E271: You Can Do Everything Right and Still Get a Sh*t StormE271: You Can Do Everything Right and Still Get a Sh*t Storm
Sober Friends
Matt and Steve talk about doing your best in recovery, even when life still throws a "shitstorm" at you. They focus on planning actions rather than outcomes, especially around amends, expectations, and everyday sobriety challenges.
39:14•14 Apr 2026
Plan the Action, Survive the Sh*t Storm: Letting Go of Outcomes in Sobriety
Episode Overview
- Focus on planning your actions and effort, not controlling the outcome, to reduce anxiety and disappointment.
- Use after-action reflection to ask what you can learn from a poor result instead of beating yourself up.
- Treat eighth and ninth step amends as carefully prepared tasks where your responsibility is honesty and ownership, not securing forgiveness.
- Work with a sponsor or trusted person before difficult amends to clarify motives and avoid causing further harm.
- Manage expectations and give yourself grace so life isn’t a constant rollercoaster of highs and lows that can threaten sobriety.
“"You can do a lot of work and you can still get a shitstorm at the end."”
What are the common struggles and victories in addiction recovery? This chat between Matt and Steve on the Sober Friends podcast zeroes in on one big one: doing all the right things and still ending up in a "shitstorm". The episode circles around the AA slogan "plan the action, not the result" and its close cousin, "plan the event, not the outcome".
Steve shares how a friend in AA repeated that line until it finally clicked and started to ease his anxiety: as long as he puts in honest effort, he can walk away knowing "at least I have some satisfaction that I did a good job". Matt talks about a work presentation that went sideways despite prep, migraine symptoms and all, and how easy it is to slip into beating yourself up: did I really do enough?
That leads into a practical idea many in recovery will recognise – the after‑action review. If the result wasn’t what you wanted, what can you learn and adjust next time, instead of spiralling into self‑blame? The heart of the episode sits in recovery work, especially the eighth and ninth steps.
Steve calls this approach "the perfect topic for eighth and ninth step work", because you can carefully prepare an amend, think through your motives, talk it over with a sponsor – and still have no control over how the other person reacts. He’s clear that forgiveness is "up to them" and that his job is to acknowledge harm and take responsibility, not chase absolution.
Along the way, you’ll hear about AA district talks, tricky amends to an ex‑wife, blueberry bushes that refuse to thrive, and even lawn care as a metaphor for priorities, grace, and limited emotional bandwidth. If you’re tired of feeling like effort only counts when the outcome is perfect, this conversation might be a good reality check – where in your own recovery could you focus more on the work and loosen your grip on the result?
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