E252: The Milestones That Matter Most Aren’t on a Chip

Turning 50 has Matt thinking about milestones — in life, in recovery, and in all the small moments that really shape who we become. In this episode, the guys dig into what “milestones” truly mean once you’ve been around a while. Sure, the chips and anniversaries matter, but the real growth often happens in the quiet, everyday wins: making an amends, showing up for someone you love, or just staying sober for another five minutes.

Matt and Steve swap stories about turning points big and small — from the first brave admission of “I have a problem” to learning how to fix mistakes, do better, and build new pathways in life. Along the way, they reflect on how recovery isn’t about perfection or lofty goals, but about consistent, humble progress that adds up to a beautiful sober life.

Whether you’re on day one or year twenty-eight, this episode is a reminder that the milestones that matter most often don’t come with a chip — they come from living differently, one day at a time.

Transcript

Matt: 0:02

This has so many connections to recovery, because it's just the small things. In the end, it's don't drink for another five minutes. That's your goal. It's not getting to age 50. It's right now. It's 9.36, 9.37. Don't drink until 9.42. It's little things. I'm sure there's lots of people here listening right now that you're struggling that you've been, you've relapsed many times. Maybe make your goal small.[MUSIC PLAYING] Hey there. Welcome to the Sober Friends Podcast, where we talk about recovery, sobriety, your path to getting to recovery, whether you've been in Sober One Day, one year, five years, whatever. This is the place to be. I'm Matt J. Over there is Steve Steve. What is going on today?

Steve: 0:51

Good morning, Matt. Beautiful day out here in Connecticut. Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous. Today, maybe now it's nice. I mean, I just got back from walking the dog. So it was beautiful out there this morning. But

Matt: 1:04

I have this enormous pile of wood chips

Steve: 1:06

yeah.

Matt: 1:07

that this gentleman brought, probably a bigger pile of wood chips than I've ever had. And I'm going to have to move these mostly by myself. So I need some good days.

Steve: 1:16

Yeah. We've

Matt: 1:17

got that truncated like 4/30.

Steve: 1:20

Right.

Matt: 1:20

Block.

Steve: 1:21

Yeah. I, it's tough this time of year when you're working, right? I mean,

Matt: 1:25

if

Steve: 1:26

you're working during the week, like the only time to do stuff is a weekend, a little bit different now that so many people work from home. But I just remember, yeah, it was always tough. My wife you say, you come home while you do this work out in the yard all weekend. I'm like, I don't have a choice. It's the only time I

Matt: 1:39

Ready.

Steve: 1:39

have.

Matt: 1:40

I take the dogs for a walk. I've got one of those light bright vests that I put on and I finally broken down. I'm like, all right, I'll wear this.

Steve: 1:47

Mikey,

Matt: 1:47

because I don't want to get

Steve: 1:48

Oh, I don't mind. Yeah, we walk on the street at night. Usually sometimes I'll take a road for a walk, and the summer a lot of times I'll take it for a night walk, we'll do it in the woods before it gets dark. But now it's just so dark so early. Like if we

Matt: 1:59

hit.

Steve: 1:59

do that walk, if we do that walk, it's on the street now. Anyway, it's nice up here. I was able to get all my leaves done. I mean, there's more to come down, but now a lot, so,

Matt: 2:09

two

Steve: 2:09

came over, give me a hand. So yeah, it's all good. It's still got some work to do out there, but the majority's done and so it's all good.

Matt: 2:20

Well, when this drops, I will have had a big birthday. If you're listening to the Sun Tuesday have to be birthday to me, I turn 50. When I'm recording this, I'm not 50. And I'm friggin' hangin' on to that as long as. Although, view to max wise, I see where the shift happens at 50, where I'm just on the edge of between below average fitness and above average fitness, that on Tuesday will magically be above average fitness.

Steve: 2:49

Right.

Matt: 2:50

We're looking at some milestones here of 50. I'm in better shape than I was at 49. Definitely better shape than 45.

Steve: 2:58

Yeah.

Matt: 2:58

Can't remember 40, but I probably was. I got sober at 38. And I looked back at 38 and I feel like, "Wow, that number tells me I'm so young. I don't feel different than I do at 50, but big numbers like this are times to reflect on a life where you've come, where you wanna go. What's your sobriety looks like?" You don't have to have 12-year sobriety and you don't have to be 50 to look at this. I, there's another guy who has a lot of years of sobriety and he got sobered around 50. So I already have 12 years on this guy before he got sober. So it is worth reflecting that I get sober relatively early for most people. Didn't feel like it at the time, but relatively early for most people. But you don't have to have 12 years of be 50. You can have one day. And I think this is a great topic to talk about in terms of what do you wanna look at each day of achievement and what do you wanna look at going forward, regardless of the timeframe?

Steve: 4:08

Well, happy birthday, Tuesday, Matt.

Matt: 4:10

Oh, thank you.

Steve: 4:13

You know, it's interesting that you're talking about these milestones. I was scrolling through social media yesterday and just came on this for you page of a woman who was celebrating 28 years of sobriety. And apparently, and she's just talking about what you're talking about, like this whole. Just glad to be alive, all the things that have changed in her life. And apparently she said 28 years ago, she had thought about leaving this world, right? About taking her own life. And she talked about it. She's like, I'm so happy I didn't because my life has been so incredible. The joys, the sorrow, everything, right? The whole experience of life has been so incredible for these past 28 years. And I think that sums up this thing of what you're saying, you know, it's difficult, it's difficult for new people to come in here and see a future like we see it today. Right? I mean, we've got time, we've done the work, all that stuff. It is hard, but it's available. It's available to people out there, one day at a time or whatever. I ran into a guy this past week at my little volunteer job, the woman there who knows me knows that I'm in recovery. And she was working with this guy and then she said, hey, so has some questions for you. And she said, why don't you go over there and sit with Steve and then she left the room and I knew immediately right and he started asking me, but what moment talk about how he does like, I used to be this anyway, but he's talking to me and I'm like, I just asked him, do you like that? Do you consider yourself an alcoholic? And he said, yeah, and I'm like, you know, I'll pick it was Friday, and I said, I'll go to Friday night meeting right up the street here, I'll pick you up and take it to my meeting. And I walked out of their figure that he probably wasn't going to keep up, you know, like, and sure enough, like when it came time to go to the meeting, he he had something else to do, you know,

Matt: 6:14

yeah.

Steve: 6:14

And that's typical, but if you could get over that hump, if you could, if you could get into this program, then you have this opportunity like you said, one day, you could be 21, you could be 25, you could be celebrating milestones without this feeling of dread. That we had for all those years, I remember you know, I came in at 30, I came in in 95, so I was 37 the first time right same age as you basically. I can remember the dread that I had right, I can remember I mean it today that my birthday is from like 32 to 35 were all dread because I was mired in my alcoholism, some of the worst time of my life. And now I sit here at 67 and I think what a beautiful life I have. So milestones are good, it's nice to have these milestones, especially sober, especially knowing that you know, you don't got to go out, you don't got to pick up that drink, you don't have to worry, you don't have to worry about what you're doing if you're lying, c.

Matt: 7:22

So

Steve: 7:24

the milestones are big, it's a good it's a good way to to mark our recovery and also a good way to mark the quality of our recovery right so how, you know, how well are we doing?

Matt: 7:36

I want to go back to the gentleman that you talked to because there's a milestone there, he didn't go to a meeting, but he did talk to

Steve: 7:45

Yeah,

Matt: 7:45

you.

Steve: 7:46

he did.

Matt: 7:47

And I bet that was very difficult. That's a milestone of that first time you go and talk to somebody and you say out loud, I have a problem, I'm an alcoholic or however you want to identify, it is hard to get those words out and maybe just getting past that is too much to take a next step for now. But maybe that plants a seed for the next milestone that you're actually go to a meeting and maybe that never happens because for a lot of people it doesn't, but it might be that thing. I think through when I'm procrastinating, like ADHD, I'm neurodivergent, I have all these issues that I have to overcome. And one of the things is when I'm procrastinating or more or less than procrastinating, I get task paralysis that there's so many things I want to do. I don't know where to start, so I do nothing. And that's where I just pick one. Yesterday, I'm going around looking at the yard, thinking I've got limited daylight. I have this giant, the giant thing of wood chips. And I want to clean out the rest of the stuff that's still kind of growing, cut back the asparagus, cut the raspberry bushes, cut the comfy, which is still freaking growing. Put it in the in the compost bin. But to get started there, I should cut the lawn one more time really low, cut over the, over the leaves, and then move the leaves back so it looks neat. And I'm thinking all those, how am I going to get through all of this stuff? And I finally just got up and said I'm going to start with the lawn. I'm going to start somewhere because getting the leaves done first is probably better. And cutting up the leaves makes them break down better. So cut the lawn. Then go out there and move the leaves. And that's the amount of time I had. It didn't look like I had a lot of leaves after I cut them up. And then when I moved them, the pile is enormous. But that leaves me in a place now where it's like, OK, now when I put the greens there, I have a brown to put on top. And once that's done, now I can put the wood chips down and I don't have obstacles. But I have to do that first thing first. And I think part of those milestones is accepting I can't get them all done at once. And that's a paralysis thing. If I didn't get them all done, I have failed. Which the failure thing really is now you got something off your list and you Set the goals too high in recovery. It can feel like a failure when we set the goal too high where the real goal is stay sober and just do the next thing that's going to keep you sober. Doesn't matter if it's like, oh, thre months in, I haven't done my fourth step. Are you sober? Yes. Are you talking to people? Yes. Are you going to meetings? Yes. Then you're doing the right thing.

Steve: 10:53

Yeah, that's that's a great point of having those lofty goals and listen. When I walked into these rooms, I was so beaten down and beat up and just bankrupt and all aspects of my life that, um, that, you know, I knew there was a better life out there for me. And, and I knew I sort of knew what I wanted. And again, not to tell my story. But when I first came in in '95, I honestly knew what I wanted. I, I needed to stop drinking. I needed to get a better job. Actually, that's not true. I had a decent job at the time. But it was the first time I had a decent job in a while. I knew I could do something with this job. I ended up making your career out of it. So I had some goals. Problem with that is that those goals can get in the way of your sobriety too. Right.

Matt: 11:43

Mm-hmm.

Steve: 11:43

So you got to be careful with that. Um, and I think that's part of the, the trip wire is that if you're not paying attention to what's in front of you, fun of you, you can trip over something and then have trouble. And it's sort of what I did. It took me a long time. But, but really, especially early sobriety and not even early sobriety. Sometimes all sobriety is about small goals. And I think I told a story on here a few weeks ago, a couple months ago, whenever it was, but, and this is, this is, I'll tell this story here of what just happened this past week because it talks about a small goal for me. I belong to this food scrap program. I don't know. You'll know if you heard this story. And I have to have these bins around town. And there's an app to open up these bins. The bin that I use is chronically failing to open when I get there. And it's a pain. Because then I got my food scrap in my car. And then I have to drive across town to the next closest one, blah blah, it's a big inconvenience. the first world problem. I get it. I get it. But I was frustrated. And I was frustrated after this multiple times of this happening. I'm just one bin. And I fired off an email to the woman in charge. And just, it wasn't too bad. But at the end, I closed with one piece of advice. Do better.

Matt: 13:07

It's

Steve: 13:08

Right. Remember that. If you listen to the podcast,

Matt: 13:10

condescending phrase,

Steve: 13:11

right do better

Matt: 13:12

worst.

Steve: 13:13

So anyway, I was at the farmer's market last week, two weeks ago now. And the woman who runs that program is there. They give out a bin. And I walk up to this woman, and I go, oh, this is the woman I sent that email to. I owe her an immense. Right. That's our program. And our program tells us not whenever. Because if you tell me I can do it whenever, I'll go, oh, I'll take care of that whenever, right. It tells us where ever. And I looked at it. I knew what I needed to do. I walked up to this woman, said, Hi, introduce myself. I'm part of the program. I think I owe you an apology. And she, you know, yeah, she's like, oh, no, that bin is that bin is a problem for me to blah, blah, blah. And then she's, we're talking for a little bit. And she tells me that they were running this program yesterday called leave something, take something. It's a place where residents can come in, drop off some stuff that, then I want anymore. And then you can come in and take some, maybe find something you might want there. And there's some good stuff there. And I thought. And here's what I was taught when I was in this program that every amends includes an apology, right. I'm sorry that I did this or I behave that way, but an apology is not a complete amends most of the time, right. Amends means to fix something means to mend it. So I looked there and she's like, Oh, I have this pro date project going on and I need some more volunteers for it. And I just said, there it is. There's my amends, right. And I said, I could offer you a couple of hours on Saturday. And that's what I did yesterday. And my point is is that that small step for me, right. To, to, to run into her, to take action to tell her, I apologize for the email and then to offer my services to make up something is a step in my recovery that I can build on. Right. Number one couple of things happen is, is don't send the email, right as quickly like write it, but maybe don't send it. And even if it if, but if you do fix it, those are the type of steps that I could see today. And I really like that was a big step for me to be able to do that and then find that amends and just wipe it off. And now I feel like, I'm, I'm done. Right. I don't feel bad. So I had thought about that situation for a bit. Are we recovery is all about those small steps. Or at least for me. I don't have the big lofty goals anymore, that I need to do a certain thing. You know, same thing. When I started working yesterday with Mikey to clean up my leaves, my goal is to make sure my front of my house, I yard looked good, right?

Matt: 15:58

Yep.

Steve: 15:58

Because that's what the neighbors see. The back, they don't see it. If I left piles of leaves out there that I couldn't drag out into the woods, fine, I'll do that during the week whenever it is. But it was to get the front of the house. And it turned out that we got most of it done. So it's a great thought to make sure that we don't have these huge lofty goals that trip us up by the small stuff whether or not paying attention

Matt: 16:29

to it. I want to go back to your immense and also what makes people raving fans about companies. Because these two things are kind of related. Just dawn on me. We have something at work called Net Promoter System. Lots of companies have it. You may not have heard of Net Promoter System but you certainly have heard of surveys. If you've gotten a survey and it asked you from zero to 10, would you recommend this to a family or friend? Then you have done an MPS survey. And you would think that companies get those 9 and 10s when they do it right every time but they don't. They usually get a seven or eight which is considered neutral and it gets thrown out. The place that gets you to a nine or 10 is when you have messed up and you've found a way to make it right. So you messing up with that email gave your brand an opportunity to be get a nine or 10 because you found a way to make it right and you did something you typically wouldn't have done and added to the community in a positive way. I think about that with amends that you I think about those bonds I have with people is when I pissed them off and it made an honest amends with them and built respect back because they didn't anticipate me doing it. Especially you do it for the right reason. Your amends was not really for that woman. If she was saying that's okay. That's that's that's a benefit. But it doesn't matter whether she that's okay or not it's for you to clean up your mess so you feel better. Now if you have done that and you've built a better relationship because of it with another person now we have built something totally different and we can do that across the board with other people and sometimes those amends are in ways we didn't think of. I'm thinking in a few minutes my daughter has a writing lesson with a horse. I'm not thinking of anyone amends I have for my daughter but as we're talking through this I'm like I'm going to go to the lesson ten minutes away not a big deal but I'm going to go to that lesson and be there and watch there's nothing really I need to do but just getting in the car and showing interest and asking questions is going to show that I'm interested in my daughter's hobby and that I'm interested in her and that's a little bit of an emotional deposit because she has been coming up to me yesterday they went to this equine affair in West Springfield and they bought new helmets they desperately needed new helmets and when they put that new helmets on you could see like oh my god it doesn't look like you have like an egg on your head anymore looks like you have a helmet that fits but she was really interested I want to show you my helmet and I don't want to knife I want kids who come to me and are excited to show me these things in a sense that's an amen in a sense that's an opportunity for somebody be a promoter of my brand and if I do that more often between making the amends and I guess doing a preamens were I've done nothing wrong you can weave a fabric into life where you leave people remembering you better than before and that can be the root of that could be you were an ask to somebody in the past you were an ask because you drank like an idiot

Steve: 20:20

you know what when you're talking you're talking about the whole man's and you're talking about the survey it you know it occurs to me is that what happens and what I felt when I did this whole thing which is I you know I don't have a lot of amends to make to people anymore I do a pretty good job of not being a complete jerk which I still struggle

Matt: 20:41

that

Steve: 20:41

with that

Matt: 20:42

complete jerk

Steve: 20:43

no I do I listen I I honestly struggle with that at times and

Matt: 20:47

much

Steve: 20:47

I'm

Matt: 20:48

but

Steve: 20:51

what happened is is I think a little bit of what you tell you when you're talking about the survey you talk about your daughter and the new helmet and all um I think what happens what happened to me is I felt like I you know you can teach your brain new things my my wife used to say when I would struggle I you know anybody listens to me knows I struggle a non-seating words and speech and stuff like that um which is why I hate hearing myself speak. And my wife used to say to me, you just got to make a pathway in your brain to that word, right? Which is really what it is, right? Your training your brain to do it, right? This is how it's supposed to be done and now the next thing is not to be right. The next thing is to obviously hold back on that email. But this is how I'm supposed to act, right? And this woman who does it right, she works for the town and she's like, okay, okay, you guys are now my first go to when I have a cleanup day like I'll be getting emails from this woman. Hey, we're going to clean up this park or something. Can you give me a couple hours, right? So. And then that becomes my living amends of how I've changed my behavior. You know, the amends for the email has been cleaned up, but now I have an opportunity to change it away. I live, right? And I happen to like these things. I happen to like meeting new people, right? I went there. I didn't know a single person, right? And they're like six or seven different volunteers and I only worked for a couple hours and people were coming to gone. I like that. I get to interact with new people, I get to talk to new people. I mean, that's part of who I am. And so it's like, Ooh, I like doing this. I've always I've seen these cleanup days in town where I've gotten emails from them like, Hey, we're doing a cleanup at this park or we're doing a cleanup at this riverway trail. And I always said, oh, I should do that. I should do that because that kind of stuff interests me. But now I have this new pathway in my brain.

Matt: 23:15

Yep.

Steve: 23:34

So I don't have all day to do that well, I don't need to have all day. I can change. I can make that pathway different and start a new way of living so that I talk about it on this, on this podcast, I talk about my meeting. My goal for the rest of my useful life is to find ways to be useful to my fellow human beings. And we're better to be useful than in my own first of all, in my own household obviously, but in my own town. Right? And that's one of the things I've started to really look at like, what can I do in my own town to make my town, my town where I live better. So, and that's all just happened to me, you know, since I started in my recovery again. And when you get involved, you see these people who are who are normal people who are just built to do those things, they do it naturally. Well, that's not me. I need, I needed to be helped and pushed into that direction. But yeah, so it's a little bit like when you do these things, when you have this milestone, when you have this aha moment, you've created this new pathway in your brain of how you should be living. And and that's really different than how I was living when I was actively in alcoholic and all I really, all I could concentrate on was making sure I had enough alcohol every day. Man, it's so nice to be free from that.

Matt: 25:11

This inspires me a bit. I've got to think about what are some things in my town I can be involved with of what I can handle. I'm not running for town council. No interest in that. But where is that I can give two hours? That's another thing that I can build up. I have learned in trying to catch up on my gym swipe so I can get to 120 so I can get reimbursed. That you can go to the gym and do a light workout or you can do what I did this morning. I went for 20 minutes. I went on the stair master and I did some intervals where three minutes high intensity, three minutes low. And in 20 minutes, I have done a pretty heavy workout. I use the time I have sometimes it's two hours. It doesn't have to be all day. Your two hours is a lot better than the zero hours. It becomes well, if I can't give all day, I'm not going to go at all.

Steve: 26:07

Right.

Matt: 26:07

No, go for a little bit because if everybody gives just a little bit, that's big that adds up. And this this happens in recovery. It's like, well, I'm not going to that meeting because it's too far away. I'm not going to that meeting. I have don't have this time. So I'm not going to any meetings. when it could be. I'm going to pick just one day where I go. to an extra meeting, and maybe I plan it out in the calendar and it's not the same one. But I'm gonna try doing that when I have some time and I have the car around or make it small or if it's like I'm not going there, I'm just this is one or I don't call people because it's like, well, I gotta call 15 people. No, I can call one person. I can start small. No, I'm just gonna call all things. In the end it's, don't drink for another five minutes. That's your goal. It's not getting to age 50. It's, it's right now. It's 9.36, 9.37. Don't drink until 9.42. Damn it. I'm doing math. I promise myself I would never do math on this podcast. It's not why I'm here, but it's little thing. So if you're listening, and I'm sure there's lots of people here listening right now, that you're struggling that you've been, you've relapsed many times. Maybe make your goal smaller.

Steve: 27:36

Yeah,

Matt: 27:37

I really would like to hear from you. The crypto wallet is open. If you want to give me birthday gifts. My my email is nat@soberfriendspod.com. I had not been writing for a while, because I had made it into a bigger thing. And I'm just trying to find the time to write on the substack because the substack by the end of the year, that's going to be the website. I've decided to move from the square space account I have, which is a great idea, but it's price and stuff for what I do with it, not worth it. When I could just redirect everybody and do what I needed to do on the substack website. But I've gotten better with if I can't write the whole article in one shot, sit down for 15 minutes and start a paragraph and do another paragraph. And it's like, okay, I had another substack that I was doing, I put that aside because it's just I'm setting myself up for failure. I can do what I can do right now. But go to the web, sorry website. Soberfriendspod.com. All the all the insta and stuff is@soberfriendspod and I'm going to be writing more often, I like doing it. I hope you find some benefit to it. Steve, thanks for celebrating my 50th birthday together.

Steve: 28:57

You're welcome out.

Matt: 28:59

All right. We'll see everybody next week. Bye everybody.