Steve welcomes back friend of the podcast and best selling quit-lit author, Charlie Gray, to discuss how creating, publishing, and marketing his "Charlie and The Frog" trilogy impacted his sobriety.
Topics discussed include:
A huge thank you to Charlie Gray for sharing his journey and insights with us today. You can find his books, including "At Least I’m Not The Frog," "The Frog’s Bottle," "The Frog No More," and his latest release, "The Phantom Maverick," wherever books are sold, including here:
At Least I'm Not The Frog: https://a.co/d/gcCMy36
The Frog's Bottle: https://a.co/d/6Su5zfF
The Frog No More: https://a.co/d/gBZeoRk
The Phantom Maverick: https://a.co/d/dt1ZpIc
Follow Charlie on Instagram at @hismajestycharles3rd and us wherever you social @gayapodcast , and e-mail me to get involved at steve@sobersteve.com
Steve welcomes back friend of the podcast and best selling quit-lit author, Charlie Gray, to discuss how creating, publishing, and marketing his "Charlie and The Frog" trilogy impacted his sobriety.
Topics discussed include:
A huge thank you to Charlie Gray for sharing his journey and insights with us today. You can find his books, including "At Least I’m Not The Frog," "The Frog’s Bottle," "The Frog No More," and his latest release, "The Phantom Maverick," wherever books are sold, including here:
At Least I'm Not The Frog: https://a.co/d/gcCMy36
The Frog's Bottle: https://a.co/d/6Su5zfF
The Frog No More: https://a.co/d/gBZeoRk
The Phantom Maverick: https://a.co/d/dt1ZpIc
Follow Charlie on Instagram at @hismajestycharles3rd and us wherever you social @gayapodcast , and e-mail me to get involved at steve@sobersteve.com
Hey there, super Sober Heroes. It's your host, sober Steve, the podcast guy, with another episode of Gay A the Super Sober Hero Show. I am so excited to share with you an interview that I had earlier today with my friend and author, charlie Gray. You might remember him from his earlier episodes where we talked about his books At Least, I'm Not the Frog and the Frog's Bottle. He also concluded the trilogy with the Frog no More and recently released a fiction book, the Phantom Maverick. He is one of the first people I thought of reintroducing to you with the Sober Hero concept, because he was an inspiration for me right from the get-go, and I am so excited for you to get to know him better.
Speaker 1:Before we get into that, though, I also did not forget to report in, like I normally do with my intros, that I am 1,006 days sober today, one day at a time, and I am grateful, for the first time in over 177 or 8 episodes, to be living in Sarasota, florida. I am, yes, for once, not just grateful for the fact that we have nice weather, or the fact that we don't have winter, or that it's sunny, or that it's warm, or that there's no snow, or all the benefits of just geographically where I am in the globe, but I am actually really grateful genuinely, for the first time in a while recently, of really enjoying where I'm living and the community around me. It's been since making a lot of these changes in my life. In the past few months I've been getting more and more involved in my community. Before, covid and my alcoholism kept me secluded and locked away from a lot of what was going on in my own backyard socially, and once I got sober I used my surprising excuse to not go out to events in town because there might be alcohol there. But I'm at a point in my recovery now where I can be around alcohol and I'm not triggered by it. So why would I not go to events and deprive myself from these great interactions with humans because there might be alcohol there? And it's been great being able to be a part of my community in so many different ways that I wasn't expecting.
Speaker 1:I'm hoping that you all, as you, were following me on Instagram. I am on all the social media accounts right now, but I do Instagram stories with a little more about my personal life. I hope you've been enjoying seeing me do things like kickball as well as be part of a church community and go on many more adventures throughout town in Sarasota, so I'm grateful for where I live. It's beautiful having these online communities and resources that I built up in my sobriety, but it's also amazing starting to set up roots here in my own backyard with a great amount of friends that are quickly turning into family for me, so I'm very excited to see where that goes.
Speaker 1:I'm very grateful for my community here in Sarasota. So if you're in Sarasota, thank you, and with that, I will let you all head on over to the interview with Charlie. I'm just so excited. I can't wait for you to check it out. Here he is. Hey there, listeners and viewers, it's Steve here with Charlie Gray. Welcome back, charlie. Hi, how are you? I'm great. It has been quite some time since our last episode, so why don't you reintroduce yourself to some of our newer listeners and viewers?
Speaker 2:Sure thing, yeah. Yeah, I think it was like in October. I think we deduced October of 2021, the first time that we ever spoke. But yes, I am Charlie Gray. I got sober on July 8th 2020. It was at the height of the pandemic, so kind of strange. I couldn't see it at the time, but, looking back, what a strange time to get sober, especially in our history when so many people were relapsing and that was like everywhere on the news as it was up and spiking. And then there were many of us that actually got sober during the pandemic. So I'm very proud of that. I'm proud to be part of that club and I am a Quitlit author. I have written a trilogy of memoirs that are in like the Quitlit genre called Charlie and the Frog. Last one came out May of last year. So I've gone on to do other things. But yeah, that's me in the nutshell.
Speaker 1:That is awesome and I love an alcoholic.
Speaker 2:Did I say that? I think that it was certainly gathered otherwise writing a.
Speaker 1:Quitlit trilogy would be a very odd choice, right? Yes, and you did mention your sobriety dates, so it was definitely implied. But thank you so much for coming back. It's always a joy to have you, and I love how you mentioned, though, how interesting it is, and I'm happy to be part of the sober pandemic babies with you as well. That's sober Because I hear you are two people who say like that's a wild time to get sober, but in some ways it almost was easier. In some ways, like I mean, it got bad quicker, which is what led me to sobriety. But you know, with the age of zoom, I from what I understand from people that have been in the rooms for a while, like the transition was almost rocky, like when the pandemic first happened, and not a lot of meetings had zooms and things figure it out.
Speaker 2:I never thought of that, but that's such a good point and what a transition for people used to going to their physical location and then, boom, you can't. I never thought of that until right now.
Speaker 1:Exactly Meanwhile, like you and I showed up to the party. Like three or four months later they've got the IT figured out and we're like hey, y'all what's up? And like, yeah, for us it was. It was convenient having that easy access. But I've heard people share about how hard that transition was. But it certainly was easier being on the tail end of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got the easy. The easy like the short or the, whatever. It was easy for us. I never thought yeah, because by the time I was getting sober, everything was streamlined and we were all like pretty locked into, okay, this is locked down, this is how it goes. Yeah, what an interesting point. That's probably wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what? Share a little bit about your journey to the sobriety. I know that there's three whole books on it and we definitely recommend checking out the trilogy. I loved reading through them. But share a little bit about your unique experiences.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was. You know it was quite a journey. I went to 54 different treatment facilities. So that entails six like actual legitimate rehabs where you go and you stay for the 30, 60, 90, you know, whatever it may be, usually depending on your insurance, and then in that also some psychiatric wards and a lot of detoxes so 54 total and all over the country, literally from coast to coast and up to down. So it was just, it was a wild journey.
Speaker 2:I, in 2013, I recognized I had a problem. I dipped my toe and rehab and then I went out for many, many more years and in 2017 was when I decided, like you know, I just I can't live like this, Like I have absolutely nothing. At that point, I'd been doing it for almost a decade, my poor body was shutting down, and then I got addicted to rehabs for several years. You know I would like the trauma bonding and the boys and just all of it. So, and, like you said, that's all detailed in my books. But, yeah, that was, that was my journey. It was very much a journey of going to rehab, relapsing, going to rehab, relapsing, going to a psych or you know, just chaos all the time Dicted to that too, of course. Yeah, the chaos, the chaos and the booze for me, please.
Speaker 1:And what changed other than the world shutting down around does not like that was enough, but what else changed this? Go around for you.
Speaker 2:What happened? I was out in California. I went out there late 2019 and I've had a lot of legal issues back in the state of Missouri, in Kansas. I'm from the state of Missouri and I was being required to come home because of that those legal issues and I didn't want to and I thought I was going to start this new life out in California. And then, literally right before COVID hit, january 2019, I got on a Greyhound bus to make my way back to Missouri and I relapsed all over the country. I went to four different psych wards in that time. It took me forever to get from California to Missouri, but I got here. Then COVID hit and I was just the whole way from California to Missouri. When I was stopping in those psych wards, I would get off the Greyhound bus. I just had a little bit of money or I would like hand handle for money Get off the bus, get some vodka, end up in a psych ward and I could see the pattern that I was on and I knew that once again, I had nothing and I was just tired.
Speaker 2:I was so tired and I got back to Missouri and I drank for a couple months and then, in July of 2020, couldn't really go anywhere, couldn't really do anything, had no money. And I just looked around at my life and I looked at myself in the mirror and I just for the first time, I realized that I could change it and that it wasn't my fault and that I wasn't mad at myself and I had never really let that in, and that was just enough spark for it to start growing. And then, you know, it was. Everyone knows how that's had a year. The first year was just woo a roller coaster, but that's where it all started was just being without nothing, absolutely broken and finally forgiving myself in a sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I know that first year can certainly be a wild and rewarding roller coaster, for sure, but not everyone takes their ideas of journaling and turns it into a book. That is awesome for you. What inspired you to do that? Did you always want to write a book, or where did it come from?
Speaker 2:It had always been in the back of my mind. So when I really started to go into rehabs in 2017, well, I guess it would have been around 2018. I had been to a couple by then and I was just like you know. This has been a wild experience. I've learned so much.
Speaker 2:I was exposed to so many different types of therapies, whether they be holistic or scientific, or perhaps more religious, spiritual.
Speaker 2:I just had like a buffet of recovery tactics and I thought not many people get to go to this many places and engage with this many people and I thought what a cool idea to like turn this into a book.
Speaker 2:So it had always been in the back of my mind during my rehab journeys, but I had never thought too much about the format of it. And then, yeah, in my first year, just a couple months after getting sober, I started writing and I knew it was going to be a book, but the writing itself was so cathartic and so healing that I really just gave myself over to that for several months. And then, once I kind of crawled out of that, that's when I was like I'm going to publish this, I'm going to do this and like this is what it's going to be and that my life changed. So, yeah, everything's changed. It's so sweet to think back on that moment when the book was just finished and I was just like, okay, now how do you publish a book? Like? I remember binging YouTube for like 16 hours one day, calling my aunt and being like I haven't moved, but I think I know everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can relate to that, and it's wild when you have that change. I know that it can happen quickly. Then, all of a sudden, when did you realize that it was going to go from just being about one book to being a full trilogy?
Speaker 2:It happened about six months after I published the first book. The first book gave me so much momentum for the first year of my sobriety. It healed me, it gave me purpose and it like set me aflight. And then I published that and the response was much better than I had anticipated. I didn't expect for it to reach as many people initially as it did and I really think that was a testament just to the fact that I had been to so many institutions and we have social media nowadays that it gave me such a reach. You know, because we're all on our phones, we've all connected, or at least when I would go to rehab so we would all connect on our phones. So I was so fortunate in that regard and after that initial just like boom of writing the book, publishing it did well. Then I was just kind of like well, what do I do now? And what I've come to learn is writing a book provides me so much peace and it gives my life so much structure that I really want to just always be working on a book because it's just so healthy for me. And that's the first. That was my first lesson in.
Speaker 2:It was that couple months after I published the first one and then the second one just kind of came out of me. I the first one, I don't do too much about my rehab romances and they were so prevalent in my life and so intense and so impactful that I really wanted to feature them in some way. And that's how the second one came along. Yeah, and it was. It was fun. It was fun to write, it was quick to write, it was easy to write. Definitely yeah.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say would you, would you say after the first one that the the next two were easier?
Speaker 2:No, well, yes, the second one is the easiest one and the third one was the hardest. And it was the hardest because, you know, in the first and the third I very much do the same thing, where I'm covering big chunks of time. My first book really just covers my 20s and my 30s, but the third book I wanted to go all the way back to my very first interaction with alcohol at age 10. And I wanted to touch on more things than just my alcoholism. I wanted to touch on the death of my mom and I was like 13 when she died. So it was, you know, I was 13.
Speaker 2:And then I changed schools right after she died and it was in a small town and I was gay and it was the first time that kids were really picking on me and calling out that I was gay and it was just a really traumatic time in my life that I never gave the appropriate credit to at the time because I didn't know how. So I wanted to feature all of that and it was just hard. I just really had a lot of things I wanted to touch on and to challenge myself, but I pulled it off and I was very proud of the third book. It's my favorite one. Now it's heavier, it's not as I don't know. I don't think it has as much humor. There is a funny scene where I almost shit my pants at the Coliseum. But yeah, it's my most proud work, I would say.
Speaker 1:Excellent and of all the three books. If you were to add a lost chapter to one of the books, which one would it be and what would it be about?
Speaker 2:You know, I was gonna say there's this one point when I I never really wrote about whenever you're white knuckling it or what it is, what that time is like, when you really have no one or nothing and that's that's all, compounded with relapse. But when I really look back now, what I, what I wish I would have included more of, was the rehab romance, and really not for the sex scenes or anything like that, but just for some of the intensity and to just show how, when we, what I think I, why I would fall so hard, is because you would have someone that was listening to you and you would listen to them and it was without judgment, but they could also call you on so much and in a way that nobody else could, and I felt like I could maybe include more of that kind of throw it off me a little bit or the white knuckling it. That's like you know when you're, when you're trying not to well, you don't know because you haven't relapsed.
Speaker 1:That's right, I'm lucky in that way, but I also know that I never to say never for anything. Well, of course, yeah, no, I mean. There were plenty of times where I promised I would never drink again to my loved ones, and that did not hold true for more than a day or a week or a month at a time.
Speaker 2:Well then you really I mean, that is a relapse in a sense that you could, you could equate that, that same feeling of like I just continuously let people down and then it's yourself that you're letting down to, you know, but when you're not drinking and you're just sitting in that in like the shame and the self-hatred of what you've just done, but you're not reacting on it, to numb it it's. It happens to a lot of people, and I think it's one of those things that isn't addressed as much, that we don't talk about as much. So I wish I would have thrown that into.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you'll have more writing projects in the future. You could include that in in your own unique way.
Speaker 2:Oh, I shall, I will.
Speaker 1:Yes, and during that period of time in your life where you were writing these three books, what did you learn about yourself?
Speaker 2:It was the first time in a long time. You know, in college that was like one of the best times of my life and I have analyzed that as to why. Why do you hold that time of your life in such high esteem? And it's because I had so much self-worth and self-confidence confidence being the operative word. Like I and many other people lost any sense of confidence that I had in myself through my addiction and in writing those books in some of the simplest ways, and sometimes just a way of I would be editing and just notice that my writing was getting stronger, and so that boosts yourself confidence and to have that feeling after not having it for a long time. You really can feel it Because it's been absent for decades and you're just like whoa. This is what like people must feel when they do things right, and that was maybe the greatest gift that the books gave me was just my self-confidence and my self-worth back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's great seeing how it came from within you and you manifested it in like the form of a book that you can look at and say I'm confident, because so many times we think of these people like you doing your books, or even me doing my podcast, and it's like, oh, we have it all figured out or like that, we're not scared about this at all. But yeah, what was it like for you after having the books out there? With that, it was out there it was.
Speaker 2:You know it was rough initially. I by no means have anything figured out, I'm like a clusterfuck every day, all day, but I had never before I published them. I never thought about what I was writing because it was so healing and it just it made sense and I was in it and it was flowing. And then it wasn't until people were like you're really brave for putting that out there, and I don't know if I could have been that vulnerable that I was kind of had this moment of like, oh shit, what did I just put out there? And so you, like you know, rustle through the pages like reading the worst shit and I'm like no, that's actually really.
Speaker 2:I'm glad that I did that because I know that everyone behaves wickedly and nasty when they're in in the throes of their addiction. And there was a book that I had read in addiction where the author really touched onto that, and my text is giving me the weather right now because it's six, 15. Anyways. So I wanted to touch on that because it when I remember reading that and feeling so seen like oh, finally, someone's talking about the nastiness that we do. So after having my initial like leering this, I was like no, this is a good thing. This will help people feel like they can relate to who I've done that to, and it's okay because he's done it and I really wanted to provide that for people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I related and identified so much from that, that first book right away being like the first book I read in sobriety. That wasn't a big book, that it was. It was really cool. Being able to identify with you and like raw wake and being able to then get to know you afterwards has been great. I know that as I was relaunching this podcast with the sober hero lens, I thought of you right away because I consider you a sober hero. When did you start considering yourself a sober hero and having that confidence that you are inspiring others?
Speaker 2:It was, yes, yes, I was becoming my own sober hero. Really, during the editing portion of the second book is when all of the self confidence started to kind of pour in. And then you do become your own hero because you become what you've looked up to. I had for a long time. You know, I lived in many sober houses, and the requirements of every sober house that I ever lived in was that we had to attend a meeting, whether it be in AAACA, whatever it. It was usually had to be a 12 step meeting and it had to be at least three or four times a week.
Speaker 2:And I would go to these meetings and see these people talk that had six and 10 and 12 years sober and just the way they presented them and carried them, presented themselves and carried themselves. You idolize that because that you are not there. You are nowhere near there. And so the moment that I was sitting and editing my second book and I could see that my writing was stronger, I was like, well, you finally achieved what you wanted to in those rooms. Of course that I mean there's so much more work to go, but it was just such a feeling of like, look how far you've come. You know you're not in the basement with eight stinky guys, you're not being shuttled around to meetings and like eating really bad food. It's your life is so much better and it's because you finally did the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you finally did the work. And not only did you write the book, which a lot of people will spend their whole lives saying, oh, I have a book in me but never, you know, do the thing, but you got it published and then you marketed it as well. How was the experience marketing those three books, and how did that change you?
Speaker 2:It was. It was tough in the beginning because it was something I had never, you know, like thought about how do you marketing one? I'd never thought about in a book. But it opened me up to such a community of people I there are. You know, I don't, I don't think I go a day without hearing, maybe maybe every other day without hearing, from somebody that I've met through something like this, whether it be a podcast, whether they read my book, whether they saw something on tick talk that they liked, and that has been such a blessing and it has changed me in such a way because it's broadened my, my recovery world in a way that I had never had it before.
Speaker 2:I'd always had it very much in a meeting or in a detox or in a rehab. I had never had it in a manner like this where I was already sober and many of these other people are sober, and we're not necessarily talking about like, oh, my God, I've got 21 days, that's great. We're kind of talking about like life and that is so beneficial to me not to discredit having 21 days sober at all. I'm just saying to have people that have been on the long haul with me in a much different capacity than a rehab has been such a gift that I didn't even know could have existed. And I wouldn't have got that had it not been through marketing these books. So it was tough. It's really learn as you go. It's so beneficial you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in addition to the great friends like me you've met along the way marketing. Yes, how was the experience writing at the book that you reconnect with anyone that way?
Speaker 2:I did. I did Nobody that I've written about. Well, what I mean to say is I've contacted everybody that I've written about, so nobody was put in the book without my permission. Sadly, some of the people have passed away since publishing, but that's a whole other. But yeah, I reconnected with so many people, especially when I published the first one. I was able to reach out to a lot of people and that's a testament to just social media and just having that along the way, and many, many times the conversations didn't go too far.
Speaker 2:You know, I will say that just because addiction is so ugly and it's just so hard to get sober and I recognize that. But there are a couple. There's a lady I wrote about in my first book that won't mind me sharing. Her name is Brenda and she has been. She was in the very like first, like proper time. I went to rehab. I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna change. She got in like the night after me, we clicked and that was like 2017 and we have woven in and out of each other's lives ever since then and she just recently came back into mine and it's just such a blessing because we just giggle about where we were at those first few and nobody. I can't do that with anyone else. Nobody can like zing me the way that she can zing me. You know it's just the best people yeah.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I'm really glad to hear that, and since you released the trilogy I think it ended in May of last year, so it's been about 10 months- Almost how has life changed for you in the past 10 months?
Speaker 2:You know, I wrote this other book and it was just like a wild ride.
Speaker 1:The- Phantom Maverick.
Speaker 2:Yes, the Phantom Maverick.
Speaker 1:The coolest name for a book ever. I was like I wanna name this episode the Phantom Maverick just because it's a name. But like I was like playing, like could it be the sober Maverick? I don't know, because it doesn't sound like that book is what this episode's about. But it's an awesome name for a book and when I read that it had like vampires and werewolves and all that I was like, yes, tell me more.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's taking. You know it's what? And I've always been a huge Anne Rice fan and what she did was, yes, her books are about vampires and witches and werewolves, but that's almost just like a backdrop, because her books are really about characters going through things, trying to find redemption, trying to find the meaning of life, trying to figure out am I a good person, am I a bad person? And so that's. But when you have like a fantastical character, like a vampire, you know it. Just it can fuel the story in a different way and it's more fun and all this. So that's what I wanted to do. I was like I've grown up loving this, I wanna write something in this genre, but I can't get away from giving everyone addictions and self-loathing and like I've gotta go on this like arc of loving myself, and so that's really what the Phantom Maverick gets about. It's this, it was. It's kind of I guess you would call it fantasy or folklore, but really it's just these immortal characters trying to get their shit together.
Speaker 1:I love it as someone who's favorite show is Buffy the vampire slayer. I had loved metaphors of, you know, hell and vampires and evil for the real things that we encounter in our day-to-day life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause it's just we gotta make. We've yeah, we want stories and we're born storytellers, so we've gotta judge it up a bit.
Speaker 1:I mean, we're all born storytellers, but somewhere than others you have another story in the pipeline, don't you?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, that's what I've been working on it was. It took me a while to get to it, I you know, the new year rolled around and I was like I am gonna get an agent this year, I am gonna get traditionally published. I'm just gonna like do it and I thought, okay, I know the book I'm gonna write, and I faltered hard just because of I don't know. That was just a whole process. But yeah, and it circles right back around to addiction. It's basically just if you were given the opportunity to have it's, you know, let me just go on a writer tangent here, so I'm probably gonna butcher this word.
Speaker 2:But are the like classic heroes Joan and all of that comes from like the Greeks and the Mesopotamians? And there's this Greek word called hameritia, which just means your tragic flaw or your character defect, and all of the great Greek tragedies and the tales of the gods are just tales of these people trying to correct their character defects, like that's like the word we use in the room. So I was like what if I just took that and put it into an addiction? So I have this character who is gonna get an offer to have his addiction removed from him so he can physically battle it and slay it. And I thought how fun. Just take the oldest story in time. Gilgamesh put it with a drunk and let's see what we can do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love that. It sounds cool. I'm like trying to think of like I'm not much of a fighter right now, but I can make it. I can become a fighter if I could fight my demons externally for the day.
Speaker 2:Well, of course, I mean, he gets little gifts, supernatural gifts, and there's a trainer that he falls in love with that's immortal, and I have to embellish it with all these little things.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'm very excited to see that when it comes out and is published. Yeah, so some more.
Speaker 2:I really wanna represent, like addicts and alcoholics and the LGBT in my writing. I just feel like put us front and center. Why the fuck not?
Speaker 1:Exactly. I think it's about time I'm fully on board for amplifying queer voices. That's kind of what I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Me too. Yes, right there with you. Excellent. And when you are not amplifying queer voices and changing lives through your amazing books, what is going on in your personal life right now that you're grateful for or excited for?
Speaker 2:My personal life is so fulfilled, and it's because I was finally able to repair the relationships with my friends and family, and that's really what it's all about, you know, is just having people that you love and you can connect with and surround yourself with, and so that's where my time is spent, when I'm not, you know, doing my thing or trying to fight the demons, just spending quality time with family. I have a nephew who so he is I guess he would be like a year and five months old at this point Well, yeah, tomorrow, and that's really changed my life in a way that I didn't know.
Speaker 2:I mean I didn't have the child, so I didn't expect all of this. But my sister and I grew up very close because our mom died when we were so young and she's seven years younger than me, so I always felt very much like a parent to her and very protective of her. And I don't know something about that little boy, just like it completed me in a sort of way, because now I mean, I never really wanted kids, but now I have the opportunity to be an influence in a little one's life and I'm like how lucky he if, as long as I just keep loving myself and keep working toward a life of positivity, he's never going to see the awful ugliness that I used to be, he'll never know me that way. And like what a joy that it'll just be something that now is in my toolbox for him to watch out for.
Speaker 1:You know, that's really yeah, uniform, and yeah, definitely I'll take a gunkle over a parent.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, I would love to be. Yeah, gunkle is the best, because you get to give them back.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and I'll be such a cool one, I can't wait till he gets a little older. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Well, thank you so much, charlie, for coming back on the show. I'm sure you'll be back again before we know it, as you continue to promote new things that you're doing, and I'm a big fan of yours, so you will always have a home here.
Speaker 2:Right on, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I will be sure to put all of your information on how people can find and connect with you online and find your books and all the good stuff. Your books are free if they have Kindle Unlimited, correct? Yes, yes, you can just download them, yep, and they're very affordable. If they're not, you were talking about money that you could put in a basket at a meeting. It's not a lot.
Speaker 2:Yes, no, purposefully low priced.
Speaker 1:And I love that. It's so cool that you have it out there and available for people like that. So also your socials. What's your favorite one? If someone wrote an Insta message, you or like DM you.
Speaker 2:Instagram and it's the goofiest name. It's at His Majesty Charles 3rd, like His Majesty Charles III, but there's no the I know. Just search at least I'm not the frog and you'll find me.
Speaker 1:All right, and I'll put in the show notes to thank you so much, charlie Yep. Thank you, and we'll cut for the Patreon episode, so patrons will let you in a little secret. This is our second recording of the day, for that I have never done that before. That was interesting how like some things came up that didn't come up the first time around. Have you ever done an interview twice like this before?
Speaker 2:I have had to do it a couple times. I've had people have had to reschedule me. They've had either audio issues where just the whole thing didn't get recorded, or it was something else I can't remember. Yeah, but it happens. I mean it happens more than you'd expect. Yeah, you have to rerecord.
Speaker 1:So anything we talked about the first time that I didn't bring up the second time that you're like, oh wait.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I was trying to remember what I talked about the first time and I was like trying to remember the high points and I was like some I said something really good last time, but I couldn't remember it was and yeah, but I think it was good, I think yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I kind of like it almost a little bit like I feel like this one's probably float a little bit better, so I like it.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's like a rehearsal. The first one was like a rehearsal, yeah.
Speaker 1:Very cool, all right. Well, I am going to get to work to hopefully have this up on YouTube in the next two hours, so I will soon.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, all right, bye, bye and we're back. So with that, thank you for tuning into another episode of gay a, the super sober hero show. Make sure that you follow us wherever you're listening right now so that you can get these new episodes when they come out on video on Wednesday nights and on Thursdays, in all podcasting platforms and apps, wherever you can listen. I also am always a email away at Steve at sober Stevecom, and, again, my Instagram is at gay a podcast, but that's pretty much where I am everywhere, including tick tock and Facebook. You can find me at gay podcast and YouTube and everywhere, so I look forward to connecting to you wherever you're at. Stay tuned.
Speaker 1:Next week, I believe, the topic is fitness, but we have a lot of great interviews that I've been can having recently and I can't wait to stitch them all together into these amazing episodes for you. So stay tuned. There are some very exciting things coming as phase two continues to roll out. If you would like to get involved with the show yourself, I am always looking to talk with people and see whether you'd be a good fit for the show, so you can email me, reach out to me on the socials with any interest and I look forward to connecting with you as well. As, if this show helped you stay sober, let me know because, like Charlie said, we love hearing it from you all. So until that time, stay sober, friends.