In this episode, we sit down with Duncan, a man who knows all too well the consequences of overindulgence. After 20 years of excessive drinking—wine, cider, brandy, you name it—Duncan turned his life around. He trained with the world’s most successful stop-smoking clinic, studied at Cornell University, and even wrote books like Real Men Quit, a macho guide to beating booze. But despite his efforts, it never felt like enough.
Join us as Duncan shares his journey from a life of excess to sobriety and his mission to normalize alcohol-free living.
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[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for joining us again on the Beyond I do podcast.
[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_03]: We have today with us a special guest by the name of Duncan, Baskarian Brown.
[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Comes to us from Oxford in the UK. He is an author of two books.
[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Get over in Dogeys and real men quit.
[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_03]: You see here to talk to us about our call awareness and how over in Dogeys and past your relationships and overall well being.
[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for joining us, brother Duncan.
[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh thank you for having me on Mom looking forward to it. It's very interesting subject.
[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure we're going to have some fun. Oh yes, oh yes.
[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And once again, just to stress, we're international.
[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_02]: We have an international guest.
[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_02]: We just go and add our own bags and thank you for joining us from across the Atlantic.
[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you would just start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got to this place of speaking on over in Dogeys and alcohol awareness.
[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so a lot of alcohol and a lot of overdolgens is the children.
[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, for me, there's one moment that really sticks out.
[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, when I was very young, I went to school one day and the teacher asked us all to write a poem.
[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know that would scare most people, but I was genuinely quite excited.
[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought this is great opportunity.
[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I'd just go into Shakespeare.
[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I was one of the cool kids you can tell.
[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And I wrote this poem and I took it up to the teacher.
[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And the teacher kind of looked at him when, yeah, but you know, look, the commas in the wrong place.
[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And he's probably his words wrong and he has dear handwritten is really, really scruffy.
[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, yeah, but that's not what writing is really about. Is it?
[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, surely what you want writing is something that sounds nice that has imagery and that actually says something.
[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Surely that's far more important than where you put the commas and how you spell the words.
[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And my teacher said, don't can see me after school.
[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And that was pretty much how school went for me.
[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I had one set of expectations about how things should be and my teachers had a completely different set of expectations about how things should be.
[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I found that hard.
[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And I kind of felt like there wasn't really a place for me.
[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't really fit.
[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And there was nowhere that I could succeed.
[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And of course, that impacts on a lot of things like self confidence and you know, your perception of yourself.
[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And I wanted, you know, a way out really.
[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted a way of helping me to cope with that.
[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And I found the most socially acceptable drug out there.
[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Chocolate.
[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And I got started on that.
[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I went deeply into the cookies and the crisps and that.
[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_00]: No, you guys call them chips don't you?
[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: To translate.
[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_00]: The chips in the cookies.
[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_00]: All of that.
[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, as I got a bit older, I sort of discovered alcohol and I realized that that was that was just a bigger hammer for that particular nail.
[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And it started out very socially.
[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I was always drinking with my friends.
[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_00]: It was always fun.
[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_00]: It was always exciting.
[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Alcohol seemed to make me more confident.
[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_00]: It seemed to make my jokes funnier.
[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I think he even made me a bit better looking.
[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I think he did.
[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_00]: He would be not so much, but it was very social.
[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And he started out that way.
[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_00]: But as time progressed, you know, two things happened.
[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_00]: The amount of people that I was drinking with went down.
[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00]: But the amount of alcohol I was drinking went up.
[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And I took you to a logical conclusion and I ended up sitting on my own drinking a couple of bottles of wine.
[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And I wish I can assure you is not much fun.
[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So inside no, you were just before your time because as a teacher, I can tell you now that I look for the substance in the writing more so.
[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, sure.
[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_02]: With technology and things that will help with the grammar.
[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But so a lot of times we hear individuals who's on comfort and alcohol, their home life, they saw their parents drinking or they had someone at home.
[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Who kind of was a model for that was that the case with you.
[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so my parents drink my on an uncle drank, you know, my grandparents drank everybody around me.
[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank it was very, very normal.
[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, you know, my parents thought the best thing to do was to give me small amounts of alcohol when I was quite young.
[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: They thought that they were teaching me to drink responsibly.
[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And unfortunately, half of that statement was true. They were teaching me and it was teaching me to drink because there were responsible there that didn't quite stick.
[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I mean my uncle drank quite heavily and my one of my grandfather's drank quite heavily.
[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think you know in the time, I mean certainly, my mum's dad was born in the 30s.
[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, he's like there's no way they would have considered him to be a heavy drinker in his day.
[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, looking back on it now, he definitely was a heavy drinker.
[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't really impact on my life very much.
[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not like I grew up in an alcoholic household with a lot of adverse childhood events and things like that.
[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_00]: But I grew up in in a family and in a community that was very much everybody drinks.
[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just that's just no, it's not right. And it's normal.
[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that even for us, it was accepted.
[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I grew up seeing it and guess what come over, they would go or drink and share with each other and even my first taste was sneaking because I knew where the liquor was.
[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And I was looking and I just tasted it. It was horrible.
[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_03]: It was like I'll see how they do it. But then when it was done, the girl went up there and grown up.
[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Teenage years and it was exposed to it again.
[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: See, that is exactly what it is. It feels so grown up doing it.
[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't consciously remember the first time I ever had alcohol, but I do consciously remember the first time I ever drank coffee.
[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm absolutely felt so grown up. It's like, I have a right. You know, tasted awful.
[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. Right. But I stuck it out because I wanted to be alone and everybody to see me look at me. I'm drinking coffee.
[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I am a big boy now. And I think that is part of the problem that, you know, we deliberately consciously, probably as individuals,
[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_00]: we don't consciously try and associate in the minds of our children with being an adult and being grown up.
[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: But that is definitely something the alcohol industry plays on in terms of its advertising and its marketing.
[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Yep. So.
[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_02]: The, um, that's I thought about with kids using curse words and how that's like a right of passage of sorts.
[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And they feel so grown up and I'm like, that doesn't even sound right. But okay.
[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But that right of passage feeling that you get from those things. So as you moved into teenage years and found alcohol, did you then continue with the junk foods and things like that or did it become that was your soul advice.
[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And the other stuff fell to the side.
[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. So I stopped eating sweet stuff when I started drinking. So it was never really very into dessert after that, which was strange because, you know, chocolate and the cookies that was definitely my first love.
[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_00]: But I sort of, I don't want to give you the impression that my diet was any good.
[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It was just I was more into kind of burgers and fried chicken and fries and things like that.
[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So my diet was still fairly bad.
[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it wasn't really my main problem.
[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I also smoked cigarettes and ran around the place like a crazy person.
[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I didn't put on a massive amount of weight in my 20s.
[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_00]: It went up in my 30s but in my 20s, you know, I was eating badly, but it wasn't necessarily having, it wasn't showing.
[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So at that this point in in life, your 20s or 30s.
[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Did you begin to see like a negative impact or was it just?
[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just something that I do.
[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_02]: This is just who I am.
[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, if you ask me at the time, I would have said absolutely those two things.
[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_00]: It is something that I do and it is definitely a part of who I am.
[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_00]: It gives me all of these wonderful benefits.
[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I couldn't handle stress without it.
[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't be creative without it.
[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I definitely couldn't socialise without it.
[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think in terms of negative benefits, negative benefits.
[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I think all those impacts don't know.
[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_00]: English teacher would never fit without it.
[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_00]: But once Mr. Gannett was right.
[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, yeah, the impact.
[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think you noticed them. I certainly didn't notice them because they don't happen all at once.
[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_00]: They happen gradually over a long period of time.
[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's one of the real traps of things like alcohol, but the effects are kind of small.
[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And you don't really notice them.
[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure, every now and again, you're over doing it and you feel really bad in the morning.
[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But what you don't kind of appreciate is when you wake up in the morning after having drunk a fair bit.
[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And you don't feel hung over, you just feel a bit tired, feel a bit vulnerable.
[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_00]: You can't concentrate quite as well.
[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: But you just do that down to not being a morning person.
[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no good in the morning.
[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I have to have a cup of coffee before I get started.
[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's the thing.
[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_00]: If I'd have gone from how I felt, you know, in my teens to how I felt in my 30s and long back,
[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I would have gone bang.
[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_00]: That would have been like you.
[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I'd have gone see a doctor.
[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, the change had been so big.
[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't really notice it.
[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't until I stopped doing it.
[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But I noticed how much of an effect it was having on me.
[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Right, right.
[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_03]: I think often times, you know, especially in our 20s, you know, you almost feel invisible.
[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_03]: So this big, you know, it's like, well, you know, I'll deal with that stuff later.
[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_03]: And I know for me personally, we were married and I guess I kind of developed somewhat.
[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if it's a little bit of a tracking problem.
[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I felt like I had to have it when I got home from the work just have a beer, you know.
[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_03]: And I remember for religious purposes, I was like, well, I want to get control of it.
[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_03]: I got the least get control of it.
[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_03]: So I told her and I said, I'm going to stop doing it.
[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_03]: And I did it for six months.
[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_03]: And I said, well, I want that least half control of it.
[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, first family function I got around.
[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Of course, like you say, everybody in the family of drinks is accepted.
[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, they had liquor on table.
[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, you're going to drink something.
[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, nah, I'm not going to drink anything.
[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm good, you know.
[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_03]: And I felt that was a big achievement for myself.
[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_03]: But some people think that, you know, there's no big deal.
[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_03]: There's no big harm in it.
[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_03]: What would you say to people like that?
[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Let me say, well, you know, it's no big deal.
[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_03]: I drink it, keys me here with family and that's to see.
[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, look, I mean, there is a way of drinking, which I'm not going to say has no risk attached to it.
[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_00]: But is low risk.
[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just there's this wonderful word moderation.
[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, I think I've met some very heavy drinkers who told me that they drink moderately.
[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, well, you don't.
[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_00]: You're drinking in a very severe risk.
[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_00]: You just, you know, you're following yourself into believing it's moderation.
[00:14:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So anybody who tells me that they don't drink very much, I kind of take that with a little bit of a pinch of salt.
[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: What I would describe as not drinking too much, drinking in a way whereby you can actually enjoy the drinking.
[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, and I think that is possible.
[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not possible for me.
[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not possible for a lot of people. I think if I start drinking again, it would go horribly wrong probably fairly quickly.
[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So I just don't drink.
[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, there are people out there that drink and there are people out there that drink a little bit too much.
[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think if they rain it back a bit, they would actually enjoy it more.
[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's one of the things that we try and do in some of the work that I do is help people to see that actually less is more.
[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you just have wondering, but you actually really focus on it and save it and enjoy it, then you will enjoy it far more than having three drinks which you don't pay attention to.
[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_00]: If you only have wondering, you know, add a special occasion. That's a special occasion.
[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And no, what she Netflix on the Friday is not a special occasion.
[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're going out with your family or like somebody's birthday or something that's really worth celebrating.
[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_00]: If you drink then, then you actually enjoy it so much more.
[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I think the problem is so much of what people do these days is it's just automatic.
[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, well, you know, it's Friday night and we're watching Netflix. Let's have a drink.
[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And then of course one turns to two turns three and you know, you have the best part of the way through the bottle of wine before you even notice it before the four pack is empty before you even even paid attention.
[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, you can't tell me that you're enjoying it. Right.
[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're not even really aware you're doing. Right. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_02]: So for you, for you, what was that point where you realized that this is no longer something that or I don't know that it was ever serving in a positive way, but what was the point for you when you realize this is not doing any good for me?
[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I'd love to tell you I had one of those like four AMs during the mirror moments. But they weren't really well in the books, but honestly, I don't need to chew and you know, that always worse than that.
[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I think as a culture, now probably as a species we just have this desire for simple explanations and we want, you know, Steve Jobs to have this sudden blinding light bulb moment where he figures out that we should all have iPhones.
[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_00]: But of course it doesn't work like that, you know, takes years to figure out sort of stuff out. But you know, it doesn't sound as good in the autobiography. Any who's
[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_00]: What happened for me was we were trying to start a family. I'd met this amazing woman. You know, we'd we'd started a relationship and it was going quite well. This despite myself. It was going quite well. So we decided to start a family because, you know, that's what you do.
[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, we tried and that was quite a fun. But you know, we get with my wife got pregnant and we did all of the kind of like stupid new parent thing and go all excited and nervous and excited and nervous and then she had a miscarriage.
[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, everything really fell apart. I mean, it was obviously it was clearly very hard on her both physically and emotionally mentally. But I think what made it worse was I just wasn't there for her. You know, my standard way of dealing with stress was just to open a bottle of wine and disappear. And that's what I did. And, you know, that really is not what she needed at the time.
[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it kind of got to a point over the course of a couple of months. I never actually vocalized the question quite so clearly, but I now look back on it and I see over those two kind of months. I was having this internal dialogue with myself, you know, I was really asking myself what I wanted out of my life.
[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And it sort of crystallizes into this very, very simple question. Duncan, what do you want? Do you want to have a family or do you want to have another drink?
[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And thankfully, I made the right decision and you know, alignment, faith, God, chance, call it what you will.
[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Our daughter was born almost exactly nine months after I stopped drinking. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.
[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Awesome. Well, that's a really handy way of remembering your sleep a day. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is.
[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's like you said, that's confirmation that okay, I'm making these changes and here we are.
[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So what types of things did you notice in the beginning? So for me, I am a victim of the the microwave culture. I want instant gratification.
[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And so when I go and work out for a week, and I have been watching my food for a week, if I don't drop pounds, I'm frustrated. And I figure I should have had the cookie.
[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So what types of things did you notice in the beginning that helped you to kind of continue that path to making changes in your life?
[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_00]: So that I suppose is the good thing about sobriety. It is very instant gratification. And honestly, it was like night and day.
[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, after a few days, I just felt like a different person had so much more energy. I'm focusing a lot better. I could concentrate a lot more.
[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I seem to be more creative. I definitely had this sense of peace and calm that arrived quite quickly, because you know, for a long time I'd been chasing alcohol. That's all I would do. I just, you know, I was constantly thinking about, you know, when was I going to have a drink when was, you know, when is this stupid meeting and finish so I can go and have a drink and it was like everything I did in the back of my mind.
[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: It was sort of planning around the alcohol. And of course, once I stopped drinking, I stopped doing that and it's like the whole load of stress that just disappeared and was replaced with this amazing sense of peace and calm.
[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think really, really struck me about it was I suddenly had a whole lot more time. And that surprised me because if you'd have asked me, I would have said, oh, I don't spend much time drinking because I was a classic high functioning.
[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, I don't have a drinker. You know, I had a job. I'd go to work. I was very involved in my community. So it often spent the evenings, you know, in meetings dealing with emails, building projects, working on things like that.
[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was very, very busy and it was rare for me to drink before about half past eight, nine o'clock. I'd work very, very hard and then I'd sit down and I'd have a drink. So in my mind, I didn't spend very much time drinking but if you add up nine o'clock till midnight every day that's three hours a day, which is the thick end of 24 hours a week. So it's like you get an entirely new day, including the bit where you're asleep. So
[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_00]: That was quite nice. That's the good bit you want me to tell you about the bad bit of course.
[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I kind of don't, you know, like honestly, if you want to stop drinking trust me it's worth it, but the bit that they never tell you the bit that most people in the community kind of brush over and unfortunately is pretty much a statistical fact. If you look at the research what tends to happen to people within
[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_00]: three to 15 months of them stopping drinking is they're satisfaction with life will go down. And that's because for the most part we drink to escape from something.
[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Now what we drink to escape from varies massively, you know, for me it was kind of escaping from feeling like I didn't belong like I didn't fit in. It was escaping from social anxiety but for many people it's escaping from trauma whether that's childhood trauma or horrible horrible things that have happened to them in their adult life.
[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Some people escape to a drink to escape from physical pain. Some people drink to escape from the mundane nature of their job and feeling dissatisfied with their life and not having a purpose. You know there's a lot of things that that people try to escape from in society and alcohol is a very common way of doing that.
[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And when you stop drinking, you sort of have to actually face them. Right. Which is the bad news it does mean that you know, life gets lifey as they say and it gets it gets hard and you have to do a little bit of work.
[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, I spent years and years running away and I thought I was getting further from my problems but of course I wasn't. I was running around my problems and you don't get any further from them.
[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And what I discovered when I actually stood up, looked them squarely in the eye and started dealing with them was they were much smaller than I thought they were.
[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought it was a lot of like if you imagine your problems as being a mouse, you know they are actually relatively small but it's like a mouse with a torch behind it and what you're seeing is the shadow on the wall.
[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Running away from it makes it look very, very big but what you've got to do is what look at the shadow anymore. You're going to start looking at the mouse and you realize that mice are actually quite small and you know you can deal with them. You can go and buy some of those human mouse traps or something.
[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_03]: That's interesting because if you think about it like the illustration you just used.
[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_03]: You had those issues, your problems were when you were younger. You didn't have a lot of experience in life.
[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_03]: This is like you know this is how it's so it's big to you then you ran away from that problem but once you sobered up you had a little more life experience, a little more experience and dealing with issues.
[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And then when you look at them then it's like well, and this wasn't really that big of a deal.
[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned, you know, and here you go from my problems I'm then drinking to get my problems.
[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Right, right.
[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I do like the the metaphor that you used there and like I said you said social anxiety was an issue and you're speaking in years you have this platform now so that's interesting.
[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Within your like within your family life within your relationships, how did the drinking affect those relationships and then how did the switch.
[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_02]: How did it switch after you stopped drinking.
[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think it very much affected my relationship with my wife and you know I've done mentioned already that you know I wasn't really there to support her when when she needed it.
[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think also one of the main things that the drinking does who you is it makes you try and at least a lot of people do it to try and numb their feelings and it does numb your feelings.
[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_00]: But unfortunately it doesn't just numb the bad ones it numbs all of them and it doesn't just numb them whilst you are drinking you know you can go into the neurology of it.
[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_00]: But if you look at the way you're brain uses these neurotransmitters these brain chemicals alcohol stimulates some of them so then to compensate for that your brain.
[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And it kind of tries to clear them out the way so it gets bored of doing that after a while because you know once things to be on the strain now it doesn't like these big peaks and drops so after a while it rises up and it sort down regulates everything.
[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_00]: So it stops the release of all of these brain chemicals when you drink alcohol the upshot is that those brain chemicals now no longer get released when you do stuff in your life whether that's.
[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_00]: You know watching a decent film or you know hugging a friend or going to the ballet or sex or you know driving a car fast whatever you know any of the joy that you get from life.
[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Just gets down regulated along with everything else so it you know it makes you feel a lot less and that obviously makes your emotional connections with other people.
[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_00]: You know not as deep and it makes your relationships exist on a slightly different level so when I stop drinking I think I increased my emotional intelligence quite a lot.
[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure if my wife was here today she would probably point out to you that I still have some way to go but you know I am improving in our relationship is you know it's good we've been to what we've been married for.
[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Nearly 11 years it'll be 11 years this summer and we've been together for come on Duncan don't do this up we've been together.
[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_00]: You know it has improved our relationship and you know it's improved our relationship with everybody kind of sort of I think.
[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_00]: The my my some members of my family didn't really like it that I was drinking and then you was a problem and now they don't really like it the time to evangelical and I'm not even.
[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I did and the thing is it's like I'm not I'm not saying this stuff to try and kind of like.
[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I know you or anything and saying this to largely because it's true and I wish I'd heard it a lot earlier but then some of them take that.
[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_00]: You know not necessarily in the spirit that is intended for them and they assume that I'm criticizing them when really I'm actually criticizing society the alcohol industry.
[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_00]: You know the underlying philosophy that runs through our society yeah all of that kind of stuff so yes it has improved our relationship I think on balance most of them would rather have me now as.
[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I was drinking heavily I was eating badly and I was smoking I also quite a stressful life that is basically part of tax territory isn't it's.
[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_03]: I think you're paying and I never really thought about I don't think most people have thought about it knowing the good emotions also.
[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And those can trigger issues in relationships and you know the joys like you say you know when your wife needed to you weren't there emotionally and I don't think a lot of people think about that so that was an interesting.
[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Coral listen it.
[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah and it's not just feeling the joy though I mean you actually need to feel the negative emotions right you know if somebody close to you dies you have to go through a process of breathing them that is the only way you will get healthfully onto the other side I mean sure you're still going to miss them you're still going to you know think about them and feel for them for the rest of your life that that's the way it is but if you if you aren't able to feel your way through that.
[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_00]: The right grieving process then you're not going to get to the other side of that grieving process and in some instances you know that will become a problem for people.
[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_00]: That is you know grief is a form of trauma and if we don't that feel our way through these trauma as if we're not in the kind of relationships where we feel safe enough to and to feel those emotions within other person.
[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_00]: then they are going to get stuck. They are going to get blocked and you know, I don't care how tough you are.
[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't care what a big boy you are. You could be a firefighter or a soldier or a
[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_00]: bodybuilder, whatever. I don't care how tough you are. Everybody has a limit.
[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody reaches a point where they can no longer deal with more emotional difficulty. And if you don't
[00:31:29] [SPEAKER_00]: process it, yeah. And you get their all for a lot quicker. Right. It's interesting you said that
[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_03]: because I know in my dad passed I was 21 and now I was 20. I'm sorry. And the first thing we did
[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_03]: was get together and drink. That was you know the learning part and I've been done with alcohol
[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_03]: and those with marijuana for a while. But it was the day that I decided not to do anything,
[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_03]: it was the day I actually dealt with it. But I actually dealt with it. The net was probably
[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_03]: two maybe a month and a half or two months later. So that makes absolute sense. You know.
[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not uncommon. I mean, I really, I really am in prayer for a lot of different
[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_00]: reasons. But I wanted to write about a friend of mine who died at 27 as a result of alcohol.
[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, he was an incredible guy. He was amazing. You know, the life and so
[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_00]: off the party absolutely. He had so much potential. We all saw huge amounts of potential. And
[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_00]: of course, he didn't manage to realize very much of that because his life was cut short. And
[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to talk about that from a personal point of view. But I also wanted it to serve as a
[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_00]: warning to some people that, you know, he got to a point where he realized that the drinking was a
[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_00]: problem and that he needed to stop and he did stop right at the end. But it was too late. And
[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to get across to people that you know sometimes it is too late. You have that you
[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_00]: really should stop if you think you've got a problem because you don't know how long you can leave.
[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Don't know when too late is going to be. So, you know, that was in some way a little bit of a message.
[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_00]: But one thing that I wrote about in the book was his funeral. You know, a guy died. He drank himself
[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_00]: to death. What did we do at the funeral? We talked about very, very drunk. Yes. Yeah.
[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's that's the thing with alcohol. With alcohol in some in some settings with some families,
[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_02]: but with food. When you have addictions that are tied to food to alcohol is so difficult with food,
[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_02]: you have to have food to eat. So then you have to pick the right things and you make these choices.
[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_02]: With alcohol is so ingrained in culture and like you said, my son when he was, I don't know,
[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_02]: about eight, nine years old we had a funeral. His mom's sister passed away. And then afterwards
[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_02]: there's the repaste and everyone gets together and you're eating and drinking. And my son told
[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_02]: someone the next day. And then yesterday after the funeral party, so you know, he perceived this
[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_02]: as a party because there's food and there's alcohol. It's so hard to break those
[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_02]: those chains because they're so ingrained in everything that we do. When you decided that this
[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_02]: is something that I need to change, did you seek out help or did you go it alone and work through things
[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_00]: and like as an individual? Yeah, I promise I will answer that question in a second. But I think
[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_00]: the point you made is so interesting, you know, almost everything we do. It's about eating
[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_00]: bad food and drinking alcohol. And do you know what that worked? 150 years ago it worked because
[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_00]: it was only the special occasions. It was only brismos, Easter, funerals, weddings. They weren't
[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_00]: that many of them and actually the extravagance wasn't even that extravagant. You know, the
[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_00]: rest of the time you were a very bland, very monotonous dire and it was just those six, 12 times a
[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_00]: year where you went crazy. Unfortunately we go from crazy to crazy every single day. You don't
[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_00]: know, I remember who made the point brismos like birthday cake ice cream. That is the
[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_00]: peanut ring. You often should you be in birthday cake. Right. Right.
[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Half a dozen times a year maybe. I don't know maybe you've got a lot more friends than I have.
[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, all right my daughter is going to be eight in five days time and she goes to quite a few
[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_00]: birthday parties. Oh, me but she doesn't go to more than about 15 a year. So even then she's not even
[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_00]: that much birthday cake. But you know you can just go and buy a tub of birthday cake ice cream and
[00:36:35] [SPEAKER_00]: just have that because it's Tuesday. Right. Anyway, that wasn't at all what your wife was
[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_00]: at. How did I stop drinking? So I like to talk about this period in my life where I stop doing
[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_00]: quite a lot of things. And what I started that by stopping smoking. So my wonderful wife moved in with
[00:36:58] [SPEAKER_00]: me and I was smoking in our flat and you know it never really occurred to me about the impact of
[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_00]: that, but of course when she moved in it's like, oh now I'm smoking for two. And it was like,
[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_00]: well yeah this is a bit uncomfortable and she's wonderful my wife. She's very very intelligent
[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_00]: and compassionate and beautiful and forgiving. And she didn't kind of try and guilt trip me into
[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_00]: doing it. She just sort of gently nudged me in the right direction and pointed out that there was a
[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_00]: different way. So when I stopped smoking, I used the book called Alan Cars, the Easy Way to Stop
[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Smoking which is a fantastic book and I've gotten off a lot of time for the Easy Way organization
[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_00]: of the, do a bit of associate work for them every night again. They're good people and the
[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_00]: method is very, very solid. So when it comes to stopping drinking I'd already internalized the
[00:37:54] [SPEAKER_00]: amazing power of that method and I sort of, I misremembered a few things but I sort of worked my way
[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_00]: through it using my misremembering of Alan's method which broadly speaking would fall into
[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_00]: cognitive free alignment. She's sort of an aspect of cognitive behavioural therapy but it's
[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_00]: about getting to grips with your beliefs and understanding you know what do you believe about alcohol?
[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe it helps you deal with stress? Basically feel grown up, at least you're sophisticated,
[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_00]: obviously celebrate with your friends, makes you a real man, all of those kind of stuff. So I
[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_00]: started to untangle those beliefs and once you untangle those beliefs there's a little bit of work
[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_00]: that you need to do on thought management which is just a fancy way of saying dealing with the cravings
[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_00]: but ultimately cravings are simply thoughts if you can find a good way of working your way around
[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and through those thoughts rather than getting caught up in them then you know the action bit is
[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_03]: easy. Right, that's interesting as you said, cravings are thoughts. Right and that's true because I find
[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_03]: myself is a mess of like the way that my words gives me is I work shift for so you know when I'm on
[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_03]: nice I rotate days and like 12 arm shifts and someone among nice is like automatically I
[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_03]: will I take that back when I'm in a day shift. I feel like I have to have breakfast. I feel like I have
[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_03]: much because you know that's what the guys are trolling, that's what they do when I work, the guys
[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I work with but when I'm off I feel like I don't need a neumantil sometimes it's too
[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_03]: too clear for me to eat and that's like why can I take that to work with me? Yeah absolutely it's
[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_00]: you know your colleagues you know your coworkers they're kind of like a trigger on they
[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_00]: they're something that happens in the environment and that is going to lead to an action unless you've
[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_00]: got a plan of getting in between that kind of trigger in that action and that always is a space
[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_00]: between that trigger and that action and it's about kind of widening that space and realizing that
[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_00]: actually have a choice in that moment and giving you a few techniques to help you make the right
[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_03]: choice. Yeah that's interesting because I and I remember like now I can go on my family and
[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_03]: their times where I will take a drink with them and their times where I will drink it all you know
[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_03]: it's like and this is it is a thought and it is a process of just you know taking your man outside
[00:40:37] [SPEAKER_03]: of the situation right do I really need this right now no I don't and you know I'm done with it
[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_03]: but that and I've learned what I like that there are some people who just have
[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_03]: well let me take that back. I've heard that there are people who have the detective personalities
[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_03]: and you know in some instances I'm like is there true to it or is that just something that
[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_03]: you know we just made an excuse and said well that's just them a detective personality do they
[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_02]: actually exist in your your mindset. I'm blown away that that and he lives with me
[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_00]: because I'm sorry for here. So I understand why most people think there is such a thing
[00:41:33] [SPEAKER_00]: as an addictive personality because if you look at me I basically got addicted to cigarettes,
[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_00]: alcohol, drugs, junk food and really bad music and you know that that's everybody
[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_00]: because oh well that's you know yes probably part of your makeup and it it's not really it's the
[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_00]: fact that they they mutually reinforce themselves so if he's a smoking is a great example
[00:42:00] [SPEAKER_00]: most of the people that I work with most heavy drinkers that I work with they smoke
[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_00]: if you look at gamblers most people that gamble they smoke if you look at injection drug users
[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_00]: pretty much all injection drug users smoke yes. Now what's the common denominator here is
[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_00]: the individual or is it maybe the cigarette? Is it maybe that you know by smoking you create this
[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_00]: kind of need for this perceived need for the nicotine. This kind of scratch you know this that
[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_00]: scratch this itch for the nicotine and you scratch it by having a cigarette but you don't actually
[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_00]: you know cure the itch you just make the itch a bit worse so you keep scratching it you smoke a bit
[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_00]: more you smoke a bit more as a limit to the amount you can smoke these days given the fact
[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm smoking anymore so you need something else to scratch you would so you have a drink and then
[00:42:48] [SPEAKER_00]: you have another drink and then that just increases the itch so you end up you know down the back
[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_00]: alley shoot and up heroin actually sorry no you don't have a lot of any right. So I think there's
[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_00]: this kind of reinforcing aspect in any kind of drug consumption and to that the fact that there is
[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of what they call prostidiction so I did it. I stopped drinking and then I said to myself
[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_00]: well I'm not drinking anymore I can eat whatever I like that I'll kind of and then after about
[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_00]: 18 months I was sat in this very room as it happens and I just looked down at this packet of
[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_00]: triple chocolate chip Belgian cookies and I don't like I was really hating eating them but for some
[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_00]: reason was carrying on eating them they were making me feel bad but I was still eating them and
[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_00]: it just dawned on me and I had this massive realization that all I'm eating the way I used to drink
[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and I had swapped food for alcohol. I hadn't dealt with what was underneath the drinking I had
[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_00]: simply swapped it out for something else and that is enormously common you meet a lot of people in
[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_00]: a positive I mean it's better than getting very into chocolate chip cookies isn't it but
[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_00]: it still has its getrements you know it's a great way of damaging your relationships isn't it
[00:44:17] [SPEAKER_00]: a way to do that. I've seen meet a lot of people to get really into the gym but you could also have
[00:44:22] [SPEAKER_00]: social media online gaming and setting shopping relationships I mean you can you know that you can
[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_00]: cross a ditch yourself into lots of other things the trick is of course you actually try and get
[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_00]: what's underneath there so that problem and then you don't fall into into that trap but
[00:44:40] [SPEAKER_00]: simply in terms of personality what I think is really really interesting is that if you look at the
[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_00]: the big five personality traits it's called ocean isn't it so it's an open nurse conscientious
[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_00]: nurse extraversion, a breathable nurse and neuroticism they that's the probably the the best
[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_00]: supported personality tests that you'll find and they don't give you kind of like a personality type
[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_00]: they just show you where you are on the scale of these traits so our I for example I'm actually
[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_00]: quite disagreeable with my surprise here because I'm fairly good at hiding it but most of my
[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_00]: opinions run contrary to you know the the Norman society because I you tell me your thing and I
[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_00]: will question it and decide whether I think it's true or not but you know a lot of people are far more
[00:45:36] [SPEAKER_00]: agreeable than me that's why the world is a happier place so we sell on this spectrum
[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_00]: between agreeable nurse and disagreeable nurse we also sit on this spectrum between interversion
[00:45:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and extraversion nobody's out of it I mean there are a few people who are just but
[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_00]: utterly introverted what's totally extroverted but we sit on this spectrum and the thing is I have
[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_00]: worked with people both ends of that spectrum you know I've worked with a lot of people who are
[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_00]: introverted who drink because they're in a profession where they have to do a lot of networking a
[00:46:04] [SPEAKER_00]: lot of socialising and they very much drink as a result of their social anxiety and to make
[00:46:10] [SPEAKER_00]: themselves feel a bit more comfortable in social situations and then I've met a lot of people who are
[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_00]: very very extraverted and they drink precisely because they just want to be at the party they always
[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_00]: want to be at the social gathering and because they are always going out they end up always drinking
[00:46:27] [SPEAKER_00]: so there's no one kind of constellation of personality traits that will draw you towards alcohol
[00:46:34] [SPEAKER_00]: or indeed any drug you know there are certain things that make it more lightly but you can't
[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_00]: just look at people give them a psychometric questionnaire and go well you have an addictive
[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_00]: personality you really want to avoid the alcohol sadly it'll be nice if we good oh yes I
[00:46:55] [SPEAKER_02]: feel like I jumped from addiction to addiction but therapy has helped me realize that as you're saying
[00:47:07] [SPEAKER_02]: those addictive things those things that I'm turning to are just to help me avoid the the true issues
[00:47:15] [SPEAKER_02]: and I found that the more I'm in therapy and I'm working through what's really going on
[00:47:22] [SPEAKER_02]: which interestingly enough is learning how to process emotions properly the more I learned to
[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_02]: process those my emotions in an appropriate way the less likely I am to fall back into
[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_02]: the food and although I would love to be addicted to the gym but that one doesn't seem to stick
[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_00]: and I think there is a really interesting point there so one of the things that I think
[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_00]: is is fundamental and key to long term sobriety is emotional intelligence and that's of course
[00:48:04] [SPEAKER_00]: a phrase that gets used in awful lot but to kind of unpack it a little bit you know the thing
[00:48:09] [SPEAKER_00]: that therapy can really help you with is emotional regulation so dealing with your emotions as they
[00:48:19] [SPEAKER_00]: piece about self awareness which is a massively important part of emotional intelligence and you
[00:48:25] [SPEAKER_00]: know actually understanding why you behave in a certain way that's been enormously liberating for
[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_00]: me and it's the one thing I mean I've interviewed an awful lot of sobresoupre stars and it's the
[00:48:36] [SPEAKER_00]: one thing that comes up again and again and again this idea of becoming more aware of why we act
[00:48:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and how we act and how we work and who we are and what works for us and what doesn't work
[00:48:47] [SPEAKER_03]: for us right that's good um as far as the relationship with your wife I know you said that she's
[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_03]: very loving for giving um she's everything that greatness she makes you great okay but I'm sure
[00:49:07] [SPEAKER_03]: there was sometimes where she just looked at you on this like what the hell are you doing
[00:49:12] [SPEAKER_03]: they can you share with us sometimes where you thought that you know it might have gone
[00:49:20] [SPEAKER_00]: to the point of no return with her yeah so I've been a couple of points not since I've
[00:49:28] [SPEAKER_00]: knocked drinking so much I mean my wife has always struggled with her mental health and she's
[00:49:37] [SPEAKER_00]: had a couple of particularly difficult episodes and there were a couple of times where we really
[00:49:44] [SPEAKER_00]: neither of us were at our best and it got very rocky and um I used to my my strategy is quite avoidant
[00:49:56] [SPEAKER_00]: so you know previously when we'd be having an argument and I wouldn't really be able to deal with it
[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I would I would try and withdraw and at some times she just would not let me withdraw so I would
[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_00]: leave and I particularly remember you know walking around very late at night with my head full of this
[00:50:20] [SPEAKER_00]: kind of like hatch 22 that you know if this happens then we're screwed and if this happens
[00:50:26] [SPEAKER_00]: then we're screwed and it's just like there is no no path forward so yeah we've had had our
[00:50:32] [SPEAKER_00]: fair share of really really difficult moments I now I think I'm a little better at not running away
[00:50:43] [SPEAKER_00]: actually trying to talk through these things and work through them and realize that you know a lot
[00:50:51] [SPEAKER_00]: of the time when when she has a problem what she wants to do is they find the problem
[00:50:59] [SPEAKER_00]: of course being a man what I want to do is solve the problem I just think like I'll
[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_00]: put some shelves up I'm a little bit a DIY yeah we're all like that don't really come to
[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_00]: realize is that you know sometimes the problem is not really that big and all she wants is
[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_00]: somebody to pay a bit of attention and give her a bit of love and some of the time what she wants
[00:51:26] [SPEAKER_00]: is actually for me to help her to frame the problem in her own mind because you can't actually
[00:51:31] [SPEAKER_00]: deal with a problem until you've brained it in your own mind and you still you understand it and
[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_00]: you know the problem of too many books is not always solved by shelves sometimes it's solved
[00:51:44] [SPEAKER_00]: by getting rid of your books and I love you darling but I'm not getting any rid of any of my
[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_00]: books because I like books I'll just put some shelves up and maybe we'll get a bigger house
[00:51:58] [SPEAKER_02]: with a library that's compromised there you go
[00:52:05] [SPEAKER_02]: exactly so at far listeners who maybe struggling with drinking or some type of addiction
[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_02]: what would you suggest the the first step that needs to to take place for them to get started on
[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_00]: road to recovery so ultimately the first step is to realize that you might have a bit of an issue
[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_00]: if you've got that far back yourself on the back you are doing well you are you know you are now
[00:52:38] [SPEAKER_00]: able to actually do something you know obviously it is only the first step and you do need to do
[00:52:43] [SPEAKER_00]: something else but until you are aware that you have a problem it is going to be really very
[00:52:48] [SPEAKER_00]: difficult to solve that problem so so awareness is the first thing and even if you only just sort of
[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_00]: think maybe maybe kind of there's just somewhere this kind of like little ah well then go and do
[00:53:01] [SPEAKER_00]: something go and find some people and there are a lot of really amazing people in the world who are
[00:53:08] [SPEAKER_00]: out there to help you now you know alcoholics anonymous has done an enormously good job of
[00:53:16] [SPEAKER_00]: advertising themselves they are absolutely everywhere I know they are huge in America and they
[00:53:21] [SPEAKER_00]: do do a lot of good work but they aren't the only kind of group program out there so if you have
[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_00]: had some experience with them in the past or you're off by any particular aspect of them there are
[00:53:31] [SPEAKER_00]: also a lot of other amazing groups out there smart recovery is something that i'm a big fan of
[00:53:36] [SPEAKER_00]: it's another group program it just has a different dynamic but there's there's a lot of group
[00:53:42] [SPEAKER_00]: of group program find a group program if you you know if you're comfortable talking to a therapist
[00:53:50] [SPEAKER_00]: I know a lot of people who have stopped drinking as a result of talking to their therapist what
[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_00]: they do is they kind of process the underlying problem and then the alcohol or the drugs just
[00:54:00] [SPEAKER_00]: kind of fall away to the wayside as I mentioned earlier what I do is cognitive realignment there are
[00:54:06] [SPEAKER_00]: lot of people out there doing that most sober coaches these days work on some variation of
[00:54:13] [SPEAKER_00]: you know a cognitive process of getting to group for your beliefs and your emotions and your
[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_00]: thoughts and then changing your actions by you know working on those there are a lot of amazing ones
[00:54:24] [SPEAKER_00]: out there I mean any grace is probably the most famous she's doing a lot of good work but the
[00:54:30] [SPEAKER_00]: easy way clinics there are easy way clinics all over America and indeed all over the world so you know
[00:54:36] [SPEAKER_00]: there are a lot of people out there who are there to help you but honestly the vast majority of
[00:54:43] [SPEAKER_00]: people but sorry no I have to say this correctly the most common method of stopping drinking
[00:54:49] [SPEAKER_00]: is actually not to have any help so about 45% of people who stop drinking use no formal help
[00:54:58] [SPEAKER_00]: they might get a book they might listen to the odd podcast they might go on Facebook and join a few
[00:55:04] [SPEAKER_00]: groups but you don't actually need to go to rehab you know you don't actually need to you know spend
[00:55:12] [SPEAKER_00]: thousands and thousands of dollars on a therapist or a coach there are other ways of doing it so
[00:55:18] [SPEAKER_00]: just you know often the best first step is to jump onto Facebook or jump onto Instagram and find
[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_00]: some of the people out there who've done what you would like to do and ask them what they did
[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_00]: you know join the communities there are a ton of great sober groups on Facebook ton of great
[00:55:35] [SPEAKER_00]: people who will you know who genuinely want to help you out that's interesting that's interesting
[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_02]: you would think that well I say you would think but I guess coming from the perspective of the groups
[00:55:48] [SPEAKER_02]: who are reaching out for people they make it seem like you're going to need this support type
[00:55:56] [SPEAKER_00]: thing but that's an interesting thing so I think you you will need some support right
[00:56:02] [SPEAKER_00]: does it have to be formally from a group of people who are former alcoholics no it doesn't you
[00:56:10] [SPEAKER_00]: know I've as I said earlier I've interviewed a lot of people who've got sober and you know a lot
[00:56:16] [SPEAKER_00]: they they have support but they'll use their existing friendship groups that are maybe
[00:56:25] [SPEAKER_00]: so I know a guy who uh Drinking and he's very very into um property he's a property developer
[00:56:34] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'm around in those circles a little bit so I have a bit of an idea about it and
[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_00]: they're white sober networking events you know they don't tend to happen in bars they don't
[00:56:47] [SPEAKER_00]: tend to go to the pub afterwards they tend to talk very professionally about business
[00:56:52] [SPEAKER_00]: and uh nice people they're interesting people and you can get a lot of support from them
[00:56:57] [SPEAKER_00]: um so it's not necessarily a group of people who are sober but it is a group of people that do stuff
[00:57:02] [SPEAKER_00]: that doesn't revolve around alcohol that are actually there to give you help and support and that's the
[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_00]: you can use for your help and support you can use your family if they're going to help you
[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_00]: if your family are all drinking a problematic air level then they're probably not the people
[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_00]: to help you and yeah you probably do want to go find another group but you know what I mean I
[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm blessed to be very involved in my community and most of the parts of it that I was involved in
[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_00]: you know really what we do doesn't revolve around alcohol so yeah get you know
[00:57:36] [SPEAKER_00]: join a political party get involved in you know activism or join a roller derby club I do a
[00:57:44] [SPEAKER_00]: quite a roller skating and um I'm pretty sure you got to do it sober
[00:57:50] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah you do you want to be successful with it yeah so give me quite your lift Dr. roller skating
[00:57:57] [SPEAKER_03]: right so far our listeners we see in the background you have two books on your shelf
[00:58:05] [SPEAKER_03]: can you explain to them how those books will help help them I'm sorry yeah so the first one
[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_00]: that I schooled get over in Dolgence and if your listeners would like a copy of it by the way
[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_00]: you they can grab a free copy are if you put get over dot UK as get over dot UK into the internet
[00:58:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I'll take you to a bit of my website you can download it as a PDF kindle if you can stand to listen
[00:58:31] [SPEAKER_00]: for 3,45 minutes then you can even have the audiobook as well and that really is my journey
[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I wrote it to kind of show people that there is another way you can get free it's quite short
[00:58:47] [SPEAKER_00]: and I have been told it's kind of funny so I'm quite pleased with that I in fact I regularly
[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_00]: people tell me that they they read it in an evening which makes me happy because the most
[00:58:59] [SPEAKER_00]: you know you get the most from the books that you actually read don't you go well and that one's
[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_00]: called that one's called get over indulgence like I say put get over dot UK into the internet
[00:59:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and grab yourself copy and then the other one's called realman quit which I wrote because as men
[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_00]: we don't necessarily cover ourselves in glory when it comes to sobriety there are a lot of amazing
[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_00]: women out there I always already mentioned any grace there are a lot of women out there in the
[00:59:28] [SPEAKER_00]: fantastic work but the guys were a bit too quiet so I wrote realman quit as a guide to help men
[00:59:36] [SPEAKER_00]: to get a bit more of a handle on their drinking so if you like sports you know if you like
[00:59:43] [SPEAKER_00]: James Bond if you like Star Wars if you like really bad jokes then it is the book for you
[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_02]: that's meant to me and then in terms of social media where can they find you social media your
[00:59:59] [SPEAKER_02]: website to get more information about you and your services that you offer so if you put
[01:00:10] [SPEAKER_00]: basketball around brown into the internet I'm very easy to find but most people can't spell
[01:00:15] [SPEAKER_00]: the background brown in fact most people can't even say it so well done on the intro
[01:00:18] [SPEAKER_00]: well thank you to that get over dot UK we'll take you to a bit of my website and
[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: um on there are obviously links to all of the socials we're pretty busy on instagram and
[01:00:31] [SPEAKER_00]: facebook that's where we do our kind of um sobriety stuff uh on we do a lot on LinkedIn as well
[01:00:38] [SPEAKER_00]: that's more geared towards business and productivity and performance and alcohol awareness and
[01:00:43] [SPEAKER_00]: like that but yeah you know if you've got a question just find me find me on the socials
[01:00:49] [SPEAKER_00]: send me a message I am always happy to talk about this stuff and genuinely if I can help I would love
[01:00:55] [SPEAKER_02]: to you well thank you thank you this we appreciate your time we have enjoyed
[01:01:02] [SPEAKER_02]: the conversation we've learned a lot I haven't learned a lot I've learned that I still have some work
[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_00]: to do but I'm I'm doing the work honestly we all have some work to do you know that's
[01:01:17] [SPEAKER_00]: part of it though isn't it you know it would be boring if we were completely finished and perfect
[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_00]: and there would be nothing for us to do but lie around drinking nectar and discussing the poetry
[01:01:29] [SPEAKER_03]: of John Keats or something like that yeah look we had together probably started drinking daily
[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_02]: the hands was like gross what once again we'd like to thank you for joining us on the
[01:01:44] [SPEAKER_02]: beyond I do podcast we've appreciated your time we've learned a lot and we've been we've been
[01:01:52] [SPEAKER_02]: entertained I haven't heard any bad jokes so I mean thanks for joining us on this episode of
[01:02:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Yanda DuPak is please make sure to like this episode and also subscribe to our podcast you can
[01:02:16] [SPEAKER_02]: also find us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube at the beyond I do podcast and until next time
[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_03]: we will hallowed you