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 . Do you know how many times I've messed up in my life ?
Do you know how many times I've promised my family that I'm changing my life , I'm turning it all around , and then let them down ? Do you know how many times I've had to apologise and say I'm sorry , I'm sorry , I'm sorry ?
I remember when I was drinking alcohol I had to call my nana and ask to borrow some money because I had no food in the fridge and I said I promise you this will be the last time . Now , thankfully it was , but that wasn't the first time I'd done that .
I remember my mum picking me up on Christmas Eve and I'd left her Christmas present in the flipping train station back in Oxford where I was living . And I remember just one of the worst hangovers I've ever had .
And I remember her picking me up and I sat in the car after she picked me up from the train station and I was just sat there like I'm sorry , I can't talk .
Imagine that , not seeing my mum for months because I've been at university and then I'm sat in a car and I can't even look her in the eyes and it's easy to forget all the stupid decisions that I made when I was drinking alcohol and that might be similar to you as well .
You might know that you've caused damage to the people that you love to your wife , to your husband , to your children , to your parents , to your friends . Your choice to drink alcohol has probably upset a lot of people and it hurts and it's not nice . It's uncomfortable for me to even tell you this stuff . I hate talking about it , but it's easy to forget .
It's easy to kind of just put those memories aside of us , which I actually think is probably the right thing to do . I don't believe in this idea of going to the past and making amendments and saying sorry to everybody . See , the best apology to make to people who you've hurt in the past is to actually change and stay on a path of sobriety .
It's to stay on a path where you actually keep those promises that you've been breaking for years . You tell somebody you're going to do something and you stick with it . That's the best apology that you can make . See , what we don't know is how this period of our life can actually go and impact people positively . Later on Let me explain it for you .
So my mum hasn't drank alcohol for over 20 years . She stopped drinking alcohol when I was really young and she probably felt the same way when she was drinking . She probably felt upset , she probably felt embarrassed , she probably felt shame .
She was probably doing the same thing that we've all done right , where we promised people we're not going to do it again and then breaking promises and blah , blah , blah . But what my mum did is she was the first person , in kind of like my family , to break the cycle .
You know , pretty much everybody in my family has had a drinking problem at some point , but she was the first person to say I'm done . She actually did it through AA . Aa wasn't for me , but she took that path and it worked for her . But what she didn't see was that she was actually setting an example for me .
See , I did drink alcohol when I got older , but then I always remembered that my mum didn't drink . I've never seen my mum drink . I have one memory of seeing her drink when I was , like I don't know , three or four years of age , but she set an example to me that this is how you live your life and you don't drink .
See , she didn't know that her pain could have potentially saved my life . She didn't know that setting an example of being sober could have so much influence on me .
And , if you actually think about it , if I never stopped drinking alcohol , then my pain wouldn't have become a message that's impacted almost 20 million lives on the internet , which is crazy to think of . See , we don't know how our pain can turn into something .
Later on , my embarrassment and my shame has turned into a career where I've worked with people and actually helped them change as well .
So , wherever you are in your life right now , I wanted to let you know that it's okay If you're not in a place where you're happy with your life , if you look in the mirror and you don't see what you want to see , if your relationships aren't where you want them to be , if your bank account isn't exactly where you want it to be , it's okay .
Because I promise you one thing right here is where I'm going to get serious with you If you're able to change , if you start improving your career , your business , if you start spending more quality time with friends , with family , you don't think people will start to notice .
And here's the cool thing when you start changing , you start giving permission to everybody around you to change as well . But the thing that you need to do is actually change . You've got to change your life around . But I think it was Steve Jobs that said it you can't connect the dots looking forward . You can only connect them looking backwards .
You have got no idea , but you need to start improving . You need to get your life together . You need to get rid of the booze and start improving things . What you don't want to do is sit around feeling sorry for yourself , watching Netflix all day , going oh , not drinking is boring . Screw that mindset .
That's a loser's mindset and you're not a more about how we work with people to help them .