Alan Mead Experience: Clean and Sober (and Still Learning)

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[00:01:28] Alan Mead is a dentist with too much time on his hands and too much recording equipment in his basement. Armed with an obsession to bring entertaining and informative content to the dental world in a way that's never been done before, I give you the Alan Mead Experience. Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Alan Mead Experience. I'm your host, Dr. Alan Mead.

[00:01:54] I'm a dentist, podcaster, and a spectator of bowling. So I know I've told you this before. My oldest son is a JV bowler at his high school, which is fun. It's all fine. So here's how bowling works as a spectator. First off, all of the parents in the whole world want to go watch their little darlings bowl. And bowling alleys are not generally, most bowling alleys are not like great for spectators.

[00:02:24] So you have to get there early. And I thought I was pretty smug at getting there like an hour early. I'm a piker. A real bowling parent knows to get there an hour and a half or two hours. So we have these cool chairs that we use. They're these tall chairs so we can kind of sit further back. And even those were of no value. There were just bodies in front of us. It was hard. It was hard to see my six foot two cherub bowling. So and it was fine. It was all fine.

[00:02:53] They had a double header today. So in each bowling match is about two and a half hours long. So team against team, two and a half hours. They had a double header. So it was like five plus hours of bowling. That's a lot of bowling. That, my friends, is a lot of bowling, just so you know. So my wife and I actually split duty. So I wasn't there for the entire five and a half hours. I was there for a solid three, actually three and a half because I got there an hour early

[00:03:22] with my cherub to watch bowling. So grateful that the bowling season is not super long. We have next week, next Sunday, we have another double header. Week after that is only a single match and then one more single match. And I think we're done with bowling. But it's really interesting because I had told you, I had said earlier this year that we were going to try and do another Voices of Dentistry.

[00:03:49] And I actually had intentions of it being the 24th, 25th. Justin Moody had set aside his venue in Tempe, Arizona to do it. We were going to do it. Justin's got it all figured out because he's really good at throwing these kind of things. And he's an honorable man. I am not. I told him that I would do it. And then my same son in band, they had a big honor of playing. I know I've told you this before, playing in the Michigan Music Conference.

[00:04:19] And it's basically only one band per size, you know, double A, A, B, C, size school gets to play. And they got chosen this year. So it's a really big deal. I am chaperoning. That's like two weeks from now. Less than two weeks from now this is happening. And a lot of you are parents and could have told me this, but I had no idea that my entire life would be run by a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old.

[00:04:47] It's like the stuff that they chose to do. The stuff that they are doing in school. It blows my mind. All I can say, I'm humbled. I think next year they probably won't get selected to go to the Michigan Music Conference twice. So Moody has not given up on me completely. I'm still hoping that maybe we get together and do some kind of a voice identity. Now here's the thing. If we do do this VOD thing again, it's small. It's really small.

[00:05:16] Like there's limited tickets because there's limited size. And so if it actually happens, and again, one of the reasons I haven't really talked about it is because we were kind of hoping it would happen, kind of hoping. Finally, I gave up. I'm like, dude, I'm not going to try and fly out on Friday evening after this music conference just so I can be there for half a day. I just wasn't going to try and go to Arizona in a whirlwind like that. So maybe next year. Hoping for the best.

[00:05:40] Moody wants to do it because he's never one to shy away from a good party, and Voice of Dentistry was always the best. So anyhow, perhaps next year. My apologies. So January, like when this goes out, the day this goes out, it's the 13th of January. And like moments ago, it was Christmas of 2024, moments ago. And now that's like weeks later. I just can't even believe how fast time flies. And they do say it happens with kids.

[00:06:10] I don't know if time gets slower once kids are out of school. I don't have any idea. But it does feel like it's flying. So, yeah, it's a new year. And the new year always brings something else that's important to me. I know if you're a Facebook friend of mine, you probably saw it. On Friday, the 10th of January, I celebrated 23 years clean and sober. I'm very, very grateful for that. I will be going tomorrow to get my 23-year chip, which is very exciting, to a meeting. That's kind of awesome.

[00:06:39] Kind of excited about that. And I get a lot of pats on the back for that, which is cool. I am a guy. There's a lot of sober people, recovering people that don't count. They don't keep track of the date that closely or whatever. I never really trusted those folks, to be honest. Because from the very moment I got sober and clean, I was counting, man. I don't know if I'm a ritual guy, something like that.

[00:07:08] I'm telling you, it was always important to me to count the days, count the hours, count the minutes. It always was. And so I have always celebrated it on the first day that I didn't use. I was intervened on. I know I've told this story a bunch of times. I'll just tell a little bit of it here. But I was an opiate guy. I liked pills of all kinds. I didn't get into injectables, but it's only because I was able to get the pill so easily that I didn't, I'm sure.

[00:07:38] You know, I drank like an alcoholic probably in dental school, but that wasn't what really got me in trouble. It's not to say that it couldn't have, but it wasn't at the time. So long story short, I was a hot mess for about four years. A friend of mine finally realized what I was doing because I was hiding it. I was a guy who I didn't use with anyone else. I was hiding it. For the people around me, I wasn't hiding it very well. Let's be perfectly honest about that. I wasn't hiding it very well, but I was hiding it.

[00:08:04] And, you know, when you're in a position of authority, power, I owned my own practice. Thus, I wrote the paychecks of my employees that saw what a hot mess I was. It's a pretty hard ask for someone to, I'm their employer, you know. I just felt like it was kind of gross for me to put that on them. And so it took a while before I got caught doing what I was doing.

[00:08:29] Before what I was doing became a thing for other people to know. But a friend of mine figured it out, and he finally got my parents and my family and friends to do an intervention on me. And I have to tell you, I've not really seen the intervention shows. I kind of can't. I kind of can't watch them. I don't know. I kind of can't. But I haven't seen those before. So.

[00:08:56] I suspect my intervention would not have been good TV because by the time they caught up with me, I was ready to go. I was ready. I was ready to turn things over to someone who knew what they were doing. And that's what I did. So that was January 9th that I was intervened on. And they dragged me away to a spot and a detox that they had found in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And then they had found me a spot in a long-term treatment center in Grand Rapids that I started that next Monday. So it was January.

[00:09:25] It was 2020, 2002. I can't remember the exact day. It might have been a Wednesday, Thursday. I can't remember. And they had a spot for me over the weekend in the detox. And then I went into treatment the next week, like long-term treatment. So that was a blast being in a detox. Good times. Opiate withdrawal. Always fun. Always a good time. I went there wearing the clothes that I wore to work and I had nothing else with me.

[00:09:54] So I woke up the next morning and had to wear the same clothes again. That was good. My parents, you know, came back and they were able to help me out and brought clothes and stuff. But it was ugly. It was really ugly. And I remember it, but I also think that my memory was probably somewhat faulty at that point. I was in a fog, you know. But the 10th is the first day that I hadn't used. So that's the day I count as my clean date.

[00:10:23] So like I said, 23 years ago. I will say that if you are a person who wonders if you use drugs or alcohol in a way that's not healthy, if you're a person who's thought about trying going sober, or if you're a person who knows someone or has concerns, I would invite you to, I started a Facebook group a couple weeks ago, and I know I talked about it on the podcast. It's called Dentists That Don't.

[00:10:51] And it's basically for recovering dental people, people who've chosen a sober lifestyle, who haven't necessarily, they're not necessarily 12-steppers, they're not necessarily people who identify as addicts or alcoholics, but they're sober or interested in sobriety or never used in the first place, and they make a point of that, or someone who wants to just evaluate their own relationship with alcohol or drugs, I would invite you to come.

[00:11:16] It's an interesting group because so much of what recovering people do is done around recovering people and no one else. And I think that's fine. I do think that it's reasonable for recovering people to have their own spaces, and that's really good. It's good for us. But I also think it's good for people to see what recovering people are like in real life too. A lot of good commentary going on there. And you can,

[00:11:45] there's a lot of anonymous commenting, a lot of anonymous posting and stuff like that, which is perfectly fine with me because you have to understand that Facebook is not, as much as we want to keep everything, you know, anonymous and safe, it is a Facebook group. So it's Facebook. You got to know that Facebook is not a safe place unless you're comfortable talking about it. There are plenty of recovering people there that are perfectly comfortable to talk about their recovery publicly. I highly recommend you try it if you're interested.

[00:12:13] The group is called Dentists That Don't. And you just request, you search for that, find it, request an intro, and answer the questions. I'm not letting anyone in without answering the questions. They're not hard. I don't make you do anything or say anything that you don't want to say, but I just kind of want to know that you weren't like directed to it as a bot or something like that. I'm kind of looking out for the safety of everyone as best I can. There have been no, no bad things have happened there. I have to say that nothing bad has happened. I just, and it's, it's cool. It's growing.

[00:12:41] It grew like wildfire for the first three days because all the recovering people, Facebook people that I know, they are all right there and everything like that. But then I'm getting, I'm getting dribs and drabs. I'm getting people coming in. It's not quite a hundred people yet, but it's kind of cool. So, uh, I guess in, as a celebration of, of me being able to celebrate 23 years, if you're curious about that, if that's a fit for you, if you're just interested, feel free to check that out. I hope that you will. So, I have to be honest and tell on myself.

[00:13:10] It's what I do as a recovering person. Um, I, I, I have to admit that, uh, like, addiction for me, it hasn't been about drugs and alcohol for a lot of years. It really hasn't been. I, I haven't, I haven't come close to stumbling in that area. And I think for people that don't understand recovery, they are shocked by that or amazed by that, or, or they think that that makes me some kind of a superhero or whatever.

[00:13:40] When people say that, but the reality is, is that addiction is really not about drugs and alcohol. It turns out drugs and alcohol were kind of a symptom of the, of the real problem, which is this, the brain that we have, the way that we look at the world, the way that we look at life. And I got to tell you, I don't pretend to be an expert in any of it. I'm an expert in addiction in as much as I've lived through it. And I've had a brain like that for, for as long as I can remember. But it doesn't,

[00:14:08] you don't have to use drugs and alcohol to get there. You don't have to, you don't like, I can kind of indulge in my addiction in a lot of ways. Like there was a time when exercise was like that for me. There was a time when baking was like that for me. There was a time when I know it sounds stupid, but I was time before I started the podcast, I was baking bread so often, like literally I would time my work day. So I could get home in time and the oven would be at a certain temperature. So I could bake during the week. Like I couldn't,

[00:14:38] I couldn't stand to just not bake during the week and only bake during the weekends. It was, I addicts are kind of special people. And is that their brains can kind of become obsessed with things in, in, in a way that we got to take it to that next level. And that's, I will say this, the stuff that I have indulged in has not been as, it's not as unhealthy as what I was doing. A lot of times the stuff that, you know, when the drugs and alcohol are involved in it, it gets unhealthy pretty fast. Like you don't, your, your fall is pretty quick when,

[00:15:08] when it's baking bread, the fall is not quite as quick. But, but I still think it could mess my life up. The, the, the measure isn't how, how close you are to overdosing. The measure is how is it affecting your life? How is, how are you doing with it? And in, so addiction in some ways is, is, can be a lot of things. And I, I know that that, that sounds trite and oversimplified, but, but I think one of the things I've become just in the last couple of days, I've, I've thought a lot about,

[00:15:37] I'm an emotionally reactive person. Addiction has given me a little bit of space sometimes to take a breath before I react. But I got to tell you, when I'm not in a great place, I'm still very emotionally reactive. And that doesn't mean that I'm someone who yells and screams all the time at my, you know, I don't throw instruments at my team. I don't yell and scream in the office. I don't, I don't beat my kids or anything like that. But, but I have that,

[00:16:05] that bit of me that can become emotionally reactive in an unhealthy way. I can, I get that obsessive brain thing going. I, I am really good at worst case scenarios. Up in here, thinking the absolute worst, even in the, and I've said this on the podcast before. One of the things that's sort of funny about that is that if I write down the things that I'm struggling with any given day,

[00:16:32] and then you ask me the next week to remember what those things that were really, really messing with me, you know, really getting into my head, really my, my emotions were really strong and reacting. And I can't even tell you what it is. I can't even tell you what it is from, from a week ago. Like I'd have to look back. I'd have to think back on it. So in other words, the things that, that can occupy my brain in such a way that they seem like the world is about to end or that it's really a big deal and I have to do something or I have to make it. Um,

[00:17:01] on a day-to-day basis, they're completely different. I don't even know what they are. It's silly. It's ridiculous is what it is. It's just silly. It's embarrassing to be perfectly honest that I'm that emotionally reactive still after 20 years of being clean and sober. There are some days I'm less so than other days. Uh, I am. Awareness is really important. Awareness of it is really important. Awareness that I have been in a reactive place, that I've been acting reactively like that is helpful.

[00:17:31] Uh, studying stoicism. Stoicism has been helpful. I'm not, I'm not great at applying this stuff, but stoicism is literally like, I mean, you can kind of wrap up a lot of the philosophy of stoicism is, is basically being in control of your reactions to your emotions. Uh, I don't think stoicism says don't have emotions, but, but being very controlled about your reaction to emotions. And that is, I mean, like I aspire to that.

[00:18:00] I admire people who can be like that. And there are times when I'm there, but just lately, I don't know. I've just not, I don't know. It's been, it's been a thing and, and I need, I need, need to work on it. Um, and I don't know if, I don't know if other people ever feel that stuff, but sometimes, sometimes it's, the reaction or to the emotion is maybe worse than the emotion itself. The reaction to the emotion is a lot of emotions are going to happen. I sometimes wish that my emotions weren't so acute and so strong.

[00:18:31] My friend Don tells me that it's the emotions aren't the problem. It's your reaction. I think that's right. But I'm also like, man, I do wish my emotions, I wish you could kind of turn the, turn the volume down a little bit on them though. Like, like you'd think after all this time I'd have, I'd understand that it's not serving me well, but I think, I think I'm a strong emotional reactor. That's the way I am. And I just, my, my best bet is to just realize it and to, to, to work on, on my reactions to it. It really is. Um, and there's, you know, I have no particular,

[00:19:02] I have no particular thing that happened that makes me feel, I will say, I'm going to tell a little story. It was from bowling from two weeks ago. It was so stupid. I'm like embarrassed that I'm even telling this, but I'm going to tell it. Cause I told like, just like when something really gets under your skin, uh, you tell everyone about it. And I, I've come to realize your best bet is actually to not tell everyone about it and to try and not remember it. Because when it's a dumb reaction to an emotion, it'll go away faster. If you don't like ruminate on it, that is very true. So I'm at bowling. I'm being a good dad. I'm at bowling.

[00:19:32] Um, and no one had brought snacks for the, for the team. They, they needed snacks. Cause like the, the JV coach is a sweet, sweet guy, but he is new at this and he's disorganized and he didn't, he didn't have snacks for the people and for the boys. And that, that was important. And so I'm like, Oh my gosh, I will go get the snacks. I'm happy to do this. And I was taking 50, 50 raffle tickets. So frankly kind of enjoyed the, the little 25 minute interlude to go to the store and pick up some Cheetos and,

[00:20:01] and Ritz crackers and, you know, and granola bars kind of into that task. Happy to do it. So I go do it and it's, it's snowy a little bit. And so I went down to hand the snacks down to the, to the, uh, the boys, the coach, the coach was very happy to see me. So the coach of the team that's playing right, playing them gets up in my face immediately. My, my feet were wet and I'm an idiot. I don't know anything about bowling. I didn't realize I probably should take my shoes off and just going down to my sock feet.

[00:20:31] I didn't do that. Oh my God. I thought this guy was going to hit me. He was horrible. He treated me like, he treated me like you, Oh my gosh, he just was yelling at me. And I, I haven't been treated that way in so long. I kind of didn't even know what to do about it. And I just apologized and walked away. The guy was just an awful. Get, just get out of here. Just, he was terrible. And then I was like, then my first, my first reaction was violence. I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to just murder this guy. He just got in and I just was just, I just left. I left. I said, that's it. I'm out of here. I'm gone.

[00:21:01] It's best that I left it. But I mean, for the rest of that day, I was just wrecked. I was completely wrecked. And the reason I say that, I mean, it was, is an emotional reaction for someone yelling at you. And it's like, I, I went back to dental school. I went back to the, the shame that I felt of being not good in dental school and all that stuff. I did too. And honestly, if my recovery wasn't in a good spot, that would have been something that might've really thrown me. It didn't throw me that way, but I was emotional. I was upset about it. And I talked to multiple people about it.

[00:21:28] I'm kind of embarrassed because here's the thing today. When I was at bowling, watching bowling, I had not thought about that thing that really got under my skin. I mean, really? Like it was the thing that had, that was going to wreck my whole week. I hadn't thought about it. It was less than two weeks that it had happened less than two weeks. And I hadn't thought about it at all. And then I thought about it. I'm like, Oh wow, that doesn't really bother me anymore. There's kind of a dumb thing that happened. And I reacted a little strongly on it,

[00:21:57] but it was dumb and stupid. Next time I'll definitely wear, if I have to go down there, I'll take my shoes off. You know, it's nothing. But at the time it really got under my skin. I'm embarrassed to admit it. I'm a grownup. I'm a grown ass man. I don't need to react like that, but I did. And, and I mean, it tells me that I need to be more responsible for, for my spiritual and mental condition. I need to be more aware of that. There's stuff I need to do. I need to learn meditation. I need to take deep breaths.

[00:22:28] I need to, honestly, I will say this. I need to exercise more. I have, I had gotten to a point where I was riding my bike like every day and you couldn't get under my skin to save my life. Cause you know what? Part of me, I was so damn tired from riding my bike, but I also love it. It is my, is my happy place. Even in the snow when the weather's crappy and everything like that, it's still my happy place. So I need to make a point of doing that all the time. And, and honestly, I have these crazy lights that I can put on my bike. I can,

[00:22:55] I can go day or night pretty much anytime I have the warm weather gear. Even when it's really cold, I can go, I make excuses, I make excuses, even though it's like my happy place. And it really is very good for, for me in so many ways. Deep breaths, meditation, uh, staying away from social media. I did do a little social media, uh, detox a couple of, a week or so ago on a Friday. I just didn't look at it at all on Friday and it was better. It was a good thing. It's really hard though. I have to be very conscious about that because social media is like a,

[00:23:24] I'm like a moth to the flame with that stuff. It's ridiculous. So 23 years clean and sober and I still have work to do. So just, you know, uh, I don't think you reach that peak of Everest and, and, and find perfect happiness. I think the human condition is that you still got emotions and you still got to learn how to deal with them. And some days you do better than others. I think, I think I'm getting better, but I still got a ways to go. So there's that this, I feel like I just shared a long share in an,

[00:23:53] a narcotics anonymous meeting. This was like a 12 step, like, you know, venting my spleen. So sorry about that. Except I'm getting better. Anyhow, I, before I go, I do want to talk about a couple of things coming up. I've, I've got a big, I've got a lot of stuff planned for this podcast. I'm, I'm excited about it. A couple of things. First off, I am going to be recording at the Chicago midwinter meeting. If you are going to the Chicago midwinter meeting, will you please message me on Facebook or email me at simple,

[00:24:22] but not easy at gmail.com. That is my main email. I was an email I made back in like 2004. I've been using it ever since then. Simple, but not easy at gmail.com. It's a cool email. It really isn't my branding, my podcast branding. Not great, but this email was long before pod get my podcast stuff ever existed. So there you have it. I may come up with a better email for you at some point that has very dental branding. I probably should, but if you're going to be there and you want to meet up, you want to,

[00:24:52] I'd love it. If you'd come podcast with me for crying out loud, but even if you just want to see me podcasting with last year, I got a chance to, I literally ran into David Hornbrook on the floor and said, God, would you come podcast with me? He's like, yeah, sure. I'll be right over. And we set up a time. It was awesome. I'm hoping to run into a bunch of heroes at midwinter because heroes show up at midwinter. I'm telling you, there's a lot of great people there. I'm hoping to record enough content to go for like six months on, on midwinter content. It's, it is a great time.

[00:25:20] The Chicago midwinter people have put together this podcasting booth that is literally second to none. It's a great place to record. I'm excited about it. That is February. I can't remember the dates. I'm there Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I'm planning on literally leaving Saturday as they shut the lights off, planning on getting there as soon as they'll let me in on Thursday morning. Because it's a great easy way for me to record tons of content and see people. So midwinter is going to be a great time.

[00:25:49] I hope you'll come find me and, you know, come walk the floor with me, whatever. I'm, I'm a bit manic at a midwinter. It's always fun for me. And the days always, always seem short. Cause I always have stuff I want to do and see there. So, so come, come find me at midwinter message me on Facebook or on Instagram or email me simple, but not easy. Dot com. I would love to run into you. I'd love to podcast with you. Maybe we can do some round tables. If we have topics, there's always topics. You'll find that podcasting in person is an absolute freaking blast.

[00:26:19] It's a very good time. So there's that. Secondly, I, God, it's been years back when Tarun, Agarwal was telling me, and he still, I think he still believes it. And I think he might, he might've been proven right. I was like, podcasting is an audio phenomena. It's, it's audio. And I'm an audio guy and I'm just doing audio because I, here's the thing. He was, he was convinced that it was audio and video. You, you try and hit them wherever they are.

[00:26:48] And I think he's probably right. Um, the way that they have throttled back downloads, Apple podcast has done a lot of things. First off, they, there's, they don't, uh, they, they make you jump through hoops to, to download. Uh, they have made the back catalog very difficult for people to download within the app. In other words, we have thousands of episodes and, and honestly, you don't have the option to download thousands. It's really hard to go back.

[00:27:17] If you wanted to download an episode for 2016, it's, it's like, you have to go way back. And bottom line, they made it tough. And we have way less downloads than we used to. And, and I don't know if that's just a matter of there's less Russian bots downloading it or whatever, but I want, I want to build the audience back again. It isn't, I don't, I don't want to take for granted the people that are listening right now. I really don't, but I want to build the audience back up again. I want to have more engagement. I want more people to be able to listen to it. I'm, I'm proud of what we do here. I'm real proud of what we do here. I would like more people to listen to it.

[00:27:47] So I'm going to experiment with a video. I'll probably start a YouTube channel at some point and start, if I can, posting both audio and video. Like I want to have video of me recording or me recording with people or, or the, the clinical hacks guys recording. I want to do this. And we've, I've done some changes. I'm, I'm trying a new software. I'm still experimenting folks. I'm trying, but I'm still experimenting. So we'll, I'll get there. I'll keep trying.

[00:28:17] Um, I have ideas for different kinds of episodes. I dropped a hint a while back about me doing a, a more of a, uh, Oh, it's a little bit more scripted. Uh, hot takes. I want to, I want to like, I want to do some debunking kind of stuff of dental bullshit. That's out there. There's so much out there. And if you guys find some, I would love if you point it to me. Cause I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do this yet. Cause I think it needs to be video as well as audio. I think it could be really funny and clever. And I think it could be useful, honestly,

[00:28:47] to, I just, there's so much out there, whether it's dentists saying how, you know, root canals are poison or someone selling something that heals cavities. There's, you know, drops for your teeth that heal cavities. I want to, I want to do deep dives and be funny and fun about that. So I, I want to do that too. I'm calling it hot takes, but I, I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to do it yet. I'm working on it. Uh, I want to be able, I have so much,

[00:29:13] the dental hacks and very dental has so many back episodes that are still worth listening to. Like most of what we've done is pretty evergreen because dental content stays evergreen, right? You know, and, and I think it's hard for you to go back and download the old stuff. So I'm thinking about adding another episode per week, which would bring it up to four episodes per week, which seems like a lot. So I guess I want your feedback. If you don't want that many episodes, maybe I'll just mix that in. I want to bring classic stuff back,

[00:29:42] whether it's old episodes with Jason and the dental hacks, or if it's, you know, older, very dental stuff. I do, I do play old stuff. Uh, I do do reruns. You obviously, if you, if you're on the feed, you know that I do that, but I have to say a lot of times they get as many downloads as anything. So I think that for a lot of them, you could listen to a rerun and not realize it's a rerun because it's been a while or whatever. And God only knows we have so much back catalog that just doesn't get downloaded anymore. We used to get, I mean,

[00:30:08] you would look in the stats and you'd see a download of almost every episode we'd ever done every day. And you'd see bumps where someone maybe have, would have mentioned it in a, in a class or something like that. And you'd see 20 or 30 downloads of an episode from four years ago. You just don't see that anymore because I think it's really hard to find the back episodes. I feel strongly that they're still worth listening to. So I'm thinking of just re-releasing some of the back episodes as like classic, as a very dental classic or dental hacks classic or something like that.

[00:30:37] And on a regular basis, I would love it. If you'd talk to me about this either on my email again, simple, but not easy at gmail.com or private message me on Facebook or message me in the Facebook group. I'm totally cool with all that. If you say, no, no, it's too much. I can't keep up. I'm fine with that. The other thing is you don't have to download everything. I, I, I'm not going to, I realize now that it isn't, it isn't about downloads except it kind of is because I, it's hard to know. I don't know if I trust any of the statistics anymore. So I don't know who's out there and who's enjoying it. If you,

[00:31:06] if you ever think here's something that you're like, Ooh, I like that. I appreciate that. I would love it if you'd message me because I never really know what's hitting with people. It's not completely true because I do get a few people message me kind of on the regular and I love that. It is very helpful because I know what's working and what's not. For instance, Dr. Giles Dameron was on, on Friday and he talked about freed AI, which is an AI that helps with show notes.

[00:31:32] And another listener just showed me how he was working on a demo with it and how much he likes it. I'm like, Oh damn it. That means I probably need to use that thing. I, there's so much out there that is like that. And I, and I just, it's nice to know that the people are hearing it and using it and all that stuff. So, so let me know these things. I had other things I was going to say too, but I feel like I'm, I'm going kind of long for an Alameda experience episode, but I sure appreciate you guys. And, and I'm doing okay. I'm hanging in there. I'm, I'm trying to, trying to get better.

[00:32:01] I want to bring valuable content to you guys. I want you guys to appreciate what we're doing. And I want you guys to like, I want you guys, I want to be part of your rotation. The same way that some of my favorites are part of my rotation. Like my, Matt Taibbi and Walter Kern have a podcast called America. So I don't even know what it is. I don't know what the title is. It's Fridays. It's great. It's hilarious. It's, it's heterodox. I love it. I won't miss that. There's a podcast called blocked and reported. I won't ever miss that.

[00:32:31] I actually pay for those, these things. I, the fifth column, I've been listening to them since they were a thing. I love them. I won't miss them. I want to be part of your rotation where you say, I'm not going to miss that. I don't know. I don't know that I can do that. I'm not sure I'm that good, but I hope, I hope that I fit into your, I hope that our podcast fits in there and I hope you enjoy it. Let me know if you do. And if you have any questions or comments, feel free to, to bring them up in the Facebook group. That's a very dental Facebook group on Facebook. Just, if you're not a member, search that you'll find it.

[00:33:01] It's going to ask you for an invite and you got to answer the questions and you got it. You got it. Actually, I think you got to give me the password. The password is one of five people. One of five words, Hornbrook, Papa Randy, McQuethy, Lipscomb, or Timmerman. Any of those five people, names, whatever, we'll get you in, but give me one because I'm not going to let you in without it. There are times in the history of the very dental podcast, Facebook group, where I was soft about that, but I'm not now. If you don't give it to me, I'm not going to let you in.

[00:33:30] I will remind you that I need a password and you got to go find it if you don't, but yeah, I, so give me the password and let's talk about the password. If you think, um, I got to tell you lately, I've been really tired of hearing my own voice. I, I, uh, it's been hard. Although I have to tell you, I didn't know what I was going to talk about very well for this episode and it went really well. So I'm pleased with that, but, uh, man, I'd love feedback. I'd love to know what you guys are thinking. I'd love to know what you'd like to hear.

[00:33:58] If you have a concept of a podcast that you think would be good for the, for the network, I'd love to hear about it and let's do it. I'm happy to produce it for you. I'm, I, we need more people in this space with original interesting thoughts. Thank you guys for listening. For listening. I appreciate it. And guess what? We'll catch you next episode.