"Alcohol Recovery" is ridiculous. It's time that changed.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Stop Drinking Podcast
• 0:36 The Problem with Recovery Mindset
• 1:45 Recovery vs Disease Model Critique
• 3:24 Dengue Fever: A Recovery Comparison
• 6:44 Rebuilding Instead of Recovering
• 7:40 Closing and Soberclear Information

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 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 www.soberclear.com. Have you ever met somebody that says that they are in recovery? I certainly have. In fact, there was a period of my own life when I was trying to stop drinking alcohol that I thought that I was in recovery as well. So today I want to talk to you about this idea of recovery. And we're going to go deep into this topic. We're going to talk about addiction, alcoholism, and sobriety. But today in this video, I'm going to give you an alternative way to look at this idea of being in recovery. And this is not going to be mainstream. I'm pretty sure that if you, I don't know, took this to your therapist, they'd say the same thing. They say this guy has got no idea what he's talking about. Because the ideas are going to be contrarian in nature. When I tried to stop drinking alcohol, I went to Alcoholics Anonymous for around about 90 days. The problem is I refuse to buy into this idea that I'm a recovering alcoholic for the rest of my life. So today I'm going to unpack this idea for you. If we've not met yet, my name is Leon Sylvester. I'm the founder of soberclear.com. At this point, I've helped tens of thousands of people stop drinking alcohol with this YouTube channel. I've done thousands of one-on-one calls with people who are looking for help. So whilst what I tell you in this video isn't going to be for everybody, I'm pretty sure that if you've got an open mind, you'll start to see this whole idea of being in recovery in a totally different way. And if I'm honest, this could be the final video that you ever need to watch on stopping drinking. So what is the problem here? What am I talking about? Well, let's just dive into this idea of recovering. So what exactly do we recover from? And where does this word recovery even stem from? Well, we recover from diseases. So whenever somebody says, you know, oh, I'm in recovery, we know what they're talking about. Usually they're in recovery, which means they're doing some sort of 12-step program in order to fix either an alcohol or a drug addiction. Now, when I went to AA, when I did the 12-step program, I bought into this idea as well. I was in recovery. But it all started breaking down for me when I realized that I was an alcoholic with a disease that had no known cure. So I'd hear people say, yeah, I'm in recovery, great. They weren't drinking, fantastic. I mean, I'm not knocking that idea, and I'm not knocking that they were sober, but you know, I'm not trying to criticize people. But then not once in any of these meetings did I ever meet somebody that said, I've recovered. See, to me, this is a massive problem. And I'm sure that my own mother, who's been to AA for over 20 years, hasn't drank for over 20 years, is gonna harshly disagree with me on this. And that's fine. In fact, the whole idea of AA and being in recovery saved my life because my mum stopped drinking alcohol through this system. She followed the 12 steps, she hasn't drank for over 20 years, it saved her life, which meant that my upbringing was totally different to that alternative life path. So I actually have my entire life to thank for these ideas. But where it breaks down for me is that we're not recovering. It's that we stay in recovery because we have a lifelong disease with no known cure. So, in other words, if you're in recovery and you label yourself an alcoholic and you follow the 12-step program, this is where we get diagnosed with a disease with no known cure. But I'd like you to go and ask a medical professional if they agree with this. No medical professional is going to tell you that you have a disease with no known cure because you drink too much of an addictive drug. It ain't gonna happen. And if they do say it, then they're incredibly misinformed. See, in this day and age, this label, this idea of being in recovery is slowly disappearing. Medical professionals are correctly not calling people alcoholics anymore and instead labeling the problem as alcohol use disorder. They're separating the person from the problem. But when we're in recovery, we never do that. We are the problem. We're in recovery, we have a disease, we have no known cure, and we can never be fixed. All we can do is go to these meetings for the rest of our lives. That is the only solution. Being in recovery typically means going to 12-step meetings. And I don't know if other meetings out there use the same terminology like smart meetings or celebrate recovery. I'm not sure if they use this term. But after speaking with thousands of people who have a drinking problem, if you want my honest opinion, it's time that we banish this idea of being in recovery for the rest of our lives. See, I got dengue fever. So a couple of years ago, I was in Ko Samui in Thailand. Beautiful, beautiful place, and it was New Year. And we'd rented this awesome villa. I was with my friends, we were having a great time, and we went to this CrossFit gym. And this CrossFit gym was deep in the jungle. Well, not quite, but basically the gym was there, and then right next to the gym was just like thick jungle. And the first day, I took my top off because it was so damn humid and so hot. And I must have been bitten on my back by mosquitoes 20 times. And it wiped me out. I got dengue fever. And it lasted, I don't know, 10 days, I can't remember. But it was pretty nasty. I was completely drained and in bed all day and had like these weird rashes on my skin. And I need to be really careful about getting bitten by mosquitoes because if I get dengue fever again, the chance of death increases quite dramatically every time that you get it. Because there are only a certain amount of strains. But anyway, I recovered from dengue fever. That is a disease, a fever that I've recovered from. I don't go around now talking to everybody that I meet that I'm a recovering dengue fever holic with a lifelong disease with no known cure. No, I recovered and moved on with my life. I've never met somebody that smokes cigarettes and tells me that they're in recovery. But these are both drugs. They're both highly addictive drugs. But when it comes to cigarettes, people just stop and move on. So with alcohol, it's like this drug that's just in its own camp. We don't have people say that I'm in recovery from watching too much pornography and they've developed a pornography addiction. Because here's the thing: I am not saying that your body won't recover after you stop drinking. Of course it will. It is going to heal. So I can understand where the phrase comes from. You do recover, but you don't stay in recovery for the rest of your life. This idea of being in recovery is all past focused. What we're really doing when we say this word of being in recovery is we're really just identifying with a part of our life that we've tried to move away from. I'm in recovery, I'm in recovery. I'm reminding myself all the time of what I'm recovering from. And that's fine. Listen, if you do that and you're getting success with that approach and that mindset, I'm not here to tell you to do anything differently. But putting your focus and your mindset on a problem that you used to have for the rest of your life, it makes no sense to me. Why would I want to walk around with this label for the rest of my life? I don't want to call myself an alcoholic. I don't think I'm an alcoholic because I don't think there's such a thing. This idea of being in recovery and being an alcoholic, I hate to say it, but it's a made-up self-help term. You have got absolutely nothing wrong with you. The very nature of alcohol is incredibly addictive. If you drink alcohol and you got addicted to alcohol, that is the nature of alcohol. It's not the nature of you. Sure, you will have to go through some kind of adjustment period, right? Your body is going to heal. You're not going to feel quite right. So instead of recovering from an alcohol addiction for the rest of your life and making the past the focus and identifying this way, do the opposite. We don't recover. When we stop drinking alcohol, we're not in recovery for the rest of our life. What we need to do instead is rebuild. Imagine that. Imagine rather than somebody saying, Oh, I'm in recovery, is no, I'm rebuilding my life. I'm rebuilding my marriage. I'm rebuilding my career, I'm rebuilding my health, I'm doing things that are going in the right direction. I'm not running away from alcohol and doing all of this. How much more empowering does that sound? Because that's the shift that is happening in this day and age. This idea of spending your life recovering from an alcohol addiction just makes no sense. But the idea of rebuilding is a lifelong journey that never ends, but it's all positive. It's all focused on what's in front of you. Thanks for checking out the Stop Drinking podcast by Soberclear. If you want to learn more about how we work with people to help them stop drinking effortlessly, then make sure to visit www.soberclear.com.