Stop Drinking Podcast by Soberclear

10 Stupid Easy Things To Do When Quitting Alcohol

• Leon Sylvester

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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. Most people think that quitting alcohol is so much harder than it needs to be. And I used to believe that. During the 10 years that I tried to stop drinking alcohol, it was so difficult. But literally overnight, it went from this fight to the easiest thing I've ever done in my life. So today in this video, I'm going to show you 10 things that make quitting alcohol feel effortless. You won't even feel like you've given anything up. A quick introduction, my name is Leon Sylvester. I'm the founder of soberclear.com. These 10 things haven't just impacted my own life, but these are the things I've shown tens of thousands of people over the years and they've had the exact same result as me. Stopping drinking became a choice instead of a fight. So these 10 things are tried, tested, and proven to work. I'd really recommend you watch the entire video and don't miss any of the points. Because honestly, the last one is a game changer. So the very first thing that you absolutely need to do, I don't care if you're going to AA meetings, I don't care if you're going to a rehab, using a therapist, medication, whatever it is, the first thing that you need to do is build your foundation and understanding when it comes to alcohol. Most people see alcohol as something that adds value in their life. They see it as this beneficial thing that if they drink it, something good is going to happen. And this is an illusion. See, alcohol companies have spent their entire existence trying to persuade you to drink this drug. The same drug that kills millions of people, the same drug that causes so much damage is the thing that we're supposed to believe is sophisticated, is a way to relax, a way to socialize with our friends. Listen, it's all a giant lie. When you put a poison in your body, you gain nothing. In fact, you do gain something. Your liver converts the alcohol into acetaldehyde, which is 30 times more toxic than ethanol itself. So there we go. I got it wrong. You do gain something. Acetaldehyde. Good luck with that roaming through your body. I don't mean to sound condescending, but there truly is nothing to gain from drinking alcohol. See, once you see it as this sedative poison that just drains you, the desire to drink goes away. How do you do this? You use first principles thinking. You ignore society, you ignore what everybody says about not just alcohol, but also addiction, and we'll come to that in a minute. But you ignore everybody and you build a new world view. You do your own logical analysis of alcohol and come to your own conclusion, but ignore everybody else. If you don't ignore everybody else, then people will start influencing you. But if you can isolate yourself and isolate your mind and ignore society, ignore common sense that drinking's a good thing, and do your own analysis, I promise you, you'll come to the same conclusion I've come to. You'll come to the same conclusion. And not just millions of everyday people like us. I'm talking high-level people, celebrities, you know, CEOs, billionaires. They're all waking up to this fact. 50 years ago, it wasn't like this. We didn't realize the damage that it does. But now we've got science. Now we know. So that's the first thing. Build your foundation, apply first principles thinking, do your own logical analysis and see alcohol for what it is. Which leads me to the second point. And this is linked massively. See, one big mistake that people make is when they stop drinking alcohol, what do they do? Well, they don't stop. They try and stop. Which means that alcohol is still an option. If you got diagnosed with a disorder where you couldn't drink milk, because every time you drank milk, you're sat on the toilet all day, you've got some lactose intolerance. Would you need to try and not drink milk? Would you see a dairy cow in a farm and go, Bah, I just love to just milk that cow and drink it? No! Can you imagine the insanity of somebody doing that? But yet, people that drink alcohol have so much more damage than being sat on the toilet all day. You know, alcohol causes seven types of cancer. It drains your energy, it makes you look old, it does, I mean, this is just the tip of the iceberg. It does so much damage to people, yet we try and not drink. We go past it in the supermarket in the alcohol aisle and we're like, man, I just would love a drink. But I'm trying to not drink, so I'll just walk past it. That's nothing but willpower. And it doesn't work because one day that runs out. It's better than nothing, right? I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, but if you want to make this change effortless and easy, willpower is not the answer. The answer, instead of trying to stop drinking, is to decide. You need to decide to not drink. A decision removes the possibility of drinking at all. Now, it doesn't matter what you tell your friends and your family or your wife or your husband, the decision is purely internal. But if you can see alcohol for what it is and then just make one decision and put it behind you and move on, it's not only what I've done, this is what tens of thousands of people have done that watch this channel. Millions of people have done it outside of this channel. But once you decide to not drink alcohol, I'm telling you, it'll be the easiest thing you've ever done in your life. When a friend invites you for a drink, you go. They drink the alcohol. But for you, it's almost like you don't even see the alcohol. You just see a drink. And it's like, whatever, do what you want. Telling you, if you can make one decision, it will make life so much easier. Now, the third thing, let's say you've made that decision. Or let's say you're not quite ready to make the decision and you're gonna try. I can't control your actions. I'm just making recommendations based on my experience. But let's say you've stopped. One recommendation I've got, which may sound counterintuitive, is not to make a big deal about it. You know, a lot of people, they're gonna tell their wife, they're gonna tell maybe their children, they're gonna tell their friends, hey, I'm not drinking. And there's nothing wrong with that on the surface, and there's plenty of people that don't drink ever and do that. So this isn't black and white. I'm just trying to make recommendations that I think will help you. Because here's the problem. In my journey, I tried to stop drinking so many times. I have lost count. And most of those attempts would come with telling people. I'd tell friends, I'd tell family, I'd tell work colleagues. And because I had this track record of slipping up, they started to get a little bit annoyed. Now, I'm a younger man, I stopped drinking alcohol in my 20s, and I wasn't married at the time. I am now. But if I had a wife that I'd been telling I'm stopping drinking, I'm stopping drinking, I'm stopping drinking, she would have been exhausted with listening to it. But provided that you've actually done the first and second thing that are recommended, number three will be a lot easier. The problem is if you don't build that foundation in that new worldview and you don't make a decision and you try, you want to tell people because you need their support. When I stopped drinking alcohol just over seven years ago, I remember telling one person I did make a big deal out of it. And that person looked me in the eyes and was like, here we go again. He probably thought he'd see me at the pub that very same night. He didn't, and it's been seven years since that. But after I had that incident, I realized, what is the point of telling anybody? I've made the decision, I can move on with my life, I don't need to talk about it, and that's it. And for one full year, I basically kept it to myself. And I think that was wise. Because people don't want to hear about your changes, they want to see action. So that's the third thing. Now, the fourth thing, this one is pretty gnarly. This is out-of-body experience level. So, again, let's say you're not drinking alcohol. What you need to do is you need to now become a third-party observer. So, what I mean by this is whenever you see alcohol around you, what you need to do is you need to just kind of zoom out, almost take yourself into a third-person view and just look at exactly what is going on. See, one problem is if you've not reframed the way that you view alcohol, what happens is you see alcohol, you see an advertisement, you see a friend drinking alcohol, and immediately you go to this idea of, ooh, doesn't that look nice? And then what happens next is that idea that, ooh, that drink looks nice turns into a feeling of missing out. And when you get that feeling of missing out on something, it is pretty much game over. That turns into a craving, which then turns into a drink. But you can skip the craving part altogether. See, what you can do instead is let's say you see an advertisement, somebody pouring the whiskey, the wine, looking all glamorous and sophisticated, zoom out for a second. See the marketing message, and just recognize that remove that and what have you got? Remove all of the glamour and the nonsense, and you're left with a poison that kills millions of people every year. See, when you can zoom out and see that, the marketing message doesn't have the same effect on you. But if you're just going through life and you're unaware of this, then every time that you see alcohol, you see, I don't know, a character in a movie drink, you see a friend drink, all that it's doing is adding fuel to the fire. And it's why willpower never works, because we live in a world that just bombards us with a message that alcohol is good 24-7. But if you can see the advertisements and the messages and even the people around you that drink trying to encourage you to drink or justify their drinking, if you can just see that as nothing more than drug addiction and promoting a drug, literally advertisements for a drug, it starts losing its power over you. It's liberating. And not only is it liberating for you, but you can start talking to your children about this. So instead of your children being brainwashed and having the same thing that happened to you, you can teach them, you can educate them, you can show them, yeah, son, daughter, this is nonsense. Just change the drug. Imagine it was the exact same thing, but everybody was sniffing a line of cocaine or injecting heroin. We wouldn't think that was cool or glamorous. In fact, we think it's insane. Well, I hate to break it to you, but alcohol marketing, alcohol advertising is the same damn thing. It's insanity. It is an addictive drug that will kill you. And when you see that, you just start thinking, what is going on? Anyway, the fifth thing, and this one is slightly controversial, maybe not now in this day and age, because people are waking up to it. But if you've successfully deconditioned your mindset, you're objectively viewing marketing messages, you've made a true decision, and you're just getting on with it, well, the fifth thing becomes redundant. But it's to not label yourself as the problem. And that's the nice way of me saying don't call yourself a damn alcoholic. See, the idea that you're the problem, it really is ludicrous. When you were born, billions of dollars every single year were spent on alcohol marketing. And it's not in your face advertisements of buy one, get one free or some something like that. It's been subtle. Alcohol companies have infiltrated sport, they've infiltrated movies, they've infiltrated pretty much everything. They have sneaky ways of getting into your mind. When you were literally five years of age, and whilst that is all happening, you're seeing people around you drink. You're seeing your parents drink, you're seeing your friends drink, you're seeing people you admire drink, and you're seeing fictional characters drink, like James Bond. And we're starting to think, oh wow, James Bond drinks a fictional damn character that got paid$40 million to drink Heineken instead of a martini. I mean, come on, and we're thinking, whoa, James Bond drinks Heineken and my dad drinks Heineken. Or when I see it on uh the rugby games, wow, there must be something there. And then you drink this drug, it dehydrates the living shit out of you, it lowers your inhibitions, and then you drink more. How has that got anything to do with you? It doesn't have anything to do with you. You're literally living in a booby-trapped world when it comes to alcohol. And if you overdrink and you drink too much, you're supposed to believe that you're the problem. You ain't the problem, my friend. You have just bought into a lie about a drug. There's no nicotinoholics, there's no gamblerholics, there's no video gameaholics, there's no pornaholics. But we need to give alcohol its own category because everybody wants to keep drinking. We need to separate the problem from the person. We can't link the two together because if you believe that you're the problem, you can never be fixed. But if you can just change your thought process and see the problem for what it is and just put it behind you, it's easy. Anyway, number six. Now, this is a mindset shift that just played such a huge role in my life. The 10 years that I struggled to stop drinking alcohol, I had this feeling that I had given something up. Every time I stopped drinking alcohol, I had this feeling that I was giving something up, that I'd made a true sacrifice. And that was because I believed that alcohol added something to my life. If I believe that, of course I'm gonna think it was a sacrifice. I know that fitness adds something to my life. And if somebody took the gym away from me, exercise away from me, that would be pretty bad. But it was the same for alcohol. If somebody removed it from me, if for some reason I couldn't drink, I'd be annoyed. Until I had that shift seven years ago, I realized there was nothing to give up. All I was doing was making an exchange. I was exchanging terrible sleep, no clarity, being overweight. I was exchanging this poison that was ruining my life for something better. And that thing was freedom. Freedom from addiction, freedom from a form of slavery, freedom from poisoning myself, freedom from putting myself into an early grave. When I stopped drinking alcohol, it was liberation. There was nothing to give up. When somebody gets released from jail, they don't feel like they've given something up. They know that they now have freedom. And that's how you need to see alcohol. You need to see it as getting out of a prison. Because what's the difference? So remind yourself that you've not stopped drinking, you've not given anything up, you've freed yourself. And that feels good. That's empowering. Now, number seven, again, a huge thing. But one of the best things that you can do once you've truly freed yourself is rather than just run away from the pain of alcohol, because alcohol does cause pain, and that could be enough to get you sober and it can keep you sober. But once the pain is gone, once you're waking up fresh and the clarity's back and the sleep is back and all your relationships are going better, once that is gone, that's when people relapse. They think, oh wow, things are going great now. I can have just a few drinks now. Trust me. I've done that so many times and it always goes back to the same place. So instead of running away from alcohol, we need to go towards something. We need something that's pulling us forward. So what I recommend is finding one North Star goal. Now, the way you can find your North Star goal is get a pen and paper and write down 10 goals. So just any 10 goals, the first 10 things that come to your head, don't overthink, don't think, can I achieve it? Is it realistic? Just blast out 10 things that you want to achieve in your life. And what should happen is you'll look at that list of goals, and there'll be one goal on there that stands out that if you achieve that goal, all the other goals become so much easier and more realistic to achieve. For a lot of people, that means it's a business goal or a career or financial goal. For others, it's a health goal. For a lot of people that stop drinking, it's often related to health. But you want to find one North Star goal and you really want to center your life around achieving that thing. You want to put additional time into it. And having that direction and that thing to aim for can often replace that void that happens one, two, three, six months into sobriety, sometimes a few years into not drinking. Because one day the pain will go away, and you need to get to a place where in six months' time, you look back at your life and you think, well, how could I even think about adding alcohol back into it? I've made so much progress towards that North Star goal that I'd just be throwing it all away. And being able to have that conversation with yourself is so good. Now, number eight, this one's important, is you can't just write down that North Star goal of, say, I don't know, dropping 20 pounds, making X amount of money, getting this promotion. You can't just put that goal down on a piece of paper or on your fridge door and that's it. You need to start taking absolute massive action. When you stop drinking alcohol, eventually, it might take a few weeks, but you will have more energy, you will have more clarity, you will feel better, your confidence will come back, your self-esteem will get better, so many good things will happen, and you need to use these benefits. And really, you need to use them for the benefit of other people. Drinking alcohol is selfish. But when you stop drinking alcohol, it's not just about you. See, if you reach that North Star goal, think of all the people that it's going to impact. You know, if you lose X amount of weight and you stop drinking, think about the influence you'll have on the people that you're around, work colleagues, family members. They're gonna look at you and they're gonna be proud of you and you're gonna set an example to them. But you need to take action. I think often, don't daydream just start getting to work. Just go, go, go. Whatever you do, don't be that person that stops drinking alcohol and changes nothing in their life. What's the point? Honestly, you might as well keep drinking. Well, maybe not, but you get the point. You might as well use that energy to make your life better, to improve everybody around you. And the great thing is, is that your identity starts shifting when you do this. Instead of just becoming that guy that doesn't drink, you're not that person. You're successful, you're going towards something. So get busy and start taking action. Now, the ninth thing is something that's going to help you maintain sobriety for a very long time, if not forever. You will socialize with people, and alcohol is a part of everyday life. Most people drink alcohol. That's the adult population. But one key thing to do here, and this is something I was just discussing with a client of mine who's a CEO of a tourism company, she was thinking of going to an event. And the event was some sort of martini hour. And her friends were going. And I told her, go if you want to. But I explained that I only do things that I enjoy, and more often than not, I don't even notice whether alcohol is there or not. For example, if I go and play pool, everybody's drinking. I don't even see it. It's the same if I went to go and watch live music. If I'm there because I love the artists and I really want to listen to them live and everybody's drinking, I'm not gonna notice. But let's say that I go to a place where I'm uncomfortable. Let's say I go to a wine tasting event, I'm gonna have a pretty boring time. So I just made a decision to avoid all of these things. And this is advice that I read in multiple stop drinking books. I applied it in my life, and it was incredibly effective because it meant that I could live my life. I didn't need to avoid alcohol, but also I stayed true to myself. And that's what I recommended my client to do, and it's what she's going to do. She's gonna ignore that martini event, and instead she's gonna go to a comedy event. People will drink, but she likes comedy. And I'm like, perfect. That's exactly what you need to do. And I said that that's a great idea. But the great thing that happens is that if you do things you genuinely enjoy, you start to break the link that alcohol adds anything to those things. For example, playing pool. When I was younger, I would play pool and drink. There was a connection there. But then I had so much fun. In fact, I had more fun doing it without alcohol that I realized that alcohol was never the thing that I enjoyed. It never had been the thing that I enjoyed. I was addicted to a drug, I had a faulty worldview, and everything was just so much better without it. Now, let's get into the 10th thing. And this is a mindset shift that you need to keep. You need to see that not drinking alcohol is not the end goal. Too many people build their whole life around not drinking. And it's almost like they believe the longer they go without alcohol, the more of a non-drinker they are, and the better that they're doing. Oh, I've not drank for a year, I've not drank for two years. Listen, I don't even know how long I've not drank for. I think I stopped drinking in August or July of about seven years ago. I've got it on a phone. I still can't remember the date because I don't care. It makes no difference. I made a decision to stop drinking alcohol and that was it. I only tell you how long I've not drank for because it helps. Because I want you to know that I've been in your shoes and I found a way through it. I don't tell people that I meet that I don't drink, because it's not a big deal. I saw stopping drinking alcohol not as the end goal, but the starting line. I saw it as the foundation to then getting busy with what I wanted in life. That might sound like I'm discouraging people or talking down to people that are proud of how long they've not drank for. You can be proud of it. There's nothing wrong with that. But you still need to see stopping drinking as the starting line, not the end goal. 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.

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Leon Sylvester

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