WHY I Relapsed On Alcohol

Relapsing is one of the worst things that can happen to somebody who made a vow to themselves that they would no longer drink alcohol . Relapsing can just crush somebody's self-esteem when they didn't want it to happen .

And listen , I have relapsed more times than I can count because I was the kind of person that just kept trying to stop drinking alcohol and then would relapse , relapse , relapse . But today , in this video , I'm going to break down what happened during my final relapse ever .

For those of you that know my story , I've not drank now for five years , but just before I stopped drinking alcohol , I went on one final run of chaos . And I say final because after that I stopped drinking for good . Like I've not drank for five years , I have no desire to drink alcohol ever again .

But what I want to do for you in this video is talk about the shift that happened , how I went from crushing life . You know , I had this great personal training business , I had a girlfriend , I had a car , how I went from having this great life without alcohol to then going back to it .

Because if we're able to see the shift that happened in my mindset , which led me to drinking again , then , hey listen , we're all going to be better equipped . You're going to be better equipped because it can sneak up on you . So if you're currently sober , you're a few weeks , in , a few months in you'll get something from this video .

But also if you're still trying , if you're still putting the pieces together , really figuring out how to get control of your drinking , this will be helpful as you go on your journey . Can't wait to share this with you . So what basically happened in my life is I actually went on an exchange semester in America and it was incredible .

I went to USF in Tampa , so it was in Florida , and it was an awesome time . However , I'll be honest , when I was there , I was drinking . There was like a lot of partying , but it wasn't like crazy . I didn't really get into like a dark place or anything like that , and I met incredible people some of those people I'm still in touch with today .

But this is like what six or seven years ago now . Man , that is crazy , time flies right . But I did this exchange semester and I decided that when I came back because I went to university in Oxford , and I decided that when I went back to university , I just didn't want to go back to Oxford yet I wanted to kind of do my own thing .

So what I did is I went to Cardiff , which is the capital city of Wales , and at the time , when I was a student , I used to work in a restaurant . I used to work in Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant . It was called Jamie's Italian .

But I decided , right , I'm gonna go to Wales , try a new city out , work in the Jameys there for the summer , save up some cash and then go back to university . At least I'll have , you know , a few thousand pounds . And this is when things started to take a turn for the worse when I was at this restaurant .

It's a big drinking culture and not like normal drinking , not partying . It was like we're going out to drink , we're gonna sit in a bar to drink . I just got carried away like I just went out all the time . You know , I don't know how many times I went out , I can hardly remember a lot of it .

But there was one night that I went out on my own because I've been drinking pretty much daily and what happens to me is when I drink daily I just want to keep it going , keep it going , keep it going . The last thing I want to do is even take one day off . And it was just another ridiculous run .

And I went out one night totally on my own and I remember I went and sat in this bar . I had like four drinks in one bar , it was like four doubles and then I walked to this other place completely on my own and it was like I don't know a mile away . It was quite fun .

I'm walking through the capital city on my own at like one in the morning , which is like a stupid decision anyway , because there was a lot of fighting and violence in this city . It was like quite wild . It's whales Anyway , not saying there's anything wrong with Welsh people , but it was just a wild city right .

There was a lot of drinking and a lot of partying in that place . I remember going to this other bar and then I remember having like a drink there and I don't remember anything else . I just don't remember a single thing that happened .

I remember waking up the next day and I looked over and I had thrown up blood , like it was this brown bile , which I then later googled and it was like that can be like blood coming out of your stomach , and I was like or whatever I don't know if it was my stomach , I can't remember , but it was disgusting and I'd thrown it up on my computer and I was

just crushed . I couldn't believe what had happened and it scared the living daylights out of me . I was terrified because I've had consequences from my drinking plenty of times , but nothing was this severe because this was like a serious health thing . And I'm like 23 , 24 years of age and I'm just terrified .

And I remember that hangover that day was one of the worst hangovers I've ever had in my life . It lasted like three days , I was anxious , it was horrible and that was enough to get me to just say I am not doing this anymore and I really meant it Stop drinking alcohol .

And then , you know , good things started happening and I started going back to this gym . And I went back to this gym it was called a pure gym and there I met this guy who was a personal trainer and he was just like a normal dude , you know , he wasn't like over the top or anything like that . And he was telling me you know , this is a great business .

I've always got money in the bank account . It's changed my life . I had this crap job before and now I'm doing personal training . And I was like huh , really that's interesting . And when I looked at him I thought there's nothing that you have that I don't .

It's not like you're some I don't know , mastermind or you know you've had like the backing of a million F . It was nothing . I was just like I can do this . So I moved back to Oxford and then I started this personal training business and I killed it .

It was so much fun , like I was learning all of these new skills of entrepreneurship , building systems , marketing , sales , helping people change their bodies through exercise , through good nutrition , and it was awesome and life was just going really really well . I remember I used to get my university assignments and I would finish it the day that it was set .

I'd have like a two week deadline . I'd just go to the library , I'd sit there for eight hours , finish the whole thing , send it back to my professor and then just go back to the gym and start building my business . I was just on cloud nine . I was just crushing it and life was going so well . I finally felt like I'd found my groove in my twenties .

I was like , yes , this is it . And it all came crumbling down . What ended up happening is I went to this New Year's Eve party and it was this really cool party . It was in a private members club in London and I was with other people that were drinking and I remember I met these people .

They were drinking champagne and I'm looking around me and I'm thinking well , it's New Year's Eve , like , everybody's drinking . Look how happy everybody is . And there was a shift that happened that night . This tiny seed got planted as soon as I got into that place of like oh yeah , yeah , this is cool .

Everybody was sophisticated , everybody was dressed really well , they were affluent people . It was really cool . And I was like they're all drinking and well , look at this , their life's okay . They look like they're well put together . Ah , do you know what ? Maybe it won't be so bad if I just drink tonight . That was the idea .

Just have a couple of drinks tonight . I've drank two espresso martinis and after that , pfft again . It was just madness . And then what happened is I basically destroyed everything . I got back to ground zero and then I made that final decision to stop drinking alcohol .

I won't go into that right now because it's not too relevant , but you can see what happened here . I got to a place where I was . I just hated alcohol . I was so upset and I was so afraid of drinking that I stopped . It was enough to get me going , but I did no other work . All I did after that was stop drinking alcohol .

And then I built a great life . But I didn't learn about alcohol . I didn't read about alcohol . I just said that's enough to get me going . Boom . But that tiny seed of me still seeing alcohol is a good thing that I was resisting drinking . That small seed that one night just grew until it was the only thing I could think about doing .

And then , boom , I'm drinking again . And this is the problem . If you see any benefit to drinking alcohol , then this could happen to you . I'm not saying it's gonna happen for sure , but I don't know your exact situation . But I know one thing for sure If you see a benefit of drinking alcohol and you get put in a situation like this .

What do you think will happen ?

Well , maybe you excuse yourself , maybe you leave early , but either way , if you still see a benefit to drinking , then you will be in that party , that event , whatever it is that day wanting to drink , seeing them as doing something that you wanna do , that you're resisting doing , and it's why building a paradigm where you see alcohol for what it is is just the

most important thing that you can do with your time , if stopping drinking

is important to you . If I could go back in time , what I would have done is I would have gone back to day one of stopping drinking and I would have just learned .

I would have spent the next two , three , four months just learning everything I can about alcohol and really just solidifying a worldview , which is something that I did after stopping drinking five years ago . But I just wish I did it back then . But anyway , it is what it is right . We can't live in regret . It's already done . Now . The past is done .

All we can do is focus on the future and now . But that was the big thing was seeing this benefit of drinking alcohol .

But then the other big mistake that got me to relapse was just thinking that I could go back to controlling it again and I'm not gonna lie , after I took that drink , it wasn't that bad Things , just kind of like were okay at the beginning . This idea of going back to controlling alcohol is just nonsense , because alcohol is a drug .

The nature of a drug is for you to drink one and then want to drink more and more . 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 .