SoberNotMature - Episode 240 (Lonely Men Laughing Like Hyenas)SoberNotMature - Episode 240 (Lonely Men Laughing Like Hyenas)
Sober Not Mature
Two long-time sober friends turn a cancelled guest spot into an explicit, darkly funny chat about pride, 6,000 sober days, and why staying a beginner in recovery still matters. Between serious reflections and outrageous humour, they focus on hanging with winners, avoiding complacency, and quietly doing good for others.
1:36:39•26 Sept 2026
Lonely Men, Kegs, and 6,000 Sober Days
Episode Overview
- Staying sober means continually working a programme rather than assuming you’ve "got this" because of time or milestones.
- Pride and ego can quietly push people to skip meetings, readings, or service, so a healthy fear of relapse is useful.
- Seeking out "winners"—people who are content, peaceful, and serious about recovery—helps build stronger sobriety.
- Focusing on character defects by beating yourself up is just another way to avoid actually changing your behaviour.
- Doing something kind for someone else and telling no one about it is a simple way to practice selfless service and keep ego in check.
“The only reason we have this is because we continue. As long as we continue, then yeah, we kind of got this, but it’s continuing.”
Experience the emotional and inspiring tales of recovery as two "lonely men laughing like hyenas" turn a guest cancellation into a raw, funny, and surprisingly grounding chat about staying sober. With their planned guest David Garcia sidelined by technical issues, Mike and Bill decide that if they can’t have a polished interview, they’ll at least make sure "this bullshit that we record" is audibly clear.
Mike pulls a reading from *God Grant Me* about arrogance, pride, and the danger of taking sobriety for granted. The image of the kid on the bike yelling "look at me" before crashing becomes their perfect metaphor for what happens when sober people start thinking they’ve "got this" and ease off the work.
They revisit the famous line about "a keg and some blow" at a bachelor party, laughing at how often that invitation used to be real life, and how pride and ego still try to whisper, "you’ve got this shit down" after 6,000 days sober.
You’ll hear both of them mark big milestones—each hitting 6,000 days without a drink—and use that number not to brag, but to show that, as Mike puts it, "it works if you work it." They talk about hanging with the winners, staying a beginner, and gravitating toward people who actually seem happy in recovery instead of the ones clinging to prison or street attitudes.
The tone swings between serious and outrageous: they roast another recovery podcast for running sad background music over solemn clips, joke about video edits that look like "a fucked-up Zoom meeting," and revisit Mike’s brutally honest last-drink story—face-first down a long driveway, pants around his ankles, watched by his daughter and toddler granddaughter. To balance all the dark humour, they end by stressing simple service: "Go out and do something nice for somebody else this weekend.
Don’t tell anybody you did it." For anyone who wants recovery with honesty, swearing, and zero gloss, this might be exactly what you need right now. What drives you to keep pedalling instead of yelling "look at me" and crashing?
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