Do THIS Instead Of Drinking Alcohol On New Year’s Eve

They've got no structure . They're just giving it a go and hoping for the best . But in this video today we are going to fix that . I'm going to be giving you a proven six-step process to follow to help you stop drinking alcohol and , most importantly , never look back Now . I wanted this to be more of a mini-cause , a full guide that leaves no stone unturned .

So what I've done is I've created a worksheet and whilst we go through each of the six steps , there's going to be questions and places for you to journal and links to click on and things like that . So if you want to get access to that worksheet , just click the link in the description . I won't be asking you to fill in your name and email address .

You just click the link and then a Google document will open up . Once it's open , click file , make a copy and then you've got your own version of this worksheet to fill in or , if you want to print it out , you can do that as well . So I'm first going to give you a very quick introduction to who I am and then we're going to go into the six steps .

So my name's Leon Sylvester . I've not drank myself for over six and a half years , despite struggling . For close to a decade I tried everything AA meetings , willpower , begging God to help me in the church . None of the mainstream stuff worked for me . But everything shifted once . I changed the way that I view alcohol .

After that it was like the penny dropped and I never looked back and since stopping drinking I went from being overweight , bloated , lethargic , low energy , low self-esteem to truly building the life of my dreams .

Since then I've been sharing my journey on YouTube , trying to inspire other people to change the way they view alcohol , reframe it and just get on with their life , and now I've made over 700 YouTube videos , got over 20 million views , built a company called SoberClearcom , which is a coaching company where we work with business owners and high-level professionals and

we help them control their drinking quickly . If you want any details on the work that we do on SoberClearcom , just head over to the website . Just go to SoberClearcom and you can read a bit more about the program . You can see some reviews and so on , and I just wanted to tell you that , so you know that I know what I'm talking about .

When it comes to this topic , I'm not trying to say I'm some know-it-all , but when it comes to stopping drinking , I have a lot of experience . So let's get into it with the very first step . This is something 99.9% of people miss out , and I don't know why . And it's something that I actually did when I stopped drinking for six , seven or eight months .

With just willpower . I actually went through this process and it was only in hindsight that I could see how powerful it was . So I want to teach it to you now , because it's also something I did six and a half years ago when I stopped permanently .

And this is all about your personal inventory and , like I said , the worksheet's down below Just click the link in the description get the Google document so you can fill this in whilst we're working through things . So the very first thing you want to do here is you want to ask yourself why do you even want to do this ? Now ?

The reason why this is so important is because when we stop drinking alcohol , we do it because of some sort of pain . We might have a hangover , we might have upset somebody that we love , we might just be unhappy with the way we feel , the way that we look . Alcohol will have caused some kind of pain in our life and usually that kicks us into gear .

That gives us motivation to just get the ball rolling and that's fine . I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that . Pain is good , like pain can get us going . But one of the problems with this and something that happens later on down the line is the pain subsides .

If we're feeling low energy and we stop drinking for two weeks , of course we're going to feel better . If our wife's on our case saying I'm just sick of you drinking so much and then you've not drank for a month , she's going to be happy with you , depending on how much damage has been done . But you get the point Eventually .

After for some people a week , after some people a couple of months people get to a place where the pain has just gone and the reasons why they stopped drinking in the first place they're now kind of far away and what can then happen is , we forget the pain , we forget what things were like and we forget why we're even doing this in the first place .

It's kind of weird , isn't it ? We do something that causes a tremendous amount of pain , we don't like it , we want to change , and then we just forget . So the first thing that you can do is write down anywhere from five to ten reasons why you're serious about doing this , and just write down whatever comes to your head .

For me , if it was me writing this list six and a half years ago , I would have wrote about things like I hate the way it makes me feel , I hate the hangovers , I hate the fact that I'm never going to live up to my potential whilst I'm drinking . I might have wrote about my brother . I have a brother with a very large age gap . I'm 32 .

He you have a brother with a very large age gap . I'm 32 , he's 18 . I might have written about wanting to set a good example to him , not wanting to upset my family . And if it was day one for me , those things would be very clear in my mind . On the day , I'd know that that was why I wanted to stop drinking .

But I know myself A month later , two months later , three months later , I'd have forgotten all of that . So before you start this journey , get it down in writing . Write it down so you can remind yourself and put it in a place where you can periodically review it .

The second action item here is to write down a pain and pleasure list , and this just really gets you to reflect on your relationship with alcohol and really just ask yourself what is this doing for me ?

So you can either use the worksheet down below or just get yourself a blank A4 piece of paper , put down a line in the middle , write down pain on one side , pleasure on the other side , and then just start listing five to 10 reasons how alcohol has been causing pain in your life and then , on the other side of the equation , write down five to 10 ways how

your life is going to be so much more pleasurable once you fix this problem . Again , this is going to be very personal to you . You might not want to put this where your kids or your wife or your family are going to see it .

You might just want to have this stored away on your phone where only you're going to see it , but definitely don't be doing this and then throwing it in the bin . Put it in a place where you're going to see it , where you can remind yourself of why you're about to do this Now .

The third thing you can do here is you can start to create belief that you can actually do it . This is pretty important . If you start this journey thinking it's never going to work , you don't really want to start in this frame of mind . You want to start thinking , positive thinking .

Wow , this is going to be awesome and I'd argue one of the best tools in your arsenal for this is listening to success stories . It's finding people who inspire you , who you admire , and listening to their journey and listening to how their life has changed after stopping drinking . Now I have two resources for you here .

The first thing I've got for you is a list of around 15 to 20 different celebrities . Me and my team have gone and researched various celebrities' success stories when it comes to stopping drinking , and what I've done is I've put them into a YouTube playlist for you to watch .

But once you listen to those stories , it starts to make you feel like , wow , look how successful that guy's become now , that girl's become now . So this can create some belief Now , if you don't want to listen to celebrities , but you'd rather listen to everyday people .

I actually have around 15 to 20 clients who were brave enough to come onto the YouTube channel and share their story of stopping drinking , going through my process and then how life is like today . I've also created a playlist for you to watch where you can watch those interviews and just get yourself into that state of mind where it's like it's go time .

So both of those playlists are in the description below . You'll see the celebrity playlist , then the client playlist and also , if you're following along in the Google Doc worksheet , you'll see some links to access those playlists there . So let's get into step two , which is all about what to do before you quit . Now . My recommendation here is to pick a system .

Now . What I mean by this is you want to find a process Now , sure , we're going for a six-step process right here . For most of you , this will be enough , but some of you might just need another level . You might need a system like AA right , like Smart Recovery , like Celebrate Recovery . You might need to be going to a church .

Some people find it through self-education , through reading books , but I do recommend that people find some kind of system and just stick

to it . Now , what I did and my system is , it's all about reframing how you view alcohol . This is my recommendation . I don't do AA or smart recovery . I don't do any of that stuff . My way is different . So I'll explain my system and then you can either do that alone or , if you want to do it together , I'll explain how we can work together .

But my system was all about using something called first principles thinking . What this means is that you get the problem alcohol , addiction , conditioning , marketing you get all of these things and you break them down and what we do is we study these individual component parts of the problem and then we put them together to create a completely new worldview .

We think about our beliefs around alcohol , around addiction . We think of our perception of the drug . We study those things until it's like a light bulb goes off . It's like you were blind and now you could see .

Now you can do that through self-study , through books , through educating yourself , through a lot of introspection , a lot of journaling , a lot of writing , which is what I did . Or , if you want to do it together , just go to soberclearcom . You can read a bit more about the method and how it works , and I'll leave a link in the description for you to click .

If you want to book a call to speak with me and my team , we can see if my system could be a good match for you . It's not for everybody , it's for business owners , it's for professionals . So , again , if you want to see if it's a good match , go to the website or click the link in the description .

So let's actually talk about the third thing , which is quitting . Now , the thing about quitting is what we don't want to do is try to stop . What we don't want to do is stop for 30 days . Now I'll explain why in a second . But the thing that we want to do is make a true decision .

We don't want to be in and out and messing around with things , because what happens when we don't decide to stop drinking and we try and we go for 30 days is alcohol lives on a pedestal .

We're basically telling ourselves that the longer that we go without drinking , the higher alcohol is on a pedestal , and we're almost sub-communicating that the longer we go , the more we want to drink . Think about it when we say we're trying to stop drinking , it's like we're creating an escape route .

But when you make a true decision and you just decide , from that point on , I'm changing who I am and that's it everything . It's not a small bit easier , it's just easy because that's who you are now . You're not a struggling person trying to stop drinking . You just made a decision and moved on .

Now , obviously , this is so much easier once you've fully changed your perception of alcohol , reframed it , and you just know in your heart that there's nothing to gain from drinking .

Of course , it's going to be so much easier then , which is why I always stress doing first principles , thinking , reframing alcohol , getting into that state of mind where you see it the same way that you'd see any other drug , and then just making a decision .

Now , the second thing to remember , when you actually quit , is that it can take a bit of time to adjust to things , for things to feel normal again . It might take a few days , it might take a week , it might even take a couple of weeks , depending on how much you drank .

But you might feel like something's not quite right , like something's missing and it's I don't know . It just feels weird , and that's totally okay . If you feel this way , it's normal . You might feel some level of withdrawal , but again , that's normal as well .

Sure , there's a percentage of the population that it can be dangerous for , and if you think that's , you definitely seek medical advice . But for most of the population during this phase , they just don't feel quite right .

But I want to let you know one thing Any discomfort or bad feelings that you've got over the week will pass and at the end of it you've just made one of the best exchanges of your life . You've exchanged three , seven , maybe 14 days of discomfort for what ? For a lifetime of freedom , better health , living longer , better relationships , everything .

So just remember , it's an exchange and there's literally nothing you can do in your life that will give you a better return on your time than those few days . So frame it this way Don't think , poor me , I can't drink boohoo , no Think . Do you know what ? This isn't so bad . What a small price to pay for what's to come .

So we're now going to start talking about what to do after quitting . What is to come . So the fourth step is life as a non-drinker . I'm going to give you some counterintuitive things to do that probably sound different to everything else you've heard .

Now these are things that worked for me for the past six and a half years , and they're things I recommend my clients do as well . The first thing you do not want to do is avoid alcohol , and what I mean by this is , let's say , you know you've got your best friends and they're hosting a party and you know alcohol is going to be there .

But you think to yourself do you know what ? I don't know if I should go . I'm not drinking at the moment . What happens if I end up drinking again ? Now , this is why making a decision to stop drinking and sticking with it is so much easier . It's because , when it comes to situations like this , you just go and you don't drink . So it's fine .

But if you start avoiding alcohol , you're basically communicating to yourself that there's still something beneficial . There's still something pulling you towards drinking it . Provided you see alcohol for what it is , you shouldn't be avoiding alcohol . When you see people drink , you should see it for what it is . They are drinking a poison , they are drinking ethanol .

It's literally the equivalent of drinking bleach . Why would I ever want to drink bleach ? That's the way I see alcohol . So when I'm around people that drink , I don't think , oh , I wish I could have some . I think , oh you , and that's such a contrast to what it was like when I was struggling for 10 years .

But don't avoid alcohol , because then you're just keeping it on a pedestal . The second thing you want to avoid doing is you want to avoid this idea of having just one drink . I'm telling you , this is playing with fire .

I have promised myself I'm going to have just one drink , probably 300 times , probably more , over the course of my life , and it never ends that way . Alcohol is a chain reaction that never ends until it stops . It's impossible to have just one drink . If you could have just one drink , you'd have had one drink the last time .

You said you were going to have one drink , but you didn't . And already the fact that you're thinking of having just one drink again means that the last time you said that to yourself , you're breaking it again . Do you see the craziness , that voice in your head ? It needs to be disregarded Now . The third thing is do not envy normal drinkers .

And what I mean by this is when I was trying to stop drinking for 10 years , I used to romanticize this idea that one day I could be a normal drinker , that person that has half a bottle of wine instead of the whole bottle and then puts it back in the fridge .

That was never me , but I used to want to be that person , so every time I stopped when I was around somebody like that , I'd just be like , oh he can do it , why can't I ? Alcohol is a drug right . Just because if I drink a drug and then want to drink more , it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me or anything like that .

It's the nature of a drug , and even though that person may seem like they've got their lives together they're only drinking a small amount of alcohol . It's still doing nothing for them .

I have no desire to be a normal drinker anymore , because there's nothing normal about putting a poison in your body , and I know that if I drink it and try to be a normal drinker , I have a 0% track record of success when it comes to that . I don't need to lie to myself anymore , and why would I want to roll the dice ?

Why would I want to gamble with my life ? Everything's going so well now , so why would I want to be this normal drinker ? That's why I don't drink alcohol-free drinks . I did make a video talking about what I do drink instead of alcohol-free drinks . If you want to watch that , you can click the link up here .

I'll also put a link to that video in the Google document . So if you're following along in the Google document , there'll be a link there and there'll be a link in the description . Now step number five how can we achieve long-term sobriety ? How can we go for one , two , three years ? Well , again , I'm going to give you some non-mainstream advice .

You might have heard it before go to meetings , sit around telling war stories , go to a therapist . I didn't do any of that . The first thing you need is you need a vision for your life . Going away from pain isn't enough . We need something to go towards . We need something that gets us out of bed in the morning .

So one of the best things you can do is transport yourself 10 years into the future and just imagine everything's perfect . You've got the house . You want the business , the career that you want , the family life . You want the health you want . You want to create a vision of how that looks . You want this ideal , this North Star , to work towards .

Now , don't get me wrong . This can take time to develop , but the longer you drink , the more self-trust that you build and the bigger your goals can end up becoming . Because if you promise yourself you're not going to drink and then you stick with it , you start to think , oh well , hang on .

What happens if I actually set a goal for my business , for my health , for my family ? You start to build this insane level of self-trust . So it might take time to develop , but spend time thinking about what's next in your life . The next thing I've got for you is to really focus on creating a new identity .

What I mean by this is don't focus on being a recovering alcoholic for the rest of your life or I'm a sober person . Now . I know my channel is Sober Leon , but I'm not going to parties and identifying as the sober guy you know . Hey , everybody , look at me , I don't drink . No , I don't think like that at all .

My channel is Sober Leon , so people know what I'm talking about . But my friends don't see me as Sober Leon . My friends don't think , oh , should we invite Leon here ? He doesn't drink . No , it's not like that . I just see myself as the way I'm supposed to be . I was born somebody that didn't drink alcohol , was confident as a teenager and a child .

There was nothing wrong with me . Then I didn't need alcohol . Then I just got addicted to a drug , removed the drug from my life and that was it . Now , listen , is there anything wrong with labeling yourself a recovering alcoholic , a sober person ? Not really , not inherently . It doesn't harm anybody else .

But I don't want to continually communicate this way to myself oh , I'm sober , I'm doing so well . No , I'm not doing well just because I'm sober . I don't see that as an achievement . To me , getting sober is like the first step to getting your life back , and then what you do after that counts .

So instead of just seeing yourself as sober and making that your life achievement , I think it's much better to focus on being , you know , being an athlete , right . Being an amazing parent , being an amazing partner , being amazing at your career , being a peak performer .

This is how you want to identify yourself , not just as a sober person and I know that sounds critical and some people might just think it's borderline , arrogant but in the past I've communicated with myself in this way . I've called myself a recovering alcoholic , right , somebody that's got this disease for the rest of their life and it did nothing to help .

I wanted to stop drinking and fix it like I'd fix any other problem . See , if I've got a weed in my garden over there and the weed keeps coming up and I pull it out and then it comes back up . And I pull it out and it comes back up , I'd get pretty annoyed . I just want to put some proper weed killer on there and it just never comes back .

That's what I wanted it to be like with alcohol . I wanted to fix this problem basically put the weed killer on and just move on with my life Sounds harsh , but that changed the game for me . And listen , no judgment . Whatever works works . Like I said , it doesn't harm anybody . I'm just sharing

what worked for me . Final thing I've got for you is you don't want to count the days Because again , it goes back to that mindset . You're telling yourself the longer that you drink , the more of a non-drinker that you are . Wow , I've gone six months . Wow , I've gone a year . That means I'm doing even better .

Listen , if you ask me once , you've changed the way that you view alcohol . There is no difference between day one and year 10 . It makes no difference . Have you been counting the days that you've not smoked crack , for not smoked heroin , for counted the days that you've not jumped in front of a moving car , for no , you would never do that . Why ?

Because they're things that you're just not going to do . So why can't we get into that state of mind with alcohol ? That's just a decision . I've made a problem , I've solved and I'm moving on . So let's get in to step six . Let me give you some tools and strategies Now .

Obviously , you've got a bunch of resources in that document , so that should be super helpful , and you have two options . You can do all of this on your own , which is totally fine .

It's just going to be a little bit harder , cost you a bit more , there's more chance of failure or me and my team can actually guide you through a process to getting in control of your drinking quickly .

What me and my team do is we focus on number one reframing how you view alcohol , using first principles thinking , which works for 92 to 97% of our clients . It's incredibly effective . And then we're all about coaching and focusing on the future and having a community of business owners , of professionals , of like-minded individuals to do this with .

When you combine these two things together , you have one of the most powerful combinations . There is A new perspective combined with accountability and the right community . 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 .