If you do THIS, you’re an ALCOHOLIC

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Stop Drinking Podcast

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

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. The word alcoholic is enough to send shivers down somebody's spine. There was a period in my own life where I was trying to stop drinking. I drank for around 10 years, but there was a time where I went to AA meetings and that's where I finally learned that I was an alcoholic. That's why I couldn't stop drinking.

Speaker 1: 0:39

Now, listen, I don't call myself an alcoholic. I don't think I'm an alcoholic. I'm not an alcoholic. But there was a period in my life where I thought I was one. And I speak to people with my work, with my business, with SoberClearcom, where I help people stop drinking. Over the years I've spoken to thousands of people and quite often I will talk to people and they're afraid of this word. They think that they might be an alcoholic. I'll also get a lot of people that know that they're drinking too much, but this idea of labeling themselves an alcoholic is terrifying. But one word that comes up very often is this idea of being a high-functioning alcoholic, and people will wear this badge of honor that I'm a high-functioning alcoholic and they're almost proud of it. But isn't it weird that somebody who's never even been to an AA meeting that's heavily drinking, would even consider themselves this in the first place?

Speaker 1: 1:23

Today, in this video, I am going to show you whether or not you are an alcoholic High functioning, unfunctioning, whatever makes no difference. But after labeling myself an alcoholic for about 90 days and after letting go of that label, I actually found success. And I just want to say one thing if you take a 12-step approach to stopping drinking and you found success in that approach, you probably don't want to watch this video. I don't want to disencourage you from doing 12 Steps, from going to AA. If you've given yourself that label, you give yourself up to a higher power. You're doing the 12 Step program.

Speaker 1: 1:51

My channel is probably not for you, but if you're drinking too much and you're wondering have I got a problem here, then this video is for you, because we need to unpack this term, this alcoholic term. It's so important because, actually, once you break the term down and you see this for what it is, the problem becomes so much easier to fix. So what even is an alcoholic? How do we define an alcoholic? How can somebody else say do you know what, john, you're drinking this much every week, therefore you're an alcoholic, but because you go to work every day, you're a high-functioning alcoholic. Where do we draw the line? Well, we need to understand that the term alcoholic doesn't really exist outside of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a word that's thrown around oh, look at him. He must be an alcoholic, but it's a word that comes from AA.

Speaker 1: 2:29

In the past, a doctor may have called you an alcoholic, but these days, a doctor will never say that you are an alcoholic. They will separate you from the problem and they will correctly label your drinking problem as alcohol use disorder. Outside of AA. In 2025, you're probably not going to get any medical professional call you an alcoholic. So, without sounding too critical, I don't want to, you know, bash AA over the head. If it works with people, great, it worked for my mother for 20 years. Aa saved my life because, as I was growing up, she didn't drink. So I feel like I owe my life to that program. But at the same time, after trying it myself, there was no way I'm going to walk around with this label forever. So then, if a doctor's never going to call us an alcoholic, then who does?

Speaker 1: 3:10

Let me explain how I came to the conclusion that I was an alcoholic. When I went to AA meetings, I was told that only I can decide if I'm an alcoholic. Nobody in the meetings can ever say that you're an alcoholic. What I'd do is I'd sit in a meeting and I'd listen to all of these people tell me these war stories and I could relate to them. Oh, this guy was telling me about how it damaged his relationship, how it hurt his health, how he'd have one, and then he just kept drinking and I was like, oh okay, so all of these people have got very similar stories to me and they're all saying that they're an alcoholic.

Speaker 1: 3:37

And I didn't want to feel like the outcasts. You, these people, have been sober for a long time and I was told that only I can decide. Now, do you not find that incredibly interesting? I had to decide if I was an alcoholic. That was a decision I had to make, and this is not semantics. Decisions are damn important. We are the sum of all the decisions that we've made in our life.

Speaker 1: 3:58

So this is where it becomes really confusing, because if I don't make that decision, does that mean I'm not an alcoholic? And what AA does is? It gives this very loose criteria of questions that you ask yourself about your drinking and it says that if you answer yes to more than X amount of these questions I can't remember, then there's a chance that you're an alcoholic. But you need to decide. So does that mean that if I went to those meetings and I never decided I was an alcoholic, that I was never one? It's pretty weird, right? You've got to go. So, in other words, if you never make that decision, you can never be an alcoholic. See, it doesn't make sense, because there's no such thing as an alcoholic unless you choose to believe that you're an alcoholic. If you choose not to believe it, then they can never label you an alcoholic in a meeting.

Speaker 1: 4:42

But here's where it became a problem for me. So I bought into this idea that I was an alcoholic, an addict. You know that was I was the problem here, not the drug, not alcohol, it was me. I bought into this idea, right? I'm a very open-minded person. I'll go along with it. If I think it's going to fix my problem, I don't care.

Speaker 1: 5:01

When I was in my 20s, I found a 16-year-old that was doing what I wanted to do and I went and worked for a 16-year-old kid for free. I am willing to put my ego aside and if calling myself an alcoholic was helpful and going to these meetings actually worked, I'll go along with it. I don't care what anybody thinks about me. I don't care if somebody down the street thinks I'm an alcoholic or I go, it doesn't bother me. But I had to decide if I was an alcoholic.

Speaker 1: 5:17

But now here's where it gets dangerous. You go to these meetings and you say it to yourself hey, my name is X and I'm an alcoholic. Oh, it just sends shivers down my spine because look what I'm doing. I'm reaffirming this idea to myself that I'm the problem, not alcohol, it's me. As soon as you add that ick to the end of alcohol, you're the problem. And guess what happens? The only solution to fixing the problem is to go to meetings for the rest of your life. It's a life sentence because you've now got this disease with no known cure. I don't see a medical professional calling this a disease. No, it's all a psychological thing and it's all a decision that you make.

Speaker 1: 5:50

Now I just want to kind of just go off on a little tangent here. I am not saying that you don't have a problem with alcohol. I'm not saying that alcohol wasn't the biggest source of pain in my life. I'm not trying to justify the drinking. I'm not trying to say that it wasn't some thing that needed solving or I'd die If I kept drinking. I probably would have died. So I'm not trying to downplay the risks. I'm not trying to downplay that it wasn't a major problem in my life, and maybe it is for you as well. But what I am trying to say is I wasn't the problem. The problem was alcohol, and as soon as I could separate the two together, then that meant that I could attack the actual problem, which was how I viewed the drug. That was the problem, not me. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm a normal person. So are you.

Speaker 1: 6:34

I got addicted to one of the most physically addictive drugs on the planet. There might be a few others that are more addictive fentanyl, heroin, crack, cocaine but alcohol is up there as one of the most addictive drugs in the world. The problem is that we live in a society that has normalized this drug addiction. So if you can't control it, society wants to label you as not like us. You're an alcoholic. You're not like us, normal drinkers, because they want to justify their own drinking to themselves. Listen, getting addicted to one of the most addictive drugs ever created that dehydrates you that's literal function is for you to drink it and then want to drink more has got nothing to do with you.

Speaker 1: 7:08

And I feel so passionate about this because for so long I thought I was the problem. I really believed that I could never be fixed. And when I walked out of the final meeting I ever went to, somebody chased me out of the meeting and he ran up to me and he looked me in the eyes and this was a nice guy, this was a strong character, good man not saying he was a bad person. He genuinely, I think he had my best interest in his heart. I'm not criticizing and I thought I'm the one that's supposed to decide this. So now it was this weird thing of like okay, well, I've made the decision, I've been reaffirming it, but now he's saying I've got a disease as well. It makes no sense If his see this message. But I'm not trying to attack this person on an individual level, but if his logic was correct, I'd be in a coffin, but I'm not and I fixed the problem.

Speaker 1: 7:59

If you ask me, the shift that's happening in 2025 and beyond is this label is going out the window. You are not the problem. You got addicted to one of the most addictive drugs on the planet. If you get addicted to gambling, you're not a gambler-holic for the rest of your life. If you get addicted to cigarettes, we don't attach nicotine onto you for the rest of your life. Is it Now? You're a nicotine-holic, right? We don't do that for any other drug except alcohol. How does that make sense? It doesn't make sense. I'm getting a little bit over the top right now because I feel so passionate about this, because I want you to know that there's another way through this. You don't need to give yourself this label. It's not a disease with no known cure that can never be fixed. It's a problem. It's a problem like every other problem, and solutions exist to problems.

Speaker 1: 8:42

My solution, what worked for me, was changing the way that I viewed alcohol. It was breaking it down into its first principles, studying the individual component parts of the problem, putting it back together and then focusing on what's next. It wasn't about sitting in a meeting calling myself an alcoholic and listening to how much people used to drink, I'm sorry, but it just wasn't for me. I'm not saying that my way is perfect for everybody, that that way is the wrong way. No, if people find success in that approach, great, but my message probably isn't for them. Again, I'm not downplaying the problem here. 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.