You'll hate it, but it WILL make you quit alcohol

So I've not touched a drop of alcohol for six years and I've been running a coaching company helping business owners and professionals stop drinking alcohol for over four years now .

I've personally spoken with over 2,000 people who have got a drinking problem and I have witnessed hundreds upon hundreds of people completely change their relationship with alcohol and change the trajectory of their life forever .

But after speaking with all of these people , after stopping drinking myself and after working with 400 clients in my Stop Drinking program , I have noticed a key difference between those that quit and actually stay quit for a long period of time and those that relapse again and again and again . And I don't want you to be that individual that keeps relapsing .

I want you to be the person that takes back control of their drinking and stays on this path for the rest of their life and , most importantly , I want you to have no desire to ever go back . And today I'm going to break down that difference , for you Can't wait to share this with you today .

So the individual that stops drinking alcohol and then slips up and slips up , and slips up . What's happening with them ? Well , what they're going through is a cycle , and this is something that I learned from a buddy of mine recently , but it looks something like this but basically , somebody will drink enough and something bad will happen .

Either they'll feel lethargic , they'll feel , you know , they'll feel bad about themselves , they'll have a bad hangover , something will happen with a family member , something bad happens and it causes the drinker an immense amount of pain .

And what ends up happening is the drinker feels this pain , they feel angry at themselves , and then it moves into some kind of action , and usually the action is stopping drinking . They might go to a meeting , they might start watching this YouTube channel , they might buy some books . They'll end up doing something to get themselves away from the pain .

And this is the cycle I used to go through . Right , I'd have some pain , I'd have a really bad hangover . I remember throwing up blood on a computer . I've done all this stupid stuff and it would cause pain , but then I'd get so angry with myself that I'd be able to take some kind of action .

And then the individual might stop drinking for two weeks , for four weeks , for six weeks , but after a while they start to feel kind of proud with themselves . They start to feel like do you know what I've got ? This ? This has happened to me before . I remember I'd stopped drinking alcohol for seven , eight , nine months . I'd built a personal training business .

My life was in the best place that it had ever been before and I was feeling proud . And I remember I went to a private members club on a New Year's Eve party , just feeling like , oh man , I'm successful . Now I've got a bit of money behind me , I'm doing well , I've got a business .

I remember talking to people and they were a little bit impressed with what I was doing . Maybe they were just humoring me , but at the end of the day I felt proud , right . I felt like , yeah , I'm doing well .

And then what happens is this pride then leaves into this feeling of comfort , and what ended up happening is there was a voice in my head that basically said you know what ? Life's pretty good right now . You could have one or two . And that night that feeling of comfort , that feeling of pride , led me to drinking alcohol again , and at first it wasn't bad .

I was living in that feeling of comfort . You know , my life didn't fall apart immediately .

I was still doing okay , I still had a relationship , I still had my business and , slowly but surely , all the things that got me to the place that I was in when I wasn't drinking alcohol , those good habits just slipped away one by one Started smoking a few cigarettes , stopped looking after my business .

That started crumbling away until the comfort led back into pain when I was at ground zero . And the cycle repeats . But I got to a place where I was able to escape that cycle , because it's the cycle that everybody goes through , every single person that's drinking alcohol , and they're stopping and starting all the time . This is exactly what happens .

So there are really five things that we need to do to escape the cycle . Now , the first thing is actually having a vision for your life . And why is this important ?

Well , what we don't want to do is we don't want to stop drinking alcohol just so we can lose 20 pounds or just so we can get our relationship back with our wife , because I've seen it before . I've seen people who have stopped drinking alcohol just because their wife is so sick of them and they're about to walk out . They stop drinking alcohol .

The wife comes back into their life , they make amendments , they're friends again , whatever . Four months passes and then they're drinking again because they didn't do it for themselves and they had no vision for their life . And if we don't think long-term and we only think short-term , we only see stopping drinking for 90 days to get some kind of outcome .

What do you think happens when you get the outcome ? Well , you go back to that feeling of pride . Then the little voice in your head starts coming back up saying well , the second thing is making a true commitment to getting rid of alcohol . See , too many of us try to stop drinking alcohol .

See , not only do we try and stop drinking for an outcome , but we never say to ourselves that I'm removing alcohol from my life and I'm putting it behind of me . Nobody makes a decision . We're always trying to stop drinking .

It's like you know you might've had it before where a friend's invited you out and you're like ah , do you know what , man , I'm trying to not drink at the moment ? You never tell them I don't drink anymore . Why are you inviting me out ? Nobody ever has the courage to kind of say enough is enough .

But I promise you that when you're able to make that true decision to getting rid of alcohol from your life , it's easy to not drink . It's as easy as just telling yourselves I'm going to stop eating oranges , right , I'm not going to drink orange juice anymore . How hard would that be ? Not hard at all , right .

But I know making that commitment is hard , which is why we need to go to the third thing , and that is completely changing your perspective . It's reframing how you view alcohol . I have read pretty much every single stop drinking book that I've been able to get my hands on , and I did this very early on in my journey . I don't do it anymore .

I've not listened to anything about stopping drinking in years , because I've solved the problem .

I changed my worldview and I made a decision , and it's why investing in programs , investing in courses , reading books , listening to podcasts , it's why spending a good chunk of time at the beginning of your journey , changing your perspective , can just pay dividends for the rest of your life . But people that stay quit from drinking do this .

They change their worldview . The fourth thing that I've noticed that they also do is they don't do it alone . They have either a coach , they have a community sometimes both or they have very close friends that they do this with .

Now I was very blessed that when I stopped drinking alcohol , my best friend he also stopped drinking and we lived in the same apartment complex and it wasn't that I necessarily needed somebody to hold me accountable . I didn't feel like that because I'd really made the decision .

But it was good to not feel alone because , hey , when you stop drinking alcohol , you're doing something that most people will never do , and being able to do this with other people makes a difference . It's why people like going to AA meetings . Aa wasn't for me .

I don't want to call myself an alcoholic , I don't buy into the 12 steps , but I remember when I went to AA meetings that there was some feeling of camaraderie . And the fifth thing that people do that stay quit from drinking alcohol is they have skin in the game .

Making a financial investment in yourself to get on this journey and not drink alcohol is a real sign of you making a commitment to better your life . It really helps you burn the bridges and there's a real consequence for you to actually drink If you've just spent money on a coach or on some kind of accountability or some kind of program , and you drink again .

Guess what ? That money has gone to waste . But if you make a financial investment , you get skin in the game and it means something to you . If you drink and there is a real consequence , of course it's going to be easier to not drink . I've spent so much money on coaching programs way over $50,000 .

So basically , what I'm saying to myself is that if I drink alcohol , all the money that I've invested in coaching programs , in personal trainers , all of that stuff is wasted . It would have been a dead investment because I'm investing in things that make me level up , that make me better .

Now , these five things are also things that I apply in the Sober Clear program . So if you're a business owner , you're a professional and you want information on how the Sober Clear program works , just go over to SoberClearcom .

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 .