So... Alright - Geoff Works Through Some Shit

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Geoff takes a detour in this week's episode to do a little therapy session. Subscribe to the LetsPlay channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkxctb0jr8vwa4Do6c6su0Q Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So, I think this is going to be kind of a test episode. Typically, the show thus far has been kind of diving into and exploring and learning about whatever weird little oddity or curiosity that pops into my feed or that I run across in my personal life. And kind of just like peeling back the layers and learning a little bit about it and satisfying a curiosity, if you will. But I also kind of wanted to use this podcast to just talk and share my thoughts from time to time. And I've been wondering when I was going to get around to doing this. And I think maybe this is that episode. So something's been stuck in my head since yesterday.

So something's been stuck in my head since yesterday. And it's been kind of breaking my heart and also exciting me in equal measure. And I guess I just need to talk it out. I went to lunch yesterday with Gavin and Eric. Two business partners. Obviously, we run a podcast together. I mean, co-workers, friends, best friends. Gavin's practically my life partner at this point. And I don't know when the last time the three of us went to lunch. I don't know if that specific combination, the three of us have ever gone to lunch together. It might have happened in the past, but I can't remember a specific time. And I can't remember the last time Gavin and I got lunch together, which seems odd. We had a great time. We just ate burgers and shot the shit and

joked around. And it was weird. It was kind of like the old days, which is a theme that's been coming up for me a lot lately, the old days, in good ways. And there wasn't really an agenda or anything. It wasn't really... There was no purpose behind it other than to just catch up and just spend some time together. We are ratcheting up the amount of work that we're all going to be doing with the podcast. And so I just want to start being around each other more. We've all basically been... I've been working from home since the pandemic. And while it's been awesome, and it has afforded me the opportunity to do things like explore this podcast, which I probably never would have done otherwise.

And Anma is a result of it. And F*** Face is actually a result of it, which is... What an awesome thing to come out of such a horrible, horrible time. I feel very fortunate that I have something like that to look back on and know that it exists. It exists because of the pandemic. It really does. If it weren't for COVID, there probably wouldn't be a face. It wouldn't be what it is. That's for sure. But after lunch was over, Gavin hopped in my car and we went back to my house to do some computer work together. He was going to help me install something on my computer. And we were both joking in the parking lot as we were pulling out about

how much fun that was and how much we laughed. And Gavin said, it seems really stupid that we haven't been doing that for the last six years. It's a lot of wasted opportunity. And that felt so good to hear because it was said with a tremendous amount of love and honesty. And I realized how you forget how much you matter to people and they matter to you sometimes. You just forget how strong bonds can be. And it made me just feel very, very lucky that I have someone this special in my life that I care this much about and who cares as much about me, who I get to be so creatively aligned with. And I get to share so much of my career and friendship and life with, right?

And at the same time, it kind of broke my heart because it's my fault that we haven't been getting lunch together for the last six years. It's certainly no fault of Gavin's. And I just, you know, I'm on the other side of some stuff. And it took me a long time to get there. Kind of all around the same time, I got sober. This is a little over six years ago.

I got sober. And then I went through a separation and eventually a divorce. A lot of tumult in the career, the pandemic, some other really difficult personal things that happened in my life with my family. And in the course of that, and in the course of that, I did something that my therapist refers to as siloing where I kind of walled myself off from everybody in my life with the exception of my daughter and eventually Emily, and I knew I was doing it at the time, and unfortunately, it was something i i really felt like i needed

to do felt like i had to do to get my head straight to figure my life out and to honestly kind of protect myself i was in an incredibly incredibly emotionally raw and uh delicate state for a long time you know i don't talk a whole hell of a lot about how hard it was to quit drinking but it wasn't easy and uh i lived in a world of bar culture austin is a city that prides itself on its drinking and bar culture. It's one of the things that made me fall in love with it. And it's, uh, certainly a thing that I clearly had too much.

I had too much of, which is why I needed to, to quit. Uh, and the only, only way I can, I, I don't understand my,

like, I don't have moderation installed in my brain. And so, you know, I obviously had to quit cold turkey. But it's hard enough, I think, anywhere. But kind of hard in a place, I feel like it's an added degree of difficulty to do it in a place where, you know, to do it in a place where 90% of society exists socially in bars and around drinking. I mean, that's most of the world, honestly, but I feel like Austin takes it to another level. And they're good at it. And so it just became really hard to be out in public. It became hard to be around people. And then I had a lot to think about. I had

a lot to figure out. I was at a crossroads in my life in a lot of ways. And I was feeling... I mean, this is something that they don't often talk about. Or maybe people do. I don't know. Maybe people talk about it all the time and I'm not listening. But something that I don't often hear about is one of the side effects when you get sober from your addiction, or when you hopefully begin the process of breaking that addiction, is you're not only dealing with the chemical need and the social need and the familiarity of it and all of the things that pull you to it. It's a coping mechanism, right? It's how I dealt with all of my problems. It's how I dealt with none of my problems. It's how I avoided all of my problems. And when that crutch goes away, you're forced to confront every single thing you were hiding from. And I don't know what it's like for all alcoholics, but at some point,

you're drinking because you're miserable, and then you're miserable because you're drinking. And when it gets to that point, it is a two-headed snake that's eating itself. And it's almost impossible to pull out of. At least, it was almost impossible for me to pull out of. I also don't talk a lot about how when I quit drinking, it wasn't the first time I quit drinking.

I was like maybe the fifth or sixth time. And I had failed many times before. And, uh, I think a lot of people lost faith in me in that process, which really hurt. And I had to kind of prove myself and them wrong, uh,

which is, you know, it was a good motivator. It was a damn good motivator. But anyway, so you're, you're faced with this rush of like, all right,

these are all the reasons. These are all the things that I've been drinking away for the last decade or two decades. And now I have to not only face them, but kind of face them all at once in an onrush of emotion and recognition. addicted you will understand that you are living in a fog you know you you really are and it's the it's the the clearest way i can explain it and and when when you get off of the thing you get it out of your system that goes away and the world it's like you're you're hit it's like seeing color for that it's like when black and white movies transition to color. It is vibrant and vivid and everything is extra alive in really good and horrible ways. You see everything

so vividly and so clearly, which can be great when you see things like the love of your child and your family members. It can be terrible when you see who you are and the mistakes that you've made and you're really forced to look at the person you've become, I guess. Anyway, so in that process, I had to spend a lot of time by myself.

I would get off of work. That's when I lived downtown. I would get off of work. If I didn't have Millie. If I had Millie, it was a different story. But on the weeks I didn't have Millie, I would get off of work. So when I lived downtown, I would get off of work. If I didn't have Millie, if I had Millie, it was a different story. But on the weeks I didn't have Millie, I would get off of work and I would go home and I'd be at my apartment by like 7 p.m. And I would grab a soda and maybe a bite to eat, a banana or a Hot Pocket or something. And then I would start walking. And I would just go downstairs and I would

walk downtown and I would walk from maybe seven 30 until 11 or 12 at night. Some nights later, some nights not as late. And I would just think, and I would play scenarios through my head. I would, I would try to draw the line out in every direction. I would try to... You kind of wake up and you're in this place. And another difficult thing in a divorce is you

build plans together and you have a trajectory, hopefully, that you're headed down. And you're all on the same train headed in the same direction. But you know what that direction is. You've got long-term plans. You've got the end figured out. You just have to navigate the train there, right? You just have to get there. And when a relationship ends,

in a lot of ways, that ends too. And I was, in addition to, you know, having to take a hard look at myself in my 40s and understand sobriety and how to navigate that and friendships that were tied very heavily to drinking and drinking culture and just a life that was tied very heavily to drinking and drinking culture. And then, you know, also realizing now that my roadmap has changed. It's not even changed. It's just gone, you know, like my roadmap's gone. It's not even changed. It's just gone. My roadmap's gone, which is awesome and terrifying.

The future becomes completely unwritten. If you're somebody who likes to have a plan like me and who is very plan-oriented, that can be terrifying. But it's also liberating, right? Suddenly, you can do whatever you want. it's also liberating, right? Suddenly, you can do whatever you want. But that takes a lot of introspection, a lot of thought, a lot of sitting down and really looking at your life and where you've been and where you are and where you're going, potentially, where maybe you want to go. And more importantly, probably where you don't want to go. And that's all to say that it took me three or four years of kind of being a hermit and living that. And also meeting and falling in love with my new girlfriend, now fiance, and strengthening that relationship.

And she really helped me come out of my shell and get healthy again. It was something that my therapist and I talked about at length, which was, it's okay and healthy to do this in small measure, but at some point it becomes its own crutch and it becomes debilitating and you can't allow yourself to do that. You have to use it while it's appropriate and do it while it helps and then get out of it and break the habit before it becomes a habit, right? Before it becomes something that puts you on a regressive path, let me say. I'll say.

And I've done that now. I'm sorry to the friendships in my life and the relationships in my life that have suffered in this, in the process of me getting my shit together. And I, I'm so happy to be where I am. And I'm so happy to get, I'm so happy to be working more with Gavin and Eric and Andrew and my friends and Gus and everybody. I feel like we're ramping back up production and things are kind of picking up and getting up to a... There's a crescendo building and I'm really enjoying it and I'm really happy to be here. And I'm really, really sad about those lost lunches and hangout sessions with the people that mattered to me. And I understand that it was necessary to go through what I went through. And I just hope those people in my life understand and can forgive me.

Because I am truly sorry for the friendships that I let languish in the process of getting healthy. Let me tell you, I couldn't be prouder to have them and I couldn't be more excited and I couldn't feel more loved than when I get into a car after laughing for two and a half hours with two of my best friends and to know that there's more on the horizon. Anyway, I guess that's what I wanted to talk about today. All right.