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 I stopped drinking alcohol five years ago and for the most part , it's been the most easy , enjoyable thing that I've ever done . It's changed my life in every single way and I didn't find it hard . I didn't find it difficult . It was an enjoyable process . And I know that might be difficult for a lot of people to believe . Surely , stopping drinking is hard .
Surely you have to fight the urge sometimes , leon ? Well , the answer is I never fight the urge to drink because I don't want to drink . And what I did is I changed my perception of alcohol . I saw it for what it was and I made a decision . And when I say a decision , I don't mean I tried to stop drinking or I stopped drinking for a period of time .
I changed my identity . I started identifying as a non-drinker , just somebody that doesn't drink , period . So there was never a fight or a battle or anything like that . So you'll very rarely hear me talk about any negatives of being a non-drinker , but today I am going to give you a negative .
I'm going to be real with you today Because , at the end of the day , I know the message that I would want to hear when I was struggling to stop drinking , and it was a message of hope , of inspiration , of positivity . That's what would have inspired me to get on this path Now , when I was stopping drinking .
There wasn't a YouTube channel like mine out there , but I would seek information that was encouraging . But at the same time , is everything going to be perfect ? Is it going to be this perfect walk in the park ? Well , the answer is no .
Today I'm going to tell you the hardest thing about not drinking alcohol for five years , but it's going to have nothing to do with cravings or resisting alcohol , because personally , I don't find that an issue . So here's the thing when you stop drinking alcohol , there can be this period where you feel so great .
If you've drank for the best part of five years , ten years , whatever you know , maybe longer , maybe you've drank twenty years it's pretty likely that by the time you say that enough is enough and you're ready to stop drinking alcohol , you're probably going to feel pretty crap . You're going to feel maybe a little bit overweight , a little bit lethargic .
You're not going to have that mental clarity , maybe your relationships aren't going great . You're probably going to be in a place where you're not feeling 100% . So what do you think happens when you remove alcohol ? Well , of course , you're going to feel on cloud nine . The energy comes back , the clarity comes back .
You know you're feeling happy , you're feeling positive . People start responding well , like oh , you're looking , well , what are you doing differently ? Loads of good things start happening , and that period can last months , not always , but you know it could last a few weeks , could last a few months .
And then it comes to the bad day , the day where you get that terrible night's sleep , the day that you get some bad news that a family member got sick or passed away , the day that you get an injury , right . You have this great period where you're on cloud nine and then , bam , the black cloud hits .
And for me , this has been the hardest thing about being a non-drinker . Now that I don't drink alcohol , 99% of my days are great , I'm motivated , I'm happy , I'm ready to go after it . But every so often something bad will happen , right , I'll have a day where I feel negative , I might feel stressed .
There might be some you know amount of work that I've got to do . There might be something where , moving countries , you know there'll be a bad day where you feel anxiety , you feel stressed . That's going to happen , it happens to everybody .
Now here's where it gets a bit tricky , because if you've drank alcohol for the past 10 years , there may be days where you've had bad days and just got on with it . But most of the time when we drink alcohol and we have a bad day , what's our instinct ? Is it to sit there and just feel bad , or is it to get rid of that emotion through a drink ?
Is it to escape that emotion ? And when you've got a track record of doing this having a bad day and not feeling 100% can feel very , very uncomfortable . And sitting with it and getting through the day and getting a good night's sleep and waking up and being fresh the next day Well , going through that can feel very alien .
And at first , during the first year of not drinking alcohol , you know , I'd have days where I felt anxious . I'd have days where I felt stressed and at first I didn't know what to do with it . I just felt this emotion and I'm like I don't want to feel this . I'm not used to this and what helped me is , when I feel a certain emotion is to accept it .
What we can do when we drink alcohol is we can feel an emotion and we don't accept it . We must get rid of it . This isn't right . I shouldn't feel like this Drink , drink , drink gone . But the thing is is that when you do that and you run away from these emotions , they come back and then guess what happens again ?
We go through that cycle again of drinking another drink just to get rid of the bad feeling . So what can be a helpful mindset for you moving forward , is just accept that bad days will come .
Just accept that some days you won't feel like working , you might not be happy , you might not be nice to be around , you might just feel grumpy , you might just not want to talk to anybody and listen . It's okay . It's okay to not feel 100% every single day .
Just know this that when you don't drink alcohol , those bad days will get further and further away from each other , until you're having a bad day every few months Instead of every week , every few days , having a bad day every few days , waking up with that hangover , going , ah am I here again ?
But then , when these bad days do come , when you feel the stress , the anxiety , know that it's going to be okay , know that , provided that you don't drink a drink , that the next day you're going to be better equipped to deal with it . And listen , this is where something like therapy or counseling could come into play .
I don't think it's necessary to stop drinking . I don't think it's necessary to help you make the decision , but if you're not used to feeling these emotions and you're not able to deal with them yourself , then sometimes maybe talking it out with a therapist could be a helpful tool in your box .