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Join Mike & Glenn in the Sober.Coffee Shop as they share experience, strength and hope with those on the sober path of recovery.
Welcome to Sober. Coffee, a weekly coffee chat sharing experience, strength, and hope for anyone on the sober road to recovery. You can download sober.coffee weekly on all podcast platforms and check us out on Instagram at sober.coffee podcast and on Twitter at sober coffee pod. To learn more about us and to help support these sessions, visit online at sober.coffee. Here are your hosts, two guys on their own path of recovery, Mike and Glenn.
Speaker 1:Let's join them at the coffee shop.
Speaker 2:What up, Glenn? What's up, my brother? How are you?
Speaker 3:Hey. Good to see you again.
Speaker 2:Man, good to see you. You know, we've been at this, like, five and a half years ish.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, you know, I was wondering what happens when it all ends now because we're out in YouTube, so YouTube will hang on to him. But will the other platforms still hang on to it for a time, or how what happens when
Speaker 2:I don't know. That's a good question for Brian. Brian, if we keep transistor growing, does this stay alive forever or we shut down transistor, everything shuts down? Okay. Okay.
Speaker 2:But then and and then our our website stays as long as we keep Yeah. Right. Paying the bill.
Speaker 3:Right. Right. So So we hang it off of there.
Speaker 2:So maybe it goes on forever. Who
Speaker 3:knows? Anyway, let's try and go on forever, at least for or our forever.
Speaker 2:I know. Totally. No. It's funny. We, heard from a a listener in Bangladesh this week.
Speaker 3:Was so funny. Yeah. On the YouTube channel. They Awesome. They chimed in about the, the episode we did last couple of weeks ago about sing a song.
Speaker 2:And, like, they're And We're representing Bangladesh.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Nice. And, you know, we got a lot of views on our a couple of weeks ago, we we did a, I forgot how we titled it. I think it was AA Works a 100% of the Time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That was
Speaker 3:We got a little bit of we got a little bit of noise back from that. Right? Because I think just the title people want there's still those, ah, AA don't work. And the thing is and we won't it was a great episode, but, you know, I don't if AA doesn't work for you, my drum that I beat is go find something that does then because sobriety is worth it. You know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. But you know what? If I'm I'm gonna
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm gonna crush our guests. Fired up. I'm I'm gonna take a couple seconds here, but you got me going. If if I think if your brain says AA doesn't work
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Your brain's in the wrong gear.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2:Because you're still in the driver's seat. You're still ego driven.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:You know it all, and I'm gonna tell these people what does and doesn't work. Right. What and and I'm saying that with a 100% definitive experience because I said that.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And the minute I surrendered and sat in the seat, and I'm like, okay. Bring it on. I will do it. I will say it. I will listen to it.
Speaker 2:I will experience it.
Speaker 3:AA worked miraculously. So so we got a guest today. Taylor's for three. Ding ding ding. Dean.
Speaker 2:Welcome. Welcome.
Speaker 3:Dean. We're man, we went hot right away
Speaker 2:on Sorry, Dean, man. Just got right.
Speaker 3:Dean, are you an AAer or are you a non AAer?
Speaker 4:I'm a non AAer.
Speaker 3:Alright. Awesome. So tell me what's work tell me what's working for you. Let's get right to it.
Speaker 4:Mine was a mixture. It was some of the ideas behind AA work amazingly well. The the first one, you have to admit that you don't have the control.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:There you go. That That's a biggie. Yeah. Yeah. That to me is mandatory.
Speaker 4:After that, I don't I don't follow the 12 steps necessarily. I follow follow parts of them. Mhmm. But it's for me, it was the relationship with God creating that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Right.
Speaker 4:And then following along with what he teaches and how he teaches and I'm not an incredibly I I grew up, you know, in Catholic school, but it was just his overall teachings. It's not that I fall into the the religious side of this either. For me, it was just a mixture of different ones that were
Speaker 2:So so, Dean, when when you say his teachings, who are you referring to?
Speaker 4:God's.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 4:So I I go according to a lot of what the bible says and how he does how to live life, the rules to follow, things like that. The only reason I didn't do AA is when I when I quit drinking, I lived out in the middle of nowhere and there there I could not find a meeting. I found one meeting and I went to it and it was in the basement of the church And it was on like 06:00 at night. And I walked in and they looked at me like I was a complete foreigner. And they said, you can sit in but you can't say anything.
Speaker 4:And so I in and they did not they looked at me and said, well, we hope this helped, but you're not welcome back.
Speaker 2:Wow. Why?
Speaker 3:No. Why? Well, you can't
Speaker 4:They had a special Yeah. They had a special something going on, and I was a foreigner to them. So I
Speaker 2:But that's not a day.
Speaker 3:That's a terrible experience.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I I stopped going and I because it was so difficult to find a meeting that I could go to, I lived way too far away and there weren't enough people in town. They didn't have any additional meetings that I could do. And I wasn't able to drive the time frame for me to drive into town to the nearest one where I could get a meeting was an hour. Wow.
Speaker 4:And I wasn't going to do that along with taking care of my son at the time and working and doing everything else. So I put together my own little program that I followed. And it was a lot of the rules to, you know, just follow along with. And it was me and God talking back and forth. We just we did it together.
Speaker 2:So so help me for me, right, I I grew up, you know, in a very religious household. It was, you know, not Catholic, independent Christian, whatever you wanna call that. Right? Yeah. And and and there were a lot of rules.
Speaker 2:Right? And and I think right? So so coming through AA and the spirituality, and I love the fact that you listen to the teachings because so do I. But but the the teaching I I had to unlearn in sobriety. I had to unlearn
Speaker 3:Some of the religious stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I call it religious crap.
Speaker 3:What do you call it? The purple people you're listening?
Speaker 2:No. The the purple row people.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Right? You know, who who make up all the man made rules. Right? But that's but it kinda goes against with the Bible because the Bible's about a relationship, not not rules, you know, per se.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So so how did you navigate that, or are you navigating that, or did did you even recognize the difference between religious rules and and a biblical relationship with with the creator and savior?
Speaker 4:That's what in my mind, that's what exactly caused was a huge piece in my original addiction. I grew up very Catholic. Going to school and doing all of and going to church and doing everything, the difference was the rules that the church put on it and how they didn't necessarily follow their own rules. Right.
Speaker 3:Hypocrites. Right.
Speaker 4:Yes. Exactly. And so I fell away from that. And when I fell away from it, I just fell away from all of it.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:So it was coming back, but not to to the church. It was coming back to to God and and the the whole idea of the spirituality of him.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And so in the early days, my mom used to say, you know, why don't you just go back to church and why don't you, you know, go talk with a priest, go do this, go do that. And I said, I'm doing one step better. I said, I go for hikes in our area and I can take a hike in the mountains for, you know, an hour or two and I just during that hike talked with God. And I said, can bypass the middleman and go right to the root of who I want my relationship with and it's in his church. I'm in the middle of his nature.
Speaker 4:He created it and so I feel much closer with him during all of this and I get to the root of my problems way quicker. And so I took out the middleman, but I I stuck with the the spirituality of him.
Speaker 3:I love it. I love it. So so you're out in the middle of nowhere. You you you gave AA a try. I'll give you that.
Speaker 3:You gave it a try. You went. You showed up. It was a bad experience. But then you go away and you hunker down, and you've gotta battle this addiction, and you're battling it with your spiritual malady kinda trying to get right spiritually.
Speaker 3:Sounds to me like a lot of work. It sounds to me like you had to do a lot of work. How long you've been sober, by the way?
Speaker 4:October October 18 will be eighteen years.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. October 18 will be eight years for me.
Speaker 4:Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 3:That's fantastic. That's fantastic. How have you
Speaker 4:So Yeah.
Speaker 3:How do you combat the in the early days, if you can remember back that long, how did you combat what what would what did your toolbox look like for you not to just say, oh, screw it. I'm having a drink.
Speaker 4:That it was tough in the beginning because the house that I lived in, it was shared with another guy who was an active participant.
Speaker 2:Weird. That's hard.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 4:So it was the two of us and we were a distance away from, you know, life. And so when I would come home from work, it was, you know, we used to sit down and drink together.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Now I would sit down, but he would drink and I would not. And it was weird conversations because he was drinking. And so in my mind, it actually strengthened my relationship with with my higher power and my and I say god Right. Because it's who I consider. But it it strengthened me and what I wanted to do.
Speaker 4:And and I would look at him the following day when we were getting ready and going to work and he was hating life and I was sitting there going, this is awesome. Right. I've never felt this good in my life.
Speaker 3:Right. Right. Right.
Speaker 4:So it things like that helped me. I also, I went through rehab. I went through rehab twice. The first time I had no intention. I was told I had to go.
Speaker 4:The second time it was my choice. And so the second time around, I had created already the idea in my head that I was done. I don't want this anymore. I don't want the lifestyle. It had caused issues.
Speaker 4:Drinking had caused issues with my son. I wanted my my son back. I wanted my time with him back and I wanted I wanted things in life that alcoholism had taken away. And so that was my toolbox. I want more out of life than what alcohol has given has provided.
Speaker 4:So I want the other side of life now.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, Glenn does Glenn talks to that that there is that early part of recovery where I don't want the bad stuff to keep happening, but there's a flip in there that says, ah, I've tasted the good stuff. I want more of that. And and that's what what Glenn has talked about motivates him more than the fear of the loss is the Well,
Speaker 2:now fulfillment of the future. We we you know, Dean, we we had a doctor friend, and he was actually forty plus years in the medical field for alcoholism, like psychiatry. And and he said there's only one motivator in recovery, that's pain. And and Mhmm. You know, at one point, got some confidence.
Speaker 2:I'm like, now I I I I think there's a second one. He goes, no. We used to have this debate. I'm like, I think there's greed. Right?
Speaker 2:And and that's probably a a negative word. Right? But Mhmm. But it's like, hey. I'm starting to see and I saw in you and you before I saw it in me.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I saw this stuff work and and deliver a better life. And and so I came around for a period of time, maybe two or three years cause I wanted to avoid that drink. I wanted to avoid the pain and consequences of drinking. But then I'm like, you know what?
Speaker 2:I keep coming around. I built quite a toolbox cause I want more of this cool stuff.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Yep. Love it.
Speaker 3:Love it. So so tell me can you get into specifics since, you know, typically, when we have somebody who's got AA experience, we talk about steps and how that impacted them. Tell me kind of some of the specifics that you work on right now and how you work on your spirituality today to keep you sober. I mean, what specifically are you doing? Are you doing group bible studies with others?
Speaker 3:Are you doing independent re reads of books in addition to the Bible? Are you just reading the Bible, analyzing the How do you learn and grow? Yeah. How do you learn and grow?
Speaker 4:How I learn and grow, I am certified as a CCR recovery coach.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:So the connect kit group, I've gone through all of their training and a lot of the training, it stays away from a lot of the spiritual side Sure. Honestly. And so for me, it is I have on Audible, I have the bible. I listen every morning to that for about fifteen, twenty minutes and it's just going over one more piece and it's just reiterating things that I've forgotten. I was so involved with the church when I was younger.
Speaker 4:I remember so much of it. And so coming back, it's just going over it again. But I I it's not for me, it's not just that piece of it. My belief I throw a lot of what I believe in there because it worked. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:For me, it was whatever worked. So I also believe that the whole idea behind it is that you're supposed to get back to life. You're supposed to experience all that life has to offer. Alcoholism took away the experience of life. So I went back to work, I started traveling, I, you know, started to create the life.
Speaker 4:I would, you know, my son got into hockey, partially because I played hockey when I was younger. So taking him to hockey practice and studying for school and I started to do all the things that I wanted to do in my head all along. So I got my bachelor's degree, I got IT certifications, I got my master's degree. I've started to fill my life with life. And that's what kept me going because it was how I had, how my relationship with God had been that I wasn't experiencing it.
Speaker 4:And the night that I quit drinking, it was God asking me the question, do you wanna know how life is really meant to be lived? And it was silence after that, and just waiting for me to answer the question. I finally said, yes, I do. And it was at that moment in time that everything started to fall into place of me going back to rehab and me, you know, starting all these processes and the inner drive to just drink was taken away. So it was in all of that that it started to let's build this life that my head has always said I was capable of doing.
Speaker 4:It's, you know, that voice in the background that I've always said I have two voices. One is the alcohol voice and the other is me. And so my deal was for eighteen or for twenty three years, I've let this alcohol voice take the lead and guide my life and it's done a horrible job.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:So it's my turn and now I'm gonna create the the thoughts and the processes that my other side has always wanted. And so I've taken the lead and it's been eighteen years and I've done all these things. And so it's a complete change, from one to the other.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. That's awesome. What's your next, what what's your next season of life? What what what do you look because your son obviously now is how old? Kind
Speaker 4:He's 29.
Speaker 3:29. So he's he's kinda grown out of the house
Speaker 4:doing his thing. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing his thing. So I'm remarried now, which this is much better this time around.
Speaker 4:We still have our issues. Everyone will, but that's part of it. You learn to work through everything and that's part of the whole feeling all the emotions, feeling how it is meant to be lived. And so now I've started a coaching, a recovery coaching program. I do life coaching as well.
Speaker 4:I also do the recovery coaching and I do it for people who are similar in nature to me. People who don't necessarily have the time to step away from life and just go through recovery and do all of the steps and do all of it. I have the program similar to just how I did it. And I help get through into recovery and figure out their lives without the the whatever it is, alcohol or something else.
Speaker 3:Right. Right. You know, I I was blessed with the fact, and I've seen it happen so many times, and Glenn, I know in your story, happened with you too, that once we made the decision to get back and get sober, time became available. I mean, how how that was orchestrated that first two years of my sobriety, how I was given time to heal and and to build a foundation, it blows me away because I didn't think when I went to when I went to rehab, I'm like, no. I you don't understand.
Speaker 3:I've got a mortgage. I've got responsibilities. I've got utilities. I've got stuff I gotta be paying for, and the people around me just said, shut up. Just go heal, and everything worked out.
Speaker 3:I mean, everything worked out, and I had time to heal, but I had to I had to have that inner desire to want to heal. So and I know, Clinton, you had a very similar experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean I mean, frankly, I I drank a lot because of those down, boring times, and I couldn't take it. Right? Mhmm. And early in sobriety, you know, I started, you know, identifying that, and then I started doing.
Speaker 2:Right? I mean, that's one the things about AA. There's a lot of activities, a lot of opportunities to get involved, and and I did that a lot. Mhmm. You know, and I I I filled my downtime instead of, you know, dangerous thinking, I just got outside my head and went to a went to a meeting or I went to a coffee or
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You know, got involved. But that's part of the tools that that I started to develop.
Speaker 3:Right. So so, Dean, what do you how do you get your message out?
Speaker 2:How do you let people know you're there to help them through recovery? Especially on the coaching front.
Speaker 3:On the coaching front. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I have a website. I'm also on LinkedIn. I do a lot of, posting on LinkedIn about my my story.
Speaker 3:Oh, good.
Speaker 4:That's how I met that's how I met, Greg. Oh, yeah. It was LinkedIn. Okay. And so him and I had a call and we actually talked.
Speaker 4:So I read his postings, his story and he reads mine and that's how my primary method of getting my story out and getting the message out of what I do, is through that. But I also have, my website which I've created and it's fairly new. I'm still working on building it, but I have a blog, series that I do on there. And, so Greg and I had talked and I said, you know, my next step would probably be, seeing about a podcast. And he goes, well, he goes, let me introduce you.
Speaker 4:So that's how I met you guys.
Speaker 3:Well, can I can I make a recommendation for you? If you do decide to go podcast Yeah. We were gonna buy a couple of $125 mics and do it over Zoom and, you know, and Yep. And and do it all ourselves. We're sitting in the middle of a beautiful studio right now.
Speaker 3:And you know what it does? It does a couple of things. First of all, it delivers quality, audio. It keeps us in check, so we're we're accountable. We need to be here.
Speaker 3:It's it's serious because sobriety is serious. And and and so, anyway, we use AudioHive here in Chicago, but
Speaker 2:fine It provides our focus to be on Topic and not technology. Content and and We don't have to worry about technology. Worry about playing stuff in which we would have screwed up.
Speaker 3:Right. Right. Right. Right.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I get it.
Speaker 3:Well, that's exciting. So as we wind up here, give talk to the newcomer. Talk to the guy who's still out there, gal who's still out there kinda struggling with their sobriety or thoughts of becoming sober. What would you recommend to them as some good action items to do
Speaker 4:at this juncture? First, be honest with yourself. Be completely honest with yourself that you've lost control and you don't have control over your drinking or whatever drug it is you're doing. Create your relationship with whoever your higher power is and find people who you can talk to. Those are the three biggest things for me.
Speaker 4:It's, you know, one, you have to admit you have the issue. You have some sort of problem. And the relationship for me with God was crucial. It was the biggest piece to help me make it through the hard times and then being able to talk with other people. Whether it's people who are the the friendliest because they know your whole story is going to a meeting and talking with people who know your story Mhmm.
Speaker 4:Or know your background, how you got there. Other than that, talking with anyone in general will really help because just being able to spill to someone who's willing to listen will help you. That's my belief anyways. If you can't make it to the meetings while those help the most, speaking with anyone, speaking with someone who at least will listen to you so that you can start to help, get the help you require. That's my biggest thing.
Speaker 4:You have to learn to ask for help, reach out, you know. Asking for help is is difficult for everyone, but especially people who are trying to hide what their life has become.
Speaker 3:That's where my whole journey started with three simple words, I need help, you know. That's where it started. So I I love it. I I think this this session has been so great because I I think I hope the message that our listeners get is that there's a lot of people out there recovering right now with 12 steps, without 12 steps, with spirituality, with with some commitment, with some honesty. It it brings me hope.
Speaker 3:I mean, go find a way. As you said, go talk to somebody. Pick up the phone. Go to LinkedIn. Find Dean.
Speaker 3:He'll link will be on this LinkedIn be on our website. Reach out to the show. What is it, Glenn? Podcast@Sober.Coffee.
Speaker 2:That's exactly what
Speaker 4:it is.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Just email. Just email podcast@Sober.Coffee. Start the conversation. Let people help you out, and and that's Right.
Speaker 3:I I think this has been great, Dean. It's been great because
Speaker 4:Yeah. It has.
Speaker 3:I need people to hear that AA is a is a way. It's not the only way, but it's a way. And so you got two resources here. You can go the AA route, reach out to Glenn and Mike. You can go the non AA route, reach out to Dean and and others like Dean, and, we really appreciate you being on this morning.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Thanks for taking the time, dude.
Speaker 4:We appreciate it. I appreciate you guys having me on. I definitely appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Luck. We'll come on to your podcast.
Speaker 2:There we go.
Speaker 4:Alright. Alright. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Alright. Cheating.
Speaker 3:Alright. Cheating.
Speaker 4:Please have a good one.
Speaker 2:Alright. Bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us for today's coffee chat. To contact the show, email us at podcast@sober.coffee. If you need immediate help, the AA hotline is 808391686. The National Suicide Prevention hotline is (800) 273-8255. Remember, Mike and Glenn are sharing their own journey on the path to recovery.
Speaker 1:Any suggestions, medical or otherwise, are their own experiences and should not be viewed as professional advice. See you next week and remember, there is a solution.