Why I failed to quit alcohol for 10 years

I've failed to stop drinking alcohol more times than I can count . It's been hundreds upon hundreds of failures . Stop drinking , last 24 hours drink again .

Sometimes I might go a week , sometimes it might be a month , and I think the longest I went was seven or eight months I can't remember the exact dates , but I've tried to stop drinking so many times and I have been met with failure after failure after failure . And today I want to unpack what I've learned after 10 years of trial and error .

I want to explain exactly why I failed to quit alcohol Because surely something worked . I've not drank for five and a half years , so I'm hoping that there's a lesson in here for you today to help you on your journey . Whether you're newly sober , still struggling or even one , two years into things , there'll be something for everybody in this video .

See , every time that I tried to stop drinking alcohol , this is what I'd always missed out . See , I've used this example before , but I used to have a friend that was successful , right , he had multiple investment properties , he had this career , he was making loads of money and we drank before .

In the past We'd gone out before , but then we'd also gone to restaurants where he'd drink you know one glass of wine and I'd be like , well , should we go and buy some more afterwards ? And he'd be like no , and I was always like how , how can he do that ? And I always held onto this idea of this friend .

So every time I tried to stop drinking , I'd think in my head of this friend that had his life together . He was in shape , had a relationship , you know was killing it on the business side of things , and I always thought back to him and thought he could control his drinking . He appeared to be in control and I always thought back to this person .

And a lot of the times when I did relapse from alcohol , I would think that that was possible for me as well . I had this ideal in my head that it was possible to live a great quality of life and then have a couple of drinks here and there .

So every time that I tried to stop drinking alcohol , I had this belief that there was a benefit to drinking alcohol . I believed that there was something that I could gain from drinking the stuff . Otherwise I would never have drank it .

If I had a friend in the exact same situation that was smoking crack at the weekend , but he only ever smoked one crack pipe a day or a week or whatever , I wouldn't feel like , oh , that's why he's successful . But I used to think , oh , maybe there's something in it , maybe there's a benefit he gets , maybe it's helped his career , maybe it's doing something .

And I'd associate alcohol with a good quality , successful life . And this is the first mistake that I made . My belief system with alcohol was faulty . I bought into ideas that were totally untrue . How can consuming this poisonous , addictive , toxic substance add anything to your life ? This guy didn't have his life together because he drank alcohol .

He was operating at a lower frequency , he was operating at 90% and still held his life together . He was successful in spite of drinking alcohol . We don't look at people that smoke heroin once a week and think , well , man , I want to be just like them . We have this belief , this underlying belief in society that alcohol is a good thing .

And that was my first mistake . I hadn't shifted that belief . So every single time that I tried to stop drinking alcohol , I had this voice in my head . I had these beliefs that were deep rooted , almost like it was in my subconscious mind , that alcohol is a good thing . So what do you think happened ?

Well , I mean , I might stop drinking for a few weeks , but then I never shifted that belief . So eventually , you know , when the hangover had worn off or when I'd lost a bit of weight , that belief that alcohol was a good thing would lead me to drink again . See , once I saw alcohol for what it actually was , something that didn't provide anything .

All it did was take from me . Once I truly understood that , I never drank again . I didn't want to drink . I didn't think of that person and think , oh , that's a good , that's an ideal . I started to feel sorry for him .

I started to think , man , if only you could see what I see , you'd just come to the same logical conclusion that I came to there is nothing in drinking alcohol , which leads me to the second mistake Now , because I had these faulty beliefs . How do you think it actually was ?

If I managed to go , I wouldn't go to bars , you know , if I walked past a pub and I knew some friends were in there . I'm probably going to skip the pub and if I ever wanted to drink , I would just be like right now , I can't drink , I can't drink . I told myself . I'm not drinking anymore , I'm not going to do this , I'm not going to do this .

So when a craving would come up or a good thing , how would I need to use willpower to not drink ? If I had to switch from brown bread to white bread for the rest of my life ? I'm never going to miss the brown bread .

If I had to change my suitcase brand and only use this suitcase for the rest of my life , I'm not going to think about the old suitcase and then walk past a suitcase store and be like man , I just wish I could have my old suitcase back . And even if I did have that thought , it would be a one second thought and I'd be well on my way .

But with alcohol it was different , and this is actually ignoring the physical addiction side of things and the actual physical cravings . I'm purely talking about the mindset . But if I had shifted my belief to see alcohol as something that provided nothing to me ? I don't need to avoid alcohol .

I can go and sit in a bar , I can sit in a restaurant , I can be with somebody that sat opposite me drinking a pint of beer and feel no desire because I was using the wrong approach . I was always using my own willpower . I was just fighting the cravings because I hadn't shifted my beliefs . And we know what happens never works long term .

Which leads me to the third and final mistake that I made .

So the way that I stopped drinking was I changed my beliefs by using something called first principles thinking , which is a problem solving mental model , which is all about dissecting a problem into its component parts , studying the individual component parts , putting them back together and then creating a new worldview .

But the most important thing that I did , once I had broken the problem down and studied the component parts and really started to see our goal for what it was , is , I then made a decision See , if you got new information tomorrow that proved your current worldview was wrong and you ignored it , then that's on you . And you know some people .

They do want to live in denial . They hear a message like mine , they hear a video like mine . They're like nah , this doesn't apply to me . I'm not acting on this information . Yet most people are so unaware they don't know that it's a poisonous , toxic substance . They think it does something for them .

Then , when they try and stop drinking alcohol , they wonder why it's so difficult . But what I did differently is , once I had that new information , I acted upon it . I knew that alcohol was the one thing in my life that if I fixed it , everything else would get better . I knew that it was the biggest problem that I had to solve .

But just imagine for a second that you had an individual with an illness . They had like some knee problem and they could only ever sit down .

And all the doctors had told them man , you're just going to have to sit down I'm pointing because there's a chair right next to me but you're going to have to sit down all day in that chair because your knees are done . You're never going to walk again . And that was like the general idea of what you should do with this specific knee problem .

Now what happens if , a year later , new evidence came out ? New research came out that showed that all that individual had to do was walk . If he could walk 500 steps a day , his knees would be totally fixed . It was very low effort . He could just walk around his home , walk in the garden , and it'd be done If he chose to get that information .

And , by the way , let's just say the information was 100% factual . There was no questioning that information . That's just how it was . If he walked those 500 steps , it was a 100% success rate and he would be fine If he chose not to act on that information . That's on him . I mean , it would be crazy .

But some people with alcohol I can give them this message . I can tell them that it's ethanol , that it's poison , that it does nothing for them , and they know in their heart that it's right . But they decide to not act upon it . They decide to just keep coasting , keep escaping , keep ignoring this message . But I did something different . I made a decision .

I decided to not drink alcohol again . And when I say a decision , I mean it was so clear , there was no doubt in my mind that I would drink again .