

Well, I hope you got something out of this. We'd love to hear about your character defects Matter Sober Friends Podcast. Follow us on Instagram at Sober Friends Podcast. Steve. Have a good GCR meeting

Steve: 33:23

All

Matt: 33:23

and

Steve: 33:23

right, Matt,

Matt: 33:24

see you soon.

Steve: 33:25

Talk to you later. Thank. Thanks.

Matt: 33:26

Bye everybody.