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 . Jordan Peterson stopped drinking when he was 27 years of age .
He tried to reintroduce alcohol later on in life , in his 50s , but then came to the same conclusion that drinking alcohol is bulls**t . But today , in this video , we're going to dive into Peterson's best lessons when it comes to not drinking , to help you change your relationship with alcohol in just a few minutes .
Peterson has a very strong worldview when it comes to alcohol , which is why he's been able to successfully not drink for such a long period of time . So we're going to dive into an interview clip with him today to really unpack his beliefs . So we're able to get a better understanding into the mind of somebody who's been a non-drinker for a long time .
So let's play one of his clips right now .
Alcohol is a really bad drug . You know , 50% of murders take place in an alcohol-fueled environment . Either the victim or the perpetrator , or both , is drunk . It's almost the sole cause of domestic abuse . It's almost the sole cause of so-called date rape .
If you dig into criminal behavior deeply enough , well hell , you don't have to dig much at all before you find alcohol . It's also the only drug we know that actually makes people more aggressive , and not merely because they don't know what they're doing .
We did experiments at McGill showing that if you took drunk people and put them in a competitive environment where they could be aggressive and had them keep track of their aggression so they were actually conscious of it they became more aggressive even , rather than less .
Either Peterson was very well prepared for this interview and had some good data and some good knowledge of it , or the more likely thing is that he's actually done a lot of critical thinking when it comes to alcohol . See , here's the crazy thing . How can anybody listen to that message and look at that data and have this worldview ?
And then let's say , you've got a kid that turns 21 , turns 18 in England and they're about to have their first legal drink . And after hearing that , you hand them that can of beer and listen to that and go , well , I've drank for 20 years and I've never done that . Isn't that funny ?
A non-drinker would look at that and go , yeah , alcohol is dangerous , I'm going to continue not drinking it . Yet a lot of people who are addicted to alcohol will look at that data , they'll hear it and then all they'll do is rationalize their own drug addiction .
But Peterson has clearly done a lot of critical thinking and come to a conclusion that , yeah , this stuff is bad news , and I'm sure nobody is going to disagree with that .
I quit drinking when I was 27 . You know , I mean , northern Albertan culture was pretty damn hard drinking culture , like most Northern places , and a lot number of my friends ended up alcoholic , you know . And and well , all the people that I was in high school with and in college with were extremely hard drinkers and I drank quite a lot till I was 27 .
And then I found that I couldn't . Well , first of all , my life was taking a pretty professional turn and , second , I found that there was no bloody way I could write seriously and think seriously on an ongoing basis if I was hungover .
Notice what he said . He said there's no way he could write or think seriously if he was constantly hungover . Interestingly , he didn't say that his life was going to , you know , just disintegrate and he was going to lose his relationship or business . Or he just got a DUI . No , he thought , hang on , wait a minute .
If I am going to be the best at my profession that I could possibly be , how is alcohol going to enhance anything ? He didn't say he was going to be a failure . He didn't say that he couldn't be successful without alcohol .
But what he said is he used the word seriously and whether you like this guy or not , you can't say that this person isn't a serious person . He's focused , he has a tremendous output and he does a lot of good in the world . Maybe some people are going to disagree with that , but that's your opinion and I've got friends that I don't know .
They run businesses and they drink , right . These aren't people that are interested in my content or anything like that , and I say this to them as well . How can you run a business to the best of your ability while putting a poison in your body , ruining the weekends , waking up hungover ?
It's impossible , and I'm so grateful that I also came to that realization just under six years ago , and I don't see alcohol as something that's going to enhance anything . All I do is see it as something that is going to slow me down , hold me back and potentially kill me .
And it sounds like Peterson came to a very similar realization that if he was going to get to the peak of his career , to really make the biggest contributions and biggest impact in the world , he had to stop drinking , which , to me , is a much more powerful reason to stop drinking than well . I just don't like the . You know the way I feel .
He had something that he wanted to go towards , which is what I always talk about . It's about having a future , having a vision , having something to work towards I always talk about . It's about having a future , having a vision , having something to work towards .
And he also , interestingly , spoke about the path that some of his friends or colleagues whatever you would call them , the people he went to university with .
He spoke about the path that they took and he clearly had two options right he could have stopped drinking and done what he wanted to do with his professional career , or look what could have happened if he continued down that path and it's unfortunate for his friends that took that path , but luckily Peterson took the path of not drinking .
So and I got married and and I was going to have kids , and I thought , yeah , enough of this . And so I had a bit of .
I thought , when I was 50 , that I might be able to drink again socially , and I toyed with it for about a year and found out that I was probably just as stupid at 50 as I had been at like 25 , and decided to dispense with that too , which was definitely .
You know , I've got people who I've spoken to . I've spoke to thousands of people who want to help stop drinking .
Sometimes I'll hear somebody that's like started drinking in their 30s , 40s and 50s and to me Peterson was playing with fire doing that , because drug addiction is a chain reaction , right Like you take one of the drug , and until you stop taking the drug the chain reaction doesn't end . So , to be honest , he got lucky there , because a lot of people do that .
They start drinking later on in life and they'll drink until they die . But luckily , at the end of that thing that he did in his 50s is that he came to the same conclusion . He realized no thanks , don't want this in my life .
I've met very , very many people in many , many social occasions and because I don't drink anything at all . Now if I go out and watch people drinking , it makes everybody stupid and fuzzy minded .
And you know the problem is is when you're drinking you think you're cool , but you know you have those same delusions that Homer Simpson's friend Barney had when he was drinking , that you're this kind of , you know , elegant and and sophisticated comedian and it just makes everybody stupid .
Yeah , I mean , does anybody disagree with that ? It does make people stupid . I mean , it made me stupid . I'm not trying to point my finger at everybody and say I'm better than them , but when I drank I was a clown . I'd get into arguments , I'd say the wrong thing to people and in my head I thought , oh yeah , just like you were saying I .
And in my head I thought , yeah , just like he was saying . I thought I was funny , I thought I was interesting .
And then isn't it interesting that when he said that he stopped drinking and then he started going to social events with clarity and being able to actually see how people behave when they drink , it further reinforces ideas that drinking alcohol is just stupid , because it really is . All it is is ethanol .
It's a poison that you're putting into your body that's doing nothing at all for you . 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 .