Transcription
If you're thinking right now of taking a break or stopping drinking alcohol entirely, then there are certain things that you must not do. Every single time that I failed to stop drinking alcohol, I did one of these things, and as a result of doing these things, it led me back to the drink. So if you want your path to be a lot more straightforward, with less struggle and fighting and resisting cravings, you need to watch this video and listen.
If you thought this was going to be some mainstream advice of, I don't know, not keeping wine in your fridge, or pouring all the alcohol out, or not going down the alcohol aisle in a supermarket, you'd be dead wrong. A lot of this advice is going to sound controversial, counterintuitive, but I promise you it's worked for me for six years. I've taught this to 400 clients in the Sober Clear program; these are my private clients, business owners, and professionals that want help stopping drinking. But I promise you one thing: if you don't do these things, your path will be 10 times easier—no exaggeration. And if you want information on how we actually work with people, business owners, professionals, just go over to soberclear.com, and you can learn a bit more about the method, the program, how it works.
So the first thing—now I want to have a quick precursor here—so this thing isn't necessarily going to get you drinking again; the following five things will. But this first thing is very near and dear to me, and I know it's going to be very near and dear to a lot of people that watch this channel, because this one is all about your relationships. So I don't know about you, but I've had attempts to stop drinking alcohol in the past, and I've made a big deal out of it. I've told friends, I've told family, I've promised them I'm not going to drink; I've said I'm done, I'm sober now, I'm changed my life. And the amount, amount of times that I've let these people down, I mean, I can't even begin to count. I don't know how many times it's been. So what I'm going to say to you right now is that if you can resonate with that, if you've made promises to people that you love and you've let them down, this time don't make a big deal out of your decision to not drink. Because here's the thing: if you've let people down in the past, they don't want to hear it; nobody cares. And listen, that might sound harsh, but they don't; they don't want to hear anything else; they've heard it all before. What they want to do is see you do it. So stop talking about things, do it, and prove to people that you've changed. When I stopped drinking alcohol, I told one person; this person just looked at me like I was, "Here we go again." And I didn't tell a soul; I didn't tell my family; I asked nobody for support; I asked none of my friends; I didn't tell anybody. In fact, there was one friend that I told, 'cause he was my best friend, because he was also not drinking alcohol; that was it. But I didn't ask for his support; I didn't make a commitment to him or anything like that; I just got on with my life. And then guess what? Oh, Leon, Leon seems to be doing well now. I didn't make a big deal out of it. And I'm not saying that if you do that you're going to fail; in fact, I'm not saying that at all. For some people, if they've never really done it before, then getting support could make a difference. But listen, for me, I knew I had to keep my mouth shut and just get it done.
So the second thing that you must not do is you must not forget why you're doing this. Usually when you stop drinking alcohol, you're in a place of pain; it's causing damage; you know it's doing bad things to you, and that spurs you into taking action; it spurs you into actually solving the problem. But you know what will happen? The pain will eventually go away. If you put on weight, you will lose the weight; if you're feeling tired, you will regain your energy. Right, the pain will disappear; it might take a few weeks, it might take a few months, but eventually the source of pain will be gone, and everything will have leveled out; you'll actually feel pretty good. And it's so easy to forget this, so easy. So I've had people in the past who want my help, right, they're interested in getting help, they want to join the Sober Clear program, and I've got on a phone call with them, and they're like, "Leon, I'm ready to do this because my wife's going to kick me out of the house." And I say to them, "Is that it? Is that your only reason why you want to change?" Because the problem here is that if that's the only reason, what's going to happen once your wife is off your case? What do you think? See, unless somebody knows why they want to do this for themselves, and they know the pain that it caused, and they know the pain that it will continue to cause if they keep making that decision—if you don't know this and you don't keep it at the forefront of your mind, what do you think is going to happen? I don't need to answer that; you know what's going to happen. So don't forget the pain; write it down, put it in a journal, keep it somewhere where you can see it; don't forget the pain.
Now this nicely leads me into the third thing that you must not do, because once that pain disappears, what happens, happens next. Well, we don't just drink like that; it all starts here; it all starts with this idea, and oh boy, what a terrible idea this is, but this is what caught me out countless times. And I'll be in a place where life's going well again; my relationships are good, the money's good, everything's going well; I'm healthy, I'm fit, and then my brain will have this genius idea, and it will say something like this: "Hey, Leon, life's going well now; maybe this time it's going to be different; maybe this time you can just drink less." And because I'd forgotten the pain, what I started doing was entertaining this idea of, "Hey, Leon, just have one." Oh, the amount of times I've done that! This idea of having just one drink has caught me out so many times. For some of you watching this, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about, but maybe for some of you, you don't; maybe this is your first time stopping drinking. Listen, whatever you do, do not entertain this idea; there is no such thing as having just one drink. Alcohol is a drug, and the nature of a drug is for you to drink one and then want to drink more. What alcohol does is it dehydrates you, which automatically makes you more thirsty, and then it also lowers your inhibitions, which means that you stop thinking about the consequences, and it's like, "Well, let's just have another; let's just have another." But the big problem is the next day: if you've had a prolonged period of time without drinking, you wake up, and then life's the same; no major problems have happened. See, what happened to me is I'd drink, and then I'd still be in good shape; my business was still okay; I still had relationships with friends, with family; like everything was fine. So what do you think happens? Well, I can do it again; come on, you know where this is going. I have never had one drink in my life, ever. Just don't even entertain this idea, which again is why it's so important to not forget the pain, because alcohol is going one way—it's back to pain.
So the fourth thing is you don't want to avoid people that drink alcohol; you don't want to avoid alcohol. So my mom went to AA for over 20 years, and you know, I, I've still got like these little sayings in my head, and my mom would say this thing: "If you sit in a barber's chair long enough, you will eventually get a haircut." And what this basically means is like, if you keep going to bars, eventually you'll end up drinking. And I challenge this, because if you see alcohol as something that adds nothing to your life, you see it as ethanol, you see it as a poison, you see it with as much disgust as somebody drinking a pint of bleach—if you see it that way, why would you ever need to avoid it? Well, you wouldn't. But if you do avoid it, what are you subconsciously communicating? Well, you're subconsciously communicating that you don't fully trust yourself, because you still see something to gain from drinking alcohol. And if you've successfully reframed your beliefs, you've shifted your beliefs, you see alcohol for what it is; you don't need to avoid alcohol at all. But at the same time, don't be stupid, and what I mean by don't be stupid is don't put yourself in situations where you just feel uncomfortable. So I'll give you an example: so I love playing pool, and in a pool bar, what do you think there is? Well, everybody drinks. I have zero issues going to the pool bar; I don't care how much people are drinking; I don't even see the alcohol because I'm there doing something that I enjoy doing, so I feel no feeling of discomfort because I'm having a good time. If you put me in a nightclub with loud music, with people dancing—I'm a terrible dancer, right—I get uncomfortable if I have to start dancing in public. If you put me in that situation, I am not going to feel comfortable. And until you've built enough reference experiences of feeling uncomfortable and not resorting to alcohol when you put yourself in these kind of situations, then that's when that voice can come back: "Hm, you don't feel good; have a drink." So don't be stupid, but don't avoid alcohol. But that was the big shift for me: when I was able to be around alcohol, I knew I had it under control; I had it locked off; that problem was solved in my life; it was almost like I proved it to myself by being around it and realizing I don't want it.
So the fifth thing—this is harsh, this is going to sound negative—but do not think that stopping drinking alcohol will fix your entire life. Be ready for reality to hit you; be ready to look at your life and not be 100% satisfied. Because if you've been in a cycle of drinking alcohol and escaping and escaping and escaping, eventually when you stop, you'll look at the results that you've created, and there will be certain areas that will stand out to you. Because otherwise, if, if, if you're not in any pain and alcohol is causing no pain, you wouldn't change. So this will happen to everybody; they might look in the mirror, they might look at the bank, they might, you know, have look at the relationship with their children; I don't know what it's going to be for you, but stopping drinking alcohol is truly the first step; it won't fix everything, but now you will be equipped to deal with your life; you'll be able to start making positive changes in all sorts of areas. So just be ready for that.
And the sixth thing is something that I tried to do numerous times; in fact, it's what we do during Dry January; it's what we do during Stoptober, I think it is; I don't know. These challenges never worked for me, but I'm going to tell you: don't stop drinking for a period of time; don't stop for 30 days, for 60 days, for 90 days. Because what do you think will happen once you hit day 30? Well, what you've done is you spent 30 days resisting, resisting, resisting, resisting. So by the end of the stretch, is you've got alcohol so high on a pedestal that when you actually drink, it's like, "I can't wait!" And if you do this, I'm telling you, stopping drinking will be 10 times harder. My recommendation is make a decision and don't even count the days. See, I have no idea what date I stopped drinking alcohol; I think it was around June or July; I can't actually remember, but I know it's been about six years, but I don't care, 'cause I don't count anything; it makes no difference. See, I tell people that I've not drunk alcohol for six years because at least you know that I've got some experience doing this, and at least you know I've been successful at not drinking, but I actually don't care; it makes no difference if I've not drunk for one day or six years, as long as I make a decision; it doesn't make a difference, because there's nothing to count; I just don't drink anymore.