Stop Drinking Podcast by Soberclear

5 Shocking Traits of Being an Alcoholic

• Leon Sylvester

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Speaker 1:

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. The word alcoholic is a pretty scary word, but does it mean that you need to be waking up in the morning and opening a can of beer or, as soon as you open your eyes, drinking a shot and pouring vodka on your cornflakes? No, it doesn't. And today I want to break down five shocking traits of an alcoholic, because when I drank for 10 years, I used to wonder am I an alcoholic? Is that why I can't stop drinking? Well, I'm going to give you a message in this video today that you might not expect, but you definitely want to watch all five signs, because I'm going to be sharing personal things that happened in my own life, because I don't want you to feel like you're alone in this. But if you notice any of these signs, it might be time for you to start questioning your own relationship with alcohol. So, before we get into the five shocking traits, I want to make one thing very, very clear the term alcoholic is a made-up self-help term. It comes from Alcoholics Anonymous. No credible doctor will sit you down and say you're an alcoholic. It will never happen. It's not the correct medical diagnosis. We now call it alcohol use disorder.

Speaker 1:

So I know I'm going to talk about the five shocking traits of an alcoholic, but despite me having a drinking problem for 10 years and despite me going to Alcoholics Anonymous thinking I was an alcoholic, I found a path to stop drinking alcohol without giving myself this label. So while the title of the video said alcoholic, I really wanted to give you a tiny bit of education on this term and why I don't recommend using it. So when we tell ourselves that we're alcoholics, we're giving ourselves this label that has no known cure. We have it for the rest of our life and we have it whether we drink or we don't. And in fact, there's even people that think that we're alcoholics before we even drink alcohol, which is absurd. And the problem with giving yourself this label is that if you were to ever relapse and you buy into this idea that you are an alcoholic, what do you think happens? Well, I'll tell you in my own life, when I thought I was an alcoholic and I ended up drinking again. I went nuts See nowadays. Since stopping drinking just under seven years ago, I gave myself no labels. I stopped seeing myself as the problem and I started seeing alcohol as the problem. So I fixed my perception of alcohol and then that was it. I moved on with my life. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I didn't have a drinking problem. In society's eyes, they'd probably call me an alcoholic, which is why I still wanted to make this video to unpack these five shocking traits. So, whilst the title of this video said alcoholic, let's call it somebody with an alcohol problem, not somebody who is an alcoholic, somebody with a problem with alcohol. Let's break the two apart. Let's not see ourselves as the problem. Let's see the drug as the problem. But anyway, let's get into the first shocking trait.

Speaker 1:

The first shocking trait is how we can often prioritize drinking over other activities. And as well as drinking, we could also group hangovers into there, because I know for me a big one was skipping the gym. I'd wake up with a hangover and I'd be like not a chance, I'm going to go and lift weights today, but this one is huge. People that drink a little bit you know these normal drinkers. They don't prioritise drinking over other activities. But I was a nightmare at this. People might invite me to a place to do something and I wasn't thinking about whether or not I'd have a good time. I was thinking how am I going to be able to drink? When I was studying for my degree, I would often go out instead of doing my work. And sure you could argue that I was a student, but I was an older student. I went to university a lot later and my drinking was just nuts. But maybe for you, you're also prioritizing drinking over other activities. Maybe you're skipping sporting events with the children, maybe you're skipping workouts, but when we start to prioritize drinking over other things, it is a sign that we probably have a problem.

Speaker 1:

The second one and this is huge is that I'd always, almost always, drink more than I intended to, and when I say almost always, I mean eight, nine times out of ten. See, most times that I drank, I would always tell myself right, I'm only going to have a few tonight and see how it goes. I never intended to get drunk. It was so rare that I said, right, tonight I'm sending it. I never would go and buy like a bottle of vodka or anything like that. I'd buy like two beers in a bar and then that would be it. It would be like I'm out of here, I'm getting smashed, and this happened to me all the time.

Speaker 1:

I always intended to drink a little bit and then I'd always drink more, and that usually means you're pretty deep in addiction. I'm not saying you're an alcoholic, I'm just saying you're probably further along in your addiction than everybody else. And if you're doing this regularly, it is a sign that things aren't going to get better. Listen, I'm not trying to criticize you or upset you, but it's very rare that somebody drinks less over time. So if you're doing this regularly, guess where it's going. Well, it's not going to look pretty because it's kind of like this exponential thing. You know, in our 20s we can kind of have it under control, and then in our 30s it goes up, and 40s it goes up until we get to a place of like, whoa, how did I start drinking this much? I've spoke to dozens of retired people who are about to retire. They're drinking and they're like wait a minute, I'm going to be retired and still drinking this crap. I have it all the time. So just know that if you're drinking more than you want to regularly, it's a sign. It's a sign that you should probably do something about it.

Speaker 1:

The third one and this one showed up in my life pretty much all the time is that any social event that I went to, I would always consider how am I going to drink? And I'd consider who else was there that I could drink with. If somebody that I knew invited me to something and I knew they didn't drink and it was social, I'd just be thinking why would I want to hang out with you? And that's really sad looking back, but I'd often prioritize my relationships with people that drank over those that didn't drink. So, even though I went to the gym when I was drinking alcohol, if I met somebody that was really healthy and really into that lifestyle and like Leon, do you want to train with me? I might go once or twice and then realize, mate, this guy doesn't go out. What am I going to do with him on a Friday night? I don't really want to be his friend.

Speaker 1:

It's sad, and actually think back to the relationships that I could have built when I drank. There were probably a lot of good people that I just disregarded because I knew I couldn't drink with them. And I do this all the time I think are we going to drink? Where are we going to go? Are we going to go to this restaurant that serves alcohol, are we not? And I'd always be considering it, and it was this constant battle in my head of how am I going to drink. And I'm so happy now that I've not drank for almost seven years that those thoughts don't go into my head ever. And these days I build relationships with people based on who they are and mutual interests instead of mutual drug addiction that we both shared. So if you're regularly thinking about socializing and then thinking how is alcohol going to be there, then I'm sorry, but it's another sign.

Speaker 1:

Now the fourth trait, which is another massive one. In fact they're all big ones. But the fourth thing is that you're regularly having failed attempts to stop drinking. So what I mean is that you really tell yourself, right, I'm going to stop, and then you don't, and then you drink again. And there's two kind of areas here. There's one area is when you really commit to actually stopping forever and then you fail. But then there's the other area of saying you're going to stop for a month and then only managing three or four days, or a week or two weeks. You basically make a promise to yourself and then break it.

Speaker 1:

And why is this a problem? Well, if I told you right now that you could only eat oranges after one month, what's the chance of you succeeding at that? It's pretty much 100%. But we need to remember that alcohol is a drug. It's a highly addictive drug and the reason why we fail at these commitments is because we're addicted to a drug. If I said you couldn't go in a swimming pool for a month, would you be bothered? Absolutely not. But alcohol is a different beast, it's a drug. So if you're regularly failing to stop drinking alcohol, guess what? I hate to break it to you, but there is some level of addiction there. I made a decision I don't know when I made this decision, but it's in my heart that I'll never smoke crack cocaine. And I've stuck with that decision up until this point and I'm going to stick with it for the rest of my life. And the reason why I'm able to stick with that decision is because I'm not addicted to crack cocaine. So when we're making these commitments to ourselves and we're failing probably means we have a problem, which leads me to the fifth and the most important trait of all.

Speaker 1:

The contrast between sobriety and drinking are extreme. See, if you stop drinking alcohol and you go a month and your life is so much better. You're feeling better, your energy is better, your relationships are better, you're getting ideas, you're getting clarity, you're like, oh my gosh, I can take over the world. If you feel that way after not drinking for a period of time, oh my gosh, that is a sign, because it's just evidence that alcohol is slowing you down and holding you back.

Speaker 1:

I've got some clients in my program that are incredibly successful $100 million companies and they say to me they say, Leon, when I'm drinking I'm a different beast. I'm making all this money, I'm raising money, I'm hiring people, and then when I drink, it's not the same. I feel like a completely different person. I do feel better today, at 42, than I ever have in my entire life, and that includes my 20s. I can think so much faster and more clearly to get things done efficiently, so I can take on so much more, got a lot of focus. I think I've added five or six new people into the business. Nice, prioritize my family, my mom, and it was honestly top five best things I've done in my life, without a doubt. I wouldn't go back and do anything else. The results that I've seen just in life physical, mentally yeah, it's been fantastic. So I started following the program eight days total, from start to finish, and I was done. Now my life is completely different. I feel like a completely different person. Now that that is gone, I have no problem. Projects are going way faster, a lot less mistakes, better relationships with the clients. It's just flourishing man, because this one, this idea, this fifth and final trait it doesn't matter how successful you are If you can see that severe contrast probably means you have a drinking problem.

Speaker 1:

But you want to know the honest truth. Most people will feel this way. Almost all people that drink alcohol will feel this way, because drinking alcohol gives you absolutely nothing. All it does is hurt and take things away from you. So literally any person that doesn't drink alcohol is going to have a better quality of life, regardless of whether they drink one glass of wine a night or two bottles of wine a night. But if you want to perform at your peak and be at your best, drinking alcohol is the dumbest thing ever. 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.

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Leon Sylvester

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