In this bonus episode of gAy A: The Super Soberhero Show, host Sober Steve shares his powerful and personal story told at his church's storyteller Sunday. From his childhood in Erie, Pennsylvania to his struggles with sobriety and finding his way back to God, Steve takes us on a raw and emotional journey. He talks about the impact of being "othered" and how it affected his sense of self-worth, his faith journey, and ultimately led to his battle with alcohol. Steve discusses his path to sobriety, the inception of his podcast, and his evolution into a life coach. His story is a testament to the power of community, self-discovery, and redefining happiness. Join us as we delve into Steve's journey of healing, rediscovery, and finding spiritual connection in unexpected places.
What did you think? Let me know at steve@sobersteve.com or on social media @gayapodcast
Stay sober, my friends!
In this bonus episode of gAy A: The Super Soberhero Show, host Sober Steve shares his powerful and personal story told at his church's storyteller Sunday. From his childhood in Erie, Pennsylvania to his struggles with sobriety and finding his way back to God, Steve takes us on a raw and emotional journey. He talks about the impact of being "othered" and how it affected his sense of self-worth, his faith journey, and ultimately led to his battle with alcohol. Steve discusses his path to sobriety, the inception of his podcast, and his evolution into a life coach. His story is a testament to the power of community, self-discovery, and redefining happiness. Join us as we delve into Steve's journey of healing, rediscovery, and finding spiritual connection in unexpected places.
What did you think? Let me know at steve@sobersteve.com or on social media @gayapodcast
Stay sober, my friends!
Hey there, everyone Sober. Steve, the podcast guy, here with 1,002 days sober and today I am thankful to be able to present you this amazing bonus episode. As you might have heard in episode or two ago, I recently had the opportunity at my church harvest to be able to be a part of their storyteller Sunday, where I was invited up to tell a part of my story, as it relates to church, in front of my congregation and they were able to give me a copy of it. Because a lot of it relates to my sobriety as well, I thought that it would be a great chance to share it with my audience. So if you were watching it on video on YouTube, this will be exciting because you get to see the actual performance. If you are listening on podcasting platforms, that is great too.
Speaker 1:However, the audio quality might be somewhat different than what you are used to hearing, but this because this is audio from the actual church service. So if it sounds a little off, bear with us, because it is great content. From what I have heard back from the feedback on how my congregation loved it, I hope you, my listeners, love it as well. At the end of the episode there won't be my little outro. I trust that you already all follow me so that you can get these new episodes whenever they come out every Thursday normally, and if this is a bonus on a Sunday for you, happy weekend. I look forward to seeing you Thursday for our next regularly scheduled episode. Until then, stay sober, friends, all right.
Speaker 2:Steve is one half of the steves. Yes, so it's pretty easy. You just got to remember one name for that couple and then you're good it's the steves. And let me check that mic, because I don't. Are we good on that? All right, you might have talked a little louder than me.
Speaker 1:Okay, there you go Perfect.
Speaker 2:So we're going to kind of we'll make the first little bit of just a minute or two of kind of where you were born and what that looked like, what your family was like. Can you kind of give us an idea of that?
Speaker 1:Sure yeah, I was born in Erie, pennsylvania, and I was only there for like about 24 hours before I was airlifted back to Long Island where I grew up because I'm adopted. So my parents got the call when my birth mother went into labor, saying like come and get them. So within like a week I was on Long Island and that's where I grew up. So that's where I'm from. I was just born in Erie, Pennsylvania, but I've never really been back there.
Speaker 2:Wow, so you were adopted and went to Long Island, yeah and then it was my parents.
Speaker 1:I lived around the corner from my grandmother.
Speaker 2:So like growing up, I wasn't like a mom's boy or like a dad's kid.
Speaker 1:I was always grandma's little boy where I like, run across the street to her house whenever anything got rough. And then I had my younger brother, who was two and a half years younger than me so kind of describe what it was like growing up.
Speaker 2:What was your childhood?
Speaker 1:like it was interesting. It definitely didn't make sense to me, a lot of the things around me Like both, like we grew up, I'd say like Roman Catholic-ish, because it was like Christmas and Easter, but that was basically it. But it was also but like my grandmother, was like religious and was like did outreach with the church and everything like that.
Speaker 1:So I was always like, very like familiar with, like how active and involved she was, and then, like my parents, were like no, but we're special because we're the only ones busy on Sunday and we can't go to church every week.
Speaker 1:So, but it was also like that, like without other things, where, like I was told, like very young, like children are to be seen and not heard. That was like the impression that I got was always to like quiet it down, whether it's that I was like being allowed or whether it was the things that I was saying were considered like inappropriate, or that was questioning adults on things that I shouldn't be questioning people for. So you know, I know sometimes it was because I was like screaming in the grocery store, like a little brat. But like, what I internalized after hearing like quiet down for so long was that like what I had to say wasn't worth saying and that like no one wanted to hear from me. So I just this began escaping. Like my first escape was books. I would like read four or five or six books a week and like if I ran out of my books I like I needed to get to the library like I needed my fix.
Speaker 1:And then it was video games, you know, as I got older. But it was always just about escaping because the world around me like didn't really make sense.
Speaker 2:So how did that kind of manifest in your life as you became an adult and come to those years?
Speaker 1:Well then, I found alcohol and that's the perfect way to escape, because when I was playing video games and when I was reading books, the issue is as soon as you put the page down or the book down, you're back in the real world.
Speaker 1:But, like when I discovered alcohol, like my senior year, my after prom, after like being bullied and harassed and othered for four years straight by my peers and the Catholic school that I was in, like all of a sudden I was like drunk Steve, where everyone was laughing at him and I felt like I was included in part of the group and like I was like this is the solution, because this will change the world around me to make it more tolerable. And spoiler alert that didn't really work out too well as the years went on, but it's definitely started from there where I was. Like I grew up knowing from my dad who had come home from work, like yelling and screaming and being horrible towards my mother and brother and I to like he'd have his two or three beers and then, all of a sudden, would be nice and calm and nicer and like apologize. That like I learned that as an adult, for me too, that alcohol could be the solution to like a bad day or a bad situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're going to come back to that. But I want to say I think you have a Steve podcast and we're going to talk about that a little bit and the dozen podcasting around being sober and what that looks like, and but I will get to that. But I want you to articulate for me there are some people in the room who have not experienced me included, for at least most of my life the idea of being othered and what the effect that has on you. So try to just if somebody in this room has never really felt, at least for more than maybe a day or two, like the feelings of what it's like to be othered, explain to us what that feels like.
Speaker 1:I would say like the way that I worry is like I always felt like I missed the day of school where they taught you how to be a normal person. Like where they taught you like how you were supposed to not be recognized because I was told that I was gay, like long before I even Became like a sexual person, who understood what that meant. Like my family would make jokes about it. Like my neighbors would make jokes about it. Like I was being told as a young kid that I was gay, before sexuality was a thing and I was like, but then, as I realized I was as a how did they know? Like how they find out?
Speaker 1:So, like feeling other than like the way that I, in a lot of people that I've like talked with the experience is like we try and become like perfectionist, like if we are perfect in every single other way. I found like the straight, a student, or like part of a team or part of this or part of this other thing, like if I am absolutely perfect in their way. Maybe they won't notice that I'm other than this one way that like and they always still did, and it never really helped, but I remember just always trying to be perfect at everything.
Speaker 2:What kind of effect does it have on you? What is it due to your emotional state?
Speaker 1:I definitely didn't have any value like, about like Myself, myself worth, like I definitely felt, like, because I was different, that that meant that I was worse or that I was less than, and so I went through life like trying to make up for the fact of like, trying to make up for who I was like, because I was like naturally showing up with a negative score compared to others, because I was letting them determine what my value was as someone who was less than or other, that I would like show up to things intrinsically, trying to like be a good boy for you, because, like, I didn't want to like get in trouble for being who I am.
Speaker 2:And how did that play out in in your faith journey? Where was your faith journey at this point as a young adult?
Speaker 1:as the adult, I pretty much put it behind. I went to Catholic school and it was like I was almost transitioned from public school to Catholic school as a punishment. So right away, it's like religion is punishment and then getting the messages from religion of like you can show up to church every Sunday and you can be a Eucharistic minister, like with your grandmother, and like you could do all the stuff that like as long as you still end up being who you are like it's not gonna work out for us that like I had put it aside in college and like in my 20s and into my early 30s, really through my adulthood and into, like, my drinking. It was only really when I started my sobriety journey that I had to like Get used to the idea of a higher power again. I opened myself up to that. I was pretty much didn't believe in any of that and it's like very much like I'm an atheist and like this is how it always will be, like it was always, much like always. I'll always feel this way. I'll never do that.
Speaker 2:So how long did you mediate with alcohol?
Speaker 1:I would say from 18 on and off through 35 or I mean my sober day is May 28th of 2021., so I am three years sober in In the rooms. I stay on a COVID baby because I got sober during the pandemic, because that's kind of when it put them out, like I think for a lot of us, even without alcohol issues, like it was a COVID, that the pandemic was like a magnifying glass for what was going on in our lives, like whether it was what was working right or what was working wrong, and so for me, the experience was that that was not working right for me anymore.
Speaker 1:So how did you get sober? I used AA, like I used the 12-step program, but almost right away I also knew that I wanted to make a podcast about it. My husband and I had been doing a pop culture podcast for a couple years and I love the art form. I remember going to like my first podcasting convention when I was learning about it and even before I was sober I was like that was the first time. I was like I've arrived.
Speaker 1:I found my people could, because for the first time in my life I was having people tell me like my voice mattered, that I needed to get loud with what I have to say, rather than like being told to quiet it down and like tone it down that like being told to amplify it.
Speaker 1:And when I found but I got this, I was like that I don't want to like talk about movies that I like forever with my voice, like I knew that I had more but I didn't know what it was and so sobriety for me. I was like this is it because, as a podcast listener, when I got sober I was like I need to find like all the podcasts and listen to them all and there was only one that was for Like the queer community that I could find and it was very like it was what I wanted from a podcast, so I made my own and what that did for me, though, was I got to interview people throughout different routes of sobriety In the queer community every single week, and I've been doing that since I started.
Speaker 1:So, in addition to meetings, which you know can be very traditional, and I had to open myself up to a lot of that, and it's been great and I love that I mean I definitely interview enough. People are like not for me and like you need to try it at least.
Speaker 1:But in addition to that, having that to expand my circle and expand my network to see other viewpoints. I don't much broader spectrum. It was cool because it's like COVID like you couldn't even go to a lot of in person meetings, so it was mostly virtual, and so I got to build this virtual community. That was really cool, it's amazing.
Speaker 2:So now you're transitioned both to doing the podcast, but you're also doing some coaching right, Correct. So what does that look like for you?
Speaker 1:Well, I got to a point last summer where, even though I was sober, I was like what I was they say it's like a dry drunk Like I was feeling very stressed. I was almost like why am I even sober if this is the life that I'm living? And I realized that when I was up in New York City I had the opportunity to interview Mark Jacobs about his sobriety on stage and I was like miserable. The entire experience. I was like this is too much pressure. I didn't even ask him to be in my podcast because I was like, well, he'll say no early on.
Speaker 1:Like I gave myself all those reasons and I had like so many limiting beliefs that I found myself almost like back to when I was in my addiction of saying like well, I'll never be able to do that or things will always be like this.
Speaker 1:And I, working with a life coach and like doing the life coaching, it kind of helped me get from being like sober but stuck to unstuck. And so, as I've become a coach myself, I'm able to help people who are sober but stuck get unstuck, because there's so many amazing resources out there that help people get sober and help them through that beginning stage of their journey. But, like, once they're healed, that support afterwards can be very hard to come by and so having someone who can like hold you accountable on like a weekly basis or be a text away in a crisis that can kind of call you on your bull stuff, like it's really been helpful, like seeing that I can pay it forward, that someone helped me get unstuck and find this like whole new life that I love and then I can then pay it forward by helping other people do the same Amazing.
Speaker 2:That's, that's worthy of. So what makes you tick now, like what gets you up in the morning?
Speaker 1:What gets me up in the morning is doing the podcast as well as the coaching those two things, as well as just this new community that I found part of my coaching and like practicing what I preach, is that my community like on my little wheel of how happy I was. Like my community was low in terms of where I would rate it until about four months ago, and so I was like I am like this great online virtual community, which is beautiful, and like I text them every day and I have this like great connection with them. But I didn't really have people in my backyard. You know, before COVID it was my addiction that kind of segregated us like kept us apart. And then in COVID I was using my online community and the fact that like the world can be scary out there is like a reason to stay in.
Speaker 1:But you know, I left my job and then all of a sudden I'm free on Sunday, so I was like I'll go to church and I was like what's a close one, that's cool, and Stephen's, like Harvest, doesn't seem that bad.
Speaker 1:And so I checked it out and I was like it's more than that bad, it's pretty cool. So he came back next week but like the thing was like six months ago I would have said, even sober, like I'll never be a church person, I'm not that type of person. But I opened myself up to experience my first time here, listening to you, like I had, from my 12 step program, my conception of my higher power, and I was very convinced that that was different than the well, I know it's very different than the Catholic God that I was raised with, but like listening to you talk about God and Jesus and like everything didn't conflict with like a single thing that I've written out is like what my higher power is being like loving and kind and caring and understanding and compassionate. So it was the first time really I've been in a religious community setting where I heard things that like resonated with what I believe rather than contradicted it. So it's like well, we're home.
Speaker 2:So didn't one of you come first? I don't remember. I came first.
Speaker 1:Check it out. Yeah, I came Like I said I'm gonna. I learned certain things Like, if I'm, If I want us to do it, oftentimes I need to like do it first and then he'll learn by example. So this is one of those where like, but like because both of us have our own religious traumas we're eventually helping up on stage.
Speaker 2:You're telling his you have him slated for 20 to 32, but it's fine he's been there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I mean he was very Like I had my step work to get me to the point where I was open to the idea of religion, Like he didn't have that experience and so he was still dealing with that hurt so very much.
Speaker 1:I think when he stepped in he was doing it almost to kind of humor me You're to be with me to support me on this and then like he heard something that was also awesome and healing and through that experience as well. So, yeah, I just I started first and then I recruited him, but now he's the one who's like we can't do disco brunch because we might miss church and I'm like I think I'm sure Pastor Dan will be okay, we miss like one Sunday a lot. He's like I don't know, I'll have to stream it.
Speaker 2:The dilemma Disco, brunch or church. I love it. So what would you? What kind of advice would you give for people in the room that maybe they're not struggling with specifically sobriety, but they're just stuck in their life? What would you? What's the best general advice you give to people? Where do you start with people that are stuck?
Speaker 1:Just redefine, like, look back and reflect on, like, what makes you happy, because we've all had one point in our lives where we can say, like that was my best time ever. But like, not just look at the circumstances that you can't change or you can't go back in time, but I was like, what were you doing then to make you happy? Like, were you working out? Then maybe you should get your butt off the couch. Like, were you going to church? Then you need to be going to church. Were you involved in a team or an organization or a nonprofit Mental? Actually, then get involved with them again. But like, do the things that you know have made you happy in the past and also try new things, because you'll also be surprised. But what will happen when you stop saying things like I always do this or I never do that? Open yourself up to the possibility that maybe you don't know everything, maybe you're not God. Like, maybe trying something new will be like wow, that was actually not that bad. That's kind of cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, will you guys give him a hand? That's amazing.