When we put the booze down, it doesn't mean that life stops happening. Good things happen in our life. Bad things happen in our life. The difference is when we find recovery, we have the skills to get through that bad stuff without taking a drink. And we're going to sort of talk about that tonight because Steve lost a family member recently and he has shared in a meeting something that hit home for me. And I hope it hits home for you as well. Steve, what's going on?
Hey, Matt. Good to be back. We haven't done this for a couple of weeks now, so like I said, it feels like you take a week off. It feels like forever, you
Yes,
know?
it does.
And. And it is a long time. It's like two weeks by the time you get back to it. So it's a long time.
Mm hmm.
But yeah, I'd like to dedicate this podcast to my brother, Rich. Rich C, who was one of us. He struggled with his own addictions, alcoholism. He was also, you know, a drug user. So I lost him on June 2nd of a heart attack. So, yeah, like, there's a lot to it. It's, you know, it was a tough thing. it was a complicated relationship. But my brother and I, as many family relationships are, you
Sober
know.
or not sober,
Right. Absolutely.
they can be complicated.
you know, I was listening to a, another podcast, so I actually listened to an interview. Kristen Bell Right.
Mm hmm.
We both love Kristen Bell
What's not to like Steve?
listen, you don't have to tell me and her and her husband, DAX Shepard has a podcast. They don't many people, no armchair expert. And anyway, she was talking about their relationship and she was talking about their partying and their drug eating. I don't know. She wasn't talking specifically about drug use, but she made a comment that we all exit. We all get off the highway at different exits. And what she was talking about was she got off that party train earlier
than he did. Okay. And I thought that was a beautiful way to put it, that they were together. But yet, you know, and he has he's had struggles. He had a relapse a couple of years ago that was pretty public and stuff like that. So my brother and I, we were both alcoholic. He had a problem, noticeably had a problem before I did. I mean, I can remember him going to rehab and things like that. And he was in and out of recovery for years and years. And you're in and out,
in and out. And one of the things I did share is that because my brother was at times your typical trenchcoat alcoholic. Right. And I shared that my brother actually lived in the woods and my brother was a big guy with about six, too, but always sort of heavy but big, brawny guy. And and he had this big beard and I mean, he was really was like the guy you see lived in the woods in a tent for
a while. and then I always said that that sort of kept me in my addiction because I was able to look at him and go, Well, I'm not that. Yeah, so what, I'm drinking alone in my basement, but I'm not that,
I think so many people can
right,
identify with that. I can, because that's my idea of an alcoholic.
right.
And if your person is the gutter alcoholic,
Yeah,
well, it's easy for you to. To scrape by and say I'm not that and still
not
have
that.
a pretty significant problem.
Yeah. Yeah, I did for a long time.
It's
Um, and eventually got bad. I never got through. I was homeless or anything like that. You know, I, you know, I don't know. I always said, yeah, I had a high bottom drunk, you know, I had two cars and in a house and stuff like that. But, the other thing I've always said is that maybe it wasn't so high if you ask my wives, cause I had two wives and I had two different wives go through, go through
relapse and go through it. Go through the problems with me, they had a different view of how high my bottom was right there live with me, a really, really difficult time. But back to that relationship with my brother. So it was complicated. I remember my brother going to rehab. I remember going to visit him. It was like in Brookfield, Connecticut, somewhere. and again, I remember like, you know, being sort of uncomfortable with that whole situation. And I at that time, I did not have a
problem. I always drank and partied hard, but I was very much in control of it at that point. You know, when I would drink, I probably drink too much, but I wasn't drinking all the time. I didn't feel like I needed a drink. I was just a heavy partier. And most of it was good times and, you know, certainly a few times where I overdid it. So I just watched that happen. And then you know, and again, when we got older, we split up. You know, we went our own ways. We never live that far.
We always lived in the same area. But my brother would be gone, like my brother would disappear for months and years at a time where I wouldn't know where he'd be and he'd be out there running and be out there use and and I wouldn't know where he would be,
in Connecticut. Distance can be relative
Yeah,
to me. The distance between the suburbs of Hartford and Waterbury feel like a different world.
I tell
It's
you.
about a what is a 30 minute drive?
Yeah.
Maybe
35, 40 minutes. I've always said that because when we moved out this way, it's like my family never came to visit me. Right? If
you
I
don't
was
cross
going to.
the river.
Right. They never came. And I said, It's like we moved to a different part of the country. Yeah, a 40 minute drive away. Nobody ever came out to see us. But but that being said, you know, my brother and I, we had like I said, we had a complicated relationship. And what happened was I started to have my own problems and then I retreated into my own isolation. Right? I wasn't like share and comparing notes to my brother. And actually I think my brother was still out there using that
time. And I was I got involved in my own addiction and and actually not nobody, my family, I was a very much a closet drinker. I was definitely a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Like, I went to all the family functions you would never be able to tell I had a drinking problem. Never. I would never drink to excess. There were a couple of parties that I would do at my brother's house or something, but in front of my families and stuff like that. My my mom and dad or aunts and uncles, those type of
parties never. I was always that guy, the upstanding, you know, one who had a few drinks. And in doing well in life. Yeah. And then I'd go home and like I said, I finish off my drinking in my basement. So, yeah, I started developing my own problems. And then, you know, we we didn't have a lot of we didn't have a lot of contact for a while. Um, and then slowly he moved. He came back into my life via my parents because he moved in with my parents. My brother was 60. He would have been 67 in July.
He died June 2nd, so he died at 66 and he moved to my parents, probably my parents the last until they passed for probably close to 15 years or more. and that was somewhat okay. There was some enabling going on there with a lot of parents as there is my brother has other had other mental health issues that he was diagnosed with. So the other problem was when he would go out on his on his relapses, typically he would stop taking his psych meds and he would have
all kinds of problems. And it he was it was very ugly when he was out there. Like it wasn't just like a drunk. It was very, very ugly and at times scary. So it was it was a really, really difficult relationship that, you know, I tried to manage. I love my brother. I, I always did. Even though there was time that we didn't talk for a long time. I had a distance myself when I got sober. One of the things I had to do we talk about all the
times. You have to change everything and part of that thing is the people who you hang around with. And I share this with a lot of people and I share it with a lot of men that I sponsor is that I stopped hanging out with my own brothers because my own brothers partied in a way that I couldn't deal with, especially in early sobriety. I had to stop going over to their house. My my older brother especially. He would always call, Hey, come on over having pizza. Brian's going to
cook pizza. And all of those things were always an excuse to drink heavily, you know, like, Oh, yeah, I'm going to do a little pizza, but we're going to bang back some tequila shots for sure, right? And so I had to stop doing all of those type of activities, even though they were my own brother, because I couldn't put my own sobriety at risk. So it pushed me away even farther from my brother there because he really struggled
getting sober. And there were times like I would I went to meetings with my brothers on and off for years, on and off. Like when he was, you know, he was doing well. He'd be really working the program. I go down to Waterbury, we'd go to meetings together, and then all of a sudden he'd be off again, you know. And so it was up and down, up and down, up and down. And it was really, really hard. It was hard on me to get any type of established relationship with him.
I don't have any siblings. I'm an only child. So this is one of these areas that it's tough for me to identify with. And I also find it's tough for me to identify with the idea of having a father because he wasn't around. And. But I have I can't imagine the pain of I can't go and do things with my brother that I'm used to doing because of my sobriety. That's a very difficult decision to make. That's a tough one.
It was hard, especially my oldest brother. My oldest brother and I were probably the close of my oldest brother is six years older than me, it's my oldest brother. That's where I got a lot of my stuff from. Like all my music tastes came from my older brother, right? So my other brother was into a lot of the, you know, like he had the Beatle albums, right? And then I would listen to his stuff, right? He had all the stuff and I would listen to it, you know, he was a big Bob Marley fan. And
I always tell the story. I went to the 1976 Olympics up in Montreal and we met some guys from Toronto and we were partying with these guys from Toronto and they were playing music in their van, had a van, and we would go there and party with them at night cause we were we were sleeping in our van and they had this music on. And I was with my cousin and we came back home and went up to my brother's house, which was a
regular party stop for us. And I walked in the door and it was the same music and it was Bob Marley. And after that time I became a huge Bob Marley fan. So a lot of my older brother, my stuff, my older brother, we started playing golf together, took golf lessons together, you know, so many things I got for my older brother. It was really, really hard to distance myself from him. I spent all I lived with him for about six months, him and his wife. So it was really, really hard. But I knew
I had to do that. One of the things my older brother had for 25 years, he had a party. Actually, for more than that, I stopped going after 25 here. He had a party called the Margarita Party. And the margarita party was exactly what you think it is. It was a party based around tequila and we eat Mexican food and it started out actually at the house he lives in now, which actually was his sister in law's house at the time. He lives
there now. And we started there and it got so big, we moved it around different parks and it became a campout. It became like a mini Woodstock. You go for a couple of days boot
So
camp.
this is an outdoor party.
It was an outdoor party and we'd go to different places. Then he moved out to a town called Oxford, Connecticut, and he met this guy who owned the farm, who had like a grove. And for the last, like, I don't know, five or ten years, he was there in a beautiful private place. You go there, you camp out. But it was just exactly what you think it would be like. Heavy drinking, heavy drug use for three days, you know, that was an incredibly you know, that that's the type of stuff we did.
You know, the first time I ever drink, first time I ever drink tequila. I mean, I went up to his apartment. He was you know, he had all his friends around there, were sitting around, passed around a bottle of tequila. And I remember I was like 17 years old at the time. And me and my buddies went up there in his apartment and I felt so cool, right? I was 17. These guys were 23 or 24. Right.
And, you know, they're passing around smoking some weed, I'm sure, And just having this good old time, it was really, really difficult for me to to pass that up. But I had to.I had to I had I knew that it was a danger to my sobriety. And when I came into this program after my relapse, I said I was willing to do anything to stay sober. And that's one of the things I had to grow. I can do those things today. I can go to his house today if I chose to. I can go
there for whatever. And if everybody wants to drink and get stupid, that's fine, because when I'm ready to go, I just end up leaving. I could go there for a while and then when it gets stupid, I could leave. But early on I couldn't do that. Early on, I just had to stay away from it completely.
You didn't have tools, you didn't have support yet
I just didn't
you
understand
didn't have a
it.
practice
Yeah, I just didn't understand it. And I was. I was just too fragile, right? I mean, I just I didn't, you know, the obsession hadn't been completely removed. The obsession has gone to that. Like, t a lot of things different today. The obsession has gone. I don't think of drinking as a release. I don't, you know, even on my worst days, I don't think like, oh, I should have a drink. I'll feel better. we talked about it Friday night, like. Or was it Monday night?
One of the I get my meetings mixed up, but we talk about, you know, alcoholics drinks because they like the effects of alcohol. Right? And I said at this meeting, whatever meeting it was, I still like the effects of alcohol. My brain still tells me that I like that effect. Now, I know I can't drink. I don't want to drink. I know the damage it brings, but that of that feeling that I get from alcohol. Yeah, I still like that. I have an alcoholic mind. It still wants to tell me that that's what it
feels like. And that's why if I don't work my program, I will absolutely be in danger of drinking again. So.
just for the sake of the new person. When you're saying work your program, Hmm. give me a brief. What does that look like?
For me, I mean, for me, working my program means several things. It means going to my regular meetings, right? I've got two regular meetings I go to every week without fail. There's typically a third one. Now, I do this podcast, which I consider sort of a recovery event, if not a meeting.
Mm hmm.
So that's three things I do every single week. Okay. Um, and then I do other things too. Like there's other meetings Last week, I think I went to five meetings, right? Just the way it went. I was supposed to go away last week and it never happened. So I packed in a couple extra meetings, a Tuesday and a Thursday because I expect to be going Friday, Saturday, Sunday
and. And back on Monday. Well, I never went, so I was able to go to my regular Friday meeting, so I ended up going to a meeting Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Yeah, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Right. And then I went, oh, and then I went out to Timmy's on Saturday. So, so yeah, I went to a bunch of meetings. So that's five, five meetings last week, you know, that's the kind of stuff I talk to alcoholics all the time. So I mean, I got a couple of alcoholics that we text back and
forth in the morning. You don't. That's another thing that I do regularly, you know, And then I work on you know, prayer and meditation. You know, I work on that quiet time, whatever that means to you. It means different stuff to everybody. But to me it means quiet time, relax in my mind, just finding some really, really quiet time that I don't feel stressed, you know.
It sounds like this is about the habits that you've built into your life. It doesn't have to be five meetings a week, no. but it can be. What is the regular practice that you're doing to stay Yeah, connected? Having a group of people you can trust is important, and that can be phone calls, that can be texts. And then the self-care that you do, I. not a heavy lift, but you have these regular lifestyle
habits you have in place. And this puts you in a place where you don't have to be so tempted by alcohol that you have to drink.
Yeah, there's a huge thing, right? We both do a DACA program of recovery and part of that a program we talk about in this all the time. There's a fellowship, right? And I do meetings. We and I talked about a lot. We did it Joe and Charlie, and not
Mm
much
hmm.
I wanted to do Joan Charlie again, but the people who we did, Joe and Charlie with were really, really people that I wanted to go spend every night with every, you know, once a week, every night with and actually some of
Yep.
those people I would see more than that. Right. And it's the same thing. It's funny because Tim now goes to Tim. Tim now goes to the Monday night meeting. So it's funny, like I saw Tim three times last week. Right. But those are the people that I do want to see, right? Those are the people that I want to see a lot on a regular basis because those are the connections I need to keep me sober. Those are relationships that I have that keep me sober.
And the thing that I have with my program is that when when I have a night where there's nothing going on, like my friend Bruce and I were talking about it and it's like, if I'm not doing anything, you know, and I feel like, what am I, you know, what am I doing tonight? Nothing. If it's a Thursday night, then there's a good chance I'm going to shoot over and hit the Thursday night meeting, because I like meeting those. I like hearing the stories from those
guys. You know, I just never know what I'm going to hear at a meeting that's going to help me. So a lot of times I just go, I show up, I sit there, I always try to participate somehow, but I just I want to stay connected to that. I want to stay connected to that. And that was one of the things my brother struggled with. He he he could not stay connected to the program. He had some really, really good sobriety at times. He had some really good
connections. He had people who helped him out a lot, but he just couldn't stay connected to it. you know, I don't know. One of the things I talked about and I don't even remember you said to me when we were going to do this last week, oh, I liked what you shared. And I think you said that to me Tuesday and Tuesday, which was the day after I shared. I couldn't even have told you what I shared that day. Like, I had no recollection. I
Well, I could tell you, you were. You were on fire
right. Well, I had no recollection of what I shared. I do remember I talked about my brother, but I had no recollection exactly what I said. But I will say this about him is that this is what happened between my brother and I, is that my brother moved in with my parents and then my mom died and it was just my brother and my dad. And that was a good thing because it gave my dad somebody
to live with. Right. And even though my brother wasn't perfect and he wasn't, you know, he was clean, he was clean and sober back then. It gave him my gave my dad. I knew my dad had so many. So that gave all of you know, there's had five brothers and sisters, six of us. So that gave all of us knowing that my dad had so many lived with them, it was a good thing. And that
went well. And then my dad passed away and it was just my brother my older brother and I ended up buying my parents house and we let my brother live. There was a two family let him live on the first floor for a while. But it came very apparent to us that my brother couldn't take care of himself. He couldn't keep the house clean. He couldn't really manage a lot of stuff that had to be managed. I went down there. I tried to help him several times and it came very apparent to us that he
couldn't. So we ended up getting him into like an assisted the like an assisted living spot in Waterbury. And that went well for a while until he met a woman and he went on another patented run and he went out and started using again. And that was really, really ugly. And I had done a lot of work.
and
I had done a lot of work. I had gotten very close to him. I was doing meetings with him. I was picking him up. I was seeing him. And that was a really nasty run where we had a really some really bad things. He did some really bad things I just decided I couldn't have him in my life at that time. Like that was again, one of those things
self-preservation, self care. I needed to distance myself and my brother was diabetic and he started to have issues from that and he started to, you know, typically with diabetic started lose, you know, appendages, y know, two feet, toes, first of all toes, and then half a foot. And then he had the bottom portion, you know, of his leg below the knee amputated and actually above the knee. Now, I think about amputated. And all through that time, I had no contact with him. I knew what
was happening. I have a I have a sister in Ohio who was talking to him at that time who would give me that news. Hey, brother Rich's in the hospital. He's having, you know, a half a foot removed. And I'm like, okay, thanks for the information. I never would go see him, never would do anything because we just we were estranged. Right? It was really was. And then all that went to that and about about two years ago, I said to my wife, I started feeling this pull to get back into his life.
And I was reluctant to do it. I really was because I had done it so many times. And I said to my wife, I feel like I got a call. We call them Ritchie. I said, I feel like I got to call Ritchie and get back into his life. Like, I felt like I owed that to my parents, you know, because my mother was always worried about him cause I said he had some other issues. My mother was always worried what was going to happen to him. Like most parents are. And I started out very
slowly with them. I started out texting them and he was so happy to hear from me and went and slowly went back. And then then I slowly started. I would go down to see him. He was living in Naugatuck, not too again, about 35, 40 minutes away. So just spent a couple of hours with him. You know, just try to see how we can do it. And I did. We slowly started making up this relationship, and then last year, around his birthday, a year ago, July, I went down there to help
him celebrate his birthday. And he had a really bad day and he was having a really bad day for a lot of reasons. And I had to leave. I told him, like, Rich, I can't do this today. I had a bad day myself, but I just couldn't go down this rabbit hole that he was in. I just like I got to leave. And he really got upset because it was his birthday and all. And we had another falling out and there was lots of nasty text messages. Not for me. I don't get I don't send nasty
things back to them. But he sent a lot of nasty text messages to me, told me he didn't need me, all that kind of stuff. And again, we were we're on the outs again. But here's what I did. Here's one of the things I said about this relationship is I never had a resentment towards them. Like, even though I was distancing myself from him, this program had allowed me to take that distance without judgment, without resentment. Okay. So I was all always ready to get back to a relationship with him when
he was ready. And finally he wrote me some texts like, I did this. One thing Dad always told me is I had to forgive. And this. So again, we started back up and this is this is all in the last, like I said, July, probably it was probably the end of last year, October, November, that we started slowly getting back into it. And again, we started back to relationship and it was a little bit more distance. This time I wasn't going to see him as much because I just wanted to
keep our distance. But we ended up in a really, really good place and it was really super nice that I talked about it. I would talk to him for the last couple of months, probably the last three months. I talked to my brother 2 to 4 times a week. Every week. Okay. Every week he'd call me up. We were both fairly early riser. He would
00 in the morning or 730. Sometimes I would already be out walking the dog and we'd have a quick little conversation. He'd be telling me what's going on. We're both sports fan. We'd be talking a little bit about sports, and it was really, really nice, you know, that I had that
relationship. And one of the things I shared is that I'm so I'm so pleased that upon his passing, we were at that place rather than the estranged place, because it would have been really hard for me to think, oh, my God, you know, I lost my brother and I made sure he knew that I loved him. Because one of the things we always said and I always told them we both said it when we hung up the phone, I love you, brother. I'll talk to you later. And that was it, you
know. And I was just so pleased that this program had given me the ability to be able to allow myself to be there for him, you know, in that time. So it's it was tough. It was tough. My brother was not healthy. He was he was overweight. He had lost his leg. He wasn't active, you know, even though he had a prosthetic leg, he didn't use it. He was he'd stayed in the wheelchair most of the day. I would go I would go down there and like I would take him out to do some shopping, go to Walmart
and stuff like that. And he could move from a cart from a seat and, you know, to use his walker, but not much at all. he had a heart attack in December and went in and they talked about open heart surgery. They put some stents in. And and then he came home and then he had a heart attack. And like I said, June 2nd and and I'm not surprised. And I told people all the time, I'm not surprised that my brother died of a heart attack. I didn't expect him to
live all that long. But I didn't I didn't expect it to happen two weeks ago. You know,
right.
That's all I mean, like, it wasn't a total shock, but it wasn't something that I was expecting that day. And I guess I would never be expecting it. And any day unless you had something was in the hospital and but he had a massive heart attack. And by the time help got there, I found out after the fact that he was already dead.
I would imagine. I'm just thinking through. I'm thinking through the challenges of not having that resentment Mm. because I have some people in my life like that, and All I don't really want a relationship with right. them. I'm away from them because they are unhealthy. But it is boggling my mind not to have had that resentment. That's a higher level of enlightenment that I guess I have with other people. But it is your brother Yeah. and you have that shared experience.
But you know, thing about I'll tell you, this is I've been able to do that with other people, not relatives. We have a person that we both know has been in and out of the rooms, and I was helping them and sponsoring them for a while. and recently I know he was out and then we, you know, he, he couldn't stay sober. And I was like, okay, well, I guess I can't help you. And other people tried to help him and, and then he stopped. He seemed to stop
going away. But he recently reached out to me and we talked. We started texting Jill. Actually, I texted him. I was I texted him everyone. So I would take some. And here's here's the point is like, I don't know if this guy is even sober, but I've allowed myself to be available to talk to him. And he even asked me, and he is, too. He's doing some meeting stuff and he comes to where I live in Manchester to do some meetings and he says, Hey, can we get together once in a while? I'm
like, Yeah, sure, you know? it's the same thing. I make myself available to him. I'm not trying to sponsor him. I'm not trying to help him. Truth is, I don't even care if he's sober or not, but I'm willing to make myself available to him in the hopes that one day he'll be able to get this program and find it. And if I. Because I'm not saying no, I don't want to be around you because you won't do this program. I just you know, I don't have any resentment to him. I know how hard it is to get
sober. I do. It was really hard for me to get sober, you know? yeah, I spent 14 years and not drinking, and I realize, like, I struggled. I knew I wasn't sober. I just wasn't drinking, you know? And so I don't know. It was a blessing. It really was. I agree that when when he died, I was so pleased that I was in such a good place. I really was. And not only that, you know, one of the things I shared is that I had this I was one of six. Okay. This is the third sibling I've
lost. Okay? He was not quite 67 years old and he was the oldest one. Right. So I've lost three siblings younger than 66 years. Six or seven years old. Um, so it's it's been difficult. It's been difficult with that. And one of the things that happened was all of his, all, all of the stuff around his death, all of the work, all the, you know, stuff, working with getting his remains taken care of. That all fell on me, emptying out his apartment fell on me. And I, you
know, I did it all. And again, you know, I did it without a resentment, you know, even though I have a brother who lives close to my oldest brother, lives closer to him than I do, it's just not something that he would chop up. Matter of fact, I told him like, oh, I went down there with my cousin. We emptied out the Well, why didn't you tell me? Like I said to my wife, like, it's your brother too, Right?
Right.
Right. I'm like, I'm. I'm supposed to have to call you up. Like, why aren't you calling
And
me saying, Hey, what do we need to do
you're not his
again?
mom?
Again? It's like, that's him. He's never been around. He doesn't like death. I mean it like. Like when both my parents died and both my sisters died, he was nowhere to be found. Not because he didn't care. Because he doesn't like to be around death for some reason, it doesn't bother me. I mean, like I, you know, both my sisters, I was there when they died. My mom and dad, my dad, I wasn't dead. My dad was the only one. But I don't have a problem. I never had a problem with them. My
mother loved my mother. Well, came into my house the last few weeks of her life and stayed with us. And my brother doesn't like that. And I respect that. He doesn't need to. He doesn't need to be part of it. But my point is I'm able to do all of this stuff without resentment, without feeling like I'm being put upon, you know, before I got this program, I would have been pissed off,
Mm
Oh,
hmm.
you know, why me? Why do I have to do all this stuff? You know? But today I could do it with a grateful heart. I can do it. My brother didn't have much. My brother lives on Social Security, disability and Social Security. Really? It's amazing. It's amazing how little money he lived on. And it's amazing how little money some people in this great country, country of ours live on. You know, my brother my brother lived on less than $13,000 a year.
That's incredible.
Yeah. And now, obviously, he got some subsidized rent and food stamps and stuff like this, but less than 13,000.
It's still
And my sister in Ohio helped them a lot, too. But and there's lots of people out there, you know, trying to and he was a and here's the other thing I'll say about my brother in a long winded on this, but my brother was happy when he died. He had gotten apartment. It was all by himself. The last place he was in was sort of like a multi-unit, almost like again, almost like assisted living. He had his own apartment, but it's very small, like a one room apartment. And when he got this place, he was
thrilled. And I always offered him, I'm like, Rich, I'll take over your finances whenever you want, whenever you want. I'll take them over. You won't have to worry. And I said, I guarantee you you'll actually have more money if you let me take over your finances. But he didn't want to. He wanted to do it on his own. He was very proud that he could do all that stuff on his own. He was saying to my sister, it's like, Oh, I finally feel like I'm an adult, you know?
Right. He was like channeling his fire, paying his bills, paying his rent, doing all those things. And he was really, really happy, even though he lived and, you know, on such little money. So I was happy that that's the way he ended his life. He had a big faith. He really did. He had a Christian faith. He was he was doing some Bible studies turned out to be.
And again, it doesn't matter who they are, but for him, it turned out to be some Jehovah Witnesses came, knocked on his door and they started taking him and would meet with them and read the Bible with him. And he's always was a good Christian. He always went to church, he always he went to churches that would be were Bible churches. So he was in a really we would talk about that, Hey, I was just reading this, you know, it's not my thing anymore, but it was his
thing. So I was still able to talk about it.
give him comfort.
It gave him very much a lot of comfort. They gave him a lot of comfort, and it gave him comfort that he feels like, okay, I know where I'm going, right? I know where I'm going. I was very pleased that that that he had that in his life.
I'm sure that connecting with you at the end of his life was probably also helpful
I think I think it was I'll tell you, it was it was great for both of us. He was really pleased. We were only two years apart. So we grew up a lot. We you know, we grew up together. And, you know, we did a lot of our partying together. And did, you know, a lot of that stuff was done early on? Yeah, My brother, we grew up when drinking age was 18, so he was two years older. So he was legally drinking when I was still 16. And so a lot of times I got my alcohol through him,
you know, average. Can you buy me some beer? Hey, Rich, can you do this? Right? So we did a lot of that kind of stuff growing up together, so a lot of good brother stuff. And then, you know, obviously drugs and alcohol get in and it, you know, it it really it really could ruin some stuff, you know?
I thought this would be a great topic for people because I think there's a lot here that you can relate to. This is a common topic within families. Whether it's the same situation or whether you have a family issue or somebody is sober, somebody is not sober, there's a lot here that you can identify with, and I could identify with the feeling, even if I don't have a brother or sister. Hmm. So I really appreciate you being vulnerable to share that, because I think it's going to help Yeah.
the next person.
I hope so.
We have few people who the show has helped, and every time that you email me at Matt at Sober Friends podcast, I'm always grateful and it's always something that helps me. So I figured I'd share it with you. Got an email from Rob. Rob is 19 days sober. He's been binge listening to all of the podcasts. Not sure why. I feel like it's important for you guys to know the podcast helped me stay sober one day at a time. With every episode, I feel like I come away with more and more tools to add
to my sobriety tool belt. Thanks so much for the work and the service it takes to produce the podcast. Thanks, Rob. Rob I am humbled that you reached out to us and that at 19 days sober, this is something that helps you and that we've offered you value. That's fantastic. Mm hmm. And then you've got a very far flung one from Denmark. I think I think the name is Steve Steen or Stina. If I remember my Danish, But I'm going to go
Steve. So Matt and Friends just wanted to give you guys a huge shout out from Denmark as you mentioned, traveling over here in your last episode. I've been listening to all your episodes. They are a big part of me staying sober for nearly 15 months now. Another relatively new guy. One day at a time. Thank you so much for the great content. I really appreciate it, Steve. I'm going to look and see where abouts in Denmark he's from.
Semi-related story. One of these times that I went over there, a group of ten of us cleared the bar of. We put, I think a 3 to $5000 tab one night Mm for the drinking that we did over hmm. there, which is not much to do in Denmark during the winter in the place that I was in, which is in the middle of Jutland, not near Copenhagen. It was in a place that there's nothing around. But I don't think I've ever been drunker in my life than on those trips to Denmark.
Yeah. I'm impressed with people like that because he probably knows, like multiple languages.
Yeah. It just blows my mind that we sit here in our little homes in Connecticut and we
Hmm.
talk. You and I talk on it. You know, it's like we're having a phone conversation, just you and I. And then somebody in Denmark listened to us and got something out of it. Thank you so much for reaching out. I will tell you, you don't know how much that means to us that we can, you know, trudge down these hallways to get to these microphones and do this podcast. But in reality, I'd like it means so much.
Right.
An it's so amazing to me that this little podcast, the podcast reaches Denmark. So hang in there. Keep listening. God bless and keep going one day at a time. Stay sober.
If you want to reach us. Website is Sober Friends podcast from Instagram and Facebook at Sober Friends Pod. We love to hear from you. And if you go to Super Friends podcast to sign up for the newsletter so you can stay in touch with us. Steve. Thanks. Another great show.
Hey, Matt. Thank you.
We'll see you next week. Bye, everybody.