E245: What Sloppy Drunks Taught Me About Sobriety

At the Big E, one of the biggest fairs in the country, I couldn’t help but notice how quickly things turned sloppy once the drinks started flowing. Being surrounded by that chaos didn’t just make me uncomfortable—it brought me back to the unpredictability and abuse I grew up with around alcohol. In this episode, Steve and I dig into why being around drunk crowds can feel so unsettling in sobriety, how our pasts shape those reactions, and the strategies we use to stay safe when the world around us is soaked in booze.

If you’ve ever wondered why drinking environments hit you hard—or how to handle them without risking your recovery—you’re not alone. This is a real, honest conversation about triggers, boundaries, and what sobriety teaches us when we’re face-to-face with sloppy drunks.

Transcript

Matt: 0:03

Welcome to the Silver Friends Podcast. My name is Matt J. Over there is Steve and you're looking for path to sobriety, to curious about it. You've reached the right place. Hey Steve, I went to the Big E on Friday night. For those who are outside of New England. The Big E is a Big Fall Fair. It has a permanent fairground. It is the between Second and Fourth Biggest Fall Festival in the United States. It's very large. It's very well known around here. And it's got the stuff like the, like, the Biggest Beat, the Hogs, the Goats. But has all the fair stuff too, including

Steve: 0:52

alcohol.

Matt: 0:52

An incredible amount of alcohol there. And I was there late and it was

Steve: 0:58

sloppy. I

Matt: 1:01

wasn't sloppy before. Clarify that.

Steve: 1:08

Yeah, it gets, it gets sloppy late at night. It's not anything else. I mean, the Big E, again, if you're not from the area, uhm, maybe you're in an area where there's some big, big fairs that go on, obviously they go around all across the United States. But it's the biggest one in our area by...

Matt: 1:24

Mm-hmm.

Steve: 1:25

Yeah, any of those fairs, fairs, they get, yeah, when, you know, nighttime comes, it changes. And it's like any, it's like any activity, any party we goes to, not any party, but many parties. That's what happens. Sort of like at the end of, you know, at a certain point, it may get sloppy if that's what happens with people. And, uh, you know, it's changed. I used to be part of that sloppy, right?

Matt: 1:52

Mm-hmm.

Steve: 1:53

to

Matt: 1:53

I

Steve: 1:54

live

Matt: 1:54

used

Steve: 1:54

it, I used to live in that sloppy. Um, that's when the party was just getting started for me. And, uh, so yeah, it's always, and it's always, it's always a thing to see these days and we look at it differently and, you know, for me, I, when I look at that today, I don't look, I don't, I don't, there's no judgment. I look at, that's how I used to be. That's where I look at it like, oh, that was me.

Matt: 2:19

Yeah, I look, I look at it as... I think God I don't have to be tied to that.

Steve: 2:24

Yeah.

Matt: 2:24

I'm not a slave to it.

Steve: 2:26

Right.

Matt: 2:28

But I, this, this biggie is, a lot of times it's like beer or whatever, and there is a ton of beer there, but there's hard alcohol, like one tent after another where there's hard alcohol, I'll tell you the saddest thing is I was guiding my daughter to the bathroom and we went into the young building. There are a couple of buildings that are permanent there that they have things to sell, nothing you need. Like turtle wax or that type of stuff. And then they, you know, put the car hood on fire with it to show you how, how great it is. It's all, it's all crap, but they have, they have these like little open air pop-up bars, but as you drive, as you walk by, there's one air that's like a little alcove with a door where you walk in and there's a permanent bar, like walled off where you can walk in, they've got a bar and it was packed. And like, now that's sad that I have to go to kind of a permanent walled off bar that you're walking actually into a bar at the fair. And that's where you want to go. There's no illusion that I can walk around and they had a theme that like, it's the Christmas bar. Okay. But I just, you know, you could look in and look, oh, this is so sad. But the thing I think that makes that I get uncomfortable about it is I grew up in a household with sloppy drugs and it made, it just terrified me. My stepfather could get very abusive verbally. I don't remember it, but my

Steve: 3:58

was

Matt: 3:58

father physically abusive and he didn't even remember it. The body does. And there's something around when I start seeing people get out of control drunk, it makes me really, really uncomfortable. And I think it's, it puts me back in that place. Conscious or not?

Steve: 4:15

Yeah. I mean, I think that happens to a lot of us, if we have that type of trauma. I don't, I don't recall that that's any part of my history. Like I said, my, the biggest part for me is when I, when I see that. And it's interesting because you brought that up, you brought that up about sitting in the bar. And I can imagine that right here, you're at this great. Again, there's nothing you need at this thing. The biggest thing about the biggie is food. Lots of different wild foods that are, you know, very expensive. But you know, if you want to go up there and try some different things, some weird things, it can be fun.

Matt: 4:47

Sure.

Steve: 4:48

Um, and obviously they're hacking all kinds of this, all kinds of stuff. And again, nothing you need, but fun stuff. So it's a nice way to walk around, get some exercise, eat some food, maybe that you wouldn't need elsewhere and have that.

Matt: 5:03

Oh, yes.

Steve: 5:04

And then you look at it and you say, but these people are going up there and sitting the bar that you could do right down the street, right?

Matt: 5:11

Yeah.

Steve: 5:11

Nevermind, nevermind that everything's way overpriced, right? So if you're sitting at bar, like, I don't even know what drinks are. I mean, I could tell you probably what a glass of wine is, in many places. It's my wife will have a glass of wine, but other than that, I really can't tell you what drinks cost anymore, because typically my wife won't drink that. So I never even see the price of something like that. But I can't even imagine, that's one of the other things I think about too, is when I see people drink like that, it's like, well, how are these people getting money to go out there and have,

Matt: 5:41

no kidding,

Steve: 5:42

to pound down 12 or $15 drinks?

Matt: 5:46

Yeah, the beers are like, I think $15. I think that's,

Steve: 5:48

right? Like, like, like, you walk out of there and, and again, you want to do it one time, that's great, but I'm talking about people who do it right, like, you're going out there and you're spending $100,$150, or, you know, whatever it is for, for a few, for a few days. Or a few drinks and you're buying whatever. And this is what it reminded me of. And again, this is what I talk about where I think about how I looked, and then two things would happen to me, if I went to the big E, like you did,

Matt: 6:13

with

Steve: 6:14

your family. And if it was back in my drinking days, here's what would have happened to me is I couldn't drink the way I wanted to drink, right? So I had to, I was able to be responsible in those situations to drive my family home to be safe, I would have a few drinks, I would get a bus, but I would get agitated.

Matt: 6:32

Aha,

Steve: 6:33

I would get agitated because I couldn't wait to get home, because there was always something a bottle or something waiting at home for me that I could end up getting where I needed to go. So I would get agitated and agitated and maybe even pick a fight and go home and it would be it would be ugly for me. It'll be ugly. And the other memory that brought up for me is that years and years ago, I mean, my sister was living in Florida, and I was taking off to go visit her. Two sisters actually were living in Florida, and my brother happened to be down there for a wedding. My oldest brother. So there were four out of six kids in Florida at the same time in the same area. And we all got together, which was kind of weird, right?'Cause we were all adults, young adults at that point, but we got together and we all went to Ebbcap, and our goal at Ebbcap was to have a beer in every country. Whatever the, right, whatever the beer of that country was like we'd go there and have their beer. So we went to England, we had baths, ale, and we went to Japan and have whatever and we went to, you know, we ended up in Mexico to have tequila and dos psekies. And that's what we did, right? We didn't go see Ebbcap. We went to place to place to place to have drink, and that's the kind of stuff that I did when I drank. And the truth is, we had so much fun. It was a lot of fun, but we got, by the time we had a skip like last two or three countries because we had reservations at Mexico to have dinner and finish up the night there, and we couldn't make it. But the whole day, it wasn't spent exploring different countries and stuff like that, the exhibits. And this was back before... Those things are like that. Like, you could actually get into exhibits and stuff like that without waiting two or three hours, like.

Matt: 8:17

Yes.

Steve: 8:19

So, so that's what I did, right? So that's what I mean. So when I look at that, I go, oh yeah, that was me. That was me. I did that kind of stuff. Or, like I said, if I didn't do that kind of stuff, because I had my family with me, I wasn't enjoying myself, typically. Because I couldn't drink the way I wanted to drink.

Matt: 8:38

Yeah, I used to have a little bit of a plan there, because there's, at least at one time there was the, not so great beers, but if you went to the state building, they had the beer of Vermont, or the beer in New Hampshire. And that was a better quality.

Steve: 8:56

Right.

Matt: 8:57

Right. Now there are all types of beer gardens up and down. And we got there early about, I mean, we probably got there for 3.30. We were there a long time. We got there for about 3.30 and it was actually under crowded. And people had their beers already, but it wasn't crazy. We left just nine, we're untenish. We left. And that's where I saw. And when I'm saying sloppy. It wasn't the high school kids. It was adults.

Steve: 9:27

Yeah.

Matt: 9:28

And it was people like staggering and coming up and talking to women in a way that was uncomfortable for them to see, but just people like staggering. And I walked out one day. I heard it. You can stay at my house. I have a bed there. And you can, and it's just like a list is, oh, oh, get me, get me the hell out of here. It's just bringing that flashback from what I had to deal with in the past. And I, I don't like it. And I think it's the feeling of out of control. I don't like it when people are out of control. It's an in-control

Steve: 10:07

Yeah, and here's the other thing that this brings up for anybody out there who's fairly new to recovery. Or like we always say, if you're so curious and you're trying to

Matt: 10:17

thing.

Steve: 10:17

figure out, how do you navigate the world? How do you navigate

Matt: 10:20

Mm-hmm. It's hard.

Steve: 10:21

the world around us that is alcohol centric, right, which is what it is? And how do you deal with that, right? So this is a common topic at your discussion meetings of what do you do in these situations? And so it's always understanding that as soon as you become uncomfortable there, that's your body and your mind telling you like, "Oh, I'm uncomfortable. It's time to go."

Matt: 10:54

It's

Steve: 10:55

time to go, right? So you have to listen to yourself. You have to listen to what your mind and your body is telling you, because that's where we get ourselves in trouble, especially in early, not only in early subridedity. If you struggle with subrided, you just got to be careful. Listen, we both you and I have time. And both you and I talk about all the time, like there's there's nothing in my brain that tells me I want to drink or I should drink, or there's somehow my life's going to be better when I drink, which does not mean that I won't get, I won't be susceptible to that lore of that drink, to that to that thought, to that momentarily thought that, "Ooh, that might be fun." I talk about it all the time at my meetings. I'd love to drink and tequila. And I would still, if you put a glass of tequila in front of me and I had some of it, my brain wouldn't go, "Oh no, run away, run away." My brain would go,"Ooh! Here's your life-long friend that you've been missing." Like, there is no question in my mind. That's what would happen to me. So, I'm always susceptible to that. So, I always have to be on guard for it. And there's no reason for me. Well, there could be some reasons depending on you know, if I'm with a crowd of people, with other people, I may have to push through some of that uncomfortability, right? But my point is, what I started to make the point is, you always have to have that exit plan, right? And this is what it's especially. If you're in a new in sobriety, and even if you're going out with all the couples, right? And you're saying, "Hey, we're going to go out. If you're in new in sobriety, you may want to drive yourself, you and your wife, or you and your girlfriend, or you and your partner, or you by yourself. Don't go, don't be stuck where you're going to ride up with somebody, and then you can't get yourself out of that situation. You always have to have a plan on how to get out of there so that when you, your body, and in your mind, and your emotions start telling you, "Oh, I shouldn't be here then you need to take action on that." Because it's dangerous. It's dangerous for us. And it doesn't matter how much sobriety you have. It could be a dangerous situation for all of us.

Matt: 13:16

My view is if you're brand new,

Steve: 13:19

my

Matt: 13:20

advice is don't go to a festival like this. If you're, if you're brand new, you're just coming and do not go to these festivals, they're too much.

Steve: 13:27

Yep.

Matt: 13:28

After a period of time, you've done some step work, then go and go with caution. And this is for anybody, whether you have six months of sobriety or 60 years. The plan there is half a separate car if you need it, but half phone numbers. I can't tell you how many times having phone numbers at something like this

Steve: 13:52

Yeah.

Matt: 13:52

was really beneficial. And I could call people saying, "I'm uncomfortable," and people would pick up. And it might have taken five people, which is why you get a lot of phone numbers. It's sometimes you've got to go through five numbers. You've got to somebody and say, "Hey, I'm at this park. It's a lot of drinking and I'm really uncomfortable and I'm calling you." And that really is enough. And man, the phone is heavy. The numbers are very large and it's hard for me to dial. That's the biggest anxiety. And once I hit enter in the phone, in the phone rings, right then and there, I feel better because I have taken some action. And the reason that you call people is everybody's gone through this. You're not bothering them, you're not being weak. If somebody knew called me, I would say, "Yeah, this happens to me all the time. I'm glad you called." Let's talk through what you need to talk through.

Steve: 14:50

Yeah, th no question. That's a great piece of advice we talk about it all the time is because that may that may be all you need is a phone call. You may need to just step away and say, "Hey, I got to make a phone call." And that's where, you know, having, again, not everybody has that, right? But having a supportive spouse or family is good. And even if it doesn't matter, "Hey, I got to make a phone call, step away." A lot of times that will get you over that hump, right? And then what will happen is some of you say, okay, well, you know, give me a call back in an hour or whatever and see how you feel or whatever right then you put people on notice the other thing I've done in early sobriety is I've told people I would be going right I told people in the program. Hey, I'm going to the big e I'm uncomfortable about going to the big e but I need to do this whatever reason. If I call you realize that I'm calling you for a reason, so if you can pick up right so let people know right let people know the other thing is in early sobriety is there's lots of people in sobriety who wants to go to the big e. So you can go with with sober people right you can make it a trip of fellowship and go up to it a couple of other or couples or people that you know and have four or five people with you who are also sober. So again, right it's that whole be part of the pack suggestion instead of being alone where you get picked off as we like this. You're part of this pack and you have some support right there on site so there's lots of options for these type of things right you don't have to do it alone. And this is where for for us going to meetings going to meetings sharing this kind of stuff talking about this stuff right before you go. So you'll get some suggestions or you make here somebody hey I'm going to the big e on Friday too let's figure out and call hey we're here again lots of options to do to keep yourself

Matt: 17:00

safe,

Steve: 17:01

but I would also agree that if you're really new in sobriety it should be something that you avoid as much as possible for most of us not that you know again we can't paint with the wide brush but for most of us I think that's good advice.

Matt: 17:17

I like the idea going with an A a crew that that could be a that shows you how we've talked about this before going with a pack of recovery people to things like this teaches you how to have fun without alcohol

Steve: 17:33

yeah

Matt: 17:35

my problem with if I were to go with an A crew of people I know they would dive too much into the bad for you food it would be diving into the turkey legs and I would I would I would gain 20 pound just going with certain people

Steve: 17:52

right

Matt: 17:52

because they would want to eat all that crap I've gotten better at limiting my crap but that's a great idea or meeting up somebody's going to be there have a plan of we're going to meet up by the better living center at

Steve: 18:05

m.

Matt: 18:05

5 p.

Steve: 18:05

right

Matt: 18:06

even if I'm not hanging with you the whole time it's a quick meet up

Steve: 18:10

yeah and you can check out and you can whatever right it is it's a quick meetup it's a quick check in it's a quick like hey how you doing and then you have an opportunity if you're uncomfortable you talk about it and you know you a lot of things you know like you talked about with the yes phone a lot of things that happen as soon as you take action on something you start to feel better

Matt: 18:35

uh

Steve: 18:35

so when you run into somebody and you talk to someone like in that situation like say hey let's meet up at 5 at this place and you talk once you have that contact with that person all of a sudden you feel better right many times again that's not going to work every time but many times you're going to feel better and it may be just what you need to get you to that next point right you may be uncomfortable or maybe you're okay and maybe you just say no fine you know something this isn't as bad as I thought I'm doing well and you just go upon your day but it's a great way to do it and like I said if you can't go with sober people or you know that's not available to you for a variety of reasons then the phone is a really really good option it's a great option to be able to do that and I've had plenty of people I worked with some guys who I remember specifically a guy who was coming new guy I was working with him a little bit and he had a wedding he was like we were only working two or three weeks together and he was trying to and I'm like and I told him like call me call me when you're driving call me from there like I did that I'm like I'll be I'll be available like I'll be watching my phone I'll make sure I'm available and he did he called me and he called me on the way down and then he called me from the wedding and he told me like hey I feel fine I'm doing okay I'm like great have a good time I'm here if you need me and that was it you know

Matt: 20:00

you know if this advice is it's not just I mean if you tuned out 20 minutes and then I can't help

Steve: 20:06

here

Matt: 20:06

you this is not you don't have to tune out for this just because I can't identify with a fair this is all of the events that have lots and lots of alcohol and the reality is I don't care how sober you are new or whatever society is not gonna just change for you it is an alcohol soaked society you have to learn how to deal with it And these are some of the things. These are the things that work for me. Part of it is I teach my kids when I see the sloppy people. That's alcohol. They have drank too much. That's not a good thing. And they walk them through and I talk I talking through my own experience, but we have conversations about alcohol and why what they're seeing is not a good thing. And here's why. I want them to have that experience of understanding it. And they know that dad doesn't drink. That doesn't need to drink anymore. I will tell you it was, although the people bothered me walking by all of the alcohol places made me feel free.

Steve: 21:24

Yeah.

Matt: 21:24

And by the end of the night because marijuana is legal, I've talked about this last year, by the why the time the end of the night, because marijuana is legal in Massachusetts, you just were walking into one hemp cloud after another one cannabis cloud after another after another, which in a sense, I'm, I hope they're not mixing, but I had a feeling of it was never for me, but if you're going to bring your vape pen. And you're going to use marijuana, I almost feel better for you, because those people are not the ones who stagger and are obliterate.

Steve: 22:00

Yeah, I agree for the most part. And again, that's a great topic to. And listen, we're not, you know, marijuana is everywhere. If you live in a state like an Medicare message,

Matt: 22:13

yeah,

Steve: 22:13

like just just driving, if you're driving in your car with the windows down. And going on, like a main street and sitting at a traffic light, you are going to smell marijuana.

Matt: 22:26

Yeah, she's going to be overcome by it.

Steve: 22:27

Right. And eight, I was just driving a few days ago, my wife, and she mentioned, like, she, we, it was the smell there. She was like, Oh, what's that or whatever. And I'm like, that's that's pop. Like that's what you're smelling.And I said, you smell it everywhere. Like I said, go to a go to stop and shop, go to home depot, go anywhere and get out of your car in the bar, and you're going to smell it. And that's just, again, it's part of it. So if that's a trigger, and that's a big problem, right. I know lots of people who come into recovery for alcohol and, and they go out because they're, they, you know, the pot is drawing them back out. It's something that I worried about for a while. I don't anymore. Again, not that I don't worry at all, but I don't worry as much. But it's something to be, to be very careful with. The other thing you said, Matt, is that we're not talking about fears. We're talking about alcohol events, and that's different for everybody. For me, that was

Matt: 23:26

an example of an alcohol.

Steve: 23:27

Right. This, this, for me, that was like family parties. Right. And I had to be careful with family parties. I had to be careful. We used to have kegs at Christmas.

Matt: 23:39

Oh my goodness.

Steve: 23:41

Right. We go to my brother's house for Christmas, and he'd have a quarter keg outside. And that's what we would do. Right.

Matt: 23:49

We got to finish the keg because it'll go bad.

Steve: 23:52

Right. So it's like that's, you know, so when I got sober, I needed to think about what of those things worked for me and what didn't. I had to stay away from some of those things I did until I was strong enough to go through them. And I tell this to people all the time, like I had to stop going to my older brother's house because he would have all this thing. He would say, hey, we're going to Brian's come up here to a friend who made really good pizza. Brian's come up to make pizza. And I knew like at the time, like my brother is 1 I drink a lot of the Keele with like,

Matt: 24:26

And

Steve: 24:27

yeah, we're going to eat some pizza. But we're going to do a lot more drink in the Keele than we are going to eat pizza. So I had to stay away from the like, I stopped going there for pizza or burgers or whatever it might be because that's what they were. So this is about all of those things right and how you navigate that weddings whatever that, you know, you know, in your life, whatever those those parties are that there's alcohol out, which might be all of them. You have to figure out how to negotiate. And the truth is in early sobriety, the best advice might be don't go.

Matt: 25:01

Yeah. It's

Steve: 25:01

harder that is don't go. Because that becomes back to putting sobriety first and

Matt: 25:08

Yes.

Steve: 25:08

putting it in above everything else. Will you piss people off if you don't show up with certain things? Absolutely. But if you really want to take care of yourself and maybe your family, then you have to do what's important for you.

Matt: 25:23

Yeah. No, I totally agree with that and you've got to you have to make some sacrifices. What is more important to you, your sobriety or going to the fair? It is always important to err on the side of your sobriety. So let's talk a little bit of, let's wrap this up, put a bow on it. Some things that are... that are going to help you, help me, gratitude. I guess I'm talking a little bit of gratitude. This might be something that we can utilize for a future topic to help you. So, Steve, thanks for sharing your experience here today, and we will see everybody next week. Bye, everybody.