Stop Drinking Podcast by Soberclear

…i’ve never actually been sober…

• 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. So I've not drank alcohol now for seven years, just over seven years, but I'm not sober. And no, that doesn't mean I've replaced alcohol with weed, what do they call it? California sober. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not sober. And I'm gonna tell you why. I know the title of this video may have made you believe differently, so I wanted to get that out of the way that I've not drank alcohol very quickly because I once made a video. I'll quickly tell you this, you'll find it funny. I once made a video that was something like, I lied about quitting alcohol, because I explained there's nothing to quit because there's nothing to give up. But boy oh boy, people were upset. They were upset that I'd tricked them to click on a video to help them improve their life. They thought I'd drank, I hadn't drank, and and people seemed disappointed. And I was thinking, man, the internet, what a what a place, what a cesspit sometimes. My word, they'd have been happier if I'd drank. Anyway, so let's get out the that let's get that out of the way quickly. So, what am I talking about? Why why do I say I'm not sober? And how is this related to you? Well, you're gonna understand in this video why labels are keeping you stuck and why they'll continue to keep you stuck, even when they're in your subconscious brain, even if you're not consciously doing this, but I'm gonna show you what to do instead. So there's a lot to unpack here. I'm really gonna focus it around the word sober, but you know, you can replace this with alcoholic, you can replace this with any pretty much any label that people attach themselves to when they don't drink. And I'm just gonna put the phone down, actually. It's a little bit annoying. Let's get this right. One second. Oh, there we go. I got some new uh some new tool. So anyway. So why do I say I'm not sober? So I stopped drinking, uh, it was seven years ago. It was June or July, I think. I can't remember. I don't know. I don't count the days. It's weird. Like I still am that I've done this work for so long, you'd think that I'd just flip in, put my uh sober date somewhere and just store it. But it's on some old phone that I have to charge up. And I'm seriously, I don't care. It makes no difference. You're a non-drinker the day that you decide, and then it's finished. Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself because you're gonna you're gonna understand that in a minute. Back to this word sober. So you might be thinking, well, hang on, Leon, your your channel's sober Leon. Like, of course you're sober. Like, I called my channel that, not because I believe that I'm sober Leon, I called my channel this so other people knew what the topic of the channel was about. That was it. I don't go around telling people I'm sober. So in the past, when I struggled to stop drinking alcohol, I would often give myself labels. Alcoholic was one, I did that for a long time. Uh addictive personality, I truly believe that from my teenage years onwards. And uh and I've called myself sober, like I'm not drinking, I'm sober. But this is actually a very dangerous thing to do. And actually, it could be the reason why you find stopping drinking hard, and it could be the reason why you always relapse. I'll show you what to replace those labels with in a minute. But when I stopped drinking alcohol, it was like somebody had flicked a switch in my brain. And I know that that sounds hard to believe, but I know a lot of people on this channel, clients that I've worked with, they've experienced that same feeling. Like it was just like there was no doubt in their mind that they were never going to drink again. Now, the great thing is when that happens, is there's a level of certainty, so it almost becomes an afterthought. Like you can go into, I don't know, a nightclub, a place where there's just alcohol everywhere, and it's just no longer a thing. It no longer takes up any mental space. You can see the advertisements, you see right through the lies, right through the nonsense, you start looking at other people that drink and think, no thanks. Something changes. I experienced this seven years ago, never drank again. And like it was very strange. So, so that first year that I didn't drink, I told one person that I worked with in a restaurant. He just laughed in my face, like, here we go again. And I was like, Okay, I'm not drinking, I don't really and then that's when I realized, like, I don't really need to tell anybody else. Like, does it make a difference if people know? Does it make a difference if this person validates my decision or not? Like, absolutely not. So, I didn't really tell us all. But what I did, so in it so let me go back because in the past, every time I stopped drinking alcohol, it was a big deal, right? Somebody would call me up. Leon, you want to come out for a drink? Sorry, dude, I'm not drinking. Leon, you want to go for a meal? Uh, do I really want to go and sit in a restaurant sober? Because back then I would have called myself sober. Do I want to sit there sober and talk to this person? Not really. So, the decision to stop drinking was so certain and so clear that I realized I didn't need to tell a single person. What I did differently this time is because I'd had that mental switch, that was it. I just stopped thinking about alcohol, and then I immediately went into building what I wanted for my life. I wanted a business on the internet, I wanted to be able to travel, I wanted to do something that helped people, I wanted to create content, I just wanted to serve people. And, you know, when you do that again and again and again every single day for years, you're bound to get results one day or the other. And it happened. I didn't know I'd be doing this, but it that's what it, that's what it came to be. Now, I started my YouTube channel about one, it was actually one year after drinking alcohol, stopping drinking alcohol, and I decided to name the channel Sober Leon, just so people knew it was about not drinking. But there's something clear that I need to make, and you need to understand this. That first year that I didn't drink alcohol, I wasn't doing this work. I wasn't helping people stop drinking, I didn't have soberclear.com, I wasn't doing it. So, in that first year, like I remember I was in Bangkok, and uh I'll tell you something. This is I don't really talk about this. Back in England, I was a Freemason. There's all this conspiracy stuff about Freemasonry. It's a gentleman's club, it was just like a bunch of old dudes meeting up in a place in a small village near Oxford, I was where I was attending. And it was really awesome. Anyway, there's a lot of drinking involved in Freemasonry, as you can imagine, when a lot of men come together, it can sometimes come with the territory. So when I was in Bangkok, a couple of uh Masons came to Bangkok and they wanted to meet up. And we met up in the in the most listen, it's it's not the nicest place you've ever seen. Uh I'm sure you can fill in the details, but we we met in a in in in in like this place and it was filled with people drinking. There was beer everywhere. It wasn't like, don't worry, it wasn't a strip club, it wasn't like that. It was like near that area, it was just kind of like a dive, and it just wasn't very nice. And uh so I met these people and they're drinking. And like I didn't say a single word to them. Oh yeah, I'm not drinking, you know, back in Oxford, I had a drinking pump. I didn't mention it. I just sat with them, they drank their beer, me and my friend had a soda water. They didn't even question it, right? Like, it's just like whatever. And I didn't need to make a big deal out of it because the decision was so clear in my mind. I didn't go, guys, I'm sober, I'm sober. Everyone look at me. No, let me have a sip of this. I made no big deal about it, and that continued throughout that entire first year of of uh of not drinking. And here's the strange part. Despite struggling for so long, I didn't even know that a year had passed. How yes, see, you see, you see, in the past, you know, everybody's like count the days, AA, get your chip 365 day chip. I didn't care this time. The previous times I cared, this time didn't care, couldn't care less. It didn't matter. I need to check the time because I've got a call that starts in a minute. I think we're good. I think we're good. So, right, let me go back. So it didn't matter. I've lost my trailer of thought now. That that that that's a blunder to think about something else, isn't it? So, anyway, right, let me go back to why I don't why I say I'm I don't use this word sober. If you talk to somebody that has like, I'll give you a perfect example, perfect example. Donald Trump. Love him or hate him doesn't make a difference. This is a perfect example. If you ever watch a clip of Donald Trump talking about not drinking and not taking drugs, he'll always say the same thing. I've never touched that stuff in my life. Like, why would I? Does he go around saying that he's sober? Never. In fact, maybe you've got people in your life that have uh never taken a drug. Maybe you've never taken a drug. Do you think you're sober from drugs? You don't, do you? See, the only time people say the word sober is when they're creating a contrast. And this is the danger. What they're doing is they're thinking back to their previous life as a drinker or drug user, whatever, and then they're thinking of their new life, and they're going, well, that's what it was like before, that's what it's like now, there's a difference, and I don't do this anymore, and I don't do this, so I need a word. Well, I'm sober. So, what's the danger with that? Well, you're creating a contrast. You're always thinking, well, oh, well, you know, and there's almost an element of like you've given something up. Because the person who's never drank and never thought about drinking, which is where we all want to be, right? We want to be like Donald Trumpets. Like, why would I do that? Why would I be so stupid? Why would I put that stuff in my body? It killed his killed his brother, right? Like, that's the level of certainty you need to make stopping drinking easy. But then we listen to how he thinks about it. I know it's a terrible example, right? Uh love him or hate him. Uh I find him quite entertaining man. Anyway, so back to what I'm saying. Uh, he doesn't call himself sober, so why do you? Why does anybody? If if we seriously want to be somebody that never thinks about drinking, that the the idea never goes into our head, why are we creating a contrast? Why are we thinking about the old times? Why are we giving ourselves a label that creates the contrast? It really does make no sense. And here's here's where it gets deeper, right? What we're saying when we call ourselves sober is that somehow it's it's a different, it's not the default, right? The default was our previous life, and the sober life is something different. And I want you to flip that on the head. I want you to do that the complete opposite way around. How about this? When you don't drink alcohol, that's you. That's who you really are. There is no sober, there's who you are with nothing in your system, and that's the real you. That's who you really are. You might not like it, it might be uncomfortable, doesn't matter. That's who you are. You've not given anything up, you're not sober, you're the real you, and the previous version of you was the real you with drugs added to it. That doesn't make you sober. You're now just normal. You're now who you've always always were. And this is why I get annoyed by this this this this label, all these labels to be honest. Alcoholics, the same thing, right? We're we're always thinking about the past. We're we're yeah, it's these labels. It's important that we discuss this because there's nothing to give up when you stop drinking. All you do is make an exchange. You exchange poison for freedom. You exchange poison for who you really are. The real you. And you know what happens when you start reconnecting with the real you, with nothing in your system. Is at first it's strange, but you might not be used to it. You might not be used to dealing with stress, with anxiety, with pressure, with a family, with a career, without being able to come home and escape. But something takes its place. It takes time, right? It might take a few weeks, a few months, sometimes years. For me, it was instant, right? Within a couple of weeks, I realized I felt, this is what I felt like. I felt like I'm back. It was the best feeling ever. I've actually got 60, 50, 60-year-old clients that say the same thing. I'll never forget uh Kevin, one of the first people I worked with, gave his daughter away at her wedding completely sober. Well, wrong word. You know what I'm saying. It doesn't matter. It's still a term, but I just don't what I listen. I don't care about the word. The word's not the problem. The problem is internalizing the word and thinking that that's what you are. You're not sober, you're you. You're the real you that doesn't drink alcohol. So you don't need any labels. It's just I don't drink. I don't put that stuff in my body. Finished. No label, no identity, no change of the it's it's it's done. Non-drinker, finished. So anyway, so so Kevin, I remember his wife said it's like Kevin 2.0. He said he feels like he did as a teenager because he drank for 40 years. He was drinking, I think he said a case of beer and like two handles of vodka a week. So like 3.5 litres and a case of beer for a long, long time. And for him, it felt like the old him came back. Imagine that. Imagine when that happens for you. When you feel like, oh, the confidence is back. I feel the optimism, I feel like I can take things on, I feel like I can achieve that thing I've always wanted to achieve. That's who you become when you don't drink. You don't become sober, don't contrast it from the previous life. Forget about it. You know, the pain of alcohol will never keep you sober. It can get you sober, it can get you going, you can build momentum, but keep you sober, it doesn't work. That's why if people seriously internalize this label of sobriety, they're always linking it back to the pain. They're always thinking when they go out with a friend, I'm sober. Like I'm the I'm the abnormal one, you guys are doing the normal thing drinking, I'm sober, I'm different. No, no, no, no, no. You're normal. They're doing the stupid thing. Not you, you're not sober. You're you. I'm getting angry. Because I'm angry for you. These labels, man. You know, I we can go to a whole nother level on this. Like, I used to give myself the like this mental label the I can't make videos. Like, I can't speak on a camera. Uh, and then you know, the you you remove the labels, you take the action, and something else takes its place, right? They are really, really important. That's why I don't think that you should ever label yourself an alcoholic. If it works, whatever. But yeah. So I don't think I'm sober. I don't drink, but I don't have this label in my heart. 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 www.soberclear.com.

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Leon Sylvester

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