Get everyone Sam here. I'm about to jump on a plane and shoot off to New York with my little girl, Eedie, which I'm very very excited about. Haven't been overseas, have not been overseas since COVID, So there you go. So we're off to New York for her to interview and tour around two colleges that she is hoping to get into, which I'm very excited about. I'm excited about it for her and I'm just excited that we get to spend a bit of one on one time together which she'll
be really, really nice. And whether or not I'm having a glass of champagne on the flight on the way over, we'll probably be determined by how the conversation goes with our next guest, which is the wonderful Danny Carr. She gave up alcohol five years ago, hasn't had a sip since. We're going to find out why. We're going to find out what she's doing to help encourage others to do the same. It's a wonderful story that's up next on the Woodlife. And then make sure you hang around because
finally we are going to address calorie deficit. What it means what you need to understand and does it work? That's up next on the Woodlife through to introduce our next guest who has actually taken time out of her travel schedule. She's traveling with her family around Australia and is currently in Broome, so wonderful of her to join us. It is Danny Carr, who is a sober coach and founder of How I Quit Alcohol. Danny, thanks so much for joining us on the wood Life.
Hi Sam, thanks for having me so.
Five years ago, roughly you decided to go sober. Let's start there before we sort of get into now what you do, let's talk about your own experience. Why did you decide to go sober five years ago? I've got so many questions about this, both from I'm sure what our listeners want to know and from a personal perspective.
Yeah, well, basically it We've just been decades of binge drinking like and not all the time, like you know, going sometimes a month or two without drinking, and then thinking Okay, I've got this, and then just getting absolutely hammered and just like what the hell happened last night?
Waking up with those terrible hangovers and just not remembering what had gone down the night before, or my husband not having some massive blowout like an argument from the night before and not really remembering what that was about. But then also starting like our kids starting to notice, particularly our eldest, so she was sort of noticing drunk behavior and just thinking, this is not what I want
for them. But then it was it's so not only in our culture, but also my husband's in the music industry. We've been in the music industry for a long time. It's just what's expected of you. It's just everywhere, and growing up in the country, just from a young age, it's just what we did every single weekend. But then as we were getting older, it was becoming more and
more frequent. So my husband get home from tour on a Tuesday, and then we'd have a huge blowout that night, and then he goes off on tour and has a blowout that weekend. It was just becoming more and more common, and the blackouts were kind of getting longer and longer, and it was just realized, this isn't getting any better, you know, and so we decided to a friend of mine, let's take a year off the booze together. Like I
was going to do it. Then asked my husband Ash, did you know do you want to do this too? And he said yes, And then we asked our friends Scott. Well, we told Scott about it, his bass player from the Living End. He's like, yep, I mean it. Said right, let's say let's do this for one year and see how I feel at the end of it.
Do you still feel like a drink? Now?
It's so funny because not really, like, very very rarely, but when Ash and I pulled up in broom, we're going to the seafood restaurant and we're about to and the sun and I just said to Ash, oh my god, I just had this sort of craving just for a second for white wine. Oh that's interesting, and he's yeah. Then like it passed pretty quickly, but it was interesting that that just just showed up, just this little flicker that came that came into my mind for a moment.
But not very often. Okay, so not very often at all. Yeah.
I guess the thing that I notice is the huge variance in people's attitude towards alcohol. Some people, if I said to them, you've got to have a year off alcohol, Yeah, no worries to me, that's fine. Other people like they fall over and say, you are kidding. Some people, if I said to them, you're going to have three alcohol free days a week would be like, I can't. I had seven months off when Sneez was pregnant with our third little girl, little Charlie, and I found the first
month hard, and it definitely got easier afterwards. You know, we've got dry July about to start. Let's start there. Do you think doing it for one month is a good starting point or do you think people should make a bigger commitment.
Well, personally and just from experience and working with people now, I find that the one month is good. I think any time off it is great. After the one month, I think that's when you kind of dopamine levels kind of level out, and you kind of get into a bit more of a I don't know, your body starts to get back into its own rhythm. You know, you start to sleep better.
Yeah, so you think that can take a month, Danny, Yeah, I.
Reckon it takes about a month twenty one days two a month.
Yeah, So that's really interesting because and I just said after a month that got easier. But for me, I never put that down to a physiological reason. I think I just and I don't know, maybe I'm just getting better at managing it and catching up with people in non alcoholic settings. I don't know. That's really interesting that there's actually a physiological reason that it does get easier after that sort of twenty one to thirty days. I think that's important that people know that.
Yeah, there's a great book called Dopamine Nation by doctor Anna Leemke, and that's a great book to look into because she explains how the dopamine levels out after the twenty one days, usually twenty one days to a month. Then after that it's really good to start looking at the behaviors that drive our drinking. So perhaps after that time, if you really want to get into the needy gritties of it, maybe give it another month after that to go Okay, now I'm starting to feel a bit more
normal now. What So if I give it another month after that, I start to notice what do I need it? Like, what's making me need the alcohol, and looking at what drives us to drink in the first place. So for me, I realized after some time, I'm so uncomfortable, I'm socially really awkward, and I'm really uncomfortable in a group setting.
And I noticed that was what was triggering me to drink and was probably what was causing me to have big blackouts because it was guzzling because I felt so uncomfortable. And once I realized that I was able to kind of work with that a bit, and now now I'm pretty good socially. I must say I don't love it. I don't love being in a big group, but I
can see why that drove my drinking. So one thing I find that when we take out the alcohol, we start to understand our own behaviors a whole lot better and we start to see what's, yeah, what's causing this, because sometimes we're leaning on alcohol without even realizing why what we want from it. One question I always asked when I work with people is why, like, what does
it do for you? What's right about it? And so I just find you can do the month off and that's all good, but if you want to kind of understand it a bit more, give it another four weeks after that or another few weeks after that. Let's see how you feel and to see what comes up for
you and see what you can learn about yourself. The twelve months that we took off from alcohol was probably one of the greatest year in terms of learning about ourselves and our own behaviors, both Ash and myself and the others in the group that's stuck stuck with it. I think it's I think give it a bit longer, I'd say a yeah, Like I always, I think a year is just amazing. One hundred days or a year, you know, like, get give it a bit more time, okay, and then you get some real benefits out of it.
And so what are the main benefits? I mean, I think I have a pretty good handle. But for our listeners that are perhaps focusing on what they like about alcohol, do you want to paint them a bit of a wonderful positive picture to what they've got to look forward to if they have one hundred days off or a year off.
Look for us, I could go on for hours. Probably the first and foremost thing is the way I found about myself because I was waking up all the time, like hating myself and having this dialect with myself all the time though you've done it again or that kind of stuff. So not waking up burating myself, you know, most weekend and then that would also it would last for like a few days afterwards as well. So that kind of negative conversation I was having with myself stopped.
So the relationship with myself changed.
And let's not underestimate the power of that. I mean, that's huge. That's not a little thing. That is massive.
Yeah, Sam, that's like life changing. It's like if you start to like yourself hating yourself, it changes everything. You treat yourself so much better. You not just what you're eating, but the conversations, the quality of your relationships, everything changes. That was one of the greatest gifts our relationship. Oh my god. We went from borderline we're about to break up here, I'm on real estate dot com, you know, after every big binge, yeah, looking for Arendall, to this
relationship completely changed by our relationship. It's just so oh god, I can't even begin, you know, and then I get. And then also just on a product activity level, like our productivity went through the roof. Everything improved, I can't even And then just most importantly, there was probably the mental health stuff just improved. I was having a lot
of anxiety. The anxiety stopped completely, and that was just cutting out the alcohol alone, all the other stuff I did afterwards, So just endless energy levels just amazing and sleep, Like, the sleep improves so much and it's not a day I regret not drinking. And I was a pretty big party girl. Yeah, that was definitely my identity.
When you do drink, there's all of that. It triggers all of these other negative behaviors that we don't necessarily think of as drinking induced, but when we trace it back, that's where they sort of start, whether it's poor influence on your children, or bad relationships or taking drugs or whatever, you know. And then when you don't all this time to exercise and I'm all of a sudden, I'm caring more about what I eat and I'm writing a book or you know, my career has taken off or whatever.
You know, it's just amazing how it either shuts down these opportunities or opens them up. And I just think you shouldn't underestimate the power of that. What happened, if anything, with the relationship with your kids when you stopped, And also just while I remember it, how powerful was it that you and your husband did it together rather than trying to do it on your own.
Yeah, such good questions, both of them. Well, firstly, the relationship with the kids. The biggest night that I had before I quit, and I this night was I think it might have happened in September, and I didn't quit until the January, so it happened a bit before. But I had this huge binge and it was mean to be looking after my friend's kids and I ended up the parents of those kids end up having to come
and look after me. I got so drunk and so embarrassing, and my daughter had to hold back my hair while I was vomiting, and it was awful, and I just, you know, and I told her, you know, I must have had something bad to eat. And I woke up later that night just so full of shame and just thinking this is so bad, like for my daughter to see. I can't laugh this off anymore. And now that she's
involved and she's sort of seeing this, I know. So I grew up in an addicted parent, and I can really clearly remember not having that trust, not feeling safe enough sometimes when you know if mum was really under the influence of the drugs or the booze or the both. And I just thought then I don't ever want my kids to feel like that, to feel not safe around me, And it's you know, I want them to be able to depend on me. So that was one of the
biggest drivers obviously. But I remember her saying to me at the end of the year, you're not going to start drinking? Can I year?
And I was like, wow, that's powerful. Wow.
I just knew that she felt safer from me not drinking and for actional drinking.
So that came from her. That was not that wasn't an answer to her question or that just she initiated that.
Yeah, she initiated that.
And how old was she when she did that, Danny?
She was probably nine.
Wow. Wow's that's amazing.
Yeah, and it did for us too, were like, oh god, and I think Sam as well. And this also goes into your next question because our relationship had improved so much because you think the kids are in better sleep when you're having this big argument, you know they're probably not. They're probably hearing it, or they're sensing the aftermath of it,
perhaps even the next day, the change and energy. So not having that as well for a year because our relationships started to improve so much and it's not like we're fighting all the time. We had a pretty good relationship. And also just going back to that, it's not like we were drinking every day either. So the kids are getting you one way one minute and then they're seeing you the next way.
Yeah another minute, No consistency.
Yeah, it's so yeah, where's the consistency there? So then I think doing the quitting together and not everyone gets this either, So I'm so grateful. I've got to say that, because I know there's so many people that they're trying to do it and their partner doesn't want to do it, and there's this kind of incongruency there within the relationship.
But to do it together was amazing, and because we went on this kind of soul journey a bit together, Like we started reading Wayne Dyer books and getting into I don't know, just positive affirmation stuff, which Ash would
have thought so we were before, and a gratitude journal together. Well, I could write our gratitudes and talk about what we're grateful for, and yoga and all this stuff that we started to do together, and he was getting to whim off and I don't know, we just had different things to talk about now and it was all positive, and so that effect on your relationship, it's got to have a good effect, you know, And so it always was.
I always thought too, I wanted, you know, we're thinking about breaking, which is so sad because we've got such a relationship. Alcohol is the only thing that caused us to fight. And then I thought, I'll see how I feel at the end of this, at the end of this year, I'll decide if we're going to stay in this relationship or not. And thank god, you know, at the end, it was like cool. I was like, this is my best friend, I love this person. But it
strengthened our relationships so much. And yeah, I think doing it together really really helps. But also I know that that's not a possibility for everyone.
There will be so many people listening to this. I'm sure that know that this is them, or at least part of what they're saying is what they're living, and they haven't had the courage to talk about it, or perhaps even the courage to admit it, you know, even to themselves. I guess my my challenge to our listeners is I think sometimes we you know, we always say, oh, yeah,
but that person actually has a drinking problem. You know, I don't like we always like to play down our own circumstance and deflect to others or look at extreme kind of consequences that might not be relevant to us. What I don't want is our listeners to be going, oh, you know, that's applaud Danny, and it's incredible what they did.
But I have much better control than that when I drink, you know whatever, And I just don't want our listeners to go, Yeah, those particular things that we your lowest points aren't relevant to me, and therefore I don't need
to seriously consider this. I mean, what's your advice to people you know are sitting there telling themselves this is not actually as big a problem for me as it was for Danny, and therefore I'll just continue on my way, Like, how do you convince those people or how do those people perhaps identify the other areas in their life in which it is negatively impacting them. That's a hard question to answer, But you don't want to have to get
to rock bottom before you do something about it. I mean, there's probably part of you that thinks I wish I'd done this earlier.
Absolutely, and Ash and I've had this conversation so many times, so you'd be like, oh God, I wish I'd have done this sooner, because I didn't realize how good it was going to be or how productive I was going to be because of it. In saying that, you know that night that that was a pretty rock bottom moment for me. For some people, that's not even anywhere near their rock bottom. Sure of other people, that's like, well, that's the worst thing that could possibly happen. But that
was a one off. There was plenty of nights I would just drink too much and maybe ring someone and not quite remember the conversation, or overshare a bit too much, or you know, it's pokemon nose in where it wasn't wanted. You know, it's just getting to be too involved. You know, those kind of things where you wake up and you feel it a little bit cringey the next day. And I was always just waking up feeling a bit cringy and not liking that. I just didn't feel good about
myself after I drunk. So I think it's the only I couldn't give advice other than gauge how you feel about yourself afterwards. So if you're waking up and you're feeling a bit like, oh, that's not good or I didn't like I don't like how I feel about myself today. After that, then that's a good indicator that something's up.
Now if you keep waking up and feeling like that on a regular basis, where you feel like just not at your full potential, or you're feeling ashamed of yourself, or you're feeling embarrassed, you know, that's yourself telling you something.
That should be enough. Yeah, yeah, identify those feelings and don't and don't ignore them.
Yeah, but Sam, I'd also say too, if it's not a problem, it's not a problem. So for some people they can enjoy the b or two rewind or two, and if it's not affecting them at all, and if they can be honest enough to say no, it's actually not affecting me, and there's plenty of people like that, then it's not a problem. It's for those people that wake up feeling like, nah, this isn't me or I don't this is not sitting well with me, I'm not
enjoying this, or I don't feel good about myself. They're the people I'd say, yeah, like, have a look at it okay.
So with your business, Danny, How I Quit Alcohol? Is there a certain type of person that comes to see you, or it's really anyone.
There's really all sorts of people. I've worked with people that you don't believe this, that have had like they just have a couple of light beers on the weekend, but they can't stop. And I've had people that drink every day and they're serious heavy drinkers as well. I'd sort of see all sorts and everything in between. I guess for anyone just wanting to change, to change some behaviors that aren't suiting them anymore if they can't kind
of quite break that. The other thing is too you don't even like it's great to see a coach and to get involved with someone, say like meet it with some guidance. But there's so much great free material out there as well. Like I've got my podcast How I Quit Alcohol. People contact me every day and say I quit just listening to that. Sometimes that's enough for people.
There's so much information out there now that I think people you know you can you can also do it on your own, you know, if you can't afford the support or you know, if that's not accessible to you. You know, there's lots of ways in which you can get help.
I think that's a really nice, honest message for people to hear of. I've loved chatting with you, Danny. I love your honesty, I love your story. I love what you're doing to help encourage others to do the same. I think the fact that you and asked it together is just phenomenal and really appreciate it. Danny talk again.
Awesome, Thanks so much, and thanks for having me Sam. It's always great to have these conversations.
Oh Danny, what a refreshingly raw, honest chat. And I just I just hope that our listeners like I am feeling now are going you know, I appreciate the vulnerability, I appreciate the honesty, and I need to show myself that same honesty. You know, I need to look at myself in the mirror and I need to actually be as honest with myself, which is hard. As Danny was
with us just then, that was fantastic. Next up, we're going to tackle a question that if it hadn't come in from one of our WOODLFE listeners, I was going to talk about it anyway, because it is something I've been wanting to talk about for a little while and it needs to be addressed. All right, So this question is about calorie deficit, which I'll explain to you exactly what that means in a second. And it has come
through from Ali. Hey, Sam, how true is it that you need to be in a calorie defishit to lose weight?
I know weight loss depends on genetics and muscle mass, but just generally speaking.
So Alie, this is such a great question because it's everywhere. There's a lot of influencers out there that are drilling home the point that with all of the noise out there around losing weight, none of it if you're not in a calorie deficit. Now, for those that don't know what a calorie deficit is, is you are burning more calories than you are putting in your mouth than you are
consuming on a daily basis or a weekly basis. So if you are in a deficit, you lose weight, if you are in a surplus, you gain weight, and if you are neutral, you stay the same. Now it is scientifically a fact. So to answer your question, is it true that you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight without all these other factors around, you know,
genetics and muscle mass. Yes, it is categorically true. So it's absolutely true, and anyone out there that is trying to lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit. Maybe not every single day, but across the course of a week, you need to have burnt off more calories than you consume. But there's a few really important bits to add that give it complete context, which I often think are not explained because someone's just trying to sell you some calorie deficit thing, or they're sort of left
out deliberately and people get really confused. There's two that are absolutely paramount that you understand before you dive into calorie deficit world. The first is we burn most of our calories when we're not exercising, which I know sounds weird, but your exercise session will help, but it's not how
you burn the most calories. So I'm a big guy, I'm one hundred kilos and I've got a fair bit of muscle, no tickets on myself, but I train in the gym a lot and have done for twenty years, and therefore I typically burn a lot of calories because I'm a big guy getting myself around. So for me, my neutral point might be two and a half thousand calories a day, whereas if I'm a sixty kilo person who doesn't have that much muscle'll be twelve hundred calories.
So that's sort of your starting point. So you need to have a rough idea of how many calories at rest someone of your age, size and gender will burn because that's your starting position. Then you know that if you eat that exact same amount of calories, because you can get things like calorie counters, then you go, okay, if I consume that exact amount that I'm burning off at rest, that's how I break even. And then my
exercise session puts me into the deficit. So then my walk or my jog, or my hit training session or my boxing session where I burn four hundred calories in an hour puts me in a deficit, and that's how you sort of do the math. But most of the calories that we burn is just either in our day to day activities, depending on the person that we are with, the metabolism that we have based on muscle mass and
all that kind of stuff. So it's really important that you understand, you can jump online and you can at put your details in. I am this active, I have this much muscle, I am this heavy, and I am male or female or other, and I way I go. But you quickly then learn the more muscle mass you have, the more calories at rest you burn. And that's why weight training is so damn good for you. That's a
little side note. The second gripe that I have, because I often think it's misconstrued, is when we're looking to be in a calorie deficit, we tend to throw out the window our concern for the nutritional value of the food. Like I'm just going to live on diet coke and sugar free lollies and I'm going to only consume twelve hundred calories a day, but that's all I eat, all dim I'm being extremist to prove my point, But people
lose their mind. I know there's a lot of confusing marketing stuff out there, low cow, low sugar, low this, high that, but you still need to put as much value on how nutritionally good that food is for you, and the calories don't get caught up when there's people out there going you're better off having a diet coke than a handful of almonds. Oh look how many calories are in almonds? And look how there's no color. You know, it's total garbage. You're just filling yourself with you know,
sugar free this and chemicals and there's no benefit. You know, there's no calories in water. Drink water, don't you know. Don't don't get caught up in these no calorie things that don't actually give you any nutritional value, and don't demonize foods that are really good for you because of
how slightly hiring calories. That's really important. You need to work out how many calories you need to consume to either be in a surplus neutral or a deficit, and then you need to find those calories from real food. I can't stress that enough. If you tick that, then you can't lose. If you add the weight training, then you're going to bloody win. And that is all I've got to say on calorie deficite. If you are a legend like Alie and you have a question that brilliant,
please shoot us a question. There's a link in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you, and just on a little finishing note. If you are thinking about maybe you need to drink a bit less alcohol, do drive yourly. I'm doing it, I'm on board with you. We'd love to see you doing it as well. And I have to listen to Danny. We might just do
two months, but let's start with drive July. It's a wonderful initiative for a wonderful cause, and it's a great place to start for any of us that are perhaps thinking there maybe consumeing too much alcohol until next week. I'll see them bye.