Stop Drinking Podcast by Soberclear
The Stop Drinking Podcast by Soberclear is here to help you stop drinking alcohol and achieve the life of your dreams. We want to support people getting sober so they can get on with their life without feeling miserable. If you want to learn more about stop drinking coaching, head over to https://www.soberclear.com/
Stop Drinking Podcast by Soberclear
16 Years Of Sober Knowledge In 13 Minutes
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Welcome to the Stop Drinking Podcast, where we help you make stopping drinking a simple, logical and easy decision. We help you with tips, tools and strategies to start living your best life when alcohol-free. If you want to learn more about stop drinking coaching, then head over to wwwsoberclearcom. I used to think alcohol added so much in my life Thought it helped me relax, I thought it helped me de-stress, I thought it made me funnier the life and soul of a party. But none of this stuff could have been further from the truth. I remember waking up one morning looking at my reflection, seeing bloodshot eyes, seeing half a bottle of whiskey in my bedroom, thinking this stuff is slowly stealing my life away, one drink at a time. It just kept taking and taking and taking. For 16 years I've walked both paths. I spent close to 10 years drinking and struggling and trying to stop all the time, and I've spent the past six years without a drop. But, most importantly, these six years have been transformational.
Speaker 1:What I'm about to share with you today isn't going to be some quick drinking lecture. I want to give you the raw and unfiltered lessons that I've learned over the past 16 years. So what we're going to do is look at five reasons why I actually quit in the first place. Then I'm going to talk to you about five reasons why I found it so hard for close to 10 years, and then, finally, I'm going to show you five ways that my life has taken off since stopping drinking. So let's get into 5 reasons why I had to quit drinking, and I want to share this with you to hopefully give you a bit of motivation and inspiration, because I'm sure you're going to relate to a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1:So the first reason why I actually wanted to quit is because when I drank for 10 years, I did stop and start. It wasn't 10 years of continuous drinking. There were periods where I could stop for a week, a month. There was actually a period of my life where I went about somewhere between six and eight months I can't remember the exact amount of time but every time I'd stop, life would just start going better. Duh right, but I'd be getting in better shape, I felt more confident, I felt good about what I was doing and everything just went better during these periods of my life where I didn't drink. So even when I was drinking, I always knew in the back of my head what I was capable of and how good life would be if I actually solved this problem. So that was a big thing that I always carried around with me. I knew one day that I had to fix this if I ever wanted my life to get to the next level. The second reason why I knew I had to quit is because when I stopped for around six to eight months, I built a personal training business and the personal training business was booming. I was making close to six figures if we put it into US dollars.
Speaker 1:Whilst I was still at university as a full-time student and because I wasn't drinking, I was on fire. I felt like a machine and within a couple of months of relapsing, that entire business just pretty much disappeared. I didn't take the actions I needed to take. My self-confidence took a hit. I remember there was a day where I was about to go to my client at about 4pm. It was 3pm. I was at home and because things were just slowly spiraling, I remember smoking a cigarette out of the window and then just spending like five minutes washing my hands, afraid that my client was going to smell the smoke on me, and that relapse just led to my entire life just slowly spiraling out of control.
Speaker 1:I kept drinking more and more and more until I got to a place where I just basically destroyed everything. I was borrowing money off my family. It just got to a really bad place and I knew what was to blame. It was alcohol, it was the drug. If I hadn't relapsed, I wouldn't have got to where I was because I would have been doing the things I was supposed to do. So that was another thing that I carried around with me.
Speaker 1:The third thing was some of the health scares that happened. Now, obviously, I had the normal health problems like feeling shaky and getting irritable and putting on a little bit of weight, like getting a bit fat. But I did have a time where I went out one night on an empty stomach and I ended up drinking so much that the next day I had thrown blood up on a MacBook Pro. I remember waking up seeing this brown stuff all over my computer, thinking it's not turning on. What the heck is this? I remember pulling out my phone and Googling it and apparently it was blood. Can you imagine the fear seeing that? And I was like 24, 25 years of age. So that was another big reason why I had to quit because it was kind of getting worse, faster and I was thinking, man, this stuff could kill me.
Speaker 1:The fourth reason why I had to quit is because I knew my family hated it. I knew my mom hated it. I knew my grandparents hated it. My mom's been to AA for 20 years, so imagine that. Imagine she stopped drinking. She knew alcohol caused damage in her life, but then her son keeps drinking. She hated it and she also knew that go crazy. So that was a big thing. I knew my family hated it. And the fifth main reason and the underlying theme of all of this is I saw other men around me growing. I saw people starting businesses, getting in great shape, getting into amazing relationships and I felt like my life was stagnant and I knew to be the person I wanted to be. Alcohol had to go, there was no question about it. And because of all the experiences that had happened over those 10 years of drinking, I knew that if I could fix this one problem in my life, everything would take off and it did. But we'll get to that in a second.
Speaker 1:But now I want to break down why I found it so hard. Why did I not just stop drinking the first time I realized it was a problem. Why did it take 10 years of trial and error? Well, one thing I did when I was trying to stop drinking is I went to Alcoholics Anonymous. So, like I said, my mum has been to AA for around about 20 something years. She's not drank for a long time, so I figured, why not? I'll give it a go. But then I got this new belief that I was an alcoholic, I was an addict. Right, there was something different about me than everybody else. That's why I drank more and I'll be honest, at first I bought into it. But this really just made things more difficult. It made things harder. And for me to actually fix this problem for me personally, I had to let go of that label. I could not hold onto that label because I knew it would slow me down, it would hold me back and it would make things just way harder.
Speaker 1:The second reason why I struggled is because I kept using willpower. What I mean by this is I kept just resisting the urge to drink. If you've ever tried this, you know that it can work for a short period of time, but as a long-term solution it's pretty bad. See, if you have to resist alcohol. What are you actually communicating to yourself? You're telling yourself that alcohol is something that you actually really want and you have to fight the urge to not drink. You don't need to fight the urge to not smoke crack, you see. Crack the way that it is, it's a dangerous drug that you don't want. And then you just make a very easy, logical decision to not take it. Alcohol is in a completely different category. So every time I used willpower, I'd ended up drinking more. Now, what I did do is I used something called first principles thinking to help me reframe the way that I view alcohol.
Speaker 1:The third reason why I struggled is because I kept trying to stop drinking. And you might be thinking but what's the problem with trying? We all need to try. Well, it's to do with the terminology that we use. I was never committed to fixing the problem. What I used to say is I'm going to try to fix it, I'm just going to give it a go. I had no method, I had no solution, I had no idea of how I'm going to do it. I'm just going to try. And what would happen is, the longer that I tried, the harder it became, because alcohol just kept going higher and higher on a pedestal and I kept seeing it as something that I really wanted, but I couldn't have. So what do you think happened when my willpower was low one day? Well, I'd drink, and then I'd drink a ton. I'd get slaughtered, and then what would end up happening is I'd often end up drinking more than I did before. I tried using willpower, but this idea of trying just doesn't really work. The best thing you can do is make a decision is to commit to solving the problem.
Speaker 1:The fourth reason why I found it so hard is because I always felt this feeling of missing out. So let's say I'd stopped and I was a month sober. I might go and hang out with a friend who's got their life together, they're in good shape and they're having a glass of wine and I'm not drinking. I might walk past a beer garden and look at people drinking, but I'd always want to join in, but then I'd use my willpower and just not do it. I might see people drinking on TV, on a TV show, and I'd be looking at it, thinking, oh, I just wish I could have one. I'd always have this feeling. I couldn't get rid of it. Now, six years ago, when I finally stopped, it just went away like that, because I don't see alcohol this way anymore. But that made it hard, seriously hard, which leads me to the fifth thing.
Speaker 1:And I had a secret desire. I found it so difficult because I had this desire that one day I could be a normal drinker, somebody that had a couple of glasses of wine a couple of times a week and then just stopped For so long. That was my dream outcome. These days I realize having true control over drinking is being able to take it or leave it, but always choosing to leave it. That is true control. I'm in true control over crack cocaine. I'm never going to take crack cocaine, but for 10 years I just had this desire to be a normal drinker. These days I don't look at normal drinkers and want to be like them at all. If anything, I feel sorry for them.
Speaker 1:So what about some of the benefits that have happened in my life over the past six years? Well, it's been insane. The first major thing is I now have zero desire to drink at all. I've completely changed the way I view alcohol, and that was it. I put that problem behind of me, which means I can go to bars If I fly a business class and they offer me a champagne, I think no. Why would I want that? If I'm with friends that are drinking, it just doesn't bother me, I just feel nothing. And because I fixed my worldview, that has been the biggest benefit of all. It's just living my life and that's it. Not avoiding alcohol, not hiding from drinks, not wishing I could be like them, it's just a done deal. I've made a decision and I've put it behind of me and that feels good. Now I could start talking to you about the clarity and the energy and stuff like that. But I'm going to give you some specific results that have happened for me, because even when I was drinking, I wanted more for my life. I wanted a better life, I wanted freedom, I wanted to be in better shape. So I want to keep it very specific rather than give you generic stuff.
Speaker 1:So the second big benefit was in business. So since I stopped drinking alcohol, I've actually started a company called SoberClip. I help business owners and professionals stop drinking as well. But when I was drinking, I had a dream of having my own business. The problem was that I would use alcohol as a form of escape and you know I'd never do the hard work that was required. But since stopping I've been able to get my head down, stay focused and actually be consistent at building something for years. It was over five years ago where I started sharing my journey and telling people about my transformation, and about four and a half years since I actually started working with people. But there's no way that I could have had the success in business when I was drinking alcohol, regardless of the business. Of course, I couldn't do this business if I was drinking. But since stopping I'm more focused, I'm able to concentrate for a longer period of time, I'm able to deal with pain and suffering because hard work is hard, whereas before I might do a bit of work and then feel I need to reward myself with alcohol, and you know how it goes. So that's the second big benefit.
Speaker 1:The third benefit is in health. I remember when I stopped drinking there was this really weird shift of, within a couple of weeks, I felt healthy. Now, sure, physically I would have been healthier, my blood markers would have been better, but there was this feeling of, oh, I actually feel different. Now I'm sleeping better, I just felt healthy. So that was pretty awesome. But then my training has gone to another level since stopping drinking. When I was drinking I looked something like this I was bloated, I was chubby, I was fat. And then stopping drinking meant that I could really be serious about training and following a program and not eating junk and I could commit to something. So since stopping, I'm the strongest I've ever been, I'm the fittest I've ever been and I'm probably in the best shape I've ever been, and that's an awesome thing. Like who doesn't want to be fitter, stronger and in better shape?
Speaker 1:The next thing is getting into a relationship. Now, when I drank, if I'm 100% honest, I was pretty selfish. It was hard for me to think of other people. It kind of like my life was revolved around me and my drinking. So when I drank I wasn't in a relationship. I know that's not everybody's experience, but when I stopped I was able to be there for somebody else. I was able to put somebody else before me and I got into a relationship about six months after stopping drinking and we've been together ever since. So there's kind of like an underlying theme of because I was able to commit to stopping drinking, I've been able to commit to the bigger goals that I had in my life when I was a drinker. The business goals, the health goals, the relationship goals all those things have become a reality since stopping drinking.
Speaker 1:And now the fifth major benefit is the lifestyle that I've been able to create. So my dream when I stopped drinking was to have an online business, something that was fully remote. That meant I could work from anywhere, I could travel, I could do whatever I wanted, and that's how I could work. So now I live in Dubai. I've traveled the whole world while not drinking, but I've still been working during that entire time. We've just come back from a six-week trip in America.
Speaker 1:We went to Japan earlier, in 2024. We went skiing for the first time with my girlfriend. I've skied in the past she hadn't. That was so much fun. 2024 went to Korea, went to Malaysia, to Bangkok, and I'm able to live incredible experiences now because when I drank I had a vision, but I couldn't make it work. But when I finally stopped, I was able to work towards that vision for years on end without going back. No more two steps forward, one step back. These days, since stopping drinking, it's just one foot in front of the other, again and again and again, and it's awesome. Thanks for checking out the Stop Drinking Podcast by Sober Clear If you want to learn more about how we work with people to help them.
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