Stop Drinking Podcast by Soberclear

5 Warning Signs Alcohol Is SLOWLY Killing You

• 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. So the very first sign came down to my health and I'll get into the specifics in a second. But for me and my journey, there were worsening health problems and things were getting pretty bad. Now, if we've not met yet, my name is Leon Sylvester. I'm the founder of SoberClear, which is a company that helps people stop drinking alcohol. We use this totally new method where we help people reframe the way they view alcohol. Then we use coaching to really focus on the future.

Speaker 1:

But I drank myself for the best part of 10 years and my intention with making this video today is not for me to make you go and think about all the bad things you've done, and I don't want to try and do scare tactics or anything weird. I mean, if scare tactics help people stop drinking alcohol, all we need to do is go and read one textbook on alcohol and nobody would drink. But it's not that simple. So my intention today is to really share some pretty personal stuff. This will be a pretty hard video for me to make, but my intention is for you to reflect on how alcohol plays a role in you and your life. So if you've already stopped drinking alcohol, if you're thinking of stopping, if you're trying to stop and failing and finding it hard, my intention with sharing this stuff is not for me to make you feel bad. It's really just to help you reflect on your situation. So back to the first point Now.

Speaker 1:

Despite stopping drinking in my 20s pretty early on, compared to most people, the health problems they started popping up pretty quickly Now, being a younger man. They weren't severe, like liver cirrhosis or anything that was super dramatic, but they were acute health problems. Sure, there was a lack of energy. There was super dramatic, but they were acute health problems. Sure, there was a lack of energy, there was brain fog and this would all be classed as health issues. But one of the scariest things that ever happened to me was when I threw up blood on a computer and I've told this story a hundred times but it's so impactful that it scared the living daylights out of me. But I need to tell you the whole story so you can understand what happened next, to understand why this alone wasn't even enough to get me to stop drinking.

Speaker 1:

So long story short is I remember waking up. I basically saw my computer. I'd vomited blood on it in the night. I had no recollection of the night. I just woke up with this total memory loss and I remember looking at this computer just in utter disbelief and I was like no way, basically drank on an empty stomach.

Speaker 1:

I went out totally alone into a city it's called Cardiff, it's in Wales just binge drinking on my own in the middle of a city. That's a pretty rough city with a lot of violence and fighting. Honestly, when I think back to that place, that was a wild city. But anyway, I was living right in the middle of the city and I go out on this mad binge and wake up with no recollection, with this blood on this computer. And that morning was one of the scariest mornings of my life. I thought, wow, have things really got this far? And it scared me so much that I stopped drinking. I just was like whoa, I can't, I'm going to die, like I seriously didn't know what to do and I stopped with nothing other than willpower. And that willpower and that pain got me sober, no question about it, but it didn't last. It lasted 7, 8, 9 months I can't even remember the dates, I don't know the dates, I've not kept track of everything like that but that pain wasn't enough to get me fully sober. I ended up drinking again, and for those of you that have watched the channel for a while, you know this story. But I went to a New Year's Eve party. I had this idea of having just one drink, had a drink boom six months later, destroyed my life again and the cycle repeated. That was all until seven years ago, when I had reframed the way I viewed alcohol and, like a light bulb switch, I just never drank again.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, that's not the topic of this video. If you want more information on how that works, there's some free video trainings down in the description. If you click those, you can put in your name and email address. You can watch some video trainings that shows you more about that reframing process. That's what I help people do. That's what my company helps people do. It's scientifically verified in a new scientific report. But that's not what we're going to get into now. If you want information on that, click the link down below. But this is the first thing I want you to reflect on what's happening to your health the more that you drink.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people like to bury this idea. They like to think, well, there's nothing happening on the surface. But maybe you should go and get a liver panel done, maybe you should go and get some blood work done. Maybe you should go and actually see what's going on on the inside. And I think that's one of the problems with alcohol. Is that okay? Sure, maybe you know, for heavy drinkers they can get some redness in the face, there can be some physical symptoms for extremely heavy drinkers, but unless you get something like throwing up blood on a computer to scare the living daylights out of you, the health problems can be quiet because it's all going on internally. You don't really see fatty liver, you don't really see the damage that's happening. You don't really see that the chance of cancer is increasing every drink that you take, and I have no doubt about it. And listen, if alcohol was the thing that finished me off, I mean that would have been one nasty, nasty death. I've had people in my family that have died from alcoholism and it is an absolute tragedy. And this is no joke. This is not something to mess around with and I'm just hoping that by me sharing that pretty nasty story with you is that it encourages you to go and look into this deeper. Anyway, let's get into the second point Now.

Speaker 1:

The second thing that started showing up in my life were these blackouts, and these started happening more and more frequently. I know not everybody suffers with this, but I'd often wake up the day after with no recollection of conversations. Sometimes I'd have no recollection of getting home at night, and this was becoming common. Now one of the scariest things is that it used to happen when I went on like a big binge and I know not everyone's going to relate to this, but for me this was such a major sign but it started happening when I drank less, like I might only have I don't know three or four drinks, and then somebody would tell me something the next day and I had no recollection of it. This isn't scary. It's terrifying because you have no awareness of what's going on. A lot of the times when I drank, I'd be out of my house. I didn't really drink at home, I would go out into bars, I'd go out into pubs or whatever. I'm English, they can be some pretty dangerous environments to be totally unaware of your surroundings in, especially if you start, you know, getting drunk and getting into some sort of argument, but anyway, another sign that things were on the totally wrong trajectory.

Speaker 1:

The third sign that alcohol was going to do some serious damage were the insane life decisions that I used to make after drinking and honestly, I don't even know whether to share this, but I'm going to do it anyway. I remember getting so drunk at my grandad's funeral God, I don't even know whether, to say it Honestly, it's one of the most shameful things I ever did. But I was so drunk that I asked one of his family members the grandad that's passed away, bless his soul. I asked if she wanted to go and find drugs, like what the heck. And I know that's not necessarily a decision that was going to lead to my ruin, but I mean the decisions that I would make under the influence. There are others and I don't think I could share them. Honestly, I don't want to go there, but it wasn't necessarily always these big, wild decisions. It was decisions on speaking to people a certain way, people that I loved, people that I cared about If I had a few drinks in me. You know I would make these decisions to talk to them and treat them how they should not be treated Family members, romantic relationships I mean it wasn't good.

Speaker 1:

I think I've told this story a handful of times, but you know, I remember just getting absolutely out of my face in the middle of Colombia, like what the heck was I thinking? Listen, was that the alcohol? Was that me just being a stupid 20-year-old, I don't know? But I would get totally, totally out of my head in the middle of Colombia, in the middle of a city that's known for kidnapping and violence. And I just think back and I'm like what was I thinking? And I know that those extreme examples might not make sense, but maybe just take a moment to reflect on the decisions that you make under the influence. Maybe it's not so dramatic, but were they good decisions? Do you make good quality decisions under the influence? Are you able to communicate well with the people that you love? Now this leads me to the fourth point.

Speaker 1:

The fourth sign is down to my financial life. So what basically happened after I'd thrown up blood on this computer is I built a personal training business, and this was actually while I was a full-time student. I felt so good when I wasn't drinking is that I was running a full-time personal training business while also being a full-time student. I was on fire. I just couldn't stop. But I ended up having that just one drink for the thousandth time and after six months of not drinking alcohol, my financial life had just gone downhill. It got to a point where I was staying at a friend's place. He was on holiday, he's a vicar and he let me live in his property while he was away in America. Because I had no money. I remember calling my family borrowing money. I had to go and get a job in a restaurant to rebuild some cash reserves and that's when I finally stopped drinking seven years ago.

Speaker 1:

But that story might not be like 100% relevant to you, but one of the things is that there was this lack of care and whilst you might not have got that bad right where you're at ground zero with your financial life, it might be worth considering what alcohol is doing to your earning potential. Are you really doing the best you can in your financial life? I know for me that if I kept drinking alcohol, oh who knows what would have happened. But just play it out. If you keep drinking for the next 10, 20 years, what will happen to your finances? What will happen to your career? What will happen to your business? Will you still have a career? Will you still have a business? Will you just keep coasting? Because when you stop drinking, that's when things can just get to the next level. It's awesome. So many of the people that I've worked with have had promotions. They've doubled their business. They've done so many amazing things with their financial life.

Speaker 1:

Because making money is not just about you. It's about what that money does for the people around you. It's about the value that you create. And that's the world we live in. You know America I mean, it's capitalist, so is most of Europe, kind of. But we live in a world where finances are important. When you don't drink alcohol, you're able to add value in the world with your career, with your business, with whatever it is that you're doing, and you can use those financial resources to help everybody around you.

Speaker 1:

And the fifth thing that alcohol was doing is that it was killing me, not just physically, not just emotionally, not just mentally. It was killing this version of me right now. I could never have become who I am today when I was drinking. No way in hell and I'm not saying that to sound superior or anything like that. What I'm trying to say is that alcohol was killing the version of me that I could have become. It was killing my potential in life.

Speaker 1:

See, my biggest fear is that I get to my deathbed and I look back at my life and, you know, my biggest fear is that nobody's there, because I've drank so much that I've just destroyed all my relationships. But my biggest fear is looking back and feeling regret, feeling like I could have done more. And when I drank alcohol, that version of me was dead. The person that was reaching for their potential, that was trying to peak, didn't exist when I drank. And that's the best thing you've got to look forward to. When you stop drinking alcohol, you feel more confident, you feel more happy and you feel in control of your future, because every day that you keep drinking alcohol is another day that you let alcohol dictate your life, dictate your decisions and dictate your future. 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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Leon Sylvester

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