8 Signs You’re Drinking Too Much Alcohol

➡️ Book a call here: https://soberclear.com/quiz

Watch THIS next: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpST0HuNFGM

🎥 Want to learn how to control alcohol quickly? Watch a short explainer video that explains how our new, FIRST PRINCIPLES THINKING method has worked for 400+ clients 👉🏼: https://www.soberclear.com/new-2

🔥 100% FREE SHORT MOVIE: How To Make Controlling Alcohol 🍺 Feel Like A Flick Of A Switch In Your Brain: https://www.soberclear.com/dark-control-now

Chapters

• 0:00 Recognizing Signs of Alcohol Addiction
• 8:19 Realizing the Impact of Alcohol Addiction

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

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. So the first sign comes to your tolerance levels. Before we break down these eight signs, I just wanted to let you know the reason why I'm making this video is because it's the conversation I wish somebody had with me six and a half years ago when I was still drinking. It's going to be very challenging and awkward for your friends, your family, your loved ones to sit down and just spell it out for you, but all of these eight signs that we're breaking down today are things that happened in my own life. I ignored these signs until it was too late and I had to change. Now the good thing is is that you won't need to wait until it's too late, because you're actually watching this video, because this video should give you that final wake-up call that you're looking for. So back to number one, and it's your tolerance levels increasing, and this is when you're starting to need more drinks to get the same level of drunk as you used to. Maybe at the beginning it was half a bottle of wine and that hit the spot for you. But over time it slowly started increasing, and this happens to pretty much everybody. I've never met anyone that drinks less. The longer that they drink, everybody needs more and more and more, because that's the nature of a drug. You get a tolerance. You need to drink more to get the same effects as before. See, a funny pattern that would happen in my life is I'd stop drinking for a couple of weeks or something like that. Then I'd have no tolerance, I'd get super drunk. But we think that because our tolerance is low, that we'll end up drinking less. But what actually ended up happening is because I'd stopped drinking for like a few weeks and I was just using willpower. I wanted to drink more and then often I'd have this rebound effect where I just drink even more than before. But if you're seeing a higher tolerance and need for more drinks, this is a warning sign, because if you need to drink more, then all you're doing is increasing your risk of cirrhosis of the liver, of cancer, of addiction. It's not a good sign.

Speaker 1: 1:58

The second sign is in memory lapses or blackouts. Some of you might just have short periods of nights where you just forget what happened. You might look at your phone and not remember sending a text or making a phone call, and for others you just completely blackout. Now, blackouts have happened to me many times and they are absolutely terrifying. When I think back to a blackout now that I've not drank for six and a half years, I shudder. I think, geez, like seriously. I've blacked out in cities that are known for fighting and violence, like Cardiff, like Medellín, colombia. These were pretty rough places and imagine blacking out there. You're just a total liability. Now, I'm not saying that's everybody, but if you're starting to forget things, you're starting to black out, and it's only happening when you're drunk. That is a massive warning sign. But then also for a lot of people is they find that their memory's getting worse the longer that they drink. So it's not just happening when they're drinking, it's also happening when they're sober. Your brain takes a massive beating from alcohol and if you want to learn more about how alcohol affects your brain, I've made a video talking about this. You can click the link in the description or click the link up here and it's going to show you how alcohol destroys your brain. So if you're worried about this, definitely check out that video.

Speaker 1: 3:03

The third sign is you're starting to use alcohol to cope with things. So what I mean by this is you feel some kind of emotion, maybe stress, maybe fear. Something happens where you feel something and you immediately turn to alcohol to cope with that feeling. You're starting to use it as a form of escapism. And, again, this can be a very dangerous cycle because then, when you finally say I'm going to stop, you start to get afraid of how am I going to deal with life without this crutch, without this friend of mine, this thing that's been by my side helping me out. And that's a really dangerous association to make, because I'm not going to sugarcoat things. I'm not saying that when you stop drinking, life's going to be less stressful, especially if you're a responsible person where other people are relying on you, you work, you have a family. No, you're going to have stressful times, but when you stop drinking the stress becomes a lot lower and it becomes a lot easier to manage with. But it does take some time to actually get used to dealing with things instead of escaping with alcohol.

Speaker 1: 3:57

The fourth sign is you're starting to prioritize drinking over other activities. You might be canceling plans, you might be missing obligations, you might be choosing very specific places and things to do where you know alcohol will be there. And this is so, so common when I was drinking. If I had a friend that said, oh, leon, I'm going to do this hobby, this activity, right, I'm going to I don't know go for a walk or whatever, if a friend invited me to do something, I'd have to kind of weigh it up. I'd be like, do I really want to go? But then if a friend called me and said, leon, I'm going to the bar down the end of the road, instant no, thought about it.

Speaker 1: 4:29

And what started happening to me is when I thought about drinking. There was no friction. I was just like, all right, I'll do it. And then all my hobbies just disappeared. I don't think I had any hobbies when I drank. My hobby, my priority, was drinking, and that's not a hobby, that is damn drug addiction. So if this is happening for you, this is a massive warning sign. See, it got so bad for me that I designed my entire life around drinking.

Speaker 1: 4:51

When I'd finished university, finished college, I moved to London and immediately got a career in a place that was known for alcohol abuse, for drugs, for late nights. And I did it because I knew that I could work in an industry that prioritised this party culture. And guess what happened? It ended in a damn disaster. I should have seen the warning signs going into it. No, I ignored them. And that's what I'm hoping you don't do, because nobody really warned me. Nobody said play it out, leon. What do you think is going to happen if you go and work in recruitment, thinking you're Mr Big Balls in a flipping office in London where everybody's drinking and Thursday night is where the whole team goes out and gets slaughtered? What do you think is going to happen? Well, I ignored the signs.

Speaker 1: 5:28

Anyway, number five are failed attempts to cut back. So I'm not saying you're necessarily stopping drinking and you're failing with that, but you're telling yourself maybe tonight I'm just going to have a couple and then you drink more. Or maybe you promise yourself you're not going to drink for 30 days and then you only go two weeks. See, when you make these promises, you don't often make a big deal out of it. You don't tell your friends and your family, but maybe at nighttime you're not feeling great, you've got a bit of a hangover and you promise yourself that you're going to cut back, you're going to drink less, and these promises that you break to yourself suck. When this started happening to me, I knew I had an issue. The problem with this is it spills into other areas of your life. You break that commitment with alcohol, then you break that commitment with your workout routine, with your nutrition plan, with your business, and it becomes this chain reaction. Now the good news is is that when you do stop and you keep that promise to yourself and you stay with it, that spills into other areas of your life. It did for me. My confidence started growing, not just for stopping drinking. That's like the start of it, all right, but I was able to commit in a relationship, I was able to commit to a business, right To this YouTube channel, to permitting, to showing up every day. So just know that once you fix this, I'm telling you, self-confidence is going to grow in ways you just can't imagine.

Speaker 1: 6:35

The sixth sign is in morning shakes and increased levels of anxiety. You might have had it the infamous hangxiety and for me, the older I got and the more that I drank, the worse this was getting. I'd wake up some days with this crippling anxiety. I'd go and talk to somebody, my body would be sweating just like and my mind would be just all over the place for no reason at all. I also remember the first time that I had the shakes, and I think I was only about 19. I was drinking every single day. I was drinking I don't know four to six cans of beer a day. It'd been going on for a few weeks and I just remember one day getting home, it was about 4pm, I was working this was during my bad days, right and I was living in a flipping hostel. Man, that was a crazy time. I've not thought about this for ages. I've just got the memory and the flashback of living in a hostel what the heck. And I remember going to the fridge and I could see my hand like this before I was going to get the beer. That was pretty scary.

Speaker 1: 7:24

And if you're seeing increased levels of anxiety, physical tremors, man, that's a big warning sign. But it goes and it goes away quickly. I thought I used to suffer with anxiety and I started realizing that I didn't suffer with anxiety. I had a drug problem. I was addicted to alcohol, which was causing the anxiety. I'm not saying anxiety is going to just completely disappear the moment that you stop drinking. There can be other causes of this, but it is by far one of the biggest culprits in modern society.

Speaker 1: 7:50

The seventh sign is your relationships are starting to strain. Maybe friends and family they're starting to express concerns about your drinking. Maybe you're having an argument here and there about your alcohol use. You're getting defensive. Your wife might say why don't you stop? Why don't you drink less? Oh, it's not like I drink a lot, and you can feel almost this anger coming out and building up, or maybe the opposite. Maybe they're expressing concern and you feel sad. You feel like I just wish I could change. I've worked with clients and it's their kids that are getting upset.

Speaker 1: 8:19

You might have broken promises to your children, to your wife, to your husband. I broke promises in relationships all the time, promised my family I wasn't going to drink and then I'm ignoring the calls because I'm too drunk to answer and I feel a little bit deflated making this video. So I apologize because I don't want you to feel this way, but I just want to be real with you. When I think about how selfish I used to be when I drank, it makes me feel sick, but the biggest relationship of all that will suffer is not the relationship with external people, it's the one with yourself.

Speaker 1: 8:45

Drinking alcohol is doing nothing for you and the final warning sign is that you're continuing despite consequences. If you know it's impacting your health, it's impacting your finances, your relationship with your family. If it's causing problems maybe legal problems, financial problems if that's you right now, it might be time to get help. 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 stop drinking effortlessly, then make sure to visit wwwsoberclearcom.