Stop Drinking Podcast by Soberclear

Why I'll NEVER Say I'm An Alcoholic

• Leon Sylvester

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Stop Drinking Podcast, where we help you make stopping drinking a simple, logical and easy decision. We help you with tips, tools and strategies to start living your best life when alcohol-free. If you want to learn more about stop drinking coaching, then head over to wwwsoberclearcom. When I was drinking alcohol, I've done it all Blackouts, binging, fighting all these stupid decisions, drink driving. I hate to say it, but I did it. I mean I've done so many stupid things because of alcohol and I don't call myself an alcoholic, right, and I'm going to explain in this video why. I don't call myself an alcoholic. But I had a massive drinking problem. I'm not denying that, but I don't use this label and I've still managed to successfully stop drinking alcohol for almost seven years. And today I'm going to explain why I'm making this video from a hotel that I'm at right now and I feel good in this pool and I mean I wanted to show you and I made another video explaining why I'm showing you because my life didn't used to look like this. Alcohol destroyed my life and you know, society probably would have labeled me an alcoholic, but I don't give myself that label and I want to explain why. So if you do call yourself an alcoholic. By the way, this video might not be for you I don't want to knock that term if you use it and it helps you, but for me it didn't help. So I wanted to make a quick video in explaining why I don't use that label and what I do instead, and what I do instead actually got me to stop drinking and stay stopped and yeah. So this video isn't going to be for everybody, but if you have been debating whether or not you're an alcoholic, if you've been dabbling with that term, if you're unsure, I'm hoping that this video sheds some light on this situation, because it's a pretty taboo topic really.

Speaker 1:

So when I tried to stop drinking alcohol, when I first tried to stop, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know about first principles thinking. I didn't know I could reframe the way I viewed alcohol. I didn't know anything. So what I did is I asked my mum. I said, mum, how do I stop drinking? And my mum had been to Alcoholics Anonymous for over 20 years probably wasn't over 20 years at that point, it might have been, I don't know, 17, 18 years and I said I need help. And she said well, at this point I didn't live at home. I actually left home at like 17 because of drinking drugs. And she said if you go to meetings, you can come and live at home again. So I'm like, oh my gosh, I think I was 18 at the time and I started going to meetings. I went to Alcoholics Anonymous, I went to Narcotics Anonymous and I went to these meetings and, uh, and this is where you get.

Speaker 1:

I was told to make a decision right, am I an addict, am I an alcoholic? And what I did is I was listening to all these stories and all of these people who had pretty similar stories to me. They they were often a lot worse, but I could find similarities in all of them and I was like, oh right. So he says you know, my name is Robbie, I'm an alcoholic. My name is Mark, I'm an alcoholic. And then he tells me this story and I'm like, well, yeah, I guess there's similarities between me and him. Okay, he drank first thing in the morning, but he'd have one drink and then he'd drink more. And I'm like, oh well, I guess that was me. And eventually I was like, okay, well, maybe I'm an alcoholic.

Speaker 1:

And it was a period of my life, around three months where I bought into this right, I truly believed this is what I was. You know, I thought about my mum my mum's an alcoholic. Well, maybe it's genetic. Then I thought about my family tree, and there's a lot of drinking and drugs in my family tree and I thought, oh, maybe that's what I am, maybe that's what we all are, maybe we're born this way. Oh boy, here we go. This is a journey.

Speaker 1:

So, you know, after I gave myself this label, you know, it became this identity and I don't want to blame the label for what happened next, but I think it's got something to do with it. I might be wrong, but I took this label for a while. And then I remember, when I relapsed in my heart I was like, well, I'm this way. And I relapsed and I went nuts. I just binged and binged, and binged, and binged and binged. And listen, might that have happened? Anyway, it's possible. But now I have this label in my heart, I'm like, well, that's just the way, I am Right. And it became almost like an excuse, almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy, and to me it was dangerous.

Speaker 1:

Now, I'm not saying that there aren't people out there that have that label. They use a 12 step program. They admit they're an alcoholic, give themselves up to a higher power, they do all the 12 steps and they stay stopped forever. Are those people there? Yes, and it works for them and for those people I'm happy. But it didn't work for me and I've told this story before.

Speaker 1:

But I remember, um, at a meeting, there was a guy in an NA meeting. So NA is more for drugs, but there's people that drink alcohol, that go there. And um, at this meeting, he, uh, he was. I've told this story before. It's really sad, but he was making a coffee and, uh, he put three spoons of coffee in his cup and I'm like dude, I didn't understand it at the time. I was like, why are you doing that? It's like Leon, I'm an addict, this is what I do, I want to get caffeinated.

Speaker 1:

And a few years later, a few months later I can't remember, but this guy died from a heroin overdose. He relapsed and took the wrong batch of heroin and then got found dead in the public toilets. And it's a tragic, tragic story. Now, could that have happened if he didn't label himself an addict, of course, but he truly believed he was an addict. He believed it in his heart. So, oh, a bird just flew past me.

Speaker 1:

But you can see the problem with this label, right, it becomes a little bit dangerous. If you use that label and stop and never drink again, then hey, that's amazing. But you know, if God forbid, somebody relapses. I mean, you can see the danger, right. So a few more reasons why I don't call myself an alcoholic. Well, that's the first reason. Is that?

Speaker 1:

The next reason is that they say that it's a disease, right? Firstly, they call it a disease with no known cure, which means the only cure is to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. So I just want to be clear that the term alcoholic is only used by Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a made up self-help term. There's no medical diagnosis. A doctor will never call you an alcoholic anymore. The correct label is alcohol use disorder and it's not semantics, right, it's not just language. This is an important distinction, because if you call yourself an alcoholic, the only way to cure this alcoholism is to go to alcoholics on meetings. It's the only solution, right? How else are you going to fix being an alcoholic, especially if it's a disease you've no known cure? So that was another problem is learning that there was no medical diagnosis.

Speaker 1:

But then, if you actually look at the criteria for being an alcoholic in Alcoholics Anonymous, it's really, really I can't think of the word like broad. I mean, I went through the questions and I said yes to every single question. I think that most drinkers would go through those questions and could be an alcoholic right. So I noticed that as well. And you know, this idea that I'm the problem means that I can never be fixed. If I'm the problem here, then how do I fix me? Well, you can't. You've got to go to meetings.

Speaker 1:

I didn't want to go to these meetings for the rest of my life. You know, I'll tell you, what I wanted to do is I just wanted to freaking, stop drinking and get on with my life. That's what I wanted. I didn't want to have to go to meetings forever and waste three, four hours of a week going to meetings, having to go to a daily meeting. At the beginning I didn want to do any of that. I wanted to fix my drinking problem and I wanted to get on with my life.

Speaker 1:

So what happened next is that I stopped going to meetings and then, you know, started trying to find a new solution, and what I found in my research I did something called first principles thinking. I spent a lot of time reading. I read every stop drinking book. I could find podcasts, you know, listening to other people on the matter and eventually I got to a place where I stopped seeing myself as the problem. I started seeing the drug as the problem and as long as I didn't drink, the problems went away. I didn't need to give myself up to God, I didn't need to make amendments to people, I didn't need to do any of that stuff. What I had to do was change the way that I view alcohol.

Speaker 1:

And once I I know it sounds crazy, but then you know, once I stopped drinking alcohol, within the first month or so I actually was fully self-employed again. I started my personal training business. It went really well and it's been almost seven years. You know I still go out to bars. I'm still around people that drink Less now than I did at the beginning because, you know, basically a lot of my friends just don't drink now I've just attracted those people into my life. But I did a lot of the things that AA said I shouldn't do. I didn't go to any meetings, I didn't have a sponsor, I didn't do any step work, I didn't do any spiritual work in that aspect. And, yeah, I stopped drinking and I don't drink anymore.

Speaker 1:

And a lot of people will listen to this. They go to AA and think, oh no, no, no, aa is free, you should do it this way, you should do it that way. Aa saved my life. It works if you work it. And there's all this stuff and I'm thinking that's binary thinking. I'm not saying that you can't get sober in AA. Of course you can. And if that's what you're doing and you're happy and you're sober, more power to you like there's. No, I mean, that is awesome. It saved my mom's life. You know, I would tell my mom don't watch this video, because I don't want, I don't want to, I don't want to like, knock her. But there are other ways to do it. Right, there are other ways to do it and the way that I did it worked for me and it might not work for everybody.

Speaker 1:

I'm not saying that, but I don't call myself an alcoholic. I haven't drank for seven years. I have no intention to drink, I have no desire to drink and it's been fine. And I'll just tell you one last thing. When I walked out of my final meeting, a guy chased me out there. I'm actually quite like this guy, but then he turned on me. He was like he swore he went if you fucking go back out there, you've got a disease, you're going to die. I was like jeez and I'll never forget it. It was quite shocking, but it wasn't true. It's just, it wasn't true. I've not died, I've thrived. Thanks for checking out the Stop Drinking podcast by Sober Clear. If you want to learn more about how we work with people to help them stop drinking effortlessly, then make sure to visit wwwsoberclearcom.

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Leon Sylvester

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