Trading Addiction for Intention (w/ Andrew Birch)

He currently works one-on-one with ex-military spec forces , international DJs and young money millionaires in order for them to break those same chains and level up all they can and be all they can be . In 2024 , you'll see him continuing to travel in South Africa and engage with young men as a keynote speaker through the uncut your campus campaign .

Andrew Drew , thank you so much , brother , for coming on . Really grateful for you being here . And first of all , what does uncuck mean ? What's the definition of that ? No , we talked a little bit about that off air and it's an interesting stuff . So what is it ?

What a cuck is essentially is a man who watches his woman get hired by other men , and back in the day that was about as insulting as you could be to another man .

When I'm speaking to the young men on our campaign at the moment , I'm addressing pornography as one of the biggest issues in young men's lives at the moment , and so what I'm doing with that phrase is essentially making a comparison .

You know , we very easy to say I would never be regarded what women get hired by other men , and yet we have so many in our generation and men in general who spend their time imagining themselves doing this woman on the screen when in fact it's another man doing the work and he stands as a as a stake tater and essentially as a digitalized cuck of souls .

Yeah , Cool .

I was awake and baked stoner for about that same time period . I've been hooked on gambling . I've been hooked on potty drags and a lot of women in general , and so I target a variety of different addictions . I think what makes the program special is our approach to how we take on those addictions , rather than the addictions that we specialize in .

So if I analyze where I was as a 22 year old , I was a college student studying accounting and I would wake up around midday , smoke a bomb and my friends would be going to other's role and I would grab their keys , go to their place , buy some junk food , run another joint and play their session before going to training a sero for college velocity and then

perhaps start studying by 10pm to maybe two or four in the morning to then go to sleep and try to do that again and essentially living at a very low level and trying to get to every party , watching porn consistently , consistently high , smoking a pack a day and really going nowhere , eventually hitting rock bottom and catching some of the consequences of that

lifestyle Managed to turn around , disappeared , isolated myself for a couple of years about three , four years pulled back who I was , had guys who used to party with me who then laughed at me for turning it around , started to reach out and asked me what I was doing differently and what points I could get to them , and over time it has developed into this

program . My day now looks very different . I had up at 5am sharp . Every single day I start out by doing a morning routine that is exactly the same every single day .

It includes 100 push-ups and some dynamic stretching and involves some mindset , momentum-balling protocols , words like set ups , like affirmations , gratitude , visualization those kind of practices that just help you to get set in and proactive in your day .

And then I work hard every single day , I read every single day , I ball every single day , and I'm way more disciplined and way more effective in my life as a whole .

Be honest , man .

And then you wake up and realize you're in the same place again and still not moving forward . You're still afraid to take on life and so , I think , just a compounding feeling of anxiety and depression for years on end , until we can eventually make the changes that we need to make .

I'm grateful for that and I'm grateful that I don't have any longstanding consequence . But I did catch some of those too . I have had consequence of my actions and that was kind of the turn point .

I was boarding on my own business and I had a goal after me some wine and I had been drinking wine in for a week or two , and then she offered me some cocaine and before I knew it , I was doing cocaine on a Thursday afternoon , sober , when I was supposed to be presenting business pictures to potential clients the next day Failed .

The business pictures came around , with a bunch of consequence and eventually laying bed-wide lights , realizing where I was at and that was the consequence of my own actions . Only I was driving the ship .

There were no other culprits involved in my consequence Getting to a point of just absolutely self-loathing , actually tearing the shirt from my body into screaming into the night , and I had to despair of where I was and who I was .

That was when I started to turn it around , and it was a very painful process for a long time of just having to acknowledge that I was the only one responsible for where I was at , and it was my actions , not somebody else's actions .

But eventually , over time , I was able to start to take different action , to get hold of the right mentors , to take the right information in it and start to change who I was and start to overhaul my identity as a whole . So what did you do ? First ? I went back to a place that didn't have that temptation . Cape Town is a very hedonistic city .

If you're looking for any part of party , you're always going to find it . You're always going to find anything that you want to get up to . It disappeared into the wild . Really , it's isolation . What essentially happened is I had an environmental change , and an environmental change is , we know , one of the most effective ways to crush any addiction .

Unfortunately , most of us don't get to just get up and leave , but if you look at the American Marines that went to Vietnam a massive portion of them started to use heroin and a good slice became clinically dependent . So the American government thought these guys were going to come back from the war and we were going to have this heroin epidemic .

And yet , and today , we have a 90% relapse rate on heroin . It's an incredibly high , or these are the 9-0 , 9-0 , of guys that stop it , we'll get hooked again , we'll relapse back onto it . And yet when these Americans came home , 8 out of 10 , never picked it up again . No clinical intervention , no medication . All that had changed was their environment .

They were in the war , looking shot and they were away from their families . And suddenly they were back with their families in the Civil War zone , and all that had happened was there was this environmental change . And so environmental change is a powerful tool for disrupting addictive patterns and it probably is the most powerful mechanism that one could use .

The second , most powerful and it's the next step that I took , is to overhaul your identity . It's to no longer be the same man that's looking at last year at Glens anymore .

So the version of you that that addiction had its hooks in is no longer relevant , and you change who you are by taking different action consistently over a long enough period , you become an actor of these new ideals , the ideals of this man if you would like to be , and then , over time , you actually become that person , and so that's the second mechanism .

The first thing I would say , though , if I was running of practical advice to somebody , would be that you need to find a why as to your reason , as to why you need to go up these addictions . If you could get those three mechanisms , it's almost impossible that , if you have any intention to actually try to bring up that , you won't be able to .

And I set that up by asking a couple of strategic questions , and what you're essentially trying to build out is a future vision for that person . I don't know who I am now . I hate you . I have not , and I can , with the right questions , kind of have an idea of who I'd like to be if nothing was holding me back a year to three years from now .

And so we work out a why

and we draw up a picture of who we would like to be and make that the why , and that why is more about who we become than what we do . But I mean , for example , one of my favorite questions is if you could build a bear , your squad , your A team , your shoulder to shoulder game , I'll take on the world with your brothers .

Yeah , and you don't have to know them in real life , they don't have to be real people . But if you could build a bear , your group , your squad , what do they look like I can tell you mine .

No , now I'm not planning for the guy I'm working with to go out with a signboard at a document that's trying to scoff these guys out and find them and build his squad , right , well , there's a little recruitment program . What he has told me are the values that he thinks are important for men to have , and thereby the values that he should hold himself to .

That's a powerful dude , okay . So by asking this little question of Vulture Squad , suddenly I know what makes this guy tick and what he wants to drive towards .

They got into a conversation and some argument . Something occurred . He told her go to your parent's house , put her on a plane , send her home . And he was . I know I see your face . That's the gist of it . Right , I'm giving you the gist of it . And I looked at him and I said okay , what'd you learn from it ?

If there's something you could do differently , what would you do ? Nothing , you know . He got in this thing . She violated my boundaries . I said is there another way to do that ? Right , I've been married 21 years , drew and my wife .

We've been together since we were kids , long , long time , and in the beginning days I used to be the peace at all costs guy . They matured peace at all costs didn't matter . Peace at all costs . Whatever she wanted , she had peace at all costs . That doesn't work for a man .

Before you know it , over time you start to feel like you're diluted , you don't have any principles , you're just the one take to , whatever way . And I said to this guy I said is there a way that you could have communicated the same thing to your wife and not violating your values of who you are and yet still standing strong , and who you are as a man ?

I was like , well , how do I do that ? That was it . I said no , man . I shared a story with them . I said you know , it wasn't until I learned this little thing that my relationship with myself first got better and then my relationship improved to skyrocketed with my wife and my wife started to fall in her feminine energy .

You know there's a lot of issues with that women and being in masculine , feminine energy . I said could you tell your wife , is there a way that you could have expressed your values ? Well , first of all , you need to know your values , which is going back to what you were saying .

You need to know who you are , what you stand for , what your values , what your negotiables are , what your non-negotiables are . But can you communicate that to your wife without violating who you are ? How do you do that ? He says ? I said very simple , you tell her what you told her right , or you can do that .

You can't talk to me like that , whatever it is , but when she gets mad at you because you told her , you can simply say I'm sorry that you felt that way . I acknowledge her feelings . How could I express my values and what I stand for in a way next time that doesn't offend you ?

I'm sorry for the delivery , I'm not sorry for what I said and standing up for myself , man , when I discovered that , when

I discovered that drew my life chain , I'm able to stand up for myself , I'm able to say , yeah , I disagree . And this is the learning to stand based on my values , my principles and who I am . Don't cross it . And I'm sorry that you feel bad for my values .

I'm not sorry for who I am , but for you , my wife , for you , my child , my son , daughter , I'm sorry that maybe my delivery or that you know , offends you , but I'm not sorry for being who I am . Yeah , that's good . Exactly what you're saying is finding those values of who you are , and I know I kind of went in .

I want to share that story because I think it's a value , but that's good . But contact with what you're saying with that question you asked .

When we have this forward focus , it becomes more about who we were coming than this habit and addiction that used to have a hold on us , and eventually we become more that person , the guy we used to be .

And the guy that we used to be was the one who that addiction had its hooks in , but we don't allow that matter anymore , and so that's a very powerful tool to start off with .

Off the bass is it'll be a little bit tough at first and we're gonna make an incredible amount of progress very , very quickly and then it is going to get boring and you're gonna be thinking why am I even doing this ? Because this is like I'm not having the fun I used to have in isolation .

Right , because we do these bad habits because in isolation they feel good . If in isolation the habit felt bad , we would never do that . But now we're sitting here with without this pleasant experience in isolation and having to tell ourselves from an extended period of time that we're doing that for a reason .

For example , if I don't smoke for a week , I can feel a lot better . If I zoom out over a year's time , I'll have got a lot further in my life , but it doesn't feel like one joint is gonna really ruin me . And so when I'm sitting at home that night thinking , oh , I don't smoke anymore , you think , oh , just one time wouldn't be the end of the world .

And suddenly you feel bored relative to what you could be having if you were still stuck in that old cycle . I mean , I think boredom is the biggest one that caught me , because putting in consistent work and being consistently disciplined , it isn't just you know fun at a rush .

Especially when you came off the train of you know MDMA in the club , under bright lights with some techno playing , you know you're on such , you're chasing such a high the whole time .

That being of a solid mind and just being on a consistent level , carried at the right at the wrong moments , feel a little bit boring and I think that's one of the biggest hiccups is that the trip skies up .

I'm going to give you a scenario , right , and I don't know if this is a trigger or not , but I'm just going to talk to you as a dude , right , maybe you're at , you're doing a keynote and I don't know , are you single , are you married ? I'm single , you're single , okay , cool . So I'm going to talk to you as a single dude .

So you're at an event , right , and you're the keynote speaker , all the attentions on you , and you know beautiful women or whatever you're into , dudes or whatever you're into it's starting to flaunt all over you and you know you get caught in that moment , even though you're doing something positive , because you're there as a keynote speaker .

But you know you're getting caught in the environment because you're a human being , you're a man and you , if it's a lady , you decide to go hang out with this lady and you're seeing where it's going . Maybe we're going downtown and it's starting to look like the scene . How do you navigate that ?

You know , how do you , how do you identify that , navigate it and ground yourself ?

And the net benefit from those substances is a negative , and so it's worth what cutting it all out . But I am attacking addiction and addictive behavior , not try to de-unize substances as a whole .

So sex with a pretty goal , for example , is an interesting one , because , on the one hand , I am a practicing Christian , so promiscuity is not something that I want to jump on . I think that there are consequences to having lots of free

and easy sex with someone that you're not bonded to , right . That being said , I speak out heavily against pornography . I think sex is fantastic . It also has got its massive consequences and it's something that I can advocate for .

But it's , I think , in that situation , one that you're going to have to find your values , know those values are stored , sheet and then take the discipline to answer to those values . Otherwise , you wake up the next morning and you feel those consequences , because the consequence doesn't have to be physical manifestations , it can also be the relationship to yourself .

Knowing that you crossed a line with yourself feels pretty horrible . I've have been there before , and so I think it's just finding those values and then sticking to them .

Differences with boys and men Is a man knows , grown man , know what he stands for , what his values are and the direction he's going . That's powerful . That's powerful . That hasn't figured that out yet .

I'm very quick to solve any goal at our date that my mission comes first . If I was to give up my mission for pleasure , what would that mean to mods who are out on my venues inside Dude ? I love that that's pop .

You've been dating her three or four months , I don't know when you have that conversation . I've been with my wife for a very long time . We were kids . I was trying to figure out . I didn't know my purpose , mission , value , none of that . When we got together , obviously we were just kids . We were teenagers . That came later in life for me .

How do you have that conversation ? When do you have that conversation ? How do you say that to a woman ? What has been the response of women when you have that conversation ? If you've had that conversation with your girl , I've had the conversation more than once .

That's probably a cost to pay for all this stuff , something that I've had to accept . She said to me it either has to be that we can do life privately together or this can't work . That is a good light in the sun to call it that . I think it needs to be during that dating phase , because you need to be able to put your expectations out there early .

You need to be able to say this is what I once had a life , this is where I'm going , because if you're not both aiming in the same direction , I think there's no congruency in the relationship anyway . You need to have the same values , but you need to have the same ultimate destination for what you want and like .

You may have different means of getting there or different thoughts about what that might make up and find the details . If you guys aren't both heading in the same direction . I don't think it's going to be a good and wholesome and healthy relationship anyway .

And yet the purpose has to come first . Really believe in your purpose . Then , as a man , you're prepared to go to dance for it , and so I it is . It is sad , but I mean you have to put emotions aside and be pragmatic . You can't be controlled by your emotions . You need to be static .

We can feel the emotions , but I need to understand that your logical play is still the best course . I don't get to put my feelings first as mad , unfortunately and either make decisions , set frame and move with that .

You're one of

them for me , because we have similar values , similar principles , love that and respect their brother . When you welcome the role of support , what role of support does having a good support system have ? Then the overcoming addiction .

We strategize and we have a act as a signing board and that's great , and then we overhaul our dance . But the third part and it's a great of me important part of this process is to have a gang of brothers who it has the same mission and the same purpose , the same objective in the same or similar daily action . Right , we die in isolation .

Men are not supposed to stand alone . This idea of sigma males that do their own thing in the background and have any kind of dependency or relation with any other men is it's not wise and it's not effective . This whole I bought myself thing is rubbish .

The guys that really do make it , or guys that work in unison with one another , that have one another there to encourage and keep each other to a cult , and so we do have these networks , we have these groups that we bought .

What's the other guys on groups that I bought my , my private one , on one group that has to report in every single day and to be on this group you have to do under push ups every single day and let the group know . And if you don't do that and forgot that there's no row , you get kicked off and I'll still work with you .

But if you want to be in the group , that's the rent for being on the group Right a little bit of involuntary discomfort , regardless of what are you doing there . And then you need to report in the true king .

And so because you see everyone also the group is doing this , that they're getting up at five a m , that they're doing their work , you realize that if they can do it , you can do it too , because they're definitely not finding it pleasant either , but they're paying their school fees , they're putting the work into that .

I think accountability and a group environment is Not just important , it's essential . We become like the men that we hang around with . But if you're hanging out with yourself , there's no one to to sharpen your steel against .

You know something that Real talk , bro , most men Young , I think an old Doesn't matter we know that what you're saying right now Resonates deep in our soul , that most men Know . We know intuitively that what you're saying Is the way , whether we admit it or not , because of culture or whatever bullshit that's happening out there and whatever Happening in society .

We know that what you're saying , that high level of accountability , is something All men Want , desire to be around . Men that are about , about it , that Keep their word . Integrity , to do the hard thing right . Being a man is not just doing the easy fun thing , it's not just taking the easy way out , is knowing when to say no .

And it's a no because it violates who I am and what I stand for . Period , whether it's popular or not . Like it , don't like it . Sorry if it hurts your feeling , but that's who I am . Right I go . That's , that's the essence , I think , of being a man , and what you're saying resonates with most .

So there's a young , maybe there's a young or an older guy , or just a man listening to us . The same man , yeah , I need that , I need a group of men like that . Where should I start ? I'm struggling with porn . Yeah , I'm struggling . I'm on discipline , I'm on weight . I don't have any male friends .

I might be married , right , and I'm that guy that's constantly wanting to please my wife and will violate what I , what I feel , just to please my family and my wife . There's , there's a flavor of that as a family man , but there's , there's a flavor of that that if you're not careful , you lose your identity . Yeah , so what advice are you telling that guy ?

Where should he start ? Where should he find us ? Where does he find that group of men ? Where , where , how ?

All the action that he's taking on his own and all the consequences are going to be his own , and so if he doesn't stand up as hard as that life is , as deep in the hole as he might be , he will stay stuck there forever because nobody's going to save it . I was going to keep up with the child culture . There was going to be a way to bomb .

His wife isn't going to suddenly turn around and have his fray set for him because he's supposed to be sitting in that frame , right . So he needs to do the work , and I say that first because it isn't going to be on your doorstep . You're going to have to go onto the internet and check out who are thought leaders in this area that I'm spending with .

Maybe I need to go and listen to 10 or 20 different guys work hard if they're saying what resonates with me and if I can start to process the information . Ultimately , we become like the men we spend time with . But I can't spend time with David Gorbets , right , right . But I can read his book .

I can take a bit of his worldview there , download it , process it , see what are that software is beneficial to me and then make it my own . So our mentors don't necessarily have to be guys that I can touch Right . Ideally , it would be great if I could have something I could jump with that holds a lot of that motivation .

But if I can't , what's the best alternative ? Find the guys online who are good thought leaders , who you can see are healthy and strong and effective men , and let them speak into your life , if not through one on one coaching , which I highly recommend . I have my own mentors , I have my own coaches . Then find the material , because he'll have written a book .

You'll have put up some YouTube videos . Go , take it and be very careful about the information you take in . Right Orders your thought leaders , because you can be reading some of his book and not realize that the things he stands for and not what you want to be standing for .

And you take me as if it's gospel and it may not be so ordered to you going to go and listen to you . But go and find who you're going to go and listen to . But then you have to go and do that work , to do that and find Right and at the end of the day I'm platform was here . If they're not far away anywhere else , send it to me , brother .

What is happy to all is a passion point of my heart to see men level up and to become powerful .

I always use an analogy Right , like , hey , man , if you aspire to be an entrepreneur , right and nothing , and again , nothing against the people that are on this . But if you aspire to be an entrepreneur , your role in your job is to figure out how to get around entrepreneurs , successful entrepreneurs .

Your role is to figure out how to spend time with successful entrepreneurs . Because of your role .

And if you're spending time with people , that their goal in life and there's nothing wrong with this is to have a three bedroom , two bedroom , three bedroom , two bathroom house and make their 50 , 60 or 70 or 80 thousand dollars a year and they're happy with that , that's fine , nothing wrong with that .

But if you're spending time with those people , you got to understand that logically . If you're hanging out with those people having dinner , the discussions that are going to happen at that table are 80 thousand dollars a year discussion . No , yeah , disrespect to that , it just is they're going to be talking about .

They're going to be talking about the next raise the next day . That you know there and there's nothing wrong with that . Those are their goals and values and principles . I respect them .

But if your goals are to be hate , to make 250,000 , to to , to be a real estate investor , to own a million , to get to a million dollars , to own a company , and you have big dreams and big ideas , but you got to figure out how to get yourself around people that are doing that , how to list who you're listening to and spending time with them , because when

you have dinner with those guys , you'd be surprised . I belong to a group of men . You know I have a mentorship group and we and we have a what's that Group ? And I was this morning I came out the shower and it's like 50 of us in this with that group and you got to qualify to be a member of this group .

Right , are you got to have certain at worth ? You got to have certain . There's certain things you got to qualify to be . Remember this group and man the conversations . You know I was shocked because this morning I come out the shower and one of the guys post something and it really hit me , drew like , holy crap we're talking about .

Like here , here , my brothers are talking about hey man , I got half a million dollars that I want to invest . Like dude , like this is what we're doing . I'm like , holy crap . Like this is the group I'm in and this is the conversations we're having .

And I think about men , if I go back 20 years , 15 years , so we even this was a dream to even think that I would be in a group of guys that are we're having these high-level conversations . Yeah , I see , right , the guys suck . Oh , guys , I just bought a house . Well , yeah , I was like hey , man , I just bought this house .

I bought it , paid 900,000 cash , I want to refire cuz I want to get some of my capital out to invest in this deal . And it's like dude , like it's just mind-boggling to me . Um , when I look at that , it like hit me this morning when I came out there . I'm like man , I'm having conversations with these guys . Like I'm in this group .

I haven't come to these guys . So , um , who you spend time with matters , do ? I got two questions and then we'll wrap it up . Awesome , I want to . I Want to ask you about what are some of the misconceptions about addiction that you like to clear up and how we can collectively work together to Understand and support those that have addiction .

And so when you want to start to kick an addiction in , to look at what it's giving you Because it's giving , you're finding something there that you need , whether it's the disconnect from reality , whether it's euphoria , whether it's , you know , just distraction .

There's something there that it's that it's giving you and you need to work out what that is Is before you just try and cut off the addiction .

There's gonna be a trigger to that addiction and for poor , inexorable for poor , as an example , it might be rejection , it may be anxiety , it may be bored of , it may be depression , and that causes a man to want to , you know , disappear and give himself that high .

And if we call it , turn and face our reality and look at what's causing us to be so Effective and so looked to this addiction as an escape , it's a very hard to to eradicate it . So that would be the first , this concept that comes to mind . The second misconception is that we they that it's hard to change .

I think one of the greatest realizations that I've made over my years of beating addiction as somebody who didn't think that he could . For many years I tried to give up nicotine and just never could . And then I tried to give up cannabis . I just never could . Now try to go poor and I just never could .

And the realization that I've eventually come to , now that I've been able to beat it and have this confidence in beating anything . I can put down anything at any time and it doesn't bother me it . There's no each I need to scratch . And it's not that I'm not Feeling like I would like to do that thing .

It's that I now have this position of strength in my mind that says I've made a decision , I've said I'm done with this for now , for a month , for a day , for a weekend .

Therefore , it is it's this understanding that it beating an addiction and that there's no one's to this , because obviously heroin has got a massive chemical group on you , right , but in a generalized Setting that addiction has as much power over you as you give it . Homose . He says it very nice in a state .

He says the guy who spends his day worrying about having an anxiety attacks in the front is my all day . So I open on having anxiety attack eventually has an anxiety attack . The guy who just doesn't even think about it Doesn't have an anxiety attack . Right , there's one guy who could put down the box of cigarettes and never pick it up again .

And the other guys sits there saying , oh , I'm better not , or I shouldn't , oh . And so there's this difference in our mindsets that has such an impact through the strength of the addictions that we're trying to face . It's just in our minds . There'll be shoulder gun to your head making you pick up that cigarette .

All that bottle , all that bond you use through your only turn or dialogue , give yourself or kill your own power .

find an action plan of daily , repeatable , consistent steps they can take to form a new man , and that eventually they will , if they do that , become a new man that is free and independent and sovereign of those crutches and of those chains that used to bind them .

How can they get a castle with you if you're a dick , if you have an addict and a dick an addiction when you're listening , I want to encourage you that there is life , and the mindset for me always is .

I think I May suggest that a healthy mindset for you to adopt is if , if Drew can do it and millions of other men can do it , so can you , with the right people , listening to surrounding yourself , in the right environment and listening to the right people on the right support . Where could they find you ?

Where can they start to get the support system with you drew to connect with you ? Or maybe join one of your groups ?

I Do have a huge she presents , as well as tiktok , but Instagram is where you're gonna find me responding , putting out the most content and anyway that needs help and would like to do the work , get hold of me . I have a variety of different options that are gonna be able to be customized to you . I Do this out of more than income . It is a passion .

Wait for me . So if I have porn skill at my time to help you , if we don't meet that crosswind , I can give you resource that is gonna get you there .